Sir, I protest against the question instead of answering it. Lovejoy did
not resist, in the sense they mean. He did not throw himself back on the
natural right of self-defence. He did not cry anarchy, and let slip the
dogs of civil war, careless of the horrors which would follow. Sir, as
I understand this affair, it was not an individual protecting his
property; it was not one body of armed men resisting another, and making
the streets of a peaceful city run blood with their contentions. It did
not bring back the scenes in some old Italian cities, where family met
family, and faction met faction, and mutually trampled the laws under
foot. No! the men in that house were regularly enrolled, under the
sanction of the Mayor. There being no militia in Alton, about seventy
men were enrolled with the approbation of the Mayor. These relieved each
other every other night. About thirty men were in arms on the night
of the sixth, when the press was landed. The next evening, it was not
thought necessary to summon more than half that number; among these was
Lovejoy. It was, therefore, you perceive, sir, the police of the city
resisting rioters--civil government breasting itself to the shock of
lawless men.
Here is no question about the right of self-defence. It is in fact
simply this: Has the civil magistrate a right to put down a riot?
Some persons seem to imagine that anarchy existed at Alton from the
commencement of these disputes. Not at all. "No one of us," says an
eyewitness and a comrade of Lovejoy, "has taken up arms during these
disturbances but at the command of the Mayor." Anarchy did not settle
down on that devoted city till Lovejoy breathed his last. Till then the
law, represented in his person, sustained itself against its foes.
When he fell, civil authority was trampled under foot. He had "planted
himself on his constitutional rights,"--appealed to the laws,--claimed
the protection of the civil authority,--taken refuge under "the broad
shield of the Constitution. When through that he was pierced and fell,
he fell but one sufferer in a common catastrophe." He took refuge under
the banner of liberty--amid its folds; and when he fell, its glorious
stars and stripes, the emblem of free institutions, around which cluster
so many heart-stirring memories, were blotted out in the martyr's blood.
It has been stated, perhaps inadvertently, that Lovejoy or his comrades
fired first. This is denied by those who have the best means of knowing.
Guns were first fired by the mob. After being twice fired on, those
within the building consulted together and deliberately returned the
fire. But suppose they did fire first. They had a right so to do;
not only the right which every citizen has to defend himself, but the
further right which every civil officer has to resist violence. Even
if Lovejoy fired the first gun, it would not lessen his claim to our
sympathy, or destroy his title to be considered a martyr in defence of a
free press. The question now is, Did he act within the constitution and
the laws? The men who fell in State Street, on the 5th of March, 1770,
did more than Lovejoy is charged with. They were the first assailants
upon some slight quarrel, they pelted the troops with every missile
within reach. Did this bate one jot of the eulogy with which Hancock and
Warren hallowed their memory, hailing them as the first martyrs in the
cause of American liberty? If, sir, I had adopted what are called Peace
principles, I might lament the circumstances of this case. But all you
who believe as I do, in the right and duty of magistrates to execute the
laws, join with me and brand as base hypocrisy the conduct of those who
assemble year after year on the 4th of July to fight over the battles of
the Revolution, and yet "damn with faint praise" or load with obloquy,
the memory of this man who shed his blood in defence of life, liberty,
property, and the freedom of the press!
Throughout that terrible night I find nothing to regret but this, that,
within the limits of our country, civil authority should have been so
prostrated as to oblige a citizen to arm in his own defence, and to arm
in vain. The gentleman says Lovejoy was presumptuous and imprudent--he
"died as the fool dieth." And a reverend clergyman of the city tells
us that no citizen has a right to publish opinions disagreeable to the
community! If any mob follows such publication, on him rests its guilt.
He must wait, forsooth, till the people come up to it and agree with
him! This libel on liberty goes on to say that the want of right to
speak as we think is an evil inseparable from republican institutions!
If this be so, what are they worth? Welcome the despotism of the Sultan,
where one knows what he may publish and what he may not, rather than the
tyranny of this many-headed monster, the mob, where we know not what we
may do or say, till some fellow-citizen has tried it, and paid for the
lesson with his life. This clerical absurdity chooses as a check for the
abuses of the press, not the law, but the dread of a mob. By so doing,
it deprives not only the individual and the minority of their rights,
but the majority also, since the expression of their opinion may
sometime provoke disturbances from the minority. A few men may make a
mob as well as many. The majority then, have no right, as Christian men,
to utter their sentiments, if by any possibility it may lead to a mob!
Shades of Hugh Peters and John Cotton, save us from such pulpits!
Imprudent to defend the liberty of the press! Why? Because the defence
was unsuccessful? Does success gild crime into patriotism, and the want
of it change heroic self-devotion to imprudence? Was Hampden imprudent
when he drew the sword and threw away the scabbard? Yet he, judged by
that single hour, was unsuccessful. After a short exile, the race he
hated sat again upon the throne.
