A Letter to Grover Cleveland Part 13

That I may not be suspected of misrepresenting these men, I give some of their own words as follows:

It is not doubted that the power to establish a standard of value, by which all other values may be measured, or, in other words, to determine what shall be lawful money and a legal tender, is in its nature, and of necessity, a governmental power. _It is in all countries exercised by the government._--_Hepburn vs. Griswold, 8 Wallace 615._

The court call a power,

To make treasury notes a legal tender for the payment of _all_ debts [private as well as public] _a power confessedly possessed by every independent sovereignty other than the United States_.--_Legal Tender Cases, 12 Wallace, p. 529._

Also, in the same case, it speaks of:

That general power over the currency, _which has always been an acknowledged attribute of sovereignty in every other civilized nation than our own_.--_p. 545._

In this same case, by way of a.s.serting the power of congress to do any dishonest thing that any so-called "sovereign government" ever did, the court say:

Has any one, in good faith, avowed his belief that even a law debasing the current coin, by increasing the alloy [and then making these debased coins a legal tender in payment of debts previously contracted], would be taking private property? It might be impolitic, and unjust, but could its const.i.tutionality be doubted?--_p. 552._

In the same case, Bradley said:

As a government, it [the government of the United States] was invested with _all the attributes of sovereignty_.--_p. 555._

Also he said:

Such being the character of the General Government, it seems to be a self-evident proposition _that it is invested with all those inherent and implied powers, which, at the time of adopting the const.i.tution, were generally considered to belong to every government, as such_, and as being essential to the exercise of its functions.--_p. 556._

Also he said:

Another proposition equally clear is, _that at the time the const.i.tution was adopted, it was, and for a long time had been, the practice of most, if not all, civilized governments_, to employ the public credit as a means of antic.i.p.ating the national revenues for the purpose of enabling them to exercise their governmental functions.--_p. 556._

Also he said:

It is our duty to construe the instrument [the const.i.tution] by its words, _in the light of history, of the general nature of government, and the incidents of sovereignty_.--_p. 55._

Also he said:

The government simply demands that its credit shall be accepted and received by public and private creditors during the pending exigency. _Every government has a right to demand this, when its existence is at stake._--_p. 560._

Also he said:

These views are exhibited ... for the purpose of showing that it [the power to make its notes a legal tender in payment of private debts] _is one of those vital and essential powers inhering in every national sovereignty_, and necessary to its self-preservation.--_p. 564._

In still another legal tender case, the court said:

The people of the United States, by the const.i.tution, established a national government, _with sovereign powers, legislative, executive_, and judicial.--_Juilliard vs.

Greenman, 110 U. S. Reports, p. 438._

Also it calls the const.i.tution:

A const.i.tution, establishing a form of government, declaring fundamental principles, _and creating a national sovereignty_, intended to endure for ages.--_p. 439._

Also the court speaks of the government of the United States:

_As a sovereign government._--_p. 446._

Also it said:

It appears to us to follow, as a logical and necessary consequence, that congress has the power to issue the obligations of the United States in such form, and to impress upon them such qualities as currency, for the purchase of merchandise and the payment of debts, _as accord with the usage of other sovereign governments_. The power, as incident to the power of borrowing money, and issuing bills or notes of the government for money borrowed, of impressing upon those bills or notes the quality of being a legal tender for the payment of private debts, _was a power universally understood to belong to sovereignty, in Europe and America, at the time of the framing and adoption of the const.i.tution of the United States_. The governments of Europe, acting through the monarch, or the legislature, according to the distribution of powers _under their respective const.i.tutions_, had, and have, as _sovereign_ a power of issuing paper money as of stamping coin. This power has been distinctly recognized in an important modern case, ably argued and fully considered, in which the Emperor of Austria, as King of Hungary, obtained from the English Court of Chancery an injunction against the issue, in England, without his license, of notes purporting to be public paper money of Hungary.--_p. 447._

Also it speaks of:

Congress, as the legislature of a _sovereign_ nation.--_p.

449._

Also it said:

The power to make the notes of the government a legal tender in payment of private debts, _being one of the powers belonging to sovereignty in other civilized nations_, ... we are irresistibly impelled to the conclusion that the impressing upon the treasury notes of the United States the quality of being a legal tender in payment of private debts, is an appropriate means, conducive and plainly adapted to the execution of the undoubted powers of congress, consistent with the letter and spirit of the const.i.tution, etc.----_p._ 450.

