Goldsmith.
CHAPTER I.
THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION.
1777–1787.
The Constitution as a Resort for Shoppers in Civil Rights.—Every Kind of Article to be found either for Ordinary or Exceptional Use.—The Fringe called Preamble; its Thread, Texture, and Quality.—Counterfeit Patterns and Simulations easily detected.—Piles of heavy Cloths for the Country’s Winter Use in War, Financial Storms, etc.—Executive and Legislative Ready-made Clothing.—Judicial White Goods.—Hosiery for Congressional Understandings, swift or slow.—A Variety of Miscellaneous Wares; Contrivances for catching People with Colored Skins; Habeas Corpus Non-Suspenders; Muzzles for violent or hungry Congressmen; Handsome Checks on the Treasury; Specimens of tender Gold and Silver; Militia Uniforms; Padlocks for securing Houses against Searches; Jury-Boxes, Trial Balances, and other Goods.—The Sumner Patent.—The latest Novelty to prevent Electoral Black-and-White Suits from being stripped off.—State-Rights Dresses, and strong Federal Out-Fits.—Messrs. Calhoun, J. Davis, Webster, Clay, etc.—The Manufacture of bright Buttons, called “Coins.”—The Fifteenth Amendment.—Doubtful Packages.—Paper Money as a Substitute for real Money.—Unauthorized Use of the Constitutional Bazaar.—Seekers of Goods never made.—Nicholas Biddle and his Gold Suit.—Everybody suited at the Federal Store.—Of excessively sharp and dense-headed Shoppers.—How Articles are mistaken.—Water-proof Goods for River and Harbor Dredging and for Lighting Coasts.—Of long Selvedges, or Railroad Strips, and their wonderful Elasticity.—Rights and Lefts.
What Stewart’s New York emporium is to shoppers for goods, the Constitution of the United States is to shoppers for civil and political rights. There one may find whatever he is in quest of, and may very often see things, beautiful in texture, color, and quality, which he would never require, even if he lived as long as his long-winded ancestor Methuselah. On his very first entrance, he will stop to look at that very handsome fringe, “the preamble,” woven together in such exquisite tissue-work. As he examines it, he will note the quality of the material, the even strands “more perfect union,” “justice,” “domestic tranquillity,” “common defence,” “general welfare,” “blessings of liberty,” braided together by the deft, expert, and strong fingers of the people of the United States “for themselves” and “their posterity,”—a bit of domestic hand-weaving which has now lasted over fourscore years, and is still bright in color, and, although much handled and tumbled about, just as good as new. Patterns have been taken from it, and cheap imitations attempted; but these latter are just as easy of detection as cottonized linen, dyed hair, or carminized blushes.
The State takes leave of the Colony.
(p. 314)
There, too, one finds readily and in abundance heavy cloths for the country’s wear through the wintry storms of financial distress, foreign wars, or domestic insurrection; ready-made clothing for legislative and executive use; white linen goods for the judges, as stainless as snow, although not quite as cheap; a great variety of under-garments to fit the powers of Congress, and a large assortment of hosiery to encase with restrictive woof its rapid understandings.
As one advances, he finds a miscellaneous collection of rights; patent contrivances to give people in one State the same expansion, weight, and solidity as in another; admirably adjusted devices for catching persons with colored skins, when attempting to run off with them over boundary lines,—a device ingeniously stamped “labor-saving machines,”—an article in great demand between 1850 and 1861 in the southern portion of the Union. On the same counter lie habeas corpus non-suspenders, a strap occasionally called for by passionate judges and choleric magistrates; tacks, which can only be driven in all over the surface of America up to the same point; muzzles over legislative bills and hungry congressmen, to prevent them from pecking at the estates of people politically decapitated, and from whetting up the keen edge of ex post facto laws; handsome checks on the treasury; good bills of lading, current in all the ports of the Union, if at any time introduced in any one of them; specimens of gold and silver, made very tender in all the States, especially during a time of plenty, and before a war; and a large variety of odd gear, to prevent people from getting into, or, if in, out of, trouble.
Proceeding to the rear of our Constitutional bazaar, the shopper will find the very latest styles and modes of civil rights; pieces adapted to dress and re-dress pulpits and printing-presses; militia uniforms; arms without quarterings; padlocks to secure houses from being entered and searched; devices to keep property from being taken for public use without proper payment; jury-boxes and trial balances.
But the very latest article added to this great emporium is a curious contrivance, said to have been invented by a Down-Easter named Sumner, for preventing one man, even if he be draped in a mourning skin, from being owned by another man. Of course it would strike any one but an American as a very needless article, especially out of place among staple goods, and one which ought never to be called for in a country which takes such pains and pride to claim and proclaim that other invention of a man down South, called Jefferson, whereby one man is made equal to every other man. Still, it is well known that the Sumner unclasping machine is a very useful one, and well supplies a need long felt.