|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 14
* * * * *
Sir, it was but the other day that we were forbidden, (properly
forbidden I am sure, for the prohibition came from you,) to assume that
there existed any intention to impose a prospective restraint on
the domestic legislation of Missouri--a restraint to act upon it
contemporaneously with its origin as a State, and to continue adhesive
to it through all the stages of its political existence. We are now,
however, permitted to know that it is determined by a sort of political
surgery to amputate one of the limbs of its local sovereignty, and thus
mangled and disparaged, and thus only, to receive it into the bosom of
the Constitution. It is now avowed that, while Maine is to be ushered
into the Union with every possible demonstration of studious reverence
on our part, and on hers, with colors flying, and all the other graceful
accompaniments of honorable triumph, this ill-conditioned upstart of the
West, this obscure foundling of a wilderness that was but yesterday
the hunting-ground of the savage, is to find her way into the American
family as she can, with an humiliating badge of remediless inferiority
patched upon her garments, with the mark of recent, qualified
manumission upon her, or rather with a brand upon her forehead to tell
the stogy of her territorial vassalage, and to perpetuate the memory of
her evil propensities. It is now avowed that, while the robust district
of Maine is to be seated by the side of her truly respectable parent,
co-ordinate in authority and honor, and is to be dandled into that power
and dignity of which she does not stand in need, but which undoubtedly
she deserves, the more infantine and feeble Missouri is to be repelled
with harshness, and forbidden to come at all, unless with the iron
collar of servitude about her neck, instead of the civic crown of
republican freedom upon her brows, and is to be doomed forever to
leading-strings, unless she will exchange those leading-strings for
shackles.
I am told that you have the power to establish this odious and revolting
distinction, and I am referred for the proofs of that power to various
parts of the Constitution, but principally to that part of it which
authorizes the admission of new States into the Union. I am myself
of opinion that it is in that part only that the advocates for this
restriction can, with any hope of success, apply for a license to
impose it; and that the efforts which have been made to find it in
other portions of that instrument, are too desperate to require to be
encountered. I shall, however, examine those other portions before I
have done, lest it should be supposed by those who have relied upon
them, that what I omit to answer I believe to be unanswerable.
The clause of the Constitution which relates to the admission of new
States is in these words: "The Congress may admit new States into this
Union," etc., and the advocates for restriction maintain that the use
of the word "may" imports discretion to admit or to reject; and that in
this discretion is wrapped up another--that of prescribing the terms and
conditions of admission in case you are willing to admit: "_Cujus est
dare ejus est disponere_." I will not for the present inquire whether
this involved discretion to dictate the terms of admission belongs to
you or not. It is fit that I should first look to the nature and extent
of it.
I think I may assume that if such a power be anything but nominal, it
is much more than adequate to the present object--that it is a power
of vast expansion, to which human sagacity can assign no reasonable
limits--that it is a capacious reservoir of authority, from which you
may take, in all time to come, as occasion may serve, the means of
oppression as well as of benefaction. I know that it professes at this
moment to be the chosen instrument of protecting mercy, and would win
upon us by its benignant smiles; but I know, too, it can frown and play
the tyrant, if it be so disposed. Notwithstanding the softness which it
now assumes, and the care with which it conceals its giant proportions
beneath the deceitful drapery of sentiment, when it next appears before
you it may show itself with a sterner countenance and in more awful
dimensions. It is, to speak the truth, sir, a power of colossal size--if
indeed it be not an abuse of language to call it by the gentle name of a
power. Sir, it is a wilderness of power, of which fancy in her happiest
mood is unable to perceive the far distant and shadowy boundary. Armed
with such a power, with religion in one hand and philanthropy in the
other, and followed with a goodly train of public and private virtues,
you may achieve more conquests over sovereignties not your own than
falls to the common lot of even uncommon ambition. By the aid of such a
power, skilfully employed, you may "bridge your way" over the Hellespont
that separates State legislation from that of Congress; and you may do
so for pretty much the same purpose with which Xerxes once bridged his
way across the Hellespont that separates Asia from Europe. He did so, in
the language of Milton, "the liberties of Greece to yoke." You may do so
for the analogous purpose of subjugating and reducing the sovereignties
of States, as your taste or convenience may suggest, and fashioning
them to your imperial will. There are those in this House who appear
to think, and I doubt not sincerely, that the particular restraint now
under consideration is wise, and benevolent, and good; wise as respects
the Union--good as respects Missouri--benevolent as respects the unhappy
victims whom with a novel kindness it would incarcerate in the south,
and bless by decay and extirpation. Let all such beware, lest in their
desire for the effect which they believe the restriction will produce,
they are too easily satisfied that they have the right to impose it.
The moral beauty of the present purpose, or even its political
recommendations (whatever they may be), can do nothing for a power
like this, which claims to prescribe conditions _ad libitum_, and to
be competent to this purpose, because it is competent to all. This
restriction, if it be not smothered in its birth, will be but a small
part of the progeny of the prolific power. It teems with a mighty brood,
of which this may be entitled to the distinction of comeliness as well
as of primogeniture. The rest may want the boasted loveliness of their
predecessor, and be even uglier than "Lapland witches".
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|