The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 / Devoted To Literature And National Policy

by Various

What, then, is the principle of amendment in our Constitution, and what are its provisions? They are found in the fifth article, and read thus: 'The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided, ... that no State, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.'

Can anything be clearer? And yet how men have contrived to mystify the whole question by vague declamation about the rights of States! As if those rights of States that were meant to be protected, were not carefully guarded by the article itself, and especially by the proviso 'that no State, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate'! As if, too, the rights of the States were everything, the rights of the Nation nothing! It might well be asked, moreover (as, indeed, a discriminating writer in The Evening Post has lately asked), whether the people of the States have no rights that are to be considered in this discussion; whether there are not certain reserved rights of the people that have been violated by many States—rights reserved in the very constitutions of those States, as well as in the Constitution of the United States? But let it be noted, as above intimated, that this fifth article is duly careful to guard the rights of States. Three fourths of the States must concur in the amendment; and in no event may a State be unwillingly deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate, which is the distinguishing mark of the independent equality of all the States in the Union. On the other hand, the rights of the States being thus protected in a manner and degree which we must suppose to have been satisfactory to the men who framed and the States which ratified the Constitution, the article then proceeds to care for the rights of the Nation, by declaring that the amendment duly ratified by three fourths of the States 'shall be valid, as part of the Constitution:' thus binding all the States, the three fourths which have ratified it, and the one fourth which may not have ratified it. We have here a key to the motives of the Southern rebellion. The leaders of Southern politics knew well that an amendment like the one now proposed must one day come, and that whenever it should come, article fifth left them no pretext for resistance. So they precipitated their revolution, and have only hastened that inevitable day.

But it is objected that the right to amend the Constitution does not give us the right to enlarge its powers. Why not? And if not, to what things does the right of amendment extend? Such an interpretation makes article fifth an absurdity. This objection springs from the same mischievous doctrine of State sovereignty, which has so outraged the patriotic common sense of the people by the denial of our right to 'coerce' a State, and tends to the same result—nullification and secession. It is good logic for a confederation, but bad logic for a nation, to say that the articles of its organic law may not be changed by the will of the people. And let us not neglect to observe in the provisions of article fifth the strong incidental proof that the Constitution of the United States was meant to be the basis of a nation, and not the compact of a confederation. For how may this article be reconciled with the theory of a compact? Three fourths of the States may concur in adopting an amendment that shall be valid as part of the Constitution, which declares itself to be the supreme law of the land, over all the States.

This incidental point serves fitly to introduce the second branch of our discussion, namely:

II. THE EXPEDIENCY AND NECESSITY OF THE PROPOSED AMENDMENT.

For slavery, or, in other words (lest we seem to offend some), a rebellion in the interests and for the avowed establishment of slavery, has struck at the life of the nation; and in self-defence the nation must strike down slavery. If our Government is only the compact of a confederation, then not only is there no need, but we have not the right to adopt the proposed amendment. For by it an institution fostered by the legislation of some of the States would be overthrown, in defiance of that legislation. But the right, or constitutional power, of itself implies the necessity to adopt the amendment whenever the occasion for it may arise. The right is made part of the Constitution: the necessity, or expediency, must be determined by circumstances outside of the Constitution. We contend that circumstances at present point to the complete extinguishment of slavery as the political necessity of the period. The time for timid counsels is past. The day of tenderness for Southern prejudices is gone by.

Coming, then, directly to the root of the matter, we lay down this first proposition:

1. The proposed amendment finds its justification and highest warrant, as a measure of political reform, in the fact of the Southern Confederacy. This fact, pure and simple, is the controlling and abundant necessity for it. We need not take the ground that slavery is the cause of the rebellion: though to the philosophical inquirer it certainly seems difficult to reach any other conclusion. We Americans are so much under the influence of partisan prejudices, so surrounded with the complications of present and past political issues, that for us a dispassionate study of this point is almost, or quite, impossible. But the investigations of impartial and unprejudiced foreigners seem remarkably to concur in designating slavery as the moving cause of the war. We may cite, for example, the recent profound review of the slave power by Professor Cairnes. And surely no person who pauses to reflect upon the inherent nature of the slave system as a labor basis of society, will venture to deny that such a principle is at war with the elemental principles of our Government. No person will deny that slavery depreciates the dignity of labor, which is the pride and boast of our institutions. Nor does it need any but the logic of common sense to point out the incongruity of a free government resting, even partially, upon a basis of slave labor.

But all this may be waived. We may discard all these considerations. Perhaps it is wise to discard them. Let us forget our differences of political opinion in the past, and seek for points of agreement in the present. Taking this position, we cannot ignore the fact of the Southern Confederacy, and that the avowed basis of it is slavery. It is a stubborn fact confronting us at the outset of our inquiry, and, like Banquo's ghost, 'will not down.' Proclaiming boldly that free labor is a mistake, and unblushingly affirming as a doctrine of social and political economy that 'capital must own labor,' the Southern Confederacy challenges the Christian civilization of the age, and declares its right to exist as an independent nation of slaveholders. How may we explain so monstrous a pretence? There is but one explanation that is adequate. It may be stated in a single word, ambition. The lesson of our experience is that this malignant system of slavery, the chattel slavery of the South, is too great a temptation to the ambition of men. Let us not disregard it. Political ambition stands always ready to strike hands with the devil, and the devil is always near the conscience of ambitious men. We have no recourse but to remove the temptation. The death-knell of Carthage is well appropriated: Servitudo est delenda. So long as a vestige of the slavery establishment remains, the temptation remains—a deadly risk to our Government. The peril of it is too great. And this furnishes a complete answer to the superficial objection that there is no need of the amendment because slavery is dead already; for ambition may revive it, and what ambition may do it will do. In other words, and to sum up the argument on this point: Whatever may have been our individual opinions and beliefs before the rebellion (variant enough at all times), the attempted establishment of a confederacy avowedly based on slavery, proves beyond possibility of cavil that chattel slavery, to which we have been lenient without limit, is a temptation too great for the peace of the nation, and therefore the highest interests of the nation require its removal.

2. The simple fact of the Southern Confederacy is also the basis of our second proposition. For it reveals clearly the necessity of the proposed amendment as a thing essential to be added to the organic law, in order to carry out the purpose of it. That purpose is thus expressed in the preamble to the Constitution: 'We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.' Every one of the objects therein specified is, in the baleful light of the rebellion, a plea for the amendment.