[Footnote 15: Small states, if truly independent, are very favorable
to the production of great characters, and even great virtues. "The
regeneration of liberty in Italy," says Sismondi, "was signalized
still more, if it were possible, by the development of the moral,
than by that of the intellectual character of the {276} Italians. The
sympathy existing among fellow-citizens, from the habit of living for
each other, and by each other--of connecting every thing with the
good of all, produced in those republics virtues which despotic
states cannot even imagine." But the moment the independence of the
small states is destroyed by the overshadowing and overawing
influence of larger ones, then does the system work the most
disastrous consequences upon the political, moral, and literary
character of the citizens. A little state overawed by a large one,
instantly has recourse to cunning, intrigue, and duplicity, to
accomplish its ends. Cæsar Borgia in Italy, says Mr. Hume, had
recourse to more villainy, hypocrisy, and meanness, to get possession
of a few miles of territory, than was practised by Julius Cæsar,
Zenghis, or Tamerlane for the conquest of a large portion of the
world. Hence we are not to wonder that Italy should become the most
infamous of all schools, in the production of subtile, intriguing,
hypocritical politicians, and that the literature should soon become
as corrupt as the political morals of the country. The Marini, the
Achillini in poetry, and the Bernini in the arts, had a reputation
similar to that of Concini, Mazarini, Catherine, and Mary di Medici
in politics.]
Did the limits which I have prescribed to myself in this address
allow it, I could easily adduce the history of the Swiss Cantons, the
Netherlands and Holland, the Hanseatic League, the little states
formerly around the Baltic, and even the Germanic Confederation, as
confirmation strong of the truth of the positions which I have taken
in favor of the federative system. Indeed I might go farther than
this, and show that the feudal aristocracy of the middle ages,
horrible as was its oppression, calamitous as were its petty wars,
and feuds, and dissensions, intolerable as was that anarchical
confusion which it generated in Europe towards the close of the tenth
century, was nevertheless the instrument which kept alive the mind of
man in the great nations of Christendom, by splitting up the powers
of government among the Baronial Lords, and thereby preventing that
fatal tendency to centralism and consolidation, which would
inevitably have shrouded the mind of Europe in inextricable darkness.
Far be from me that vain presumption which would dare to scan the
mysterious plans of Providence; but I have always thought that the
regeneration of the mind of Europe required that the barbarian should
come from the North and the East--that an Alaric, a Genseric and an
Attila, should pour out the vials of their wrath upon the Roman's
head--that the monstrous, corrupt and gigantic fabric of his power
might be broken to pieces by barbarian hordes, who had not the genius
and political skill requisite to establish another great military
despotism on its ruins.
After this review I turn with pleasure again to our own system of
government. We have seen how stimulating were the little republics of
Greece and of Italy, to the genius of those countries. But their
systems were not made for peaceable endurance--they were too
disunited, too turbulent, too prone to civil wars; hence they either
fell a prey to some ambitious state in their own system, or invited
by their reckless internal dissensions the foreigner into their land,
who broke down their institutions, overthrew their liberty, and
imposed upon their submissive necks the galling yoke of military
despotism. But those venerated fathers of our republics, who framed
the federal constitution, came forward to their task in full view of
the history of the republics of the ancient and modern world, with
that almost holy spirit of freedom and patriotism which gave them
that undaunted courage and unremitting perseverance that enabled them
to wade through the blood and turmoil of the revolution. They
completed their task, and the wisdom and virtue of our confederacy
did sanction their work, and long may that work endure if
administered in that spirit of purity and virtue which inspired those
who framed it.
Our states are much larger than the little democracies of ancient
Greece or of modern Italy--the new and improved principle of
representation, combined with the modern improvements in the whole
machinery of government, have rendered the republican form much
better suited to large states than formerly. Some of our states may
perhaps be too large, and others too small. But our ancestors very
wisely avoided that geometrical policy, which would have divided our
country into equal squares, like France in the dark days of her
revolution. "No man ever was attached," says Burke, "by a sense of
pride, partiality, or real affection, to a description of square
measurement. He never will glory in belonging to the chequer No. 71,
or to any other badge ticket. We begin our public affections in our
families. No cold relation is a zealous citizen. We pass on to our
neighborhoods and our habitual provincial connections;" and these
ties and habits were respected by our forefathers. No sovereign
state, no matter how small, was disfranchised--the giant and the
dwarf had their rights and liberties alike respected and secured in
this new system, and all were bound together by a wise and beneficent
plan of government, based upon the mutual interests and sympathies of
all the members of the confederacy--a plan which was wisely framed to
give lasting peace to our country, and to demonstrate the
inapplicability to our portion of the western hemisphere at least, of
the gloomy philosophy of the European statesman, that the natural
condition of man is war. Thus organized, our system was calculated to
apply the beneficial stimulus of government to every portion of our
soil and every division of our population, and at the same time in
the midst of profound peace and freedom of intercourse, both social
and commercial, among the states, to secure that enlarged and
extended theatre for action, which may stimulate and reward the
exalted genius and talent of the country, and crown the pyramid of
our greatness.
