The Anti-Slavery Examiner
Chapter 257 : OBJECTION II.A promise to do an immoral act is not binding: therefore an oath to suppo

OBJECTION II.

A promise to do an immoral act is not binding: therefore an oath to support the Const.i.tution of the United States, does not bind one to support any provisions of that instrument which are repugnant to his ideas of right. And an abolitionist, thinking it wrong to return slaves, may as an office-holder, innocently and properly take an oath to support a Const.i.tution which commands such return.

ANSWER. Observe that this objection allows the Const.i.tution to be pro-slavery, and admits that there are clauses in it which no abolitionist ought to carry out or support.

And observe, further, that we all agree, that a bad promise is better broken than kept--that every abolitionist, who has before now taken the oath to the Const.i.tution, is bound to break it, and disobey the pro-slavery clauses of that instrument. So far there is no difference between us. But the point in dispute now is, whether a man, having found out that certain requirements of the Const.i.tution are wrong, can, after that, innocently swear to support and obey them, _all the while meaning not to do so_.

Now I contend that such loose construction of our promises is contrary alike to honor, to fair dealing, and to truthfulness--that it tends to destroy utterly that confidence between man and man which binds society together, and leads, in matters of government, to absolute tyranny.

The Const.i.tution is a series of contracts made by each individual with every other of the fourteen millions. A man's oath is evidence of his a.s.sent to this contract. If I offer a man the copy of an agreement, and he, after reading, swears to perform it, have I not a right to infer from his oath that he a.s.sents to the _rightfulness_ of the articles of that paper? What more solemn form of expressing his a.s.sent could he select? A man's oath expresses his conviction of the rightfulness of the actions he promises to do, as well as his determination to do them. If this be not so, I can have no trust in any man's word. He may take my money, promise to do what I wish in return, and yet, keeping my money, tell me, on the morrow, that he shall not keep his promise, and never meant to, because the act, his conscience tells him, is wrong. Who would trust property to such men, or such maxims in the common affairs of life? Shall we not be as honest in the Senate House as on 'Change? The North makes a contract with the South by which she receives certain benefits, and agrees to render certain services. The benefits she carefully keeps--but the services she refuses to render, because immoral contracts are not binding! Is this fair dealing? It is the rule alike of law and common sense, that if we are not able, from _any cause_, to furnish the article we have agreed to, we ought to return the pay we have received. If power is put into our hands on certain conditions, and we find ourselves unable to comply with those conditions, we ought to surrender the power back to those who gave it.

Immoral laws are doubtless void, and should not be obeyed. But the question is here, whether one knowing a law to be immoral, may innocently promise to obey it in order to get into office? The people have settled the conditions on which one may take office. The first is, that he a.s.sent to their Const.i.tution. Is it honest to accept power with the intention at the time of not keeping the conditions?--The rightfulness of those conditions is not here the question.

OBJECTION III.

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.

OBJECTION V.

I shall resign whenever a case occurs that requires me to aid in returning a fugitive slave.

ANSWER. "The office-holder has promised active obedience to the Const.i.tution in every exigency which it has contemplated and sought to provide for. If he promised, not meaning to perform in certain cases, is he not doubly dishonest? Dishonest to his own conscience in promising to do wrong, and to his fellow-citizens in purposing from the first to break his oath, as he knew they understood it? If he had sworn, not regarding anything as immoral which he bound himself to do, and afterwards found in the oath something against his conscience of which he was not at first aware, or if by change of views he had come to deem sinful what before he thought right, then doubtless, by promptly resigning, he might escape guilt. But is not the case different, when among the acts promised are some known at the time to be morally wrong? 'It is a sin to swear unto sin,'

says the poet, although it be, as he truly adds, 'a greater sin to keep the sinful oath.'"

The captain has no right to put to sea, and resign when the storm comes. Besides what supports a wicked government more than good men taking office under it, even though they secretly determine not to carry out all its provisions? The slave balancing in his lonely hovel the chance of escape, knows nothing of your secret reservations, your future intentions. He sees only the swarming millions at the North ostensibly sworn to restore him to his master, if he escape a little way. Perchance it is your false oath, which you don't mean to keep, that makes him turn from the attempt in despair. He knows you only--the world knows only by your _actions_, not your _intentions_, and those side with his master. The prayer which he lifts to Heaven, in his despair, numbers you rightly among his oppressors.

OBJECTION VI.

I shall only take such an office as brings me into no connection with slavery.

ANSWER. Government is a whole; unless each in his circle aids his next neighbor, the machine will stand still. The Senator does not himself return the fugitive slave, but he appoints the Marshal, whose duty it is to do so. The State representative does not himself appoint the Judge who signs the warrant for the slave's recapture, but he chooses the United States Senator who does appoint that Judge.

The elector does not himself order out the militia to resist "domestic violence," but he elects the President, whose duty requires, that a case occurring, he should do so.

To suppose that each of these may do that part of his duty that suits him, and leave the rest undone, is _practical anarchy_. It is bringing ourselves precisely to that state which the Hebrew describes.

"In those days there was no king in Israel, but each man did what was right in his own eyes." This is all consistent in us, who hold that man is to do right, even if anarchy follows. How absurd to set up such a scheme, and miscall it a _government_,--where n.o.body governs, but everybody does as he pleases.

OBJECTION VII.

As men and all their works are imperfect, we may innocently "support a Government which, along with many blessings, a.s.sists in the perpetration of some wrong."

ANSWER. As n.o.body disputes that we may rightly a.s.sist the worst Government in doing good, provided we can do so without at the same time aiding it in the wrong it perpetrates, this must mean, of course, that it is right to aid and obey a Government _in doing wrong_, if we think that, on the whole, the Government effects more good than harm. Otherwise the whole argument is irrelevant, for this is the point in dispute; since every office of any consequence under the United States Const.i.tution has some immediate connection with Slavery.

Let us see to what lengths this principle will carry one. Herod's servants, then, were right in slaying every child in Bethlehem, from two years old and under, provided they thought Herod's Government, on the whole, more a blessing than a curse to Judea! The soldiers of Charles II. were justified in shooting the Covenanters on the muirs of Scotland, if they thought his rule was better, on the whole, for England, than anarchy! According to this theory, the moment the magic wand of Government touches our vices, they start up into virtues! But has Government any peculiar character or privilege in this respect? Oh, no--Government is only an a.s.sociation of individuals, and the same rules of morality which govern my conduct in relation to a thousand men, ought to regulate my conduct to any one. Therefore, I may innocently aid a man in doing wrong, if I think that, on the whole, he has more virtues than vices. If he gives bread to the hungry six days in the week, I may rightly help him, on the seventh, in forging bank notes, or murdering his father!

The principle goes this length, and every length, or it cannot be proved to exist at all. It ends at last, practically, in the old maxim, that the subject and the soldier have no right to keep any conscience, but have only to obey the rulers they serve: for there are few, if any, Governments this side of Satan's, which could not, in some sense, be said to do more good than harm. Now I candidly confess, that I had rather be covered all over with inconsistencies, in the struggle to keep my hands clean, than settle quietly down on such a principle as this. It is supposing that we may--

"To do a great right, do a little wrong;"

a rule, which the master poet of human nature has rebuked. It is doing evil that good may come--a doctrine, of which an Apostle has p.r.o.nounced the condemnation.

And let it be remembered that in dealing with the question of slavery, we are not dealing with extreme cases. Slavery is no minute evil which lynx-eyed suspicion has ferreted out. Every sixth man is a slave. The ermine of justice is stained. The national banner clings to the flag-staff heavy with blood. "The preservation of slavery,"