Part 260 (1/2)
I swear to support the Const.i.tution, _as I understand it_. Certain parts of it, in my opinion, contradict others and are therefore void.
ANSWER. Will any one take the t.i.tle deed of his house and carry it to the man he bought of, and let him keep the covenants of that paper as he says ”he understands them?” Do we not all recognize the justice of having some third, disinterested party to judge between two disputants about the meaning of contracts? Who ever heard of a contract of which each party was at liberty to keep as much as he thought proper?
As in all other contracts, so in that of the Const.i.tution, there is a power provided to affix the proper construction to the instrument, and that construction both parties are bound to abide by, or repudiate the _whole_ contract. That power is the Supreme Court of the United States.
Do we seek the common sense, practical view of this question? Go to the Exchange and ask any broker how many dollars he will trust any man with, who avows his right to make promises with the design, at the time, of breaking some parts, and not feeling called upon to state which those parts will be?
Do you seek the moral view of the point, which philosophers have taken? Paley says, ”A promise is binding in that sense in which the promiser thought at the time of making that the other party understood it.” Is there any doubt what meaning the great body of the American people attach to the Const.i.tution and the official oath?
They are that party to whom the promise is made.
But, say some, our lives are notice to the whole people what meaning we attach to the oath, and we will protest when we swear, that we do not include in our oath the pro-slavery clauses. You may as well utter the protest now, as when you are swearing--or at home, equally as well as within the State House. For no such protest can be of any avail. The Chief Justice stands up to administer to me the oath of some office, no matter which. ”Sir,” say I, ”I must take that oath with a qualification, excluding certain clauses.” His reply will be, ”Sir, I have no discretion in this matter. I am here merely to administer a prescribed form of oath. If you a.s.sent to it, you are qualified for your station. If you do not, you cannot enter. I have no authority given me to listen to exceptions. I am a servant--the people are my masters--here is what they require that you support, not this or that part of the Const.i.tution, but '_the Const.i.tution_,'
that is, the _whole_.”
Baffled here, I turn to the people. I publish my opinions in newspapers. I proclaim them at conventions, I spread them through the country on the wings of a thousand presses. Does this avail me?
Yes, says Liberty party, if after this, men choose to vote for you, it is evident they mean you shall take the oath as you have given notice that you understand it.
Well, the voters in Boston, with this understanding, elect me to Congress, and I proceed to Was.h.i.+ngton. But here arises a difficulty,--my const.i.tuents at home have a.s.sented--but when I get to Congress, I find I am not the representative of Boston only, but of the whole country. The interests of Carolina are committed to my hands as well as those of Ma.s.sachusetts; I find that the contract I made by my oath was not with Boston, but with the whole nation. It is the _nation_ that gives me the power to declare war and make peace--to lay taxes on cotton, and control the commerce of New Orleans. The nation prescribed the conditions in 1789, when the Const.i.tution was settled, and though Boston may be willing to accept me on other terms, Carolina is not willing. Boston has accepted my protest, and says, ”Take office.” Carolina says, ”The oath you swear is sworn to me, as well as to the rest--I demand the whole bond.”
In other words, when I have made my protest, what evidence is there that _the nation_, the other party to the contract, a.s.sents to it?
There can be none until that nation amends its Const.i.tution.
Ma.s.sachusetts when she accepted that Const.i.tution, bound herself to send only such men as could swear to return slaves. If by an underhand compromise with some of her citizens, she sends persons of other sentiments, she is perjured, and any one who goes on such an errand is a partner in the perjury. Ma.s.sachusetts has no right to a.s.sent to my protest--she has no right to send representatives, except on certain conditions. She cannot vary those conditions, without leave from those whose interests are to be affected by the change, that is, the whole nation. Those conditions are written down in the Const.i.tution. Do she and South Carolina differ, as to the meaning?
The Court will decide for them.
But, says the objector, do you mean to say that I swear to support the Const.i.tution, not as I understand it, but as some judge understands it? Yes, I do--otherwise there is no such thing as law.