But I must turn from this view of my subject, which has ever been so
delightful to my mind, to the contemplation always gloomy, of the
dangerous evils which may beset us in our progress onwards. It is too
true that there can be nothing pure in this world; good and evil are
always intertwined. It has well been said that the wave which wafts
to our shore the genial seed that may spring up and gladden our land
with luxuriant vegetation, may unfold the deadly crocodile.
One of the most fatal evils with which the republican system of
government is liable to be assailed, is the diffusion of a spirit of
agrarianism among the indigent classes of society. This spirit is now
abroad in the world--it is fearfully developing itself in the
insurrectionary heavings and tumults of continental Europe, which,
however ineffectual now, do nevertheless mark the great internal
conflagration--"the march of that mighty burning, which however
intangible by human vigilance, is yet hollowing the ground under
every community of the civilized world." England's most eloquent and
learned divine, tells us but too truly that {277} "there now sits an
unnatural scowl on the aspect of the population, a resolved
sturdiness in their attitude and gait; and whether we look to the
profane recklessness of their habits, or to the deep and settled
hatred which rankles in their hearts, we cannot but read in these
moral characteristics of this land, the omens of some great and
impending overthrow."
In our own more happy country, the almost unlimited extension of
suffrage in the most populous states, the frequent appeals made to
the indigent and the destitute by demagogues for the purpose of
inflaming their passions, and of exciting that most blighting and
deadly hostility of all, the hostility of the poor against the
rich--the tumults and riots at the elections in our great cities--the
lawless mobs of the north which have already set the civil authority
at defiance, and have pulled down and destroyed the property of the
citizen--all are but premonitory symptoms of the approaching
calamity--they are but the rumbling sound which precedes the mighty
shock of the terrible earthquake. If these things happen now, what
may we not expect hereafter? At present the great territorial
resources of our country offer the most stimulating reward to labor
and enterprise. The laborer of to-day looks forward, and hopes, yes,
knows, that by his industry he is to be the capitalist of to-morrow.
He feels a prospective interest in the defence of property. The
little German farmer with a hundred acres of poor land in the Key
Stone State, clad in the coarsest raiment, contented with the
simplest food, and saving from his hard earnings the small sum of one
hundred dollars a year, would not wish the property of the country to
be thrown in jeopardy--he would shudder at the idea of a general
scramble, lest he might lose that little patrimony around which the
very affections of his heart have been twined.
But the time must come when the powerfully elastic spring of our
rapidly increasing numbers shall fill up our wide spread territory
with a dense population--when the great safety valve of the west will
be closed against us--when millions shall be crowded into our
manufactories and commercial cities--then will come the great and
fearful pressure upon the engine--then will the line of demarkation
stand most palpably drawn between the rich and the poor, the
capitalist and the laborer--then will thousands, yea, millions arise,
whose hard lot it may be to labor from morn till eve through a long
life, without the cheering hope of passing from that toilsome
condition in which the first years of their manhood found them, or
even of accumulating in advance that small fund which may release the
old and infirm from labor and toil, and mitigate the sorrows of
declining years. Many there will be even, who may go to and fro and
be able to say in the melancholy language of Holy Writ, "the foxes
have holes, and the birds of the air their nest, but the son of man
has not where to lay his head." When these things shall come--when
the millions, who are always under the pressure of poverty, and
sometimes on the verge of starvation, shall form your numerical
majority, (as is the case now in the old countries of the world) and
universal suffrage shall throw the political power into their hands,
can you expect that they will regard as sacred the tenure by which
you hold your property? I almost fear the frailties and weakness of
human nature too much, to anticipate confidently such justice. When
hunger is in the land, we can scarcely expect, by any species of
legerdemain, to turn the eyes and thoughts of the sufferers from the
flesh pots of Egypt. The old Roman populace demanded a regular
distribution of corn from the public granaries; the Grecian populace
received bribes, fined and imprisoned their wealthy men, or made them
build galleys, equip soldiers, give public feasts, and furnish the
victims for the sacrifices at their own expense.[16] The mode of
action in modern times may be changed, but the result will be the
same if the spirit of agrarianism shall once get abroad in our land.
France has already furnished us with the great moral. First comes
disorganization and legislative plunder, then the struggle of
factions and civil war, and lastly a military despotism, into whose
arms all will be driven by the intolerable evils of anarchy and
rapine. I fondly hope that the future may bring along with it a
sovereign remedy for these evils, but what that remedy may be, it is
past perhaps the sagacity of man now to determine. We can only say in
the language of Kepler upon a far different subject,--"Hæc et cetera
hujusmodi latent in pandectis œvi sequentis, non antea discenda, quam
librum hunc deus arbiter seculorum recluserit mortalibus."
