Part 13

Then, in reply to those who charge the negroes with vices, he says indignantly:--

“Make them free, and nearer Nature than yourselves, they will be superior to you.”[166]

So does the French philosopher testify against the Chief Justice.

Strange that the Chief Justice, forgetting the jurisprudence and literature of France, forgot also the brilliant testimony of Lafayette, who, communicating to Congress at Philadelphia the great news that the Treaty with England acknowledging our Independence was signed, wrote by the same packet, and under the same date, February 5, 1783,[167] to Washington, calling upon the commander of our armies to unite with him in the purchase of a small property, where they might make the experiment of emancipating the negroes, and of employing them simply as farm laborers. Although Washington failed to unite with his French friend, the appeal exists as testimony against the Chief Justice. There is also the letter of Lafayette to Hamilton, April 13, 1785, asking to be enrolled in what he calls the “Association against the Slavery of Negroes,” in New York, and declaring that he has ever been “partial to his brethren of that color.”[168] This should have been remembered by the Chief Justice.

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From France I pass to Holland, including Belgium. Here an authority so familiar as Bynkershoek tells us that the Belgians, capturing Algerines, Tunisians, and Tripolitans, on the ocean or in the Mediterranean, are accustomed to sell them into Slavery in Spain; “for the Belgians themselves have no slaves except in Asia, Africa, and America.”[169] Like France, the country at home was free, and Slavery was exiled to the colonies. The efficacy of this rule is curiously attested by an incident recorded by Diderot, the Frenchman so eminent in science and literature, and of universal knowledge. It is in his Tour in Holland, made in 1773. It is well known that Peter of Russia, called the Great, served as a shipwright in the docks of Holland. Afterwards visiting the country as Czar, he was attracted by the apparatus for execution, but, not comprehending its operation clearly, he said, “It is only necessary to take one of my slaves, and try it on him.” It was represented, that, besides the revolting atrocity of this act, it would not be possible to allow it. “Ah! why not?” said the Czar. “Am I not master of my slave, and can I not dispose of him at my will?” “In your own country, perhaps,” replied the burgomaster, “but not here. Every slave who sets foot in Holland becomes free there, and belongs only to himself.”[170] This visit of the Czar was early in the last century, though recorded by Diderot later, and then Holland was already ranged with countries that would not tolerate Slavery; but the Chief Justice remembers not the testimony.

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Spain also cries out against the Chief Justice. Her favorite monarch, Isabella, was aroused against the discoverer of the New World at the report that slaves from the Indies had been introduced into Spain with his sanction, and she exclaimed, “By what authority does Columbus venture thus to dispose of my subjects?” Instant proclamation was made by her order, that all who had Indian slaves in their possession, granted by the Admiral, should forthwith provide for their return to their own country, while the few held by the Crown were restored to freedom in like manner. Las Casas records, that, “so great was the Queen’s indignation at the Admiral’s misconduct in this particular, that nothing but the consideration of his great public services saved him from immediate disgrace.”[171] Whatever the legislation and jurisprudence of Spain, this historic incident must not be forgotten. It was the voice of the sovereign, and therefore, for the time, the voice of the nation.

There are other eminent Spaniards to be included in the cloud of witnesses, especially Las Casas, whose story I give on the authority of our own historian, just quoted, whose works were in every library of the country when the Chief Justice launched his decree: I mean my much valued friend, the late William H. Prescott. In his “History of the Conquest of Mexico” is a description of the good Bishop, who, to relieve the Indian natives from slavery in the islands of the West Indies, proposed the introduction of Africans, and in an evil hour his advice was followed. At a later period he regretted keenly the wrong he had done, since, to use his own words, “the same law applies equally to the Negro and the Indian.” Afterwards, at a hearing before the Emperor, Charles the Fifth, he denounced Slavery in words of fervid eloquence, worthy of any Abolitionist, saying: “The Christian religion is equal in its operation, and is accommodated to every nation on the globe. It robs no one of his freedom, violates none of his inherent rights, on the ground that he is a slave by nature, as pretended; and it well becomes your Majesty to banish so monstrous an oppression from your kingdoms in the beginning of your reign, that the Almighty may make it long and glorious.”[172] In an elaborate memorial prepared in 1542, the same upright churchman denounces Slavery, saying, “God forbids us to do evil that good may come of it”; and the historian adds, “The whole argument, which comprehends the sum of what has been since said more diffusely in defence of Abolition, is singularly acute and cogent.”[173] But the Chief Justice forgot all these things.

