A guide to the right understanding of our American union; or, Political, economical and literary miscellanies ...

Preface

To no people is political knowledge so important as to us — each citizen being both sovereign and subject. Our duty as subjects, we, like the subjects of other countries, are taught by legislative enactments ; but our duty in assisting to enact laws and form written constitutions, we can learn only by study ; especially as laws desirable for a Slate may be fundamentally improper for the Federal Government. This conflict of proprieties is misunderstood universally by foreigners — their pre-existing notions of nationalities mystifying our Federal limitations — while the same difliculty, existing ratably among ourselves, disturbs the, fellowship of our thirty millions of inhabitants, and endangers the union of our States. The present publication discusses most of those governmental peculiarities that our progress has shown to be disturbing, guiding us thus, by a practical detail, to a better understanding of our polity than could any treatise on Government, written systematically in abstract general propositions. The essays assume a partisan guise, because conflicting governmental notions are the elements of our party difl^erences ; but the

IV PREFACE.

writer was never the disciple of any party, and hence never wrote for victory, but for the ehcitation of truth, while much in the articles that seeins partisan, the author wrote before the advocated tenets were adopted by any party. Territorial self-government, for instance, on which Mr. Buchanan has been elected President, is advocated in the piece entitled " The Wilmot Proviso," but the author published it under his own signature, August 24th, 1847, being several months before the first advocacy of the principle by Senators Cass and Dickinson, whose conspicuous position arrested thereto partisan attention. The pieces are reprinted substantially as they were originally published in various periodicals, when the respective topics engaged public attention ; but they are arranged in an order dictated by the topics, the papers relating to the General Government being placed before those relating to the State and the Miscellaneous articles being grouped together after the Political ; and they are all now respectfully dedicated to the young men of America as aids to reflection.

Utica, New- York, 1857.

CONTENT !^^

CHAPTER I. The Negro Question and Territorial Self-Government

Page

The Wilmot Proviso 9

Reserved Rights of American Citizens 20

The Kansas-Nebraska Question 24

The Kansas-Nebraska Question — concluded 28

CHAPTER 11.

Of the Nature of our Confederacy.

The Philosophy of the Union; or, the Principles of its Cohe-

siveness 32

Veto Power of the President 65

The President's Constitutional Advisers 71

Power of Congress over Public Improvements 72

VI CONTENTS.

CHAPTER II. Of Private Corporations

Page Legislative History of Corporations in New-York; or, the Progress of Liberal Principles 202

Advantages and Disadvantages of Private Corporations 210

Duties, Omissions, and Misdoings of Bank Directors 223

CHAPTER IIL

Op Sumptuary Legislation.

The Excise License Question 238

The Maine Liquor Law 242

CHAPTER IV. Of Public Improvements

The Alternative of Borrowing Disadvantageouslj, or Suspending the Public Works 246

The Alternative of Debt or Taxation 249

The Alternative of a Suspension of Improvements, or an Increase of Debt 251

The Alternative of Continuing our Debt, or Liquidating it by

Taxation 259

Part III. Miscellany

The Almighty Dollar; or. Money as a Motive for Action 255

Relative Merits of Life Insurance and Savings Banks 263

Political and Economical Influence of Usury Laws 277

Present and Prospective Value of Gold 283

Plan of a New Dictionary 300

Banking, the Duties of a Banker, and his Personal Requisites

therefor 309

Review of the Internal Management of a Country Bank 379

Review of the Philosophy of Joint Stock Banking 388

Review of Schoolcraft's '' Residence of Thirty Years with the

Indian Tribes on the American Territories." 403

CHAPTER I. THE NEGRO aUESTION AND TERRLTOR[AL SELF-GOVERNMENT

THE WILMOT PEOYISO.*

We hav« all heard that Napoleon relinquished an ardently desired gratification, because a cobbler would not «ell a small piece of ground that was essential to the contemplated project : — " Let him keep it,^' said Napoleon, " as a monument of the sacredness with which the rights of property are respected in France."

