American Eloquence Volume II Part 9

Here allow, for one moment, a reference to myself and my position. Sir, I have never been a politician. The slave of principles, I call no party master. By sentiment, education, and conviction a friend of Human Rights in their utmost expansion, I have ever most sincerely embraced the Democratic Idea,--not, indeed, as represented or professed by any party, but according to its real significance, as transfigured in the Declaration of Independence and in the injunctions of Christianity. In this idea I see no narrow advantage merely for individuals or cla.s.ses, but the sovereignty of the people, and the greatest happiness of all secured by equal laws. Amidst the vicissitudes of public affairs I shall hold fast always to this idea, and to any political party which truly embraces it.

Party does not constrain me; nor is my independence lessened by any relations to the office which gives me a t.i.tle to be heard on this floor. Here, Sir, I speak proudly. By no effort, by no desire of my own, I find myself a Senator of the United States. Never before have I held public office of any kind. With the ample opportunities of private life I was content. No tombstone for me could bear a fairer inscription than this: "Here lies one who, without the honors or emoluments of public station, did something for his fellowmen." From such simple aspirations I was taken away by the free choice of my native Commonwealth, and placed at this responsible post of duty, without personal obligation of any kind, beyond what was implied in my life and published words. The earnest friends by whose confidence I was first designated asked nothing from me, and throughout the long conflict which ended in my election rejoiced in the position which I most carefully guarded. To all my language was uniform: that I did not desire to be brought forward; that I would do nothing to promote the result; that I had no pledges or promises to offer; that the office should seek me, and not I the office; and that it should find me in all respects an independent man, bound to no party and to no human being, but only, according to my best judgment, to act for the good of all. Again, Sir, I speak with pride, both for myself and others, when I add that these avowals found a sympathizing response. In this spirit I have come here, and in this spirit I shall speak to-day.

Rejoicing in my independence, and claiming nothing from party ties, I throw myself upon the candor and magnanimity of the Senate. I ask your attention; I trust not to abuse it. I may speak strongly, for I shall speak openly and from the strength of my convictions. I may speak warmly, for I shall speak from the heart. But in no event can I forget the amenities which belong to debate, and which especially become this body.

Slavery I must condemn with my whole soul; but here I need only borrow the language of slaveholders; nor would it accord with my habits or my sense of justice to exhibit them as the impersonation of the inst.i.tution--Jefferson calls it the "enormity"--which they cherish.

Of them I do not speak; but without fear and without favor, as without impeachment of any person, I a.s.sail this wrong. Again, Sir, I may err; but it will be with the Fathers. I plant myself on the ancient ways of the Republic, with its grandest names, its surest landmarks, and all its original altar-fires about me.

And now, on the very threshold, I encounter the objection, that there is a final settlement, in principle and substance, of the question of slavery, and that all discussion of it is closed. Both the old political parties, by formal resolutions, in recent conventions at Baltimore, have united in this declaration. On a subject which for years has agitated the public mind, which yet palpitates in every heart and burns on every tongue, which in its immeasurable importance dwarfs all other subjects, which by its constant and gigantic presence throws a shadow across these halls, which at this very time calls for appropriations to meet extraordinary expenses it has caused, they impose the rule of silence.

According to them, Sir, we may speak of everything except that alone which is most present in all our minds.

To this combined effort I might fitly reply, that, with flagrant inconsistency, it challenges the very discussion it pretends to forbid.

Their very declaration, on the eve of an election, is, of course, submitted to the consideration and ratification of the people. Debate, inquiry, discussion, are the necessary consequence. Silence becomes impossible. Slavery, which you profess to banish from public attention, openly by your invitation enters every political meeting and every political convention. Nay, at this moment it stalks into this Senate, crying, like the daughters of the horseleech, "Give! give."

But no unanimity of politicians can uphold the baseless a.s.sumption, that a law, or any conglomerate of laws, under the name of compromise, or howsoever called, is final. Nothing can be plainer than this,--that by no parliamentary device or knot can any legislature tie the hands of a succeeding legislature, so as to prevent the full exercise of its const.i.tutional powers. Each legislature, under a just sense of its responsibility, must judge for itself; and if it think proper, it may revise, or amend, or absolutely undo the work of any predecessor.

