power, because of our love for the Union. And is our love for the Union
always to be converted, or rather perverted, into a pro-slavery motive
of action? I join you all most cordially, I join any one, in avowing my
regard for the Union, and my resolution to stand by it. But the Union
ought to be so used as to extend, and not to abridge human welfare.
If, in order to maintain the Union, we must sacrifice all the great
objects for which the Union was formed,--the establishment of justice,
the promotion of the general welfare, and the securing of the blessings
of liberty to ourselves and our posterity,--then the Union no longer
represents a beneficent divinity but a foul Dagon, and is worthy to be
broken in pieces. A Union which must be secured by such sacrifices as
have been lately made in New York, in behalf of the so called “Union
Meeting,” abolishes the benefits it was designed to secure. Eight
thousand signatures were obtained for calling that meeting; but to
procure them, whole streets were scoured, and men were threatened with
the publication of their names, and the consequent loss of southern
custom, if they refused to join in the call. Many were obliged to pay
_hush money_ to prevent exposure. The New York idea is slavery and
free trade. Here, it is slavery and tariff. Both cities cannot get the
price of their surrender of principle.
No, fellow-citizens, the more we yield to the demands of the south in
order to save the Union, the more we may and must. Their longing eyes
are already fixed on Cuba. There is more probability and more danger
to-day that Cuba will be annexed to this government within five years,
than there was of Texan annexation five years before that event took
place. I lately said to a Louisianian, “You will soon be for making a
slave state of Cuba.” “No,” said he, “we mean to make two of that.”
Gentlemen, I have already occupied your attention too long. But I am
constrained to make a few brief remarks on a subject I would gladly
avoid. The occasion of your present meeting is known to all. Two
years ago, I was nominated by the Whigs of this district as their
candidate for the seat in Congress which I now hold. By the favor
of my fellow-citizens of all parties, I received more than eleven
thousand out of about thirteen thousand votes cast at that election.
I felt assured at that time, that I agreed in all essential articles
of political faith with those who gave me their support, otherwise I
should not have accepted the office at their hands. I have endeavored
faithfully, and according to the best of my ability, to carry out the
wishes which they then expressed, and which they well knew that I held.
Yet, during the last week, a Whig convention, (so called,) assembled
in this place to nominate a candidate for the thirty-second Congress;
and, after some close voting, they nominated as my successor, the Hon.
Samuel H. Walley,--a gentleman, I am happy to say, towards whom I have
always sustained relations of personal kindness. In the language of the
day, that convention threw me overboard. Now it is known to my whole
circle of private friends, that, as soon as Congress passed these
pro-slavery measures to which I have adverted, my determination was
formed not to be a candidate for reëlection. I resolved to return to
the people, and labor at home instead of at Washington, in the cause
of human freedom. But it was soon given out, in certain influential
quarters, that I should not be returned to Congress again, and that I
should be stigmatized by a rejection. Unsurpassed efforts, as you all
know, have been made to carry out this threat; even the Secretary of
State of the United States has made it the occasion for a practical
contradiction of all he had ever said against bringing the influence
of the government to bear upon the freedom of elections; and the
proceedings of the last week’s convention were the first instalment
of the penalty which I am to suffer for defending human rights and
unmasking their betrayers. It is said that the convention of last week
was a packed convention; that it did not represent the wishes of the
people. Decorum forbids _me_ to make any such charge, even though it
were probably true. In a few days, this point will be settled by the
sovereign of us all, at the ballot-box.[18]
But two or three points, to which I wish to call your attention, are
contained in the address put forth by the meeting I have referred
to. Let me premise, however, that I take no exception to the fact
that my acts and opinions should be made the subject of examination
and criticism by any body of men, or by any man. It is better that
animadversion should be wrong than that it should not be free. Like
Aristides, I would write the vote that should banish me, rather than
to fetter or control the voter’s will. And now, having laid down these
principles in favor of free speech for others, I proceed to exemplify
them for myself.
The first charge preferred against me, in the address, is, that I said,
in a letter dated on the 3d of May last, and addressed to a portion
of my constituents,[19] that I “sympathized on different points with
different parties, but was exclusively bound to none.” Upon this, the
address remarks, “If we understand his meaning, it is ... that he
cannot be our champion and defend our cause, as our true representative
should, whenever and wherever called upon.” No, I reply to this, I
will not promise beforehand to be any man’s “champion,” nor to defend
any man’s “cause,” “_whenever and wherever called upon_.” This would
be to proffer championship and allegiance to men and measures whether
they were right or wrong. If any man offers to vote for me on such
conditions, I deny him my assistance and disdain his support. Perhaps
I do not know what I was made for; but one thing I certainly never was
made for, and that is, to put principles on and off, at the dictation
of a party, as a lackey changes his livery at his master’s command.
