Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1859-04-19
Letter from Edward Bates, of Missouri.

W. - d" 'f'f'f ' ~ ~ ~ . ~ 49,
IL Il. Smile, Uaig CommiHeeJ ". J.:
SIRs-A short time ago | was favored with
your note of the Ith inst, covering a resolu-
ton of the committee TO the effect that It's III
expedient at this time further TO discuss or
agitate the negro question. but rather to turn
the attention of the people to other topics
topics of general Importance, such as our for
eign relations, including the extension Of
Territory, the building Of railroads for ma
tional purposes, the improvement OF free lar
bors, the navigation of our rivers to facilitate
internal the subject of currency,
and a tariff of duties. and other means for
developing our own internal resources, our
home wealth, and binding together by ties OF
national and f%raternal feelings, the various
parts and sections Of our widcly-eXtended Re-
public.
Your letter, gentlemen, opens a very wide
field, in asking for my ''oplnion upon the
subject, and my views as TO the signs OF the
times" Books have been written upon
these matters, and speeches delivered by the
thousand, and yet the argument seems as far
from being exhausted as it vas ut the begin
ming: and | take it for certain that you do
not expect or desire me to discuss at large
all or any of these intermlnablc quarrels.-
That | have opinions upon all or most OF
them, is true,-not the opinions Of this or
that party, ready to be abandoned or modi-
fed to suit this or that platform-but my
own opinions: perhaps the more fixed and
harder to be changed, because deliberately
formed in the retirement Of private life, free
from the exigencies of official responsibilities
and from the perturbations Of party policy.
They are my Owl opinions, right or wrong.
As to the negro question, | have always
thought, and often declared, in speech and
in print, that it is a p~cstilent question, the
agitation of which has never done good To
anv party, section or class, and never can do
good, unless it be accounted good to stir up
the angry passions of men, and cxasperate
unreas0ning iealousies of sections, and by
these bad means foist some unfit men into
office, and keep some tit men out. 1t is a
sensitive question, into whose dangerous
vortex it is quite possible for good men to
be drawn unawares. But when see a man
mt the South or the North, of mature age and
some experience, persist i'll urging the qucs-
ton. after the successful experience of the
last few years, | can attribute his conduct to
no higher motive than personal ambition or
sectional prejudice.
As to the power of the General Govern
ment to protect the persons and properties,
and advance the interests of the people, by
levying taxes, raising armies and nayies,
building forts and arscnals. lighthouses,
moles and ~breakwaters, surveying the coasts
and adjacent seas, improving rivers, lakes
and harbors, and making roads, ] should be
very sorry To doubt the existence of the pow
cr, or the duty to exercise it, whenever the
constituted authorities have the means in
their hands, and are convinced that its
exercise il necessary to protect the country
and advance the prosperity ofthe people.
In my own opinion. a government that has
no power to protect the harbors of its country
against winds and waves and human enc
mics. nor it's rivers against snags, sands and
rocks. nor to build roads for the transporta-
ton Of its armies and it's mails, and the COM
merce of its people, is a poor, impotent gov
eminent, and not at all such a government rs
our fathers thought they had made when
they produced the constitution, which was
greeted bv intelligent men everywhere with
admiration and gratitude. as a government,
free enough for all the ends of legal liberty,
and strong enough for all the purposes OF ma
tional and individual protection. y free
people. if it be wise, will make Il good constl-
tuition, but a constitution, however good in
itself. did never make a free people. The
people do net derive their rights from the gov
eminent, but the government derives its pow
ers from the people; and these powers are
granted for the main, if not the only, pur-
pose of protecting the rights of the people
Protection, then, if not the sole, Is the chief
end of government. 1t is for the governing
power to Judge, in every instance, what kind
and what degrees of protection is nccdtuI-
whether a navy to guard our commerce all
around the world, or All army TO defend the
country against armed invasion from with
out, ur domestic instruction from within: or
a tariff to protect our home industry against
the dangerous obtrusion Of foreign labor and
capital.
Ofthe existence of the power and duty Of
the government to protect the people in their
persons, their property, their industry and
their locomotion, | have no doubt; but the
time. the mode and the manner of protection,
being always questions of policy and pru-
dence, must, Of necessity, be left to the Wis
dom and patriotism Of those whose duty 1t
is to make laws for the good government of
the country. With them | freely leave it a.
the right. and, indeed, the only constitutional
depository oithe power.
As to our foreign policy, generally, have
but little to say; | am not much of II progress
sive, and nm content to leave il where Wash
ington placed it, upon that wise, %virtuous,
safe maxim-"Peace with all nations, EN-
tangling alliances with none" The greedy
and indiscriminate appetite for foreign nc
QUESTION. which makes us covet our neigh
bors' lands, and devise cunning schemes t"
get them, has little Of my sympathy. | view
it rs a sort of political gluttony, as danger
Gus to our body polite, rs g%luttony is to the
natural man-producing disease certainly
fastening death probably. Those Of Po-
l|Iticians who are afflicted with this morbid
appetite are wont to cite the purchase of
Louisiana and Florida, a. giving countc-
nance to these inOrdinate desires. But the
cases are wholly unlike i'll almost every par
ticuIar. Louisiana was Indispensable to
our full and safe enjoyment Of an immense
region, which was already owned. and its
acquisition gave us the unqcstioned control
of that noble system of Mississippi waters,
which nature seems 10 have made to be one
and indivisible, and rounded off the map
of the nation into one uniform and compact
ed whole. Nothing remained to maj and
d~i>figurc our national plat, but Florida, and
that was desirable, less for its intrinsic value,
th,t h,,uusp If vnulb form "A lnurerDuS