[Footnote 16: When an individual was tried before an Athenian
tribunal, his wealth was generally a serious disadvantage to his
cause, and there was nothing which the defence labored harder to
establish than the poverty of the accused. "I know," says the orator
Lisias, in his defence of Nicophemus, "how difficult it will be
effectually to refute the report of the great riches of Nicophemus.
The present scarcity of money in the city, and the wants of the
treasury which the forfeiture has been calculated upon to supply,
will operate against me." In the celebrated dialogue of Xenophon,
called the Banquet, he makes a rich man who has suddenly become poor,
congratulate himself upon his poverty; "inasmuch," he says, "as
cheerfulness and confidence are preferable to constant apprehension,
freedom to slavery, being waited upon, to waiting upon others. When I
was a rich man in this city, I was under the necessity of courting
the sycophants, knowing it was in their power to do me mischief which
I could little return. Nevertheless, I was continually receiving
orders from the people, to undertake some expenses for the
commonwealth, and I was not allowed to go any where out of Attica.
But now I have lost all my foreign property, and nothing accrues from
my Attic estate, and all my goods are sold, I sleep any where
fearless; I am considered as faithful to the government; I am never
threatened with prosecutions, but I have it in my power to make
others fear; as a freeman I may stay in the country or go out of it
as I please; the rich rise from their seats for me as I approach, and
make way for me as I walk; I am now like a tyrant, whereas I was
before an absolute slave; and whereas before I paid tribute to the
people, now a tribute from the public maintains me." This picture,
though perhaps overwrought, marks still but too conclusively the
agrarian spirit in Greece.]
In the mean time I may boldly assert that the frame work of our
southern society is better calculated to ward off the evils of this
agrarian spirit, which is so destructive to morals, to mind and to
liberty, than any other mentioned in the annals of history. Domestic
slavery, such as ours, is the only institution which I know of, that
can secure that spirit of equality among freemen, so necessary to the
true and genuine feeling of republicanism, without propelling the
body politic at the same time into the dangerous vices of
agrarianism, and legislative intermeddling between the laborer and
the capitalist. The occupations which we follow, necessarily and
unavoidably create distinctions in society. It is {278} said that all
occupations are honorable. This is certainly true, if you mean that
no honest employment is disgraceful. But to say that all confer equal
honor, if well followed even, is not true. Such an assertion
militates alike against the whole nature of man and the voice of
reason. But whatever may be the vain deductions of mere theorists
upon this subject, one thing is certain--Reason informed me of its
truth long before experience had shown it to me in actual life--The
hirelings who perform all the menial offices of life, will not and
cannot be treated as equals by their employers. And those who stand
ready to execute all our commands, no matter what they may be, for
mere pecuniary reward, cannot feel themselves equal to us in reality,
however much their reason may be bewildered by the voice of
sophistry.
Now, let us see what is likely to be the effect of universal suffrage
in a state where there are no slaves. Either the dependant classes,
the laborers and menial servants, will be driven forward by the
dictation of their employers and the bribery of the man of property,
thus giving the government a proclivity towards an aristocracy of
wealth;[17] or they become discontented with their condition, and ask
why these differences among beings pronounced equal--they look with
eyes of cupidity upon the fortunes of the rich. The demagogue
perceives their ominous sullenness, and marks the hatred which is
rankling in their hearts--then the parties of the rich and the poor
are formed--then come the legislative plunder and the dark train of
evils consequent on the spirit of equality, which is in fact, in such
a community, the spirit of agrarianism.
[Footnote 17: Men whose impulses are all communicated by the
expectation of small pecuniary rewards, quickly acquire that
suppleness of conscience, which renders them peculiarly liable to
bribery. Take, for example, the waiter in an hotel--it is the hope of
little gains that moves him in any direction which you may dictate,
and which makes him a ready tool for the execution of any project
whatever. His motto is, _I take the money and my employer the
responsibility_. Bring this man to the polls, and offer him money for
his vote, and the probability is that he would not refuse that which
the whole education and training of his life would impel him to
receive.]
But in our slaveholding country the case is far different. Our
laboring classes and menials are all slaves of a different color from
their masters--the source of greatest distinction among the freemen
is taken away; and the spirit of equality, the true spirit of genuine
republicanism may exist here,--without leading on to corruption on
the one side or agrarianism on the other.[18] Political power is thus
taken from the hands of those who might abuse it, and placed in the
hands of those who are most interested in its judicious exercise. Our
law most wisely ordains that the slaves "shall not be sought for in
public council, nor sit high in the congregation: they shall not sit
high on the judges' seats nor understand the sentence of judgment;
they cannot declare justice and judgment; and they shall not be found
where parables are spoken. How can he get wisdom that holdeth the
plough, that glorieth in the goad, that driveth oxen and is occupied
in their labors, and whose talk is of bullocks?" Lycurgus, more than
two thousand years ago, in his celebrated system of laws, was so well
aware of the aristocratic feeling generated by diversity of
occupation, that he decreed in order that a perfect spirit of
equality might reign among the Spartans, that slaves alone should
practice the most laborious arts, or fill the menial stations. And in
this particular he showed perhaps as much sagacity as in any other
law of the whole system. We want no legislation in the south to
secure this effect--it flows spontaneously from our social system.
