Its plan, so far as known, is this. You will remember, that, by the Constitution of the United States, in the event of failure to elect by the people, the House of Representatives is empowered to choose a President out of the three highest candidates for that office, and the Senate to choose a Vice-President out of the two highest candidates for that office. Now, assuming, first, that the Republican candidate will not be elected by the people, which you know to be a very wild assumption,—and, secondly, assuming that there will be no election of President by the House,—this party, turning next to the Vice-Presidency, assumes, thirdly, that Mr. Everett will be one of the two highest candidates for the Vice-Presidency, and, fourthly, that Mr. Everett will be elected by the Senate Vice-President, and then will become President, like John Tyler and Millard Fillmore,—not through the death of a President, but through a double failure by the people and by the House. Such is the calculation by which this band of professed Conservatives seek repose for the country. Permit me to say that it is equalled only by the extravagance of Mrs. Toodles, in the farce. Her passion was auctions, where she purchased ancient articles of furniture under the idea that they might some day be useful. Once, to the amazement of her husband, she brought home a brass door-plate with the name of Thompson spelled with a p. “But what is this for?” he demanded. “Why,” said Mrs. Toodles, with logic worthy of the Bell party, “though we have been married many years without children, it is possible, my dear, that we may have a child, that child may be a daughter, and may live to the age of maturity, and she may marry a man of the name of Thompson spelled with a p. Then how handy it will be to have this door-plate in the house!” I doubt if any person really familiar with affairs can consider this nomination for the Vice-Presidency of more practical value than Mrs. Toodles’s brass door-plate, with the name of Thompson spelled with a p, picked up at an auction. But then, in a certain most difficult contingency at the end of a long line of contingencies, how handy it must be to have it in the house!
In speaking of the Breckinridge party, I confess myself at the outset perplexed between abhorrence of its dogma and respect for its frankness. No plausible generality is put forward, as by the Bell party, under which good and evil may alike find shelter; nor is any plausible invention announced, as in the case of yet another party, under which the real issue is avoided. But the insufferable claim, first made by Mr. Calhoun, is unequivocally promulgated, that under the Constitution the master may at all times carry his slaves into the Territories, and neither Congress nor Territorial Legislature can prohibit the outrage. This at least is plain. There is something even in criminal boldness which we are disposed to admire. We like an open foe, who scorns to hide in deceit, and meets us in daylight. But we do not like a foe who dodges and hides so that we cannot find him. Nor do we like a man who gives us only something counterfeit in exchange for our votes. We do not like the double-faced prevaricator, who cozens both sides, and deals in words “that palter in a double sense.” It is praise to be frank, even on a bad side; and I have no reason to question this merit of the Breckinridge party. And yet this very frankness reveals an insensibility to reason and humanity, which, when recognized, must add to our abhorrence. That men calling themselves Christians, calling themselves Americans, in this nineteenth century, should without a blush assert such a dogma may well excite our wonder.
Fully to appreciate this dogma, you must know and feel what Slavery is. And here I content myself simply with reminding you of what elsewhere I have demonstrated, that Slavery, as defined by existing law, is a five-headed Barbarism, composed of five different wrongs, each of which you must indignantly reject: first, the impudent claim of property in man; secondly, the gross mockery of the marriage-tie; thirdly, the absolute nullification of the parental relation; fourthly, the denial of instruction; and, fifthly, the robbery of another’s labor, and of all its fruits: that this whole five-headed Barbarism, sustained by existing law, and enforced by the lash, is simply to compel labor without wages; and that to this end all great rights of freedom, marriage, family, instruction, and property are trampled down. This is Slavery. Turn it over, look at it as you will, such it is, and such it must be seen to be by every honest mind.
“To those who know thee not no words can paint,
And those who know thee know all words are faint.”
Believe me, fellow-citizens, I do not present this outline willingly. Gladly would I drop a veil over the revolting features. But when audacious claims are made for Slavery, and you are told by one candidate that it travels with the Constitution into new Territories, and then by another candidate that the handful of first settlers can alone deal with it in the Territories, while Congress sits powerless, it becomes your duty to consider precisely what Slavery is, to study it in the law from which it derives its character, and to follow it also in all its effects. Here is the essential and vital part of the argument, even on the question of Constitutional Law. It is only when this is done that we can see how irrational is every effort to give it constitutional force, or to save it from the action of Congress within the national jurisdiction.
According to the claim now made, Slavery exists under the Constitution everywhere outside the States,—in other words, Slavery is National; whereas just the contrary is true. Everywhere outside the States Freedom must prevail; in other words, Freedom is National. Yes, Freedom is National, and Slavery Sectional. Read the Constitution, and tell me if it be not so. Surely, if a pretension so peculiar as that now set up could be found there, it would be plain to all, so that no man could question it. Like the Decalogue, it would be in positive language: “Thou shalt enslave thy brother man.” It would be left to no doubtful phrase or ambiguous words, but would stand forth in appalling certainty, a “darkness visible.” It would be stuck up, like Gessler’s hat in the marketplace, so that all could see it. But nothing is clearer than that in this well-considered instrument there is not one clause or word which maintains property in man, not one clause or word on which any such pretension can be founded. Wherever there is any imagined reference to slaves, it is at most only to their possible existence in States, “under the laws thereof”; and then their designation as “persons” shows, that, whatever may be their condition in the States, the Constitution does not regard them as “property.” Thank God, the Constitution does not contain the idea that man can be the property of man. It was the declared purpose of Mr. Madison to exclude this idea. So completely has this been done, that it is among boasts often made, that a stranger in a distant country or a future age, reading our Constitution, and having no other record of our history, would not know that any human being had ever been claimed as “property” within the limits of the Republic. The text, at least, of the Constitution is blameless. If men find Slavery there, it is only because they make the Constitution reflect their own souls.
And yet this pretension is now the shibboleth of a great political party; this is its single inspiration; this is its only principle; this is all its stock in trade; this is its very “breath of life.” To this base use has Democracy come. In voting for Mr. Breckinridge, you declare, first, that man can have property in his fellow-man, and, secondly, that such property is recognized by the Constitution of the United States. The soul recoils from both. But even if the first be true,—which I utterly deny,—it does not follow that such property is sanctioned in the Constitution.