Speeches of the Hon. Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi Part 3

We remember how early he saw the necessity of _community independence_. How, through the dim mists of the future, and in advance of his day, he looked forward to the proclamation of that independence by Ma.s.sachusetts; how he steadily strove, through good report and evil report, with the same unwavering purpose, whether in the midst of his fellow citizens, cheered by their voices, or whether isolated, a refugee, hunted as a criminal, and communing with his own heart, now under all circ.u.mstances his eve was still fixed upon his first, last hope, the community independence of Ma.s.sachusetts! And when we see him, at a later period, the leader in that correspondence which waked the feelings of the other colonies and brought into fraternal a.s.sociation the people of Ma.s.sachusetts with the people of other colonies--when we see his letters acknowledging the receipt of the rice of South Carolina, the flour, the pork, the money of Virginia, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, and others, contributions of affection to relieve Boston of the sufferings inflicted upon her when her port was closed by the despotism of the British crown--we there see the beginning of that sentiment which insured the co-operation of the colonies throughout the desperate struggle of the Revolution, and which, if the present generation be true to the compact of their sires, to the memory and to the principles of the n.o.ble men from whom they descended, will perpetuate for them that spirit of fraternity in which the Union began. [Applause.]

But it is not here alone, nor in reminiscences connected with the objects which present themselves within this hall, that the people of Boston have much to excite their patriotism and carry them back to the great principles of the revolutionary struggle. Where in this vicinity will you go and not meet some monument to inspire such sentiments? On one side are Lexington and Concord, where sixty brave countrymen came with their fowling pieces to oppose six hundred veterans,--where peaceful citizens animated by the love of independence and covered by the triple shield of a righteous cause, finally forced those veterans back, and pursued them on the road, fighting from every barn and bush, and stock, and stone, till they drove them to the shelters from which they had gone forth! [Applause.] And there on another side of your city stand those monuments of your early patriotism, Breed's and Bunker's Hill whose soil drank the sacred blood of men who lived for their country and died for mankind! Can it be that any of you tread that soil and forget the great purposes for which those men bravely fought, or n.o.bly died?" [Applause.] While in yet another direction rise the Heights of Dorchester, once the encampment of the great Virginian, the man who came here in the cause of American independence, who did not ask "Is this a town of Virginia?" but, "Is this a town of my brethren?" who pitched his camp and commenced his operations with the steady courage and cautious wisdom characteristic of Washington, hopefully, resolutely waiting and watching for the day when he could drive the British troops out of your city. [Cheers.]

Here, too, you find where once the Old Liberty Tree, connected with so many of your memories, grew. You ask your legend, and learn that it was cut down for firewood by the British soldiers, as some of your meeting houses were pulled down. They burned the old tree, and it warmed the soldiers enough to enable them to evacuate the city.

[Laughter.] Had they been more slowly warmed into motion, had it burned a little longer, it might have lighted Washington and his followers to their enemies.

But they were gone, and never again may a hostile foe tread your sh.o.r.e. Woe to the enemy who shall set his footprint upon your soil; he comes to a prison or he comes to a grave! [Applause.] American fortifications are not intended to protect our country from invasion.

They are constructed elsewhere as in your harbor to guard points where marine attacks can he made; and for the rest, the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of Americans are our parapets. [Applause.]

But, my friends, it is not merely in these military a.s.sociations, so honorably connected with the pride of Ma.s.sachusetts, that one who visits Boston finds much for gratification. If I were selecting a place where the advocate of strict construction of the Const.i.tution, the extreme a.s.serter of democratic state rights doctrine should go for his text, I would send him into the collections of your historical a.s.sociation. Instead of finding Boston a place where the records would teach only federalism, he would find here, in bounteous store, that sacred doctrine of state rights, which has been called the extreme and ultra opinion of the South. He would find among your early records that at the time when Ma.s.sachusetts was under a colonial government, administered by a man appointed by the British crown, guarded by British soldiers; the use of this old Faneuil Hall was refused by the town authorities to a British Governor, to hold a British festival, because he was going to bring with him the agents for collecting, and naval officers sent here to enforce, an unconst.i.tutional tax upon your commonwealth. Such was the proud spirit of independence manifested even in your colonial history. Such the great stone your fathers hewed with st.u.r.dy hand, and left the fit foundation for a monument to state rights! [Applause.] And so throughout the early period of our country you find Ma.s.sachusetts leading, most prominent of all the States, in the a.s.sertion of that doctrine which has been recently so much decried.

