Trial of the Officers and Crew of the Privateer Savannah, on the Charge of Piracy, in the United States Circuit Court for the Southern District of New York

Pursuing my design of limiting my citations of the opinions of public men to those who have received honor from, and conferred honor on, that portion of our country and those of our countrymen now engaged in this strife with the General Government, let me ask your attention to a speech delivered by Mr. Stephens, now the Vice-President of the so-called Confederate States, on the very eve of, and protesting against, this effort to dissolve the Union. I read from page 220 and subsequent pages of the documents that have been the subject of reference heretofore:

"The first question that presents itself"—(says Mr. Stephens to the assembled Legislature of Georgia, of which he was not a member, but which, as an eminent and leading public man, he had been invited to address)—"is, shall the people of the South secede from the Union in consequence of the election of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency of the United States? My countrymen, I tell you frankly, candidly, and earnestly, that I do not think that they ought. In my judgment, the election of no man, constitutionally elected to that high office, is sufficient cause for any State to separate from the Union. It ought to stand by and aid still in maintaining the Constitution of the country. To make a point of resistance to the Government—to withdraw from it because a man has been constitutionally elected—puts us in the wrong. We are pledged to maintain the Constitution. Many of us have sworn to support it.

"But it is said Mr. Lincoln's policy and principles are against the Constitution, and that if he carries them out it will be destructive of our rights. Let us not anticipate a threatened evil. If he violates the Constitution, then will come our time to act. Do not let us break it because, forsooth, he may. If he does, that is the time for us to strike.* * * My countrymen, I am not of those who believe this Union has been a curse up to this time. True men—men of integrity—entertain different views from me on this subject. I do not question their right to do so; I would not impugn their motives in so doing. Nor will I undertake to say that this Government of our fathers is perfect. There is nothing perfect in this world, of a human origin. Nothing connected with human nature, from man himself to any of his works. You may select the wisest and best men for your Judges, and yet how many defects are there in the administration of justice? You may select the wisest and best men for your legislators, and yet how many defects are apparent in your laws? And it is so in our Government.

"But that this Government of our fathers, with all its defects, comes nearer the objects of all good Governments than any on the face of the earth, is my settled conviction. Contrast it now with any on the face of the earth." ["England," said Mr. Toombs.] "England, my friend says. Well, that is the next best, I grant; but I think we have improved upon England. Statesmen tried their apprentice hand on the Government of England, and then ours was made. Ours sprung from that, avoiding many of its defects, taking most of the good and leaving out many of its errors, and, from the whole, constructing and building up this model Republic—the best which the history of the world gives any account of.

"Compare, my friends, this Government with that of Spain, Mexico, the South American Republics, Germany, Ireland—are there any sons of that down-trodden nation here to-night?—Prussia, or, if you travel further east, to Turkey or China. Where will you go, following the sun in his circuit round our globe, to find a Government that better protects the liberties of its people, and secures to them the blessings we enjoy? I think that one of the evils that beset us is a surfeit of liberty, an exuberance of the priceless blessings for which we are ungrateful.* * * * *

"When I look around and see our prosperity in every thing—agriculture, commerce, art, science, and every department of education, physical and mental, as well as moral advancement, and our colleges—I think, in the face of such an exhibition, if we can, without the loss of power, or any essential right or interest, remain in the Union, it is our duty to ourselves and to posterity to—let us not too readily yield to this temptation—do so. Our first parents, the great progenitors of the human race, were not without a like temptation when in the garden of Eden. They were led to believe that their condition would be bettered—that their eyes would be opened—and that they would become as gods. They in an evil hour yielded. Instead of becoming gods, they only saw their own nakedness.

"I look upon this country, with our institutions, as the Eden of the world, the paradise of the Universe. It may be that out of it we may become greater and more prosperous, but I am candid and sincere in telling you that I fear if we rashly evince passion, and, without sufficient cause, shall take that step, that instead of becoming greater or more peaceful, prosperous and happy—instead of becoming gods—we will become demons, and, at no distant day, commence cutting one another's throats."

Still speaking of our Government, he says:

"Thus far, it is a noble example, worthy of imitation. The gentleman (Mr. Cobb) the other night said it had proven a failure. A failure in what? In growth? Look at our expanse in national power. Look at our population and increase in all that makes a people great. A failure? Why, we are the admiration of the civilized world, and present the brightest hopes of mankind.

