Friends, Countrymen, and Fellow-Citizens, Mr. Wilson in a speech delivered in our Convention on Saturday the 24th instant, has conceded, nay forceably proved, that one consolidated government, will not answer for so extensive a territory as the United States includes, that slavery would be the necessary fate of the people under such a government; his words are so remarkable, that I cannot forbear reciting them, they are as follows, viz. “The extent of country for which the new constitution was required, produced another difficulty in the business of the federal convention. It is the opinion of some celebrated writers, that to a small territory, the democractical, to a middling territory, (as Montesquieu has termed it) the monarchical, and, to an extensive territory, the despotic form of government, is best adapted. Regarding then, the wide and almost unbounded jurisdiction of the United States, at first view, the hand of despotism seemed necessary to controul, connect, and protect it; and hence the chief embarrassment rose. For, we know that, although our constituents would chearfully submit to the legislative restraints of a free government, they would spurn at every attempt to shackle them with despotic power.” See page 5 of the printed speech. And again in page 7, he says “Is it probably that the dissolution of the state governments, and the establishment of one consolidated empire, would be eligible in its nature, and satisfactory to the people in its administration? I think not, as I have given reasons to shew that so extensive a territory could not be governed, connected, and preserved, but by the supremacy of a despotic power, All the exertions of the most potent emperors of Rome were not capable of keeping that empire together, which, in extent, was far inferior to the dominion of America.”

This great point having been now confirmed by the concession of Mr. Wilson, though indeed it was self evident before, and the writers against the proposed plan of governments, having proved to demonstration, that the powers proposed to be vested in Congress, will necessarily annihilate and absorb the state Legislatures and judiciaries and produce from their wreck one consolidated government, the question is determined. Every man therefore who has the welfare of his country at heart, every man who values his own liberty and happiness, in short, every description of persons, except those aspiring despots who hope to benefit by the mystery and vassalage of their countrymen, must now concur in rejecting the proposed system of government, must now unite in branding its authors with the stigma of eternal infamy. The anniversary of this great escape from the fangs of despotism, ought to be celebrated as ling as liberty shall continue to be dear to the citizens of America.

I will repeat some of my principal arguments, and add some further remarks, on the subject of consolidation.

The Legislative is the highest delegated power in government, all others are subordinate to it. The celebrated Montesquieu establishes it as a maxim, that legislation necessarily follows the power of taxation. By the 8th sect. of article the 1st of the proposed government, “the Congress are to have the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States.” Now, what can be more comprehensive than these words? Every species of taxation, whether external or internal are included. Whatever taxes, duties, and excises that the Congress may deem necessary to the general welfare may be imposed on the citizens of these states and levied by their officers. The congress are to be the absolute judges of the propriety of such taxes, in short they may construe every purpose for which the state legislatures now lay taxes, to be for the general welfare, they may seize upon every source of taxation, and thus make it impracticable for the states to have the smallest revenue, and if a state should presume to impose a tax or excise that would interfere with a federal tax or excise, congress may soon terminate the contention, by repealing the state law, by virtue of the following section-“To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for the carrying into execution the foregoing powers and all other powers vested by this constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department thereof.” Indeed every law of the states may be controuled by this power. The legislative power granted for these sections is so unlimited in its nature, may be so comprehensive and boundless in exercise, that his alone would be amply sufficient to carry the coup de grace to the state governments, to swallow them up in the grand vortex of general empire. But the legislative has an able auxiliary in the judicial department, for a reference to my second number will shew that this may be made greatly instrumental in effecting a consolidation; as the federal judiciary would absorb all others. Lest the foregoing powers should not be suffice to consolidate the United States into one empire, the Convention as if determined to prevent the possibility of a doubt, as if to prevent all clashing by the opposition of state powers, as if to preclude all struggle for state importance, as if to level all obstacles to the supremacy of universal sway, which in so extensive a territory, would be an iron-handed despotism, have ordained by article the 6th, “That this constitution, and the laws of the United States, which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby any thing in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.“

The words “pursuant to the constitution” will be no restriction to the authority of congress; for the foregoing section gives them unlimited legislation; their unbounded power of taxation does alone include all others, as whoever has the purse strings will have full dominion. But the convention has superadded another power, by which the congress may stamp with the sanction of the constitution every possible law; it is contained in the following clause-“To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for the carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.” Whatever law-congress may deem necessary and proper for the carrying into execution any of the powers vested in them, may be enacted; and by virtue of this clause, they may controul and abrogate any and every of the laws of the state governments, on the allegation that they would interfere with the execution of any of their powers, and yet these laws will “be made in pursuance of the constitution,” and of course will “be the supreme law of the land, and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, any thing in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary not withstanding.”

There is no reservation made in the whole of this plan in favor of the rights of the separate states. In the present plan of confederation in the year 1778, it was thought necessary by article the 2d to declare that “each state retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every power, jurisdiction and right, which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled.” Positive grant was not then thought sufficiently descriptive and restrictive upon congress, and the omission of such a declaration now, when such great devolutions of power are proposed, manifests the design of consolidating the states.

What restriction does Mr. Wilson pretend there is in the new constitution to the supremacy of despotic sway over the United States? What barrier does he assign for the security of the state governments? Why truly a mere cobweb of a limit! [sic] by interposing the shield of what will become mere form, to check the reality of power. He says, that they existence of the state governments are essential to the organization of congress, that they former is made the necessary basis of the latter, for the federal senators and president are to be appointed by the state legislatures; and that hence all fears of a consolidation are groundless and imaginary. It must be confession, as reason and argument would have been foreign to the defence of the proposed plan of government, Mr. Wilson has displayed much ingenuity on this occasion, he has involved the subject in all the mazes of sophistry, and by subtil distinctions, he has established principles and positions, that exist only in his fertile imagination. It is a solecism in politics for two co-ordinate sovereignties to exist together, you must separate the sphere of their jurisdiction, or after running the race of dominion for some time, one would necessarily triumph over the other; but in the mean time the subjects of it would be harrassed with double impositions to support the contention; however the strife between congress and the states could not be of long continuance, for the former has a decisive superiority in the outset, and has moreover the power by the very constitution itself to terminate it, when expedient.

As this necessary connexion, as it has been termed, between the state governments and the general government, has been made a point of great magnitude by the advocates of the new plan, as it is the only obstacle alledged [sic] by them against a consolidation, it ought to be well considered. Is is declared by the proposed plan, that the federal senators and the electors who chuse [sic] the president of the United States, shall be appointed by the state legislatures for the long period of six and four years respectively;-how will this connexion prevent the state legislatures being divested of every important, every efficient power? may not they, will not they dwindle into mere boards of appointment, as has ever happened in other nations to public bodies, who, in similar circumstances, have been so weak as to part with the essentials of power? Does not history abound with such instances? And this may be the might amount of the inseparable connexion, which is so much dwelt upon as the security of the state governments. Yet even this shadow of a limit against consolidation, may be annihilated by the imperial fiat, without any violation of even the forms of the constitution, section 4th of article the 1st has made a provision for this, when the people are sufficiently fatigued with the useless expence of maintaining the forms of departed power and security, and when they shall pray to be relieved from the imposition. This section cannot be too often repeated, as it gives such a latitude to the designing, as it revokes every other part of the constitution that may be tolerable, and as it may enable the administration under it, to complete the system of despotism; it is in the following words, viz. “The times, places and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by law make or [alter] such regulations, except as to the place of chusing senators. The only apparent restriction in this clause, is as to the place of appointing senators, but even this may be rendered of no avail, for as the Congress have the controul over the time of appointment of both senators and representatives, they may under the pretence of an apprehension of invasion, upon the pretence of the turbulence of what they may stile a faction, and indeed pretences are never wanting to the designing, they may postpone the time of the election of the senators and the representatives from period to period to perpetuity; thus they may and if they may, they certainly will from the lust of dominion, so inherent in the mind of man, relieve the people from the trouble of attending elections by condescending to create themselves. Has not Mr. Wilson avowed it in fact? Has he not said in the Convention, that is was necessary that Congress should possess this power as the means of its own preservation, otherwise says he, an invasion, a civil war, a faction, or a secession of a minority of the assembly might prevent the representation of a state in Congress.

The advocates of the proposed government must be hard driven, when the represent, that because the legislatures of this and the other states have exceeded the due bounds of power, notwithstanding every guard provided by their constitutions; that because the lust of arbitrary sway is so powerful as sometimes to get the better of every obstacle; that therefore we should give full scope to it, for that all restriction would be useless and nugatory. And further, when they tell you that a good administration will atone for all the defects in the government, which, say they, you must necessarily have, for now can it be otherwise, your rulers are to be taken from among yourselves. My fellow citizens, these aspiring despots, must indeed have a great contempt for your understandings, when they hope to full you out of your liberties by such reasoning; for what is the primary object of government, but to check and controul the ambitious and designing, how then can moderation and virtue be expected from men, who will be in possession of absolute sway, who will have the United States at their disposal? They would be more than men, who could resist such temptation! [sic] their being taken away from among the people, would be no security; tyrants are of native growth in all countries, the greatest bashaw in Turky [sic] has been one of the people, as Mr. Wilson tells you the president-general will be. What consolation would this be, when you shall be suffering under his oppression.

Philadelphia, Nov. 30, 1787.

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Lydia Maria Child to Governor Henry A. Wise, October 26, 1859

Governor Wise,

I have heard that you were a man of chivalrous sentiments, and I know you were opposed to the iniquitous attempt to force upon Kansas a Constitution abhorrent to the moral sense of her people. Relying upon these indications of honor and justice in your character, I venture to ask a favor of you. Inclosed is a letter to Captain John Brown. Will you have the kindness, after reading it yourself, to transmit it to the prisoner?

I and all my large circle of abolition acquaintances were taken by surprise when news came of Captain Brown鈥檚 recent attempt; nor do I know of a single person who would have approved of it, had they been apprised of his intention. But I and thousands of others feel a natural impulse of sympathy for the brave and suffering man. Perhaps God, who sees the inmost of our souls, perceives some such sentiment in your heart also. He needs a mother or sister to dress his wounds, and speak soothingly to him. Will you allow me to perform that mission of humanity? If you will, may God bless you for the generous deed!

I have been for years an uncompromising abolitionist, and I should scorn to deny it or apologize for it as much as John Brown himself would do. Believing in peace principles, I deeply regret the step that the old veteran has taken, while I honor his humanity towards those who became his prisoners. But because it is my habit to be as open as the daylight, I will also say, that if I believed our religion justified men in fighting for freedom, I should consider the enslaved everywhere as best entitled to that right. Such an avowal is a simple, frank expression of my sense of natural justice.

But I should despise myself utterly if any circumstances could tempt me to seek to advance these opinions in any way, directly or indirectly, after your permission to visit Virginia has been obtained on the plea of sisterly sympathy with a brave and suffering man. I give you my word of honor, which was never broken, that I would use such permission solely and singly for the purpose of nursing your prisoner, and for no other purpose whatsoever.

Yours respectfully, L. Maria Child.

