296 



CONGRESS, U. S. 



other of two races. The one is bound together but by 

 the two great social relations of husband and wife 

 and parent and child ; the other by the three relations 

 of husband and wife, and parent and child, and master 

 and slave. The one embodies in its political structure 

 the principle that equality is the right of man ; the 

 other that it is the right of equals only. The one, em- 

 bodying the principle that equality is the right of man, 

 expands upon the horizontal plane of pure democracy ; 

 the other, embodying the principle that it is not the 

 right of man but of equals only, has taken to itself the 

 rounded form of a social aristocracy. In the one there 

 is hireling labor in the other slave labor ; in the one, 

 therefore, in theory, at least, labor is voluntary ; in the 

 other, involuntary ; in the labor of the one there is the 

 elective franchise, in the other there is not; and, as 

 labor is always in excess of direction, in the one the 

 power of government is only with the lower classes ; 

 in the other, the upper. In the one, therefore, the reins 

 of Government come from the heels, in the other from 

 the head of the society ; in the one it is guided by the 

 worst, in the other by the best, intelligence; in the one 

 it is from those who have the least, in the other from 

 those who have the greatest, sta'ke in the continuance 

 of existing order. 



"Mr. President, Judge Pratt is by no means 

 singular in his repudiation of the cardinal prin- 

 ciple of democratic institutions the right of 

 the majority to govern. The constitution of 

 his State confines the political power, in fact, 

 to a comparatively small number ; and the fun- 

 damental laws of several of the other Southern 

 States, including my own, have denied that 

 population or suffrage is the true basis of polit- 

 ical power, but secure to property a represent- 

 ation in the Legislature. 



" Mr. President, Mr. Jefferson enunciated the 

 axiom that ' absolute acquiescence in the decis- 

 ions of the majority was the vital principle of 

 republics.' Thus he summed up the argument 

 in favor of adhering to the General Government 

 and preserving it : 



The preservation of the General Government in its 

 whole constitutional vigor is the sheet-anchor of our 

 peace at honie and safety abroad; a jealous care of the 

 right of election by the people a mild and safe correc- 

 tive of abuses which are lopped by the sword of revo- 

 lution where peaceable remedies are unprovided ; and 

 absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority 

 the vital principle of republics, from which there is 

 no appeal but to force, the vital principle and immedi- 

 ate parent of despotism. 



" But, _ sir, Mr. Preston, the South Carolina 

 commissioner, to whom I have already referred, 

 delivered a very different message to us last 

 spring, in the Virginia convention. He de- 

 clared to us : 



In the Free States, the simple, isolated, exclusive, sole 

 political principle is a pure democracy of mere num- 

 bers, save a scarcely discernible modification, by a 

 vague and undefined form of representation. In these 

 States there can be no departure from this principle 

 in its extremest intensity. The admission of the slight- 

 est adverse element is forbidden by the whole genius 

 of the people and their institutions. It is as delicate 

 in its sensitiveness as personal right in England, or 

 slavery in Carolina; it is the vitalizing principle, the 

 breath of the life of Northern socialism. The almighty 

 power of numbers is the basis of all social agreement 

 in the Northern States. A fearful illustration of this 

 is at this moment exhibiting its results in the Govern- 

 ment under which you are consenting to live. That 

 Government was " instituted and appointed " to protect 

 and secure equally the interest of the parts. By the 



agency of mere numbers, one section has been restrict- 

 ed and another expanded in territory ; one section has 

 been unduly and oppressively taxed, and one section 

 has been brought to imminent peril ; and in this hour 

 the people of the North are consulting whether they can 

 subjugate the people of the South by the right of number. 

 The " government by the people" is equally the rule 

 of the South, but tKe modification of the " rule of num- 

 bers" is so essential in the Slave States, that it cannot 

 coexist with the same principle in its unrestricted form. 

 In the South it is controlled, perhaps made absolutely 

 subject, by the fact that the recognition of a specific 

 property is essential to the vitalization of the social 

 and political organisms. If, then, you attempt to in- 

 stitute the rule of either form into the organism of the 

 other, you instantly destroy the section you invade. 

 To proclaim to the North that numbers shall not be 

 absolute, would be as offensive as to proclaim the ex- 

 tinction of slavery in the South. The element of prop- 

 erty would neutralize the entire political system at the 

 North ; its exclusion would subvert the whole organism 

 of the South. 



" This is not the opinion of isolated individ- 

 uals. It is wide spread in the South. It is al- 

 ready incorporated, in some form or other, in 

 the organic laws of several of the States; and 

 other States are seeking to give it constitutional 

 authority. Thus, in the constitutional conven- 

 tion of Virginia, recently in session, Mr. Stuart, 

 formerly Secretary of the Interior, as chairman 

 of the committee having the subject in charge, 

 made a report, from which I read the following 

 extracts : 



Governments are instituted for the protection of the 

 rights of persons and property ; and any system must 

 be radically defective which does not give ample secu- 

 rity to both. The great interests of every community 

 may be classed under the heads of labor and capital, 

 and it is essential to the well being of society that the 

 proper equilibrium should be established between these 

 important elements. The undue predominance of 

 either must, eventually, prove destructive of the social 

 system. Capital belongs to the few labor to the many. 

 In those systems in which capital has the ascendency, 

 the government must, to some extent, partake of the 

 character of oligarchy ; whilst in those in which labor 

 is predominant, the tendency is to what Mr. John Ran- 

 dolph graphically described as " the despotism of king 

 numbers. 



In the opinion of your committee no system of gov- 

 ernment can afford permanent and effectual security to 

 life, liberty, and property, which rests on the basis of 

 unlimited suffrage, and the election of officers of every 

 department of the government by the direct vote of the 

 people. 



" Sir, great astonishment has been expressed 

 at the hostility of Southern statesmen to popu- 

 lar education. But, sir, we ought not to be 

 surprised at it. Knowledge is power; and to 

 keep the masses in ignorance is a necessary pre- 

 caution to keep them in subjection. To main- 

 tain the oligarchy of the few owning the capi- 

 tal, it is necessary to bind down with the sla- 

 vish chains of ignorance the many who perform 

 the labor. Hence Mr. Stuart connects with the 

 recommendations which I have just read, the 

 following : 



This tendency to a conflict between labor and capital 

 has already manifested itself in many forms, compara- 

 tively harmless, it is true, but nevertheless clearly in- 

 dicative of a spirit of licentiousness which must, in the 

 end, ripen into agrarianism. It may be seen in the 

 system of free schools, by which the children of the 

 poor are educated at the expense of the rich. 



