"The President bids high. To filibusters he offers Cuba and the Isthmus and North Mexico; to the West a Pacific Railroad; to the North protection to iron and coarse woollens; and to the great commercial countries the power of centralization by obvious uses and abuses of a bankrupt act to supply to State banks. Yesterday Biddle was a monster, and to-day a few Wall street bankers can expand and contract upon us more like a vice than he did; and what would they not do if they could force the poor provinces when they pleased into bankruptcy?"
In his later letter—to Mr. Samford, of Alabama—Gov. Wise gave his opinion of the Douglas "non-intervention" doctrine in unmistakable language. He says:
"Intervention for protection, by the United States, through Congress, is all-pervading. It penetrates into States, territories, districts and other places throughout the United States, and is one of the most vitally essential attributes of our blessed Federal Union. No doctrine could be more repugnant to its benign spirit, none more destructive of federal immunities and privileges, and none more fatal to State rights and the safety of individual persons and their property, than this new light of "Non-Intervention" to protect all and everything in the jurisdiction of the United States. It is a question which cannot be retired from discussion in Congress, where it rises up every day in every form, and where it must be met with intelligence, integrity and courage. It cannot be renounced or smothered, or the Government must relinquish its dominion over every subject of its jurisdiction.
"And this doctrine of 'Non-Intervention for Protection' is only equalled in danger and destructiveness by that correlative error of some minds in these days: 'That Congress may not intervene to protect; for if it has the power to protect, it has the power to destroy.' This is a non sequitur, and a weak fallacy and gross delusion. The power and duty to protect is the power and duty not only not to destroy, but something far greater—it is the duty to intervene against invasion and violence. The whole American system of government throughout is one to protect against destruction. Because Congress may and shall provide the writ of habeas corpus, trial by jury, freedom of speech or of the press, etc., etc., shall it, therefore, be said to possess the power to withhold, deny or destroy either or all of these rights?
"But, say some, cui bono?—if a majority of Congress are opposed to the protection of the right, what use is there in claiming the mere abstraction of the right? I reply that there is great use and practical effect in it too.
"The proposition of non-intervention is: 'By the Compromise of 1850, the Kansas Nebraska act, and other declarations of its will, Congress renounced the exercise of any direct jurisdiction over the territories, and delegated its power to the local legislatures.' But it concedes that Congress could bestow no authority on the local legislatures of which it was not itself possessed'—in other words, "Congress cannot delegate more power than it possesses itself; and it has none to prohibit slavery. Very well, and so good as to the power. But there is a positive duty to be discharged as well as a power not to be exercised. Suppose the territorial legislature attempts to prohibit slavery, and thus do what Congress itself cannot do in the territories. Has Congress renounced its jurisdiction in the case? Could it or can it do so? If not, what is its duty? Does non-intervention renounce this duty of protection, in such a case, or not? It replies that this claim upon Congress to discharge this duty will be vain. Why? There is a dead majority against us in Congress, and they will not heed the appeal to the legislative department for protection.
"Well, but the case supposes a like dead majority and an aggressive majority against us in the territorial legislature too.—What then? There is no refuge of safety from a majority against us in territorial legislatures. Non-intervention quickly answers this dilemma, by saying: 'let the courts determine between us and our adversaries.' This is what is called 'remitting' the question to the judiciary, which may decide as well as the Congress or the Executive.—True, the judiciary may and must decide, anyhow, in either case, for that was no discovery of Mr. Calhoun, but a Constitutional function, which has ever belonged to the courts, and of which Congress and the Executive and the Territorial authorities cannot deprive them; and, without any remission by Congress, the judiciary department has the power of deciding upon the validity of laws. And it can as well and more directly pass upon the validity of laws enacted by Congress itself as upon the validity of those enacted by the territorial legislatures. If Congress passes an unconstitutional law, we can go to the courts, just as easy as if the law was passed by its delegate, the territorial Legislature. And if Congress does not renounce its direct jurisdiction and delegate it to the territorial legislature, then the latter will have no power to annoy the slave property locally by its abuse of delegated power; and the territorial legislature is more apt to pass a prohibition than Congress is, for very obvious reasons. The eye of the whole nation is immediately upon Congress, and no positive code is required to establish its power and duty to protect persons and property. The Constitution itself dictates and enjoins both. And it is first of all necessary, that neither the power nor the duty shall be practically denied, embarrassed or obstructed, by the enactment of unconstitutional laws of prohibition. Positive legislation is more apt to be passed against slavery by local than by national laws. In any practical view, then, we are attempting to shear a lion instead of a wolf. Non-intervention is simply absurd and impossible, and it is worse than impracticable.
"Such are the teachings to me of our past history, and I trust that I have now demonstrated in the second place: 'That the inhabitants or people of a territory are sovereign to form themselves a constitution and State government as I have shown in the first place, that in their territorial condition they are within the entire control and jurisdiction, or under the entire rule or regulation of Congress, subject to the Constitution of the United States, and that the citizens of each and all of the States are alike equally entitled to protection in all the privileges and immunities of persons and property, common to equal confederates.
"And this right and this duty of protection is not to be evaded or avoided either by the false ad captandum clamor that a code is required to be enacted by Congress for the protection of slave property. This is but to cast odium upon slavery, by creating the impression that a discrimination is necessary to distinguish it above what is due to other personal and proprietary rights. On the contrary, no such code is required to create either the right or the duty of protection, and no law is necessary to distinguish slave property from any other property. All persons and all property, equally and alike, require only not to be assailed and destroyed in, or excluded from the common territories. Every species of rights requires laws, it is true, suited to its character and to its case. Personal property, for example, must have a law that it shall not be 'taken and carried away;' and land, which cannot be 'taken and carried away,' must have a law that it shall not be trespassed upon in some other way; and so with slaves and everything else, they must have provisions according to their kind. But the Constitution of the United States, and the laws of Congress heretofore organizing territories are sufficient, and if amendments of the laws are required, it is the duty of Congress to see that they are provided, of the Executive of the United States to see that they are executed, and of the judiciary to decide upon the rights under the laws. The slave States should never pretend to any peculiar privileges, and do not, so far as I know. They ask only that their rights shall not be assailed and invaded, and, if they be assailed, that they may be protected as other personal and proprietary rights are protected; that they may have equal, confederate, federal privileges and immunities, and they ask for no special or peculiar code....