Governor Wise to L. Maria Child, October 29, 1859

Madam,

Yours of the 26th was received by me yesterday, and at my earliest leisure I respectfully reply to it, that I will forward the letter for John Brown, a prisoner under our laws, arraigned at the Circuit Court for the county of Jefferson, at Charlestown, Va., for the crimes of murder, robbery, and treason, which you ask me to transmit to him. I will comply with your request in the only way which seems to me proper, by inclosing it to the Commonwealth鈥檚 attorney, with the request that he will ask the permission of the court to hand it to the prisoner. Brown, the prisoner, is now in the hands of the judiciary, not of the executive, of this Commonwealth.

You ask me, further, to allow you to perform the mission 鈥渙f mother or sister, to dress his wounds, and speak soothingly to him.鈥� By this, of course, you mean to be allowed to visit him in his cell, and to minister to him in the offices of humanity. Why should you not be so allowed, Madam? Virginia and Massachusetts are involved in no civil war, and the Constitution which unites them in one confederacy guaranties to you the privileges and immunities of a citizen of the United States in the State of Virginia. That Constitution I am sworn to support, and am, therefore, bound to protect your privileges and immunities as a citizen of Massachusetts coming into Virginia for any lawful and peaceful purpose.

Coming, as you propose, to minister to the captive in prison, you will be met, doubtless, by all our people, not only in a chivalrous, but in a Christian spirit. You have the right to visit Charlestown, Va., Madam; and your mission, being merciful and humane, will not only be allowed, but respected, if not welcomed. A few unenlightened and inconsiderate persons, fanatical in their modes of thought and action to maintain justice and right, might molest you, or be disposed to do so; and this might suggest the imprudence of risking any experiment upon the peace of a society very much excited by the crimes with whose chief author you seem to sympathize so much. But still, I repeat, your motives and avowed purpose are lawful and peaceful, and I will, as far as I am concerned, do my duty in protecting your rights in our limits. Virginia and her authorities would be weak indeed鈥攚eak in point of folly, and weak in point of power鈥攊f her State faith and constitutional obligations cannot be redeemed in her own limits to the letter of morality as well as of law; and if her chivalry cannot courteously receive a lady鈥檚 visit to a prisoner, every arm which guards Brown from rescue on the one hand, and from lynch law on the other, will be ready to guard your person in Virginia.

I could not permit an insult even to woman in her walk of charity among us, though it be to one who whetted knives of butchery for our mothers, sisters, daughters, and babes. We have no sympathy with your sentiments of sympathy with Brown, and are surprised that you were 鈥渢aken by surprise when news came of Captain Brown鈥檚 recent attempt.鈥� His attempt was a natural consequence of your sympathy, and the errors of that sympathy ought to make you doubt its virtue from the effect on his conduct. But it is not of this I should speak. When you arrive at Charlestown, if you go there, it will be for the court and its officers, the Commonwealth鈥檚 attorney, sheriff and jailer, to say whether you may see and wait on the prisoner. But, whether you are thus permitted or not (and you will be, if my advice can prevail), you may rest assured that he will be humanely, lawfully, and mercifully dealt by in prison and on trial.

Respectfully, Henry A. Wise.

1. Marie Child to Governor Wise, n.d.

In your civil but very diplomatic reply to my letter, you inform me that I have a constitutional right to visit Virginia, for peaceful purposes, in common with every citizen of the United States. I was perfectly well aware that such was the theory of constitutional obligation in the slave States; but I was also aware of what you omit to mention, viz.: that the Constitution has, in reality, been completely and systematically nullified, whenever it suited the convenience or the policy of the slave power. Your constitutional obligation, for which you profess so much respect, has never proved any protection to citizens of the free States who happened to have a black, brown, or yellow complexion; nor to any white citizen whom you even suspected of entertaining opinions opposite to your own, on a question of vast importance to the temporal welfare and moral example of our common country. This total disregard of constitutional obligation has been manifested not Merely by the lynch law of mobs in the slave States, but by the deliberate action of magistrates and legislators. . . . Slavery is, in fact, an infringement of all law, and adheres to no law, save for its own purposes of oppression.

You accuse Captain John Brown of 鈥渨hetting knives of butchery for the mothers, sisters, daughters, and babes鈥� of Virginia; and you inform me of the well-known fact, that he is 鈥渁rraigned for the crimes of murder, robbery, and treason.鈥� I will not here stop to explain why I believe that old hero to be no criminal, but a martyr to righteous principles which he sought to advance by methods sanctioned by his own religious views, though not by mine. Allowing that Captain Brown did attempt a scheme in which murder, robbery, and treason were, to his own consciousness, involved, I do not see how Governor Wise can consistently arraign him for crimes he has himself commended. You have threatened to trample on the Constitution, and break the Union, if a majority of the legal voters in these confederated States dared to elect a President unfavorable to the extension of slavery. Is not such a declaration proof of premeditated treason? In the spring of 1842 you made a speech in Congress, from which I copy the following:

Once set before the people of the great valley the conquest of the rich Mexican provinces, and you might as well attempt to stop the wind. This government might send its troops, but they would run over them like a herd of buffalo. Let the work once begin, and I do not know that this House would hold me very long. Give me five millions of dollars, and I would undertake to do it myself. Although I do not know how to set a single squadron in the field, I could find men to do it. Slavery should pour itself abroad, without restraint, and find no limit but the southern ocean. . . .听

When you thus boasted that you and your 鈥渂ooted loafers鈥� would overrun the troops of the United States 鈥渓ike a herd of buffalo,鈥� if the government sent them to arrest your invasion of a neighboring nation, at peace with the United States, did you not pledge yourself to commit treason? Was it not by robbery, even of churches, that you proposed to load the mules of Mexico with gold for the United States? Was it not by the murder of unoffending Mexicans that you expected to advance those schemes of avarice and ambition? What humanity had you for Mexican 鈥渕others and babes,鈥� whom you proposed to make childless and fatherless? And for what purpose was this wholesale massacre to take place? Not to right the wrongs of any oppressed class; not to sustain any great principles of justice, or of freedom; but merely to enable 鈥渟lavery to pour itself forth without restraint.鈥�

. . . If Captain Brown intended, as you say, to commit treason, robbery, and murder, I think I have shown that he could find ample authority for such proceedings in the public declarations of Governor Wise. And if, as he himself declares, he merely intended to free the oppressed, where could he read a more forcible lesson than is furnished by the state seal of Virginia? I looked at it thoughtfully before I opened your letter; and though it had always appeared to me very suggestive, it never seemed to me so much so as it now did in connection with Captain John Brown. A liberty-loving hero stands with his foot upon a prostrate despot; under his strong arm, manacles and chains lie broken; and the motto is, 鈥淪ic Semper Tyrannis;鈥� 鈥淭hus be it ever done to tyrants.鈥� And this is the blazon of a State whose most profitable business is the internal slave-trade!鈥攊n whose highways coffles of human chattels, chained and manacled, are frequently seen! And the seal and the coffles are both looked upon by other chattels, constantly exposed to the same fate! What if some Vezey, or Nat Turner, should be growing up among those apparently quiet spectators? It is in no spirit of taunt or of exultation that I ask this question. I never think of it but with anxiety, sadness, and sympathy. I know that a slave-holding community necessarily lives in the midst of gunpowder; and, in this age, sparks of free thought are flying in every direction. You cannot quench the fires of free thought and human sympathy by any process of cunning or force; but there is a method by which you can effectually wet the gunpowder. England has already tried it, with safety and success. Would that you could be persuaded to set aside the prejudices of education, and candidly examine the actual working of that experiment! Virginia is so richly endowed by nature that free institutions alone are wanting to render her the most prosperous and powerful of the States.

In your letter you suggest that such a scheme as Captain Brown鈥檚 is the natural result of the opinions with which I sympathize. Even if I thought this to be a correct statement, though I should deeply regret it, I could not draw the conclusion that humanity ought to be stifled, and truth struck dumb, for fear that long-successful despotism might be endangered by their utterance. But the fact is, you mistake the source of that strange outbreak. No abolition arguments or denunciations, however earnestly, loudly, or harshly proclaimed, would have produced that result. It was the legitimate consequence of the continual and constantly-increasing aggressions of the slave power. The slave States, in their desperate efforts to sustain a bad and dangerous institution, have encroached more and more upon the liberties of the free States. Our inherent love of law and order, and our superstitious attachment to the Union, you have mistaken for cowardice; and rarely have you let slip any opportunity to add insult to aggression.

The manifested opposition to slavery began with the lectures and pamphlets of a few disinterested men and women, who based their movements upon purely moral and religious grounds; but their expostulations were met with a storm of rage, with tar and feathers, brickbats, demolished houses, and other applications of lynch law. When the dust of the conflict began to subside a little, their numbers were found to be greatly increased by the efforts to exterminate them. They had become an influence in the State too important to be overlooked by shrewd calculators. Political economists began to look at the subject from a lower point of view. They used their abilities to demonstrate that slavery was a wasteful system, and that the free States were taxed to an enormous extent to sustain an institution which, at heart, two thirds of them abhorred. The forty millions, or more, of dollars expended in hunting fugitive slaves in Florida, under the name of the Seminole War, were adduced, as one item of proof, to which many more were added. At last politicians were compelled to take some action on the subject. It soon became known to all the people that the slave States had always managed to hold in their hands the political power of the Union. . . .

Through these and other instrumentalities, the sentiments of the original Garrisonian abolitionists became very widely extended, in forms more or less diluted. But by far the most efficient co-laborers we have ever had have been the slave States themselves. By denying us the sacred right of petition, they roused the free spirit of the North as it never could have been roused by the loud trumpet of Garrison or the soul-animating bugle of Phillips. They bought the great slave, Daniel, and, according to their established usage, paid him no wages for his labor. By his cooperation they forced the Fugitive Slave Law upon us in violation of all our humane instincts and all our principles of justice. And what did they procure for the abolitionists by that despotic process? A deeper and wider detestation of slavery throughout the free States, and the publication of 鈥淯ncle Tom鈥檚 Cabin,鈥� an eloquent outburst of moral indignation, whose echoes wakened the world to look upon their shame.

By filibustering and fraud they dismembered Mexico, and, having thus obtained the soil of Texas, they tried to introduce it as a slave State into the Union. Failing to effect their purpose by constitutional means, they accomplished it by a most open and palpable violation of the Constitution, and by obtaining the votes of senators on false pretenses.

Soon afterward a Southern slave administration ceded to the powerful monarchy of Great Britain several hundreds thousands of square miles that must have been made into free States, to which that same administration had declared that the United States had 鈥渁n unquestionable right鈥� and then they turned upon the weak republic of Mexico, and, in order to make more slave States, wrested from her twice as many hundred thousands of square miles, to which we had not a shadow of right.