The same improbable story has been told of every despot that history has wished to glorify, and the repetition evinces that man everywhere honors a respect for personal rights. Our State desired a discontinuance of the retail traffic in ardent spirits, but our voters said, with Napoleon, Let it remain, as a monument of the sacredness with which personal freedom is tolerated in New- York. So our State abhors slavery, but if Virginia could be despoiled by us of

* Published August 2Tth, 1847. Senator Dickinson's resolutions on the same subject, were oflfered in the United States Senate, December 14th, 1847. Senator Cass's Nicholson Letter thereon was published the same December.

10 THE WILMOT PROVISO.

a control over her domestic institutions, and compelled to abolish slavery, our voters would say, Let it remain, a monument of the sacredness with which self-government is respected in the United States. Slavery when thus viewed is not a national reproach, as some people superficially affirm ; but the cobbler's hut, which, while it contrasts sadly with the other parts of our federal structure, testifies only the more unmistakably to the sovereignty of our people in their several communities — sovereign for all purposes, except that no community can domineer over even the weakest of its confederates. Nor are we just to the citizens of our Union when we attribute this liberality to constitutional necessity ; we can attribute it with more truth to public sentiment, for constitutions in our country are only an embodiment of public opinion. Public sentiment, therefore, in favor of self-government, is the ultimate reason why our Federal Constitution leaves every State to be sovereign over its own domestic institutions ; and by the same reason, the people of every territory within our Union are morally entitled to a like sovereignty, even should the Constitution, by a harsh construction, permit such sovereignty to be abridged. Praise where you can and censure only where you must, is an esteemed precept which Congress ought not to parody, by permitting self-government only where they must, and abridging it where they can. To a sensitive mind, the helplessness of a territory, as contrasted with a State, would be a motive for protecting the inhabitants of a territory, rather than for depredating on them. Nothing, indeed, would be more detestable than to refuse self-government to our territorial offspring, after having rebelled from our parent country to obtain the right of self-government for ourselves. In that contest England refused to see anything but the ingratitude of the colonies in withholding aid from her exhausted treasury ; so coercionists, in the present question of slavery,.

THE WILMOT PROVISO. 11

considei only the ills of slavery, instead of regarding the more fundamental issue, that every community is rightfully entitled to regulate its own domestic relations. To withhold this right from a territory by reason that the liberty may be abused, is an argument as old as oppression, and little befitting a nation whose existence depends on the capacity of man for self-government, and whose experience proves that the dependence is ennobling and safe. Moreover, if self-government is right ; if to do unto others, as we would others should do unto us is our duty ; if the employment of evil means is unlawful for the attainment of good ends, we are not justified in putting a strait jacket upon the freeman who may remove to our territories, nor are we responsible to God or man for any consequences that may result from the omission.

But we ar^ told, the North never will permit the acquisition of territory which shall be able to tolerate slaver}^ Nay, all opposition to this fiat is sought to be silenced, by an assurance of its universal favor among virtuous peoplejust as women are sometimes seduced in France, by being assured that chastity is unfashionable among the polite. But may we not hope something better ? — that the North and South united will never permit the acquisition of territory whose inhabitants, flesh of our flesh, shall enjoy less power of self-government than we enjoy ; that the North and South united, will demand the neutrality of Congress on the disturbing subject of slavery, and that Congress shall neither establish it nor prohibit it ? On this common ground North and South can both stand ; and if a tree is known by its fruits, this common ground, which will produce brotherly kindness, tranquillity, and union, is virtuous; while the opposite ground is vicious, that will produce geographical hatred and national debility. Spurious, indeed, is

