LETTER
Accepting the Nomination of the Free Soil Convention for Representative to the Thirty-second Congress.
West Newton, Oct. 24, 1850.
Hon. C. F. Adams;
Dear Sir,—Your favor of the 21st inst., is this day received. It informs me that at a convention, (over which you had the honor to preside,) held at Dedham, on the 16th inst., I was unanimously nominated as a candidate for Representative to the thirty-second Congress of the United States. For the kind terms in which your communication is expressed, be pleased to accept my thanks.
This nomination places me in no new relation to the friends of freedom and humanity, wherever they may be found. I believe my name was first suggested to the voters of this district, (now nearly three years ago,) on the ground of my supposed devotion to the rights of men. The resolutions passed at all the conventions by which I have been nominated, and especially those passed so repeatedly and unanimously by our state legislature, have been in the nature of instructions; or, at least, of urgent advice and solicitation, in regard to my course on the great questions which have since agitated the country. My own convictions of duty so fully and entirely corresponding with the injunctions thus laid upon me, it has been easy for me to act in full conformity to the wishes of the great majority of my constituents and of the state, as those wishes have been repeatedly expressed. This renders any detailed exposition of expectations on your part, or of assurances on mine, unnecessary. I know that the leading and most valued article in your creed is the sacredness and security of human freedom. You know that I embrace this same article of faith with my whole heart. Other matters may be very important, but still are subordinate. Peculiar forms of organization are comparatively non-essentials. They are but means to ends; and, in regard to them, a large allowance is to be made for honest differences of opinion. But the natural right of every human being to the liberty which God has given him, until forfeited by crime of his own; the duty of our government to save every part of this earth over which it has jurisdiction from the direst of all earthly curses and the greatest of all social crimes,—the curse and the crime of slavery;—these are among the first of the dread accountabilities that attach to rational and immortal creatures.
I believe it also to be the duty of government to provide for the economical or pecuniary welfare of the people; to encourage industry by securing the rewards of labor to the laborer, and to discourage the competitions into which those who rule and control the impoverished, degraded, and almost brutified laborers of other countries, are striving to enter with our own people,—competitions, which, if not prevented, will, to a great extent, reduce our laborers to the wretchedness and privation of theirs. I believe that the money, and the comforts purchasable with it, which such competitions take from the workman here, do not go to improve the condition of the workman there, but are intercepted and appropriated by others. I make this statement of my views all the more readily, because I do not wish to receive an unintelligent vote from any man, and I therefore abjure all disguises and reserves. From my past votes and speeches in Congress my constituents know upon what principles and to what ends I have acted. To them I refer, and deem it unnecessary to say more.
Those who have taken the trouble to read what I have said on the floor of the House, must have seen that, though I have endeavored to express some stern truths, on vital subjects, in unambiguous language, yet that I have never uttered a word designed to inflict unnecessary pain upon our political brethren of the south; or to wound feelings which men may erroneously call honorable. I desire to pursue the same course at all times and with all men. The cause of liberty is one in which the true object of ambition is to make great principles most clear, and not to use harsh expressions respecting the conduct or opinion of others. It is as necessary that the man whom I would convince should be in a calm state of mind, as that I should be in such a state myself. Exasperation paralyzes judgment. The great points on which men and parties so vehemently differ, can only be permanently settled at the tribunal of reason and conscience.
Several laws were passed at the last session of Congress, on which I desired and designed to speak, in the name and on behalf of my constituents. But I was obliged to act upon them, under the silence enforced by the previous question. One of them, in particular, was so hostile to all the principles which history and reason had ever taught me, and so wounding to all the sentiments which I had ever imbibed from benevolence and religion, that I resolved to seize the first opportunity that should be offered to portray some of its features. I refer to the Fugitive Slave act, so called; and I trust this will not be deemed an unfitting occasion to lay bare a portion of its enormities. I will remark, that I had prepared an amendment for the security of our free colored seamen in southern ports, but was shut out from all chance of offering it. It struck me that if new and oppressive measures were to be taken to carry back alleged slaves to bondage, something should also be done to restore freemen to liberty. While the south were seeking new guaranties for men who claim to own other men, it was a time for the north to demand new guaranties for men who own themselves. But all debate was suppressed; property vanquished liberty; and a pure pro-slavery law was enacted, unadulterated by any alloy of freedom.
In regard to this Fugitive Slave act, is it not astonishing that men should ever ask the question, Does the constitution demand the trial by jury? instead of the question, Will the constitution allow it? The first is the tyrant’s question, granting no more than he is compelled to give. The last is the republican’s question, volunteering all that he can grant. In a free government, where the trial by jury is held to be the surest safeguard of personal liberty, the inquiry ought never to be, whether the constitution secures or necessitates this form of trial; for it is enough, if the constitution will permit or tolerate it. Instead of seeking evasions, and close constructions, and hunting among the musty precedents of darker times, in order to shut out the jury trial in cases of personal liberty, the true lover of freedom would ask only for an interpretation that would warrant it. It would not be among his last thoughts; he would not wait until a stern necessity forced such a construction upon him; but his first desire and effort would be to find some legitimate reason for conferring it. He would not ask, in how few cases he must, but in how many he might, admit it. Yet this matter has been discussed, and is still discussed, on one side, as though we were bound to avoid the jury trial if we could; not as though we were bound to grant it, if by fair interpretation we might. It has been discussed as though the jury trial, to protect a man’s right to himself, were an evil; and as though the sudden seizure, “summary” adjudication, and speedy consignment of a fellow-being to bondage, were too precious a blessing to be put in jeopardy, by submission to twelve good and lawful men. Not how much may we do for freedom, but how much can we do for slavery, has been the tacit assumption of the argument. But I pass by this for graver objections.