Having achieved your independence, having pa.s.sed through the confederation, you a.s.sented to the formation of our present const.i.tutional Union. You did not surrender your state sovereignty.

Your fathers had sacrificed too much to claim as the reward of their trials that they should merely have a change of masters. And a change of masters it would have been had Ma.s.sachusetts surrendered her State sovereignty to the central government, and consented that that central government should have the power to coerce a State. But if this power does not exist, if this sovereignty has not been surrendered, then, I say, who can deny the words of soberness and truth spoken by your candidate this evening, when he has plead to you the cause of State independence, and the right of every community to he the judge of its own domestic affairs? [Applause.] This is all we have ever asked--we of the South, I mean,--for I stand before you one of those who have been called the ultra men of the South, and I speak, therefore, for that cla.s.s; and tell you that your candidate for Governor has a.s.serted to-night everything which we have claimed as a right, and demanded as a duty resulting from the guarantees of the Const.i.tution, made for our mutual protection. [Applause.] Nor is here alone in that such doctrine is a.s.serted, the like it has been my happiness to hear in your daughter, the neighboring State of Maine. I have found that the democrats there a.s.serted the same broad, const.i.tutional principle for which we have been contending, by which we are willing to live, for which we are willing to die! [Loud cheers and cries of "good!"]

In this state of the case, my friends, why is the country agitated?

What is there practical or rational in the present excitement? Why, since the old controversies, with all their lights and shadows, have pa.s.sed away, is the political firmament covered by one dark pall, the funeral shade of which increases with every pa.s.sing year?

Why is it, I say, that you are thus agitated in relation to the domestic affairs of other communities? Why is it that the peace of the country is disturbed in order that one people may a.s.sume to judge of what another people should do? Is there any political power to authorize such interference? If so, where is it? You did not surrender your sovereignty. You gave to the federal government certain functions. It was your agent, created for specified purposes. It can do nothing save that which you have given it power to perform. Where is the grant of the Const.i.tution which confers on the federal government a right to determine what shall be property? Surely none such exists; that question it belongs to every community to settle for itself: you judge in your case; every other State must judge in its case. The federal government has no power to create or establish; more palpably still, it has no power to destroy property. Do you pay taxes to an agent that he may destroy your property? Do you support him for that purpose? It is an absurdity on the face of it. To ask the question is to answer it. The government is inst.i.tuted to protect, not to destroy property. In abundance of caution, your fathers provided that the federal government should not take private property, even for its own use, unless by making due compensation therefore. One of its great purposes was to increase the security of property, and by a more perfect union of forces, to render more effective protection to the States. When that power for protection becomes a source of danger, the purpose for which the government was formed will have been defeated, and the government can no longer answer the ends for which it was established.

Why, then, in the absence of all control over the subject of African slavery, are you agitated in relation to it? With Pharisaical pretension it is sometimes said it is a moral obligation to agitate, and I suppose they are going through a sort of vicarious repentance for other men's sins. [Laughter.] Who gave them a right to decide that it is a sin? By what standard do they measure it? Not the Const.i.tution; the Const.i.tution recognizes the property in many forms, and imposes obligations in connection with that recognition. Not the Bible; that justifies it. Not the good of society; for if they go where it exists, they find that society recognizes it as good. What, then, is their standard? The good of mankind? Is that seen in the diminished resources of the country? Is that seen in the diminished comfort of the world? Or is not the reverse exhibited? Is it in the cause of Christianity? It cannot be, for servitude is the only agency through which Christianity has reached that degraded race, the only means by which they have been civilized and elevated. Or is their charity manifested in denunciation of their brethren who are restrained from answering by the contempt which they feel for a mere brawler, whose weapons are empty words? [Applause.]

