Filled with these sentiments, Gentlemen, and having through my political life hitherto always acted under the deepest conviction of their truth and importance, it is natural that I should have regarded the preservation of the Constitution as the first 328 great political object to be secured. But I claim no exclusive merit. I should deem it, especially, both unbecoming and unjust in me to separate myself, in this respect, from other public servants of the people of Massachusetts. The distinguished gentlemen who have preceded and followed me in the representation of the city, their associates from other districts of the State, and my late worthy and most highly esteemed colleague, are entitled, one and all, to a full share in the public approbation. If accidental circumstances, or a particular position, have sometimes rendered me more prominent, equal patriotism and equal zeal have yet made them equally deserving. It were invidious to enumerate these fellow-laborers, or to discriminate among them. Long may they live! and I could hardly express a better wish for the interest and honor of the States, than that the public men who may follow them may be as disinterested, as patriotic, and as able as they have proved themselves.
There have been, Gentlemen, it is true, anxious moments. That was an anxious occasion, to which the gentleman who has addressed me in your behalf has alluded; I mean the debate in January, 1830. It seemed to me then that the Constitution was about to be abandoned. Threatened with most serious dangers, it was not only not defended, but attacked, as I thought, and weakened and wounded in its vital powers and faculties, by those to whom the country naturally looks for its defence and protection. It appeared to me that the Union was about to go to pieces, before the people were at all aware of the extent of the danger. The occasion was not sought, but forced upon us; it seemed to me momentous, and I confess that I felt that even the little that I could do, in such a crisis, was called for by every motive which could be addressed to a lover of the Constitution. I took a part in the debate, therefore, with my whole heart already in the subject, and careless for every thing in the result, except the judgment which the people of the United States should form upon the questions involved in the discussion. I believe that judgment has been definitely pronounced; but nothing is due to me, beyond the merit of having made an earnest effort to present the true question to the people, and to invoke for it that attention from them, which its high importance appeared to me to demand.
The Constitution of the United States, Gentlemen, is of a peculiar structure. Our whole system is peculiar. It is fashioned 329 according to no existing model, likened to no precedent, and yet founded on principles which lie at the foundations of all free governments, wherever such governments exist. It is a complicated system. It is elaborate, and in some sense artificial, in its composition. We have twenty-four State sovereignties, all exercising legislative, judicial, and executive powers. Some of the sovereignties, or States, had long existed, and, subject only to the restraint of the power of the parent country, had been accustomed to the forms and to the exercise of the powers of representative republics. Others of them are new creations, coming into existence only under the Constitution itself; but all now standing on an equal footing.
The general government, under which all these States are united, is not, as has been justly remarked by Mr. Gray, a confederation. It is much more than a confederation. It is a popular representative government, with all the departments, and all the functions and organs, of such a government. But it is still a limited, a restrained, a severely-guarded government. It exists under a written constitution, and all that human wisdom could do is done, to define its powers and to prevent their abuse. It is placed in what was supposed to be the safest medium between dangerous authority on the one hand, and debility and inefficiency on the other. I think that happy medium was found, by the exercise of the greatest political sagacity, and the influence of the highest good fortune. We cannot move the system either way, without the probability of hurtful change; and as experience has taught us its safety, and its usefulness, when left where it is, our duty is a plain one.
It cannot be doubted that a system thus complicated must be accompanied by more or less of danger, in every stage of its existence. It has not the simplicity of despotism. It is not a plain column, that stands self-poised and self-supported. Nor is it a loose, irregular, unfixed, and undefined system of rule, which admits of constant and violent changes, without losing its character. But it is a balanced and guarded system; a system of checks and controls; a system in which powers are carefully delegated, and as carefully limited; a system in which the symmetry of the parts is designed to produce an aggregate whole, which shall be favorable to personal liberty, favorable to public prosperity, and favorable to national glory. And who can deny, 330 that, by a trial of fifty years, this American system of government has proved itself capable of conferring all these blessings? These years have been years of great agitation throughout the civilized world. In the course of them the face of Europe has been completely changed. Old and corrupt governments have been destroyed, and new ones, erected in their places, have been destroyed too, sometimes in rapid succession. Yet, through all the extraordinary, the most extraordinary scenes of this half-century, the free, popular, representative government of the United States has stood, and has afforded security for liberty, for property, and for reputation, to all citizens.
That it has been exposed to many dangers, that it has met critical moments, is certain. That it is now exposed to dangers, and that a crisis is now before it, is equally clear, in my judgment. But it has hitherto been preserved, and vigilance and patriotism may rescue it again.
Our dangers, Gentlemen, are not from without. We have nothing to fear from foreign powers, except those interruptions of the occupations of life which all wars occasion. The dangers to our system, as a system, do not spring from that quarter. On the contrary, the pressure of foreign hostility would be most likely to unite us, and to strengthen our union, by an augmented sense of its utility and necessity. But our dangers are from within. I do not now speak of those dangers which have in all ages beset republican governments, such as luxury among the rich, the corruption of public officers, and the general degradation of public morals. I speak only of those peculiar dangers to which the structure of our government particularly exposes it, in addition to all other ordinary dangers. These arise among ourselves; they spring up at home; and the evil which they threaten is no less than disunion, or the overthrow of the whole system. Local feelings and local parties, a notion sometimes a sedulously cultivated of opposite interests in different portions of the Union, evil prophecies respecting its duration, cool calculations upon the benefits of separation, a narrow feeling that cannot embrace all the States as one country, an unsocial, anti-national, and half-belligerent spirit, which sometimes betrays itself,—all these undoubtedly are causes which affect, more or less, our prospect of holding together. All these are unpropitious influences.
The Constitution, again, is founded on compromise, and the most perfect and absolute good faith, in regard to every stipulation of this kind contained in it is indispensable to its preservation. Every attempt to accomplish even the best purpose, every attempt to grasp that which is regarded as an immediate good, in violation of these stipulations, is full of danger to the whole Constitution. I need not say, also, that possible collision between the general and the State governments always has been, is, and ever must be, a source of danger to be strictly watched by wise men.
But, Gentlemen, as I have spoken of dangers now, in my judgment actually existing, I will state at once my opinions on that point, without fear and without reserve. I reproach no man, I accuse no man; but I speak of things as they appear to me, and I speak of principles and practices which I deem most alarming. I think, then, Gentlemen, that a great practical change is going on in the Constitution, which, if not checked, must completely alter its whole character. This change consists in the diminution of the just powers of Congress on the one hand, and in the vast increase of executive authority on the other. The government of the United States, in the aggregate, or the legislative power of Congress, seems fast losing, one after another, its accustomed powers. One by one, they are practically struck out of the Constitution. What has become of the power of internal improvement? Does it remain in the Constitution, or is it erased by the repeated exercise of the President’s veto, and the acquiescence in that exercise of all who call themselves his friends, whatever their own opinions of the Constitution may be? The power to create a national bank, a power exercised for forty years, approved by all Presidents, and by Congress at all times, and sanctioned by a solemn adjudication of the Supreme Court, is it not true that party has agreed to strike this power, too, from the Constitution, in compliance with what has been openly called the interests of party? Nay, more; that great power, the power of protecting domestic industry, who can tell me whether that power is now regarded as in the Constitution, or out of it?