distinction. Because the new State acquires Federal rights, it is not,
therefore, in this Union. The Union is a compact; and is it an equal
party to that compact, because it has equal Federal rights?
How is the Union formed? By equal contributions of power. Make one
member sacrifice more than another, and it becomes unequal. The compact
is of two parts:
1. The thing obtained--Federal rights. 2. The price paid--local
sovereignty.
You may disturb the balance of the Union, either by diminishing the
thing acquired, or increasing the sacrifice paid.
What were the purposes of coming into the Union among the original
States? The States were originally sovereign without limit, as to
foreign and domestic concerns. But being incapable of protecting
themselves singly, they entered into the Union to defend themselves
against foreign violence. The domestic concerns of the people were not,
in general, to be acted on by it. The security of the power, of managing
them by domestic legislature, is one of the great objects of the Union.
The Union is a means, not an end. By requiring greater sacrifices
of domestic power, the end is sacrificed to the means. Suppose the
surrender of all, or nearly all, the domestic powers of legislation were
required; the means would there have swallowed up the end.
The argument that the compact may be enforced, shows that the Federal
predicament changed. The power of the Union not only acts on persons or
citizens, but on the faculty of the government, and restrains it in a
way which the Constitution nowhere authorizes. This new obligation takes
away a right which is expressly "reserved to the people or the States,"
since it is nowhere granted to the government of the Union. You cannot
do indirectly what you cannot do directly. It is said that this Union
is competent to make compacts. Who doubts it? But can you make this
compact? I insist that you cannot make it, because it is repugnant to
the thing to be done.
The effect of such a compact would be to produce that inequality in the
Union, to which the Constitution, in all its provisions, is adverse.
Everything in it looks to equality among the members of the Union. Under
it you cannot produce inequality. Nor can you get before-hand of the
Constitution, and do it by anticipation. Wait until a State is in the
Union, and you cannot do it; yet it is only upon the State in the Union
that what you do begins to act.
But it seems that, although the proposed restrictions may not be
justified by the clause of the Constitution which gives power to admit
new States into the Union, separately considered, there are other parts
of the Constitution which, combined with that clause, will warrant it.
And first, we are informed that there is a clause in this instrument
which declares that Congress shall guarantee to every State a republican
form of government; that slavery and such a form of government are
incompatible; and, finally, as a conclusion from these premises, that
Congress not only have a right, but are bound to exclude slavery from a
new State. Here again, sir, there is an edifying inconsistency between
the argument and the measure which it professes to vindicate. By the
argument it is maintained that Missouri cannot have a republican form of
government, and at the same time tolerate negro slavery. By the measure
it is admitted that Missouri may tolerate slavery, as to persons already
in bondage there, and be nevertheless fit to be received into the Union.
What sort of constitutional mandate is this which can thus be made
to bend and truckle and compromise as if it were a simple rule of
expediency that might admit of exceptions upon motives of countervailing
expediency. There can be no such pliancy in the peremptory provisions of
the Constitution. They cannot be obeyed by moieties and violated in the
same ratio. They must be followed out to their full extent, or treated
with that decent neglect which has at least the merit of forbearing to
render contumacy obtrusive by an ostentatious display of the very duty
which we in part abandon. If the decalogue could be observed in this
casuistical manner, we might be grievous sinners, and yet be liable to
no reproach. We might persist in all our habitual irregularities,
and still be spotless. We might, for example, continue to covet our
neighbors' goods, provided they were the same neighbors whose goods we
had before coveted--and so of all the other commandments.
Will the gentlemen tell us that it is the quantity of slaves, not the
quality of slavery, which takes from a government the republican
form? Will they tell us (for they have not yet told us) that there are
constitutional grounds (to say nothing of common sense) upon which the
slavery which now exists in Missouri may be reconciled with a republican
form of government, while any addition to the number of its slaves (the
quality of slavery remaining the same) from the other States, will
be repugnant to that form, and metamorphose it into some nondescript
government disowned by the Constitution? They cannot have recourse to
the treaty of 1803 for such a distinction, since independently of what I
have before observed on that head, the gentlemen have contended that the
treaty has nothing to do with the matter.
They have cut themselves off from all chance of a convenient distinction
in or out of that treaty, by insisting that slavery beyond the old
United States is rejected by the Constitution, and by the law of God
as discoverable by the aid of either reason or revelation; and moreover
that the treaty does not include the case, and if it did could not make
it better. They have, therefore, completely discredited their own theory
by their own practice, and left us no theory worthy of being seriously
controverted. This peculiarity in reasoning of giving out a universal
principle, and coupling with it a practical concession that it is wholly
fallacious, has indeed run through the greater part of the arguments
on the other side; but it is not, as I think, the more imposing on that
account, or the less liable to the criticism which I have here bestowed
upon it.