Another remark in the address is, that the compromise measures,
so called, excepting the fugitive slave law, were “wise, and that
they gave to the free states all they could reasonably ask.” What a
stultification, my friends, is this, of ourselves, of our party, and of
every department of our state government, for the last ten years. What
have you been doing, but resolving, contending, and placing your words
and deeds upon the historical records of the state and the nation,
against the identical measures now declared to be “wise,” and all for
which the free states “could reasonably ask”? I leave this point with
a single remark. The address excepts the fugitive slave law from the
measures it commends. Before another year is past, will not that most
execrable act in modern legislation be palliated or adopted by those
who voted for this address?
A third objection to my position is, that I regard the question of
the extension of slavery into our territories as paramount to those
questions of a pecuniary character, on which we desire to obtain the
favorable action of the government. Let this objection against me have
its full force. I admit it, in all its length and breadth. I do regard
the question of human freedom for our wide-extended territories, with
all the public and private consequences dependent upon it, both now and
in all futurity, as first, foremost, chiefest among all the questions
that have been before the government, or are likely to be before it.
When temporary and commercial interests are put in competition with
the enduring and unspeakably precious interests of freedom for a whole
race, of liberty for a whole country, and of obedience to the will of
the Creator, my answer is, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his
righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.”
In an address delivered by Mr. Choate, in 1848, he declared the slavery
question to be of “transcendent importance;” and for this sentiment
he was universally applauded. Wherein does “_paramount_ importance”
so differ from “_transcendent_ importance,” that the one is to be
applauded while the other is condemned?
Let me call your attention to one other remark in the address, and I
will leave it. It suggests that my course in Congress on the slavery
questions has been unacceptable to the south, and that we ought to send
a representative who will conciliate them and obtain their good will.
Fellow-citizens, do you suppose that any man can be true to the memory
of the Pilgrim fathers, and to the love of liberty they bequeathed us,
and at the same time true to the spirit of the Cavaliers, and to the
wishes of their slave-owning posterity? Eighteen hundred years ago, it
was said that no man can serve two masters; but the cupidity of modern
times proposes the solution of a problem which Christ declared to be
impossible. My opinion is, that the cause of all our present calamity,
and of the enduring dishonor of the late measures, is this very desire
to conciliate southern favor, instead of giving a manful defence to
northern rights.
Finally, fellow-citizens, it is our fortune to live during a great
historic crisis in the affairs of the world. This is the age of the
useful arts; of discoveries and inventions, which are filling with
wealth the garners and the coffers of men. It is the age of commerce,
of profit, of finance. One part of our nature is intensely stimulated.
Let us beware of the effect of this stimulus upon that nobler portion
of our being, which no splendor of opulence nor profusion of luxuries
can ever satisfy; which demands allegiance to God, and justice and
humanity towards our fellow-men; and which must have them, or die the
second death. We may be poor; but let us deprecate and forefend the
most calamitous of all poverties,--a poverty of spirit. We may be
subjected to great sacrifices; but let us sacrifice every thing else,
nay, life itself, before we sacrifice our principles. I commend to you
the language of the good Bishop Watson, who, when tempted to stifle the
expression of his convictions through the hope of kingly patronage,
replied, that it was “Better to seek a fortuitous sustenance from the
drippings of the most barren rock in Switzerland, with freedom for his
friend, than to batten as a slave at the most luxurious table of the
greatest despot in the world.”
FOOTNOTES:
[16] Mr. Wilson has since been rewarded by the administration with a
lucrative office in California.
[17] See, also, _ante_, p. 256.
[18] The people settled the question by electing Mr. Mann by a majority
over all other candidates.--_Publishers._
[19] See _ante_, p. 237.
SPEECH
DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES, IN
COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE ON THE STATE OF THE UNION, FEBRUARY 28, 1851,
ON THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.
MR. CHAIRMAN;
Some time ago, I prepared a few comments upon those prominent measures
of the last session, which have since arrested the attention of all
the lovers of constitutional liberty, and of moral and religious men,
throughout the civilized world. I am unwilling to suffer the present
session to close without expressing the reflections I have formed;
because I deem it but a reasonable desire that my opinions should be
placed upon the records of the very Congress to whose measures they
refer.
Does any one ask what benefit I anticipate from a discussion of this
subject at the present moment? I answer, this benefit at least: that of
entering a solemn protest against a grievous wrong, and of placing upon
the tablets of my country’s history, what I believe to be the views of
a vast majority of my constituents, in common with the vast majority of
the people of Massachusetts.