And he forgot also the dying testimony of Cortés, the conqueror of Mexico, who, in his testament, revealed his anxieties as a slave-master, in the following direction to his son: “It has long been a question, whether one can conscientiously hold property in Indian slaves. Since this point has not yet been determined, I enjoin it on my son Martin and his heirs, that they spare no pains to come to an exact knowledge of the truth, as a matter which deeply concerns the conscience of each of them, no less than mine.” The historian from whom I copy this passage adds: “The state of opinion in respect to the great question of Slavery in the sixteenth century, at the commencement of the system, bears some resemblance to that which exists in our time, when we may hope it is approaching its conclusion. Las Casas and the Dominicans of the former age, the Abolitionists of their day, thundered out their uncompromising invectives against the system, on the broad ground of natural equity and the rights of man.”[174] Thus in advance did the historian answer the Chief Justice.

Associated with Las Casas in lofty truth was the Dominican, Dominic Soto, the confessor of Charles the Fifth, and the oracle of the Council of Trent, to whom, it is said, that assembly was indebted for much of the precision, and even elegance, recognized in its doctrinal decrees. His Treatise on Justice and Law is not unknown to students of philosophy, and it has been commended by Sir James Mackintosh, who rejoices in bringing forward the remarkable testimony it furnishes against Slavery. “It is affirmed,” says the Dominican, “that the unhappy Ethiopians are by fraud or force carried away and sold as slaves. If this is true, neither those who have taken them, nor those who purchased them, nor those who hold them in bondage can ever have a quiet conscience, till they emancipate them, _even if no compensation should be obtained_.”[175] This testimony has not been left to slumber in the Latin text of the author. I take it from a favorite production in our own language. Not content with quoting it, Mackintosh adds: “As the work which contains this memorable condemnation of Man-Stealing and Slavery was the substance of lectures for many years delivered at Salamanca, Philosophy and Religion appear, by the hand of their faithful minister, to have thus smitten the monsters in their earliest infancy.”[176] But the Chief Justice ignored all this.

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Nor is Portugal to be omitted in this catalogue; and here the testimony is from a familiar authority, being none other than the History of Brazil, by Robert Southey. In this elaborate work, the author, an English classic of the present century, dwells on the unsurpassed eloquence of the Father Vieyra, in the early settlement of Brazil, while he denounced Slavery. No modern Abolitionist has ever used stronger language. Born at Lisbon, in 1608, and dying at Bahia, in 1697, he was called by his countrymen “the last of the mediæval preachers,” and is the most celebrated of Portuguese divines. Thus he spoke: “Oh, what a market! a negro for a soul, and the soul the blacker of the two! ‘This negro shall be your slave for the few days that you may have to live, and your soul shall be my slave through all eternity, as long as God is God!’--this is the bargain which the Devil makes with you.” Then again the fierce orator said: “My brethren, if there be any who doubt upon this matter, here are the laws, here are the lawyers; let the question be asked.… Go to Turkey, go to Hell: for there can neither be Turk so beturked in Turkey, nor Devil so bedevilled in Hell, as to affirm that a free man may be a slave.… We ought to support ourselves with our own hands; for better is it to be supported by the sweat of one’s own brow than by another’s blood. O ye riches of Maranham! What if these mantles and cloaks were to be wrung? They would drop blood!”[177] Surely here is testimony worthy of memory; but our Chief Justice knew it not.