* * * * *
But let us proceed to take a rapid glance at the reasons which have been
assigned for this notion that involuntary servitude and a republican
form of government are perfect antipathies. The gentleman from New
Hampshire has defined a republican government to be that in which all
the men participate in its power and privileges; from whence it follows
that where there are slaves, it can have no existence. A definition is
no proof, however, and even if it be dignified (as I think it was) with
the name of a maxim, the matter is not much mended. It is Lord Bacon
who says "That nothing is so easily made as a maxim"; and certainly a
definition is manufactured with equal facility. A political maxim is
the work of induction, and cannot stand against experience, or stand on
anything but experience. But this maxim, or definition, or whatever else
it may be, sets facts at defiance. If you go back to antiquity, you will
obtain no countenance for this hypothesis; and if you look at home you
will gain still less. I have read that Sparta, and Rome, and Athens, and
many others of the ancient family, were republics. They were so in form
undoubtedly--the last approaching nearer to a perfect democracy than any
other government which has yet been known in the world. Judging of
them also by their fruits, they were of the highest order of republics.
Sparta could scarcely be any other than a republic, when a Spartan
matron could say to her son just marching to battle, "Return victorious,
or return no more."
It was the unconquerable spirit of liberty, nurtured by republican
habits and institutions, that illustrated the pass of Thermopylae. Yet
slavery was not only tolerated in Sparta, but was established by one
of the fundamental laws of Lycurgus, having for its object the
encouragement of that very spirit. Attica was full of slaves--yet the
love of liberty was its characteristic. What else was it that foiled the
whole power of Persia at Marathon and Salamis? What other soil than that
which the genial sun of republican freedom illuminated and warmed,
could have produced such men as Leonidas and Miltiades, Themistocles and
Epaminondas? Of Rome it would be superfluous to speak at large. It is
sufficient to name the mighty mistress of the world, before Sylla gave
the first stab to her liberties and the great dictator accomplished
their final ruin, to be reminded of the practicability of union between
civil slavery and an ardent love of liberty cherished by republican
establishments.
If we return home for instruction upon this point, we perceive that same
union exemplified in many a State, in which "Liberty has a temple in
every house, an altar in every heart," while involuntary servitude is
seen in every direction.
Is it denied that those States possess a republican form of government?
If it is, why does our power of correction sleep? Why is the
constitutional guaranty suffered to be inactive? Why am I permitted to
fatigue you, as the representative of a slaveholding State, with the
discussion of the "_nugae canorae_" (for so I think them) that have been
forced into this debate contrary to all the remonstrances of taste
and prudence? Do gentlemen perceive the consequences to which their
arguments must lead if they are of any value? Do they reflect that they
lead to emancipation in the old United States--or to an exclusion of
Delaware, Maryland, and all the South, and a great portion of the West
from the Union? My honorable friend from Virginia has no business here,
if this disorganizing creed be anything but the production of a heated
brain. The State to which I belong, must "perform a lustration"--must
purge and purify herself from the feculence of civil slavery, and
emulate the States of the North in their zeal for throwing down the
gloomy idol which we are said to worship, before her senators can have
any title to appear in this high assembly. It will be in vain to urge
that the old United States are exceptions to the rule--or rather (as the
gentlemen express it), that they have no disposition to apply the rule
to them. There can be no exceptions by implication only, to such a
rule; and expressions which justify the exemption of the old States
by inference, will justify the like exemption of Missouri, unless they
point exclusively to them, as I have shown they do not. The guarded
manner, too, in which some of the gentlemen have occasionally expressed
themselves on this subject, is somewhat alarming. They have no
disposition to meddle with slavery in the old United States. Perhaps
not--but who shall answer for their successors? Who shall furnish a
pledge that the principle once ingrafted into the Constitution, will not
grow, and spread, and fructify, and overshadow the whole land? It is the
natural office of such a principle to wrestle with slavery, wheresoever
it finds it. New States, colonized by the apostles of this principle,
will enable it to set on foot a fanatical crusade against all who still
continue to tolerate it, although no practicable means are pointed out
by which they can get rid of it consistently with their own safety. At
any rate, a present forbearing disposition, in a few or in many, is not
a security upon which much reliance can be placed upon a subject as to
which so many selfish interests and ardent feelings are connected with
the cold calculations of policy. Admitting, however, that the old United
States are in no danger from this principle--why is it so? There can be
no other answer (which these zealous enemies of slavery can use) than
that the Constitution recognizes slavery as existing or capable of
existing in those States. The Constitution, then, admits that slavery
and a republican form of government are not incongruous. It associates
and binds them up together and repudiates this wild imagination which
the gentlemen have pressed upon us with such an air of triumph. But the
Constitution does more, as I have heretofore proved. It concedes that
slavery may exist in a new State, as well as in an old one--since the
language in which it recognizes slavery comprehends new States as well
as actual. I trust then that I shall be forgiven if I suggest, that no
eccentricity in argument can be more trying to human patience, than a
formal assertion that a constitution, to which slave-holding States were
the most numerous parties, in which slaves are treated as property
as well as persons, and provision is made for the security of that
property, and even for an augmentation of it by a temporary importation
from Africa, with a clause commanding Congress to guarantee a republican
form of government to those very States, as well as to others,
authorizes you to determine that slavery and a republican form of
government cannot coexist.
