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.
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.