The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll Volume VIII Part 14

_Answer_. My belief is that the Republicans will have to nominate some man who has not been conspicuous in any faction, and upon whom all can unite. As a consequence he must be a new man. The Democrats must do the same. They must nominate a new man. The old ones have been defeated so often that they start handicapped with their own histories, and failure in the past is very poor raw material out of which to manufacture faith for the future. My own judgment is that for the Democrats, McDonald is as strong a man as they can get. He is a man of most excellent sense and would be regarded as a safe man. Tilden? He is dead, and he occupies no stronger place in the general heart than a graven image. With no magnetism, he has nothing save his smartness to recommend him.

_Question_. What are your views, generally expressed, on the tariff?

_Answer_. There are a great many Democrats for protection and a great many for so-called free trade. I think the large majority of American people favor a reasonable tariff for raising our revenue and protecting our manufactures. I do not believe in tariff for revenue only, but for revenue and protection. The Democrats would have carried the country had they combined revenue and incidental protection.

_Question_. Are they rectifying the error now?

_Answer_. I believe they are, already. They will do it next fall.

If they do not put it in their platform they will embody it in their speeches. I do not regard the tariff as a local, but a national issue, notwithstanding Hanc.o.c.k inclined to the belief that it was the former.

--_The Times_, Chicago, Illinois, October 13, 1883.

THE REPUBLICAN DEFEAT IN OHIO.

_Question_. What is your explanation of the Republican disaster last Tuesday?

_Answer_. Too much praying and not enough paying, is my explanation of the Republican defeat.

_First_. I think the attempt to pa.s.s the Prohibition Amendment lost thousands of votes. The people of this country, no matter how much they may deplore the evils of intemperance, are not yet willing to set on foot a system of spying into each other's affairs.

They know that prohibition would need thousands of officers--that it would breed informers and spies and peekers and skulkers by the hundred in every county. They know that laws do not of themselves make good people. Good people make good laws. Americans do not wish to be temperate upon compulsion. The spirit that resents interference in these matters is the same spirit that made and keeps this a free country. All this crusade and prayer-meeting business will not do in politics. We must depend upon the countless influences of civilization, upon science, art, music--upon the softening influences of kindness and argument. As life becomes valuable people will take care of it. Temperance upon compulsion destroys something more valuable than itself--liberty. I am for the largest liberty in all things.

_Second_. The Prohibitionists, in my opinion, traded with Democrats.

The Democrats were smart enough to know that prohibition could not carry, and that they could safely trade. The Prohibitionists were insane enough to vote for their worst enemies, just for the sake of polling a large vote for prohibition, and were fooled as usual.

_Thirdly_. Certain personal hatreds of certain Republican politicians.

These were the causes which led to Republican defeat in Ohio.

_Question_. Will it necessitate the nomination of an Ohio Republican next year?

_Answer_. I do not think so. Defeat is apt to breed dissension, and on account of that dissension the party will have to take a man from some other State. One politician will say to another, "You did it," and another will reply, "You are the man who ruined the party." I think we have given Ohio her share; certainly she has given us ours.

_Question_. Will this reverse seriously affect Republican chances next year?

_Answer_. If the country is prosperous next year, if the crops are good, if prices are fair, if Pittsburg is covered with smoke, if the song of the spindle is heard in Lowell, if stocks are healthy, the Republicans will again succeed. If the reverse as to crops and forges and spindles, then the Democrats will win. It is a question of "chich-bugs," and floods and drouths.

_Question_. Who, in your judgment, would be the strongest man the Republicans could put up?

_Answer_. Last year I thought General Sherman, but he has gone to Missouri, and now I am looking around. The first day I find out I will telegraph you.

--_The Democrat_, Dayton, Ohio, October 15, 1883.

THE CIVIL RIGHTS BILL.

_Question_. What do you think of the recent opinion of the Supreme Court touching the rights of the colored man?

