Again, we are brought by learned Senators to the Constitution, which requires that there shall be “just compensation,” where “private property” is taken for public use. But, plainly, here the requirement is absolutely inapplicable, for there is no “private property” to take. Slavery is but a bundle of barbarous pretensions, from which certain persons are to be released. At what price shall the bundle be estimated? How much shall be paid for the controlling pretension of property in man? How much allowed for that other pretension to shut the gates of knowledge, and keep the victim from the Book of Life? How much given for ransom from the pretension to rob a human being of his toil and all its fruits? And, Sir, what “just compensation” shall be voted for renouncing that Heaven-defying pretension, too disgusting to picture, which, trampling on the most sacred relations, makes wife and child the wretched prey of lust and avarice? Let these pretensions be renounced, and Slavery ceases to exist; but there can be no “just compensation” for any such renunciation. Heart, reason, religion, the Constitution itself, rise in judgment against it. As well vote “just compensation” to the hardened offender who renounces disobedience to the Ten Commandments, and promises that he will cease to steal, cease to commit adultery, and cease to covet his neighbor’s wife! Ay, Sir, there is nothing in the Constitution to sanction any such outrage. Such an appropriation would be unconstitutional.
Mr. Madison said in the Convention that it was “wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property in men.”[287] Of course it was wrong. It was criminal and unpardonable. Thank God, it was not done. But Senators admit this “idea” daily. They take it from themselves, and then introduce it where Mr. Madison said it was “wrong.” But if “wrong” at the adoption of the Constitution, how much worse now! There is no instinct of patriotism, as there is no conclusion of reason, which must not be against the abomination; and yet, Sir, it is allowed to enter into these debates. Sometimes it stalks, and sometimes it skulks; but whether stalking or skulking, it must be encountered with the same indignant rebuke, until it ventures no longer to show its head.
Putting aside, then, all objection, whether from open opposition or lukewarm support, the great question recurs, that question which dominates this debate, How shall Slavery be overthrown? The answer is threefold: first, by the courts, declaring and applying the true principles of the Constitution; secondly, by Congress, in the exercise of the powers belonging to it; and, thirdly, by the people, through an Amendment of the Constitution. Court, Congress, people, all may be invoked; and the occasion justifies the appeal.
1. Let the appeal be made to the courts. But, alas! one of the saddest chapters in our history is the conduct of judges, lending themselves to the support of Slavery. Injunctions of the Constitution, guaranties of personal liberty, and prohibitions against its invasion have all been forgotten. Courts, which should be asylums of Liberty, have been changed into strongholds of Slavery; and the Supreme Court of the United States, by final decision as shocking to the Constitution as to the public conscience, proclaimed itself tutelary stronghold of all. It was part of the national calamity, that, under the influence of Slavery, Justice, like Astræa of old, fled. But now, at last, in a regenerated Republic, with Slavery waning, and the people rising in judgment against it, let us hope that the judgments of courts may be reconsidered, and the powers of the Constitution in behalf of Liberty fully exercised, so that human bondage shall no longer find an unnatural support from the lips of judges,—
“and ancient fraud shall fail,
Returning Justice lift aloft her scale.”
Sir, no court can afford to do an act of wrong. Its business is justice; and when, under any apology, it ceases to do justice, it loses those titles to reverence otherwise so willingly bestowed. There are instances of great magistrates openly declaring disobedience to laws “against common right and reason,” and their names are mentioned with gratitude in the history of jurisprudence. There are other instances of men holding the balance and the sword, whose names are gathered into a volume as “atrocious judges.” If our judges, cruelly interpreting the Constitution in favor of Slavery, do not come into the latter class, they can claim no place among those others who have stood for justice, like the rock on which the sea breaks in idle spray. Vainly do you attempt to frame injustice into a law, or to sanctify it by any judgment of court. From Cicero we learn, that, “if commands of the people, if decrees of princes, if opinions of judges were sufficient to constitute right, then were it right to commit highway robbery, right to commit adultery, right to set up forged wills.”[288] And Augustine tells us, with saintly authority, that what is unjust cannot be law.[289] Every law and every judgment of court, to be binding, must have at its back the everlasting, irrepealable law of God. Doubtless the model decision of the American bench, destined to be quoted hereafter with most honor, because the boldest in its conformity with great principles of humanity and social order, was that of the Vermont judge who refused to surrender a fugitive slave until his pretended master could show a title-deed from the Almighty.
But courts have no longer occasion for such boldness. They need not step outside the Constitution. It is only needed that they should follow just principles in its interpretation. Let them be guided by a teacher like Edmund Burke, who spoke as follows:—