The laws of the Medes and Persians are said proverbially to have been unalterable; but they stand forth in history as a single example where the true principles of all law have been so irrationally defied.

To make a law final, so as not to be reached by Congress, is, by mere legislation, to fasten a new provision on the Const.i.tution. Nay, more; it gives to the law a character which the very Const.i.tution does not possess. The wise Fathers did not treat the country as a Chinese foot, never to grow after infancy; but, antic.i.p.ating progress, they declared expressly that their great Act is not final. According to the Const.i.tution itself, there is not one of its existing provisions--not even that with regard to fugitives from labor--which may not at all times be reached by amendment, and thus be drawn into debate. This is rational and just. Sir, nothing from man's hands, nor law, nor const.i.tution, can be final. Truth alone is final.

Inconsistent and absurd, this effort is tyrannical also. The responsibility for the recent Slave Act, and for slavery everywhere within the jurisdiction of Congress, necessarily involves the right to discuss them. To separate these is impossible. Like the twenty-fifth rule of the House of Representatives against pet.i.tions on Slavery,--now repealed and dishonored,--the Compromise, as explained and urged, is a curtailment of the actual powers of legislation, and a perpetual denial of the indisputable principle, that the right to deliberate is coextensive with the responsibility for an act. To sustain Slavery it is now proposed to trample on free speech. In any country this would be grievous; but here, where the Const.i.tution expressly provides against abridging freedom of speech, it is a special outrage. In vain do we condemn the despotisms of Europe, while we borrow the rigors with which they repress Liberty, and guard their own uncertain power. For myself, in no factious spirit, but solemnly and in loyalty to the Const.i.tution, as a Senator of the United States, representing a free Commonwealth, I protest against this wrong.

On Slavery, as on every other subject, I claim the right to be heard.

That right I cannot, I will not abandon. "Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties"; these are glowing words, flashed from the soul of John Milton in his struggles with English tyranny. With equal fervor they could be echoed now by every American not already a slave.

But, Sir, this effort is impotent as tyrannical. Convictions of the heart cannot be repressed. Utterances of conscience must be heard. They break forth with irrepressible might. As well attempt to check the tides of ocean, the currents of the Mississippi, or the rushing waters of Niagara. The discussion of Slavery will proceed, wherever two or three are gathered together,--by the fireside, on the highway, at the public meeting, in the church. The movement against Slavery is from the Everlasting Arm. Even now it is gathering its forces, soon to be confessed everywhere. It may not be felt yet in the high places of office and power, but all who can put their ears humbly to the ground will hear and comprehend its incessant and advancing tread.

The relations of the National Government to Slavery, though plain and obvious, are constantly misunderstood. A popular belief at this moment makes Slavery a national inst.i.tution, and of course renders its support a national duty. The extravagance of this error can hardly be surpa.s.sed.

An inst.i.tution which our fathers most carefully omitted to name in the Const.i.tution, which, according to the debates in the Convention, they refused to cover with any "sanction," and which, at the original organization of the Government, was merely sectional, existing nowhere on the national territory, is now, above all other things, blazoned as national. Its supporters pride themselves as national. The old political parties, while upholding it, claim to be national. A National Whig is simply a Slavery Whig, and a National Democrat is simply a Slavery Democrat, in contradistinction to all who regard Slavery as a sectional inst.i.tution, within the exclusive control of the States and with which the nation has nothing to do.

As Slavery a.s.sumes to be national, so, by an equally strange perversion, Freedom is degraded to be sectional, and all who uphold it, under the National Const.i.tution, are made to share this same epithet. Honest efforts to secure its blessings everywhere within the jurisdiction of Congress are scouted as sectional; and this cause, which the founders of our National Government had so much at heart, is called Sectionalism.

