The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1873-03-27
[ From the Cincinnati Gazette.l
About Bills of Rights.


tions Of government, they fancy they are
altering maxim that all accept as set
tied. But let us look into this thing.
By what authority does q convention de
fine rights of the people? From whence
do they come? Does it create them? I'm
happy American people, that would have
no rights if a convention did not give
them! Or from whence does it draw
them From settled principles of uni
versal law, which no one disputes? If
SO, what reason has a convention for as
serting them ? If undisputed, are they
not rs twell understood by General
Assembly as by a general convention2
And if disputed, has not the General As
sembly as much wisdom and as good au-
thority to enact upon them as the con-
ventiOn? And if the General Assembly
enacts wrongly, the people can correct it
by another election; whereas a conven-
ton fastens its wrong doing upon the
people.
But if any one had the authority-if
the attempt was not monstrous usurpa-
tion-who can safely undertake to de-
clare the rights that belong to man, in
dividually and collectively What is
our Legislature doing every session, with
its thousand bills, but to define rights
What people was ever so abjeet as put
all its rights into the hopper of a conven-
ton The attempt is only mischievous.
1t is the rashness of fools rushing in
where wise men would not tread. Every
negation in this patent right manufac-
ture has the danger of consequent af-
firmation. Every specific affirmation has
the danger of perversion into a general
negation. Every specific prohibition has
the danger of being construed into a per-
mission of all that is not specifically pro
hihited. Need we instance to remind
the people of Ohio of this? Have we
seen much of anything else than this
working of the peculiar modern improve
ments in that bill of denominations, the
(old) new Constitution of the State of
Ohio?
The trainers of the Constitution Of the
United States are set down by our tradi-
tions as uneommonly wise men With
the universal propensity of mankind to
defy ancestors, it is common to say they
were inspired In our spread eagle way
we call their work the best framework of
government the sun ever shone on. We
shall always cherish the memory of the
enthusiasm at q banquet in this city, in
the war time, when the orator pictured
the Almighty, with the nations passing
in review before Him. and told how His
face lighted up when the star spangled
banner came to the front, because that
was the emblem of free government. But
these inspired men made no bill of rights.
The reason was, not that they We're in
spired, but they were not fools. They
were men of strong common sense, and
of knowledge of those principles of law
and liberty which Anglo-SaXon ciYiliza-
ton has settled
But the Constitution went out of their
hands, and then each State began to
tinker it, and to make conditions for its
'l1a 0f hn cd
wisdom Of the nation had to be subjected
to thirteen different tinkers. No State
had q right to make conditional ratifi-
cation. But several furnished their
patches and as they consisted largely OF
surplusage, and rs it seemed necessary to
go far to compromise with petty .jealou-
sizes, TO get the government started, these
amendments were accepted in batch.
Some shallow people say that the Consti-
tuition was defective in not having a bill
of rights and so these States completed
it. This is to say, the Constitution left
out of the Constitution the main thing.
But this Constitution was complete with
out these patches. Not one of them was
complete without these patches. Not
one of them was necessary. Not one
even created or defended any right They
only marred the work Of wiser men. And,
as if in retribution for this presumption,
they furnished the constitutional pre-
tense which was made the instrument of
secession, and the cause Of all the calam-
tiles of civil war.
Our simian descent has large token in
the inyeterate propensity of political inn
itativeness. The trainers of the Consti-
tuition had more out-grown this. They
knew the difference between a govern
ment from the bottom and government
from the top. They knew that despots
sometimes gave their subjects bill OF
rights, as 81 concession from the royal
source fpower. They knew that on q
time the people-that is to say, the no
bles-had eXtorted bill ofrights from a
monarch. But they were not such mon
keys as to think that the people must
extort a bill of rights from themselves.
The instinct of the apes is wiser than
this. All this patent right manulacture
came in from the French fashion. They
did much of this in the French revolu-
ton. They are always ready to do il
again They began with declaring rights
for the King to subscribe to. But when
they had dispatched the monarchy, they
went on making declarations of the rights
the people grant TO themselves. The
more they had patent righted, the less
they had. A parcel of French doctrinaires
and demagogues could get together and
frame perfect assortment of rights
And as they perfected the rights OF the
people, they increased their executions
of persons.
In the early stage of our government
there was a strong inclination to the
French fashion. 1t was the party capital
Of one party 1t had clubs that initiated
the extravaganza of the Jacobin clubs of
Paris 1t had for leader politician
who, by virtue Of a stilted rhetorical com
position, to declare an act of separation
which the popular leaders had all resolv.
ed on, had gained great favor; who had
been inducted into all the ways of Jaco.
bipiam in Paris; who had swallowed all
the nonsense of the French political and
social doctrinaires, and who went so
much further than the Jacobins them
selves that he declared their only fault
in the massacres was that they did not
kill enough, and that il would be better
IL every people were killed off to n single
pair and they free, than for mankind to
live as they are This American French
doctrinaire busted hmself-so long as he
was out of power-in introducing to this
country, where the principles of human
/ rights wore implanted in the nature OF
| the Anglo-Saxon people, and had grown
in the soil, the French fashion of patent
rights created by paper declarations. lie,
too, thought the Constitution defective
! And one Of his works was to foist upon
one of these misehievous amendments
another declaration ofrights, To be made
q party dogma, which furnished the