Notwithstanding all these extra efforts, they saw symptoms that the political power so long held with a firm grasp was in danger of slipping from their hands, by reason of the extension of abolition sentiments, and the greater prosperity of free States. Emboldened by continual success in aggression, they made use of the pretense of 鈥渟quatter sovereignty鈥� to break the league into which they had formerly cajoled the servile representatives of our blinded people, by which all the territory of the United States south of 36掳 300 was guaranteed to slavery, and all north of it to freedom. Thus Kansas became the battle-ground of the antagonistic elements in our government. Ruffians hired by the slave power were sent thither temporarily to do the voting and drive from the polls the legal voters, who were often murdered in the process. Names copied from the directories of cities in other States were returned by thousands as legal voters in Kansas, in order to establish a Constitution abhorred by the people. This was their exemplification of squatter sovereignty. A Massachusetts senator, distinguished for candor, courtesy, and stainless integrity, was half murdered by slave-holders merely for having the manliness to state these facts to the assembled Congress of the nation. Peaceful emigrants from the North, who went to Kansas for no other purpose than to till the soil, erect mills, and establish manufactories, schools, and churches, were robbed, outraged, and murdered. For many months a war more ferocious than the warfare of wild Indians was carried on against a people almost unresisting, because they relied upon the central government for aid. And all this while the power of the United States, wielded by the slave oligarchy, was on the side of the aggressors. This was the state of things when the hero of Ossawatomie and his brave sons went to the rescue. It was he who first turned the tide of border-ruffian triumph, by showing them that blows were to be taken as well as given.

You may believe it or not, Governor Wise, but it is certainly the truth that, because slave-holders so recklessly sowed the wind in Kansas, they reaped a whirlwind at Harpers Ferry.

The people of the North had a very strong attachment to the Union; but by your desperate measures you have weakened it beyond all power of restoration. They are not your enemies, as you suppose, but they cannot consent to be your tools for any ignoble task you may choose to propose. . . . A majority of them would rejoice to have the slave States fulfill their oft-repeated threat of withdrawal from the Union. It has ceased to be a bugbear, for we begin to despair of being able, by any other process, to give the world the example of a real republic. The moral sense of these States is outraged by being accomplices in sustaining an institution vicious in all its aspects; and it is now generally understood that we purchase our disgrace at great pecuniary expense. If you would only make the offer of a separation in serious earnest, you would hear the hearty response of millions,

Go, gentlemen, and Stand not upon the order of your going, But go at once!

Yours, with all due respect, L. Maria Child.

1. Marie Child to John Brown, October 26, 1859

Dear Captain Brown: Though personally unknown to you, you will recognize in my name an earnest friend of Kansas, when circumstances made that Territory the battle-ground between the antagonistic principles of slavery and freedom, which politicians so vainly strive to reconcile in the government of the United States.

Believing in peace principles, I cannot sympathize with the method you chose to advance the cause of freedom. But I honor your generous intentions,鈥擨 admire your courage, moral and physical. I reverence you for the humanity which tempered your zeal. I sympathize with you in your cruel bereavement, your sufferings, and your wrongs. In brief, I love you and bless you.

Thousands of hearts are throbbing with sympathy as warm as mine. I think of you night and day, bleeding in prison, surrounded by hostile faces, sustained only by trust in God and your own strong heart. I long to nurse you鈥攖o speak to you sisterly words of sympathy and consolation. I have asked permission of Governor Wise to do so. If the request is not granted, I cherish the hope that these few words may at least reach your hands, and afford you some little solace. May you be strengthened by the conviction that no honest man ever sheds blood for freedom in vain, however much he may be mistaken in his efforts. May God sustain you, and carry you through whatsoever may be in store for you! Yours, with heartfelt respect, sympathy and affection,

1. Maria Child.

Reply of John Brown

Mrs. L. Maria Child:听

My dear friend,

Such you prove to be, though a stranger,鈥攜our most kind letter has reached me, with the kind offer to come here and take care of me. Allow me to express my gratitude for your great sympathy, and at the same time to propose to you a different course, together with my reasons for wishing it. I should certainly be greatly pleased to become personally acquainted with one so gifted and so kind, but I cannot avoid seeing some objections to it, under present circumstances. First, I am in charge of a most humane gentleman, who, with his family, has rendered me every possible attention I have desired, or that could be of the least advantage; and I am so recovered of my wounds as no longer to require nursing. Then, again, it would subject you to great personal inconvenience and heavy expense, without doing me any good. . . .

I am quite cheerful under all my afflicting circumstances and prospects; having, as I humbly trust, 鈥渢he peace of God which passeth all understanding鈥� to rule in my heart. You may make such use of this as you see fit. God Almighty bless and reward you a thousand fold

Yours in sincerity and truth, John Brown.

B. D. H. Strother, A Southern Planter Arming His Slaves to Resist Invasion, November 19, 1859

See illustration on page 142.

C. Horace Greeley, 鈥淭he Whole Affair Seems the Work of a Madman,鈥� October 19, 1859

The insurrection, so called, at Harpers Ferry, proves a verity. Old Brown of Osawatamie, who was last heard of on his way from Missouri to Canada with a band of runaway slaves, now turns up in Virginia, where he seems to have been for some months plotting and preparing for a general stampede of slaves. How he came to be in Harpers Ferry, and in possession of the U. S. Armory, is not yet clear; but he was probably betrayed or exposed, and seized the Armory as a place of security until he could safely get away. The whole affair seems the work of a madman; but John Brown has so often looked death serenely in the face that what seems madness to others doubtless wore a different aspect to him. He had twenty-one men with him, mostly white, who appear to have held the Armory from 9 P. M. of Sunday till 7 of Tuesday (yesterday) morning, when it was stormed by Col. Lee and a party of U. S. Marines, and its defenders nearly all killed or mortally wounded . . . . Of the original twenty-two, fifteen were killed, two mortally wounded, and two unhurt. The other three had pushed northward on Monday morning guiding a number of fugitive slaves through Maryland. These were of course sharply pursued and fired on, but had not been taken at our last advices. . . .

There will be enough to heap execration on the memory of these mistaken men. We leave this work to the fit hands and tongues of those who regard the fundamental axioms of the Declaration of Independence as 鈥済littering generalities.鈥� Believing that the way to Universal Emancipation lies not through insurrection, civil war and bloodshed, but through discussion, and the quick diffusion of sentiments of humanity and justice, we deeply regret this outbreak; but remembering that, if their fault was grievous, grievously have they answered it, we will not, by one reproachful word, disturb the bloody shrouds wherein John Brown and his compatriots are sleeping. They dared and died for what they felt to be the right, though in a manner which seems to us fatally wrong. Let their epitaphs remain unwritten until the not distant day when no slave shall clank his chains in the shades of Monticello or by the graves of Mount Vernon.

D. Frederick Douglass, 鈥淛ohn Brown Not Insane,鈥� November 1859

One of the most painful incidents connected with the name of this old hero is the attempt to prove him insane. Many journals have contributed to this effort from a friendly desire to shield the prisoner from Virginia鈥檚 cowardly vengeance. This is a mistaken friendship, which seeks to rob him of his true character and dim the glory of his deeds, in order to save his life. Was there the faintest hope of securing his release by this means, we would choke down our indignation and be silent. But a Virginia court would hang a crazy man without a moment鈥檚 hesitation, if his insanity took the form of hatred of oppression; and this plea only blasts the reputation of this glorious martyr of liberty, without the faintest hope of improving his chance of escape.

It is an appalling fact in the history of the American people, that they have so far forgotten their own heroic age, as readily to accept the charge of insanity against a man who has imitated the heroes of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill.

It is an effeminate and cowardly age, which calls a man a lunatic because he rises to such self-forgetful heroism, as to count his own life worth nothing in comparison with the freedom of millions of his fellows. Such an age would have sent Gideon to a mad-house and put Leonidas in a strait-jacket. Such a people would have treated the defenders of Thermopylae as demented, and shut up Caius Marcus in bedlam. Such a marrowless population as ours has become under the debaucheries of Slavery, would have struck the patriot鈥檚 crown from the brow of Wallace, and recommended blisters and bleeding to the heroic Tell. Wallace was often and again as desperately forgetful of his own life in defense of Scotland鈥檚 freedom, as was Brown in striking for the American slave; and Tell鈥檚 defiance of the Austrian tyrant was as far above the appreciation of cowardly selfishness, as was Brown鈥檚 defiance of the Virginia pirates. . . . Posterity will owe everlasting thanks to John Brown for lifting up once more to the gaze of a nation grown fat and flabby on the garbage of lust and oppression, a true standard of heroic philanthropy, and each coming generation will pay its installment of the debt. No wonder that the aiders and abettors of the huge, overshadowing and many-armed tyranny, which he grappled with in its own infernal den, should call him a mad man; but for those who profess a regard for him, and for human freedom, to join in the cruel slander 鈥渋s the unkindest cut of all.鈥�

Nor is it necessary to attribute Brown鈥檚 deeds to the spirit of vengeance invoked by the murder of his brave boys. That the barbarous cruelty from which he has suffered had its effect in intensifying his hatred of slavery, is doubtless true. But his own statement, that he had been contemplating a bold strike for the freedom of the slaves for ten years, proves that he had resolved upon his present course long before he, or his sons, ever set foot in Kansas. His entire procedure in this matter disproves the charge that he was prompted by an impulse of mad revenge, and shows that he was moved by the highest principles of philanthropy. His carefulness of the lives of unarmed persons鈥攈is humane and courteous treatment of his prisoners鈥攈is cool self-possession all through his trial鈥攁nd especially his calm, dignified speech on receiving his sentence, all conspire to show that he was neither insane or actuated by vengeful passion; and we hope that the country has heard the last of John Brown鈥檚 madness.

The explanation of his conduct is perfectly natural and simple on its face. He believes the Declaration of Independence to be true, and the Bible to be a guide to human conduct, and acting upon the doctrines of both, he threw himself against the serried ranks of American oppression, and translated into heroic deeds the love of liberty and hatred of tyrants, with which he was inspired from both these forces acting upon his philanthropic and heroic soul. This age is too gross and sensual to appreciate his deeds, and so calls him mad; but the future will write his epitaph upon the hearts of a people freed from slavery, because he struck the first effectual blow.

Not only is it true that Brown鈥檚 whole movement proves him perfectly sane and free from merely revengeful passion, but he has struck the bottom line of the philosophy which underlies the abolition movement. He has attacked slavery with the weapons precisely adapted to bring it to the death. Moral considerations have long since been exhausted upon slaveholders. It is in vain to reason with them. One might as well hunt bears with ethics and political economy for weapons as to seek to 鈥減luck the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor鈥� by the mere force of moral law. Slavery is a system of brute force. It shields itself behind might, rather than right. It must be met with its own weapons. Capt. Brown has initiated a new mode of carrying on the crusade of freedom, and his blow has sent dread and terror throughout the entire ranks of the piratical army of slavery. His daring deeds may cost him his life, but priceless as is the value of that life, the blow he has struck will, in the end, prove to be worthy its mighty cost. Like Samson, he has laid his hands upon the pillars of this great national temple of cruelty and blood, and when he falls, that temple will speedily crumple to its final doom, burying its denizens in its ruins.

E. Abraham Lincoln, Cooper Union Address, February 27, 1860

. . . I would address a few words to the Southern people. . . .

You charge that we stir up insurrections among your slaves. We deny it; and what is your proof? Harpers Ferry! John Brown!! . . .