"Some of our public men have failed in their aspirations; that is true, and from that comes a great part of our troubles.

"No, there is no failure of this Government yet. We have made great advancement under the Constitution, and I cannot but hope that we shall advance higher still. Let us be true to our cause."

Now, wherein is it that this Government deserves these encomiums, which come from the intelligent and profound wisdom of statesmen, and gush spontaneously from the unlearned hearts of the masses of the people? Why, it is precisely in this point, of its not being a consolidated Government, and of its not being a narrow, and feeble, and weak community and Government. Indeed, I may be permitted to say that I once heard, from the lips of Mr. Calhoun himself, this recognition, both of the good fortune of this country in possessing such a Government, and of the principal sources to which the gratitude of a nation should attribute that good fortune. I heard him once say, that it was to the wisdom, in the great Convention, of the delegates from the State of Connecticut, and of Judge Patterson, a delegate from the State of New Jersey, that we owed the fact that this Government was what it was, the best Government in the world, a confederated Government, and not what it would have been—and, apparently, would have been but for those statesmen—the worst Government in the world—a consolidated Government. These statesmen, he said, were wiser for the South than the South was for herself.

I need not say to you, gentlemen that, if all this encomium on the great fabric of our Government is brought to naught, and is made nonsense by the proposition that, although thus praised and thus admired, it contains within itself the principle, the right, the duty of being torn to pieces, whenever a fragment of its people shall be discontented and desire its destruction, then all this encomium comes but as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal; and the glory of our ancestors, Washington, and Madison, and Jefferson, and Adams—the glory of their successors, Webster, and Clay, and Wright, and even Calhoun—for he was no votary of this nonsense of secession—passes away, and their fame grows visibly paler, and the watchful eye of the English monarchy looks on for the bitter fruits to be reaped by us for our own destruction, and as an example to the world—the bitter fruits of the principle of revolution and of the right of self-government which we dared to assert against her perfect control. Pointing to our exhibition of an actual concourse of armies, she will say—"It is in the dragon's teeth, in the right of rebellion against the monarchy of England, that these armed hosts have found their seed and sprung up on your soil."

Now, gentlemen, such is our Government, such is its beneficence, such is its adaptation, and such are its successes. Look at its successes. Not three-quarters of a century have passed away since the adoption of its Constitution, and now it rules over a territory that extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It fills the wide belt of the earth's surface that is bounded by the provinces of England on the North, and by the crumbling, and weak, and contemptible Governments or no Governments that shake the frame of Mexico on the South. Have Nature and Providence left us without resources to hold together social unity, notwithstanding the vast expanse of the earth's surface which our population has traversed and possessed? No. Keeping pace with our wants in that regard, the rapid locomotion of steam on the ocean, and on our rivers and lakes, and on the iron roads that bind the country together, and the instantaneous electric communication of thought, which fills with the same facts, and with the same news, and with the same sentiments, at the same moment, a great, enlightened, and intelligent people, have overcome all the resistance and all the dangers which might be attributed to natural obstructions. Even now, while this trial proceeds, San Francisco and New York, Boston and Portland, and the still farther East, communicate together as by a flash of lightning—indeed, it may be said, making an electric flash farther across the earth's surface, and intelligible too, to man, than ever, in the natural phenomena of the heavens, the lightning displayed itself. No—the same Author of all good, to whom Pinckney avowed his gratitude, has been our friend and our protector, and has removed, step by step, every impediment to our expansion which the laws of nature and of space had been supposed to interpose. No, no—neither in the patriotism nor in the wisdom of our fathers was there any defect; nor shall we find, in the disposition and purposes of Divine Providence, as we can see them, any excuse or any aid for the destruction of this magnificent system of empire. No—it is in ourselves, in our own time and in our own generation, in our own failing powers and failing duties, that the crash and ruin of this magnificent fabric, and the blasting of the future hopes of mankind, is to find its cause and its execution.

I have shown you, gentlemen, how, when the usurpations of the British Parliament, striking at the vital point of the independence of this country, had raised for consideration and determination, by a brave and free people, the question of their destiny, our fathers dealt with it. My learned friends, in various forms, have spoken poetically, logically and practically about all that course of proceedings that has been going on in this country, as finding a complete parallelism, support, and justification in the course of the American Revolution; and a passage in the Declaration of Independence has been read to you as calculated to show that, on a mere theoretical opinion of the right of a people to govern themselves, any portion of that people are at liberty, as well against a good Government as against a bad one, to establish a bad Government as well as overthrow a bad Government—have the right to do as they please, and, I suppose, to force all the rest of the world and all the rest of the nation to just such a fate as their doing as they please may bring with it.

