GEORGE WASHINGTON.
On the 16th of June the following communication was received, and those
following at the dates mentioned, from the spirit of George Washington:
"From my home and congenial associations in the spirit world I come to you
to-day feeling and hoping that I may possibly be of some service to my
country, which I have never ceased to love with the tenderness of a
mother's love for her children. Indeed, my country--the noble young
republic--was kind to and considerate of me far above my merits.
"In the memorable struggle for independence I was assigned to duty at the
head of the colonial army, and by this circumstance occupied a position
that attracted to me more general attention than to others who were in
nowise less meritorious. After seven long years of patient suffering,
heroic endurance, and almost superhuman exertion, our gallant and
illy-provided army won an honorable peace, and I trust an imperishable
renown. A nation of freemen was brought into being, and a system of
government established far in advance of its predecessors. The old Roman
republic, grand in many respects and a marvel of excellence for its time,
was still in many regards vastly inferior to our own. Being at the head of
the brave army whose herculean efforts, exerted under many disadvantageous
circumstances, eventuated so gloriously, it was natural, although no more
worthy than many others who rendered patriotic services, that I should be
chosen the first executive of the young republic. This, to me, was a most
flattering testimonial of the high appreciation of and affection for the
gallant citizen soldiery who so valiantly acted in the stirring and
sanguinary events of the memorable contest. Regarding my elevation to the
chief magistracy of the nation as a reflection of public sentiment as
indicated more than as a personal compliment to myself, it behooved me by
discreet official conduct and patriotic action to show that the general
appreciation and esteem for that noble soldiery was not misplaced nor
unworthily bestowed.
"If I have rendered worthy services to my country, either in the line of
military duty or in the performance of civil trust, or both, they must
proclaim my right to speak from my higher conscious life to my countrymen
on matters pertaining to their best and dearest interests. If the gallant
army that fought to a successful issue the battles of freedom in the
infancy of its struggles here have claims upon the attention and
consideration of the present generation, and those of the future, they beg
you to earnestly consider the words that may fall from my lips and pen. I
have marshaled those mighty hosts of noble souls in spirit land, and with
them have recounted our struggles and sacrifices for you and those to come
after you, and they are in hearty accord with what I shall deem proper to
say to the nation through the much abused and little understood channel of
human mediumship. You will hear from me in the immediate future in
obedience to the purpose indicated."
June 23, 1882:
"Your complex system of government needs and will receive reconstruction
or remodeling. When we emerged from the revolutionary struggle, and came
to give the fruits of our hard earned victory some definite shape in the
formation of a government for the new nation, we adopted the articles of
confederation as the best we could then devise. It required but a short
time to teach us that they were defective, and that prudence and wisdom
dictated something different and better. The constitution was consequently
fashioned and superseded the confederation, and there has never been any
disagreement as to the superior wisdom of the constitutional form of
government, at least, as an improvement on the original confederation
form. When this had been accomplished we were fully persuaded that the
reorganization of the government under the constitution was the apex of
statesmanship and the acme of the science of governmental construction,
and were consequently happy and content. But alas, for poor human
foresight. It very soon became evident that the new arrangement was
imperfect, if not absolutely defective, and twelve amendments to the new
constitution were proposed by Congress and ratified by the states. After
and as the result of the late unhappy conflict between discordant states,
or, rather, rebellion of certain states by secession against the rightful
authority and sovereignty of the federal government, several additional
amendments became necessary and imperative, and they were accordingly
incorporated and ingrafted upon the already amended constitution. And now
others are earnestly talked of and advocated; and does this not teach you
the plain lesson that your system is still imperfect?
"The trouble is found to be that statesmanship is without foreknowledge,
and is either blind to or oblivious of the requirements of the future. In
other words, that the ceaseless mutations of human affairs, the ever
acting and onward march of the law of change and progression, fail to
strike the consciousness of statesmen or to secure their recognition. Of
one thing you may be assured, your plan of government will be revised and
remodeled to its vast betterment. When the time comes this will be most
vehemently resisted by those who on all questions affecting the interests
of the race and the happiness of mankind persist in remaining with the
bats and owls of past ages rather than to be baptized in the light of the
present and the foregleams of the future. But they must get out of the way
of the car of progress or be crushed beneath its merciless and continually
revolving wheels."
June 30, 1882:
"In the formation of your present system of government three co-ordinate
branches were established--the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial--and
they were designed to be checks, one upon the other. If in the zeal and
frenzy of partisan strife, or under the baleful influence of venality and
corruption, the legislative department should exceed its constitutional
authority or enact legislation inimical to the public interests, the
executive was invested with the veto privilege whereby the evil might be
arrested. If, however, the President should be found to be in accord and
sympathy with the legislative branch in its hurtful legislation, and gave
thereto the sanction of his approving signature; or, in case the President
exercised his veto power in the particular matter, and Congress should
pass the measure over his objections by the requisite two-thirds of each
branch, then and in either of these events there still remained the
supreme court with its supervisory power or power of final determination.
