Mr. Calhoun said he rose to express the pleasure he felt at the evidence
which the remarks of the Senator from Kentucky furnished, of the
progress of truth on the subject of abolition. He had spoken with strong
approbation of the principle laid down in a recent pamphlet, that two
races of different character and origin could not coexist in the same
country without the subordination of the one to the other. He was
gratified to hear the Senator give assent to so important a principle in
application to the condition of the South. He had himself, several years
since, stated the same in more specific terms: that it was impossible
for two races, so dissimilar in every respect as the European and
African that inhabit the southern portion of this Union, to exist
together in nearly equal numbers in any other relation than that which
existed there. He also added that experience had shown that they could
so exist in peace and happiness there, certainly to the great benefit of
the inferior race; and that to destroy it was to doom the latter to
destruction. But he uttered these important truths then in vain, as far
as the side to which the Senator belongs is concerned.
He trusted the progress of truth would not, however, stop at the point
to which it has arrived with the Senator, and that it will make some
progress in regard to what is called the right of petition. Never was a
right so much mystified and magnified. To listen to the discussion, here
and elsewhere, you would suppose it to be the most essential and
important right: so far from it, he undertook to aver that under our
free and popular system it was among the least of all our political
rights. It had been superseded in a great degree by the far higher right
of general suffrage, and by the practice, now so common, of instruction.
There could be no local grievance but what could be reached by these,
except it might be the grievance affecting a minority, which could be no
more redressed by petition than by them. The truth is, that the right of
petition could scarcely be said to be the right _of a freeman_. It
belongs to despotic governments more properly, and might be said to be
the last right of slaves. Who ever heard of petition in the free States
of antiquity? We had borrowed our notions in regard to it from our
British ancestors, with whom it had a value for their imperfect
representation far greater than it has with us; and it is owing to that
that it has a place at all in our Constitution. The truth is, that the
right has been so far superseded in a political point of view, that it
has ceased to be what the Constitution contemplated it to be,--a shield
to protect against wrongs; and has been perverted into a sword to attack
the rights of others--to cause a grievance instead of the means of
redressing grievances, as in the case of abolition petitions. The
Senator from Ohio [Mr. Tappan] has viewed this subject in its proper
light, and has taken a truly patriotic and constitutional stand in
refusing to present these firebrands, for which I heartily thank him in
the name of my State. Had the Senator from Kentucky followed the
example, he would have rendered inestimable service to the country....
It is useless to attempt concealment. The presentation of these
incendiary petitions is itself an infraction of the Constitution. All
acknowledge--the Senator himself--that the property which they are
presented to destroy is guaranteed by the Constitution. Now I ask: If we
have the right under the Constitution to hold the property (which none
question), have we not also the right to hold it under the same sacred
instrument _in peace and quiet_? Is it not a direct infraction then of
the Constitution, to present petitions here in the common council of the
Union, and to us, the agents appointed to carry its provisions into
effect and to guard the rights it secures, the professed aim of which is
to destroy the property guaranteed by the instrument? There can be but
one answer to these questions on the part of those who present such
petitions: that the right of such petition is higher and more sacred
than the Constitution and our oaths to preserve and to defend it. To
such monstrous results does the doctrine lead.
Sir, I understand this whole question. The great mass of both parties to
the North are opposed to abolition: the Democrats almost exclusively;
the Whigs less so. Very few are to be found in the ranks of the former;
but many in those of the latter. The only importance that the
abolitionists have is to be found in the fact that their weight may be
felt in elections; and this is no small advantage. The one party is
unwilling to lose their weight, but at the same time unwilling to be
blended with them on the main question; and hence is made this false,
absurd, unconstitutional, and dangerous collateral issue on the right of
petition. Here is the whole secret. They are willing to play the
political game at our hazard, and that of the Constitution and the
Union, for the sake of victory at the elections. But to show still more
clearly how little foundation there is in the character of our
government for the extravagant importance attached to this right, I ask
the Senator what is the true relation between the government and the
people, according to our American conception? Which is principal and
which agent? which the master and which the servant? which the sovereign
and which the subject? There can be no answer. We are but the
agents--the servants. We are not the sovereign. The sovereignty resides
in the people of the States. How little applicable, then, is this
boasted right of petition, under our system, to political questions? Who
ever heard of the principal petitioning his agent--of the master, his
servant--or of the sovereign, his subject? _The very essence of a
petition implies a request from an inferior to a superior._ It is not in
fact a natural growth of our system. It was copied from the British Bill
of Rights, and grew up among a people whose representation was very
imperfect, and where the sovereignty of the people was not recognized at
all. And yet even there, this right so much insisted on here as being
boundless as space, was restricted from the beginning by the very men
who adopted it in the British system, in the very manner which has been
done in the other branch, this session; and to an extent far beyond. The
two Houses of Parliament have again and again passed resolutions against
receiving petitions even to repeal taxes; and this, those who formed our
Constitution well knew, and yet adopted the provision almost
identically contained in the British Bill of Rights, without guarding
against the practice under it. Is not the conclusion irresistible, that
they did not deem it inconsistent with the right of "the citizens
peaceably to assemble and petition for a redress of grievance," as
secured in the Constitution? The thing is clear. It is time that the
truth should be known, and this cant about petition, not to redress the
grievances of the petitioners, but to create a grievance elsewhere, be
put down....