What, my friends, must be the consequences of this agitation? Good or evil? They have been evil, and evil they must be only, to the end. Not one particle of good has been done to any man, of any color, by this agitation. It has been insidiously working the purpose of sedition, for the destruction of that Union on which our hopes of future greatness depend.

On the one side, then you see agitation, tending slowly and steadily to that separation of the states, which, if you have any hope connected with the liberty of mankind, if you have any national pride in making your country the greatest of the earth, if you have any sacred regard for the obligation which the acts of your fathers entailed upon you,--by each and all of these motives you are prompted to united and earnest effort to promote the success of that great experiment which your fathers left it to you to conclude. [Applause.]

On the other hand, if each community, in accordance with the principles of our government, whilst controlling its own domestic inst.i.tutions, faithfully struggles as a part of the united whole, for the common benefit of all, the future points us to fraternity, to unity, to co-operation, to the increase of our own happiness, to the extension of our useful example over mankind, and the covering of that flag, whose stars have already more than doubled their original number, [applause,] with a galaxy to light the ample folds which then shall wave either the recognized flag of every state, or the recognized protector of every state upon the continent of America.

[Applause.]

In connection with the idea, which I have presented of the early sentiment of community independence, I will add the very striking fact that one of the colonies, about the time that they had resolved to unite for the purpose of achieving their independence, addressed the colonial congress to know in what condition they would be in the interval between their separation from the government of Great Britain and the establishment of the government for the colonies. The answer of the colonial congress was exactly that which might have been expected--exactly that which state rights democracy would answer to-day, to such an inquiry--that they must take care of their domestic polity, that the congress "had nothing to do with it." [Applause.] If such sentiment continued--if it governed in every state--if representatives were chosen upon it--then your halls of legislation would not be disturbed about the question of the domestic concerns of the different states. The peace of the country would not be hazarded by the arraignment of the family relations of people over whom the government has no control. In harmony working together, in co-intelligence for the conservation of the interests of the country, in protection to the states and the development of the great ends for which the government was established, what effects might not be produced? As our government increased in expansion, it would increase in its beneficent influence upon the people; we should increase in fraternity; and it would be no longer a wonder to see a man coming from a southern state to address a Democratic audience in Boston.

[Applause, cries of "good, good."]

But I have referred to the fact that, at an early period, Ma.s.sachusetts stood pre-eminently forward among those who a.s.serted community independence. And this reminds me of an incident, in ill.u.s.tration, which occurred when President Washington visited Boston, and John Hanc.o.c.k was Governor. The latter is reported to have declined to call upon the President, because he contended that every man who came within the limits of Ma.s.sachusetts must yield rank and precedence to the Governor of the State; and only surrendered the point on account of his personal regard and respect for the character of George Washington. I honor him for it,--value it as one of the early testimonies in favor of State Rights, and wish all our governors had the same high estimate of the dignity of the office of Governor of a State as had that great and glorious man. [Applause.]

Thus it appears that the founders of this government were the true Democratic States Rights men. That Democracy was States rights, and States rights was Democracy, and it is to-day. Your resolutions breathe it. The Declaration of Independence embodies the sentiment which had lived in the hearts of the people for many years before its formal a.s.sertion. Our fathers a.s.serted that great principle--the right of the people to choose the government for themselves--that government rested upon the consent of the governed. In every form of expression it uttered the same idea, _community independence_, and the dependence of the government upon the community over which it existed. It was an American principle, the great spirit which animated our country then, and it were well if more inspired us now. But I have said that this State sovereignty--this community independence--has never been surrendered, and that there is no power in the federal government to coerce a State. Does any one ask, then, how it is that a State is to be held to its obligations? My answer is: by _its honor_, and the obligation is the more sacred to observe every feature of the compact, because there is no power to force obedience. The great error of the confederation was that it attempted to act upon the States. It was found impracticable, and our present form of government was adopted, which acts upon individuals and does not attempt to act upon States.

The question was considered in the convention which framed the const.i.tution, and after discussion the proposition to give power to the general government to enforce upon a resistant State obedience to the law was rejected. It was upon this ground of exemption from compulsion that the compact of the States became a sacred obligation; and it was upon this honorable fulfilment princ.i.p.ally that our fathers depended for the security of the rights which the Const.i.tution was designed to secure. [Applause.]