[Footnote 18: I will take leave here to introduce a short extract
from my Essay on Slavery, in corroboration of the assertions which I
have made. "The citizen of the north will not shake hands familiarly
with his servant, and converse, and laugh, and dine with him, no
matter how honest and respectable he may be. But go to the south, and
you will find that no white man feels such inferiority of rank as to
be unworthy of association with those around him. Color alone is here
the badge of distinction, the true mark of aristocracy; and all who
are white are equal, in spite of the variety of occupation. The same
thing is observed in the West Indies. 'Of the character common to the
white resident of the West Indies,' says B. Edwards, 'it appears to
me that the leading feature is an independent spirit, and a display
of _conscious equality_ throughout all ranks and conditions. The
poorest white person seems to consider himself nearly on a level with
the condition of the richest; and emboldened by this idea, he
approaches his employer with extended hand, and a freedom which, in
the countries of Europe, is seldom displayed by men in the lower
orders of life towards their superiors.'"]
But whilst the political effects of our social system are so
peculiarly beneficial, the moral effects are no less striking and
advantageous. I have no hesitation in affirming that the relation
between capitalist and laborer in the south is kinder, and more
productive of genuine attachment, than exists between the same
classes any where else on the face of the globe. The slave is happy
and contented with his lot, unless indeed the very demons of
Pandemonium shall be suffered to come among us and destroy his
happiness by their calumnious falsehoods and hypocritical promises.
He compares himself with his own race and his own color alone, and he
sees that all are alike--he does not covet the wealth of the rich
man, nor envy that happiness which liberty imparts to the patriot,
but he identifies all his interests with those of his master--free
from care--free from that constant feeling of insecurity which
continually haunts the poor man of other countries, he moves on in
the round of his existence, cheerful, contented and grateful.[19] We
have no Manchester and Smithfield riots here--no breaking of
machinery--no scowl of discontent or sullenness hovering over the
brow--no midnight murders for the money which we have in our
houses--no melancholy forebodings of that agrarian spirit which calls
up the very demon of wrath to apply the torch to the political
edifice. The statistics of the slaveholding population prove that it
is the most quiet and secure population in the world--there are fewer
great crimes and murders among them than in any other form in which
society can exist. I defy the world too, to produce a parallel to the
rapid improvement of the slave on our continent since the period of
his landing from the shores of his forefathers. And when the
philanthropist tells us to plant our colonies on the coast of that
benighted region, that the tide of civilization may be rolled back on
Africa, the very enthusiasm of his {279} language marks the
inappreciable improvement which slavery has here wrought upon the
character of the negro. On the other hand the master is attached to
his slaves by every tie of interest and sympathy, generated by a
connection that sometimes lasts for life. He does not work them
to-day for sixteen hours, reducing them to mere bread and water, and
capriciously discharge them to-morrow from his employment, and turn
them adrift without money or resource, upon a cold and inhospitable
world. When their labor will not support themselves, the master is
bound to consume his capital for their sustenance. There are evils,
no doubt, incidental to this relation--but where is the relation of
life exempt from them?[20]
[Footnote 19: Any one who has ever seen the negro at hard labor by
the side of the white man, or who has noticed him while performing
menial services along with his white associate, has marked no doubt
the striking difference. The negro is all gaiety and
cheerfulness--his occupation seems to ennoble him. His companion, on
the contrary, whom the world calls a freeman, but really treats as a
slave, is seen sullen and discontented, and feels himself degraded
for the very reason that he is called a freeman.]
[Footnote 20: Whatever philanthropists may say upon the subject, I
believe the history of the world will bear me out in the assertion
that slavery is certainly the most efficient and perhaps the only
means by which the contact of the civilized man with the barbarian
can contribute to the advantage and civilization of the latter. The
relation of master and slave is the only means which has ever yet
been devised by the wisdom of man, capable of bringing the element of
civilization into close union with that of barbarism, without either
dragging down the civilized man to a level with the barbarian, or
corrupting and then exterminating the latter in the attempt to
elevate him. Every one who is acquainted with the condition of
society in our southern country, will bear witness to the truth of
the assertion, that whilst slavery by producing the closest and most
constant intercourse between the whites and blacks, elevates the
character, purifies the morals, and speeds on the civilization of the
latter, it has not the slightest tendency to introduce their
barbarism or their vices among the former. It is for this very
reason, while virtue and knowledge may travel downwards, and vice and
barbarism cannot move upwards, that the institution of such slavery
as ours becomes the greatest security for virtue, and the most
certain preservative of morals. It is this inestimable feature in
this most slandered institution, which keeps the upper stratum of the
social fabric in the healthiest and soundest state, which makes the
character of the slaveholder so lofty, generous, chivalrous, and
sternly incorruptible wherever we find him. It is this same feature
too which contributes most to elevate and adorn the character of the
mistress of slaves--which enshrines her heart in the very purity and
constancy of the affections, and makes her the ornament and
immaculate blessing of that delightful domestic sanctuary, which is
never to be polluted by the vile and wicked arts of the base
designing corrupter of the female heart.