Some of you admit that no Republican designedly aided or encouraged the Harpers Ferry affair; but still insist that our doctrines and declarations necessarily lead to such results. We do not believe it. . . .

Slave insurrections are no more common now than they were before the Republican party was organized. What induced the Southampton insurrection, twenty-eight years ago, in which, at least, three times as many lives were lost as at Harpers Ferry? . . . In the present state of things in the United States, I do not think a general, or even a very extensive slave insurrection, is possible. The indispensable concert of action cannot be attained. The slaves have no means of rapid communication; nor can incendiary freemen, black or white, supply it. . . .

Much is said by Southern people about the affection of slaves for their masters and mistresses; and a part of it, at least, is true. A plot for an uprising could scarcely be devised and communicated to twenty individuals before some one of them, to save the life of a favorite master or mistress, would divulge it. . . . Occasional poisonings from the kitchen, and open or stealthy assassinations in the field, and local revolts extending to a score or so, will continue to occur as the natural results of slavery; but no general insurrection of slaves, as I think, can happen in this country for a long time. Whoever much fears, or much hopes for such an event, will be alike disappointed. . . .

John Brown鈥檚 effort was peculiar. It was not a slave insurrection. It was an attempt by white men to get up a revolt among slaves, in which the slaves refused to participate. In fact, it was so absurd that the slaves, with all their ignorance, saw plainly enough it could not succeed. That affair, in its philosophy, corresponds with the many attempts, related in history, at the assassination of kings and emperors. An enthusiast broods over the oppression of a people till he fancies himself commissioned by Heaven to liberate them. He ventures the attempt, which ends in little else than his own execution. . . . .

F. William W. Patton, Lyrics to John Brown鈥檚 Body, 1861

Old John Brown鈥檚 body lies moldering in the grave,

While weep the sons of bondage whom he ventured all to save;

But tho he lost his life while struggling for the slave,

His soul is marching on.

John Brown was a hero, undaunted, true and brave,

And Kansas knows his valor when he fought her rights to save;

Now, tho the grass grows green above his grave,

His soul is marching on.

He captured Harpers Ferry, with his nineteen men so few,

And frightened 鈥淥ld Virginny鈥� till she trembled thru and thru;

They hung him for a traitor, themselves the traitor crew,

But his soul is marching on.

John Brown was John the Baptist of the Christ we are to see,

Christ who of the bondmen shall the Liberator be,

And soon thruout the Sunny South the slaves shall all be free,

For his soul is marching on.

The conflict that he heralded he looks from heaven to view,

On the army of the Union with its flag red, white and blue.

And heaven shall ring with anthems o鈥檈r the deed they mean to do,

For his soul is marching on.

Ye soldiers of Freedom, then strike, while strike ye may,

The death blow of oppression in a better time and way,

For the dawn of old John Brown has brightened into day,

And his soul is marching on.

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The Convention assembled in the city of Philadelphia, to organize a National Anti-Slavery Society, promptly seize the opportunity to promulgate the following Declaration of Sentiments, as cherished by them in relation to the enslavement of one-sixth portion of the American people.

More than fifty-seven years have elapsed, since a band of patriots convened in this place, to devise measures for the deliverance of this country from a foreign yoke. The corner-stone upon which they founded the Temple of Freedom was broadly this鈥�鈥溾�榯hat all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, LIBERTY, and the pursuit of happiness.鈥� At the sound of their trumpet-call, three millions of people rose up as from the sleep of death, and rushed to the strife of blood; deeming it more glorious to die instantly as freemen, than desirable to live one hour as slaves. They were few in number鈥�poor in resources; but the honest conviction that Truth, Justice and Right were on their side, made them invincible.

We have met together for the achievement of an enterprise, without which that of our fathers is incomplete; and which, for its magnitude, solemnity, and probable results upon the destiny of the world, as far transcends theirs as moral truth does physical force.

In purity of motive, in earnestness of zeal, in decision of purpose, in intrepidity of action, in steadfastness of faith, in sincerity of spirit, we would not be inferior to them.

Their principles led them to wage war against their oppressors, and to spill human blood like water, in order to be free.

Ours forbid the doing of evil that good may come, and lead us to reject, and to entreat the oppressed to reject, the use of all carnal weapons for deliverance from bondage; relying solely upon those which are spiritual, and mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds. Their measures were physical resistance鈥�the marshalling in arms鈥攖he hostile array鈥攖he mortal encounter. Ours shall be such only as the opposition of moral purity to moral corruption鈥攖he destruction of error by the potency of truth鈥攖he overthrow of prejudice by the power of love鈥攁nd the abolition of slavery by the spirit of repentance.

Their grievances, great as they were, were trifling in comparison with the wrongs and sufferings of those for whom we plead. Our fathers were never slaves鈥攏ever bought and sold like cattle鈥攏ever shut out from the light of knowledge and religion鈥攏ever subjected to the lash of brutal taskmasters.

But those, for whose emancipation we are striving鈥攃onstituting at the present time at least one-sixth part of our countrymen鈥攁re recognized by law, and treated by their fellow-beings, as marketable commodities, as goods and chattels, as brute beasts; are plundered daily of the fruits of their toil without redress; really enjoy no constitutional nor legal protection from licentious and murderous outrages upon their persons; and are ruthlessly torn asunder鈥攖he tender babe from the arms of its frantic mother鈥攖he heart-broken wife from her weeping husband鈥攁t the caprice or pleasure of irresponsible tyrants. For the crime of having a dark complexion, they suffer the pangs of hunger, the infliction of stripes, the ignominy of brutal servitude. They are kept in heathenish darkness by laws expressly enacted to make their instruction a criminal offence.

These are the prominent circumstances in the condition of more than two millions of our people, the proof of which听may be found in thousands of indisputable facts, and in the laws of the slaveholding States.

Hence we maintain鈥攖hat, in view of the civil and religious privileges of this nation, the guilt of its oppression is unequalled by any other on the face of the earth; and, therefore, that it is bound to repent instantly, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free.

We further maintain鈥攖hat no man has a right to enslave or imbrute his brother鈥攖o hold or acknowledge him, for one moment, as a piece of merchandise鈥攖o keep back his hire by fraud鈥攐r to brutalize his mind, by denying him the means of intellectual, social and moral improvement.

The right to enjoy liberty is inalienable. To invade it is to usurp the prerogative of Jehovah. Every man has a right to his own body鈥攖o the products of his own labor鈥攖o the protection of law鈥攁nd to the common advantages of society. It is piracy to buy or steal a native African, and subject him to servitude. Surely, the sin is as great to enslave an American as an African.

Therefore we believe and affirm鈥攖hat there is no difference, in principle, between the African slave trade and American slavery:

That every American citizen, who detains a human being in involuntary bondage as his property, is, according to Scripture, (Ex. xxi. 16,) a man-stealer:

That the slaves ought instantly to be set free, and brought under the protection of law:

That if they had lived from the time of Pharaoh down to the present period, and had been entailed through successive generations, their right to be free could never have been alienated, but their claims would have constantly risen in solemnity:

That all those laws which are now in force, admitting the right of slavery, are therefore, before God, utterly null and听void; being an audacious usurpation of the Divine prerogative, a daring infringement on the law of nature, a base over-throw of the very foundations of the social compact, a complete extinction of all the relations, endearments and obligations of mankind, and a presumptuous transgression of all the holy commandments; and that therefore they ought instantly to be abrogated.

We further believe and affirm鈥攖hat all persons of color, who possess the qualifications which are demanded of others, ought to be admitted forthwith to the enjoyment of the same privileges, and the exercise of the same prerogatives, as others; and that the paths of preferment, of wealth, and of intelligence, should be opened as widely to them as to persons of a white complexion.

We maintain that no compensation should be given to the planters emancipating their slaves:

Because it would be a surrender of the great fundamental principle, that man cannot hold property in man:听

Because slavery is a crime, and therefore is not an article to be sold:

Because the holders of slaves are not the just proprietors of what they claim; freeing the slave is not depriving them of property, but restoring it to its rightful owner; it is not wronging the master, but righting the slave鈥攔estoring him to himself:

Because immediate and general emancipation would only destroy nominal, not real property; it would not amputate a limb or break a bone of the slaves, but by infusing motives into their breasts, would make them doubly valuable to the masters as free laborers; and

Because, if compensation is to be given at all, it should be given to the outraged and guiltless slaves, and not to those who have plundered and abused them.

We regard as delusive, cruel and dangerous, any scheme of expatriation which pretends to aid, either directly or indirectly, in the emancipation of the slaves, or to be a substitute for the immediate and total abolition of slavery.

We fully and unanimously recognize the sovereignty of each State, to legislate exclusively on the subject of the slavery which is tolerated within its limits; we concede that Congress, under the present national compact, has no right to interfere with any of the slave States, in relation to this momentous subject:

But we maintain that Congress has a right, and is solemnly bound, to suppress the domestic slave trade between the several States, and to abolish slavery in those portions of our territory which the Constitution has placed under its exclusive jurisdiction.

We also maintain that there are, at the present time, the highest obligations resting upon the people of the free States to remove slavery by moral and political action, as prescribed in the Constitution of the United States. They are now living under a pledge of their tremendous physical force, to fasten the galling fetters of tyranny upon the limbs of millions in the Southern States; they are liable to be called at any moment to suppress a general insurrection of the slaves; they authorize the slave owner to vote for three-fifths of his slaves as property, and thus enable him to perpetuate his oppression; they support a standing army at the South for its protection and they seize the slave, who has escaped into their territories, and send him back to be tortured by an enraged master or a brutal driver. This relation to slavery is criminal, and full of danger: IT MUST BE BROKEN UP.

These are our views and principles鈥攖hese our designs and measures. With entire confidence in the overruling justice of God, we plant ourselves upon the Declaration of our Independence and the truths of Divine Revelation, as upon the Everlasting Rock.

We shall organize Anti-Slavery Societies, if possible, in every city, town and village in our land.

We shall send forth agents to lift up the voice of remonstrance, of warning, of entreaty, and of rebuke.

We shall circulate, unsparingly and extensively, anti-slavery tracts and periodicals.

We shall enlist the pulpit and the press in the cause of the suffering and the dumb.

We shalt aim at a purification of the churches from all participation in the guilt of slavery.

We shall encourage the labor of freemen rather than that of slaves, by giving a preference to their productions: and

We shall spare no exertions nor means to bring the whole nation to speedy repentance.

Our trust for victory is solely in God. We may be personally defeated, but our principles never. Truth, Justice, Reason, Humanity, must and will gloriously triumph. Already a host is coming up to the help of the Lord against the mighty, and the prospect before us is full of encouragement.

Submitting this Declaration to the candid examination of the people of this country, and of the friends of liberty throughout the world, we hereby affix our signatures to it; pledging ourselves that, under the guidance and by the help of Almighty God, we will do all that in us lies, consistently with this Declaration of our principles, to overthrow the most execrable system of slavery that has ever been witnessed upon earth; to deliver our land from its deadliest curse; to wipe out the foulest stain which rests upon our national escutcheon; and to secure to the colored population of the United States, all the rights and privileges which belong to them as men, and as Americans鈥攃ome what may to our persons, our interests, or our reputation鈥攚hether we live to witness the triumph of Liberty, Justice and Humanity, or perish untimely as martyrs in this great, benevolent, and holy cause.