Imagine yourself present when the first news of Bunker Hill battle
reached a New England town. The tale would have run thus: "The patriots
are routed,--the redcoats victorious, Warren lies dead upon the field."
With what scorn would that Tory have been received, who should have
charged Warren with imprudence! who should have said that, bred a
physician, he was "out of place" in that battle, and "died as the fool
dieth." How would the intimation have been received, that Warren and his
associates should have merited a better time? But if success be indeed
the only criterion of prudence, _Respice finem_,--wait till the end!
_Presumptuous_ to assert the freedom of the press on American ground! Is
the assertion of such freedom before the age? So much before the age as
to leave one no right to make it because it displeases the community?
Who invents this libel on his country? It is this very thing which
entitles Lovejoy to greater praise. The disputed right which provoked
the Revolution--taxation without representation--is far beneath that
for which he died. [Here there was a general expression of strong
disapprobation.] One word, gentlemen. As much as thought is better than
money, so much is the cause in which Lovejoy died nobler than a mere
question of taxes. James Otis thundered in this hall when the King did
but touch his pocket. Imagine, if you can, his indignant eloquence had
England offered to put a gag upon his lips. The question that stirred
the Revolution touched our civil interests. This concerns us not only as
citizens, but as immortal beings. Wrapped up in its fate, saved or lost
with it, are not only the voice of the statesman, but the instructions
of the pulpit and the progress of our faith.
The clergy, "marvellously out of place" where free speech is battled
for--liberty of speech on national sins! Does the gentleman remember
that freedom to preach was first gained, dragging in its train freedom
to print? I thank the clergy here present, as I reverence their
predecessors, who did not so far forget their country in their immediate
profession as to deem it duty to separate themselves from the struggle
of '76--the Mayhews and Coopers, who remembered that they were citizens
before they were clergymen.
Mr. Chairman, from the bottom of my heart I thank that brave little band
at Alton for resisting. We must remember that Lovejoy had fled from city
to city,--suffered the destruction of three presses patiently. At length
he took counsel with friends, men of character, of tried integrity, of
wide views, of Christian principle. They thought the crisis had come; it
was full time to assert the laws. They saw around them, not a community
like our own, of fixed habits, of character moulded and settled, but one
"in the gristle, not yet hardened into the bone of manhood." The
people there, children of our older States, seem to have forgotten the
blood-tried principles of their fathers the moment they lost sight
of our New England hills. Something was to be done to show them the
priceless value of the freedom of the press, to bring back and set right
their wandering and confused ideas. He and his advisers looked out on
a community, staggering like a drunken man, indifferent to their rights
and confused in their feelings. Deaf to argument, haply they might
be stunned into sobriety. They saw that of which we cannot judge, the
necessity of resistance. Insulted law called for it. Public opinion,
fast hastening on the downward course, must be arrested.
Does not the event show they judged rightly? Absorbed in a thousand
trifles, how has the nation all at once come to a stand? Men begin, as
in 1776 and 1640, to discuss principles, to weigh characters, to find
out where they are. Haply we may awake before we are borne over the
precipice.
I am glad, sir, to see this crowded house, It is good for us to be here.
When Liberty is in danger Faneuil Hall has the right, it is her duty, to
strike the key-note for these United States. I am glad, for one reason,
that remarks such as those to which I have alluded have been uttered
here. The passage of these resolutions, in spite of this opposition,
led by the Attorney-General of the Commonwealth, will show more clearly,
more decisively, the deep indignation with which Boston regards this
outrage.
[Illustration: John Q. Adams]
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS,
OF MASSACHUSETTS. (BORN 1767, DIED 1848.)
ON THE CONSTITUTIONAL WAR POWER OVER SLAVERY
--HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, MAY 25, 1836.
There are, then, Mr. Chairman, in the authority of Congress and of the
Executive, two classes of powers, altogether different in their nature,
and often incompatible with each other--the war power and the peace
power. The peace power is limited by regulations and restricted by
provisions, prescribed within the constitution itself. The war power is
limited only by the laws and usages of nations. The power is tremendous;
it is strictly constitutional, but it breaks down every barrier so
anxiously erected for the protection of liberty, of property, and
of life. This, sir, is the power which authorizes you to pass the
resolution now before you, and, in my opinion, there is no other.
And this, sir, is the reason which I was not permitted to give this
morning for voting with only eight associates against the first
resolution reported by the committee on the abolition petitions; not one
word of discussion had been permitted on either of those resolutions.
