On my way to this place, my attention was attracted by a banner, flaunting over the highway, with these words: “Trust the People.” Nothing could be fairer or more seductive. In those simple words is embodied a principle, long unknown, and to this day often denied, which may be called the mainspring of Democratic institutions. Here is an implied assertion of the right of the people to govern themselves. And here also is an implied denial of all pretensions of Tyranny and Oligarchy. Such a principle, properly understood in its simplicity and just limitations, must find welcome in every Republican breast. Reading it on the banner, I responded with joy: “‘Trust the People,’ and Might will no longer make Right, Government everywhere will be founded upon the consent of the governed, and Slavery will become impossible!”
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.
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.”