B.Angelina Grimk茅, Appeal to Christian Women of the South, 1836

RESPECTED FRIENDS,

It is because I feel a deep and tender interest in your present and eternal welfare that I am willing thus publicly to address you. . . . I feel an interest in you, as branches of the same vine from whose root I daily draw the principle of spiritual vitality鈥擸es! Sisters in Christ I feel an interest in you, and often has the secret prayer arisen on your behalf, Lord 鈥渙pen thou their eyes that they may see wondrous things out of thy Law鈥濃�擨t is then, because I do feel and do pray for you, that I thus address you upon a subject about which of all others, perhaps you would rather not hear anything; but, 鈥渨ould to God ye could bear with me a little in my folly, and indeed bear with me, for I am jealous over you with godly jealousy.鈥� Be not afraid then to read my appeal; it is not written in the heat of passion or prejudice, but in that solemn calmness which is the result of conviction and duty. It is true, I am going to tell you unwelcome truths, but I mean to speak those truths in love, and remember Solomon says, 鈥渇aithful are the wounds of a friend.鈥� I do not believe the time has yet come when Christian women 鈥渨ill not endure sound doctrine,鈥� even on the subject of Slavery, if it is spoken to them in tenderness and love, therefore I now address you.

. . . It will be, and that very soon, clearly perceived and fully acknowledged by all the virtuous and the candid, that in principle it is as sinful to hold a human being in bondage who has been born in Carolina, as one who has been born in Africa. All that sophistry of argument which has been employed to prove, that although it is sinful to send to Africa to procure men and women as slaves, who, have never been in slavery, that still, it is not sinful to keep those in bondage who have come down by inheritance, will be utterly over thrown. We must come back to the good old doctrine of our fore fathers who declared to the world, 鈥渢his self-evident truth that all men are created equal, and that they have certain inalienable rights among which are, life,听liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.鈥� It is even a greater absurdity to suppose a man can be legally born a slave under our free Republican Government, than under the petty despotisms of barbarian Africa. If then, we have no right to enslave an African, surely we can have none to enslave an American; if a self-evident truth that all men everywhere and of every color are born equal, and have an inalienable right to liberty, then it is equally true that no man can be born a slave, and no man can ever rightfully听be reduced to听involuntary听bondage and held as a slave, however fair may be the claim of his master or mistress through wills and title-deeds. . . .

But perhaps you will be ready to query, why appeal to women on this subject ? We do not make the laws which perpetuate slavery. No legislative power is vested in us;听we听can do nothing to overthrow the system, even if we wished to do so. To this I reply, I know you do not make the laws, but I also know that you听are the wives and mothers, the sisters and daughters of those who do; and if you really suppose you can do nothing to overthrow slavery, you are greatly mistaken. You can do much in every way: four things I will name. 1st. You can read on this subject. 2d. You can pray over this subject. 3d. You can speak on this subject. 4th. You can act on this subject. I have not placed reading before praying because I regard it more important, but because, in order to pray aright, we must understand what we are praying for; it is only then we can 鈥減ray with the understanding, and the spirit also.鈥�

1. Read then on the subject of slavery. Search the Scriptures daily, whether the things I have told you are true. Other books and papers might be a great help to you in this investigation, but they are not necessary, and it is hardly probable that your Committees of Vigilance will allow you to have any other. The听Bible听then is the book I want you to read in the spirit of inquiry, and the spirit of prayer. Even the enemies of Abolitionists, acknowledge that their doctrines are drawn from it. In the great mob in Boston, last autumn, when the books and papers of the Anti-Slavery Society, were thrown out of the windows of their office, one individual laid hold of the Bible and was about tossing it out to the ground, when another reminded him that it was the Bible be had in his hand. 鈥淥! 鈥榯is all one,鈥� he replied, and out went the sacred volume, along with the rest. We thank him for the acknowledgment. Yes, 鈥渋t is all one,鈥� for our books and papers are mostly commentaries on the Bible, and the Declaration. Read the Bible then, it contains the words of Jesus, and they are spirit and life. Judge for yourselves whether听he sanctioned such a system of oppression and crime.
2. Pray over this subject. When you have entered into your closets, and shut the doors, then pray to your Father, who sees in secret, that he would open your eyes to see whether slavery is sinful, and if it is, that he would enable you to bear a faithful, open and unshrinking testimony against it, and to do whatsoever your hands find to do, leaving the consequences entirely to him, who still says to us whenever we try to reason away duty from the fear of consequences,听鈥淲hat is that to thee, follow thou me.鈥� Pray also for that poor slave, that he may be kept patient and submissive under his hard lot, until God is pleased to open the door of freedom to him without violence or bloodshed. Pray too for the master that his heart may be softened and he made willing to acknowledge, as Joseph鈥檚 brethren did, 鈥淰erily we are guilty concerning our brother,鈥� before he will be compelled to add in consequence of Divine judgment, 鈥渢herefore is all this evil come upon us.鈥� Pray also for all your brethren and sisters who are laboring in the righteous cause of Emancipation in the Northern States, England and the world. There is great encouragement for prayer in these words of our Lord. 鈥淲hatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it to you鈥�鈥擯ray then without ceasing, in the closet and the social circle.
3. Speak on this subject. It is through the tongue, the pen, and the press, that truth is principally propagated. Speak then to your relatives, your friends, your acquaintances on the subject of slavery; be not afraid if you are conscientiously convinced it is sinful, to say so openly, but calmly, and to let your sentiments be known. If you are served by the slaves of others, try to ameliorate their condition as much as possible; never aggravate their faults, and thus add fuel to the fire of anger already kindled, in a master and mistress鈥檚 bosom; remember their extreme ignorance, and consider them as your Heavenly Father does the less culpable on this account, even when they do wrong things. Discountenance all cruelty to them, all starvation, all corporal chastisement; these may brutalize and break their spirits, but will never bend them to willing, cheerful obedience. If possible, see that they are comfortably and seasonably fed, whether in the house or the field; it is unreasonable and cruel to expect slaves to wait for their breakfast until eleven o鈥檆lock, when they rise at five or six. Do all you can, to induce their owners to clothe them well, and to allow them many little indulgences which would contribute to their comfort. Above all, try to persuade your husband, father, brothers and sons, that slavery is a crime against God and man, and that it is a great sin to keep human beings in such abject ignorance; to deny them the privilege of learning to read and write. The Catholics are universally condemned, for denying the Bible to the common people, but, slaveholders must not blame them, for they are doing the very same thing, and for the very same reason, neither of these systems can bear the light which bursts from the pages of that Holy Book. And lastly, endeavor to inculcate submission on the part of the slaves, but whilst doing this be faithful in pleading the cause of the oppressed.
4. Act on this subject. Some of you own slaves yourselves. If you believe slavery is sinful, set them at liberty, 鈥渦ndo the heavy burdens and let the oppressed go free.鈥� If they wish to remain with you, pay them wages, if not let them leave you. Should they remain teach them, and have them taught the common branches of an English education; they have minds and those minds ought to be improved. So precious a talent as intellect, never was given to be wrapped in a napkin and buried in the earth. It is the duty of all, as far as they can, to improve their own menial faculties, because we are commanded to love God with all our minds, as well as with all our hearts, and we commit a great sin, if we forbid or prevent that cultivation of the mind in others, which would enable them to perform this duty. Teach your servants then to read &c, and encourage them to believe it is their duty to learn, if it were only that they might read the Bible.

But some of you will say, we can neither free our slaves nor teach them to read, for the laws of our state forbid it. Be not surprised when I say such wicked laws ought to be no barrier in the way of your duty, and I appeal to the Bible to prove this position. . . .

I know that this doctrine of obeying God, rather than man, will be considered as dangerous, and heretical by many, but I am not afraid openly to avow it, because it is the doctrine of the Bible; but I would not be understood to advocate resistance to any law however oppressive, if, in obeying it, I was not obliged to commit sin. If for instance, there was a law, which imposed imprisonment or a fine upon me if I manumitted a slave, I would on no account resist that law, I would set the slave free, and then go to prison or pay the fine. If a law commands me to sin I will break it; if it calls me to suffer, I will let it take its course unresistingly. The doctrine of blind obedience and unqualified submission to any human power, whether civil or ecclesiastical, is the doctrine of despotism, and ought to have no place among Republicans and Christians.
. . .

The women of the South can overthrow this horrible system of oppression and cruelty, licentiousness and wrong. Such appeals to your legislatures would be irresistible, for there is something in the heart of man which will bend under moral suasion. There is a swift witness for truth in his bosom, which will respond to truth when it is uttered with calmness and dignity. If you could obtain but six signatures to such a petition in only one state, I would say, send up that petition, and be not in the least discouraged by the scoffs, and jeers of the heartless, or the resolution of the house to lay it on the table. It will be a great thing if the subject can be introduced into your legislatures in any way, even by women, and they will be the most likely to introduce it there in the best possible manner, as a matter of morals and religion, not of expediency or politics. You may petition, too, the different ecclesiastical bodies of the slave states. Slavery must be attacked with the whole power of truth and the sword of the spirit. You must take it up on Christian ground, and fight against it with Christian weapons, whilst your feet are shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. And you are now loudly called upon by the cries of the widow and the orphan, to arise and gird yourselves for this great moral conflict, with the whole armor of righteousness upon the right hand and on the left.. . .

I have appealed to your sympathies as women, to your sense of duty as Christian women. . . . I have sowed the seeds of truth, but I well know, that even if an Apollos were to follow in my steps to water them, 鈥�God only can give the increase.鈥� To Him then who is able to prosper the work of his servant鈥檚 hand, I commend this Appeal in fervent prayer, that as he hath 鈥�chosen the weak things of the world, to confound the things which are mighty,鈥� so He may cause His blessing, to descend and carry conviction to the hearts of many Lydias through these speaking pages. Farewell鈥擟ount me not your 鈥渆nemy because I have told you the truth,鈥� but believe me in unfeigned affection,

Your sympathizing Friend,

Angelina Grimk茅

C.Southern Runaway Slave Notices, 1839 and 鈥淥ur Peculiar Domestic Institutions,鈥� 1840

See illustrations on pages 139 and 140.

D.鈥淚 have as much right in this country as any other man,鈥� Frederick Douglass, June 8, 1849

. . . It is because the American Colonization Society cherishes and fosters this feeling of hatred against the black man, that I am opposed to it. And I am especially disposed to speak out my opposition to this colonization scheme to-night, because not only of the renewed interest excited in the colonization scheme by the efforts of Henry Clay and others, but because there is a lecturer in the shape of the Rev. Mr. Miller, of New Jersey, now in England, soliciting funds for our expatriation from this country, and going about trying to organize a society, and to create an impression in favor of removing us from this country. I would ask you, my friends, if this is not mean and impudent in the extreme, for one class of Americans to ask for the removal of another class? I feel, sir, I have as much right in this country as any other man. I feel that the black man in this land has as much right to stay in this land as the white man. Consider the matter in the light of possession in this country. Our connection with this country is contemporaneous with your own. From the beginning of the existence of this people, as a people, the colored man has had a place upon the American soil. To be sure, he was not driven from his home in pursuit of a greater liberty than he enjoyed at home, like the Pilgrim fathers; but in the same year that the Pilgrims were landing in this State, slaves were landing on the James River, in Virginia. We feel on this score, then, that we have as much right here as any other class of people.

