does, indeed, mean any thing or nothing. Our people will not submit to
be taxed for this war of conquest and dominion. The government of the
United States was not calculated to wage offensive foreign war; it was
instituted for the common defence and the general welfare; and whosoever
should embark it in a war of offence, would put it to a test which it is
by no means calculated to endure. Make it out that Great Britain has
instigated the Indians on a late occasion, and I am ready for battle,
but not for dominion. I am unwilling, however, under present
circumstances, to take Canada, at the risk of the Constitution, to
embark in a common cause with France, and be dragged at the wheels of
the car of some Burr or Bonaparte. For a gentleman from Tennessee, or
Genesee, or Lake Champlain, there may be some prospect of advantage.
Their hemp would bear a great price by the exclusion of foreign supply.
In that, too, the great importers are deeply interested. The upper
country of the Hudson and the lakes would be enriched by the supplies
for the troops, which they alone could furnish. They would have the
exclusive market; to say nothing of the increased preponderance from the
acquisition of Canada and that section of the Union, which the Southern
and Western States have already felt so severely in the Apportionment
bill. * * *
Permit me now, sir, to call your attention to the subject of our black
population. I will touch this subject as tenderly as possible. It is
with reluctance that I touch it at all; but in cases of great emergency,
the State physician must not be deterred by a sickly, hysterical
humanity, from probing the wound of his patient; he must not be withheld
by a fastidious and mistaken delicacy from representing his true
situation to his friends, or even to the sick man himself, when the
occasion calls for it. What is the situation of the slave-holding
States? During the war of the Revolution, so fixed were their habits of
subordination, that while the whole country was overrun by the enemy,
who invited them to desert, no fear was ever entertained of an
insurrection of the slaves. During a war of seven years, with our
country in possession of the enemy, no such danger was ever apprehended.
But should we, therefore, be unobservant spectators of the progress of
society within the last twenty years; of the silent but powerful change
wrought, by time and chance, upon its composition and temper? When the
fountains of the great deep of abomination were broken up, even the poor
slaves did not escape the general deluge. The French Revolution has
polluted even them. * * *
Men, dead to the operation of moral causes, have taken away from the
poor slave his habit of loyalty and obedience to his master, which
lightened his servitude by a double operation; beguiling his own cares
and disarming his master's suspicions and severity; and now, like true
empirics in politics, you are called upon to trust to the mere physical
strength of the fetter which holds him in bondage. You have deprived him
of all moral restraint; you have tempted him to eat of the fruit of the
tree of knowledge, just enough to perfect him in wickedness; you have
opened his eyes to his nakedness; you have armed his nature against the
hand that has fed, that has clothed him, that has cherished him in
sickness; that hand which before he became a pupil of your school, he
had been accustomed to press with respectful affection. You have done
all this--and then show him the gibbet and the wheel, as incentives to a
sullen, repugnant obedience. God forbid, sir, that the Southern States
should ever see an enemy on their shores, with these infernal principles
of French fraternity in the van. While talking of taking Canada, some of
us are shuddering for our own safety at home. I speak from facts, when I
say, that the night-bell never tolls for fire in Richmond, that the
mother does not hug her infant more closely to her bosom. I have been a
witness of some of the alarms in the capital of Virginia. * * *
Against whom are these charges brought? Against men, who in the war of
the Revolution were in the councils of the nation, or fighting the
battles of your country. And by whom are they made? By runaways chiefly
from the British dominions, since the breaking out of the French
troubles. It is insufferable. It cannot be borne. It must and ought,
with severity, to be put down in this House; and out of it to meet the
lie direct. We have no fellow-feeling for the suffering and oppressed
Spaniards! Yet even them we do not reprobate. Strange! that we should
have no objection to any other people or government, civilized or
savage, in the whole world! The great autocrat of all the Russias
receives the homage of our high consideration. The Dey of Algiers and
his divan of pirates are very civil, good sort of people, with whom we
find no difficulty in maintaining the relations of peace and amity.