I know this question to the bottom. I have viewed it under every
possible aspect. There is no safety but in prompt, determined, and
uncompromising defense of our rights--to meet the danger on the
frontier. There all rights are strongest, and more especially this. The
moral is like the physical world. Nature has incrusted the exterior of
all organic life, for its safety. Let that be broken through, and it is
all weakness within. So in the moral and political world. It is on the
extreme limits of right that all wrong and encroachments are the most
sensibly felt and easily resisted. I have acted on this principle
throughout in this great contest. I took my lessons from the patriots of
the Revolution. They met wrong promptly, and defended right against the
first encroachment. To sit here and hear ourselves and constituents, and
their rights and institutions (essential to their safety), assailed from
day to day--denounced by every epithet calculated to degrade and render
us odious; and to meet all this in silence,--or still worse, to reason
with the foul slanderers,--would eventually destroy every feeling of
pride and dignity, and sink us in feelings to the condition of the
slaves they would emancipate. And this the Senator advises us to do.
Adopt it, and the two houses would be converted into halls to debate our
rights to our property, and whether, in holding it, we were not thieves,
robbers, and kidnappers; and we are to submit to this in order to quiet
the North! I tell the Senator that our Union, and our high moral tone of
feeling on this subject at the South, are infinitely more important to
us than any possible effect that his course could have at the North; and
that if we could have the weakness to adopt his advice, it would even
fail to effect the object intended.
It is proper to speak out. If this question is left to itself,
unresisted by us, it cannot but terminate fatally to us. Our safety and
honor are in the opposite direction--to take the highest ground, and
maintain it resolutely. The North will always take position below us, be
ours high or low. They will yield all that we will and something more.
If we go for rejection, they will at first insist on receiving, on the
ground of respect for petition. If we yield that point and receive
petitions, they will go for reference, on the ground that it is absurd
to receive and not to act--as it truly is. If we go for that, they will
insist on reporting and discussing; and if that, the next step will be
to make concession--to yield the point of abolition in this District;
and so on till the whole process is consummated, each succeeding step
proving more easy than its predecessor. The reason is obvious. The
abolitionists understand their game. They throw their votes to the party
most disposed to favor them. Now, sir, in the hot contest of party in
the Northern section, on which the ascendency in their several States
and the general government may depend, all the passions are roused to
the greatest height in the violent struggle, and aid sought in every
quarter. They would forget us in the heat of battle; yes, the success of
the election, for the time, would be more important than our safety;
unless we by our determined stand on our rights cause our weight to be
felt, and satisfy both parties that they have nothing to gain by
courting those who aim at our destruction. _As far as this government is
concerned, that is our only remedy._ If we yield that, if we lower our
stand to permit partisans to woo the aid of those who are striking at
our interests, we shall commence a descent in which there is no
stopping-place short of total abolition, and with it our destruction.
A word in answer to the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Webster]. He
attempted to show that the right of petition was peculiar to free
governments. So far is the assertion from being true, that it is more
appropriately the right of despotic governments; and the more so, the
more absolute and austere. So far from being peculiar or congenial to
free popular States, it degenerates under them, necessarily, into an
instrument, not of redress for the grievances of the petitioners, but as
has been remarked, of assault on the rights of others, as in this case.
That I am right in making the assertion, I put it to the Senator--Have
we not a right under the Constitution to our property in our slaves?
Would it not be a violation of the Constitution to divest us of that
right? Have we not a right to enjoy, _under the Constitution, peaceably
and quietly, our acknowledged rights guaranteed by it_, without
annoyance? The Senator assents. He does but justice to his candor and
intelligence. Now I ask him, how can he assent to receive petitions
whose object is to annoy and disturb our right, and of course in direct
infraction of the Constitution?
The Senator from Ohio [Mr. Tappan], in refusing to present these
incendiary and unconstitutional petitions, has adopted a course truly
constitutional and patriotic, and in my opinion, the only one that is
so. I deeply regret that it has not been followed by the Senator from
Kentucky in the present instance. Nothing short of it can put a stop to
the mischief, and do justice to one-half of the States of the Union. If
adopted by others, we shall soon hear no more of abolition. The
responsibility of keeping alive this agitation must rest on those who
may refuse to follow so noble an example.