The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1863-04-17
Rights and Duties under the
Constitution.
Speech of George Ticknor Curtis, Esq

address lately delivered in New York
by GEORGE I. CURTIS, Esq, one of the
ablest lawyers of the country, and the
historian of the Constitution. After dis
cussing the true meaning of loyalty and
the rights and duties of citizens, he con-
tinued as follows:
There is no valid reason why State
should forcibly assert its constitutional
rights, any more than that an individual
should do the same thing. While State
remains member of the Union, it is bound
to vindicate its constitutional rights and
powers in the mode which is consistent
with the preservation of that Union; and
it can at any time, under any supposed
violation of its rights or the rights of its
people, make a case for judicial determi-
nation. Forcible resistance is open revo-
luton and nothing but intolerable OPP
preston, cutting off all judicial remedy,
can make revolution necessity and duty.
Again-there is another equally good
reason, which shows that no popular tu-
mults, and no forcible resistance, are either
legally Or morally .ustifable, while the
ballot box remains untouched. If the
people of State have reason to believe
that measures of the Federal Government
are subversive of the Constitution, it is
their right and their duty to correct the
evil by a change of their rulers. In ca
SEES of supposed extensive violations of the
Constitution, to which the attention of the
whole country is called, the remedy of
elections is ordinarily sufficient to reverse,
and is in our system held to reverse erro-
neous constructions of that instrument, as
well as errors of policy. The popular tri-
bunal may not be quite so precise in it's
action as the judicial, but there can be no
installing the judgment of the people,
when it is pronounced upon an issue clear
ly made with an Administration which is
charged with infringing the Constitution
These principles no one, presume, will
be inclined to di.pute. But there is thrust
in, to intercept their application to the
present crisis in our affairs, doctrine
which l for one distinctly repudiate. That
doctrine is, in substance, that all question
ing of the measures of the Administration
should be postponed while we are in civil
war; that there should be but one party;
and that all should rally in an uncondi-
tiOndl support of the constituted authori-
ties" This dogma needs examination. If
by an unconditional support of the consti-
tuted authorities, it is intended to claim
that we must all recognize the fact that we
are engaged in civil war, and that we
must conduct it, while it lasts, through
those authorities, and must hold no irregu-
lar intercourse with the public enemy, I
readily accede to the proposition. But if
it is meant that we are not to question the
methods which the Administration pursue
in the prosecution of the war; that we have
no rightful control over their measures;
or that we are to refrain from demanding
change of their pOlicy-I reject the doc
trine without the slightest hesitation. The
very issue which you make with the Ad-
miniStlation of itself refutes that doctrine.
That issue is, that their course of action
subverts the Constitution; makes the war
an attack upon the social system of the
South; and renders it impossible to sue
coed in that war, without destroying, for
the South and for the North, the whole
principle of State sovereignty, on which the
Union was necessarily founded, as one of
its cOrner-stones 1t is in vain to say that
the acts of the Administration, of which
you complain, are military measures In
every civil war there are political consider
ations which must qualify the military ac-
ton, or that action can result only in dis
aster. A government that undertakes to
suppress a great revolt of powerful and Or
ganized communities, at the same time fur
niShing the strongest of moral motives for
resistance, is in the same situation as he
who fights his enemy with one hand, and
supplies him through the other with the
munitions of war. In the present case we
have made the conquest one of infinite diff
Guilty, by first declaring that we waged the
war solely for the supremacy OF the Con-
stitution, and then turning round and MAX
ing the overthrow of the Constitution too
probable result OF our success.
This result Will ncr be confined to the
condition Of the revolted States, if the war
continues to be prosecuted as it has been
1or the .ast six months You cannot &C
qulescc in the measures of the Administra-
ton, involving, as they do, the exercise of
many powers that lie wholly outside of the
Constitution, without leaving this country
hereafter to be ruled by powers that will
rest upon nothing but what the Judgment
Of party or a faction, or clique, shall
deem to be public necessities In this as
pect OF our affairs | cannot avoid word
OF earnest appeal to ali rejecting men, to
consider what fate must attend the securi
ties of property, as well as the rights of
person, if We permit the Constitution to be
lost.
There are five great securities of proper
ty, the continuance Of which in this coun-
try is dependent on the preservation of the
Constitution of the United States. Let me
enumerate them. They are:
/. \ uniform metallic currency, IS the
basis and standard of all values.
.. The power to establish uniform sys-
TEN of bankruptcies, whenever the inter
ests Of commerce require it.
3. The inyiolability OF contracts by State
Legislatures.
4. The provision which places property
under the protection of the Constitution,
as against Federal power, SO that 70 man
can be deprived Of it without legal process.
5. The prohibition which restraints the
Federal power OF eminent donaain. so that
private property can not be taken for pub
lie use without lust compensation