When called to vote upon the first of them, I asked only five minutes of
the time of the House to prove that it was utterly unfounded, It was not
the pleasure of the House to grant me those five minutes. Sir, I must
say that, in all the proceedings of the House upon that report, from the
previous question, moved and inflexibly persisted in by a member of
the committee itself which reported the resolutions, (Mr. Owens, of
Georgia,) to the refusal of the Speaker, sustained by the majority of
the House, to permit the other gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Glascock) to
record upon the journal his reasons for asking to be excused from voting
on that same resolution, the freedom of debate has been stifled in this
House to a degree far beyond any thing that ever happened since
the existence of the Constitution of the United States; nor is it a
consolatory reflection to me how intensely we have been made to feel,
in the process of that operation, that the Speaker of this House is a
slaveholder. And, sir, as I was not then permitted to assign my reasons
for voting against that resolution before I gave the vote, I rejoice
that the reason for which I shall vote for the resolution now before the
committee is identically the same with that for which I voted against
that.
[Mr. Adams at this, and at many other passages of this speech, was
interrupted by calls to order. The Chairman of the Committee (Mr. A. H.
Shepperd, of North Carolina,) in every instance, decided that he was not
out of order, but at this passage intimated that he was approaching
very close upon its borders; upon which Mr. Adams said, "Then I am to
under-stand, sir, that I am yet within the bounds of order, but that I
may transcend them hereafter."]
* * * * *
And, now, sir, am I to be disconcerted and silenced, or admonished by
the Chair that I am approaching to irrelevant matter, which may warrant
him to arrest me in my argument, because I say that the reason for which
I shall vote for the resolution now before the committee, levying a
heavy contribution upon the property of my constituents, is identically
the same with the reason for which I voted against the resolution
reported by the slavery committee, that Congress have no authority to
interfere, in any way, with slavery in any of the States of this Union.
Sir, I was not allowed to give my reasons for that vote, and a majority
of my constituents, perhaps proportionately as large as that of this
House in favor of that resolution, may and probably will disapprove my
vote against, unless my reasons for so voting should be explained to
them. I asked but five minutes of the House to give those reasons, and
was refused. I shall, therefore, take the liberty to give them now, as
they are strictly applicable to the measure now before the Committee,
and are my only justification for voting in favor of this resolution.
I return, then, to my first position, that there are two classes of
powers vested by the Constitution of the United States in their Congress
and Executive Government: the powers to be exercised in the time of
peace, and the powers incidental to war. That the powers of peace are
limited by provisions within the body of the Constitution itself, but
that the powers of war are limited and regulated only by the laws and
usages of nations. There are, indeed, powers of peace conferred upon
Congress, which also come within the scope and jurisdiction of the laws
of nations, such as the negotiation of treaties of amity and commerce,
the interchange of public ministers and consuls, and all the personal
and social intercourse between the individual inhabitants of the United
States and foreign nations, and the Indian tribes, which require the
interposition of any law. But the powers of war are all regulated by the
laws of nations, and are subject to no other limitation. It is by this
power that I am justified in voting the money of my constituents for
the immediate relief of their fellow-citizens suffering with extreme
necessity even for subsistence, by the direct consequence of an
Indian war. Upon the same principle, your consuls in foreign ports are
authorized to provide for the subsistence of seamen in distress, and
even for their passage to their own country.
And it was upon that same principle that I voted against the
resolution reported by the slavery committee, "That Congress possess no
constitutional authority to interfere, in any way, with the institution
of slavery in any of the States of this confederacy," to which
resolution most of those with whom I usually concur, and even my own
colleagues in this House, gave their assent. I do not admit that there
is even among the peace powers of Congress no such authority; but in war
there are many ways by which Congress not only have the authority, but
are bound to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States.
The existing law prohibiting the importation of slaves into the United
States from foreign countries, is itself an interference with the
institution of slavery in the States. It was so considered by the
founders of the Constitution of the United States, in which it was
stipulated that Congress should not interfere, in that way, with the
institution, prior to the year 1808.
During the late war with Great Britain the military and naval commanders
of that nation issued proclamations inviting the slaves to repair to
their standards, with promises of freedom and of settlement in some of
the British colonial establishments. This, surely, was an interference
with the institution of slavery in the States. By the treaty of peace,
Great Britain stipulated to evacuate all the forts and places in the
United States, without carrying away any slaves. If the Government of
the United States had no authority to interfere, in any way, with
the institution of slavery in the States, they would not have had
the authority to require this stipulation. It is well known that
this engagement was not fulfilled by the British naval and military
commanders; that, on the contrary, they did carry away all the slaves
whom they had induced to join them, and that the British Government
inflexibly refused to restore any of them to their masters; that a claim
of indemnity was consequently instituted in behalf of the owners of the
slaves, and was successfully maintained. All that series of transactions
was an interference by Congress with the institution of slavery in the
States in one way--in the way of protection and support. It was by the
institution of slavery alone that the restitution of slaves enticed by
proclamations into the British service could be claimed as property.