12 THE WILMOT PROVISO.

the virtue vi^hich consists in voting self-denials on other people, and denouncing sins that our position disables us from committing. It constitutes the "taxation without representation that our fathers pledged their honor to resist ; and it is akin to the religious mortifications that the Pharisees placed on ' the shoulders of other men, and received therefor the condemnation of the Saviour. Be ours the better virtue of meliorating each of us his own State or territory, so that our States and territories may provoke each other to good works, by good examples rather than by coercion^ — as New- York became the exemplar of railroads and canals, and will become, by her new constitution, the exemplar of general legislation, in place of special privileges that withhold the means of wealth from the poor, to make the rich richer. In such ways even slavery may in time disappear from our empire. Nor let us be driven from this only moral and sure process of melioration, by the artifice reprobated by Washington, that the North and South are antagonists, and that one must be made the Ire« land of our Confederacy, — which Confederacy^we are vauntingly told, is so advantageous, that fears of its disruption need no longer deter our communities from aggressions on each other : — We may eat the forbidden fruit and shall not surely die, — we may disregard temperance and revel in intoxication, because we can obtain the means gratis. Nor let us be driven into this false position by the sarcasm, that a Northern man is dough- faced who will not be controlled in his votes by geographical location. Happy is he who is^ not dough-faced merely, but dough-hearted, when good is sought to be accomplished by evil means !

Finally, politicians agitate the most disturbing questions with a recklessness that induces Europeans to predict mo» mentarily a dissolution of our Confederacy, and induces

Mexicans =^ to expect an insurrectionary pronunciamento in their favor ; for as sportsmen seek game amid dangers, so our politicians will climb to the crater of disunion to catch abolition votes, or descend towards anarchy to catch anti-renters'. To lure the weak, they will stigmatize our soldiers as murderers, and weep over the wickedness of war ; and to catch the generous, they will shout praises to the military chieftain f who happens to be most successful in his onslaughts. Nor need we suppose that such politicians are necessarily void of patriotism. They know that the virtue and intelligence of our people are sufficient to render harmless such otherwise dangerous experiments, and the truth of such reliance will be illustrated in the geographical agitation which we are considering. It will not dissever our Union — but not because the South will submit to political degradation, but because the people of our Confederacy know that nothing can be permanent which is not just ; and they are virtuous, and will not force upon any of our communities an inequality that would be unjust.

THE SLAVEKY QUESTION. t

A HATRED of slavery cannot be claimed as the peculiar attribute of any party. All men hate it, unless they are slaveholders ; and many slaveholders hate it, as witness Jefferson, whose 1787 ordinance on the subject Mr. Van Buren's supporters desire to enforce — forgetting that the ordinance referred to the old Confederation, not to the present Union — a difference we will speak of presently.

* The United States were then at war with Mexico. t General Taylor, t Published August 30th, 1848.

Mr. Van Buren claims also, " that Congress is as powerless to make a slave as to make a king ; as powerless to establish slavery, as to establish a monarchy " : — all points about which no controversy exists with the supporters of Gen. Cass, who insist farther, that when American citizens remove into California, they carry with them, as their birth-right, a power to legislate for themselves in the matter of slavery, as respects its prohibition and its admission ; and that any attempt of Congress to deprive our fellow-citizens of this right of self-legislation is as wrong as the legislative control over Ireland by the British Parliament ; and still more unprincipled in our Congress than in Parliament, because such legislation by Congress is without constitutional authority. Shall we then make Irelands of our territories ? That is the question between Van Buren and Cass, — the only question, dodge it who can, by confounding it with the notion of Mr. Calhoun, (as erroneous as Mr. Van Buren's,) that the inhabitants of a territory cannot prohibit slavery. This question between Van Buren and Cass, our fellow-citizens of Irish extraction must answer with their votes at the coming election. All of us who sympathize with Ireland must answer the same question ; and who will stultify himself by approving in Congress what he denounces in the British Parliament ? — who will vote to control the domestic institutions of California, and to prohibit the control thereof by our fellow-citizens after they remove thither with their wives and children ? — who will vote to retain a thorn in the heart of Congress, when it may be plucked thence, and transferred to California, where it properly belongs, and where it can rankle without committing the injury denounced by Washington, " of alienating one portion of our country from the rest ?"

And here we may note why the Confederation ordinance of 1787 is unfitted to the existing Union. The Confederation was an Association of States ; but the existing Union is an association of the people. The Confederacy was formed by delegates who acted as ambassadors, and who formed *' x4.rticles of confederation and perpetual union between the States of New-Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, &c., &c. ;" and which States ratified subsequently the said articles, as a treaty between independent sovereigns ; but the existing Union was- established by " We the People," and it was not to be obligatory till ratified by the people.

