Part 4

Studying the banner further, I found written above this fair device the names, “DOUGLAS AND JOHNSON.” And then I was saddened to see how here in Massachusetts a great principle of human rights is degraded to be a cover for the denial of all rights. Of course the principles of these two candidates are understood. Mr. Douglas, with vulgar insensibility to what is due to all who wear the human form, openly declares that “at the North he is for the white man against the _nigger_, but that further South he is for the _nigger_ against the alligator,”--and in this spirit says, “Vote Slavery up or vote Slavery down”; and such is the Popular Sovereignty which he proclaims. Mr. Johnson, who is his associate, declares, in well-known words, that “Capital ought to own Labor,”--that is, that mechanics, workmen, and farmers, in fine, all who toil with hands, should be slaves; and this is the Popular Sovereignty which he proclaims. Surely this Douglas and Johnson Popular Sovereignty should rather be called Popular Tyranny. And here at the outset you will observe a wide distinction. Sovereignty is properly limited by _right_; Tyranny is without any limit except _force_. But when presented under the captivating device of “Trust the people,” its true character is concealed. It is the Devil radiant with the face of an angel. It is an apple of Sodom, fair to the eye, but dust and ashes to the touch.

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There are few among us who avow themselves supporters of Douglas and Johnson; or if they do, they have ceased to look for success in the coming Presidential election, which seems to be practically decided already. I should not be justified, therefore, in occupying your time to-night in considering their cunning artifice, if it were represented only by Douglas and Johnson, against whom you all stand ready to vote. To argue against these candidates here in Massachusetts, and especially in Worcester County, is as superfluous as to argue against King George the Third, whose ideas of sovereignty were of the same tyrannical class, yet who was dead long ago.

But the same popular tyranny, misnamed Popular Sovereignty, upheld by these Presidential candidates, is also upheld by another candidate, now seeking your votes as Representative to Congress. Let me not do injustice to Mr. Thayer. I know well the points of difference between his theory and the theory of Douglas and Johnson; but I know also that in essential character they are identical,--so much so, that Mr. Douglas is reported to have hailed him, at the close of one of his speeches, as an authoritative expounder of the theory. The ancient Athenian, when praised in a certain quarter, exclaimed, “What bad thing have I done?” And Mr. Thayer, in earlier days, when doing so much for Freedom, would have been apt to turn from such praise with a similar exclamation.

It was natural that Mr. Douglas should praise him; for he gave the influence of character and ability to that pretension on which this reckless adventurer had staked his political fortunes. The fundamental principle of each is, that the question of Slavery in a distant Territory shall be taken from Congress and referred to the handful of squatters in the Territory, who, in the exercise of a sovereignty inherent in the people, and therefore called Popular Sovereignty, may “vote Slavery up or vote Slavery down.” Of course Mr. Thayer, thanks to his New England home, has too much good taste to put forth this pretension in the brutal form it often assumes, when advanced by Mr. Douglas. He does not say that he is “for the white man against the _nigger_ and for the _nigger_ against the alligator.” Perhaps the pretension becomes more dangerous because presented in more plausible form, and made part of a more comprehensive system. All that Mr. Douglas claims for the squatters, in the exercise of Popular Sovereignty, is power over Slavery, and other domestic institutions; while Mr. Thayer claims for them, besides this power, the power also to choose their own officers, instead of receiving them from Washington. But the essential distinctive pretension of each is, that the handful of squatters is exclusively entitled, in the exercise of Popular Sovereignty, to pass upon the question of Slavery in the Territories, and to vote it up or vote it down, without any intervention from Congress.

If this principle were asserted only with regard to a single Territory, or even with regard to a single county or a single town, it ought to be opposed as fallacious and unjust; but when asserted as a general principle applicable to all the Territories of the Republic, it must be resisted, not only as fallacious and unjust, but as fraught with consequences difficult to measure. Glance for one moment at the vast spaces which it would open to this mad conflict, and you will be awed by the immensity of the question.

According to official documents, the whole territorial extent of the United States, including States and Territories, embraces about three million square miles. This in itself is no inconsiderable portion of the earth’s surface. It is nearly ten times as large as Great Britain and France combined,--three times as large as the whole of France, Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Holland, and Denmark together,--only a little less than the whole sixty Empires, States, and Republics of all Europe,--and of equal extent with the ancient Roman Empire, or the empire of Alexander, neither of which is said to have exceeded three million square miles. Of this vast area, about one half is now organized into States, leaving one million five hundred thousand square miles in the condition of outlying territory, whose future fortunes are involved in the decision of the present question.