Nor has he regarded official acts by which Portugal at an early day set herself against Slavery. The years 1570, 1587, 1595, 1661, and 1680 were marked by Portuguese to secure the liberty of native Indians. At a later day, but anterior to our Constitution, the African began to feel the same recognition. On the 19th September, 1761, it was enacted, that “all black slaves who should henceforward come to the ports of the kingdom of Portugal and Algarve from Africa or America should be free”; and this was followed by royal order of the 2d January, 1767, extending “this beneficent measure to mulattoes of both sexes who were not mentioned in preceding laws.” Then came the law of 16th January, 1773, which determined that “the children of male and female slaves, who might be born in the kingdom of Portugal after the above date, should be free, and _capable of holding office, honors, and dignities_, without the stigma of freedmen, which the superstition of the Romans established in their customs, and which Christian union and civil society now render intolerable in the kingdom.” These important facts I have from the Portuguese Legation at Washington. Note, if you please, the dates; yet the Chief Justice knew nothing of this important and honorable testimony.

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The evidence may well be closed with Italy and the Catholic Church. Surely Bancroft’s History of the United States should have taught the Chief Justice at least to hesitate. In his learned chapter on Slavery the historian records, that, “by the Venetian law, no slave might enter a Venetian ship, and to tread the deck of an argosy of Venice became the privilege and the evidence of freedom.” Then, again, the Chief Justice might have learned from him, that in the twelfth century Pope Alexander the Third became the guardian of the oppressed, and wrote: “But since Nature created all free, no one by condition of Nature was subjected to slavery”; and he might have learned also how even Pope Leo the Tenth, in the midst of his luxurious life, making his pontificate a carnival, declared that “not the Christian religion only, but Nature herself, cries out against the state of Slavery.”[178]

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But how could our Chief Justice, belonging and faithful to the Roman Church, forget the testimony of that Church as presented by Balmés, the remarkable Spanish writer, in his work entitled “Protestantism and Catholicity compared in their Effects on the Civilization of Europe”? Here is found an eloquent vindication of the Church, which, according to its defender, rejected the assumptions of the Chief Justice. The famous bull against the slave-trade by Gregory the Sixteenth, in 1839, sets forth what was done to this end by Paul the Third in 1537, by Urban the Eighth in 1639, and by Benedict the Fourteenth in 1741, casting “the most severe censures upon those who venture to reduce the inhabitants of the East or West Indies into slavery, buy, sell, give, or exchange them, separate them from their wives and children, strip them of their property, take or send them into strange places, or deprive them of their liberty in any way, to retain them in slavery, or aid, counsel, succor, or favor those who do these things under any color or pretence whatever, or preach or teach that this is lawful, and, in fine, coöperate therewith in any way whatever.”[179] But, in face of this arraignment by successive pontiffs, where is the Chief Justice? Thus does his own Church testify against him.

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Here I suspend the testimony, leaving several famous countries unvisited. But there is enough for conviction; nor is argument needed. The witnesses are before you, excellent and unanswerable, in long array,--witnesses from our own country, witnesses from England, witnesses from Scotland, witnesses from France, witnesses from Holland, witnesses from Spain, witnesses from Portugal, witnesses from Italy, witnesses from the Catholic Church, all rising up to testify against that “opinion” which the Chief Justice announces as “fixed and universal in the civilized portion of the white race,”--against that “axiom in morals as well as in politics” which he says “no one thought of disputing, or supposed to be open to dispute.” They rejected his “opinion”; they disputed his “axiom.” Did he forget? or, for the sake of Slavery, did he pervert judgment? But such forgetfulness was akin to such perversion. And when it is considered that this was to put Slavery in the National Constitution, it was nothing less than a criminal falsification; nor should ignorance be an excuse.

