These witnesses are strong and unimpeachable. In Caste, Government is
nurturing a tremendous evil,--a noxious plant, by the side of which the
Graces cannot flourish,--part and parcel of Idolatry,--a system which,
more than anything else the Devil has yet invented, tends to destroy
the feelings of general benevolence. Such is Caste,--odious, impious,
accursed, wherever it shows itself.
Now, Sir, I am ready to answer the inquiry of the Senator, whether
I read these as an interpretation of the Constitution of the United
States. Not precisely; but I do read them to exhibit the outrage
which seems to find a vindicator in the Senator from Wisconsin,--in
this respect, at least, that he can look at the National Constitution,
interpreted by the National Declaration, proclaiming the Equal Rights
of All, and find no word empowering Congress to provide that in
churches organized by law this hideous outrage shall cease. I think I
do no injustice to the Senator. He finds no power. He tells us that
if we exercise this power we shall have an Established Church, and he
invokes the National Constitution. Sir, I, too, invoke the National
Constitution,--not in one solitary provision, as the Senator does, but
from its Preamble to its last Amendment,--and I invoke the Declaration
of Independence. The Senator may smile. I know how he treats that great
charter. I know how in other days he has treated it. But, Sir, the
Declaration survives. It has been trifled with, derided, insulted often
on this floor, but it is more triumphant now than ever. Its primal
truths, announced as self-evident, are more commanding and more beaming
now than when first uttered. They are like the sun in the heavens, with
light and warmth.
…
Sir, is not the Senator answered? Is not the distinction clear as
noonday between what is prohibited by the Constitution and what is
proposed by my amendment? The difference between the two is as wide
as between the sky and the earth. They cannot be mingled. There is
no likeness, similitude, or anything by which they can be brought
together. The Senator opposes a religious amendment. I assert that
there shall be no political distinction; and that is my answer to his
argument on churches.
And now, Sir, may I say, in no unkindness, and not even in criticism,
but simply according to the exigencies of this debate, that the Senator
from Wisconsin has erred? If you will listen, I think you will see the
origin of his error. I do not introduce it here; nor should I refer to
it, if he had not introduced it himself. The Senator has never had an
adequate idea of the Great Declaration. The Senator smiles. I have been
in this Chamber long enough to witness the vicissitudes of opinion on
our Magna Charta. I have seen it derided by others more than it ever
was by the Senator from Wisconsin.
MR. CARPENTER. I should like to ask the Senator from
Massachusetts when he ever heard me deride it.
MR. SUMNER. The Senator will pardon me; I am coming to that. The
Senator shall know. The person who first in this Chamber opened assault
upon the Declaration was John C. Calhoun, in his speech on the Oregon
Bill, June 27, 1848. He denounced the claim of equality as “the most
false and dangerous of all political errors”; and he proceeded to say
that it “has done more to retard the cause of Liberty and Civilization,
and is doing more at present, than all other causes combined.” He then
added, that “for a long time it lay dormant, but in the process of time
it began to germinate and produce its poisonous fruits,”[232]--these
poisonous fruits being that public sentiment against Slavery which was
beginning to make itself felt.
This extravagance naturally found echo from his followers. Mr. Pettit,
a Senator from Indiana, after quoting “We hold these truths to be
self-evident, that all men are created equal,” proceeded:--
“I hold it to be a self-evident lie. There is no such thing.
Sir, tell me that the imbecile, the deformed, the weak, the
blurred intellect in man is my equal, physically, mentally, or
morally, and you tell me a lie. Tell me, Sir, that the slave
in the South, who is born a slave, and with but little over
one-half the volume of brain that attaches to the northern
European race, is his equal, and you tell what is physically a
falsehood. There is no truth in it at all.”[233]
This was in the Senate, February 20, 1854. Of course it proceeded on a
wretched misconstruction of the Declaration, which announced equality
of rights and not any other equality, physical, intellectual, or moral.
It was a declaration of rights,--nor more nor less.
Then, in the order of impeachment, followed a remarkable utterance
from a much-valued friend of my own and of the Senator, the late Rufus
Choate, who, without descending into the same particularity, seems
to have reached a similar conclusion, when, in addressing political
associates, he characterized the Declaration of Independence as “that
passionate and eloquent manifesto of a revolutionary war,” and then
again spoke of its self-evident truths as “the glittering and sounding
generalities of natural right.”[234] This was in his letter to the
Maine Whig State Central Committee, August 9, 1856. In my friendship
for this remarkable orator, I can never think of these too famous words
without a pang of regret.
This great question became a hinge in the memorable debate between
Mr. Douglas and Mr. Lincoln in the contest for the Senatorship of
Illinois, when the former said, in various forms of speech, that “the
Declaration of Independence only included the white people of the
United States”;[235] and Abraham Lincoln replied, that “the entire
records of the world, from the date of the Declaration of Independence
up to within three years ago, may be searched in vain for one single
affirmation, from one single man, that the negro was not included in
the Declaration.”[236] This was in Mr. Lincoln’s speech at Galesburg,
October 7, 1858. Elsewhere he repeated the same sentiment.
Andrew Johnson renewed the assault. After quoting the great words of
the Declaration, he said in this Chamber, December 12, 1859:--
“Is there an intelligent man throughout the whole country, is
there a Senator, when he has stripped himself of all party
prejudice, who will come forward and say that he believes that
Mr. Jefferson, when he penned that paragraph of the Declaration
of Independence, intended it to embrace the African population?
Is there a gentleman in the Senate who believes any such
thing?… There is not a man of respectable intelligence who will
hazard his reputation upon such an assertion.”[237]
All this is characteristic of the author, as afterward revealed to us.
