“The proposed Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which passed the House of Representatives last week by a vote of 120 to 46, will, if it should become the fundamental law of the land, inflict upon our free institutions greater infamy than anything contained in our written Constitution. There are things there which were sufficiently disgraceful in their intent and purpose. That the slave-trade should not be prohibited before 1808, that three fifths of the slaves should be represented in Congress by the votes of their owners, that fugitive slaves should be returned to their owners,—these were scandalous provisions to which our noble fathers submitted only because without them we could have no common national existence. But they couched these offensive propositions in terms that, on the cessation of Slavery, would have no objectionable meaning. This event they anticipated much earlier than it has actually occurred. And now that it is a fact, no one wishes the clauses of the Constitution to which we have alluded to be stricken out.
“But now it is proposed to ingraft upon this revered instrument a principle implying that a State may decree that all men are not born equal, and may disfranchise a majority of her citizens and their sons and their sons’ sons forever! Good jurists have declared that the Constitution, as it now stands, would forbid any such State action, and that all constitutions and laws disfranchising citizens because of their parentage, color, race, or descent, are null and void.… We are not aware of any attempt to refute this view with a shadow of success.
“And now it cannot be that we shall give up our vantage-ground, and stain the triumph bought with so much precious blood with a concession which might be turned to so base a use.
“Let every patriot, to whom the good name of America is dear, bestir himself. Let every Christian who believes that God is no respecter of persons, let every father who would not leave to his children a legacy of national discord and a birthright in a nation yet to bleed in Helot conspiracies, let every statesman who believes that even justice is the only sure foundation of national tranquillity, arouse himself.”[229]
I have heard somewhere a strange apology for this amendment. It is said that it is “punitive,” and that the idea of Inequality of Rights is to be admitted into the Constitution for punishment, and not for sanction. As well say that the term “three fifths of all other persons” in the Constitution was “punitive.” It was no such thing. It was a compromise; and such is the precise character of the present attempt, which, by its very words, is a plain license to tyranny, in consideration that the tyrants pay in political power. The primary element, standing out in “darkness visible,” is the license; the secondary element is the pay. Here is nothing less than a mighty house that shall be nameless, which it is proposed to license constitutionally for a consideration. Even if political power is curtailed, it is only as a consideration for the license. It is a new sale of “indulgences,” on a larger scale than that of Tetzel. The latter, returning from Rome into Germany, became vendor of licenses for adultery, robbery, theft; but the outrage aroused Martin Luther, and the Reformation began. As well say, that, since pay was required, therefore the indulgences of Tetzel were “punitive.”
Thus far I have spoken of the attempt only as it appears in its words, without analyzing it in detail.
2. One of its elementary parts and consequences is that it sanctions the acknowledged tyranny of taxation without representation. A whole race, constituting a considerable part of the people of the United States, and embraced under the words of the preamble to the Constitution, “We the people,” are left without representation in the Government, but nevertheless held within the grasp of taxation, direct and indirect, tariff and excise, State and National. Sir, this is tyranny,—or else our fathers were wrong, when they protested against a kindred injustice. The principle is fundamental. You cannot violate it without again dishonoring the Fathers.
To the application of this principle there have been two replies: first, that in its origin it was a claim of representation for communities only, and not for individuals; and, secondly, that in its nature it embraces women as well as men. And from these two considerations it is argued that it cannot be invoked for the protection of four million people whose only offence is a dark skin. Even if it had been originally a claim for communities only, and not for individuals, it is difficult to see how it can be rejected as a rule in determining the rights of fellow-citizens counted by millions. Our fathers, when they cried out that taxation without representation is tyranny, were not more than two millions and a half. Our fellow-citizens now renewing the same cry are more than four millions, possessing the weight of numbers, if not of organization. But it is a mistake to suppose that the original claim was for communities only, and not for individuals. This is a question of history, to be considered with the gravity of history, and as such I ask attention to it.
In opening this debate, I carried you to that Provincial Court in Massachusetts, where, in assailing Writs of Assistance, James Otis first launched the thunderbolt, “Taxation without representation is tyranny.” You remember how careful he was to insist that without representation there could be no taxation of any kind, direct or indirect, on land or on trade, and that the representation must be substantial, real, and not merely imaginary, or, as it was expressed at that time, “virtual.” In developing this principle, he announced the equal rights of all, without distinction of color. On this ground he stood, when he uttered those memorable words, which the whole country adopted at once with patriotic frenzy, and which I insist you shall not deny in our organic law.