"Turks, Jews, and infidels"; Melimelli or the Little Turtle; barbarians
and savages of every clime and color, are welcome to our arms. With
chiefs of banditti, negro or mulatto, we can treat and trade. Name,
however, but England, and all our antipathies are up in arms against
her. Against whom? Against those whose blood runs in our veins; in
common with whom, we claim Shakespeare, and Newton, and Chatham, for our
countrymen; whose form of government is the freest on earth, our own
only excepted; from whom every valuable principle of our own
institutions has been borrowed: representation, jury trial, voting the
supplies, writ of habeas corpus, our whole civil and criminal
jurisprudence; against our fellow Protestants, identified in blood, in
language, in religion, with ourselves. In what school did the worthies
of our land, the Washingtons, Henrys, Hancocks, Franklins, Rutledges of
America, learn those principles of civil liberty which were so nobly
asserted by their wisdom and valor? American resistance to British
usurpation has not been more warmly cherished by these great men and
their compatriots; not more by Washington, Hancock, and Henry, than by
Chatham and his illustrious associates in the British Parliament. It
ought to be remembered, too, that the heart of the English people was
with us. It was a selfish and corrupt ministry, and their servile tools,
to whom we were not more opposed than they were. I trust that none such
may ever exist among us; for tools will never be wanting to subserve the
purposes, however ruinous or wicked, of kings and ministers of state. I
acknowledge the influence of a Shakespeare and a Milton upon my
imagination, of a Locke upon my understanding, of a Sidney upon my
political principles, of a Chatham upon qualities which, would to God I
possessed in common with that illustrious man! of a Tillotson, a
Sherlock, and a Porteus upon my religion. This is a British influence
which I can never shake off. I allow much to the just and honest
prejudices growing out of the Revolution. But by whom have they been
suppressed, when they ran counter to the interests of my country? By
Washington. By whom, would you listen to them, are they most keenly
felt? By felons escaped from the jails of Paris, Newgate, and
Kilmainham, since the breaking out of the French Revolution; who, in
this abused and insulted country, have set up for political teachers,
and whose disciples give no other proof of their progress in
republicanism, except a blind devotion to the most ruthless military
despotism that the world ever saw. These are the patriots, who scruple
not to brand with the epithet of Tory, the men (looking toward the seat
of Col. Stewart) by whose blood your liberties have been cemented. These
are they, who hold in such keen remembrance the outrages of the British
armies, from which many of them are deserters. Ask these self-styled
patriots where they were during the American war (for they are, for the
most part, old enough to have borne arms), and you strike them dumb;
their lips are closed in eternal silence. If it were allowable to
entertain partialities, every consideration of blood, language,
religion, and interest, would incline us toward England: and yet, shall
they alone be extended to France and her ruler, whom we are bound to
believe a chastening God suffers as the scourge of a guilty world! On
all other nations he tramples; he holds them in contempt; England alone
he hates; he would, but he cannot, despise her; fear cannot despise; and
shall we disparage our ancestors?
But the outrages and injuries of England--bred up in the principles of
the Revolution--I can never palliate, much less defend them. I well
remember flying, with my mother and her new-born child, from Arnold and
Philips; and we were driven by Tarleton and other British Pandours from
pillar to post, while her husband was fighting the battles of his
country. The impression is indelible on my memory; and yet (like my
worthy old neighbor, who added seven buckshot to every cartridge at the
battle of Guilford, and drew fine sight at his man) I must be content to
be called a Tory by a patriot of the last importation. Let us not get
rid of one evil (supposing it possible) at the expense of a greater;
_mutatis mutandis_, suppose France in possession of the British naval
power--and to her the trident must pass should England be unable to
wield it--what would be your condition? What would be the situation of
your seaports, and their seafaring inhabitants? Ask Hamburg, Lubec! Ask
Savannah! * * *
Shall republicans become the instruments of him who has effaced the
title of Attila to the "scourge of God!" Yet, even Attila, in the
falling fortunes of civilization, had, no doubt, his advocates, his
tools, his minions, his parasites, in the very countries that he
overran; sons of that soil whereon his horse had trod; where grass could
never after grow. If perfectly fresh, instead of being as I am, my
memory clouded, my intellect stupefied, my strength and spirits
exhausted, I could not give utterance to that strong detestation which I
feel toward (above all other works of the creation) such characters as
Gengis, Tamerlane, Kouli-Khan, or Bonaparte. My instincts involuntarily
revolt at their bare idea. Malefactors of the human race, who have
ground down man to a mere machine of their impious and bloody ambition!
Yet under all the accumulated wrongs, and insults, and robberies of the
last of these chieftains, are we not, in point of fact, about to become
a party to his views, a partner in his wars? * * *
I call upon those professing to be republicans to make good the
promises, held out by their republican predecessors, when they came into
power; promises which, for years afterward, they honestly, faithfully
fulfilled. We have vaunted of paying off the national debt, of
retrenching useless establishments; and yet have now become as
infatuated with standing armies, loans, taxes, navies, and war as ever
were the Essex Junto!
ADMISSION OF LOUISIANA.
JOSIAH QUINCY,
--OF MASSACHUSETTS.' (BORN 1772, DIED 1864.)
ON THE ADMISSION OF LOUISIANA--HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JAN. 14, 1811.
MR. SPEAKER:
I address you, sir, with anxiety and distress of mind, with me, wholly
unprecedented. The friends of this bill seem to consider it as the
exercise of a common power; as an ordinary affair; a mere municipal
regulation, which they expect to see pass without other questions than
those concerning details. But, sir, the principle of this bill
materially affects the liberties and rights of the whole people of the
United States. To me it appears that it would justify a revolution in
this country; and that, in no great length of time it may produce it.
