America First Part 3

MR. SHERMAN. I second the motion.

MR. FRANKLIN. Gentlemen, you have heard the motion. As many as favor the same make it known by saying "aye." (_Response of ayes; Mr. Adams is silent_.) The ayes seem to have it, the ayes have it, and the motion is carried for Mr. Adams to so report this Declaration. The committee is adjourned.

CURTAIN

ACT III.

SCENE I.--_The Continental Congress again in session._

MR. HANc.o.c.k. (_Looking at his watch, as he calls the Congress to order._) Gentlemen of the Continental Congress:--The time has come to which we adjourned yesterday in order to give the Committee of Five, appointed to draft the Declaration, due time to prepare the same. Are the gentlemen of the Committee present and ready to report?

MR. ADAMS. Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Continental Congress:--At the request of Mr. Jefferson and the other members of the Committee, I beg leave to submit the following Declaration for your consideration after it has been read by the secretary of this Congress. Permit me to say here, however, that the credit for the authorship of this paper belongs entirely to Mr. Jefferson. It is his work, which the other members of the Committee are unanimous in approving.

(_Charles Thomson, secretary of the Congress, reads the Declaration of Independence. This part should be a.s.signed to one who has a good clear voice and is a good public reader. If it is thought best not to read all of the Declaration, its most striking paragraphs should be read. Do not forget to have the famous paragraph on slavery read. If it were omitted the great speech of George Walton would be out of place._)

JOHN ADAMS.[6] Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Continental Congress:--Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my heart to this vote in favor of this Declaration of Independence.

It is true, indeed, that in the beginning we aimed not at independence.

But there's a divinity which shapes our ends. The injustice of England has driven us to arms; and, blinded to her own interest for our good, she has obstinately persisted, till independence is now within our grasp. We have but to reach forth to it, and it is ours. Why, then, should we defer the Declaration?

Is any man so weak as now to hope for a reconciliation with England, which shall leave either safety to the country and its liberties, or safety to his own life and his own honor? Are not you,[7] sir, who sit in that chair, is not he,[8] our venerable colleague near you, are you not both already the proscribed and predestined objects of punishment and of vengeance? Cut off from all hope of royal clemency, what are you, what can you be, while the power of England remains, but outlaws? If we postpone independence do we mean to carry on, or to give up the war? Do we mean to submit to the measures of Parliament, Boston Port Bill and all? Do we mean to submit, and consent that we ourselves shall be ground to powder, and our country and its rights trodden down in the dust? I know we do not mean to submit. We never shall submit. Do we intend to violate that most solemn obligation ever entered into by men, that plighting, before G.o.d, of our sacred honor to Washington, when, putting him forth to incur the dangers of war, as well as the political hazards of the times, we promised to adhere to him, in every extremity, with our fortunes and our lives? I know there is not a man here who would not rather see a general conflagration sweep over the land, or an earthquake sink it, than one jot or t.i.ttle of that plighted faith fall to the ground. For myself, having twelve months ago, in this place, moved you, that George Washington be appointed commander of the forces raised, or to be raised, for defense of American liberty, may my right hand forget her cunning, and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I hesitate or waver in the support I give him.

(_At the close of Mr. Adams' speech there is loud clamor for recognition. The president recognizes Edward Rutledge of South Carolina, who speaks against the Declaration._)

EDWARD RUTLEDGE. [9]Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Continental Congress:--Let us pause! This step, once taken, cannot be retraced. This resolution, once pa.s.sed, will cut off all hope of reconciliation. If success attend the arms of England, we shall then be no longer colonies, with charters, and with privileges. These will all be forfeited by this act; and we shall be in the condition of other conquered people--at the mercy of the conquerors. For ourselves, we may be ready to run the hazard; but are we ready to carry the country to that length? Is success so probable as to justify it? Where is the military, where the naval power, by which we are to resist the whole strength of the arm of England? For she will exert that strength to the utmost. Can we rely on the constancy and perseverance of the people?--or will they not act as the people of other countries have acted, and, wearied with a long war, submit in the end, to a worse oppression? While we stand on our old ground, and insist on redress of grievances, we know we are right, and are not answerable for consequences. Nothing, then, can be imputable to us.

(_At the close of Mr. Rutledge's speech there is a clamor for recognition. The president recognizes Roger Sherman of Connecticut._)

ROGER SHERMAN. [10]Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Continental Congress:--The war must go on. We must fight it through. And if the war must go on, why put off longer the Declaration of Independence? That measure will strengthen us. It will give us character abroad. The nations will then treat with us, which they never can do while we acknowledge ourselves subjects, in arms against our sovereign. Nay, I maintain that England herself will sooner treat for peace with us on the footing of independence, than consent, by repealing her acts, to acknowledge that her whole conduct toward us has been a course of injustice and oppression. Her pride will be less wounded by submitting to the course of things which now predestinates our independence, than by yielding the points in controversy to her rebellious subjects. The former she will regard as the result of fortune; the latter she would feel as her own deep disgrace. Why, then, why, then, sir, do we not as soon as possible change this from a civil to a national war? And since we must fight it through, why not put ourselves in a state to enjoy all the benefits of victory, if we gain the victory?