The two governments differing thus in their origin are marked with a corresponding difTerence in their powers. The Confederation mentions the people as incidents only of the States ; the Constitution mentions the States as incidents only of the people. The Ordinance of 1787 partook, therefore, of the nature of the Confederation. The ordinance was a species of treaty betw^een tiie sovereigns that were parties thereto, and as sovereigns they bound to the conditions of th^ ordinance their respective subj'^cts. But the citizens of our Union possess rights of their own. " We the People," who made our Constitution, delegated to Congress certain specific powers only ; and fearing that these powers might be construed to include others, " We the People '' inserted in the Constitution eight successive articles, enumerating what should be excluded But even this was not deemed a sufficient security against the known aggressive tendency of power, hence ''We the People" inserted Article IX., which says, the rights enumerated in the said eight articles, " shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." Still '^ We the People "were not quite satisfied. We had recently felt that power will forget right, and we were determined to leave no opening throuo-h which Congress might steal more power over us than we had delegated to them ; hence Article X. was inserted in the Constitntion ; and it reserves to the people all powers — not those merely that had been reserved before, but all powers not delegated — excepting only the powers possessed by the States, and the powers prohibited to the States.

And to make the matter still stronger, so that their children should not in after times be told that they had lost sofne of their rights by judicial constructions of the Constitution, by long acquiescence, or by legislative precedent, '^ We the People," to whom all these inventions of usurpation were an old story, inserted in the constitution all the modes by which alone the Constitution could be altered, and " We the People " made the alterations as solemn and difficult as possible. Our citizens, therefore, who emigrate from New- York to California, enlarge not by such emigration the power over them of Congress. Congress possesses no more power over the citizen of California than while he was in New- York. If we in New- York can meet together and construct a government for ourselves, and legislate for ourselves on slavery, we can in California, should we all emigrate thither ; and every attempt of Congress to hinder us is a usurpation — unless the hindrance be founded on the constitutional clause which empowers Congress " to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory and other property," — a clause now admitted to refer to property only, and certainly not to citizens in a territory who live on their own freehalds. _ Nor is the force of this argument altered by what any of the framers of the Constitution thought when they framed the Constitution ; or what the first Constitutional Congress thought, when, in 1789, it re-enacted the Ordinance of 1787 ; — because after all this, say in 1790, " We the People"' amended the Constitution^ and inserted therein all the articles of personal rights and guarantees that we have been commenting on, and which effectually changed the character of the Constitution to an instrument of the strictest possible construction — a change that was the precise object of the amendments.

But the suppression by Congress of slavery involves other difficulties than the mooted constitutionality of the suppression ; and other than the injustice of prohibiting people from legislating for themselves; and other than the dissatisfaction which is evinced thereat by the Southern States : though these difficulties are grave in their nature, and cogent enough, we might have hoped to have withheld Congress /rom legislating about slavery in Oregon, where the people had already prohibited it — evincing thus that even on slavery men contend for triumph more than for principle.

The difficulties alluded to are as follows : — At the organization of our Confederacy Europeans predicted its speedy dissolution, but they are beginning now to investigate the cause of its permanency, and they find the cause in our federative machinery, by which all local questions are left to the local sovereignties — no powers being exercised by the General Government, except such as the States separately cannot exercise advantageously for themselves. Germany is accordingly new-modelling itself after our pattern, as the long sought and just found elixir of national longevity and local contentment. To the extent, however, that Congress assumes legislation over the domestic concerns of any territory, we violate the foregoing vital principle, and relapse (like the washed swine) into the slough of consolidation in which lie buried all the great empires that since the world began have periodically arisen, burst asun» der, and sunk. These consequences are as inherent in con-

2* solidation as sin and death were inherent in disobedience. The consequences are not avoidable by any recreancy of the South in submitting to injustice, nor by amendments of the Constitution which shall legalize in Congress local legislation.

