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CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



shall reverse it? From these general principles 

 he deduces the reason why I choose to argue 

 this amendment rather upon its unwisdom than 

 upon the lack of power to make it. 'It is 

 only,' he says, 'when the law is mischievous, 

 that an argument of this stamp will be em- 

 ployed to support it. Suppose a law a good 

 one, it will be supported, not by absurdity and 

 deception, but from its own excellency. A dec- 

 laration that this or that law is immutable, so 

 far from being a proper argument to enforce 

 its permanency, is rather a presumption that 

 such a law has some mischievous tendency.' 



"Another reason for discussing the question 

 of power is, that it is the most valuable gift 

 from the States to the Federal Government, if 

 it be not an express reservation of power in the 

 States. Perhaps, as both Federal and State 

 Governments take part in the amendment of 

 the Constitution, the power to amend is both a 

 reserved and a delegated power. "Whatever it 

 is, it is so valuable that I cannot surrender it. 

 Not now. If ever peace comes, it will be 

 through its exercise upon this very question of 

 slavery. I regard that Government with a con- 

 stitution which has not the liberty of amend- 

 ment as lacking the means of its own conserva- 

 tion. Such an amendment is a safety-valve, or 

 governor, upon the engine of State. A State 

 without it is in perpetual danger of violent 

 revolution. Such an amendment is a peaceful, 

 legal, and salutary revolution. It is the beauty 

 of our system of written constitutions that, like 

 machines, with a principle of compensation be- 

 longing to them, any irregularity may be cor- 

 rected without breaking the machine or im- 

 pairing the movement. Such powers of change 

 save the State from such terrible red-handed, 

 revolution as that now upon us. Rufus Choate 

 once described, as if he foresaw it, the present 

 revolution 'as a great sea lifting itself, with 

 darkened sky, and not very imitable thunder ; 

 a tempest which overturns and successfully 

 resists the existing public authority, arrests the 

 exercise of supreme power, introduces by force, 

 or by resort to a primary right of nature, a 

 new, paramount authority into the rule of the 

 State.' Had this bloodless and legal revolution 

 by amendment of our Constitution been wisely 

 exercised upon this very subject of slavery, as 

 Crittenden, Douglas, ay, even Toombs and 

 Davis, insisted in 1860, we would not bo ful- 

 filling so sadly the magnificent picture which 

 Choate painted of tempestuous and fratricidal 

 strife! 



" While, then, I concede the power, do I fear 

 that the amendment may pass and become a 

 law in spite of all the guards thrown around it ? 

 I do not fear any open march toward monarchy 

 or despotism. I fear in time of war and the 

 passionate strife it begets that this amendment 

 may radically change the Government ; that it 

 may by force, fraud, by indirection, and by an 

 unfair count of States, be made to change our 

 policy. Because such amendments, interfering 

 in home affairs by the Federal power, tend tow- 



ard consolidation, I am against them. My 

 colleague (Mr. Pendleton) himself will admit 

 that an amendment may be made even to the 

 very system of government, legitimate in its 

 operation, which may do this. You can amend 

 the Constitution as to the distribution of its 

 powers so as to place the judiciary and the leg- 

 islature in the hands of the Executive. Thus 

 you compone power. "When these departments 

 are made one whether that one be legislative, 

 executive, or judicial as they may be by 

 amendment, it is Jefferson's definition of tyran- 

 ny. "Who will doubt the power of amendment 

 to do this ? And yet who so base as to propose 

 it here, or, if proposed, to ratify it ? It is by 

 these delusive moral radical reforms, reaching 

 into home affairs by the Federal power, that I 

 fear most the destruction of our Government. 

 Hence I am jealous of the exercise of the pow- 

 er to amend, and especially in this instance. But 

 if the people of the States even choose to abuse 

 their power to amend and destroy their Govern- 

 ment, who can say them nay? If they are 

 foolish enough to call in a king, or connect re- 

 ligion with State, or declare polygamy the cor- 

 ner-stone of public liberty, who shall deny 

 them, provided they follow the mode they 

 themselves have ordained to make the organic 

 law? 



Mr. Thayer, of Pennsylvania, in reply, said : 

 " Mr. Speaker, the discussion of the measure 

 now before the House has been of a very ex- 

 tended and exhaustive character, and the argu- 

 ments which have been made against it are 

 very numerous and very varied. If I were to 

 attempt to sum them up, I should occupy a 

 much longer time than at this stage of the de- 

 bate I intend to consume. But they may, per- 

 haps, in some general way, be grouped as fol- 

 lows : 



" There is, in the first place, the argument 

 of the want of constitutional power, which 

 is a proposition of a very important character. 

 " There is then the argument de injuria, 

 made by the honorable gentleman from Ken- 

 tucky (Mr. Clay) the argument which bases 

 itself upon the alleged injustice to private rights 

 of the measure now before the House. 



" There is, in the third place, the argument 

 founded upon the alleged inexpediency of the 

 measure. 



" There is, in the fourth place, what I might 

 perhaps characterize as the chronological argu- 

 ment the argument that, although the power 

 is possessed, and although it may not be inex- 

 pedient in itself, this is not the proper time for 

 the passage of such an amendment, or the dis- 

 cussion of the question which it involves an 

 argument whicirs^eks to delay to some indefi- 

 nite and unappointed time the great issue 

 with which Providence now confronts the coun- 

 try. 



"There is again, sir, the want-of-brains argu- 

 ment made by the gentleman from Kentucky 

 (Mr. Mallory). The honorable gentleman will 

 of course not understand me as applying those 