The fugitive slave compact in the Const.i.tution of the United States implied that the States should fulfil it voluntarily. They expected the States to legislate so as to secure the rendition of fugitives.

And in 1788 it was a matter of complaint that the colony of Florida did not restore fugitive negroes from the United States who escaped into that colony, and a committee, composed of Hamilton, of New York, Sedgwick, of Ma.s.sachusetts, and Madison, of Virginia, reported resolutions in the Congress instructing the committee for foreign affairs to address the _charge d'affaires_ at Madrid to apply to his majesty of Spain to issue orders to his governor to compel them to secure the rendition of fugitive negroes to any one who should go there ent.i.tled to receive them. This was the sentiment of the committee, and they added, by way of example, as the States would return any slaves from Florida who might escape into their limits.

When the Const.i.tutional requirement was imposed, who could have doubted that every State faithful to its obligations would comply without raising questions as to whether the inst.i.tution should or should not exist in another community over which they had no control.

Congress was at last forced by the failures of the States, to legislate on the subject, and this has been one of the causes by which you have been disturbed. You have been called upon to make war against a law which would never have been enacted, if each State had faithfully discharged the obligation imposed by the compact of the Const.i.tution. [Cheers.]

There is another question connected with this negro agitation. It is in relation to the right to hold slaves in the Territories. What power has Congress to declare what shall be property? None, in the territory or elsewhere. Have the States by separate legislation the power to prescribe the condition upon which a citizen may enter on and enjoy the common property of the United States? Clearly not. Shall those who first go into the territory, deprive any citizen of the United States subsequently emigrating thither, of those rights which belong to him as an equal owner of the soil? Certainly not. Sovereignty jurisdiction can only pa.s.s to these inhabitants when the States, the owners of that territory, shall recognize the inhabitants as an independent community, and admit it to become an equal State of the Union. Until then the Const.i.tution and laws of the United States must be the rules governing within the limits of a territory. The Const.i.tution recognizes all property gives equal privileges to every citizen of the States; and it would be a violation of its fundamental principles to attempt any discrimination. [Applause.] Viewed in any of its phases, political, moral, social, general, or local, what is there to sustain this agitation in relation to other people's negroes, unless it be a bridge over which to pa.s.s into office--a ready capital in politics available to missionaries staving at home-reformers of things which they do not go to learn--preachers without and audience--overseers without laborers and without wages--war-horses who snuff the battle afar off, and cry: " Aha! aha! I am afar off from the battle." [Great laughter and applause.]

Thus it is that the peace of the Union is destroyed; thus it is that brother is arrayed against brother; thus it is that the people come to consider--not how they can promote each other's interests, but how they may successfully war upon them. And the political agitator like the vampire fans the victim to which he clings but to destroy.

Among culprits there is none more odious to my mind than a public officer who takes an oath to support the Const.i.tution--the compact between the States binding each for the common defence and general welfare of the other--yet retains to himself a mental reservation that he will war upon the principles he has sworn to maintain, and upon the property rights the protection of which are part of the compact of the Union. [Applause.]

It is a crime too low to be named before this a.s.sembly: It is one which no man with self-respect would ever commit. To swear that he will support the Const.i.tution--to take an office which belongs in many of its relations to all the States; and to use it as a means of injuring a portion of the States of whom he is thus the representative; is treason to every thing honorable in man. It is the base and cowardly attack of him who gains the confidence of another, in order that he may wound him. [Applause.]

But we have heard it argued--have seen it published--a pet.i.tion has been circulated for signers, announcing that there was an incompatibility between the sections; that the Union had been tried long enough, and that it had proved to be necessary to separate from those sections of the Union in which the curse of slavery existed. Ah!

those modern saints, so much wiser than our fathers, have discovered an incompatibility requiring separation in those relations which existed when the Union was formed. They have found the remnants only of a diversity which existed when South Carolina sent her rice to Boston, and Maryland and Pennsylvania and New York brought in their funds for her relief.