If the subject assumes colossal proportions when we regard the extent of territory, it swells to yet grander form when we look at the population involved. The whole white population of the United States at the present moment amounts to 27,000,000. Supposing it to increase at the rate of 34 per cent in ten years, which may be inferred from the rate at which it has already increased, it will number in 1870, 36,000,000; in 1880, 48,000,000; in 1890, 64,000,000; in 1900, 85,000,000; in 1910, 113,000,000; in 1920, 151,000,000; in 1930, 202,000,000; in 1940, 270,000,000; in 1950, 361,000,000; and in 1960, just one hundred years from now, it will reach 483,000,000 of white freemen. Here we may well stop to take breath. Add to this white population 50,000,000 of colored population, whether free or slave, according to the supposed increase, and we shall have a sum-total of 533,000,000; and in two hundred years, with the same continuing rate of increase, our population will be ten times larger than that of the whole globe at the present hour.

This extraordinary multitude will not be confined to the present States. It will diffuse itself in every direction, covering all our territory as the waters cover the sea. Precisely how it will be distributed it is impossible to foreknow. But the tendency of population is Westward. The Eastern States are becoming stationary. Assuming that in 1960 the area now unoccupied will be settled at the rate of Massachusetts in 1850, which was 127 to the square mile, we shall then have on that territory a white population of 190,000,000. And the simple question is, Whether this enormous territory, with this enormous population, shall be exposed to all the accumulating evils of Slavery, with their hateful legacy, at the mere will of the handful of first settlers? According to a French proverb, “It is only the first step which costs,” and there is profound truth in this saying. In similar spirit the ancient Romans said, _Obsta principiis_, “Oppose beginnings.”

Never were these time-honored maxims more applicable than in the present case, when such prodigious results are involved. All experience shows that it takes very little Slavery to constitute a Slave State, and that Slavery, when once introduced, is most tenacious of existence. Mr. Lincoln, in one of his speeches, has aptly likened it to the Canada thistle, which, when once planted, extends with most injurious pertinacity. Others liken it to a cancer or vicious disease, which, when once in the system, corrupts the blood forever. It may be likened to a superstitious usage, which, when once established in the customs of a people, yields reluctantly to every effort against it. And yet Mr. Thayer wrests from Congress, representing the whole country, all power to prevent the introduction of this transcendent evil, and transfers the whole question to a handful of squatters, who are to act for the weal or woe of half a continent with teeming millions of population; and this is done in the name of Popular Sovereignty, as announced in the Declaration of Independence.

Fellow-citizens, I deny this pretension in every respect and at every point. I assert the power of Congress, founded on reason and precedent; and I assert the overwhelming necessity at this moment of exercising this unquestionable power. Guardians of this mighty territory, the destined home of untold millions, we must see that it is securely consecrated to the uses of Freedom, so that it cannot be pressed by the footsteps of a slave. For the moment we are performing the duty of _conditores imperiorum_, or founders of States, which Lord Bacon, in sententious wisdom, places foremost in honor, and calls a “primitive and heroical work.”[23] In the discharge of this duty, every power, every effort, every influence for Freedom should be invoked. The angel at the gates of Paradise, with flaming sword turning to every side, might be fitly summoned to guard this grand inheritance.

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Not only do I assert this power, but I deny that sovereignty, when justly understood, has among its incidents the right to enslave our fellow-man. Mr. Thayer practically recognizes this incident; for he insists upon leaving the handful of squatters in the Territories to vote Slavery up or vote Slavery down without any intervention from Congress. And here is the vital question: Is there any such power incident to sovereignty?

And since the Declaration of Independence is invoked as authority for this new pretension, I shall bring it precisely to this touchstone. Bear with me, if I am tedious.

On the 4th of July, 1776, was put forth that great state paper, which constitutes an epoch of history. Its primary object was to dissolve the bonds which existed between the Colonies and the mother country. For this purpose a few positive words would have sufficed. But its authors were not content with this enunciation. Ascending far above the simple idea of National Independence, they made their Declaration an example to mankind, in two respects: first, as a Declaration of Human Rights; and, secondly, as an admission that the Sovereignty which they established was limited by Right.

In the first place, they declared “that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”; and “that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Note well these words. Here was a Declaration of Natural Rights, the first ever put forth in history, unless we except the declaration only a few months earlier in Virginia. In England there have been Bills of Rights, beginning with Magna Charta, all declaring simply the rights of Englishmen, and all founded on concession and precedent. Now came a Declaration of the Rights of Man, not founded on concession or precedent, but founded on Nature. And this Declaration, though made the basis of the new government, was universal in application, so that people, wherever struggling for rights, have been cheered by its words.