Nor let us delude o irselves by supposing we can compulsorily abolish slavery. Every effort we exert to suppress it, calls into existence a counter effort in others to retain it. We possess, therefore, no alternative but to retain the Union with slavery, or slaveiy without the Union. But what force cannot accomplish, forbearance may. Slaves were once lawful in New- York, and the writer has owned them in Utica. Had our State been pressed to the abolition of slavery, by persons whose right of interference she denied, slavery might have existed among us now. We are accountable to neither God nor the world for the sins of our neighbors, and the precept was doubtless promulged to enable men to live without the irritation of interference with each other's domestic arrangements. In opposition, however, to this contrivance of God — and which He has impressed on our feelings, and on our muscles, so that a man's limb, when out of joint, can scarcely be righted by the force of many men — abolition interference is pursued among us as a trade ; by newspapers for money,- and by politicians for votes. Nay, we may safely predict that no doctrine, how wild soever, or pernicious, can acquire many proselytes without suddenly finding itself seized on by politicians, and wrested from the originators. The fathers of abolitionism, who have been statedly set up by their crazed friends for the highest political officei in the State and nation, and stood with their paper crowns upon their heads and straw sceptres in their hands while the elections were in progress, now, when something may be made by the game, find themselves no longer captains over their own hosts, and scarcely know whether to rejoice or mourn over the suddenly increased importance of their sects. Mormonism and Millerism may yet be in the ascendant, and ..then their apostles must look well to their flocks ; for our politicians are like " the fed horses in the morning," described in the Scriptures, "every one is neighing after his neighbor's " political capital.

With the people alone is the corrective of party morality — nothing needs correction more. Would they see public men consistent, they must make inconsistency unprofitable ; — would they preserve the peace of the Union, they must make the promotion of disturbance unpopular. In the keeping of the people are also our national destinies, — not in the virtues of our assumed leaders ; just as chastity is in the keeping of women, — not in the forbearance of doctors and sages. We cannot, apparently, so surfeit a man with popular honors and emoluments as to make him reliable. If an occasion offer, he will arise from jeven his political tomb with the unsavoriness of Lazarus, and advocate Union or Disunion, Slavery or Anti -Slavery, as either promises the means of further aggrandizement, — putting oflf an old character and assuming a new one with the facility of a stage actor, and with about his shamelessness, when he advertises " the character of Abohtionist, by particular request of friends, and for one time only, by Mr. V. B."

Finally, let the maxim be no longer true, that politics are the madness of the masses for the benefit of the few. The coming election affords the people a glorious opportunity of teaching politicians a lesson which shall make them wiser, if not better ; and let us all aid in making the lesson so emphatic and so plain, that even he cannot mistake it who thinks the people in 1844 desired the elevation to the Presidencv of Martin Van Buren.

20 EESERVED EIGHTS OF AMERICAN CITIZENS,

RESERVED TJGHTS OE AMERICAN CITIZENS.*

As the organization of Nebraska and Kansas threatens a new agitation of the Wihnot proviso, an inquiry may not be inopportune in relation to the rights of American citizens who reside within the United States, but beyond the hmits of any State. State rights have been often investigated, but people^s rights remain uninvestigated. The.Constitution has, however, not left the people without reserved rights. It declares that '' the powers not delegated to the United States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the peopUy To ascertain, therefore, what powers are reserved to the people who reside beyond the limits of any State, we have only to extract the powers that are *' delegated to the United States by the Constitution," and that are *' prohibited by it to the States," — and all other powers belong to such people. The position is so plain that it might be formed into an algebraic equation, and demonstrated mathematically. And here we may note incidentally, that men's notions are vague as to what constitutes a State. We usually speak as though a State consisted of a given portion of the earth rather than of the people inhabiting a given locality ; and this prevents us from seeing that Congress possesses, in relation to slavery, no greater control over the people who reside in Nebraska or Kansas than over people who reside in New- York. Our exaltation of the soil of a State over the people thereof is analogous to the mistake that exalted the gold of the Temple over the Temple — a mistake which drew from our Saviour the sarcasm, " Ye fools and blind: for which is greater — the gold, or the Temple that sanctifieth the gold ?"

