The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-01-10

And now my honorable friend says that
the same men who set their hands to
that declaration, and pledged their
llVeS, fortunes, and sacred honor to its
support, proceeded twelve years after
TO establish a government, on which
they conferred the power exercised by
George III, to destroy the right of rep
resentation in the legislature, to gov
ern a people without it, and to forever
extinguish and trample out that ines
Unable right formidable to tyrants on
ly. And not only that, but he is about,
as | understand him, to proceed to vote
TO do it.
Further, our fathers in their ter
rfble arraignment and indictment of the
powers, which the senator now claims
belong to and are to be used by the
president and congress of the United
States, says that the king had
made judges dependent on his will
alone for the tenure of their Offices
and the amount and payment of their
salaries; and yet he proposes to make
judges for twelve million people de-
pendent on the will of the president on
ly for their tenure of Office, and on the
will of congress alone for the amount
and payment OF their salaries.
Further they said that King George
had kept among US In times of peace
standing armies and 'quartered largs
bodies Of armed troops among us with
out the consent of our legislatures. P"
l suppose somewhere in this capitol
men are at work today in devising ways
and means for a permanent standing
army to be kept in these islands, east
and west, without the consent of any
body there.
They said King George had combined
with others to subject us to juriSdic
ton foreign to our constitution and
not acknowledged by our laws, giving
his assent to their acts of pretended
legislation for quartering large bodies
of armed troops among us: for impos-
ing taxes on us without our consent;
for depriving US in many cases of the
benefits of trial by jury; for altering
fundamentally thS forms of our gov
eminent; for declaring themselves in
vested with power to legiSlate for us
in all cases whatsoever.
The declaration of independence de-
clares that whenever any form of gov
eminent becomes destructive of the
ends therein stated it is the right of
the people to alter or abolish it, and to
institute new government laying its
foundation on such principles, and Or
ganizing its powers in such form as to
them shall seem most likely to effect
their safety and happiness But the
senator from Connecticut thinks we
have the constitutional right ourselves
to institute a new government for that
people, Toying its foundation on such
principles and organizing it's powers
in such form as shall seem to us most
likely to effect our safety and happi-
ness without giving them the slightest
voice in the matter.
And, further the senator must think,
although he does not say SOL suppose
he expects to vote so-that we have
the right to turn our cannon, bayonets,
and ships of war, and armies upon
that people, if they attempt to exercise
this right, and prevent them from do
ing it.
Charles Sumner affirmed repeatedly,
and the people of Massachusetts, sup
ported him in that affirmation, what at
last the whole republican party, and
had thought till within the last six
months the whole country, had come to
believe, that the declaration of fndeI
pendence is coequal with the constitu-
ton, the one being a grant Of power
and the other a sovereign rule of inter
pretation.
Charles Sumner says:
The words that governments derive
their Just powers from the consent of the
governed are sacred words full of life
giving energy. Not simply national indie
pendence was here proclaimed, but also
the primal rights of all mankind Then
and there appeared the angel of human
liberation, speaking and acting at once
with heaven-born strength, breaking
bolts unloosening bonds, and opening
prison doors; always ranging on it's
mighty Grand wherever there are any,
no matter of what country or race, who
Garibaldi at Naples, as it had cheered
Washington in the SHOWS of Valley Forge
and especially visiting all who are down
trodden, whispering that there is none 50
poor as to be without rights which every
man is bound to respect. None so de-
graded as to be beneath it's benificent
reach, none so lofty. as to be above its
restraining power; while before it despot-
ism and oligarchy fall on their faces like
the image of Dagon and the people every
where begin TO govern themselves. Such
IS the popular sovereignty proclaimed by
the Declaration of Independence.
Mr.. Sumner says:
These words in the Declaration of In
dependence were not uttered in vain Do
you suppose them idle? Do you suppose
them mere phrase or generality? NxSsuch
thing. They are living words by which
TINS country is solemniy bound and from
which 1t can never escape until they are
fulhlled. Your statutes can not contain
any limitation which inflicts an indignity
upon any, portion of the human family
Only in this way can you have peace.
Mr.. President, you would not do this
thing if you were bound not to do II
by treaty, and yet a great authority
on public law has declared that treaties
that are in violation of human rights
are but rags. Can you do it against
the solemn inhibition of the great char
ter OF our principles, to the observance
of which not only the national faith is
bound, but with which the national
conscience and honor are inextricably
interviewer?
The Declaration of Independence is the
twofold promise, first, that all are canal
in rights, and secondly that lust govern
ment stands only on the consent of the
governed. being the two great political
commandments on which hang ali laws
and constitutions. Keep these trulv and
you VIII Keep all. Write them in your
statutes; write them in your hearts. This
Is the great and only final settlement of
all existing questions. To this sublime
conservation of the republic let us aspire.
There is another single sentence of
Charles Summers shifting fat in the
face the expansion notion of sovereign
ty of the senator from Connecticut.
Mr.. Sumner says:
But the great declaration. not content
with announcing certain rights as nm
alienable, and therefore beyond the CON
! troll of any government, still further re-
by simply declaring that the Tinted
States have full power to do all acts
and things which Independent states NAV
of right do Here is well -defined Iimi-
tation upon the popular sovereignty. The
dogma. of tory lawyers and pamphleteers
| put forward to sustain the claim of
parliamentary omnipotence, and vehe.
mently espoused by DR.. Johnson in his
Taxation No Tyranny"-was openly
that sovereignty is in its nature iliimii-
able precisely as It is now loosely pro
| fessed by Mr.. Douglas for his handful OF
| squatters. But this dogma is distinctly
| discarded in the declaration, and it il
| frankly proclaimed tEat all sovereignty
| is subordinate to the rule of right Marx