On reading these astonishing ideas about "sovereignty"--"sovereignty"

over all the natural rights of mankind--"sovereignty," as it prevailed in Europe "at the time of the framing and adoption of the const.i.tution of the United States"--we are compelled to see that these judges obtained their const.i.tutional law, not from the const.i.tution itself, but from the example of the "Divine Right" governments existing in Europe a hundred years ago. These judges seem never to have heard of the American Revolution, or the French Revolution, or even of the English Revolutions of the seventeenth century--revolutions fought and accomplished to overthrow these very ideas of "sovereignty," which these judges now proclaim, as the supreme law of this country. They seem never to have heard of the Declaration of Independence, nor of any other declaration of the natural rights of human beings. To their minds, "the sovereignty of governments" is everything; human rights nothing. They apparently cannot conceive of such a thing as a people's establishing a government as a means of preserving their personal liberty and rights. They can only see what fearful calamities "sovereign governments" would be liable to, if they could not compel their "subjects"--the people--to support them against their will, and at every cost of their property, liberty, and lives. They are utterly blind to the fact, that it is this very a.s.sumption of "sovereignty" over all the natural rights of men, that brings governments into all their difficulties, and all their perils.

They do not see that it is this very a.s.sumption of "sovereignty" over all men's natural rights, that makes it necessary for the "Divine Right"

governments of Europe to maintain not only great standing armies, but also a vile purchased priesthood, that shall impose upon, and help to crush, the ignorant and superst.i.tious people.

These judges talk of "the _const.i.tutions_" of these "sovereign governments" of Europe, as they existed "at the time of the framing and adoption of the const.i.tution of the United States." They apparently do not know that those governments had no const.i.tutions at all, except the Will of G.o.d, their standing armies, and the judges, lawyers, priests, pimps, spies, and ruffians they kept in their service.

If these judges had lived in Russia, a hundred years ago, and had chanced to be visited with a momentary spasm of manhood--a fact hardly to be supposed of such creatures--and had been sentenced therefor to the knout, a dungeon, or Siberia, would we ever afterward have seen them, as judges of our Supreme Court, declaring that government to be the model after which ours was formed?

These judges will probably be surprised when I tell them that the const.i.tution of the United States contains no such word as "sovereign,"

or "sovereignty"; that it contains no such word as "subjects"; nor any word that implies that the government is "sovereign," or that the people are "subjects." At most, it contains only the mistaken idea that a power of making laws--by lawmakers chosen by the people--was consistent with, and necessary to, the maintenance of liberty and justice for the people themselves. This mistaken idea was, in some measure, excusable in that day, when reason and experience had not demonstrated, to their minds, the utter incompatibility of all lawmaking whatsoever with men's natural rights.

The only other provision of the const.i.tution, that can be interpreted as a declaration of "sovereignty" in the government, is this:

This const.i.tution, and the laws of the United States _which shall be made in pursuance thereof_, and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, _shall be the supreme law of the land_, and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, _anything in the const.i.tution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding_.--_Art._ VI.

This provision I interpret to mean simply that the const.i.tution, laws, and treaties of the United States, shall be "the supreme law of the land"--_not anything in the natural rights of the people to liberty and justice, to the contrary notwithstanding_--but only that they shall be "the supreme law of the land," "_anything in the const.i.tution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding_,"--that is, whenever the two may chance to conflict with each other.

If this is its true interpretation, the provision contains no declaration of "sovereignty" over the natural rights of the people.

Justice is "the supreme law" of this, and all other lands; anything in the const.i.tutions or laws of any nation to the contrary notwithstanding.

And if the const.i.tution of the United States intended to a.s.sert the contrary, it was simply an audacious lie--a lie as foolish as it was audacious--that should have covered with infamy every man who helped to frame the const.i.tution, or afterward sanctioned it, or that should ever attempt to administer it.

Inasmuch as the const.i.tution declares itself to have been "ordained and established" by

We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity,

everybody who attempts to administer it, is bound to give it such an interpretation, and only such an interpretation, as is consistent with, and promotive of, those objects, if its language will admit of such an interpretation.

To suppose that "the people of the United States" intended to declare that the const.i.tution and laws of the United States should be "the supreme law of the land," _anything in their own natural rights, or in the natural rights of the rest of mankind, to the contrary notwithstanding_, would be to suppose that they intended, not only to authorize every injustice, and arouse universal violence, among themselves, but that they intended also to avow themselves the open enemies of the rights of all the rest of mankind. Certainly no such folly, madness, or criminality as this can be attributed to them by any rational man--always excepting the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, the lawmakers, and the believers in the "Divine Right" of the cunning and the strong, to establish governments that shall deceive, plunder, enslave, and murder the ignorant and the weak.

Many men, still living, can well remember how, some fifty years ago, those famous champions of "sovereignty," of arbitrary power, Webster and Calhoun, debated the question, whether, in this country, "sovereignty"

resided in the general or State governments. But they never settled the question, for the very good reason that no such thing as "sovereignty"