RESERVED RIGHTS OF AMERICAN CITIZENS. 21

The only pretext for an interpretation differing from the foregoing exists in the constitutional provision, " that Congress shall have power to dispose of, and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States ;" but to construe this as giving Congress power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting citizens living on their own lands in any part of the United States, constitutes a laxity of construction at war with common sense. Think of " We, the people of the United States, in order to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain " that all of them who shall choose to reside beyond the boundaries of any State shall possess such liberties only as Congress shall from time to time prescribe.

But if our citizens who remove to Nebraska or Kansas carry with them all povvers, except those delegated to the United States and prohibited to the States, will they possess the right of sending representatives to Congress ? No ; the people of Nebraska or Kansas can claim none of the powers which belong to a State or territory till they are admitted as such into the Union. The right of Congress to admit a State, or reject an admission, is, however, essentially different from the right to dictate to a people whether they shall permit slavery or not ; the right to admit or reject being placed expressly within the unlimited discretion of Congress, while the power to dictate in relation to slavery is nowhere granted. The distinction in the two cases is highly important to a correct understanding of the people's rights.

But though the admission of any new State is thus within the constitutional option of Congress, the decision is not exempt from resulting consequences, whether we choose to be influenced thereby or not. Our Confederacy is an off-

22 RESERVED RIGHTS OF AMERICAN CITIZENS.

spring of volition, and the volition which created the Confederacy is naainly the naeans which have thus far held it together ; and as long as they continue operative, will be adequate to preserve the Union in all future time. Any decision, therefore, in relation to the admission of a State, that unnecessarily prejudices the interest of a portion of the States — more especially any decision that unnecessarily outrages any portion of the States — will weaken the volition towards union that constitutes our most reliable cement. Force, which alone has held together all preceding extensive nationahties, has never rendered such adhesions perpetual ; and our States, whose origin is revolutionary, and who are individually organized as sovereigns, are not likely to deem oppression less bitter than their progenitors.

Such being the tenure by which our Confederacy is united, what means are most efficient to prevent aggression on the respective members? Tyranny is unfortunately not Kussian, nor Turkish, nor Austrian, nor Roman Catholic, nor Protestant, but a concomitant of every majority. The predisposition towards tyranny is so strong in power whereever located, that it needs but an exciting cause to make it burst forth at any time ; and wholly irrespective of the abstract qualities of the exciting cause. If a majority prefer to drink water, they will fine and imprison those who prefer wine and brandy. If a majority profess one creed in religion, they will punish all persons of a different creed. In Hayti, the majority being black, proscribe mulattoes ; and in our country, a majority of the States having chosen to abolish slavery, proscribe other States who choose not to abolish it.

The inherent tyranny of human nature is, therefore, the evil with which our Confederacy will have continually to contend. It shows itself now in the matter of slavery — it

RESERVED RIGHTS OF AMERICAN CITIZENS. 23

may show itself hereafter in some other form ; and the question most interesting to the perpetuity of our Confederacy is, how the minority can protect itself from aggression. Pi'ovidence has implanted the remedy in every breast together with the tyranny, and as an antidote thereto — it is resistance. Oppressors may abhor resistance, and attempt to hoot it down ; but power will ever crush its victim to the extent of his sufferance. To resistance alone we owe the admission into the Union, in 1821, of Missouri with a compromise ; and to more resistance we should have had Missouri without any compromise. We may say the same of all that is nationally Justin the Acts of 1850. Compromises, which surrender a part for the security of the remainder, can only make the weak weaker, and the strong stronger. Turkey tried the experiment with Russia years since, and is naturally called to try it again. Compromises for the sake of the Union can insure only a lingering death ; for the time will come when the burdens accuniulated by conciliation " will break the camel's back ;" but resistance for the sake of the Union can preserve us enduringly, by preventing the accumulation of any such burden. How resistance is to be made, and what shall constitute the casus federis for its exhibition, I mean not to discuss ; and long may any necessity therefor be distant. I exhibit only the principles of our perpetuity, that, by studying them, our citizens of every locality may enjoy their own domestic in stitutions in their own way, and be willing to give a like blessed freedom to the citizens of every other locality.