But for the institution of slavery, the British commanders could neither
have allured them to their standard, nor restored them otherwise than
as liberated prisoners of war. But for the institution of slavery, there
could have been no stipulation that they should not be carried away
as property, nor any claim of indemnity for the violation of that
engagement.
But the war power of Congress over the institution of slavery in the
States is yet far more extensive. Suppose the case of a servile war,
complicated, as to some extent it is even now, with an Indian war;
suppose Congress were called to raise armies, to supply money from the
whole Union, to suppress a servile insurrection: would they have no
authority to interfere with the institution of slavery? The issue of a
servile war may be disastrous. By war the slave may emancipate himself;
it may become necessary for the master to recognize his emancipation by
a treaty of peace; can it for an instant be pretended that Congress,
in such a contingency, would have no authority to interfere with the
institution of slavery, in any way, in the States? Why, it would be
equivalent to saying that Congress have no constitutional authority to
make peace.
[Illustration: John C. Calhoun]
JOHN C. CALHOUN,
OF SOUTh CAROLINA (BORN 1782, DIED 1850.)
ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION,
SENATE, MARCH 4, 1850
I have, Senators, believed from the first that the agitation of the
subject of slavery would, if not prevented by some timely and effective
measure, end in disunion. Entertaining this opinion, I have, on all
proper occasions, endeavored to call the attention of both the two great
parties which divide the country to adopt some measure to prevent so
great a disaster, but without success. The agitation has been permitted
to proceed, with almost no attempt to resist it, until it has reached a
point when it can no longer be disguised or denied that the Union is in
danger. You have thus had forced upon you the greatest and the gravest
question that can ever come under your consideration: How can the Union
be preserved?
To give a satisfactory answer to this mighty question, it is
indispensable to have an accurate and thorough knowledge of the nature
and the character of the cause by which the Union is endangered. Without
such knowledge it is impossible to pronounce, with any certainty, by
what measure it can be saved; just as it would be impossible for a
physician to pronounce, in the case of some dangerous disease, with any
certainty, by what remedy the patient could be saved, without similar
knowledge of the nature and character of the cause which produced
it. The first question, then, presented for consideration, in the
investigation I propose to make, in order to obtain such knowledge, is:
What is it that has endangered the Union?
To this question there can be but one answer: That the immediate
cause is the almost universal discontent which pervades all the States
composing the southern section of the Union. This widely-extended
discontent is not of recent origin. It commenced with the agitation
of the slavery question, and has been increasing ever since. The
next question, going one step further back, is: What has caused this
widely-diffused and almost universal discontent?
It is a great mistake to suppose, as is by some, that it originated
with demagogues, who excited the discontent with the intention of aiding
their personal advancement, or with the disappointed ambition of certain
politicians, who resorted to it as a means of retrieving their fortunes.
On the contrary, all the great political influences of the section were
arrayed against excitement, and exerted to the utmost to keep the people
quiet. The great mass of the people of the South were divided, as in the
other section, into Whigs and Democrats. The leaders and the presses of
both parties in the South were very solicitous to prevent excitement and
to preserve quiet; because it was seen that the effects of the former
would necessarily tend to weaken, if not destroy, the political ties
which united them with their respective parties in the other section.
Those who know the strength of the party ties will readily appreciate
the immense force which this cause exerted against agitation, and in
favor of preserving quiet. But, great as it was, it was not sufficient
to prevent the wide-spread discontent which now pervades the section.
No; some cause, far deeper and more powerful than the one supposed, must
exist, to account for discontent so wide and deep. The question then
recurs: What is the cause of this discontent? It will be found in
the belief of the people of the Southern States, as prevalent as
the discontent itself, that they cannot remain, as things now are,
consistently with honor and safety, in the Union. The next question to
be considered is: What has caused this belief?
One of the causes is, undoubtedly, to be traced to the long-continued
agitation of the slavery question on the part of the North, and the many
aggressions which they have made on the rights of the South during the
time. I will not enumerate them at present, as it will be done hereafter
in its proper place.
There is another lying back of it--with which this is intimately
connected--that may be regarded as the great and primary cause. This is
to be found in the fact, that the equilibrium between the two sections,
in the Government as it stood when the Constitution was ratified and
the Government put in action, has been destroyed. At that time there was
nearly a perfect equilibrium between the two, which afforded ample means
to each to protect itself against the aggression of the other; but, as
it now stands, one section has the exclusive power of controlling
the Government, which leaves the other without any adequate means of
protecting itself against its encroachment and oppression. To place
this subject distinctly before you, I have, Senators, prepared a brief
statistical statement, showing the relative weight of the two sections
in the Government under the first census of 1790, and the last census of
1840.