What then, in presence of these facts, must we think of the
slanderous tongues that would dare asperse the character of southern
females--that would endeavor to blacken that almost spotless purity
of heart, which I hope will forever remain the proud characteristic
of southern women? Ignorance does not excuse such calumniators. The
men who can attack, without having taken even the trouble to
ascertain the facts, that class whose virtue constitutes their
greatest ornament, and whom the usages and customs of the world have
driven from the active bustling arena of life into the shade of
retirement, there to be loved, honored, and protected by all who are
noble and generous, show to the world the real hollowness of their
hearts and the reckless impurity of their intentions. But when they
cannot even plead such ignorance, their past lives should not be
suffered to shield them from the imputation of crime, and the mantle
of that pure and beautiful religion, preached by the meek Saviour of
mankind, was never designed to cover the canting hypocrisy of the
insidious calumnious slanderer. It is Sterne who says that the man
who is capable of doing _one dirty trick_ can do another--he thus at
once unmasks his real character, and stands forth confessed in all
his naked deformity before the world. And we may perhaps but too
truly assert, that those whose minds are incapable of comprehending
the purity, whilst they maliciously asperse the innocence of female
character, are the beings who are most apt at last to be displayed as
the true Tartuffes of the world.]
I would say then, let us cherish this institution which has been
built up by no sin of ours--let us cleave to it as the ark of our
safety. Expediency, morality and religion, alike demand its
continuance; and perhaps I would not hazard too much in the
prediction, that the day will come when the whole confederacy will
regard it as the sheet anchor of our country's liberty.
I will now conclude my long address, by a brief notice of two results
which may happen to our system of government, either of which would
be fatal to the system--dismemberment on the one side, or
consolidation, on the other. The evils of dismemberment may be
quickly told. Separate governments, or confederacies, would of course
have rivalries and jealousies and wars. Our militia would be found
inadequate to our defence; standing armies and navies would be
established: and all history has shown that these will trample upon
the civil authority. War with their concomitant establishments,
navies and armies, entail the heaviest expense on nations.[21] These
expenditures require taxation; and heavy taxation in an extensive
range of country, whether levied on imports or on native productions,
would be sure to lead on to partial and vicious legislation, to the
intolerable oppression of one part for the benefit of another. And
all the guards and checks which constitutional charters would impose
on government, could not prevent the rapid concentration of power
into the hands of the executive, in most of our independent states,
amid wars, armies, navies, taxation, expenditures and increasing
patronage of the governments. We should, I fear, exhibit the picture
of Europe to the world, with governments perhaps less balanced[22]
and more sanguinary in their wars. It is more than probable, then,
that if ever disunion shall come, as has been said by a distinguished
statesman,--we shall close the book of the republics, and open that
of the kings, not in name perhaps--but in reality.
[Footnote 21: It may perhaps be affirmed with truth, that there is
scarcely a nation in Europe, with a population equal to that of the
United States, whose army does not cost more than the whole expenses
of our federal government. The military statistics of Europe are
truly formidable. Great Britain keeps at home an army of 100,000 men,
and 250,000 in India. France has a standing army of 280,000; Austria
271,000; Prussia 162,000; and Russia 800,000. The United States have
6,000, with a population more than the half of Austria, and greater
than that of Prussia. Even the kingdom of Sardinia, with a population
of a little more than one-fourth of ours, has an army more than seven
times as great; and Spain, with a population not so great as ours,
has an army fifteen times as great. Comment is unnecessary.]
[Footnote 22: If a nation must have monarchy, I have no hesitation in
saying that it should not be isolated. It should be "buttressed by
establishments." If we must have Kings, it would be better that the
Lords and Commons should follow. Kings, Lords, and Commons are
perhaps the nearest approach which the monarchical form of government
can make towards liberty. When there is no intermediate power between
the king and the people, every dispute between the parties, for want
of a conciliatory compromise, brings the nation at once to blows; and
the immediate issue is necessarily either a despotism established, or
a dynasty overthrown. The chances against a perfect balance are
infinite. But in our country we can never have a regular nobility.