Some of those compromise measures are destined to be of great historic
importance. They will be drawn into precedent. When, in evil days,
further encroachments are meditated against human rights, these old
measures will be cited as a sanction for new aggressions; and, in
my view, they will always be found broad enough, and bad enough, to
cover almost any nameable assault upon human liberty. When bad men
want authority for bad deeds, they will only have to go back to the
legislation of Congress, in 1850, to find an armory full of the weapons
of injustice.
Sir, legislative precedents are formidable things. If created without
opposition, and especially if acquiesced in without complaint, they
become still more formidable. Now, if there were no other reasons for
reviving this subject at the present session of Congress, this alone
would be an ample justification,--it forefends the argument from
acquiescence.
When several of these measures were passed, and particularly when one
of the most obnoxious and criminal of them all was passed,--I mean
the Fugitive Slave bill,--this House was not a deliberative body.
Deliberation was silenced. Those who knew they could not meet our
arguments, choked their utterance. The previous question, which was
originally devised to curb the abuse of too much debate, was perverted
to stop all debate. The floor was assigned to a known friend of the
bill, who after a brief speech in palliation of its enormities, moved
the previous question; and thus we were silenced by force, instead
of being overcome by argument. For, sir, I aver, without fear of
contradiction, that the bill never could have become a law, had its
opponents been allowed to debate it, or to propose amendments to it.
For the honor of the country, therefore, at the present time, and for
the cause of truth hereafter, it is important that the hideous features
of that bill, which were then masked, should be now unmasked. The
arguments which I then desired and designed to offer against it, I mean
to offer now. Those arguments have lost nothing of their weight by this
enforced delay, and I have lost nothing of my right to present them.
Mr. Chairman, I feel none the less inclined to discuss this question,
because an order has gone forth that it shall not be discussed.
Discussion has been denounced as agitation, and then it has been
dictatorially proclaimed that “agitation must be put down.” Sir,
humble as I am, I submit to no such dictation, come from what quarter
or from what numbers it may. If such a prohibition is intended to be
laid upon me personally, I repel it. If intended to silence me as the
representative of the convictions and feelings of my constituents,
I repel it all the more vehemently. In this government, it is not
tolerable for any man, however high, or for any body of men, however
large, to prescribe what subjects may be agitated, and what may not
be agitated. Such prescription is at best but a species of lynch
law against free speech. It is as hateful as any other form of that
execrable code; and I do but express the common sentiment of all
generous minds, when I say that for one, I am all the more disposed
to use my privilege of speech, when imperious men, and the sycophants
of imperious men, attempt to ban or constrain me. In Italy, the pope
decides what books may be read; in Austria, the emperor decides what
books may be written; but we are more degraded than the subject of
pontiff or Cæsar, if we are to be told what topics we may discuss. If
the subjects of a despotic government are bound to be jealous even of
the poor privileges which they possess, how sensitive, how “tremblingly
alive all o’er” ought we to be at these threatened encroachments
upon freedom of speech and freedom of thought. I think that those
who say so much about recalling us to a sense of our constitutional
obligations, would do well to remember, that the very first article
of the amendments to the constitution secures the freedom of speech
and the freedom of the press. By the common consent of this country,
manifested in all forms for more than half a century, the old alien and
sedition law has been condemned. Has that law been condemned for fifty
years in order to make our shame more conspicuous by its revival under
circumstances of intolerable aggravation? Sir, I hold treason against
this government to be an enormous crime; but great as it is, I hold
treason against free speech and free thought to be a crime incomparably
greater.
If it be just and heroic to rebel against all arbitrary invasions
of free thought and free expression, then is it not proportionably
base and dastardly to utter menaces, or threaten social or political
disabilities for the unconstrained exercise of these birthrights of
freemen? On the face of it, it must be a bad cause which will not bear
discussion. Truth seeks light instead of shunning it. He convicts
himself of wrong who refuses to hear the arguments of his opponent. It
was well said by Montesquieu, that “the enjoyment of liberty, and even
its support and preservation, consists in every man’s being allowed
_to speak his thoughts and lay open his sentiments_.” Wherefore, then,
in a country hitherto reputed to be free, are we told that discussion
must be stopped, and agitation must be put down? It seems as if,
when a freeman debases his soul by lending himself to the defence of
slavery, God punishes him on the spot by demoralizing his own nature
with that spirit of tyranny which belongs to slavery. Wherein consists
the advantage of a republican government over a despotism, if the
freedom of speech and of the press, which can be strangled in the
one by arbitrary command, can be stifled in the other by obloquy and
denunciation?