Let us see how this Declaration of Independence, called by the great forensic orator, Mr. Choate, "a passionate and eloquent manifesto," and stigmatized as containing "glittering generalities"—let us see, I say, how sober, how discreet, how cautious it is in the presentation of this right, even of revolution. I read what, both in the newspapers and in political discussions, as well as before you, by the learned counsel, have been presented as the doctrines of the Declaration of Independence, and then I add to it the qualifying propositions, and the practical, stern requisitions, which that instrument appends to these general views:

"To secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes. And, accordingly, all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these States. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world."

And it then proceeds to enumerate the facts, in the eloquent language of the Declaration, made familiar to us all by its repeated and reverent recitals on the day which celebrates its adoption. There is not anything of moonshine about any one of them. There is not anything of perhaps, or anticipation of fear, or suspicion. There is not anything of this or that newspaper malediction, of this or that rhetorical disquisition, of this or that theory, or of this or that opprobrium, but a recital of direct governmental acts of Great Britain, all tending to the purpose of establishing complete despotism over this country. And, then, even that not being deemed sufficient, on the part of our great ancestors, to justify this appeal to the enlightened opinion of the world, and to the God who directs the fate of armies, they say:

"In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for redress, in the most humble terms; our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

"Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them, from time to time, of attempts by their Legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them, by the ties of our common kindred, to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connection and correspondence. They, too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity."

Now, gentlemen, this doctrine of revolution, which our learned friends rely upon, appeals to our own sense of right and duty. It rests upon facts, and upon the purpose, as indicated by those facts, to deprive our ancestors of the rights of Englishmen, and to subject them to the power of a Government in which they were not represented. Now, whence come the occasions and the grievances urged before you, and of what kind are they? My learned friend, Mr. Brady, has given you a distinct enumeration, under nine heads, of what the occasions are, and what the grievances are. There is not one of them that, in form or substance, proceeded from the Federal Government. There is not a statute, there is not a proclamation, there is not an action, judicial, executive, or legislative, on the part of the Federal Government, that finds a place, either in consummation or in purpose, in this indictment drawn by my friend Mr. Brady against the Government, on behalf of his clients. The letter of South Carolina, on completing the revocation of her adoption of the Constitution, addressed to the States, dwells upon the interest of slavery (as does my learned friend Mr. Brady, in all his propositions), and discloses but two ideas—one, that when any body or set of people cease to be a majority in a Government, they have a right to leave it; and the other, that State action, on the part of some of the Northern States, had been inconsistent with, threatening to, or opprobrious of the institution of slavery in the Southern States.

Let me ask your attention to this proposition of the Southern States, and this catalogue of the learned counsel. As it is only the interest of slavery, social and political (for it is an interest, lawfully existing), that leads to the destruction of our Government and of their Government, let us see what there is in the actual circumstances of this interest, as being able, under the forms of our Constitution, to look out for itself, as well, at least, as any other interest in the country, that can justify them in finding an example or a precedent in the appeal of our fathers to arms to assert their rights by the strong hand, because in the Government of England they had no representation. Did our fathers say that, because they had not a majority in the English Parliament, they had a right to rebel? No! They said they had not a share or vote in the Parliament. That was their proposition.

I now invite you to consider this fundamental view of the right and power of Government, and the right and freedom of the people,—to wit, that every citizen is entitled to be counted and considered as good as every other citizen,—as a natural and abstract right—as the basis of our Government, however other arrangements may have adjusted or regulated that simple and abstract right. Then, let us see whether the arrangement of the Federal Government, in departing from that natural right of one man to be as good as another, and to be counted equal in the representation of his Government, has operated to the prejudice of the interest of slavery. We have not heard anything in this country of any other interest for many a long year,—much to my disgust and discontent. There are other interests,—manufacturing interests, agricultural interests, commercial interests, all sorts of interests,—some of them discordant, if you please. Let us see whether this interest of slavery has a fair chance to be heard, and enjoys its fair share of political power under our Government, or whether, from a denial to it of its fair share, it has some pretext for appealing to force. Why, gentlemen, take the fifteen Slave States, which, under the census of 1850, had six millions of white people—that is, of citizens—and, under the census of 1860, about eight millions, and compare them with the white people of the State of New York, which, under the census of 1850, had three millions, and, under the census of 1860, something like four millions.

