Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Newton, Hampden and Chatham; a country having the same language and customs with ourselves, and descended from a common ancestry? Sir, the laws of human affections are steady and uniform. If we have so much to attach us to that country, powerful, indeed, must be the cause which has overpowered it. Yes, Sir; there is a cause strong enough. Not that occult, courtly affection which he has supposed to be entertained for France; but continued and unprovoked insult and injury, — a cause so manifest, that the Gentleman had to exert much ingenuity to overlook it. But, in his eager admiration of that country, he has not been sufficiently guarded in his argument. Has he reflected on the cause of that admiration? Has he examined the reasons of our high regard for her Chatham? It is his ardent patriotism; his heroic courage, which could not brook the least insult or injury offered to his country, but thought that her interest and honor ought to be vindicated, be the hazard and expense what they might. I hope, when we are called on to admire, we shall also be asked to imitate.

171. AGAINST THE FORCE BILL, 1833. - John C. Calhoun.

Ir is said that the bill ought to pass, because the law must be enforced. The law must be enforced! The imperial edict must be executed! It is under such sophistry, couched in general terms, without looking to the limitations which must ever exist in the practical exercise of power, that the most cruel and despotic acts ever have been covered. It was such sophistry as this that cast Daniel into the lions' den, and the three Innocents into the fiery furnace. Under the same sophistry the bloody edicts of Nero and Caligula were executed. The law must be enforced! Yes, the act imposing the tea-tax "must be executed." This was the very argument which impelled Lord North and his administration in that mad career which forever separated us from the British Crown. Under a similar sophistry, "that religion must be protected," how many massacres have been perpetrated, and how many martyrs have been tied to the stake! What! acting on this vague abstraction, are you prepared to enforce a law, without considering whether it be just or unjust, constitutional or unconstitu tional? Will you collect money when it is acknowledged that it is not wanted? He who earns the money, who digs it from the earth with the sweat of his brow, has a just title to it, against the universe. No one has a right to touch it without his consent, except his government, and that only to the extent of its legitimate wants; - to take more is robbery; and you propose by this bill to enforce robbery by murder. Yes! to this result you must come, by this miserable sophistry, this vague abstraction of enforcing the law, without a regard to the fact whether the law be just or unjust, constitutional or unconsti tutional!

In the same spirit we are told that the Union must be preserved, without regard to the means. And how is it proposed to preserve the

Union? By force. Does any man, in his senses, believe that this beautiful structure, this harmonious aggregate of States, produced by the joint consent of all, can be preserved by force? Its very introduction would be the certain destruction of this Federal Union. No, no! You cannot keep the States united in their constitutional and federal bonds by force. Has reason fled from our borders? Have we ceased to reflect? It is madness to suppose that the Union can be preserved by force. I tell you, plainly, that the Bill, should it pass, cannot be enforced. It will prove only a blot upon your statute-book, a reproach to the year, and a disgrace to the American Senate. I repeat that it will not be executed; it will rouse the dormant spirit of the People, and open their eyes to the approach of despotism. The country has sunk into avarice and political corruption, from which nothing can arouse it but some measure on the part of the Government, of folly and madness, such as that now under consideration.

172. THE PURSE AND THE SWORD, 1836.-John C. Calhoun.

THERE was a time, in the better days of the Republic, when, to show what ought to be done, was to insure the adoption of the measure. Those days have passed away, I fear, forever. A power has risen up in the Government greater than the People themselves, consisting of many, and various, and powerful interests, combined into one mass, and held together by the cohesive power of the vast surplus in the banks. This mighty combination will be opposed to any change; and it is to be feared that, such is its influence, no measure to which it is opposed can become a law, however expedient and necessary; and that the public money will remain in their possession, to be disposed of, not as the public interest, but as theirs, may dictate. The time, indeed, seems fast approaching, when no law can pass, nor any honor can be conferred, from the Chief Magistrate to the tide-waiter, without the assent of this powerful and interested combination, which is steadily becoming the Government itself, to the utter subversion of the authority of the People. Nay, I fear we are in the midst of it; and I look with anxiety to the fate of this measure, as the test whether we are or not.