"But it may be very properly asked, what if the supreme court should be
influenced by the same or similar considerations as the other co-ordinate
branches, what help, relief, or remedy, is left to the people and the
nation? It can only be answered--force, revolution, rebellion. Does not
this plain statement present a dangerous contingency and indicate a
palpable weakness?
"It should be remembered that in our form of republican government all
powers are derived from the people, and it should be furthermore very
emphatically understood that all powers belong to them. If this view is
correct, then in the hypothetical case mentioned for the purpose of
illustration, the people themselves should be the last court of resort, or
the high court of appeals.
"It was thought by the founders of your government that the judiciary
would always be pure and safe, but unfortunately experience has taught us
quite differently. It is humiliating to an American citizen, whether he be
in or out of the body, to be compelled to make this confession. But truth
not only justifies but demands it, and it is best that it be frankly made
and acknowledged."
August 14, 1882:
"We are not permitted, for prudential reasons, to tell you how the new
system is to be fashioned. To do so would not facilitate its
accomplishment, but might possibly operate detrimentally by inducing
premature consideration and discussion. Suffice it to say that the subject
has been deliberately considered and the plan carefully matured by wise
statesmanship in the realm of causation, and will be given to your world
at the proper time and in the proper way.
"I desire to briefly discuss two propositions:
"1st. What are the duties of the citizen to the government, or what the
government has the right to exact of and from the citizen?
"2d. What are the duties of the government to the people, or what the
people have the right to exact of and from their government?
"First. The citizen owes the government affection and homage. This springs
from patriotism and self-interest.
"Second. To render a cheerful obedience to and acquiescence in all
lawfully constituted authority, reserving always and of primary importance
the natural and inalienable right when all civil remedies prove
unavailing, of revolution against and resistance to, tyranny, usurpation,
and oppression.
"Third. Prompt compliance with all the lawful edicts and mandates of
government. If they are deemed unlawful, unjust, and oppressive, first
appealing to judicial supervision and all lawful means for relief and
protection--revolution the dernier ressort.
"Fourth. Loyally protecting, defending, and sustaining the government when
assailed from within or without, and when waging a just war upon a
foreign foe, or in the suppression of an unjust and indefensible internal
war, insurrection, or rebellion.
"Fifth. Aiding the government both in peace and war by being honest to and
with it in official station, and by helping to uphold and foster its
credit and honor.
"These comprise mainly the duties of the citizen to his government. He
owes other duties to society and the local community in which he resides,
but they are not considered pertinent or germane to our proposition.
"I speak of sustaining the government in war. War is a terrible thing to
contemplate, and we would gladly crush it out in its every vestige, but
you seem as yet not to have outgrown and developed above and beyond it,
and therefore we are compelled to notice the subject, however painful and
sorrowful it may be. The time is not so very far distant in the future
when nations and men will progress beyond this horrible relic of
barbarism, when the fierce god of war will give place to the sweet and
gentle spirit of peace and brotherly love; when all differences will be
amicably adjusted without a resort to the arbitrament of the sword and the
instruments of devastation, bloodshed, and death."
August 17, 1882:
"In a certain sense the people are the children of the government, and in
a still more important sense the government is the offspring of the
people. If you ask me what, under the law of your present state of
development, are the duties of the child to the parent, I answer
obedience, maintenance, and protection. If you ask me the duties of the
parent to the child, I answer maintenance, education, and protection. The
family government was the first government in the infancy of the race from
which all other governments naturally and progressively sprang, and their
relations and reciprocating duties are much the same.
"I now reach the second proposition: What are the duties of the government
to the people, or what have the people the right to demand of their
government? It is the bounden duty of the government, under the
constitution, to afford ample and plenary protection to the citizen in the
exercise and enjoyment of civil and religious liberty. This protection is
due to the humblest as well as the most exalted. The powers of your
government are adequate to this end, if properly and effectively wielded,
and if exercised without fear or favoritism.
"Again, it is the duty of government to see that public affairs are so
managed that its burdens may fall lightly upon the people and mostly upon
those ablest to bear them. A judicious system of obtaining revenue to meet
the exigencies of government and the liquidation of the national public
debt by taxing incomes on accumulated wealth and its investment in various
speculative methods, would be most salutary to the attainment of the
object.
"In order that the wise purposes of good government be carried out, and
that honesty, frugality, and the most rigid economy should characterize
every department of the public service, it is essentially and
indispensably important that honesty and capacity alone should be regarded
as commanding qualities for public official positions. Dishonesty and
corruption and bribery in public stations ought to be severely punished,
else there remains no safety and security to confiding constituencies.