If we fail, it can be no worse for us. But we shall not fail. The cause will raise up armies; the cause will create navies. The people, the people, if we are true to them will carry us, and will carry themselves, gloriously through this struggle. I care not how fickle other people have been found. I know the people of these colonies, and I know that resistance to British aggression is deep and settled in their hearts, and cannot be eradicated. Every colony, indeed, has expressed its willingness to follow, if we but take the lead. Sir, the Declaration will inspire the people with increased courage. Instead of a long and b.l.o.o.d.y war for the restoration of privileges, for redress of grievances, for chartered immunities, held under a British king, set before them the glorious object of entire independence, and it will breathe into them anew the breath of life. Read this Declaration at the head of the army; every sword will be drawn from its scabbard, and the solemn vow uttered to maintain it, or to perish on the bed of honor. Publish it from the pulpit, religion will approve it, and the love of religious liberty will cling around it, resolved to stand with it, or fall with it. Send it to the public halls; proclaim it there; let them hear it who heard the first roar of the enemy's cannon; let them see it who saw their brothers and their sons fall on the field of Bunker Hill and in the streets of Lexington and Concord, and the very walls will cry out in its support.

(_At the close of Mr. Sherman's speech there is a loud clamor for recognition. The president recognizes John d.i.c.kinson of Pennsylvania._)

JOHN d.i.c.kINSON. [11]Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Continental Congress:--If we now change our object, carry our pretensions farther, and set up for absolute independence, we shall lose the sympathy of mankind. We shall no longer be defending what we possess, but struggling for something which we never did possess, and which we have solemnly and uniformly disclaimed all intention of pursuing, from the very outset of the troubles. Abandoning thus our old ground of resistance only to arbitrary acts of oppression, the nations will believe the whole to have been mere pretense, and they will look on us, not as injured, but as ambitious subjects. I shudder before this responsibility. It will be upon us, it will be upon us, if, relinquishing the ground we have stood upon so long, and stood so safely, we now proclaim independence, and carry on the war for that object, while these cities burn, these pleasant fields whiten and bleach with the bones of their owners, and these streams run blood. It will be upon us, it will be upon us, if failing to maintain this unseasonable and ill-judged Declaration, a sterner despotism, maintained by military power, shall be established over our posterity, when we ourselves, given up by an exhausted, a hara.s.sed, a misled people, shall have expiated our rashness and atoned for our presumption on the scaffold.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BENJAMIN FRANKLIN]

(_At the close of Mr. d.i.c.kinson's speech there is a loud clamor for recognition. The president recognizes Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania._)

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [12]Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Continental Congress:--I know the uncertainty of human affairs, but I see, I see clearly, through this day's business. You and I, indeed, may rue it. We may not live to the time when this Declaration shall be made good. We may die; die colonists; die slaves; die, it may be ignominiously and on the scaffold. Be it so. Be it so. If it be the pleasure of Heaven that my country shall require the poor offering of my life, the victim shall be ready, at the appointed hour of sacrifice, come when that hour may.

But while I do live, let me have a country, or at least the hope of a country, and that a free country.

But whatever may be our fate, be a.s.sured, be a.s.sured that this Declaration will stand. It may cost treasure, and it may cost blood; but it will stand, and it will richly compensate for both. Through the thick gloom of the present, I see the brightness of the future as the sun in heaven. We shall make this a glorious, an immortal day. When we are in our graves, our children will honor it. They will celebrate it with thanksgiving, with festivity, with bonfires, and illuminations. On its annual return they will shed tears, copious, gushing tears, not of subjection and slavery, not of agony and distress, but of exultation, of grat.i.tude, and of joy. Sir, before G.o.d, I believe the hour has come. My whole heart is in it. All that I have, and all that I am, and all that I hope in this life, I am now ready here to stake upon it; and I leave off as Mr. Adams of Ma.s.sachusetts began, that, sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I am for the Declaration. It is my living sentiment, and by the blessing of G.o.d it shall be my dying sentiment, independence _now, and_ INDEPENDENCE FOREVER!

(_There is a loud clamor for recognition, and the president recognizes George Walton of Georgia._)

GEORGE WALTON. [13]Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Continental Congress:--I am for this Declaration if the paragraph on slavery is struck out. But I will oppose it to the end if that paragraph is permitted to remain a part of it. There is not one good reason for introducing the slavery question at this time. The relations between individual master and slave have no place here in the greater and graver matter of differences between the British Government and the American Colonies. But since the issue is thrust upon us, I propose to meet it squarely and fearlessly.

Mr. President and gentlemen, you cannot make equal what G.o.d Almighty has made unequal. Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? The Bible commands in the most emphatic language that servants obey in all things their masters. Liberty loving Greece had her slaves.

