Wednesday, April 11, 2018

Gerrit Smith to Senator Charles Sumner, December 5, 1864 [Extract]

An amendment implying that without it, the constitution would authorize or even tolerate slavery, would do great injustice to those who adopted the constitution. It would be wickedly blotting their memory. So much stress has been laid on the history of the constitution, it may well be said that there are two constitutions, the one the historical, and the other the literal. The former is that which has ruled the country. Terrible, all the way, has been its rule. The cry of many millions to an avenging God has come of it. The soaking of our land with blood has also come of it. That the history of the constitution has so cursed us is because it is so almost universally held to be a pro-slavery history. In other words, that this historical constitution has so cursed us is because of the ever urged and almost universally accepted claim that the literal constitution was made in the interest of slavery. Alas for the people to whom the angel of the Apocalypse cried “woe, woe, woe,” if they suffered more than America has suffered from this historical constitution! That there is much for slavery in the history of the constitution I admit. But that there is also much in it against slavery I affirm. Pro-slavery interests however have succeeded in keeping the latter out of sight. The rejection in the convention, which framed the constitution, of the motion to require “fugitive slaves” to be delivered up, and the unanimous adoption the next day of the motion to deliver up, no “fugitive slaves,” but persons from whom labor or service is due, is a historical fact against slavery. So too is Mr. Madison's unopposed declaration in the convention, that it would be “wrong to admit in the constitution the idea that there could be property in man.” And so also is that convention's unanimous substitution of the word “service” for “servitude” for the avowed reason that servitude expresses the condition of slaves and service that of freemen. Nothing however of all this did I need to say. What this thing is, which is called the history of the constitution — what is this historical constitution as I have termed that history — is really of no moment. What it is in the light of the records of the convention referred to, or of the records of the “Virginia Convention” or any other convention, or what it is on the pages of the “Federalist,” or of any other book, or of any newspaper, should not be made the least account of. The aggregate of all those whose words contributed to make up this historical constitution, is but a comparative handful. The one question is — What is the literal constitution? For it is that and that only, which the people adopted, and which is therefore the constitution. They did not adopt the discussions of the convention which framed it. These were secret. They did not adopt what the newspapers said of the constitution. Newspapers in that day were emphatically “few and far between.” But even had they been familiar with the newspapers and with the discussions, their one duty would nevertheless have been to pass upon the simple letter of the constitution. As Judge Story so well says: “Nothing but the text itself was adopted by the people.” And I add that what the people intended by the constitution is to be gathered solely from its text; and that what the people intended by it and not what its framers or the commentators upon it intended, is the constitution. So we will take up the text of the constitution to learn what and what alone is the constitution. Its very preamble tells us that it is made to “secure the blessings of liberty.” Thus, even in the porch of her temple doth Liberty deign to meet us. Strange indeed would it be were she to desert us in its apartments! She does not. In our progress through the constitution we find it pleading the power of the whole nation to maintain in every State “a republican form of government.” Pro-slavery men tell us that this was no more than a republican government of the aristocratic Greek and Roman type; and that therefore men can consistently be bought and sold under it. But when the fathers gave us the constitution the political heavens were all ablaze with a new light — the light of the truth “that all men are created equal,” and that the great end of government is to maintain that equality. Ere we get through the constitution — ere Liberty has led us all the way through her temple — we meet with the slavery-forbidding declaration that: “No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law!”

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What an argument it is in favor of the anti-slavery character of the constitution, that not so much as one line, no, nor one word of it, need be changed in order to bring it into perfect harmony with the most radical and sweeping anti-slavery amendment. And how strongly is this character argued from the fact, that were constitutional phrases, as innocent and inapplicable as these which are relied on to rob the noblest black man of his liberty, to be made the ground for robbing the meanest white man of his, or even the meanest white man of his meanest dog, such use of them would be instantly and indignantly scouted by all! And how strongly is it also argued from the fact, that a stranger to America and to her practice of making church and State and all things minister to slavery, could see absolutely nothing, could suspect absolutely nothing in the constitution, which might be seized on to turn that also to the foul and diabolical service?

But why should we stop with an anti-slavery amendment? Immeasurably more needed is an amendment to the effect that race or origin shall not work a forfeiture of any civil or political rights. Even an anti-slavery amendment may not be permanent. A race, whilst deprived of rights which other races enjoy, can have no reasonable assurance that it will be protected against even slavery. But make it equal with them, in rights, and it will be able to protect itself.

SOURCE: Octavius Brooks Frothingham, Gerrit Smith: A Biography, p. 177-9

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