When I see the zeal and perseverance with which this bill has been urged
along its parliamentary path, when I know the local interests and
associated projects which combine to promote its success, all opposition
to it seems manifestly unavailing. I am almost tempted to leave, without
a struggle, my country to its fate. But, sir, while there is life, there
is hope. So long as the fatal shaft has not yet sped, if Heaven so will,
the bow may be broken and the vigor of the mischief-meditating arm
withered. If there be a man in this House or nation, who cherishes the
Constitution, under which we are assembled, as the chief stay of his
hope, as the light which is destined to gladden his own day, and to
soften even the gloom of the grave, by the prospects it sheds over his
children, I fall not behind him in such sentiments. I will yield to no
man in attachment to this Constitution, in veneration for the sages who
laid its foundations, in devotion to those principles which form its
cement and constitute its proportions. What then must be my feelings;
what ought to be the feelings of a man, cherishing such sentiments, when
he sees an act contemplated which lays ruin at the foot of all these
hopes? When he sees a principle of action about to be usurped, before
the operation of which the bands of this Constitution are no more than
flax before the fire, or stubble before the whirlwind? When this bill
passes, such an act is done; and such a principle is usurped.
Mr. Speaker, there is a great rule of human conduct, which he who
honestly observes, cannot err widely from the path of his sought duty.
It is, to be very scrupulous concerning the principles you select as the
test of your rights and obligations; to be very faithful in noticing the
result of their application; and to be very fearless in tracing and
exposing their immediate effects and distant consequences. Under the
sanction of this rule of conduct, I am compelled to declare it as my
deliberate opinion, that, if this bill passes, the bonds of this union
are, virtually, dissolved; that the States which compose it are free
from their moral obligations, and that as it will be the right of all,
so it will be the duty of some, to prepare, definitely, for a
separation: amicably, if they can; _violently, if they must_.
(Mr. Quincy was here called to order by Mr. Poindexter, delegate from
the Mississippi territory, for the words in italics. After it was
decided, upon an appeal to the House, that Mr. Quincy was in order, he
proceeded.)
I rejoice, Mr. Speaker, at the result of this appeal. Not from any
personal consideration, but from the respect paid to the essential
rights of the people, in one of their representatives. When I spoke of
the separation of the States, as resulting from the violation of the
Constitution contemplated in this bill, I spoke of it as a necessity,
deeply to be deprecated; but as resulting from causes so certain and
obvious as to be absolutely inevitable, when the effect of the principle
is practically experienced. It is to preserve, to guard the Constitution
of my country, that I denounce this attempt. I would rouse the attention
of gentlemen from the apathy with which they seem beset. These
observations are not made in a corner; there is no low intrigue; no
secret machination. I am on the people's own ground; to them I appeal
concerning their own rights, their own liberties, their own intent, in
adopting this Constitution. The voice I have uttered, at which gentlemen
startle with such agitation, is no unfriendly voice. I intended it as a
voice of warning. By this people, and by the event, if this bill passes,
I am willing to be judged, whether it be not a voice of wisdom.
The bill which is now proposed to be passed has this assumed principle
for its basis; that the three branches of this national government,
without recurrence to conventions of the people in the States, or to the
Legislatures of the States, are authorized to admit new partners to a
share of the political power, in countries out of the original limits of
the United States. Now, this assumed principle, I maintain to be
altogether without any sanction in the Constitution. I declare it to be
a manifest and atrocious usurpation of power; of a nature, dissolving,
according to undeniable principles of moral law, the obligations of our
national compact; and leading to all the awful con-sequences which flow
from such a state of things. Concerning this assumed principle, which is
the basis of this bill, this is the general position, on which I rest my
argument; that if the authority, now proposed to be exercised, be
delegated to the three branches of the government by virtue of the
Constitution, it results either from its general nature, or from its
particular provisions. I shall consider distinctly both these sources,
in relation to this pretended power.
Touching the general nature of the instrument called the Constitution of
the United States there is no obscurity; it has no fabled descent, like
the palladium of ancient Troy, from the heavens. Its origin is not
confused by the mists of time, or hidden by the darkness of passed,
unexplored ages; it is the fabric of our day. Some now living, had a
share in its construction; all of us stood by, and saw the rising of the
edifice. There can be no doubt about its nature. It is a political
compact. By whom? And about what? The preamble to the instrument will
answer these questions.
"We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect
union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the
common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of
liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this
Constitution, for the United States of America."
