The Life of Jefferson Davis. Alfriend Frank Heath
then, nor at any previous time, propose to go out of the Union, but to have a Southern convention for consultation as to future contingencies, threatened and anticipated. It was at last narrowed down to the question, whether we should meet South Carolina and consult with her. Honoring that gallant State for the magnanimity she had manifested in the first efforts for the creation of the Government, in the preliminaries to the struggle for independence, when she, a favored colony, feeling no oppression, nursed by the mother country, cherished in every method, yet agreed with Massachusetts, then oppressed, to assert the great principle of community independence, and to carry it to the extent of war – honoring her for her unvarying defense of the Constitution throughout her whole course – believing that she was true to her faith, and would redeem all her pledges – feeling that a friendly hand might restrain, while, if left to herself, her pride might precipitate her on the trial of separation, I did desire to meet South Carolina in convention, though nobody but ourselves should be there to join her.
But, to close the matter, this convention, in its seventh resolution, after stating all those questions on which it would resist, declared:
“That, as the people of Mississippi, in the opinion of this convention, desire all further agitation of the slavery question to cease, and have acted upon and decided the foregoing questions, thereby making it the duty of this convention to pass no act in the perview and spirit of the law under which it is called, this convention deems it unnecessary to refer to the people, for approval or disapproval, at the ballot-box, its action in the premises.”
So that when the Senator appealed to this as evidence of what the people of Mississippi had done, he was ignorant of the fact that the delegates of the people of Mississippi did not agree with him; that their resolutions did not sustain the view which he took, and that the people of Mississippi never acted on them. If, then, there had been good taste in the intervention of this local question, there was certainly very bad judgment in hazarding his statements on a subject of which he was so little informed.
The Senator here, as in relation to our friends at Charleston, takes kind care of us – supposes we do not know what we are about, but that he, with his superior discrimination, sees what must necessarily result from what we are doing; he says that, at Charleston, they – innocent people – did not intend to destroy the Government; but he warns them that, if they do what they propose, they will destroy it; and so he says we of Mississippi, not desiring to break up the Union, nevertheless pursued a course which would have had that result if it had not been checked. Where does he get all this information? I have been in every State of the Union except two – three now, since Oregon has been admitted – but I have never seen a man who had as much personal knowledge. It is equally surprising that his facts should be so contrary to the record.
We believed then, as I believe now, that this Union, as a compact entered into between the States, was to be preserved by good faith, and by a close observance of the terms on which we were united. We believed then, as I believe now, that the party which rested upon the basis of truth; promulgated its opinions, and had them tested in the alembic of public opinion, adopted the only path of safety. I can not respect such a doctrine as that which says, “You may construe the Constitution your way, and I will construe it mine; we will waive the merit of these two constructions, and harmonize together until the courts decide the question between us.” A man is bound to have an opinion upon any political subject upon which he is called to act; it is skulking his responsibility for a citizen to say, “Let us express no opinion; I will agree that you may have yours, and I will have mine; we will coöperate politically together; we will beat the opposition, divide the spoils, and leave it to the court to decide the question between us.”
I do not believe that this is the path of safety; I am sure it is not the way of honor. I believe it devolves on us, who are principally sufferers from the danger to which this policy has exposed us, to affirm the truth boldly, and let the people decide after the promulgation of our opinions. Our Government, resting as it does upon public opinion and popular consent, was not formed to deceive the people, nor does it regard the men in office as a governing class. We, the functionaries, should derive our opinions from the people. To know what their opinion is, it is necessary that we should pronounce, in unmistakable language, what we ourselves mean.
My position is, that there is no portion of our country where the people are not sufficiently intelligent to discriminate between right and wrong, and no portion where the sense of justice does not predominate. I, therefore, have been always willing to unfurl our flag to its innermost fold – to nail it to the mast, with all our principles plainly inscribed upon it. Believing that we ask nothing but what the Constitution was intended to confer – nothing but that which, as equals, we are entitled to receive – I am willing that our case should be plainly stated to those who have to decide it, and await, for good or for evil, their verdict.
For two days, the Senator spoke nominally upon the resolutions, and upon the territorial question; but, like the witness in the French comedy, who, when called upon to testify, commenced before the creation, and was stopped by the judge, who told him to come down, for a beginning, to the deluge, he commenced so far back, and narrated so minutely, that he never got chronologically down to the point before us.
What is the question on which the Democracy are divided? Are we called upon to settle what every body said from 1847 down to this date? Have the Democracy divided on that? Have they divided on the resolutions of the States in 1840, or 1844, or 1848? Have the Democracy undertaken to review the position taken in 1854, that there should be a latitude of construction upon a particular point of constitutional law while they did await the decision of the Supreme Court? No, sir; the question is changed from before to after the event; the call is on every man to come forward now, after the Supreme Court has given all it could render upon a political subject, and state that his creed is adherence to the rule thus expounded in accordance with previous agreement.
The Senator tells us that he will abide by the decision of the Supreme Court; but it was fairly to be inferred, from what he said, that, in the Dred Scott case, he held that they had only decided that a negro could not sue in a Federal Court. Was this the entertainment to which we were invited? Was the proclaimed boon of allowing the question to go to judicial decision, no more than that, one after another, each law might be tested, and that, one after another, each case, under every law, might be tried, and that after centuries should roll away, we might hope for the period when, every case exhausted, the decision of our constitutional right and of the federal duty would be complete? Or was it that we were to get rid of the controversy which had divided the country for thirty years; that we were to reach a conclusion beyond which we could see the region of peace; that tranquillity was to be obtained by getting a decision on a constitutional question which had been discussed until it was seen that, legislatively, it could not or would not be decided? If, then, the Supreme Court has judicially announced that Congress can not prohibit the introduction of slave property into a Territory, and that no one deriving authority from Congress can do so, and the Senator from Illinois holds that the inhabitants derive their power from the organic act of Congress, what restrains his acknowledgment of our right to go into the Territories, and his recognition of the case being closed by the opinion of the court? I can understand how one who has followed to its logical consequences the original doctrine of squatter sovereignty might still stand out, and say this inherent right can not be taken away by judicial decision; but is not one who claims to derive the power of the territorial legislation from a law of Congress, and who finds the opinion of the court conclusive as to Congress, and to all deriving their authority from it, estopped from any further argument?
Much of what the Senator said about the condition of public affairs can only be regarded as the presentation of his own case, and requires no notice from me. His witticism upon the honorable Senator, the Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary [Mr. Bayard], who is now absent, because of the size of the State which he represents, reminds one that it was mentioned as an evidence of the stupidity of a German, that he questioned the greatness of Napoleon because he was born in the little island of Corsica. I know not what views the Senator entertained when he measured the capacity of the Senator from Delaware by the size of that State, or the dignity of his action at Charleston by the number of his constituents. If there be any political feature which stands more prominently out than another in the Union, it is the equality of the States. Our stars have no variant size;