Then, Sir, in the list we skip to April 5, 1870, when the Senator
from Wisconsin ranges himself in the line, characterizing the great
truths of the Declaration as “the generalities of that revolutionary
pronunciamento.” In reply to myself, he rebuked me, and said that it
was my disposition, if I could not find a thing in the Constitution,
to seek it in the Declaration of Independence,--and if it were not
embodied in “the generalities of that revolutionary pronunciamento,”
then to go still further.[238]
I present this exposition with infinite reluctance; but the Senator
makes it necessary. In his speech the other day, he undertook to state
himself anew with regard to the Declaration. He complained of me
because I made the National Constitution and the National Declaration
coëqual, and declared, that, if preference be given to one, it must be
to the Declaration. To that he replied:--
“Now the true theory is plain.”
Mr. President, you are to have the “true theory” on this important
question:--
“If the Senator from Massachusetts says, that in doubtful
cases it is the duty of a court, or the duty of the Senate, or
the duty of any public officer, to consider the Declaration
of Independence, he is right. So he must consider the whole
history of this country; he must consider the history of the
Colonies, the Articles of Confederation, all anterior history.
That is a principle of Municipal Law. A contract entered into
between two individuals, in the language of the cases, must
be read in the light of the circumstances that surrounded
the parties who made it. Certainly the Constitution of the
United States must be construed upon the same principle; and
when we are considering a doubtful question, the whole former
history of the country, the Declaration of Independence, the
writings of Washington and of Jefferson and of Madison, the
writings in ‘The Federalist,’--everything that pertained to
that day and gives color and tone to the Constitution, must be
considered.”[239]
Plainly, here is improvement. There is no derision. The truths of the
Declaration are no longer “the generalities of that revolutionary
pronunciamento.”
MR. CARPENTER. Oh, yes, it is; I stand by that.
MR. SUMNER. The Senator stands by that. Very well.
MR. CARPENTER. I glory in it. I glory in all the history of
that revolutionary period, our revolutionary fathers, our
revolutionary war. It is the Revolution that I make my stand
upon.
MR. SUMNER. Then, as the Senator from Vermont [Mr. EDMUNDS] remarks,
the Senator should give some effect to what he glories in. I hope he
will not take it all out in glory, but will see that a little of it is
transfused into Human Rights.
MR. CARPENTER. All that is consistent with the express
provisions of the Constitution.
MR. SUMNER. I shall come to that. The point is, that the Senator treats
the Declaration of Independence as no better than the writings of
Washington, of Jefferson, of Madison, “The Federalist,” and everything
that pertains to that day. It is only part and parcel of contemporary
history,--of no special consequence, no binding character, not
supreme, but only one of the authorities, or at least one of the
witnesses, by which we are to read the Constitution. Sir, is it so
regarded by Congress,--or at least is it so regarded by the committee
of this body under whose direction is printed what is known familiarly
as “The Constitution, Rules, and Manual”? Here is the little volume,
to which we daily turn. I find that the first document is the National
Declaration, preceding the National Constitution. Sir, it precedes
the Constitution in time, as it is more elevated in character. The
Constitution is a machine, great, mighty, beneficent. The Declaration
supplies the principles giving character and object to the machine.
The Constitution is an earthly body, if you please; the Declaration is
the soul. The powers under the Constitution are no more than the hand
to the body; the Declaration is the very soul itself. But the Senator
does not see it so. He sees it as no better than a letter of Jefferson
or Madison, or as some other contemporary incident which may help us
in finding the meaning of the Constitution. The Senator will not find
many ready to place themselves in the isolation he adopts. It was not
so regarded by the historian who has described it with more power and
brilliancy than any other,--Mr. Bancroft. After setting forth what it
contains, he presents it as a new and lofty Bill of Rights:--
“This immortal state-paper, which for its composer was the
aurora of enduring fame, was ‘the genuine effusion of the soul
of the country at that time,’ the revelation of its mind,
when, in its youth, its enthusiasm, its sublime confronting of
danger, it rose to the highest creative powers of which man is
capable. _The bill of rights which it promulgates_ is of rights
that are older than human institutions, and spring from the
eternal justice that is anterior to the State.”[240]
The vivid presentment of this state-paper, in its commanding character,
like an ordinance for mankind, above all other contemporary things,
shows its association with our great national anniversary.
“The nation, when it made the choice of a day for its
great anniversary, selected not the day of the resolution
of independence, when it closed the past, but that of the
declaration of the principles on which it opened its new
career.”[241]
Shall I remind you, Sir, of that famous letter by John Adams to his
wife, written the day after the Resolution of Independence, and pending
the Declaration? Of this epoch he predicts, in words quoted with
annual pride, that it “will be the most memorable in the history of
America,--celebrated by descending generations as the great anniversary
festival,--commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts
of devotion to God Almighty,--solemnized with pomp and power, with
cheers, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations,
from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward
forevermore.”[242] And yet this Declaration, annually celebrated,
having the first pages of our statute-book, placed in the fore-front of
the volume of rules for our guidance in this Chamber, this triumphant
Magna Charta, is to be treated as “the generalities of a revolutionary
pronunciamento,” or at best as of no more value than the letter of a
contemporary statesman. Sir, the Senator misconceives the case; and
there, allow me to say, is his error.
MR. CARPENTER. The Senator understood me to say, at least I
said, in construing the Constitution you must undoubtedly
look to the Declaration of Independence, as you must look to
all the contemporary history of that day. Did I say there
was no difference in the different documents? Did I say that
no more importance was to be attached to the Declaration of
Independence than to a letter of Madison or Washington? No,
Sir,--I said no such thing.
MR. SUMNER. The Senator shall speak for himself. He has spoken now, and
you shall hear what he said before:--
“Certainly the Constitution of the United States must be
construed upon the same principle.”
That is, as “a contract entered into between two individuals.”
“And when we are considering”--