These terms, now belonging to the common places of political speech, are adopted and misapplied by most persons without reflection. But here is the power of Slavery. According to a curious tradition of the French language, Louis XIV., the Grand Monarch, by an accidental error of speech, among supple courtiers, changed the gender of a noun. But slavery does more. It changes word for word. It teaches men to say national instead of sectional, and sectional instead of national.

Slavery national! Sir, this is a mistake and absurdity, fit to have a place in some new collection of Vulgar Errors, by some other Sir Thomas Browne, with the ancient, but exploded stories, that the toad has a gem in its head, and that ostriches digest iron. According to the true spirit of the Const.i.tution, and the sentiments of the Fathers, Slavery, and not Freedom, is sectional, while Freedom, and not Slavery, is national. On this unanswerable proposition I take my stand, and here commences my argument.

The subject presents itself under two princ.i.p.al heads: _First, the true relations of the National Government to Slavery_, wherein it will appear that there is no national fountain from which Slavery can be derived, and no national power, under the Const.i.tution, by which it can be supported. Enlightened by this general survey, we shall be prepared to consider, _secondly, the true nature of the provision for the rendition of fugitives from service_, and herein especially the unconst.i.tutional and offensive legislation of Congress in pursuance thereof.

I.

And now for THE TRUE RELATIONS OF THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT TO SLAVERY.

These are readily apparent, if we do not neglect well-established principles.

If slavery be national, if there be any power in the National Government to withhold this inst.i.tution,--as in the recent Slave Act,--it must be by virtue of the Const.i.tution. Nor can it be by mere inference, implication, or conjecture. According to the uniform admission of courts and jurists in Europe, again and again promulgated in our country, slavery can be derived only from clear and special recognition. "The state of Slavery," said Lord Mansfield, p.r.o.nouncing judgment in the great case of Sommersett, "is of such a nature that it is incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political, but only by positive law.... _It is so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it but positive law_."

Of course every power to uphold slavery must have an origin as distinct as that of Slavery itself. Every presumption must be as strong against such a power as against slavery. A power so peculiar and offensive, so hostile to reason, so repugnant to the law of Nature and the inborn rights of man,--which despoils its victim of the fruits of labor,--which subst.i.tutes concubinage for marriage,--which abrogates the relation of parent and child,--which, by denial of education, abases the intellect, prevents a true knowledge of G.o.d, and murders the very soul,--which, amidst a plausible physical comfort, degrades man, created in the divine image, to the state of a beast,--such a power, so eminent, so transcendent, so tyrannical, so unjust, can find no place in any system of government, unless by virtue of positive sanction. It can spring from no doubtful phrase. It must be declared by unambiguous words, incapable of a double sense.

Sir, such, briefly, are the rules of interpretation, which, as applied to the Const.i.tution, fill it with the breath of freedom,--

"Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt."

To the history and prevailing sentiments of the times we may turn for further a.s.surance. In the spirit of freedom the Const.i.tution was formed.

In this spirit our fathers always spoke and acted. In this spirit the National Government was first organized under Washington. And here I recall a scene, in itself a touch-stone of the period, and an example for us, upon which we may look with pure national pride, while we learn anew the relations of the National Government to Slavery.

The Revolution was accomplished. The feeble Government of the Confederation pa.s.sed away. The Const.i.tution, slowly matured in a National Convention, discussed before the people, defended by masterly pens, was adopted. The Thirteen States stood forth a Nation, where was unity without consolidation, and diversity without discord. The hopes of all were anxiously hanging upon the new order of things and the mighty procession of events. With signal unanimity Washington was chosen President. Leaving his home at Mount Vernon, he repaired to New York,--where the first Congress had commenced its session,--to a.s.sume his place as Chief of the Republic. On the 30th of April, 1789, the organization of the Government was completed by his inauguration.

Entering the Senate Chamber, where the two Houses were a.s.sembled, he was informed that they awaited his readiness to receive the oath of office.

Without delay, attended by the Senators and Representatives, with friends and men of mark gathered about him, he moved to the balcony in front of the edifice. A countless mult.i.tude, thronging the open ways, and eagerly watching this great espousal,

"With reverence look on his majestic face, Proud to be less, but of his G.o.dlike race."

