Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1853-04-02
NO. %.

the oath. am not here to construe it. You
know what the the Court says il means. If
you are ready to take it as il stand, am ready
to administerit To change it in the least is to
make It another oath. The law tells me to ad-
minister his oath, not any other
But, says Mr.. Mann, my constituents elected
me knowing that 1 would not take the whole
oath. have talked about it so often,' that
almost every body knows it.
The Speaker replies-You might have whis-
pered your explanations to your wife, or writ
and deposited them in your boots, just as well
a. have printed them in the Dedhan, Gu=ette or
Boston Commonwealth. You know such publi-
cation Is no legal notice to the nation. AS the
old English speaker said, I have no eyes here
no eyes here but the eyes of tho House-can
sc nothing but what tho law secs. I cannot
notice explanations. As for your constituents,
they got all their rights to choose you from the
nation; and the nation never gave them right
20 choose any man, except one who consented
TO the ,ohoic Constitution.
So, Mr.. Mann sits down, and (who have
watched the experiment with some interest
for IL it succeeds, who knows bat might get
sent to the Great and General Court from some
come-outer town on the Cape) come up and
whisper in his that, after all, the Speaker is
right. For what is he attempting to dol To
get released from part of the original promi-
ses since his oath is not just what Fisher
Ames's was. Well this may be done, provided
the other yarty to the promise consents to re-
lease him. But Who is the other party' Not
his constitucnts-not the Speakcr-not the Su-
preme Court-but the Nation. When aud where.
then, has the Nation (Illinois, for instance, as
one part of it) consented that Mr. Mann shall
construc the oath to suit himself or take part
Of it, and leave the rest
To justify himself, Mr.. Mann must, think,
show one or two of the following three things
lst. That the Nation has officially released
him from some part of the oath. Or,
I'd. That the Nation allows him to construe
the oath to suit himself. And,
Sd. That he constIucs the Constitution to be
anti-slavery throughout, and so can honestly
undertake to execute the whole.
On any other theory, what check has South
Carolina over Mr. Mann's constituents, with
whom she has shared her sovereignty Her
only check is the oath, in its full, natural, and
predetermined sense. Any other theory de-
stroys the government. My old. valued, and
noble friend, Gerrit Smith,-a name never to
be mentioned but with profound respcct,-goes
into Congress, holding himself entitled to use
his power legislator, to abolish slavery in the
States-to let women vote-to annhilatE the
war powers of Congress. On the same princi-
pie, another man may go there to change the
republic to q monarchy. What docs Mr.. Mann
think of this Ills theory of private interpre-
Encouragement with constituents-under-
standing with Howell Cobb-covers all this, if
it covers anything. The constitutional oath is
like the moral law. If you can once get the
point of needle through it, the same hole will
accommodate a six horse coach.
Mr.. Mann INDUCES in cpi,hets and insinua-
tlons which may 'oatch the cars of the gound-
Iings.' but it would not become mo to notice
them. Yours respectfully,
WENDELL PHILLIPS.