The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1853-1911, 1864-04-14
Have We a Government?

the reading of speech made not lon
ago in the House of Representatives, b
Pennsylvania Dawson, we were encoun
tered by another debate in the Senate up
on the question whether the Constitution
should be SO amended as to prohibit Sla
very. 1t is very extraordinary docu
ment-this same Constitution of ours; fo
it is the learned opinion of sundry SHARP
politicians that it establishes everything
which it does not in terms prohibit Thi;
method of augmentation would soon
make melancholy muddle of any posi-
Bile fundamental instrument. As the
Constitution does not prohibit swindling
for instance, it is a logical sequitm that
swindling is constitutional. As the Con-
stitution does not define in minute detail
every possible variety of duty which the
President may be called upon to perform,
it follows that, when red-hot Rebellion
is raging in the land, our Chief Execu-
tive is to be stationed in Washington by
the suffrages Of the States, there merely
to draw his salary with an undertaking
punctuality. He has nothing to do with
camps and Major-Generals He is not
expected to entertain so useless and ab-
surd thing as policy. He is to live
in the White House, and regulate the
cooks and porters thereof Upon his
public days, he is to be a lay figure, to be
gazed upon, to have his hand mechani-
cally shaken, and his personal beauty
passed upon by mob of free and easy
guests. Merely an inert center, around
which the Federal orrory resolves, the
least display of a real personality, the
least bold assumption of responsibility
upon his part, is angrily deprecated by
the Opposition as gross usurpation.-
And as it is with the President, so is it
with the Cabinet. The Secretaries are
to be only the ceremonial priests of our
political Grand Llama, doing merely
clerkly work, and never venturing upon
an original act. And as it is with the
Cabinet, so is it with the Congress. The
country may be going to wreck; but no
laws are to be made for which a preced-
ent cannot be found. Poor President!
unhappy Cabinetl contemplate Congress!
There would seem to be no power to save
us vested in anybody!
And yet, it is singular, not to say be-
circumstance, that in the dear,
happy days, which have gone
by, apparently forever, ingenious gentle
men found any amount of Slavery III the
Constitution; and Presidents were expec
ted to be extremely active in its behalf;
and Cabinets gave orders for rihing the
mail-bags and for refusing passports to-
black Americans about to travel; and
Congress exerted all its ingenuity in
framing laws for the capture and rendi-
ton of runaway personal goods; and Dis
trict-Attorneys were swift to indict in the
Federal Courts all those who declined tol
Join the man-hunting posse comitatus-
Do not all of us remember those timessof
lucid Interpretation, when to make a
speech in behalf of simple humanity in
Faneuil Hall was construed into levying
war high-treasonously upon the United
States; and bum -bailifs, in behalf of the
American eagle, hauled men to prison for
the utterance of involuntary words of
sympathy and Indignation; and the pull
pits of God resounded with polemical de-
nunciations of Gods Higher Law? All J!
there was a plenty Of Slavery in the Con-
stitution thenl Every section, every
clause, every article, was presumed, in
some occult way, to sanction the institu-
tion All the CLOSES Of commentators
had Pro-Slavery tint; all the readings
of the Judges were upon the South side;
all the popular gabble asserted that there
was something more in the instrument
than was apparent to heshly eyes, and
that the said something was law OF des-
potism and a gospel of inhumanity! But
now the same swift and Jealous expound-
ers of the law gaze fondly upon the
purged document and find that the Con-
stitution not only makes no reference to
Slavery, but that it sanctions 1t by the
very fact that no such reference is made.
They go still further. They discover
that it would be extremely dangerous Tor
a Democracy to admit itself to be De-
mocracy, that is, in writing, however it
nay make such pretensions in loose and
general speech! They discover that,
while the theory is SO eminently lovely,
the practice is particularly dangerous
They discover that the doctrine of human
equality is particularly beautiful, with
the prudent limitation Of denying 1t to
moiety of the human race. Exquisite
Democracy! Charming equality! Did
ever reasonable abstracts dwindle into
such ridiculous concrete before? And 1t
was, nevertheless, to the rcconcilement OF
these absurdities that the practical talent
of the nation addressed itself. The 81
gantic intellect of Webster wasted itself
in Hercuean efforts to reconcile these
contradictions, and gave US but brilliant
lawyer when we might have had states
man-like Senator. The nobler impulses
of Mr.. Clay's heart-that great human
heart which nothing but Slavery could
have so pcryersed-were squandered IN
polished sophistries in the same importu,,
nate cause. The massive, logical mlnd
Of Calhoun mt to be resisted in its con-