It is, we the people of the United States, for ourselves and our
posterity; not for the people of Louisiana; nor for the people of New
Orleans or of Canada. None of these enter into the scope of the
instrument; it embraces only "the United States of America." Who these
are, it may seem strange in this place to inquire. But truly, sir, our
imaginations have, of late, been so accustomed to wander after new
settlements to the very ends of the earth, that it will not be time ill
spent to inquire what this phrase means, and what it includes. These are
not terms adopted at hazard; they have reference to a state of things
existing anterior to the Constitution. When the people of the present
United States began to contemplate a severance from their parent State,
it was a long time before they fixed definitely the name by which they
would be designated. In 1774, they called themselves "the Colonies and
Provinces of North America." In 1775, "the Representatives of the United
Colonies of North America." In the Declaration of Independence, "the
Representatives of the United States of America." And finally, in the
articles of confederation, the style of the confederacy is declared to
be "the United States of America." It was with reference to the old
articles of confederation, and to preserve the identity and established
individuality of their character, that the preamble to this
Constitution, not content, simply, with declaring that it is "we the
people of the United States," who enter into this compact, adds that it
is for "the United States of America." Concerning the territory
contemplated by the people of the United States, in these general terms,
there can be no dispute; it is settled by the treaty of peace, and
included within the Atlantic Ocean, the St. Croix, the lakes, and more
precisely, so far as relates to the frontier, having relation to the
present argument, within "a line to be drawn through the middle of the
river Mississippi, until it intersect the northernmost part of the
thirty-first degree of north latitude, thence within a line drawn due
east on this degree of latitude to the river Apalachicola, thence along
the middle of this river to its junction with the Flint River, thence
straight to the head of the St. Mary's River, and thence down the St.
Mary's to the Atlantic Ocean."
I have been thus particular to draw the minds of gentlemen, distinctly,
to the meaning of the terms used in the preamble; to the extent which
"the United States" then included; and to the fact, that neither New
Orleans, nor Louisiana, was within the comprehension of the terms of
this instrument. It is sufficient for the present branch of my argument
to say, that there is nothing, in the general nature of this compact,
from which the power, contemplated to be exercised in this bill,
results. On the contrary, as the introduction of a new associate in
political power implies, necessarily, a new division of power, and
consequent diminution of the relative proportion of the former
proprietors of it, there can, certainly, be nothing more obvious, than
that from the general nature of the instrument no power can result to
diminish and give away, to strangers, any proportion of the rights of
the original partners. If such a power exist, it must be found, then, in
the particular provisions in the Constitution. The question now arising
is, in which of these provisions is given the power to admit new States,
to be created in territories beyond the limits of the old United States.
If it exist anywhere, it is either in the third section of the fourth
article of the Constitution, or in the treaty-making power. If it result
from neither of these, it is not pretended to be found anywhere else.
That part of the third section of the fourth article, on which the
advocates of this bill rely, is the following: "New States may be
admitted by the Congress, into this Union; but no new State shall be
formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other State, nor any
State be formed by the junction of two or more States, or parts of
States, without the consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned,
as well as of the Congress."
I know, Mr. Speaker, that the first clause of this paragraph has been
read, with all the superciliousness of a grammarian's triumph--"New
States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union,"--accompanied
with this most consequential inquiry: "Is not this a new State to be
admitted? And is there not here an express authority?" I have no doubt
this is a full and satisfactory argument to every one who is content
with the mere colors and superficies of things. And if we were now at
the bar of some stall-fed justice, the inquiry would insure the victory
to the maker of it, to the manifest delight of the constables and
suitors of his court. But, sir, we are now before the tribunal of the
whole American people; reasoning concerning their liberties, their
rights, their Constitution. These are not to be made the victims of the
inevitable obscurity of general terms; nor the sport of verbal
criticism. The question is concerning the intent of the American people,
the proprietors of the old United States, when they agreed to this
article. Dictionaries and spelling-books are here of no authority.
Neither Johnson, nor Walker, nor Webster, nor Dilworth, has any voice in
this matter. Sir, the question concerns the proportion of power
reserved, by this Constitution, to every State in this Union. Have the
three branches of this government a right, at will, to weaken and
out-weigh the influence, respectively secured to each State in this
compact, by introducing, at pleasure, new partners, situate beyond the
old limits of the United States? The question has not relation merely to
New Orleans. The great objection is to the principle of the bill. If
this principle be admitted, the whole space of Louisiana, greater, it is
said, than the entire extent of the old United States, will be a mighty
theatre, in which this government assumes the right of exercising this
unparalleled power. And it will be; there is no concealment, it is
intended to be exercised. Nor will it stop until the very name and
nature of the old partners be overwhelmed by new-corners into the
confederacy. Sir, the question goes to the very root of the power and
influence of the present members of this Union. The real intent of this
article, is, therefore, an injury of most serious import; and is to be
settled only by a recurrence to the known history and known relations of
this people and their Constitution. These, I maintain, support this
position, that the terms "new States," in this article, do not intend
new political sovereignties, with territorial annexations, to be created
without the original limits of the United States. * * *