Mr. Sumner saw so clearly the delay incident to a Constitutional Amendment, and even the uncertainty with regard to its passage by Congress and adoption by the States, that, while supporting it cordially, he did not relax meanwhile his efforts for Congressional legislation against Slavery. Even if Congress could not be induced, in the exercise of its powers, to decree the death of the public enemy, he hoped that at least it would not hesitate to use all other powers to limit and weaken it, so that, should the Constitutional Amendment fail, or be postponed, Slavery would be in a condition from which it could not recover. His main postulate, that Slavery was contrary to Nature, and an outlaw, was important in sustaining action against it, whether by Constitutional Amendment or Congressional legislation. In the course of debate on another question, Mr. Sherman spoke incidentally of the Constitutional Amendment as “the main proposition,” when Mr. Sumner at once remarked:—
“The main proposition, Sir, is to strike Slavery wherever you can hit it; and I tell the Senator he will not accomplish his purpose, if he contents himself merely with a Constitutional Amendment. I am for a Constitutional Amendment; I have made the proposition in several forms: but how long will it take to carry that Amendment through both Houses of Congress, and then carry it to its final consummation in the votes of the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, according to the requirements of the Constitution? Are we to postpone action on all these questions until that possibly distant day? No, Sir!”[273]
The speech which follows was published originally under the title, “Universal Emancipation without Compensation.” In the edition of the Loyal Publication Society of New York the title was “No Property in Man.” These two titles present fundamental principles of special significance at that time. They were in the nature of answer to the clamor for compensation.
SPEECH.
MR. PRESIDENT,—If an angel from the skies or a stranger from another planet were permitted to visit this earth and to examine its surface, who can doubt that his eyes would rest with astonishment upon the outstretched extent and exhaustless resources of this republic, young in years, but already rooted beyond any dynasty in history? In proportion as he considered and understood all that enters into and constitutes the national life, his astonishment would increase, for he would find a numerous people, powerful beyond precedent, without king or noble, but with the schoolmaster instead. And yet the astonishment he confessed, as all these things unrolled before him, would swell into marvel, as he learned that in this republic, arresting his admiration, where is neither king nor noble, but the schoolmaster instead, there are four million human beings in abject bondage, degraded to be chattels, under the pretence of property in man, driven by the lash like beasts, despoiled of all rights, even the right to knowledge and the sacred right of family, so that the relation of husband and wife is impossible and no parent can claim his own child, while all are condemned to brutish ignorance. Startled by what he beheld, the stranger would naturally inquire by what authority, under what sanction, and through what terms of law or constitution, this fearful inconsistency, so shocking to human nature itself, continues to be upheld. His growing wonder would know no bound, when he was pointed to the Constitution of the United States, as final guardian and conservator of this peculiar and many-headed wickedness.
“And is it true,” the stranger would exclaim, “that, in laying the foundations of this republic dedicated to human rights, all these wrongs were positively established?” He would ask to see that Constitution, and to know the fatal words by which the sacrifice was commanded. The trembling with which he began its perusal would be succeeded by joy as he finished; for he would find nothing in that golden text, not a single sentence, phrase, or word even, to serve as origin, authority, or apology for the outrage. And then his wonder, already knowing no bound, would break forth anew, as he exclaimed, “Shameful and irrational as is Slavery, it is not more shameful or irrational than the unsupported interpretation which makes your Constitution final guardian and conservator of this terrible and unpardonable apostasy.”
Such a stranger, coming from afar, with eyes that no local bias had distorted, and with understanding no local custom had disturbed, would naturally see the Constitution in its precise text, and would interpret it in its true sense, without prepossession or prejudice. Of course he would know, what all jurisprudence teaches and all reason confirms, that human rights cannot be taken away by any indirection, or by any vain imagining of something intended, but not said, and, as a natural consequence, that Slavery exists, if exist it can at all, only by virtue of positive text, and that what is true of Slavery is true also of all its incidents; and the enlightened stranger would insist, that, in every interpretation of the Constitution, that cardinal principle must never for a moment be out of mind, but must be kept ever forward as guide and master, that Slavery cannot stand on inference, nor can any support of Slavery stand on inference. Thus informed, and in the light of pervasive principle,—