The oath was administered by the Chancellor of New York. At such time, and in such presence, beneath the unveiled heavens, Washington first took this vow upon his lips: "I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Const.i.tution of the United States."

Over the President, on this new occasion, floated the national flag, with its stripes of red and white, its stars on a field of blue. As his patriot eye rested upon the glowing ensign, what currents must have rushed swiftly through his soul. In the early days of the Revolution, in those darkest hours about Boston, after the Battle of Bunker Hill, and before the Declaration of Independence, the thirteen stripes had been first unfurled by him, as the emblem of Union among the Colonies for the sake of Freedom. By him, at that time, they had been named the Union Flag. Trial, struggle, and war were now ended, and the Union, which they first heralded, was unalterably established. To every beholder these memories, must have been full of pride and consolation. But, looking back upon the scene, there is one circ.u.mstance which, more than all its other a.s.sociations, fills the soul,--more even than the suggestions of Union, which I prize so much. AT THIS MOMENT, WHEN WASHINGTON TOOK HIS FIRST OATH TO SUPPORT THE CONSt.i.tUTION OF THE UNITED STATES, THE NATIONAL ENSIGN, NOWHERE WITHIN THE NATIONAL TERRITORY, COVERED A SINGLE SLAVE. Then, indeed, was Slavery Sectional, and Freedom National.

On the sea an execrable piracy, the trade in slaves, to the national scandal, was still tolerated under the national flag. In the States, as a sectional inst.i.tution, beneath the shelter of local laws, Slavery unhappily found a home. But in the only terrritories at this time belonging to the nation, the broad region of the Northwest, it was already made impossible, by the Ordinance of Freedom, even before the adoption of the Const.i.tution. The District of Columbia, with its Fatal Dowry, was not yet acquired.

The government thus organized was Anti-slavery in character. Washington was a slave-holder, but it would be unjust to his memory not to say that he was an Abolitionist also. His opinions do not admit of question.

By the side of Washington, as, standing beneath the national flag, he swore to support the Const.i.tution, were ill.u.s.trious men, whose lives and recorded words now rise in judgment. There was John Adams, the Vice-President, great vindicator and final negotiator of our national independence, whose soul, flaming with Freedom, broke forth in the early declaration, that "consenting to Slavery is a sacrilegious breach of trust," and whose immitigable hostility to this wrong is immortal in his descendants. There was also a companion in arms and attached friend, of beautiful genius, the yet youthful and "incomparable" Hamilton,--fit companion in early glories and fame with that darling of English history, Sir Philip Sidney, to whom the latter epithet has been reserved,--who, as member of the Abolition Society of New York, had recently united in a solemn pet.i.tion for those who, though "free by the laws of G.o.d; are held in Slavery by the laws of this State." There, too, was a n.o.ble spirit, of spotless virtue, the ornament of human nature, who, like the sun, ever held an unerring course,--John Jay. Filling the important post of Secretary for Foreign Affairs under the Confederation, he found time to organize the "Society for Promoting the Manumission of Slaves" in New York, and to act as its President, until, by the nomination of Washington, he became Chief Justice of the United States.

In his sight Slavery was an "iniquity," "a sin of crimson dye," against which ministers of the Gospel should testify, and which the Government should seek in every way to abolish. "Till America comes into this measure," he wrote, "her prayers to Heaven for liberty will be impious.

This is a strong expression, but it is just. Were I in your legislature, I would prepare a bill for the purpose with great care, and I would never cease moving it till it became a law or I ceased to be a member."

Such words as these, fitly coming from our leaders, belong to the true glories of the country:

"While we such precedents can boast at home, Keep thy Fabricius and thy Cato, Rome!"

