JOHN WHIPPLE.
JOHN BROWN FRANCIS.
ELISHA R. POTTER.
WASHINGTON, _April 11, 1842_.
His Excellency the GOVERNOR OF RHODE ISLAND.
SIR: Your letter dated the 4th instant was handed me on Friday by Mr.
Whipple, who, in company with Mr. Francis and Mr. Potter, called upon me
on Saturday and placed me, both verbally and in writing, in possession
of the prominent facts which have led to the present unhappy condition
of things in Rhode Island--a state of things which every lover of peace
and good order must deplore. I shall not adventure the expression of an
opinion upon those questions of domestic policy which seem to have given
rise to the unfortunate controversies between a portion of the citizens
and the existing government of the State. They are questions of
municipal regulation, the adjustment of which belongs exclusively to the
people of Rhode Island, and with which this Government can have nothing
to do. For the regulation of my conduct in any interposition which I may
be called upon to make between the government of a State and any portion
of its citizens who may assail it with domestic violence, or may be in
actual insurrection against it, I can only look to the Constitution and
laws of the United States, which plainly declare the obligations of the
executive department and leave it no alternative as to the course it
shall pursue.
By the fourth section of the fourth article of the Constitution of the
United States it is provided that "the United States shall guarantee to
every State in this Union a republican form of government, and shall
protect each of them against invasion, and, on application of the
legislature or executive (when the legislature can not be convened),
_against domestic violence_." And by the act of Congress approved on the
28th February, 1795, it is declared "that in case of an insurrection in
any State _against the government thereof_ it shall be lawful for the
President of the United States, upon application of the legislature
of such State or by the executive (when the legislature can not be
convened), to call forth such numbers of the militia of any other State
or States as may be applied for, as he may judge sufficient to suppress
such insurrection." By the third section of the same act it is provided
"that whenever it may be necessary, in the judgment of the President, to
use the military force hereby directed to be called forth, the President
shall forthwith, by proclamation, command such insurgents to disperse
and retire peaceably to their respective abodes within a reasonable
time." By the act of March 3, 1807, it is provided "that in all cases of
insurrection or obstruction to the laws, either of the United States
or of any individual State or Territory where it is lawful for the
President of the United States to call forth the militia for the purpose
of suppressing such insurrection or of causing the laws to be duly
executed, it shall be lawful for him to employ for the same purposes
such part of the land or naval force of the United States as shall be
judged necessary, having first observed all the prerequisites of the
law in that respect."
This is the first occasion, so far as the government of a State and its
people are concerned, on which it has become necessary to consider of
the propriety of exercising those high and most important of
constitutional and legal functions.
By a careful consideration of the above-recited acts of Congress your
excellency will not fail to see that no power is vested in the Executive
of the United States to anticipate insurrectionary movements against the
government of Rhode Island so as to sanction the interposition of the
military authority, but that there must be an actual insurrection,
manifested by lawless assemblages of the people or otherwise, to whom
a proclamation may be addressed and who may be required to betake
themselves to their respective abodes. I have, however, to assure your
excellency that should the time arrive--and my fervent prayer is
that it may never come--when an insurrection shall exist _against the
government_ of Rhode Island, and a requisition shall be made upon the
Executive of the United States to furnish that protection which is
guaranteed to each State by the Constitution and laws, I shall not be
found to shrink from the performance of a duty which, while it would be
the most painful, is at the same time the most imperative. I have also
to say that in such a contingency the Executive could not look into real
or supposed defects of the existing government in order to ascertain
whether some other plan of government proposed for adoption was better
suited to the wants and more in accordance with the wishes of any
portion of her citizens. To throw the Executive power of this Government
into any such controversy would be to make the President the armed
arbitrator between the people of the different States and their
constituted authorities, and might lead to a usurped power dangerous
alike to the stability of the State governments and the liberties of the
people. It will be my duty, on the contrary, to respect the requisitions
of that government which has been recognized as the existing government
of the State through all time past until I shall be advised in regular
manner that it has been altered and abolished and another substituted in
its place by legal and peaceable proceedings adopted and pursued by the
authorities and people of the State. Nor can I readily bring myself
to believe that any such contingency will arise as shall render the
interference of this Government at all necessary. The people of the
State of Rhode Island have been too long distinguished for their love
of order and of regular government to rush into revolution in order to
obtain a redress of grievances, real or supposed, which a government
under which their fathers lived in peace would not in due season
redress. No portion of her people will be willing to drench her fair
fields with the blood of their own brethren in order to obtain a redress
of grievances which their constituted authorities can not for any length
of time resist if properly appealed to by the popular voice. None of
them will be willing to set an example, in the bosom of this Union, of
such frightful disorder, such needless convulsions of society, such
danger to life, liberty, and property, and likely to bring so much
discredit on the character of popular governments. My reliance on the
virtue, intelligence, and patriotism of her citizens is great and
abiding, and I will not doubt but that a spirit of conciliation will
prevail over rash councils, that all actual grievances will be promptly
redressed by the existing government, and that another bright example
will be added to the many already prevailing among the North American
Republics of change without revolution and a redress of grievances
without force or violence.
I tender to your excellency assurances of my high respect and
consideration.