And now, Sir, called to readjust the foundations of political power, which are naturally changed by the disappearance of Slavery, and called also to perform sacred promises to benefactors, in harmony with sacred promises of our fathers, while at the same time we save the name of the Republic from dishonor and see that the national peace is not imperilled, Congress is about to liquidate all these inviolable obligations by a new compromise of Human Rights, and, so far as it can, to place this compromise in the text of the Constitution, thus establishing a false foundation of political power, violating the national faith, dishonoring the name of Republic, and imperilling the national peace. Others have dwelt on the inadequacy of this attempt, even for its avowed purposes. This is plain. Conceived in a desire to do indirectly what ought to be done directly, it must naturally share the conditions of such a device.
Looking at the proposition in its most general aspect, it reminds me, if you will pardon the illustration, of that leg of mutton, served for dinner on the road from London to Oxford, which Dr. Johnson, with characteristic pungency, described “as bad as bad could be,—ill-fed, ill-killed, ill-kept, and ill-dressed.”[225] So this measure—I adopt the saying of an eminent friend, who insists that it cannot be called an “amendment,” but rather a “detriment,” to the Constitution—is as bad as bad can be; and even for its avowed purpose uncertain, loose, cracked, and rickety. Regarding it as a proposition from Congress to meet the unparalleled exigencies of the hour, it is no better than the “muscipular abortion” sent into the world by the “parturient mountain.”[226] But only when we look at the chance of good is it “muscipular.” In every other aspect it is gigantic, inasmuch as it makes the Constitution a well-spring of insupportable thraldom, and once more lifts the sluices of blood destined to run until it rises to the horse’s bridle. Adopt it, and you put millions of fellow-citizens under the ban of excommunication, you hand them over to a new anathema maranatha, you declare that they have no political rights “which the white man is bound to respect,”—thus repeating in new form the abomination that has blackened the name of Taney. Adopt it, and you stimulate anew the war of race upon race. Slavery itself was a war of race upon race, and this is only a new form of the terrible war. The proposition is as hardy as gigantic; for it takes no account of the moral sense of mankind, which is the same as if in rearing a monument we took no account of the law of gravitation. It is the paragon and master-piece of ingratitude, showing more than any other act of history what is so often charged and we so fondly deny, that republics are ungrateful. The freedmen ask for bread, and you send them a stone. With piteous voice they ask for protection; you thrust them back defenceless into the cruel den of former masters. Such an attempt, thus bad as bad can be, thus abortive for all good, thus perilous, thus pregnant with a war of race upon race, thus shocking to the moral sense, and thus treacherous to those whom we are bound to protect, cannot be otherwise than shameful.
I shall not content myself with describing the device. This is not enough. You have seen it in its general character only. You shall see it now in its guilty parts, each one of which is sufficient to arouse the conscience against it.
1. Of course you cannot fail to be struck by its language. Here words become things. In express terms there is admission of the idea of Inequality of Rights founded on race or color. That this unrepublican idea should be allowed to find place in the text of the Constitution must excite especial wonder, when it is considered how conscientiously our fathers excluded from that text the kindred idea of property in man. The saying of Mr. Madison cannot be too often repeated:—
“He thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property in men.”[227]
But is it less wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea of Inequality of Rights founded on race or color? Surely the authors of this proposition have acted inconsiderately and with little regard to the spirit of the Fathers. Imagine it introduced into the Convention which framed the Constitution. Not many words would have been used; but evidently it would have found no place in that text, which, with pious care, was to be guarded against degradation. And now mark the change. After the lapse of generations, when our obligations have increased with increasing light, at an epoch of history when mankind are more than ever before sensitive to the claims of human rights, and when among ourselves there is more than ever before a desire and a duty to fulfil all the promises of the Declaration of Independence, we are invited to make the Constitution disown the Declaration of Independence, insult the conscience of mankind, and disregard all the obligations pressing upon us. But this is a mild way of stating the character of the attempt plainly apparent in the words. Its essential uncleanness is not disclosed. Adopt this proposition, and you will imitate those ancient birds who defiled the feast that was spread. The Constitution is the feast spread for our country, and you hurry to drop into its text a political obscenity, and to diffuse over its page a disgusting ordure,—
“Defiling all you find,
And parting leave a loathsome stench behind.”[228]
Only by plain language can this attempt be adequately exposed. Only in this way can it be seen in its true character. Only in this way can you be moved to shrink from it with proper repugnance. In this spirit the religious press of the country is beginning to speak. The Boston “Recorder,” the most venerable of all the religious papers of New England, and perhaps of the whole country, which for more than half a century has been a weekly teacher at uncounted firesides, thus solemnly appeals to the conscience of patriots and of statesmen:—