There is another enunciation, by which the Declaration is equally memorable, although this feature has been less noticed. Certainly it has not been noticed by Mr. Thayer, or he would never venture to derive his pretension from a Declaration which positively excludes all such idea. Other governments, even those of the American Colonies, have been founded on _force_, and the sovereignty which they claimed was unlimited, so as to sanction Slavery. That I may not seem to make this statement hastily, pardon me, if I adduce two illustrative authorities. I refer first to Sir William Blackstone, the commentator on the Laws of England, who says: “There is and must be in all forms of government, however they began, or by what right soever they subsist, a supreme, irresistible, absolute, uncontrolled authority, in which the _rights of sovereignty_ reside;”[24] and this power, which in England is attributed to Parliament, he calls in one place “that _absolute despotic power_ which must in all governments reside _somewhere_.”[25] I refer also to the famous Dr. Johnson, who, in his tract entitled “Taxation no Tyranny,” openly says that “all government is ultimately and essentially absolute”; that “in sovereignty there are no gradations”; that “there must in every society be some power or other from which there is no appeal,” which “extends or contracts privileges, exempt itself from question or control, and bounded only by physical necessity.”[26]

In the face of these contemporary authorities, one an eminent jurist, and the other an eminent moralist, both well known to our fathers, and in the face of all traditions of government, the Declaration of Independence disclaimed all despotic, absolute, or unlimited power, and voluntarily brought the new sovereignty within the circumscription of _Right_. Not content with declaring that the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are inalienable, and therefore beyond the control of any sovereignty, the Declaration went further, and, by abnegation worthy of perpetual honor, solemnly restrained the new sovereignty,--simply claiming for it the “power to do all acts and things which independent states may OF RIGHT do.” Even had this express limitation been omitted, no such incident of sovereignty as that asserted by Mr. Thayer could be derived from an instrument containing those words with which the Declaration begins; but with these latter words of special limitation, the pretension becomes absurd.

Such, fellow-citizens, is the Popular Sovereignty of the Declaration of Independence, drawing its life, first, from the inalienable Rights of Man, and then, by positive words, restrained to what is Right. And this is the Popular Sovereignty which, lifting the down-trodden and trampling on tyrants,--now gentle as Charity, and then terrible as an army with banners,--is destined to make the tour of the world, rendering Slavery everywhere impossible.

Of this Popular Sovereignty I have spoken on another occasion,[27] and I refrain with difficulty from repeating now what I said then, partly because I believe so completely in its truth and rejoice in its utterance, but more because I learn that it has been wrested from its place to cover the Popular Tyranny, misnamed Popular Sovereignty, which Mr. Thayer so ardently vindicates.

How strange that words which hail the Angel of Human Liberation, with Liberty and Equality in her glorious train, should be invoked in support of a wicked tyranny, which, in the name of Popular Sovereignty, makes merchandise of our fellow-man! Face to face against this wretched pretension I put the true Popular Sovereignty, with Liberty and Equality for all, guarded and surrounded by the impassable limitation of Right, which is the god Terminus, never to be overthrown. Within these great precincts there can be no Slavery, nor can there be any denial of Equal Rights. How, then, can any man, in the name of Popular Sovereignty, vote another to be a slave? How, then, can any man, in this name, assert property in his fellow-man? By what excuse, with what reason, on what argument can any such thing be done, without first denying all that is true and sacred? Liberty, which is the active principle of Popular Sovereignty,--Equality, which is twin sister of Liberty,--and Justice, which sets bounds to all that men do on earth,--these are the irresistible enemies of Slavery, each and all of which must be trampled out by any rule under which man can be made a slave. But these, each and all, constitute that Popular Sovereignty which is the glory of our institutions. Anything else calling itself by this great name is a mockery and a sham, fit only for hissing and scorn.

The Declaration of Independence gave dignity to our Revolutionary contest, and made it a landmark of human progress. Here, at last, the rights of man were proclaimed, and a government was organized in subjection to the sovereign rule of Right. The people, while lifting themselves to the duties of sovereignty, bowed before that overruling sovereignty whose seat is the bosom of God. Such an example became at once a guide to mankind. It was copied in France, under the lead of Lafayette; and there is no people struggling for Right in either hemisphere who have not felt its inspiration. And yet this Declaration, standing highest among the historic landmarks of our country, is now assailed and dishonored.

It is assailed and dishonored, first, by denial of these natural rights which it so gloriously declares. This is done often with a jeer. Forgetful that these rights were divinely established at the very Creation, when God said, “Let us make man in our image,” and then again in the Gospel, when it was said, “God hath made of one blood all nations of men,”--forgetful that these rights are stamped by Nature on all who wear the human form,--forgetful also that they belong to those self-evident truths, sometimes called axioms, which are universal in their application, as the axiom in arithmetic that two and two make four, and the axiom in geometry that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points,--forgetful of the true glory of our country, these primal truths are sometimes scouted as “absurd,” sometimes as “splendid generalities,” and sometimes as a “self-evident lie.” This assault, though proceeding from various voices, originated with Mr. Calhoun. He is its first author.