When your government offices reek with corruption and no alarm is
manifested and no corrective measures adopted, you are not far from the
yawning brink of the precipice over which your liberties and free
institutions are sure to be precipitated. It is the duty of the
government, in the interest of a confiding trusting people to hunt down
the official vampires and parasites who thus insidiously prey upon the
vitals of government, and inflict upon them such penalties as are
commensurate with their enormous crimes. To allow them to go on with
impunity and exempt from punishment is to invite and encourage corruption,
and to suggest the safety of its increase."
August 18, 1882:
"It is the duty of government to foster, uphold, and defend labor in its
unequal struggle against the greed of capital to the end that capital may
not utterly crush it beneath its scornful and merciless heel. I tell you
in all seriousness that on this subject you are approaching the verge of a
volcano whose wrathful pent-up fires can not be much longer controlled,
nor is it desirable that they should be unless a speedy change in the
treatment of labor by capital, involving justice and right, is brought
about. It is a delusion and in opposition to all human experience to
expect capital, uncompelled by law, to become quickened in conscience and
pervaded by a sense of equity and right. The government must stretch forth
its strong arm and compel the exercise by authoritative and coercive
power of a spirit of justice and fair dealing that belongs to a common
humanity. Revivify and re-adopt that virtuous and beneficent doctrine of
the earlier patriotic statesmanship of the republic, namely: 'The greatest
good to the greatest number.' The men and women who toil and sweat in
poverty constitute the greatest number, and he must indeed be blind to
truth and deaf to justice who fails to discover or concede that the
toiling millions have wrongs done them by the greedy rapacity of capital,
and which appeal with vehement persistency for redress--aye, we fear in a
little while, for retaliative and retributive vengeance. They have the
right to claim protection from the steady and stealthy encroachments of
capital whereby the rich grow richer and the poor poorer. Capital and
labor are mutually interested in each others' welfare and prosperity, and
are alike equally entitled to protection when dealing justly with each
other, but under the present order of things labor is at the mercy of
capital, and receives not justice at its hands. And this great government
fought into existence by the common people, defended in every succeeding
struggle by the common people, and which claims to be a government of the
people and by the people and for the people, stands idly by with folded
arms and with an apparent serene complacency permits the great masses of
the people to become hopelessly impoverished, while the exclusive and
favored few become enormously enriched. Verily has the government by its
inaction and failure to interpose, become truly and in the sight of heaven
a _particeps criminis_ in producing this wretched and deplorable condition
of affairs."
August 21, 1882:
"You have a tariff system, which for unrighteousness in the cruelty of its
exactions, is without a parallel in modern times. It is unjust and
oppressive; wholly indefensible, and with scarcely a palliating feature.
My circumscribed power in communicating will not allow me to argue the
question _in extenso_, or as I would like to. Your tariff is not only
unjustly discriminative, but painfully oppressive in its operations,
especially so far as the interests of the consumers are concerned. Why do
you not honestly examine the subject in its bearings in the laudable
endeavor to ascertain to whose benefit it inures. The government to some
extent is benefited in the matter of revenue, but the capitalists are more
largely the beneficiaries, and it is for them and their interests that you
legislate. Have you not yet discovered, if not by close and analytical
reasoning, at least by an observance of its practical operations, that the
poor artisans, skilled mechanics, and other labors immediately connected
with your manufactures, are not favored by high rates of tariff, and that
protection to home manufacturing by imposts on imported commodities does
not enhance the interests or confer blessings upon the consumers of your
manufactured articles. Have you not yet realized the fact that exorbitant
and restrictive protection fosters only the interests of invested capital,
with no real advantage to the toiling operatives and to the oppressive
detriment of consumers? If the operatives in your manufacturing
establishments were benefited by high tariffs it would be manifested and
plainly discernible in prosperous accumulations and in their happy
contentment. The opposite of all this is true, and it does not require a
philosopher to discover it. Why trades unions, repeated and frequent
strikes, and an unmistakably unhappy condition of unrest, if the benefits
accruing from the system beneficially inured to the workmen? The masses of
your toiling people are inclined to suffer and bear injuries and injustice
with a patience and forbearance not characteristic of any other people
under the broad canopy of heaven, and when they protest by strike or
otherwise you may safely assume that they are in the right, and have just
grievances. The people not directly connected with the manufacturing
interest, but who are the purchasers of its products, have exhibited a
still more remarkable degree of patient forbearance, for they are much
more numerous and less directly dependent. They have been sorrowfully
blinded to their true interests by unconscionable politicians and
political tricksters, and most dearly have they paid for their confidence
and ignorance. We see signs of the awakening of the hitherto slumbering
sensibilities of the people, and feel assured that in the not remote
future will be aroused a sentiment among the masses that will compel a
change of front on this subject in the meting out of even-handed and
impartial justice."