We have other claims to being regarded and treated as American citizens. Some of our number have fought and bled for this country, and we only ask to be treated as well as those who have fought against it. We are lovers of this country, and we only ask to be treated as well as the haters of it. We are not only told by Americans to go out of our native land to Africa, and there enjoy our freedom鈥攂ut Irishmen newly landed on our soil, who know nothing of our institutions, nor of the history of our country, whose toil has not been mixed with the soil of the country as ours鈥攈ave the audacity to propose our removal from this, the land of our birth. For my part, I mean, for one, to stay in this country; I have made up my mind to live among you. I had a kind offer, when I was in England, of a little house and lot, and the free use of it, on the banks of the river Eden. I could easily have stayed here, if I had sought for ease, undisturbed, unannoyed by American skin-aristocracy; for it is an aristocracy of skin鈥攖hose passengers on board the Alida only got their dinners that day in virtue of their color; if their skins had been of my color, they would have had to fast all day. Whatever denunciations England may be entitled to on account of their treatment of Ireland and her own poor, one thing can be said of her, that no man in that country, or in any of her dominions, is treated as less than a man of account of his complexion. I could have lived there; but when I remembered this prejudice against color, as it is called, and slavery, and saw the many wrongs inflicted on my own people at the North that ought to be combated and put down, I felt a disposition to lay aside ease, to turn my back on the kind offer of my friends, and to return among you鈥攄eeming it more noble to suffer along with my colored brethren, and meet these prejudices, that to live at ease, undisturbed, on the other side of the Atlantic. I had rather be here now, encountering this feeling, bearing my testimony against it, setting it at defiance, than to remain in England undisturbed. I have made up my mind wherever I go, I shall go as a man, not as a slave. When I go on board of your steamboats, I shall always aim to be courteous and mild in my deportment towards all with whom I come in contact, at the same time firmly and constantly endeavoring to assert my equal right as a man and a brother.

But the Colonization Society says this prejudice can never be overcome鈥攖hat it is natural鈥擥od has implanted it. Some say so; others declare that it can only be removed by removing us to Liberia. I know this is false, from my own experience in this country. I remember that, but a few years ago, upon the railroads from New Bedford and Salem and in all parts of Massachusetts, a most unrighteous and proscriptive rule prevailed, by which colored men and women were subjected to all manner of indignity in the use of those conveyances. Anti-slavery men, however, lifted up their testimony against this principle from year to year; and from year to year, he whose name cannot be mentioned without receiving a round of applause, Wendell Phillips went abroad, exposing this proscription in the light of justice. What is the result? Not a single railroad can be found in any part of Massachusetts, where a colored man is treated and esteemed in any other light than that of a man and a traveler. Prejudice has given way and must give way. The fact that it is giving way proves that this prejudice is not invincible. The time was when it was expected that a colored man, when he entered a church in Boston, would going into the Jim Crow pew鈥攁nd I believe such is the case now, to a large extent; but then there were those who would defend the custom. But you can scarcely get a defender of this proscription in New England now.

The history of the repeal of the intermarriage law shows that the prejudice against color is not invincible. The general manner in which white persons sit with colored persons shows plainly that the prejudice against color is not invincible. When I first came here, I felt the greatest possible diffidence of sitting with whites. I used to come up from the shipyard, where I worked, with my hands hardened with toil, rough and uncomely, and my movements awkward (for I was unacquainted with the rules of politeness), I would shrink back, and would not have taken my meals with the whites had they not pressed me to do so. Our president, in his earlier intercourse with me, taught me, by example his abhorrence of this prejudice. He has, in my presence, stated to those who visited him, that if they did not like to sit at the table with me, they could have a separate one for themselves.

The time was, when I walked through the streets of Boston, I was liable to insult if in company with a white person. To-day I have passed in company with my white friends, leaning their arm and they on mine, and yet the first word from any quarter on account of the color of my skin I have not heard. It is all false, this talk about the invincibility of prejudice against color. If any of you have it, and no doubt some of you have, I will tell you how to get rid of it.

Commence to do something to elevate and improve and enlighten the colored man, and your prejudice will begin to vanish. The more you try to make a man of the black man, the more you will begin to think him a man. . .

E.George Fitzhugh, Sociology for the South, or, The Failure of Free Society, 1854

. . . But the chief and far most important enquiry is, how does slavery affect the condition of the slave? One of the wildest sects of Communists in France proposes not only to hold all property in common, but to divide the profits, not according to each man鈥檚 in-put and labor, but according to each man鈥檚 wants. Now this is precisely the system of domestic slavery with us. We provide for each slave, in old age and in infancy, in sickness and in health, not according to his labor, but according to his wants. The master鈥檚 wants are more costly and refined, and he therefore gets a larger share of the profits. A Southern farm is the beau ideal of Communism; it is a joint concern, in which the slave consumes more than the master, of the coarse products, and is far happier, because although the concern may fail, he is always sure of a support; he is only transferred to another master to participate in the profits of another concern; he marries when he pleases, because he knows he will have to work no more with a family than without one, and whether he live or die, that family will be taken care of; he exhibits all the pride of ownership, despises a partner in a smaller concern, 鈥渁 poor man鈥檚 negro,鈥� boasts of 鈥渙ur crops, horses, fields and cattle;鈥� and is as happy as a human being can be. And why should he not?鈥攈e enjoys as much of the fruits of the farm as he is capable of doing, and the wealthiest can do no more. Great wealth brings many additional cares, but few additional enjoyments. Our stomachs do not increase in capacity with our fortunes. We want no more clothing to keep us warm. We may create new wants, but we cannot create new pleasures. The intellectual enjoyments which wealth affords are probably balanced by the new cares it brings along with it.

There is no rivalry, no competition to get employment among slaves, as among free laborers. Nor is there a war between master and slave. The master鈥檚 interest prevents his reducing the slave鈥檚 allowance or wages in infancy or sickness, for he might lose the slave by so doing. His feeling for his slave never permits him to stint him in old age. The slaves are all well fed, well clad, have plenty of fuel, and are happy. They have no dread of the future鈥攏o fear of want. A state of dependence is the only condition in which reciprocal affection can exist among human beings鈥攖he only situation in which the war of competition ceases, and peace, amity and good will arise. A state of independence always begets more or less of jealous rivalry and hostility. A man loves his children because they are weak, helpless and dependent; he loves his wife for similar reasons. When his children grow up and assert their independence, he is apt to transfer his affection to his grand-children. He ceases to love his wife when she becomes masculine or rebellious; but slaves are always dependent, never the rivals of their master. Hence, though men are often found at variance with wife or children, we never saw one who did not like his slaves, and rarely a slave who was not devoted to his master. 鈥淚 am thy servant!鈥� disarms me of the power of master. Every man feels the beauty, force and truth of this sentiment of Sterne. But he who acknowledges its truth, tacitly admits that dependence is a tie of affection, that the relation of master and slave is one of mutual good will. Volumes written on the subject would not prove as much as this single sentiment. It has found its way to the heart of every reader, and carried conviction along with it. The slave-holder is like other men; he will not tread on the worm nor break the bruised reed. The ready submission of the slave, nine times out of ten, disarms his wrath even when the slave has offended. The habit of command may make him imperious and fit him for rule; but he is only imperious when thwarted or ordered by his equals; he would scorn to put on airs of command among blacks, whether slaves or free; he always speaks to them in a kind and subdued tone. We go farther, and say the slave-holder is better than others鈥攂ecause he has greater occasion for the exercise of the affection. His whole life is spent in providing for the minutest wants of others, in taking care of them in sickness and in health. Hence he is the least selfish of men. Is not the old bachelor who retires to seclusion, always selfish? Is not the head of a large family almost always kind and benevolent? And is not the slave-holder the head of the largest family? Nature compels master and slave to be friends; nature makes employers and free laborers enemies.

The institution of slavery gives full development and full play to the affections. Free society chills, stints and eradicates them. In a homely way the farm will support all, and we are not in a hurry to send our children into the world, to push their way and make their fortunes, with a capital of knavish maxims. We are better husbands, better fathers, better friends, and better neighbors than our Northern brethren. The tie of kindred to the fifth degree is often a tie of affection with us. First cousins are scarcely acknowledged at the North, and even children are prematurely pushed off into the world. Love for others is the organic law of our society, as self-love is of theirs. . . .

F.Number of Slaves in the Territory Enumerated, 1790 to 1850, US Census Bureau

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At length the business of New-Orleans has terminated favourably to this country. Instead of being obliged to rely any longer on the force of treaties, for a place of deposit, the jurisdiction of the territory is now transferred to our hands and in future the navigation of the Mississippi will be ours unmolested. This, it will be allowed is an important acquisition, not, indeed, as territory, but as being essential to the peace and prosperity of our Western country, and as opening a free and valuable market to our commercial states. This purchase has been made during the period of Mr. Jefferson鈥檚 presidency, and, will, doubtless, give eclat to his administration. Every man, however, possessed of the least candour and reflection will readily acknowledge that the acquisition has been solely owing to a fortuitous concurrence of unforseen and unexpected circumstances, and not to any wise or vigorous measures on the part of the American government.

As soon as we experienced from Spain a direct infraction of an important article of our treaty, in withholding the deposit of New-Orleans, it afforded us justifiable cause of war, and authorised immediate hostilities. Sound policy unquestionably demanded of us to begin with a prompt, bold and vigorous resistance against the injustice: to seize the object at once; and having this vantage ground, should we have thought it advisable to terminate hostilities by a purchase, we might then have done it on almost our own terms. This course, however, was not adopted, and we were about to experience the fruits of our folly, when another nation has found it her interest to place the French Government in a situation substantially as favourable to our views and interests as those recommended by the federal party here, excepting indeed that we should probably have obtained the same object on better terms.

On the part of France the short interval of peace had been wasted in repeated and fruitless efforts to subjugate St. Domingo; and those means which were originally destined to the colonization of Louisiana, had been gradually exhausted by the unexpected difficulties of this ill-starred enterprize.

To the deadly climate of St. Domingo, and to the courage and obstinate resistance made by its black inhabitants are we indebted for the obstacles which delayed the colonization of Louisiana, till the auspicious moment, when a rupture between England and France gave a new turn to the projects of the latter, and destroyed at once all her schemes as to this favourite object of her ambition.