They have found the remnants only; for from that day to this the difference between the people has been constantly decreasing, and the necessity for union which then arose in no small degree from the diversity of product, and soil and climate, has gone on increasing, both by the extension of our own territory and the introduction of new tropical products; so that whilst the difference between the people has diminished, the diversity in the products has increased, and that motive for union which your fathers found exists in a higher degree than it did when they resolved to be united.

Diversity there is of occupation, of habits, of education, of character. But it is not of that extreme kind which proves incompatibility, or even incongruity; for your Ma.s.sachusetts man, when he comes to Mississippi, adopts our opinions and our inst.i.tutions, and frequently becomes the most extreme southern man among us. [Great applause.] As our country has extended--as new products have been introduced into it, the free trade which blesses our Union, has been of increasing value.

And it is not an unfortunate circ.u.mstance that this diversity of pursuit and character has survived the condition which produced it.

Originally it sprang in no small degree from natural causes.

Ma.s.sachusetts became a manufacturing and a commercial State because of the connection between her fine harbor and water power, resulting from the fact that the streams make their last leap into the sea, so that the ship of commerce brought the staple to the manufacturing power.

This made you a commercial and manufacturing people. In the Southern States great plains interpose between the last leaps of the streams and the sea. Those plains most proximate to navigation, were the first cultivated, and the sea bore their products to the most approachable water power, there to be manufactured. This was the first cause of the difference. Then your longer and more severe winters--your soil not as favorable for agriculture, also contributed to make you a manufacturing and commercial people.

After the controlling cause had pa.s.sed away--after railroads had been built--after the steam engine had become a motive power for a large part of machinery, the characteristics originally stamped by natural causes continued the diversity of pursuit. Is it fortunate or otherwise? I say it is fortunate. Your interest is to remain a manufacturing and ours to remain an agricultural people.

Your prosperity is to receive our staple and to manufacture it, and ours to sell it to you and buy the manufactured goods. [Applause.]

This is an interweaving of interests, which makes us all the richer and all the happier.

But this accursed agitation, this offensive, injurious intermeddling with the affairs of other people, and this alone it is that will promote a desire in the mind of any one to separate these great and growing States. [Applause.]

The seeds of dissension may be sown by invidious reflections. Men may be goaded by the constant attempt to infringe upon rights and to traduce community character, and in the resentment which follows it is not possible to tell how far the case may be driven. I therefore plead to you now to arrest a fanaticism which has been evil in the beginning, and must be evil to the end. You may not have the numerical power requisite; and those at a distance may not understand how many of you there are desirous to put a stop to the course of this agitation. But let your language and your acts teach them to appreciate a faithful self-denying minority. I have learned since I have been in New England the vast ma.s.s of true State Rights Democrats to be found within its limits--though not represented in the halls of Congress.

And if it comes to the worst; if, availing themselves of a majority in the two Houses of Congress, our opponents should attempt to trample upon the Const.i.tution; to violate the rights of the States; to infringe upon our equality in the Union, I believe that even in Ma.s.sachusetts, though it has not had a representative in Congress for many a day, the State Rights Democracy, in whose b.r.e.a.s.t.s beats the spirit of the revolution, can and will whip the Black Republicans.

[Great applause.] I trust we shall never be thus purified, as it were, by fire; but that the peaceful progressive revolution of the ballot box will answer all the glorious purposes of the Const.i.tutional Union.

[Applause.]

I marked that the distinguished orator and statesman who preceded me in addressing you used the words _national_ and _const.i.tutional_ in such relations to each other as to show that in his mind the one was a synonym of the other. And does he not do so with reason? We became a nation by the const.i.tution; whatever is national springs from the const.i.tution; and national and const.i.tutional are convertible terms.

[Applause.]

Your candidate for the high office of governor--whom I have been once or twice on the point of calling your governor, and whom I hope I may be able soon to call so, [applause]--in his remarks to you has presented the same idea in another form. And well may Ma.s.sachusetts orators, without even perceiving what they are saying, utter sentiments which lie at the foundation of your colonial as well as your revolutionary history, which existed in Ma.s.sachusetts before the revolution, and have existed since, whenever the true spirit which comes down from the revolutionary sires has been aroused into utterance within her limits. [Applause.]