Antiquity is absolutely necessary to such an establishment. Bonaparte
tried the experiment of a suddenly created nobility, and it entirely
failed; although his nobles were much more talented and efficient
than the ancient noblesse. Bonaparte's nobles besides were the most
unprincipled, and the most remorselessly rapacious of modern Europe;
and this perhaps is the almost necessary character of an upstart
nobility.]
This would certainly be the result in the non-slaveholding states,
where the agrarian spirit, co-operating {280} with executive
usurpation, would inevitably overthrow the balance of the government,
and lead on eventually to military despotism. But such is my
confidence in the influence of slavery on the slaveholder--so certain
am I, judging from all fair reasoning on the subject, and from the
past history of the world, that the spirit of liberty and of
equality, glows with the most unqualified intensity in the bosoms of
the masters of slaves, that I believe the slaveholding states, with
all the horrors of disunion against them, would nevertheless, under
the impulse of this spirit, so ineradicable among _them_, be enabled
to preserve their liberties, and arrest their governments in their
dangerous proclivity towards monarchy. It is true, circumstances
might often even here concentrate too much power in the executive
department; but the owners of slaves, with a spirit like that of the
Barons at Runnimede, would embrace the first opportunity to take back
the power that had slipt from their hands; and the absence of any
thing like a formidable agrarian party, would deprive the executive
of that infallible resource to which, under other circumstances, it
might resort, to obtain the power necessary to break through the
trammels of constitutions, and finally to entrench itself safely
behind military power. Where has a greater love for liberty been
shown, or a more noble struggle made for its preservation than in
Poland? And in our own country, it is a matter of history, that in no
portion of it has the spirit of freedom so fervently developed itself
as in the Southern States, nor has any portion been found more
constantly and effectually battling against power. Two
administrations have been overthrown since the constitution went into
operation, and it has been Southern talent, and Southern energy,
which have accomplished it. Whenever the South shall present a solid
unbroken phalanx against usurpation, I hazard little in the
prediction, that it will generally accomplish its ends.
But disunion, with all its attendant evils, would not so completely
prostrate the mind, and relax all the energies of man, as the other
more dangerous result which may happen--I mean consolidation! A
number of independent governments, no matter how bad, no matter how
despotic, must to some extent at least, exert a stimulating
influence, each over a portion of its own territory. The greater the
number of governments therefore, the greater the number of
stimulants, as long as each one remains independent. And the
probability is, that a sort of political equilibrium would be formed
very soon on our continent, which would, as in Europe, preserve the
territorial integrity of the smaller states, and prevent the larger
from a dangerous accumulation of power.[23]
[Footnote 23: It is curious to look now to the condition of Europe,
and compare it with the same quarter of the world three hundred years
ago, and to see how small the change in the division of countries
after all the wars, bloodshed, and expense which have been inflicted
on it. And some of the greatest gainers too have been the small
states. The Duke of Savoy, for example, now takes honorable rank
among the second rate monarchs, under the more imposing title of King
of Sardinia, and with a territory more than doubled in extent. The
Marquis of Brandenburg now hails as King of Prussia, and takes his
station among the great powers in Europe with a greatly augmented
dominion. It is the system of the political equilibrium in Europe
which has bridled the great nations, and prevented them from
swallowing up the smaller. "Consider," says Sir James Macintosh, in
one of his ablest speeches, "the Republic of Geneva--think of her
defenceless position, in the very jaws of France; but think also of
her undisturbed security, of her profound quiet, of the brilliant
success with which she applied herself to industry and literature,
while Louis XIV was pouring his myriads into Italy before her gates.
Call to mind that happy period, when we scarcely dreamed more of the
subjugation of the feeblest republic of Europe, than of the conquest
of her mightiest empire--and say, whether any spectacle can be
imagined more beautiful to the moral eye, or which affords a more
striking proof of progress in the noblest principles of true
civilization."]
But if ever our state institutions shall be overthrown, and the
concentration of all the powers into one great central government
shall mould this system of republics into one grand consolidated
empire, then will the last and greatest evil which can befal our
country have arrived. The wide extent of our territory, and the
numbers of our population, which under a system of confederated
republics, would awaken the genius and patriotism of the country, and
call forth an almost resistless energy and enterprise in our
citizens, would then be a blighting curse--the bane of our land. All
eyes would be turned to that great and fearful engine at the centre,
whose oppressive action would paralyze all the parts, whilst it would
bind them together in indissoluble union--in the numbness and torpor
of death itself.
Could it be possible for our government, after such consolidation, to
retain its democratic form, then would it become the most corrupt,
the most demoralizing, the most intolerably oppressive government
which the annals of history could furnish. That diversity of climate,
of soil, of character, and of interest--that great difference of
condition springing from the existence or non-existence of slavery,
all of which, under a mild, federative system, would increase the
general happiness and add to the blessings of union, by interlocking,
in the harmony of free trade, all the interests of the parts, would
then lead on to vicious combinations in our national legislature, for
the purpose of robbing one portion of the union for the benefit of
another--then would be formed our fixed and sectional majorities, who
by their unprincipled and irresponsible legislation, would prostrate
the rights and suck out the very substance from the minority. The
history of past ages informs us that physical force has hitherto been
the great engine which has distributed the wealth and overthrown the
liberties of nations. But the system would be changed here.