It was made known to Bonaparte, that among the first objects of England would be the seizure of New-Orleans, and that preparations were even then in a state of forwardness for that purpose. The First Consul could not doubt, that if an English fleet was sent thither, the place must fall without resistance; it was obvious, therefore, that it would be in every shape preferable that it should be placed in the possession of a neutral power; and when, besides, some millions of money, of which he was extremely in want, were offered him, to part with what he could no longer hold it affords a moral certainty, that it was to an accidental state of circumstances, and not to wise plans, that this cession, at this time, has been owing. We shall venture to add, that neither of the ministers through whose instrumentality it was effected, will ever deny this, or even pretend that previous to the time when a rupture was believed to be inevitable, there was the smallest chance of inducing the First Consul, with his ambitious and aggrandizing views, to commute the territory for any sum of money in their power to offer. The real truth is, Bonaparte found himself absolutely compelled by situation, to relinquish his darling plan of colonising the banks of the Mississippi: and thus have the Government of the United States, by the unforseen operation of events, gained what the feebleness and pusillanimity of its miserable system of measures could never have acquired. Let us then, with all due humility, acknowledge this as another of those signal instances of the kind interpositions of an over-ruling Providence, which we more especially experienced during our revolutionary war, & by which we have more than once, been saved from the consequences of our errors and perverseness.

We are certainly not disposed to lessen the importance of this acquisition to the country, but it is proper that the public should be correctly informed of its real value and extent as well as of the terms on which it has been acquired. We perceive by the newspapers that various & very vague opinions are entertained; and we shall therefore, venture to state our ideas with some precision as to the territory; but until the instrument of cession itself is published, we do not think it prudent to say much as to the conditions on which it has been obtained.

Prior to the treaty of Paris 1763, France claimed the country on both sides of the river under the name of Louisiana, and it was her encroachments on the rear of the British Colonies which gave rise to the war of 1755. By the conclusion of the treaty of 1763, the limits of the colonies of Great Britain and France were clearly and permanently fixed; and it is from that and subsequent treaties that we are to ascertain what territory is really comprehended under the name of Louisiana. France ceded to Great-Britain all the country east and south-east of a line drawn along the middle of the Mississippi from its source to the Iberville, and from thence along that river and the Lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain to the sea; France retaining the country lying west of the river, besides the town and Island of New-Orleans on the east side. This she soon after ceded to Spain who acquiring also the Floridas by the treaty of 1783, France was entirely shut out from the continent of North America. Spain, at the instance of Bonaparte, ceded to him Louisiana, including the Town and Island (as it is commonly called) of New-Orleans. Bonaparte has now ceded the same tract of country, and this only, to the United States. The whole of East and West-Florida, lying south of Georgia and of the Mississippi Territory, and extending to the Gulf of Mexico, still remains to Spain, who will continue, therefore, to occupy, as formerly, the country along the southern frontier of the United States, and the cast bank of the river, from the Iberville to the American line.

Those disposed to magnify its value will say, that this western region is important as keeping off a troublesome neighbour, and leaving us in the quiet possession of the Mississippi. Undoubtedly this has some force, but on the other hand it may be said, that the acquisition of New-Orleans is perfectly adequate to every purpose; for whoever is in possession of that, has the uncontrouled command of the river. Again, it may be said, and this probably is the most favourable point of view in which it can be placed, that although not valuable to the United States for settlement, it is so to Spain, and will become more so, and therefore at some distant period will form an object which we may barter with her for the Floridas, obviously of far greater value to us than all the immense, undefined region west of the river.

It has been usual for the American writers on this subject to include the Floridas in their ideas of Louisiana, as the French formerly did, and the acquisition has derived no inconsiderable portion of its value and importance with the public from this view of it. It may, however, be relied on, that no part of the Floridas, not a foot of land on the east of the Mississippi, excepting New-Orleans, falls within the present cession. As to the unbounded region west of the Mississippi, it is, with the exception of a very few settlements of Spaniards and Frenchmen bordering on the banks of the river, a wilderness through which wander numerous tribes of Indians. And when we consider the present extent of the United States, and that not one sixteenth part of its territory is yet under occupation, the advantage of the acquisition, as it relates to actual settlement, appears too distant and remote to strike the mind of a sober politician with much force. This, therefore, can only rest in speculation for many years, if not centuries to come, and consequently will not perhaps be allowed very great weight in the account by the majority of readers. But it may be added, that should our own citizens, more enterprizing than wise, become desirous of settling this country, and emigrate thither, it must not only be attended with all the injuries of a too widely dispersed population, but by adding to the great weight of the western part of our territory, must hasten the dismemberment of a large portion of our country, or a dissolution of the Government. On the whole, we think it may with candor be said, that whether the possession at this time of any territory west of the river Mississippi will be advantageous, is at best extremely problematical. For ourselves, we are very much inclined to the opinion, that after all, it is the Island of N. Orleans by which the command of a free navigation of the Mississippi is secured, that gives to this interesting cession, its greatest value, and will render it in every view of immense benefit to our country. By this cession we hereafter shall hold within our own grasp, what we have heretofore enjoyed only by the uncertain tenure of a treaty, which might be broken at the pleasure of another, and (governed as we now are) with perfect impunity. Provided therefore we have not purchased it too dear, there is all the reason for exultation which the friends of the administration display, and which all Americans may be allowed to feel.

As to the pecuniary value of the bargain; we know not enough of the particulars to pronounce upon it. It is understood generally, that we are to assume debts of France to our own citizens not exceeding four millions of dollars; and that for the remainder, being a very large sum, 6 per cent stock to be created, and payment made in that. But should it contain no conditions or stipulations on our part, no 鈥渢angling alliances鈥� of all things to be dreaded, we shall be very much inclined to regard it in a favorable point of view though it should turn out to be what may be called a costly purchase. By the way a question here presents itself of some little moment: Mr. Jefferson in that part of his famous electioneering message, where he took so much pains to present a flattering state of the Treasury in so few words that every man could carry it in his noddle and repeat it at the poll, tells us, that 鈥渆xperience too so far authorises us to believe, if no extraordinary event supervenes, and the expences which will be actually incurred shall not be greater than was contemplated by Congress at their last session, that we shall not be disappointed in the expectations formed鈥� that the debt would soon be paid, &c. &c. But the first and only measure of the administration that has really been of any material service to the country (for they have hitherto gone on the strength of the provisions made by their predecessors) is really 鈥�an extraordinary event,鈥� and calls for more money than they have got. According to Mr. Gallatin鈥檚 report, they had about 40.000 to spare for contingencies, and now the first 鈥�extraordinary event鈥� that 鈥�supervenes鈥� calls upon them for several millions. What a poor starvling system of administering a government! But how is the money to be had? Not by taxing luxury and wealth and whiskey, but by increasing the taxes on the necessaries of life. Let this be remembered.

But we are exceeding our allowable limits. It may be satisfactory to our readers, that we should finish with a concise account of New-Orleans itself.

The Island of New-Orleans is in length about 150 miles; its breadth varies from 10 to 30 miles. Most of it is a marshy swamp, periodically inundated by the river. The town of New-Orleans, situated about 105 miles from the mouth of the river, contains near 1300 houses, and about 8000 inhabitants, chiefly Spanish and French. It is defended from the overflowings of the river, by an embankment, or 濒别惫别茅, which extends near 50 miles.

The rights of the present proprietors of real estate in New-Orleans and Louisiana, whether acquired by descent or by purchase, will, of course, remain undisturbed. How they are to be governed is another question; whether as a colony, or to be formed into an integral part of the United States, is a subject which will claim consideration hereafter. The probable consequences of this cession, and the ultimate effect it is likely to produce on the political state of our country, will furnish abundant matter of speculation to the American statesman.

If reliance can be placed on the history given of the negotiation of Louisiana in private letters, from persons of respectability residing at Paris, and who speak with confidence, the merit of it, after making due allowance for the great events which have borne it along with them, is due to our ambassador, Chancellor Livingston, and not to the Envoy Extraordinary. 鈥淭he cession was voted in the Council of State on the 8th of April, and Mr. Munroe did not even arrive till the 12th.鈥滼udging from Mr. Munroe’s former communications to the French Government on this subject, we really cannot but regard it as fortunate, that the thing was concluded before he reached St. Cloud.

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Thus the larger question of how the British and colonial heritage fits into the American story is covered only briefly (Documents 1鈥�2). Of considerable importance in this brief account is that the rights included in the Massachusetts Body of Liberties (1641) are, numerically, more significant than those found in Magna Carta (1215) and the English Bill of Rights (1689). And so too are the rights enumerated in the Maryland Toleration Acts. We include these two colonial documents to remind the reader that Americans were concerned about rights, especially religious rights, even before the founding era of 1776鈥�1791. Three rights are unanimously represented in all the state constitutions: the right of conscience/free exercise of religion; the right to have one鈥檚 case heard by a local impartial jury; and the due process rights of the common law. The framers of the new state documents decided these last rights were no longer secure under the traditional governmental arrangements. We consider it significant that the new states declared themselves to be republican and that the purpose of a republican government was to secure rights.

Seven states attached a prefatory declaration of rights to the frame of government: Virginia (June 1776), Delaware (September 1776), Pennsylvania (September 1776), Maryland (November 1776), North Carolina (December 1776), Massachusetts (March 1780), and New Hampshire (June 1784). These declarations were, in effect, a preamble stating the purposes for which the people had chosen the particular form of government. There was a remarkable uniformity among the seven states with regard to the kinds of civil and criminal rights they sought to secure.

Four states decided not to preface their republican constitutions with a declaration of rights: New Jersey (July 1776), Georgia (February 1777), New York (April 1777), and South Carolina (March 1778). Nevertheless, each incorporated individual protections in their constitutions.

Virginia entered unfamiliar territory with the disestablishment of the Anglican Church in 1779. Nevertheless, there were two competing models to which legislators could turn. The Massachusetts model endorsed the establishment of the Christian Protestant religion and, to that end, the legislature was constitutionally mandated to tax inhabitants for the support of public religious instruction. The taxpayer, nevertheless, was free to name the specific religion that was to receive the assessment. On the other hand, the Pennsylvania model warned that such taxation threatened the right of an individual to the free exercise of religion. In December 1784, the Virginia Assembly considered an assessment bill, consistent with the Massachusetts model, that would financially support the propagation of Christianity as the state religion. James Madison objected. The author of a protest addressed to the Virginia Assembly (Document 7), Madison urged the legislators to reject the proposed legislation. In the process, Madison pushed the national conversation even further in the direction of individual free exercise of religion and away from community-endorsed religion. The practical manifestation of Madison鈥檚 efforts was the Virginia Assembly鈥檚 adoption in 1785 of Jefferson鈥檚 Statute of Religious Liberty introduced in 1779. The Virginia Senate passed the statute in January 1786. It is also important to note how these rights made their way into the Northwest Ordinance (Document 8).