[ocr errors]

If nothing should be done, if the money which justly belongs to the People be left where it is, with the many and overwhelming objec tions to it, the fact will prove that a great and radical change has been effected; that the Government is subverted; that the authority of the People is suppressed by a union of the banks and the Executive, union a hundred times more dangerous than that of Church and State, against which the Constitution has so jealously guarded. It would be the announcement of a state of things, from which, it is to be feared, there can be no recovery, - a state of boundless corruption, and the lowest and oasest subserviency. It seems to be the order of Providence that, with the exception of these, a People may recover from any other evil. Piracy, robbery, and violence of every description may, as history proves, be succeeded by virtue, patriotism, and nation

al greatness; but where is the example to be found of a degenerate, corrupt, and subservient People, who have ever recovered their virtue and patriotism? Their doom has ever been the lowest state of wretchedness and misery: scorned, trodden down, and obliterated forever from the list of nations! May Heaven grant that such may never be our doom!

173. LIBERTY THE MEED OF INTELLIGENCE, 1848.—John C. Calhoun.

SOCIETY can no more exist without Government, in one form or another, than man without society. It is the political, then, which includes the social, that is his natural state. It is the one for which his Creator formed him, into which he is impelled irresistibly, and in which only his race can exist, and all his faculties be fully developed. Such being the case, it follows that any, the worst form of Government, is better than anarchy; and that individual liberty, or freedom, must be subordinate to whatever power may be necessary to protect society against anarchy within, or destruction from without; for the safety and well-being of society are as paramount to individual liberty, as the safety and well-being of the race is to that of individuals; and, in the same proportion, the power necessary for the safety of society is paramount to individual liberty. On the contrary, Government has no right to control individual liberty, beyond what is necessary to the safety and well-being of society. Such is the boundary which separates the power of Government, and the liberty of the citizen, or subject, in the political state, which, as I have shown, is the natural state of man, the only one in which his race can exist, and the one in which he is born, lives, and dies.

--

It follows, from all this, that the quantum of power on the part of the Government, and of liberty on that of individuals, instead of being equal in all cases, must, necessarily, be very unequal among different people, according to their different conditions. For, just in proportion as a People are ignorant, stupid, debased, corrupt, exposed to violence within and danger without, the power necessary for Government to possess, in order to preserve society against anarchy and destruction, becomes greater and greater, and individual liberty less and less, until the lowest condition is reached, when absolute and despotic power becomes necessary on the part of the Government, and individual liberty Extinct. So, on the contrary, just as a People rise in the scale of intelligence, virtue and patriotism, and the more perfectly they become acquainted with the nature of Government, the ends for which it was ordered, and how it ought to be administered, and the less the tendency to violence and disorder within and danger from abroad, the power necessary for Government becomes less and less, and individual liberty greater and greater. Instead, then, of all men having the same right to liberty and equality, as is claimed by those who hold that they are all born free and equal, liberty is the noble and highest reward bestowed on mental and moral development, combined

with favorable circumstances. Instead, then, of liberty and equality being born with man,-- instead of all men, and all classes and descriptions, being equally entitled to them, they are high prizes to be won; and are, in their most perfect state, not only the highest reward that can be bestowed on our race, but the most difficult to be won, and, when won, the most difficult to be preserved.

174. POPULAR INTEREST IN ELECTIONS. - Geo. McDuffie.

[ocr errors]

George McDuffie, a distinguished citizen of South Carolina, studied law with John C. Calhoun, and entered Congress in 1821, where he gained great reputation as a Speaker. His style of elocution was passionate and impetuous. He died in 1851.