It has been not only, my friends, in this increasing and mutual dependence of interest that we have formed new bonds. Those bonds are both material and mental. Every improvement in the navigation of a river, every construction of a railroad, has added another link to the chain which encircles us, another facility for interchange and new achievements, whether it has been in arts or in science, in war or in manufactures, in commerce or agriculture, success, unexampled success has const.i.tuted for us a common and proud memory, and has offered to us new sentiments of nationality.

Why, then, I would ask, do we see these lengthened shadows, which follow in the course of our political day? is it because the sun is declining to the horizon? Are they the shadows of evening; or are they, as I hopefully believe, but the mists which are exhaled by the sun as it rises, but which are to be dispersed by its meridian splendor? Are they but evanescent clouds that flit across but cannot obscure the great purposes for which the Const.i.tution was established?

I hopefully look forward to the reaction which will establish the fact that our sun is yet in the ascendant--that the cloud which has covered our political prospect is but a mist of the morning--that we are again to be amicably divided in opinion upon measures of expediency, upon questions of relative interest, upon discussions as to the rights of the States, and the powers of the federal government,--such discussion as is commemorated in this historical picture [pointing to the painting.] There your own great Statesman, Webster, addresses his argument to our brightest luminary, the incorruptible Calhoun, who leans over to catch the accents of eloquence that fall from his lips.

[Loud applause.]

They differed as Statesmen and philosophers; they railed not, warred not against each other; they stood to each other in the relation of affection and regard. And never did I see Mr. Webster so agitated, never did I hear his voice so falter, as when he delivered his eulogy on John C. Calhoun. [Applause.]

But allusion was made to my own connection with your favorite departed Statesman. I will only say on this occasion, that very early in the commencement of my congressional life, Mr. Webster was arraigned for an offence which affected him most deeply. He was no accountant; all knew that there was but little of mercantile exactness in his habits.

He was arraigned on a pecuniary charge--the misapplication of what is known as the secret service fund; and I was one of the committee that had to investigate the charge. I endeavored to do justice, to examine the evidence with a view to ascertain the truth. As an American I hoped he would come out without stain or smoke upon his garments. But however the fame of so distinguished an American Statesman might claim such hopes, the duty was rigidly to inquire, and rigorously to do justice. The result was that he was acquitted of every charge that was made against him, and it was equally my pride and my pleasure to vindicate him in every form which lay within my power. [Applause.] No man who knew Daniel Webster, would have expected less of him. Had our position been reversed, none such could have believed that he would with a view to a judgment ask whether a charge was made against a Ma.s.sachusetts man or a Mississippian. No! it belonged to a lower, a later, and I trust a shorter lived race of statesmen ["hear," "hear,"]

to measure all facts by considerations of lat.i.tude and longitude.

[Warm applause.]

I honor that sentiment which makes us oftentimes too confident, and to despise too much the danger of that agitation which disturbs the peace of the country. I honor that feeling which believes the Const.i.tutional Union too strong to be shaken. But at the same time I say, in sober judgment, it will not do to treat too lightly the danger which has beset and which still impends over us. Who has not heard our Const.i.tutional Union compared to the granite cliffs which line the sea and dash back the foam of the waves, unmoved by their fury. Recently I have stood upon New England's sh.o.r.e, and have seen the waves of a troubled sea dash upon the granite which frowns over the ocean, have seen the spray thrown back from the cliff, and the receding wave fret like the impotent rage of baffled malice. But when the tide had ebbed, I saw that the rock was seamed and worn by the ceaseless beating of the sea, and fragments riven from the rock were lying on the beach.

Thus the waves of sectional agitation are dashing themselves against the granite patriotism of the land. If long continued, that too must show the seams and scars of the conflict. Sectional hostility must sooner or later produce political fragments. The danger lies at your door, it is time to arrest it. It is time that men should go back to the origin of our inst.i.tutions. They should drink the waters of the fountain, ascend to the source, of our colonial history.