Governmental action and legislative jugglery would accomplish more
effectually what the sword has done elsewhere. And to the oppressed
there would be but one right left--the right that belongs to the worm
when trodden on--the right of turning upon the oppressor and shaking
off his iron grasp, if possible. This is the most valuable of all
rights to the European citizen--because there the few, the units, are
the oppressors, and the millions are the oppressed; and when tyranny
has passed beyond the point of endurance, and the people are at last
roused to a sense of the injustice and wrongs which they are
suffering, they rise in their might and pull down the pillars of the
political edifice.
But in our own country, if the state governments shall ever be broken
down, and state marks obliterated, what will the right of resistance
be worth to us? When the oppression comes from the greedy many, and
is exerted over the proscribed few, is it not worse than {281}
mockery to tell them they may resist in the last resort--that the
minority, enfeebled and impoverished by legislative plunder, without
army, navy, or treasury, disorganized, unsteady, and vacillating in
its plans, may rise against the many who possess the advantages of
physical force, wealth, organization, together with the whole power
of an energetic government, which can break the ranks of the
minority, and sow the seeds of dissension among them, by the
corrupting influence of its mighty patronage, or attack and conquer
by its force those who shall first have the temerity to take the
field against its oppression? Resistance is worth but little, when
the strong man, armed and resolute, has pushed me, feeble and
unarmed, to the wall.[24]
[Footnote 24: The principle of the _absolute majority_ claimed by a
great central government, would make the republican form of
government more intolerable than any other, for the following
reasons: 1st. The parties may be permanent, and consequently the
oppression may be permanent likewise. 2d. An individual with power to
oppress may or may not do it. Even Nero or Caligula may refrain from
exactions--but a multitude being _always_ governed by the selfish
principle, will be _sure_ to oppress if they have the power; the
operation of the selfish principle on _one_ man is a matter of
chance,--on a _multitude_, it is a certainty. 3d. In such a
government, the influence of the public opinion of the oppressed
produces the _least possible_ influence on the oppressors, first,
because the majorities and minorities being almost always sectional,
the opinions of the latter are not likely to be known to the former;
and secondly, if they were known they would produce little effect,
because the former have on their side the majority of public opinion,
and therefore would generally disregard that of the minority. 4th.
The rapacity of such a government would be increased, from the
necessity of procuring a large _dividend_ for so great a number of
_divisors_.]
But let not the many console themselves with the vain belief that
democracy would long survive the consolidation of our
government--that very power which they would endeavor so sedulously
to concentrate in the hands of one great central government, would be
quickly made to recoil upon their own heads. The executive
department, which would be built up and established by the dominant
majority, the better to accomplish its own selfish purposes, would
quickly become omnipotent; and when once safely entrenched in the
impregnable bulwarks of its power, like Athens enclosed in the walls
of Themistocles, it would bid defiance to all assaults, and all would
then be ground down to the same ignominious common level. The
Executive, in such a system, would be all--the People, nothing! We
should then be reduced to the condition of the silent crushing
despotisms of Asia--with every principle of improvement gone, and the
whole elasticity of mind destroyed. Soon would we, then, hug the
chains which bound us; and bend the knee in degrading servility
before him who had rivetted them on us. Soon would we be ready to use
the idolatrous language of the Roman bard,
"Erit ille mihi semper Deus: illius aram
Sœpe tener nostris ab ovilibus imbuet agnus."
A great empire speedily assimilates every thing to its own genius. No
long season is requisite to generate the spirit of submission. The
monarch that first mounts the throne is often the most worshipped.
The first emperor of Rome had not descended to his grave before the
servility of his subjects had become so disgusting as to call forth
censure from even the monarch himself.[25]
[Footnote 25: Augustus, at the expiration of his third term in the
imperial office, was accosted by the people at a public entertainment
with the title of "Lord," or "Master," which so much disgusted him,
that he published a serious edict on the following day, forbidding
such a title, and saying,
"_My name is Cæsar, and not Master._"]
These great despotisms too, when once established, are likely long to
endure. Great empires have an extraordinary vitality--a wonderful
tenacity of existence; they but too closely resemble that fabled
serpent whose parts when forced asunder were quickly drawn together
again and united into a living body. There has always been something
painfully revolting to my mind in the contemplation of the history of
great empires. From our boyhood we contract a horror of eastern
despotisms, with their great monarchs, their satraps and tyrants; and
who that has read the _luminous page_ of Gibbon and contemplated the
imperial despot with his
Prætors, pro-consuls to their provinces
Hasting, or on return, in robes of state,
Lictors and rods the ensigns of their power,
Legions and cohorts, turms of horse and wings,
but sickens at the bare contemplation of such despotic machinery. And
whilst we peruse the eloquent recital of these internal throes and
convulsions, which to-day would seem to break the empire into
fragments and scatter them to the very winds of heaven,--but would
cease on the morrow, by the elevation to the throne of perhaps some
barbarian military chieftain from the banks of the Rhine or the
Danube, binding again together in the rude embrace of military power
the conquered parts of the empire,--we cannot but weep over the
fearful immortality with which such a nation seems almost to be
endowed. It reminds us but too strongly of that persecuted being,
gifted with a cursed immortality, whom the fables of antiquity
reported to have been bound down upon the mountain, with a vulture
forever lacerating his liver, which grew as fast as it was destroyed.