But if a republican form of government is that in which all the men have
a share in the public power, the slave-holding States will not alone
retire from the Union. The constitutions of some of the other States do
not sanction universal suffrage, or universal eligibility. They require
citizenship, and age, and a certain amount of property, to give a title
to vote or to be voted for; and they who have not those qualifications
are just as much disfranchised, with regard to the government and its
power, as if they were slaves. They have civil rights indeed (and
so have slaves in a less degree; ) but they have no share in the
government. Their province is to obey the laws, not to assist in making
them. All such States must therefore be forisfamiliated with Virginia
and the rest, or change their system. For the Constitution being
absolutely silent on those subjects, will afford them no protection. The
Union might thus be reduced from an Union to an unit. Who does not see
that such conclusions flow from false notions--that the true theory of a
republican government is mistaken--and that in such a government rights,
political and civil, may be qualified by the fundamental law, upon such
inducements as the freemen of the country deem sufficient? That civil
rights may be qualified as well as political, is proved by a
thousand examples. Minors, resident aliens, who are in a course of
naturalization--the other sex, whether maids, or wives, or widows,
furnish sufficient practical proofs of this.
* * * * *
We are next invited to study that clause of the Constitution which
relates to the migration or importation, before the year 1808, of such
persons as any of the States then existing should think proper to admit.
It runs thus: "The migration or importation of such persons as any
of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be
prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred
and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation not
exceeding ten dollars for each person."
It is said that this clause empowers Congress, after the year 1808,
to prohibit the passage of slaves from State to State, and the word
"migration" is relied upon for that purpose.
* * * * *
Whatever may be the latitude in which the word "persons" is capable of
being received, it is not denied that the word "importation" indicates
a bringing in from a jurisdiction foreign to the United States. The two
termini of the importation, here spoken of, are a foreign country and
the American Union--the first the _terminus a quo_, the second the
_terminus ad quem_. The word migration stands in simple connexion with
it, and of course is left to the full influence of that connection.
The natural conclusion is, that the same termini belong to each, or, in
other words, that if the importation must be abroad, so also must be
the migration--no other termini being assigned to the one which are not
manifestly characteristic of the other. This conclusion is so obvious,
that to repel it, the word migration requires, as an appendage,
explanatory phraseology, giving to it a different beginning from that
of importation. To justify the conclusion that it was intended to mean a
removal from State to State, each within the sphere of the constitution
in which it is used, the addition of the words from one to another State
in this Union, were indispensable. By the omission of these words, the
word "migration" is compelled to take every sense of which it is fairly
susceptible from its immediate neighbor, "importation." In this view
it means a coming, as "importation" means a bringing, from a foreign
jurisdiction into the United States. That it is susceptible of this
meaning, nobody doubts. I go further. It can have no other meaning in
the place in which it is found. It is found in the Constitution of this
Union--which, when it speaks of migration as of a general concern, must
be supposed to have in view a migration into the domain which itself
embraces as a general government.
Migration, then, even if it comprehends slaves, does not mean the
removal of them from State to State, but means the coming of slaves
from places beyond their limits and their power. And if this be so, the
gentlemen gain nothing for their argument by showing that slaves were
the objects of this term.
An honorable gentleman from Rhode Island, whose speech was distinguished
for its ability, and for an admirable force of reasoning, as well to
as by the moderation and mildness of its spirit, informed us, with less
discretion than in general he exhibited, that the word "migration" was
introduced into this clause at the instance of some of the Southern
States, who wished by its instrumentality to guard against a prohibition
by Congress of the passage into those States of slaves from other
States. He has given us no authority for this supposition, and it is,
therefore, a gratuitous one. How improbable it is, a moment's reflection
will convince him. The African slave trade being open during the whole
of the time to which the entire clause in question referred, such a
purpose could scarcely be entertained; but if it had been entertained,
and there was believed to be a necessity for securing it, by a
restriction upon the power of Congress to interfere with it, is it
possible that they who deemed it important, would have contented
themselves with a vague restraint, which was calculated to operate
in almost any other manner than that which they desired? If fear and
jealousy, such as the honorable gentleman has described, had dictated
this provision, a better term than that of "migration," simple and
unqualified, and joined, too, with the word "importation," would have
been found to tranquilize those fears and satisfy that jealousy. Fear
and jealousy are watchful, and are rarely seen to accept a security
short of their object, and less rarely to shape that security, of their
own accord, in such a way as to make it no security at all. They always
seek an explicit guaranty; and that this is not such a guaranty this
debate has proved, if it has proved nothing else.