This right of private judgment, for which he contends, exists in religion--but not in Government. Law is a rule _prescribed_. The party prescribing must have the right to construe his own rule, otherwise there would be as many laws as there are individual consciences. Statutes would be but recommendations if every man was at liberty to understand and obey them as he thought proper. But I need not argue this. The absurdity of a Government that has no right to govern--and of laws which have no fixed meaning--but which each man construes to mean what he pleases and obeys accordingly--must be evident to every one.
What more power did the most despotic of the English Stuarts ask, than the right, after having sworn to laws, to break such as their consciences disapproved? It is the essence of tyranny.
What is the Const.i.tution of the United States? In good old fas.h.i.+oned times we thought we knew, when we had read it and listened to the court's exposition. But we have improved upon that. The Liberty party man says, it is for him ”what he understands it.” John C.
Calhoun, of course, has the same right, and instead of ”Liberty regulated by law,” we have liberty regulated by fourteen millions of understandings!
The Liberty party man takes office on conditions, which, he says, are not binding upon him. He gives us notice that he shall use the power as he thinks right, without any regard to these conditions of his oath. Well, if this is law, it is good for all. John C. Calhoun can of course take office with the same broad liberty, and swear to support the Const.i.tution ”as _he_ understands it.” He has told us often what that ”understanding” is--”to sustain Slavery.” Of course having made this public, if, after that, Carolina sends him, according to Liberty party logic, it is evidence that Ma.s.sachusetts a.s.sents to his ”understanding,” and accepts his oath with that meaning! Why I thought I had fathomed the pro-slavery depths of the Const.i.tution when I read over all its wicked clauses--but that is skimming only the surface, if the Const.i.tution allows every man, to whom it commits power to use it, as he chooses to ”understand” the conditions, and not as the nation understands them. If with this right, Abolitionists may take office and help Liberty, we must remember that by the same rule, slaveholders may take office and lawfully use all their power to help Slavery. If this be so, how absurd to keep crying out of this and the other thing it is ”unconst.i.tutional.”
Away with such logic! If we have a Const.i.tution, let us remember Jefferson's advice, and not make it ”waste paper by construction.”
The man who tampers thus with the sacred obligation of an oath,--swears, and Jesuit like, keeps ”reserved meanings” in his own breast,--does more harm to society by loosening the foundations of morals, than he would do good, did his one falsehood free every slave from the Potomac to the Del Norte.
OBJECTION IV.
”The oath does not mean that I will positively do what I swear to do, but only that I will do it, _or submit_ to the penalty the law awards.
If my actions in office don't suit the nation, let them impeach me.”
ANSWER. That is, John Tyler may, without consulting Congress, plunge us into war with Mexico--incur fifty millions of public debt--lose a hundred thousand lives--and the _sufficient recompense_ to this nation will be to impeach John Tyler, Esq., and send him home to his slaves! These are the wise safeguards of Const.i.tutional liberty! He has faithfully kept it ”as he understands it.” What is a Russian slave? One who holds life, property, and all, at the mercy of the Czar's idea of right. Does not this description of the power every officer has here, under our Const.i.tution, reduce Americans to the same condition?
But, is it true that the bearing of the penalty is an excuse for breach of our official oaths?
The Judge who, in questions of divorce, has trifled with the sanct.i.ty of the marriage tie--who, in matters of property has decided unjustly, and taken bribes--in capital cases has so dealt judgment as to send innocent men to the gallows--may cry out, ”If you don't like me, impeach me.” But will impeachment restore the dead to life, or the husband to his defamed wife? Would the community consider his submission to impeachment as equivalent to the keeping of his oath of office, and thenceforward view him as an honest, truth-speaking, unperjured man? It is idle to suppose so. Yet the interests committed to some of our officeholders' keeping, are more important often than even those which a Judge controls. And we must remember that men's ideas of right always differ. To admit such a principle into the construction of oaths, if it enable one man to do much good, will enable scoundrels who creep into office to do much harm, ”according to _their_ consciences.” But yet the rule, if it be admitted, must be universal. Liberty becomes, then, matter of accident.