They stood not alone. The convictions and earnest aspirations of the country were with them. At the North these were broad and general. At the South they found fervid utterance from slaveholders. By early and precocious efforts for "total emanc.i.p.ation," the author of the Declaration of Independence placed himself foremost among the Abolitionists of the land. In language now familiar to all, and which can never die, he perpetually denounced Slavery. He exposed its pernicious influence upon master as well as slave, declared that the love of justice and the love of country pleaded equally for the slave, and that "the abolition of domestic slavery was the greatest object of desire." He believed that "the sacred side was gaining daily recruits,"

and confidently looked to the young for the accomplishment of this good work. In fitful sympathy with Jefferson was another honored son of Virginia, the Orator of Liberty, Patrick Henry, who, while confessing that he was a master of slaves, said: "I will not, I cannot justify it.

However culpable my conduct, I will so far pay my devoir to virtue as to own the excellence and rect.i.tude of her precepts, and lament my want of conformity to them." At this very period, in the Legislature of Maryland, on a bill for the relief of oppressed slaves, a young man, afterwards by consummate learning and forensic powers acknowledged head of the American bar, William Pinkney, in a speech of earnest, truthful eloquence,--better for his memory than even his professional fame,--branded Slavery as "iniquitous and most dishonorable," "founded in a disgraceful traffic," "its continuance as shameful as its origin,"

and he openly declared, that "by the eternal principles of natural justice, no master in the State has a right to hold his slave in bondage for a single hour."

At the risk of repet.i.tion, but for the sake of clearness, review now this argument, and gather it together. Considering that Slavery is of such an offensive character that it can find sanction only in "positive law," and that it has no such "positive" sanction in the Const.i.tution,--that the Const.i.tution, according to its preamble, was ordained to "establish justice" and "secure the blessings of liberty,"--that, in the Convention which framed it, and also elsewhere at the time, it was declared not to sanction slavery,--that, according to the Declaration of Independence, and the Address of the Continental Congress, the nation was dedicated to "liberty," and the "rights of human nature,"--that, according to the principles of the common law, the Const.i.tution must be interpreted openly, actively, and perpetually for freedom,--that, according to the decision of the Supreme Court, it acts upon slaves, _not as property_, but as PERSONS,--that, at the first organization of the national Government under Washington, Slavery had no national favor, existed nowhere on the national territory, beneath the national flag, but was openly condemned by Nation, Church, Colleges, and Literature of the time,--and, finally, that, according to an amendment of the Const.i.tution, the National Government can exercise only powers delegated to it, among which is none to support Slavery,--considering these things, Sir, it is impossible to avoid the single conclusion, that Slavery is in no respect a national inst.i.tution, and that the Const.i.tution nowhere upholds property in man.

There is one other special provision of the Const.i.tution, which I have reserved to this stage, not so much from its superior importance, but because it fitly stands by itself. This alone, if practically applied, would carry Freedom to all within its influence. It is an amendment proposed by the First Congress, as follows:

"No _person_ shall be deprived of life, _liberty_, or property, _without due process of law_."

Under this great aegis the liberty of every person within the national jurisdiction is unequivocally placed. I say every person. Of this there can be no question. The word "person" in the Const.i.tution embraces every human being within its sphere, whether Caucasian, Indian, or African, from the president to the slave. Show me a person within the national jurisdiction, and I confidently claim for him this protection, no matter what his condition or race or color. The natural meaning of the clause is clear, but a single fact of its history places it in the broad light of noon. As originally recommended by Virginia, North Carolina, and Rhode Island, it was restricted to the freeman. Its language was, "No freeman ought to be deprived of his life, liberty, or property, but by the law of the land." In rejecting this limitation, the authors of the amendment revealed their purpose, that no person, under the National Government, of whatever character, should be deprived of liberty without due process of law,--that is, without due presentment, indictment, or other judicial proceeding. But this amendment is nothing less than an express guaranty of Personal Liberty, and an express prohibition of its invasion anywhere, at least within the national jurisdiction.

Sir, apply these principles, and Slavery will again be as when Washington took his first oath as President. The Union Flag of the Republic will become once more the flag of Freedom, and at all points within the national jurisdiction will refuse to cover a slave. Beneath its beneficent folds, wherever it is carried, on land or sea, slavery will disappear, like darkness under the arrows of the ascending sun,--like the Spirit of Evil before the Angel of the Lord.

In all national territories Slavery will be impossible.