The Life of Jefferson Davis. Alfriend Frank Heath

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ States, was to be preserved by good faith, and by a close observance of the terms on which we were united. We believed then, as I believe now, that the party which rested upon the basis of truth; promulgated its opinions, and had them tested in the alembic of public opinion, adopted the only path of safety. I can not respect such a doctrine as that which says, “You may construe the Constitution your way, and I will construe it mine; we will waive the merit of these two constructions, and harmonize together until the courts decide the question between us.” A man is bound to have an opinion upon any political subject upon which he is called to act; it is skulking his responsibility for a citizen to say, “Let us express no opinion; I will agree that you may have yours, and I will have mine; we will coöperate politically together; we will beat the opposition, divide the spoils, and leave it to the court to decide the question between us.”

      I do not believe that this is the path of safety; I am sure it is not the way of honor. I believe it devolves on us, who are principally sufferers from the danger to which this policy has exposed us, to affirm the truth boldly, and let the people decide after the promulgation of our opinions. Our Government, resting as it does upon public opinion and popular consent, was not formed to deceive the people, nor does it regard the men in office as a governing class. We, the functionaries, should derive our opinions from the people. To know what their opinion is, it is necessary that we should pronounce, in unmistakable language, what we ourselves mean.

      My position is, that there is no portion of our country where the people are not sufficiently intelligent to discriminate between right and wrong, and no portion where the sense of justice does not predominate. I, therefore, have been always willing to unfurl our flag to its innermost fold – to nail it to the mast, with all our principles plainly inscribed upon it. Believing that we ask nothing but what the Constitution was intended to confer – nothing but that which, as equals, we are entitled to receive – I am willing that our case should be plainly stated to those who have to decide it, and await, for good or for evil, their verdict.

      For two days, the Senator spoke nominally upon the resolutions, and upon the territorial question; but, like the witness in the French comedy, who, when called upon to testify, commenced before the creation, and was stopped by the judge, who told him to come down, for a beginning, to the deluge, he commenced so far back, and narrated so minutely, that he never got chronologically down to the point before us.

      What is the question on which the Democracy are divided? Are we called upon to settle what every body said from 1847 down to this date? Have the Democracy divided on that? Have they divided on the resolutions of the States in 1840, or 1844, or 1848? Have the Democracy undertaken to review the position taken in 1854, that there should be a latitude of construction upon a particular point of constitutional law while they did await the decision of the Supreme Court? No, sir; the question is changed from before to after the event; the call is on every man to come forward now, after the Supreme Court has given all it could render upon a political subject, and state that his creed is adherence to the rule thus expounded in accordance with previous agreement.

      The Senator tells us that he will abide by the decision of the Supreme Court; but it was fairly to be inferred, from what he said, that, in the Dred Scott case, he held that they had only decided that a negro could not sue in a Federal Court. Was this the entertainment to which we were invited? Was the proclaimed boon of allowing the question to go to judicial decision, no more than that, one after another, each law might be tested, and that, one after another, each case, under every law, might be tried, and that after centuries should roll away, we might hope for the period when, every case exhausted, the decision of our constitutional right and of the federal duty would be complete? Or was it that we were to get rid of the controversy which had divided the country for thirty years; that we were to reach a conclusion beyond which we could see the region of peace; that tranquillity was to be obtained by getting a decision on a constitutional question which had been discussed until it was seen that, legislatively, it could not or would not be decided? If, then, the Supreme Court has judicially announced that Congress can not prohibit the introduction of slave property into a Territory, and that no one deriving authority from Congress can do so, and the Senator from Illinois holds that the inhabitants derive their power from the organic act of Congress, what restrains his acknowledgment of our right to go into the Territories, and his recognition of the case being closed by the opinion of the court? I can understand how one who has followed to its logical consequences the original doctrine of squatter sovereignty might still stand out, and say this inherent right can not be taken away by judicial decision; but is not one who claims to derive the power of the territorial legislation from a law of Congress, and who finds the opinion of the court conclusive as to Congress, and to all deriving their authority from it, estopped from any further argument?

      Much of what the Senator said about the condition of public affairs can only be regarded as the presentation of his own case, and requires no notice from me. His witticism upon the honorable Senator, the Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary [Mr. Bayard], who is now absent, because of the size of the State which he represents, reminds one that it was mentioned as an evidence of the stupidity of a German, that he questioned the greatness of Napoleon because he was born in the little island of Corsica. I know not what views the Senator entertained when he measured the capacity of the Senator from Delaware by the size of that State, or the dignity of his action at Charleston by the number of his constituents. If there be any political feature which stands more prominently out than another in the Union, it is the equality of the States. Our stars have no variant size; they shine with no unequal brilliancy. A Senator from Delaware holds a position entitled to the same respect, as such, as the Senator from any other State of the Union. More than that, the character, the conduct, the information, the capacity of that Senator might claim respect, if he was not entitled to it from his position.

      Twice on this occasion, and more than the same number of times heretofore, has the Senator referred to the great benefit derived from that provision which grants a trial in the local court, an appeal to the Supreme Court of the Territory, and an appeal from thence to the Supreme Court of the United States, on every question involving title to slaves. I wish to say that whatever merit attaches to that belongs to a Senator to whom the advocates of negro slavery have not often been in the habit of acknowledging their obligations – the Senator from New Hampshire [Mr. Hale], who introduced it in 1850 as an amendment to the New Mexico Bill. We adopted it as a fair proposition, equally acceptable upon one side and the other. On its adoption, no one voted against it. That proposition was incorporated in the Kansas Bill, but unless we acknowledge obligations to the Senator from New Hampshire, how shall they be accorded for that to the Senator from Illinois?

      I am asked whether the resolutions of the Senate can have the force of law. Of course not. The Senate, however, is an independent member of the Government, and from its organization should be peculiarly watchful of State rights. Before the meeting of the Charleston Convention, it was untruly stated that these resolutions were concocted to affect the action of the Charleston Convention. Now we are asked if they are to affect the Baltimore Convention. They were not designed for the one; they are not pressed in view of the other. They were introduced to obtain an expression of the opinion of the Senate, a proceeding quite frequent in the history of this body. It was believed that they would have a beneficial effect, and that they were stated in terms which would show the public the error of supposing that there was a purpose on the part of the Democracy, or of the South, to enact what was called a slave code for the Territories of the United States. It was believed that the assertion of sound principles at this time would direct public opinion, and might be fruitful of such reuniting, harmonizing results as we all desire, and which the public need. Whether it is to have this effect or not; whether at last we are to be shorn of our national strength by personal or sectional strife, depends upon the conduct of those who have it in their power to control the result. The Democratic party, in its history, presents a high example of nationality; its power and its usefulness has been its co-extension with the Union. The Democrats of the Northern States who vote for these resolutions, but affirm that which we have so often announced with pride, that there was a political opinion which pervaded the whole country; there was a party capable to save the Union, because it belonged to all the States. If the two Democratic Senators who СКАЧАТЬ