WE have been frequently told that the farmer should attend to his plough, and the mechanic to his handicraft, during the canvass for the Presidency. Sir, a more dangerous doctrine could not be inculcated. If there is any spectacle from the contemplation of which I would shrink with peculiar horror, it would be that of the great mass of the American People sunk into a profound apathy on the subject of their highest political interests. Such a spectacle would be more portentous, to the eye of intelligent patriotism, than all the monsters of the earth, and fiery signs of the Heavens, to the eye of trembling superstition. If the People could be indifferent to the fate of a contest for the Presidency, they would be unworthy of freedom.

"Keep the People quiet! Peace! Peace!" Such are the whis pers by which the People are to be lulled to sleep, in the very crisis of their highest concerns. Sir," you make a solitude, and call it peace!" Peace? 'Tis death! Take away all interest from the People in the election of their Chief Ruler, and liberty is no more. What, Sir, is to be the consequence? If the People do not elect the President, somebody must. There is no special Providence to decide the question. Who, then, is to make the election, and how will it operate? Make the People indifferent, destroy their legitimate influence, and you communicate a morbid violence to the efforts of those who are ever ready to assume the control of such affairs, the mercenary intriguers and interested office-hunters of the country. Tell me not, Sir of popular violence! Show me a hundred political factionists, men who look to the election of a President as a means of gratifying their high or their low ambition, — and I will show you the very materials for a mob, ready for any desperate adventure, connected with their common fortunes. The People can have no such motives; they look only to the interest and glory of the country.

There was a law of Athens, which subjected every citizen to punishment, who refused to take sides in the political parties which divided the Republic. It was founded in the deepest wisdom. The ambitious few will inevitably acquire the ascendency, in the conduct of human affairs, if the patriotic many, the People, are not stimulated and roused to a proper activity and effort. Sir, no Nation on earth has ever exerted so extensive an influence on human affairs as this will

certainly exercise, if we preserve our glorious system of Government in its purity. The liberty of this country is a sacred depository - a vestal fire, which Providence has committed to us for the general benefit of mankind. It is the world's last hope. Extinguish it, and the earth will be covered with eternal darkness. But once put out that fire, and I know not where is the Promethean heat which can that light relume."

175.

MILITARY QUALIFICATIONS DISTINCT FROM CIVIL, 1828. — John Sergeant

Ir has been maintained that the genius which constitutes a great military man is a very high quality, and may be equally useful in the Cabinet and in the field; that it has a sort of universality equally applicable to all affairs. We have seen, undoubtedly, instances of a rare and wonderful combination of civil and military qualifications both of the highest order. That the greatest civil qualifications may be found united with the highest military talents, is what no one will deny who thinks of Washington. But that such a combination is rare and extraordinary, the fame of Washington sufficiently attests. If it were common, why was he so illustrious?

I would ask, what did Cromwell, with all his military genius, do for England? He overthrew the Monarchy, and he established Dictatorial power in his own person. And what happened next? Another soldier overthrew the Dictatorship, and restored the Monarchy. The sword effected both. Cromwell made one revolution; and Monk another. And what did the People of England gain by it? Nothing. Absolutely nothing! The rights and liberties of Englishmen, as they now exist, were settled and established at the Revolution in 1688. Now, mark the difference! By whom was that Revolution begun and conducted? Was it by soldiers? by military genius? by the sword? No! It was the work of statesmen and of eminent lawyers, - men never distinguished for military exploits. The faculty the dormant faculty-may have existed. That is what no one can affirm or deny. But it would have been thought an absurd and extravagant thing to propose, in reliance upon this possible dormant faculty, that one of those eminent statesmen and lawyers should be sent, instead of the Duke of Marlborough, to command the English forces on the Continent!

[ocr errors]

Who achieved the freedom and the independence of this our own country? Washington effected much in the field; but where were the Franklins, the Adamses, the Hancocks, the Jeffersons, and the Lees, the band of sages and patriots, whose memory we revere? They were assembled in Council. The heart of the Revolution beat in the Hall of Congress. There was the power which, beginning with appeals to the King and to the British Nation, at length made an irresistible appeal to the world, and consummated the Revolution by the Declaration of Independence, which Washington established with their authority. and, bearing their commission, supported by

« AnteriorContinuar »