August 24, 1882:
"Another subject of engrossing importance to your weal is the threatening
and dangerous attitude of monopoly and corporate power. Your railroad
corporations are assuming gigantic proportions, and bode no good to you if
left uncontrolled and unregulated by law. Your liberties are not only
menaced for many causes, but by this corporate power all the avenues and
departments of your government are being influenced detrimentally to the
general public interest, if not absolutely sullied by the corroding
elements of corruption. These corporations, by the many influences they
are enabled to exert, if left unrestrained by legislation, will control
your government and its vast machinery as effectually and completely as
the planets perform their circuits in obedience to the inflexible and
unerring laws of the universe.
"It is nonsense to talk about the absence of constitutional power over the
subject. Your national legislature has ample warrant, under the
constitutional provision conferring authority upon Congress to regulate
commerce among the states, and Congress should exercise that authority
promptly and fearlessly. Railroads are common carriers, and are, when
considered in connection with this power conferred upon Congress, public,
and not private, highways. The Supreme Court of the United States has
frequently affirmed this power as residing in the legislative department
of the government. Unless regulated and restrained, these corporations may
impose such exorbitant rates of transportation as to destroy ordinary
profits on manufactured and other commodities, and necessitate an
insufferable and unbearable increase to meet the exigency of increased
rates of transportation, and, of course, to the detriment and oppression
of consumers. The government must take the matter in hand for the
protection of the people. Competition will prove unavailing without
restrictive legislation; for the railroads would engage in pooling, and
thereby render nugatory the natural advantages of competition. This
monopoly constitutes the most threatening element in the country, and will
be felt too soon, if not prevented by judicious exercise of governmental
authority. The use of steam, as applied to railroads, steamboats, and
steamships, was unknown to the founders of your government and the framers
of your constitution, or more definite provisions would have been made in
relation to the subject of regulating commerce. Why can not your statesmen
be as patriotic and as true to the public?
"Although mainly chartered by the states, they are not authorized by
implication or otherwise to pursue the selfish course of only subserving
the interests of capital, but for the convenience and benefit of the great
body of the people in commerce and travel as well. They have, by
exercising all undue influence, corrupted courts and legislatures, and
will, ere long, as they have already to some extent, invade the sacred
precincts of your elections, corrupting the sanctity of the ballot-box,
and demoralizing the independence of electors. Then your government will
become a farce, and your free institutions subject to the whims and
caprices of unholy and unconscionable monopoly power."
August 25, 1882:
"The great agricultural interests upon which you mostly depend for all of
your material prosperity receive no protection from your tariff
legislation, but are compelled to pay tribute to manufacturing by paying
tariffs on manufactured agricultural implements used on the farm by the
increased prices on the same. Besides, this great interest (agricultural)
is at the mercy of railroad corporations in high rates of transporting
the products of the farm to market, and in the end the burden falls on the
consumers of such products.
"The recent tariff commission created by Congress, and its members
appointed by the President, is a miserable subterfuge and sham, as you
will ultimately ascertain. The dodging of the responsibility by Congress,
of an immediate revision of the tariff and the correction of its abuses
and vices, ought to be vigorously condemned. There exists no valid reason
why the old war tariff rates should be continued in this era of profound
peace and general prosperity of trade and business. Under the
constitution, tariff taxation can only be imposed on imported articles for
the purposes of revenue to the government, and this, however arranged, is
amply sufficient to afford incidental protection to home manufactories.
The time is coming when free trade and open, untrammelled commerce with
all nations will be the policy of all wise governments, and the sooner it
is brought about the better.
"The currency policy will also be changed, and a great wrong therein
righted. The national banking system projected into being early in the
late war, and which had its necessities for an apology, will be abrogated
and done away with, and a currency furnished directly by the government to
the people, without the intervention and agency of private banking
corporations. This will be cheaper, safer, and more durable, predicated,
as it will be, upon the good faith of the American people and their
government, and secured by their prosperity.
"The time will come when the flag of the American republic will float over
Canada, all the British Possessions on this continent, the island of
Cuba, the natural key to the Gulf of Mexico, as well as over the
cultivated valleys, arid plateaus, and towering mountains of the land of
the Montezumas, beyond the Rio Grande. Then will your system of government
be remodeled and reconstructed upon a plan infinitely superior to your
present one, and the United States will not only become the greatest
nation the earth has ever known, but the nucleus around which, in time,
all other nations will cluster and revolve, shouting the anthem of human
equality and freedom and universal liberty.
"G. WASHINGTON."