Plainly, the Chief Justice who could do this deserves no marble bust by vote of Congress. His comprehensive office was Justice; his special duty was Liberty. But these he sacrificed, making Law and Constitution hideous. The old maxim of Law cries out against him: _Impius et crudelis judicandus est, qui Libertati non favet._ Such is the terrible judgment. Again the Law speaks: _Execrandus est, qui Libertati non favet_: “Accursed is he who does not favor Liberty.” This is the ancient voice of the Law, older than Constitution and Declaration of Independence, which must not be disobeyed.

NO RECONSTRUCTION WITHOUT THE VOTES OF THE BLACKS.

REMARKS IN THE SENATE, ON THE RESOLUTION RECOGNIZING THE NEW STATE GOVERNMENT OF LOUISIANA, FEBRUARY 24, 25, AND 27, 1865.

February 18th, Mr. Trumbull, of Illinois, Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, reported the following resolution, which, at the request of Mr. Sumner, was read:--

“_Resolved, &c._, That the United States do hereby recognize the Government of the State of Louisiana, inaugurated under and by the Convention which assembled on the 6th day of April, A. D. 1864, at the city of New Orleans, as the legitimate Government of the said State, and entitled to the guaranties and all other rights of a State Government under the Constitution of the United States.”

The admission of the State, as here proposed, had the favor of President Lincoln. It was earnestly opposed by Mr. Sumner, as not republican in origin or form, and furnishing no security for the rights of colored persons.

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February 23d, on motion of Mr. Trumbull, the Senate proceeded to consider the resolution, when Mr. Sumner moved the following substitute:--

“That neither the people nor the Legislature of any State, the people of which were declared to be in insurrection against the United States by the Proclamation of the President, dated August 16, 1861, shall hereafter elect Representatives or Senators to the Congress of the United States, until the President, by proclamation, shall have declared that armed hostility to the Government of the United States within such State has ceased, nor until the people of such State shall have adopted a Constitution of Government not repugnant to the Constitution and laws of the United States, nor until, by a law of Congress, such State shall have been declared to be entitled to representation in the Congress of the United States of America.”

This was lost,--Yeas 8, Nays 29.

February 24th, Mr. Lane, of Kansas, moved that the resolution be made the special order for the next day at one o’clock. In the debate on this motion the following colloquy occurred.

MR. SUMNER. If we are to make any special order for to-morrow, I think it should be the bill which the Senate has most maturely considered, and on which it is most prepared to vote, known as the Railroad Bill, in charge of my friend from Michigan [Mr. CHANDLER]. The Senator from Illinois [Mr. TRUMBULL] came forward with his measure----

MR. CONNESS. Will my friend permit me--I know he will--to appeal to him not to waste the fifteen minutes we have left in discussing the order of business, but let us take a vote?…

SEVERAL SENATORS (to Mr. SUMNER). Give up.

MR. SUMNER. Senators say, “Give up.” That is not my habit.

MR. CONNESS. We know that. [_Laughter._]

MR. LANE (of Kansas). Will the Senator from Massachusetts permit me to withdraw my motion?

MR. SUMNER. If the motion is withdrawn, I have nothing further to say.

MR. LANE. I withdraw the motion.

The motion to postpone was not pressed, and the resolution came up in regular order. After an elaborate speech against it by Mr. Powell, of Kentucky, Mr. Howard, of Michigan, obtained the floor, when his colleague, Mr. Chandler, moved to proceed with the bill to regulate commerce among the States, known as the Railroad Bill. In the debate that ensued, Mr. Sumner spoke of the latter bill as “a reality,” and called the resolution “a shadow.” Mr. Doolittle, of Wisconsin, vindicated the resolution as “the great measure of this Congress,” and said, “It is not for the Senator from Massachusetts, with all his boastful friendship for Freedom and free States, to join hands with the Senator from Kentucky, and undertake to prevent the recognition of the free State of Louisiana.” In reply, Mr. Sumner said:--

This measure, I say, Sir, is a shadow. So far as it is calculated to exercise any influence, it is to bring disaster. Sir, I do not stand here as a prophet, and I will not at this moment, on this incidental question, be carried into debate; but I warn the Senator from Wisconsin, as he loves Human Freedom, ay, Sir, as he represents a State dedicated to Freedom, to hesitate, before he throws his influence on the side of such a proposition, opening the way to an ominous future.