When contemplating the horrors of such a government, we almost hail
with pleasure the advent of the Goth and the Vandal, whose barbarian
power alone could break it into fragments. The death of such an
empire is always hard--painfully, fearfully hard! Unless its
destruction is prepared from without, there are no elements within
that can achieve it. The gravity of the parts too towards the centre,
is so wonderfully great, that disunion can never be effected.
It is mournful to behold how the rights of man, and of nations, may
be destroyed by the mere magnitude of empire. Humanity now weeps when
wronged and injured Poland shows symptoms of a revolt,--we know that
the blood of the patriotic Pole will be shed in vain, and that the
Russian and the Cossack soldier will soon come to place the galling
yoke again upon his neck; and yet if Poland were united to a nation
no larger than herself--Poland would have rights, and what is better
still, Poland would have the power to defend them. And when she
should send her petitions to the throne and demand redress, the
Autocrat would dare not answer her deputies by pointing them to his
Marshal, and telling them that _he_ had his orders and would execute
them.
Let us then forever guard against the dangerous evil of
consolidation. Let us foster and cherish and love our State
institutions as the palladium of our liberties and the nursery of our
real greatness. Let the motto {282} inscribed upon the banner of each
patriot, in regard to his state, be that which was placed upon the
urn that enclosed the heart of the philosopher of Ferney, "_Mon cœur
est ici, mon esprit est partout_;" and sure we may be, that this
elementary training of the affections will not destroy a proper love
for the whole, but is absolutely necessary, to keep the State and
Federal governments moving, in those distinct orbits which have been
prescribed to them by the wisdom of our ancestors.
But, whatever may be the course of other states,--I hope our own
Virginia,--so rich in soil, but so much richer in her noble sons who
have grown up on that soil and illustrated her history, will ever
cherish with becoming affection her own institutions--for certain she
may be, when a great consolidated central government shall have fixed
its embrace on the Union--the sun of her glory will have set
forever--certain she may be, that in the awful silence of central
despotism, no such statesmen as Washington, Jefferson or Madison,
will ever again arise upon her soil--no such men as Wythe, Pendleton
and Roane, will grace her benches--nor will the thrilling eloquence
of the Henrys, the Masons and the Randolphs, be ever again heard
within her borders. The power that then reposes at the centre, may,
after the example of the most wily and politic of Roman emperors,
suffer the mere state forms to remain, but the spirit, the energetic
life, the independence that once animated them, will all be gone.
They will then obey an impulse that comes from without; and like the
consuls, the senate, and the tribunes of imperial Rome, they will but
speak the will and execute the commands of the Cæsar upon the throne.
Then indeed may the passing stranger, when he beholds this capital,
once the proud theatre for the exhibition of the conflicts of mind
and talents, exclaim--Poor Virginia! how art thou fallen!
But I sincerely hope, that the patriotism and the intelligence of the
people of this country, will be sufficient to keep our state and
federal governments moving on harmoniously in their legitimate
spheres,--avoiding at the same time dismemberment on the one side, or
the more dangerous tendency of consolidation on the other. All,
however, depends on the virtue, the intelligence, and the vigilance
of the People. Power to be restrained must always be watched with
Argus eyes--the people must always be on the alert--they must never
slacken their vigilance. If they have succeeded to-day in stripping
the usurper of his assumed powers--let them not remit their exertions
on the morrow, but let them remember that power after "these gentle
prunings" does sometimes vegetate but the more luxuriantly. If we
shall wisely avoid the evils with which we are beset in our onward
progress, then I would boldly assert, that never since the foundation
of the world has the eye of the philanthropist rested on a country
which has furnished so grand, so magnificent a theatre for the
creation and the display of arts, science and literature, and for the
production of all those virtues and high intellectual energies, which
so ennoble and adorn the human being and render him the true image of
his Maker, as our own most beautiful system of Confederated Republics
will then present.
Mr. President, I have done. The great importance and interest of the
topic I have so unworthily discussed, must be my apology for having
detained you so long.