Shall liberty loving America have less? Strike out that obnoxious paragraph and every delegate from the Southern colonies will fall in line for the Declaration of Independence, but if you make that paragraph a part of the Declaration many delegates from the South will withdraw from this convention, and then you will fight your own battles.

This paragraph on slavery is founded upon ideas fundamentally wrong.

These ideas rest upon the a.s.sumption of the equality of the races. This is an error. It is a sandy foundation and a government founded upon it will fall when the storms come and the winds blow.

Let us found our new government upon the great truth that the negro is not the equal of the white man, that slavery--subordination to the superior race--is his natural and normal condition. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other great truths in the various departments of science.

Many governments have been founded upon the principle of the subordination and serfdom of certain cla.s.ses of the _same_ race; such were and are in violation of the laws of nature. With us, _all_ the _white_ race, however high or low, rich or poor, are equal in the eye of the law. Not so with the negro; subordination is his place. He, by nature or by the curse of Canaan, is fitted for that condition which he now occupies in our system. The architect, in the construction of a building, lays the foundation with proper material--the granite; then comes the brick or the marble. The substratum of our society is made of the material fitted by nature for it, and by experience we know that it is best not only for the superior race, but for the inferior race, that it should be so. It is, indeed, in conformity with the laws of the Creator. It is not for us to inquire into the wisdom of His plans, or to question them. For His own good purposes He has made one race to differ from another, as He has made "one star to differ from another star in glory."

Therefore, I declare again that you cannot make equal what G.o.d Almighty has made unequal. He has made the negro and the white man unequal. You cannot make them equal. And I move that the paragraph on slavery be struck out. I have measured my words, gentlemen. The responsibility is yours.

(_At the close of Mr. Walton's speech there is a loud clamor for recognition, and the chair recognizes Samuel Adams._)

SAMUEL ADAMS. Mr. President and Gentlemen:--While I have no personal objections against this paragraph on slavery--for personally I favor it--yet from the standpoint of the general welfare of the colonies, I deem it unwise at this time to take any action either for or against the question of slavery. Therefore I second the motion of Mr. Walton to strike out the paragraph on slavery.

MR. HANc.o.c.k. Gentlemen of the Continental Congress:--It has been duly moved and seconded that the paragraph in this Declaration on slavery be struck out. You have heard the motion, are there any remarks?

WILLIAM HOOPER. Mr. President, before voting on this motion, I wish to have the paragraph on slavery read again.

(_This request is seconded by many of the delegates._)

MR. HANc.o.c.k. The secretary will read the paragraph on slavery again.

(_The secretary reads the paragraph on slavery as follows:_)

He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where men should be bought and sold, he has prost.i.tuted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce. And that this a.s.semblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished dye, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them by murdering the people upon whom he obtruded them: thus paying off, former crimes committed against the _liberties_ of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the _lives_ of another.

(_After the reading of this paragraph the delegates call for a vote on Mr. Walton's motion._)

MR. HANc.o.c.k. Gentlemen of the Congress, a vote is called for on Mr.

Walton's motion to strike out the paragraph on slavery. As many as are in favor of this motion make it known by saying "aye" (_a strong aye vote_); as many as are opposed to the motion make it known by responding "no" (_a light vote of noes_). The ayes seem to have it, the ayes have it, and the paragraph on slavery is struck out. Gentlemen, what is your further pleasure?

(_A loud clamor for recognition, the chair recognizing Joseph Hewes of North Carolina._)

JOSEPH HEWES. [14]Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Continental Congress:--No man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism, as well as the abilities, of the very worthy gentlemen who have opposed this Declaration in these debates. But different men often see the same subject in different lights; and, therefore, I hope it will not be thought disrespectful to those gentlemen, if, entertaining, as I do, opinions of a character very opposite to theirs, I shall speak forth my sentiments freely and without reserve. This is no time for ceremony. The question before the house is one of awful moment to this country. For my own part, I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery; and in proportion to the magnitude of the subject ought to be the freedom of debate. It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfill the great responsibility which we hold to G.o.d and our country. Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason toward my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings.

Mr. President, it is natural for man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren, till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty?

Are we disposed to be of the number of those, who, having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past.

And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the British ministry for the last ten years, to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the house? Is it that insidious smile with which our pet.i.tion has been lately received? Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet.

Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our pet.i.tion comports with those warlike preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled, that force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation; the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlemen a.s.sign any other possible motive for it? Has Great Britain any enemy, in this quarter of the world, that calls for all this acc.u.mulation of navies and armies?

No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us; they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains, which the British ministry have been so long forging. And what have we to oppose to them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer upon the subject?

Nothing! We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find, which have not been already exhausted? Let us not. I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves longer.

(_A loud clamor for recognition. The chair recognizes Robert Morris of Pennsylvania._)