Now, here we are,—they as good as we, and we as good as they,—we having our interests, and opinions, and feelings—they their opinions, interests, and feelings,—and let us see how the arrangement of representation, in every part of our Government, is distributed between these interests. Why, with a population just double that of the State of New York, the interest of slavery has thirty Senators to vote and to speak for it, and the people of New York have two Senators to vote and to speak for them. In the House of Representatives these same Slave States have ninety Representatives to speak and to vote for them; and the people of the State of New York have thirty-three to vote and to speak for them. And, in the Electoral College, which raises to the chief magistracy the citizen who receives the constitutional vote, these same States have one hundred and twenty electoral votes, and the State of New York has thirty-five. Why, the three coterminous States—New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio—have, under either census, as great or a greater population than the fifteen Slave States, and they have but six Senators, against the Slave States' thirty.

Do I mention this in complaint? Not in the least. I only mention it to show you that the vote and the voice of this interest has not been defrauded in the artificial distribution of Federal power. And, if I may be allowed to refer to the other august department of our Federal Government, the Supreme Court of the United States, in which the Presiding Justice has his seat as one of the members of that Court, you will see how the vast population, the vast interests of business, commerce, and what not, that reside in the Free States, as compared with the lesser population, the lesser business, and the lesser demand for the authority or intervention of the judiciary in the Slave States, have been represented for years, by the distribution of the nine Judges of that Court, so that the eighteen millions of white people who compose the population of the Free States have been represented (not in any political sense) by four of these Justices; and the rest of the country, the fifteen Slave States, with their population of six or eight millions, have been represented by five. Now, of this I do not complain. It is law—it is government; and no injustice has been done to the Constitution, nor has it been violated in this arrangement. But, has there been any fraud upon the interest of slavery, in the favor the Federal Government has shown in the marking out of the Judicial Districts, and in the apportionment of the Judges to the different regions of the country, and to the population of those regions? If you look at it as regards the business in the different Circuits, the learned Justice who now presides here, and who holds his place for the Second Circuit, including our State, disposes annually, here and in the other Courts, of more business than, I may perhaps say, all the Circuits that are made up from the Slave States. And, if you look at it as regards the population, there was one Circuit—that which was represented by the learned Mr. Justice McLean, lately deceased—which contained within itself five millions of white, free population; while one other Circuit, represented by another learned Justice, lately deceased—a Circuit composed of Mississippi and Arkansas—contained only 450,000, at the time of the completion of the census of 1850. Who complains of this? Do we? Never. But, when it is said to you that there is a parallelism between the right of revolt, because of lack of representation, in the case of our people and the Parliament of England, and the case of these people and the United States, or any of the forms of its administration of power, remember these things. I produce this in the simple duty of forensic reply to the causes put forward as a justification of this revolt—that is to say that, the Government oppressing them, or the Government closed against them, and they excluded from it, they had a right to resort to the revolution of force.

You, therefore, must adopt the proposition of South Carolina, that, when any interest ceases to be the majority in a Government, it has a right to secede. How long would such a Government last? Why, there never was any interest in this country which imagined that it had a majority. Did the tariff interest have a majority? Did the grain interest have a majority? Did the commercial interest have a majority? Did the States of the West have a majority? Does California gold represent itself by a majority? Why, the very safety of such a Government as this is, that no interest shall or can be a majority; but that the concurring, consenting wisdom drawn out of these conflicting interests shall work out a system of law which will conduce to the general interest.

Now, that I have not done my learned friend, Mr. Brady, any injustice in presenting the catalogue of grievances (not in his own view, but in the view of those who have led in this rebellion), let us see what they are:

"The claim to abolish slavery." Is there any statute of the United States anywhere that has abolished it? Has any Act been introduced into Congress to abolish it? Has the measure had a vote?

"Stoppage of the inter-state slave-trade." I may say the same thing of that.

"No more slavery in the Territories." Where is the Act of Congress, where is the movement of the Federal Government, where the decision of the Supreme Court, that holds that slavery cannot go into a territory? Why, so far as acts go, everything has gone in the way of recognizing the confirmation of the right—the repeal of the Missouri Compromise by Congress, and the decision of the Federal Court, if it go to that extent, as is claimed, in the case of Dred Scott.