And now, secondly, the Declaration is assailed and dishonored by the claim, that men, in the exercise of sovereignty derived from the Declaration, may set up on an auction-block their fellow-men, if to them it seems fit, and that this power is an incident of Popular Sovereignty. This pretension, first put forth by General Cass, in 1847, when a Presidential candidate,[28] and now revived by Mr. Douglas, who peddles it throughout the country, is also practically adopted by Mr. Thayer, as part of his peculiar Territorial policy. Such a pretension is hardly less degrading to the Declaration than the open mockery of its primal truths by Mr. Calhoun. The latter, as is well known, denied the sovereignty of the people in the Territories, but he agreed, heart and soul, in the pretension that the right to enslave a fellow-man is an incident of sovereignty, wherever it exists.

Thus do these two assaults upon the Declaration practically proceed from one source. In their essential ideas they are _Calhounism_.

On the other side is arrayed a name illustrious for various public service, and for unsurpassed championship of Freedom: I mean John Quincy Adams. Entering the House of Representatives after a long life, at home and abroad, as Senator, as Minister, as Secretary of State, and finally as President, he added to all these titles by the ability and constancy with which he upheld the Rights of Man. Mr. Calhoun was at this time in the Senate; but Mr. Adams incessantly met all his assumptions for Slavery,--exposing its hateful character, insisting upon its _prohibition_ in the Territories, and especially vindicating the Declaration of Independence. Never has the recent pretension, in the name of Popular Sovereignty, been more completely anticipated and exposed. And now, that this argument may not stand entirely upon my words, I quote from him. Says John Quincy Adams, in his oration on the Fourth of July, 1831, at Quincy:--

“Unlimited power belongs not to the nature of man, and rotten will be the foundation of every government leaning upon such a maxim for its support.… The pretence of an absolute, irresistible, despotic power existing in every government _somewhere_ is incompatible with the first principle of natural right.… The _sovereignty_ which would arrogate to itself absolute, unlimited power must appeal for its sanction to those illustrious expounders of Human Rights, Pharaoh of Egypt and Herod the Great of Judea.”[29]

In another passage of the same oration, the patriot statesman says, in words which answer a portion of Mr. Thayer’s arguments:--

“It has sometimes been objected to the Declaration, that it deals too much in abstractions. But this was its characteristic excellence; for upon those abstractions hinged the justice of the cause. Without them our Revolution would have been but successful rebellion. Right, truth, justice are all abstractions. The Divinity that stirs within the soul of man is abstraction. The Creator of the universe is a spirit, and all spiritual nature is abstraction. Happy would it be, could we answer with equal confidence another objection, not to the Declaration, but to the consistency of the people by whom it was proclaimed!”[30]

These same views were enforced again by Mr. Adams in his oration at Newburyport, July 4, 1837. There he uses words which reveal the limits of Popular Sovereignty. Thus he speaks:--

“The sovereign authority conferred upon the people of the Colonies by the Declaration of Independence could not dispense them, nor any individual citizen of them, from the fulfilment of all their moral obligations.… The people who assumed their equal and separate station among the powers of the earth, by the laws of Nature’s God, by that very act acknowledged themselves bound to the observance of those laws, _and could neither exercise nor confer any power inconsistent with them_.”[31]

Then alluding to the self-imposed restraints upon the sovereignty which was established, our teacher says:--

“The Declaration acknowledged a rule of _Right_ paramount to the power of independent states itself, and virtually disclaimed all power to do _Wrong_. This was a novelty in the moral philosophy of nations, and it is the essential point of difference between the system of government announced in the Declaration of Independence and those systems which had until then prevailed among men.… It was an experiment upon the heart of man. All the legislators of the human race until that day had laid the foundations of all government among men in _Power_; and hence it was that in the maxims of theory, as well as in the practice of nations, sovereignty was held to be unlimited and illimitable. The Declaration of Independence proclaimed another law, … a law of _Right_, binding upon nations as well as individuals, upon sovereigns as well as upon subjects.… In assuming the attributes of _sovereign power_, the Colonists appealed to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of their intentions, and neither claimed nor conferred authority to do anything but _of Right_.”[32]

Such is the irresistible testimony of John Quincy Adams. On the other side are arrayed John C. Calhoun, Stephen A. Douglas, and Eli Thayer. Choose you between these two sides.

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