Sir, I am not disposed to go on, and yet there is one other remark of the Senator to which I must reply. The Senator insists constantly upon foisting an unconstitutional idea in the way of establishing Emancipation throughout this country. He says the vote of Louisiana is needed to the Constitutional Amendment. Sir, the vote of Louisiana is not needed; and when the Senator makes the assertion, he interposes an obstacle to the Amendment. Is he a friend to it? Why, then, interpose an obstacle by an untenable and erroneous interpretation of the Constitution? The Constitution declares that an Amendment shall become to all intents and purposes a part of the Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the States.

MR. DOOLITTLE. “When ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States.”

MR. SUMNER. Very well,--“when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States”; but if no Legislatures exist in States, will the Senator make that an excuse for avoiding the establishment of the Amendment? I will not recognize the Rebellion to such extent; I will not recognize the independence of the Rebel States, as the Senator does. I insist, Sir, that these States shall not control the National Government at this moment, in this great period of our history, and thwart the establishment of human freedom throughout the land.

After remarks from other Senators, the motion to take up the Railroad Bill was lost,--Yeas 10, Nays 25. Mr. Henderson, of Missouri, made an elaborate speech in favor of the admission, claiming that its Constitution was republican in form, in the course of which the following colloquy occurred.

MR. HENDERSON. The Senator from Kentucky thinks the Constitution of Louisiana is the offspring of military usurpation, but he does not say that the Constitution itself is antirepublican.

MR. SUMNER. I do.

MR. HENDERSON. You do?

MR. SUMNER. Certainly.

MR. HENDERSON. In what particular? Mr. President, I have been in the Senate for nearly four years, and I believe now candidly that the Rebellion is about at an end, and, if there were no other evidence of it, that evidence would be presented to-night in the close alliance and affiliation of my friend from Massachusetts and my friend from Kentucky. Truly, the lion and the lamb have lain down together.

MR. JOHNSON (of Maryland). Who is the lion, and who is the lamb?

MR. HENDERSON. That is for the gentlemen themselves to settle. [_Laughter._] The Senator from Massachusetts says that these State Constitutions are not republican in form. Will he tell me in what respect?

MR. SUMNER. Because they do not follow out the principles of the Constitution of the United States.

MR. HENDERSON. I should like to know in what particular. The answer is a very general one, indeed. He refuses, then, to specify. The Senator can answer more particularly hereafter, if he chooses. He says these Constitutions do not follow the Constitution of the United States. I have looked over them, and I find no objection to them.… The Senator from Massachusetts says the act of secession took the States out. In the name of sense, cannot the act of the loyal men bring them back?…

MR. SUMNER. Does the Senator refer to me as having ever said that the act of secession took a State out?

MR. HENDERSON. I understand the Senator to claim that these States are in a territorial condition,--that they are not States,--that, by losing their State Governments in the act of secession, they lose their specific identity as States.

MR. SUMNER. I would rather the Senator should use my language than his own, when he undertakes to state my position. I have never said that any act of secession took a State out. I have always said just the contrary. No act of secession can take a State out of this Union. Whatever may be attempted, the State continues under the Constitution of the United States, subject to all its requirements and behests. The Government of the State is subverted by secession; the Senator does not recognize the existing Government as legal or constitutional, any more than I do. Where, then, is the difference between us? There is no Government which he or I recognize; but we do hold that the whole region, the whole territory, is under the Constitution, to be protected and governed by it.