The American Eloquence - Various Author

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to be created without the original limits of the United States. * * *

      But there is an argument stronger even than all those which have been produced, to be drawn from the nature of the power here proposed to be exercised. Is it possible that such a power, if it had been intended to be given by the people, should be left dependent upon the effect of general expressions, and such, too, as were obviously applicable to another subject, to a particular exigency contemplated at that time? Sir, what is this power we propose now to usurp? Nothing less than a power changing all the proportions of the weight and influence possessed by the potent sovereignties composing this Union. A stranger is to be introduced to an equal share without their consent. Upon a principle pretended to be deduced from the Constitution, this government, after this bill passes, may and will multiply foreign partners in power at its own mere motion; at its irresponsible pleasure; in other words, as local interests, party passions, or ambitious views may suggest. It is a power that from its nature never could be delegated; never was delegated; and as it breaks down all the proportions of power guaranteed by the Constitution to the States, upon which their essential security depends, utterly annihilates the moral force of this political conduct. Would this people, so wisely vigilant concerning their rights, have transferred to Congress a power to balance, at its will, the political weight of any one State, much more of all the States, by authorizing it to create new States, at its pleasure, in foreign countries, not pretended to be within the scope of the Constitution, or the conception of the people at the time of passing it? This is not so much a question concerning the exercise of sovereignty, as it is who shall be sovereign—whether the proprietors of the good old United States shall manage their own affairs in their own way; or whether they, and their Constitution, and their political rights, shall be trampled under foot by foreigners, introduced through a breach of the Constitution. The proportion of the political weight of each sovereign State constituting this Union depends upon the number of the States which have voice under the compact. This number the Constitution permits us to multiply at pleasure within the limits of the original United States, observing only the expressed limitations in the Constitution. But when, in order to increase your power of augmenting this number, you pass the old limits, you are guilty of a violation of the Constitution in a fundamental point; and in one, also, which is totally inconsistent with the intent of the contract and the safety of the States which established the association. What is the practical difference to the old partners whether they hold their liberties at the will of a master, or whether by admitting exterior States on an equal footing with the original States, arbiters are constituted, who, by availing themselves of the contrariety of interests and views, which in such a confederacy necessarily will arise, hold the balance among the parties which exist and govern us by throwing themselves into the scale most comformable to their purpose? In both cases there is an effective despotism. But the last is the more galling, as we carry the chain in the name and gait of freemen.

      I have thus shown, and whether fairly, I am willing to be judged by the sound discretion of the American people, that the power proposed to be usurped in this bill, results neither from the general nature nor the particular provisions of the Federal Constitution; and that it is a palpable violation of it in a fundamental point; whence flow all the consequences I have indicated.

      "But," says the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Rhea), "these people have been seven years citizens of the United States." I deny it, sir. As citizens of New Orleans, or of Louisiana, they never have been, and by the mode proposed they never will be, citizens of the United States. They may girt upon us for a moment, but no real cement can grow from such an association. What the real situation of the inhabitants of those foreign countries is, I shall have occasion to show presently. "But," says the same gentleman: "if I have a farm, have not I a right to purchase another farm, in my neighborhood, and settle my sons upon it, and in time admit them to a share in the management of my household?" Doubtless, sir. But are these cases parallel? Are the three branches of this government owners of this farm, called the United States? I desire to thank heaven they are not. I hold my life, liberty, and property, and the people of the State from which I have the honor to be a representative hold theirs, by a better tenure than any this National Government can give. Sir, I know your virtue. And I thank the Great Giver of every good gift, that neither the gentleman from Tennessee, nor his comrades, nor any, nor all the members of this House, nor of the other branch of the Legislature, nor the good gentleman who lives in the palace yonder, nor all combined, can touch these my essential rights, and those of my friends and constituents, except in a limited and prescribed form. No, sir. We hold these by the laws, customs, and principles of the commonwealth of Massachusetts. Behind her ample shield, we find refuge, and feel safety. I beg gentlemen not to act upon the principle, that the commonwealth of Massachusetts is their farm.

      "But," the gentleman adds, "what shall we do, if we do not admit the people of Louisiana into our Union? Our children are settling that country." Sir, it is no concern of mine what he does. Because his children have run wild and uncovered into the woods, is that a reason for him to break into my house, or the houses of my friends, to filch our children's clothes, in order to cover his children's nakedness. This Constitution never was, and never can be, strained to lap over all the wilderness of the West, without essentially affecting both the rights and convenience of its real proprietors. It was never constructed to form a covering for the inhabitants of the Missouri and Red River country. And whenever it is attempted to be stretched over them, it will rend asunder. I have done with this part of my argument. It rests upon this fundamental principle, that the proportion of political power, subject only to internal modifications, permitted by the Constitution, is an unalienable, essential, intangible right. When it is touched, the fabric is annihilated; for, on the preservation of these proportions, depend our rights and liberties.

      If we recur to the known relations existing among the States at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, the same conclusions will result. The various interests, habits, manners, prejudices, education, situation, and views, which excited jealousies and anxieties in the breasts of some of our most distinguished citizens, touching the result of the proposed Constitution, were potent obstacles to its adoption. The immortal leader of our Revolution, in his letter to the President of the old Congress, written as president of the convention which formed this compact, thus speaks on this subject: "It is at all times difficult to draw, with precision, the line between those rights which must be surrendered, and those which may be reserved; and on the present occasion this difficulty was increased by a difference among the several States, as to their situation, extent, habits, and particular interests."

      The debates of that period will show that the effect of the slave votes upon the political influence of this part of the country, and the anticipated variation of the weight of power to the West, were subjects of great and just jealousy to some of the best patriots in the Northern and Eastern States. Suppose, then, that it had been distinctly foreseen that, in addition to the effect of this weight, the whole population of a world beyond the Mississippi was to be brought into this and the other branch of the Legislature, to form our laws, control our rights, and decide our destiny. Sir, can it be pretended that the patriots of that day would for one moment have listened to it? They were not madmen. They had not taken degrees at the hospital of idiocy. They knew the nature of man, and the effect of his combinations in political societies. They knew that when the weight of particular sections of a confederacy was greatly unequal, the resulting power would be abused; that it was not in the nature of man to exercise it with moderation. The very extravagance of the intended use is a conclusive evidence against the possibility of the grant of such a power as is here proposed. Why, sir, I have already heard of six States, and some say there will be, at no great distance of time, more. I have also heard that the mouth of the Ohio will be far to the east of the centre of the contemplated empire. If the bill is passed, the principle is recognized. All the rest are mere questions of expediency. It is impossible such a power could be granted. It was not for these men that our fathers fought. It was not for them this Constitution was adopted. You have no authority to throw the rights and liberties and property of this people into "hotch-pot" with the wild men on the Missouri, nor with the mixed, though more respectable, race of Anglo-Hispano-Gallo-Americans, who bask on the sands in the mouth of the Mississippi. I make no objection to these from their want of moral qualities or political light. The inhabitants of New Orleans are, I suppose, like those of all other countries, some good, some bad, some indifferent.* * *

      I

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