_Answer_. I think it is all wrong. The intention of the framers of the amendment, by virtue of which the law was pa.s.sed, was that no distinction should be made in inns, in hotels, cars, or in theatres; in short, in public places, on account of color, race, or previous condition. The object of the men who framed that amendment to the Const.i.tution was perfectly clear, perfectly well known, perfectly understood. They intended to secure, by an amendment to the fundamental law, what had been fought for by hundreds of thousands of men. They knew that the inst.i.tution of slavery had cost rebellion; the also knew that the spirit of caste was only slavery in another form. They intended to kill that spirit. Their object was that the law, like the sun, should shine upon all, and that no man keeping a hotel, no corporation running cars, no person managing a theatre should make any distinction on account of race or color. This amendment is above all praise. It was the result of a moral exaltation, such as the world never before had seen. There were years during the war, and after, when the American people were simply sublime; when their generosity was boundless; when they were willing to endure any hardship to make this an absolutely free country.

This decision of the Supreme Court puts the best people of the colored race at the mercy of the meanest portion of the white race.

It allows a contemptible white man to trample upon a good colored man. I believe in drawing a line between good and bad, between clean and unclean, but I do not believe in drawing a color line which is as cruel as the lash of slavery.

I am willing to be on an equality in all hotels, in all cars, in all theatres, with colored people. I make no distinction of race.

Those make the distinction who cannot afford not to. If nature has made no distinction between me and some others, I do not ask the aid of the Legislature. I am willing to a.s.sociate with all good, clean persons, irrespective of complexion.

This decision virtually gives away one of the great principles for which the war was fought. It carries the doctrine of "State Rights"

to the Democratic extreme, and renders necessary either another amendment or a new court.

I agree with Justice Harlan. He has taken a n.o.ble and patriotic stand. Kentucky rebukes Ma.s.sachusetts! I am waiting with some impatience--impatient because I antic.i.p.ate a pleasure--for his dissenting opinion. Only a little while ago Justice Harlan took a very n.o.ble stand on the Virginia Coupon cases, in which was involved the right of a State to repudiate its debts. Now he has taken a stand in favor of the civil rights of the colored man; and in both instances I think he is right.

This decision may, after all, help the Republican party. A decision of the Supreme Court aroused the indignation of the entire North, and I hope the present decision will have a like effect. The good people of this country will not be satisfied until every man beneath the flag, without the slightest respect to his complexion, stands on a perfect equality before the law with every other. Any government that makes a distinction on account of color, is a disgrace to the age in which we live. The idea that a man like Frederick Dougla.s.s can be denied entrance to a car, that the doors of a hotel can be shut in his face; that he may be prevented from entering a theatre; the idea that there shall be some ignominious corner into which such a man can be thrown simply by a decision of the Supreme Court!

This idea is simply absurd.

_Question_. What remains to be done now, and who is going to do it?

_Answer_. For a good while people have been saying that the Republican party has outlived its usefulness; that there is very little difference now between the parties; that there is hardly enough left to talk about. This decision opens the whole question.

This decision says to the Republican party, "Your mission is not yet ended. This is not a free country. Our flag does not protect the rights of a human being." This decision is the tap of a drum.

The old veterans will fall into line. This decision gives the issue for the next campaign, and it may be that the Supreme Court has builded wiser than it knew. This is a greater question than the tariff or free trade. It is a question of freedom, of human rights, of the sacredness of humanity.

The real Americans, the real believers in Liberty, will give three cheers for Judge Harlan.

One word more. The Government is bound to protect its citizens, not only when they are away from home, but when they are under the flag. In time of war the Government has a right to draft any citizen; to put that citizen in the line of battle, and compel him to fight for the nation. If the Government when imperiled has the right to compel a citizen, whether white or black, to defend with his blood the flag, that citizen, when imperiled, has the right to demand protection from the Nation. The Nation cannot then say, "You must appeal to your State." If the citizen must appeal to the State for redress, then the citizen should defend the State and not the General Government, and the doctrine of State Rights then becomes complete.

--_The National Republican_, Washington, D. C., October 17, 1883.

JUSTICE HARLAN AND THE CIVIL RIGHTS BILL.

_Question_. What do you think of Justice Harlan's dissenting opinion in the Civil Rights case?