It is remarkable, too, that of all the “agitators” in the country,
there are none more violent than those who are agitating against
agitation. Throughout the north, that portion of the public press
which volunteers its influence to extend the domain of slavery, and to
maintain it by extra-constitutional laws, is constantly provoking the
agitation it denounces. What are these so-called Union meetings in
northern cities but an extensive apparatus of agitation,--a piece of
machinery to manufacture and send abroad the very articles which its
managers declare to be contraband? Through public assemblies, through
the public press, and by correspondence designed for the public eye,
they are shaking the common air to keep it calm; they are agonizing
and in convulsions for repose; they are vociferating to maintain
silence. In the most clamorous days of anti-slavery, there never was
half so much said and written against the institution as is now said
and written for it. Sir, is the right of agitation to be monopolized
by those who denounce it? Is free speech to be only on one side; and
is it one of the offices of free speech to silence the sentiments
it dislikes? I think this is the second time in the history of this
country, that an attempt has been boldly and unblushingly made to
stifle free discussion; and I do not believe the fate of those who are
now laboring to accomplish so nefarious a purpose will be historically
more enviable than that of their prototypes, who passed the far-famed
law against seditious speeches and writings.
Is it not extraordinary, too, that this interdict on discussion should
be applied to a subject which touches the highest interests of man,
and calls into fervid action all the noblest faculties of his nature;
which, more than any thing else, tests the question whether a man _is_
man? We may discuss the question of bank or sub-treasury, of tariff
or free trade; but the only subject too sacred to be approached, is
slavery and its aggrandizements. This is a free country, except when
a man wishes to vindicate the claims of freedom. All other parts of
the temple may be entered, but slavery is the ark of the covenant, and
whoso lays his profane hands thereon must perish.
Sir, how comes it to pass that an institution which even the
enlightened heathen of old pronounced to be iniquitous, and which
eighteen added centuries of Christian illumination have proved to be
the sum of offences against God and man, should now be protected, not
merely by constitutions and laws; but that a general warfare should
be waged against all those who would restrain it within its present
limits, and keep it from arming itself with new weapons of oppression?
How comes it to pass that this should be done, not in the despotisms
of Austria and of Russia, but in republican America? Sir, it is not
to be done, and cannot be done. Almighty God has so constituted the
human soul, that while wrong exists upon the face of the earth, all
the noblest impulses of that soul will war against it. The order of
nature will war against it. “The stars in their courses” will war
against it. Discussion, or agitation, if you so please to call it, is
one of the Heaven-appointed means by which truth is to be spread until
it covers the face of the earth, as the waters cover the sea. It was
by discussion and by agitation, in synagogue and in temple, in distant
cities and in different empires, that Christianity was carried from its
cradle in Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. Did not the disciples
of Jesus Christ go “agitating” from city to city, from Palestine to
Greece, and from Greece to Rome, notwithstanding they were imprisoned
and scourged, flayed alive, and burnt, and persecuted as incendiaries
and fanatics, by scribe, and Pharisee, and high priest? The very
accusation brought against the Savior was, “He stirreth up the people,
teaching throughout all Jewry, beginning from Galilee to this place.”
The subject on which anti-slavery men now “agitate” is inferior only in
importance to that on which Christ and his disciples “agitated.” Nay,
the only cause why Christianity has not prospered as it ought during
the last eighteen centuries, and why it has not already overspread the
whole earth with its blessings, is, that LIBERTY has not been given
it as a sphere to work in. It is because SLAVERY has existed among
men; and Christianity never will and never can pervade the earth until
the barriers of slavery are first overthrown. It was by discussion and
agitation that the prevailing religion of this country,--the Protestant
religion,--broke through the double phalanx of civil and sacerdotal
power, and triumphed throughout the leading nations of Europe, under
the indomitable energy of that old hero of Wittemburg, who did not heed
nor fear that prince of the slave power, the incarnate devil himself.
It was by discussion and agitation that the first glowing sparks of
liberty in the bosom of the Adamses, of Hancock, and of Franklin, of
Thomas Jefferson and of Patrick Henry, were fanned into a flame that
consumed the hosts of the tyrant,--that tyrant who sought to put down
this dreadful agitation by means not a whit more reprehensible in his
day, than those by which certain leading men are striving to silence it
now. Where was there ever written or published a more incendiary and
fanatical document than the Declaration of Independence?--a torch to
set the world on fire. In the present century, what but discussion and
agitation, through all the realms of Great Britain and in this country,
could have sufficed to extinguish the slave trade,--that foulest blot
upon modern civilization? No, sir; agitation is a part of the sublime
order of nature. In thunder, it shakes the stagnant air, which would
otherwise breed pestilence. In tempests, it purifies the deep, which
would otherwise exhale miasma and death. And in the immortal thoughts
of duty, of humanity, and of liberty, it so rouses the hearts of men
that they think themselves inspired of God; and not the mercenary
clamor of the market-place, nor the outcries of politicians, clutching
at the prizes of ambition, can suppress the utterances which true men
believe themselves Heaven-commissioned to declare.