Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1858-07-29
Abontioni5m Ezplained---EO I.
USE OF CONSTITUTIONS.

USE OF
The highest of all obligations is the obliga
ton to be just. Governments and individuals
are bound alike by one great law, and that law
is the irrepealable law of justice Equally with
individuals governments are liable to swerve
from this great law Nothing needs guarding
and governing more than the governing power.
To answer this need Constitutions are devised.
A Constitution is the law of legislators and the
rule of rulers. 1t seeks to hamper the tendency
to despotism and tie government up to right.
1t may prescribe the form of government and
the manner of its administration, but cannot
create or annul the essential rights of the peo-
pie, nor the essential obligations of rulers. Be
the Constitution what it will, the obligation of
government to establish justice, and the right
of the peopl1to its impartial administration re-
main the same. A Constitution may confer po-
litical rights such as the right of electing and
being elected, but it cannot even modify natural
rights nor interfere with the duties of morality.
This is the natal doctrine of our Government.
Its trainers believed that rights are before gov
eminent and that government comes for their
support. They framed the Constitution to be
politically the supreme law Of the land, but
took caro- that this supreme law should, in its
first words, recognize the higher law of justice.
Have politicians Of the present day heard any
report of the purpose for which governments are
instituted AMONG men? Do they know any
use Of Constitution better than to create posts
Of honor and power for their qualification? Do
they know whether our Constitution has pre-
amble, and whether that preamble has any pur
pose but to make the Constitution look beauti-
full? Have they discovered any distinction wor-
thy of regard between constitutional liberty
and slayeholding lawlcssness? There are states
men who seem to think the Constitution faulty
in not guarding the rights of slavery with
sufficient clearness A distinguished Northern
Senator, in aspeech in the United States Senate,
April 3, 1856, said:
"If a man were to take up our Constitution,
and should close the volume of our history, and
should obllterate our legislation, and read that
book without these lights, | think he would
come to the conclusion that there never was such
thing as slavery in the country. There is
nothing in the Constitution that would lead him
to dream of its existence"
What then becomes of what the Senator calls
6 the rights and interests of these States who
claim to hold Slaves?" Let see. Mr.. Col.
lamer for that 10 the Senator name, informs III
that when paper, contract, law, or statute. Ii
ambiguous, resort may be had to contempora'
neous construction By this he means con
struction formed on the views, historically
learned, of those who framed the contract Of
law, &c. And he undertakes to show from Ger
tain historical facts and documents, which by
the way should,not be too closely examined tina
the Constitution was originally intended, il
some of its provisions, to support slavery. Ihl
he does on the warrant of assumed ambiguity
while his own account of the Constitution com
pletely acquits it of any ambiguity tending tt
suggest thought of the hateful system.
What are thu prospects of our country, whel
our great statesmen exert themselves to fore
the guards Of right to the support of the mos
revolving system of wrongs over which human
ity weeps. How much more dignifed and sub
lime would have been Mr.. Collamer's position
and how much better ground we should hay
had to honor and love him, if, amid the inauen
ces of Washington City, so trying to mora
courage, he had stood boldly up for the suprem
acy Of the higher law, and shown, as he nigh
have done with irresistible force, the harmon
of the Constitution with that law. His cours
is the more surprising in view of hisspeech dc
lvered at the next session of Congress, in whic
he showed from Southern authorities tina
slavery is the plague of the South and the rui
of Southern interests |. SMITH,