WENDELL PHILLIPS,
OF MASSACHUSETTS. (BORN 1811, DIED 1884.)
ON THE MURDER OF LOVEJOY;
FANEUIL HALL, BOSTON, DECEMBER 8, 1837
MR. CHAIRMAN:
We have met for the freest discussion of these resolutions, and the
events which gave rise to them. [Cries of "Question," "Hear him," "Go
on," "No gagging," etc.] I hope I shall be permitted to express my
surprise at the sentiments of the last speaker, surprise not only at
such sentiments from such a man, but at the applause they have received
within these walls. A comparison has been drawn between the events of
the Revolution and the tragedy at Alton. We have heard it asserted here,
in Faneuil Hall, that Great Britain had a right to tax the colonies,
and we have heard the mob at Alton, the drunken murderers of Lovejoy,
compared to those patriot fathers who threw the tea overboard! Fellow
citizens, is this Faneuil Hall doctrine? ["No, no."] The mob at Alton
were met to wrest from a citizen his just rights--met to resist the
laws. We have been told that our fathers did the same; and the glorious
mantle of Revolutionary precedent has been thrown over the mobs of our
day. To make out their title to such defence, the gentleman says that
the British Parliament had a right to tax these colonies. It is manifest
that, without this, his parallel falls to the ground, for Lovejoy
had stationed himself within constitutional bulwarks. He was not only
defending the freedom of the press, but he was under his own roof, in
arms with the sanction of the civil authority. The men who assailed him
went against and over the laws. The mob, as the gentleman terms it--mob,
forsooth! certainly we sons of the tea-spillers are a marvellously
patient generation!--the "orderly mob" which assembled in the Old
South to destroy the tea, were met to resist, not the laws, but illegal
enactions. Shame on the American who calls the tea tax and stamp act
laws! Our fathers resisted, not the King's prerogative, but the King's
usurpation. To find any other account, you must read our Revolutionary
history upside down. Our State archives are loaded with arguments
of John Adams to prove the taxes laid by the British Parliament
unconstitutional--beyond its power. It was not until this was made out
that the men of New England rushed to arms. The arguments of the Council
Chamber and the House of Representatives preceded and sanctioned the
contest. To draw the conduct of our ancestors into a precedent for mobs,
for a right to resist laws we ourselves have enacted, is an insult to
their memory. The difference between the excitements of those days and
our own, which the gentleman in kindness to the latter has overlooked,
is simply this: the men of that day went for the right, as secured
by the laws. They were the people rising to sustain the laws and
constitution of the Province. The rioters of our days go for their
own wills, right or wrong. Sir, when I heard the gentleman lay down
principles which place the murderers of Alton side by side with Otis and
Hancock, with Quincy and Adams, I thought those pictured lips [pointing
to the portraits in the Hall] would have broken into voice to rebuke the
recreant American--the slanderer of the dead. The gentleman said that he
should sink into insignificance if he dared to gainsay the principles
of these resolutions. Sir, for the sentiments he has uttered, on soil
consecrated by the prayers of Puritans and the blood of patriots, the
earth should have yawned and swallowed him up.
[By this time, the uproar in the Hall had risen so high that the speech
was suspended for a short time. Applause and counter applause, cries of
"Take that back," "Make him take back recreant," "He sha'n't go on till
he takes it back," and counter cries of "Phillips or nobody," continued
until the pleadings of well-known citizens had somewhat restored order,
when Mr. Phillips resumed.]
Fellow citizens, I cannot take back my words. Surely the
Attorney-General, so long and so well known here, needs not the aid of
your hisses against one so young as I am--my voice never before heard
within these walls!
* * * * *
I must find some fault with the statement which has been made of the
events at Alton. It has been asked why Lovejoy and his friends did not
appeal to the executive--trust their defence to the police of the city?
It has been hinted that, from hasty and ill-judged excitement, the men
within the building provoked a quarrel, and that he fell in the course
of it, one mob resisting another. Recollect, sir, that they did act with
the approbation and sanction of the Mayor. In strict truth, there was
no executive to appeal to for protection. The Mayor acknowledged that
he could not protect them. They asked him if it was lawful for them to
defend themselves. He told them it was, and sanctioned their assembling
in arms to do so. They were not, then, a mob; they were not merely
citizens defending their own property; they were in some sense the
_posse comitatus_, adopted for the occasion into the police of the city,
acting under the order of a magistrate. It was civil authority resisting
lawless violence. Where, then, was the imprudence? Is the doctrine to
be sustained here that it is imprudent for men to aid magistrates in
executing the laws?