_Answer_. I have just read it and think it admirable in every respect. It is unanswerable. He has given to words their natural meaning. He has recognized the intention of the framers of the recent amendments. There is nothing in this opinion that is strained, insincere, or artificial. It is frank and manly. It is solid masonry, without crack or flaw. He does not resort to legal paint or putty, or to verbal varnish or veneer. He states the position of his brethren of the bench with perfect fairness, and overturns it with perfect ease. He has drawn an instructive parallel between the decisions of the olden time, upholding the power of Congress to deal with individuals in the interests of slavery, and the power conferred on Congress by the recent amendments. He has shown by the old decisions, that when a duty is enjoined upon Congress, ability to perform it is given; that when a certain end is required, all necessary means are granted. He also shows that the Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and of 1850, rested entirely upon the implied power of Congress to enforce a master's rights; and that power was once implied in favor of slavery against human rights, and implied from language shadowy, feeble and uncertain when compared with the language of the recent amendments. He has shown, too, that Congress exercised the utmost ingenuity in devising laws to enforce the master's claim. Implication was held ample to deprive a human being of his liberty, but to secure freedom, the doctrine of implication is abandoned. As a foundation for wrong, implication was their rock. As a foundation for right, it is now sand. Implied power then was sufficient to enslave, while power expressly given is now impotent to protect.

_Question_. What do you think of the use he has made of the Dred Scott decision?

_Answer_. Well, I think he has shown conclusively that the present decision, under the present circ.u.mstances, is far worse than the Dred Scott decision was under the then circ.u.mstances. The Dred Scott decision was a libel upon the best men of the Revolutionary period. That decision a.s.serted broadly that our forefathers regarded the negroes as having no rights which white men were bound to respect; that the negroes were merely merchandise, and that that opinion was fixed and universal in the civilized portion of the white race, and that no one thought of disputing it. Yet Franklin contended that slavery might be abolished under the preamble of the Const.i.tution. Thomas Jefferson said that if the slave should rise to cut the throat of his master, G.o.d had no attribute that would side against the slave. Thomas Paine attacked the inst.i.tution with all the intensity and pa.s.sion of his nature. John Adams regarded the inst.i.tution with horror. So did every civilized man, South and North.

Justice Harlan shows conclusively that the Thirteenth Amendment was adopted in the light of the Dred Scott decision; that it overturned and destroyed, not simply the decision, but the reasoning upon which it was based; that it proceeded upon the ground that the colored people had rights that white men were bound to respect, not only, but that the Nation was bound to protect. He takes the ground that the amendment was suggested by the condition of that race, which had been declared by the Supreme Court of the United States to have no rights which white men were bound to respect; that it was made to protect people whose rights had been invaded, and whose strong arms had a.s.sisted in the overthrow of the Rebellion; that it was made for the purpose of putting these men upon a legal authority with white citizens.

Justice Harland also shows that while legislation of Congress to enforce a master's right was upheld by implication, the rights of the negro do not depend upon that doctrine; that the Thirteenth Amendment does not rest upon implication, or upon inference; that by its terms it places the power in Congress beyond the possibility of a doubt--conferring the power to enforce the amendment by appropriate legislation in express terms; and he also shows that the Supreme Court has admitted that legislation for that purpose may be direct and primary. Had not the power been given in express terms, Justice Harlan contends that the sweeping declaration that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist would by implication confer the power. He also shows conclusively that, under the Thirteenth Amendment, Congress has the right by appropriate legislation to protect the colored people against the deprivation of any right on account of their race, and that Congress is not necessarily restricted, under the Thirteenth Amendment, to legislation against slavery as an inst.i.tution, but that power may be exerted to the extent of protecting the race from discrimination in respect to such rights as belong to freemen, where such discrimination is based on race or color.

If Justice Harlan is wrong the amendments are left without force and Congress without power. No purpose can be a.s.signed for their adoption. No object can be guessed that was to be accomplished.

They become words, so arranged that they sound like sense, but when examined fall meaninglessly apart. Under the decision of the Supreme Court they are Quaker cannon--cloud forts--"property" for political stage scenery--coats of mail made of bronzed paper-- shields of gilded pasteboard--swords of lath.