A year after the passage of the Virginia statute at the Constitutional Convention (May to September 1787), the first of George Mason鈥檚 ten objections to the Constitution began: 鈥淭here is no declaration of rights鈥� (Document 9). In particular, 鈥渢here is no declaration of any kind for preserving liberty of the press, the trial by jury in civil cases, nor against the danger of standing armies in times of peace.鈥� Mason鈥檚 position was that a federal bill of rights was both imperative and valuable. He was concerned that Congress might abuse the supremacy and the necessary and proper clauses of the Constitution (Articles 6 and 1, section 8, respectively). The supremacy clause made federal laws 鈥減aramount to the laws and constitutions of the several states.鈥� Thus, 鈥渢he declaration of rights, in the separate states, are of no security.鈥� The necessary and proper clause enabled Congress to 鈥済rant monopolies in trade and commerce, constitute new crimes, inflict unusual and severe punishments, and extend their power as far as they should think proper.鈥�

Throughout the nine-month ratification campaign, proponents of the Constitution defended the absence of a bill of rights. James Wilson鈥檚 State House Speech (Document 10), delivered in Philadelphia three weeks after the Constitutional Convention adjourned, articulated what came to be known as the Federalist position: a bill of rights is unnecessary and dangerous. Wilson argued that at the state level, a bill of rights was necessary and salutary because 鈥渆verything which is not reserved, is given,鈥� but 鈥渟uperfluous and absurd鈥� at the federal level because 鈥渆verything which is not given, is reserved.鈥� Wilson鈥檚 speech became the foil for the Antifederalist opposition literature in the fall of 1787 (Documents 11鈥�15). Near the end of the ratification campaign, Federalist 84 (Document 19) repeated Wilson鈥檚 insistence that a republican form of government had no need for a bill of rights because such bills 鈥渁re, in their origin, stipulations between kings and their subjects, abridgments of prerogative in favor of privilege, reservations of rights not surrendered to the prince.鈥�

By early January 1788, the ratifying conventions in Delaware (voting 30鈥�0), Pennsylvania (46鈥�23), New Jersey (38鈥�0), Georgia (26鈥�0), and Connecticut (128颅鈥�40) had ratified the Constitution. The report issued by the twenty-three Pennsylvania opponents had a considerable impact on the subsequent campaign (Document 15). The report proposed two different kinds of amendments. On the one hand, the minority called for amendments that would re-establish the principles of the Articles of Confederation. These were unfriendly to the Constitution. On the other hand, they proposed that a declaration of rights be annexed to the Constitution. These were friendly amendments. What became听 drafts of the first, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth amendments to the Constitution were included in their list, although the origin of these amendments can be traced to colonial documents and state constitutions.

The fate of the Constitution was determined in the Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Virginia, and New York ratifying conventions in the first half of 1788. Antifederalist literature in the fall of 1787 had had an adverse effect on the campaign for ratification. A compromise鈥斺�渞atify now, amend later鈥濃�攚as needed in each of these four states to secure ratification (Documents 17鈥�18). In Massachusetts, ten delegates switched their votes and a 187鈥�168 majority ratified the Constitution. A switch of five votes ensured ratification in both New Hampshire (57鈥�47) and Virginia (89鈥�79). In New York, the Antifederalists outnumbered the Federalists by a margin of 46鈥�19 going into the convention; but in the end, the Constitution was ratified by a vote of 30鈥�27.

The Antifederalist opposition and friends of the Constitution made two different kinds of recommendations. First, some called for an alteration in the very structure and powers of the new federal government. Second, others sought to protect the rights of individuals with respect to the federal government. All nine of Massachusetts鈥檚 recommendations are of the first kind. New Hampshire was the first to add a brief declaration of the rights of citizens to the list of amendments. In Virginia and New York, the two kinds of amendments were explicitly separated.

With the ratification of the Constitution, James Madison (1751鈥�1836), who had done so much to bring it into existence,^[1] supported the adoption of a bill of rights, while objecting to amendments that would radically alter the new government鈥檚 structure and power (Document 22). He did so for both theoretical and prudential reasons. Madison distanced himself from Wilson鈥檚 argument that a bill of rights might be dangerous as well as unnecessary. He overcame the danger of listing rights鈥攖he list might be seen as definitive and thus limit the rights of citizens rather than protect them鈥攂y declaring that the enumeration 鈥渙f certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.鈥� This eventually became the Ninth Amendment and is a wholly Madison contribution. The prudential reasons included conciliating 鈥渉onorable and patriotic鈥� opponents who wanted to 鈥渞evise鈥� the Constitution by including a bill of rights and defeating the call for a second convention that would 鈥渁bolish鈥� the Constitution (Document 21). He saw the First Congress as the 鈥減roper mode鈥� to accomplish the objective of revision. What joined together the theoretical and prudential reasons was that Madison did not want a second convention to take place.

The correspondence between Madison in the United States and Thomas Jefferson in Paris is a critical part of the story of the adoption of the Bill of Rights, from the signing of the Constitution through the ratification campaign and into the First Congress (Documents 16, 20, and 21). In his October 24, 1788 letter, Madison summarized the political and ethical problem that was to be solved by the Constitution: 鈥淭o prevent instability and injustice in the legislation of the states.鈥� What Madison was able to achieve, he explained to Jefferson, was the creation of an extended republic that would secure the civil and religious rights of individuals from the danger of majority faction. Jefferson responded favorably toward the proposed Constitution two months later. He was troubled, however, by Wilson鈥檚 argument that a bill of rights was unnecessary. He reminded Madison that 鈥渁 bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular; and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.鈥� He listed six essential rights that should be declared: 鈥渇reedom of religion, freedom of the press, protection against standing armies, restriction of monopolies, the eternal and unremitting force of the habeas corpus laws, and trials by jury in all matters.鈥� Jefferson reiterated the importance of including his list of six rights upon being informed by Madison that the Constitution had been adopted.

In his first Inaugural Address (April 30, 1789), George Washington addressed only two particular issues: his compensation, which he declined, and Congress鈥� 鈥渆xercise of the occasional power delegated by the fifth article of the Constitution,鈥� the power to amend the Constitution. He asked that 鈥渨hilst you carefully avoid every alteration which might endanger the benefits of an united and effective government, a reverence for the characteristic rights of freemen will sufficiently influence your deliberations on the question, how far the former can be impregnably fortified or the latter be safely and advantageously promoted.鈥� Madison followed Washington鈥檚 recommendation of proposing a bill of rights that, at the same time, did not alter the work of the Constitutional Convention. That became Madison鈥檚 challenge in the First Congress (Document 22).

The House of Representatives debate on Madison鈥檚 propositions is not without irony (Document 23). Roger Sherman, arguably Madison鈥檚 leading and most persuasive opponent during the structural phase of the 1787 Philadelphia Convention, objected to Madison鈥檚 attempt to incorporate the bill of right additions 鈥渘eatly鈥� within the body of the Constitution. If the revisions are added as 鈥渟upplements,鈥� or amendments to the Constitution, argued Madison, 鈥渢hey will create unfavorable comparison鈥� with the original Constitution. Sherman, however, prevailed. The original work of the framers, he argued, should remain intact. Moreover, Sherman urged his colleagues to reject incorporating the Declaration of Independence into the Preamble: 鈥淭he words 鈥榃e the people,鈥� in the original Constitution, are as copious and expressive as possible; any addition will only drag out the sentence without illuminating it.鈥� On the other hand, Sherman proved to be an important ally in defeating the attempts of the South Carolina delegation to introduce amendments that would 鈥渃hange the principles of the government.鈥� The Senate reduced the number of amendment proposals from seventeen to twelve. In doing so, the Senate defeated Madison鈥檚 House-backed proposal to protect freedom of conscience and the press at the state and national levels, restricting the protection to the national level only. The Senate also combined the protection of conscience and the press into one amendment (Document 24). The Senate version was adopted, with slight revision, by the whole Congress and submitted as twelve amendments to the states for approval (Document 25). Ten were ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures (Document 26).

Very important from Madison鈥檚 perspective, Richard Henry Lee and William Grayson鈥攂oth radical Antifederalists and the only Antifederalists in the United States Senate鈥攚ere totally unsuccessful in their effort to move the power and structure of the Constitution back in the direction of the Articles of Confederation. They preferred this to adopting a bill of rights that would reinforce the idea that the Constitution was a limiting as well as an empowering document.

For his part, Madison was less than completely successful with his bill of rights proposals. Few members shared Madison鈥檚 urgent feeling that friendly alterations must be sent to the states by the end of the first session. The rights did not end up located in the Constitution where he wanted them to be. The number of rights was reduced from Madison鈥檚 original list (Document 22) and several clauses, the religion clauses in particular, underwent close scrutiny and major alteration. Madison鈥檚 attempt to have the states as well as the nation restrained in the area of conscience, press, and jury was defeated in the Senate. The Bill of Rights, as adopted, applied only to the federal government. So the appellation 鈥淔ather of the Bill of Rights鈥� ought to be cautiously used. Yet it is certainly true that Madison鈥檚 persistence was critical to twelve amendments being sent to the states for adoption by the end of the first session and, not coincidentally, for the subsequent adoption of the original Constitution by North Carolina and Rhode Island.

The adoption of the Bill of Rights was a mixture principle and politics.^[2] It did not just fall from the sky in one whole and intelligible form. True, the Bill of Rights incorporated much of the English common law and the colonial due process tradition, but it also shed much of this tradition鈥檚 feudal and monarchical features. Also, Americans between 1776 and 1791 appealed beyond their traditions to support freedom of conscience, free speech, and enhanced rights of due process of law.

Madison, known as 鈥渢he Father of the Constitution,鈥� is at the heart of our documentary account of the origin and politics of the Bill of Rights, from Virginia in 1776 to the First Congress in 1789. During this time, Madison鈥檚 position on the Bill of Rights changed, at least in part because of his relationship with Jefferson. To see the importance of this relationship, we must place it in the context of Virginia politics, which provide the bookends to the story of the Bill of Rights. George Mason wrote the Virginia Declaration of Rights in June 1776 (with Madison鈥檚 suggested alteration to the right of conscience clause). The Declaration of Rights was one influence on Jefferson as he wrote the Declaration of Independence. Mason also proposed to the Constitutional Convention that a bill of rights be adopted. Madison opposed Mason in the Convention on the issue. A few years later, in December 1791, Virginia finally adopted the Bill of Rights, with Madison as the leader of those favoring adoption and Mason in opposition. Why did Virginia start the process, take the lead in the debates, and then delay so long to ratify the Bill of Rights? The answer is an irreconcilable divide among Antifederalists. There were those who wanted to change fundamentally the new American system and those who were friendly to the Constitution. The latter wanted to restrain the new government with a bill of rights. Between 1787 and 1791, Mason became one of those who wanted fundamental change, while Madison, always a friend to the Constitution, became one of those willing to amend it by adding a bill of rights. He made this change with the help of Jefferson (Documents 16, 20鈥�22).

[1] See the companion volumes The American Founding: Core Documents (Ashland, Ohio: Ashbrook Press, 2017) and The Constitutional Convention: Core Documents (Ashland, Ohio: Ashbrook Press, 2018), both edited by Gordon Lloyd.

[2] . This letter, organized around seven themes, is a model of principled leadership at its best; it joins that which is necessary with that which is proper.

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This volume, however, is aimed at a different approach, as it aspires to study the presidency above and beyond the men who have been president. More precisely, this volume treats the presidency as an ongoing series of questions, questions about the president鈥檚 duty to defend the Constitution and execute the laws while at the same time leading and representing a changing constitutional democracy. Thus this volume treats the presidency as a dialogue among those who have made it. These persons include presidents, but they also include members of Congress and justices on the Supreme Court, as well as the intellectuals whose writings have shaped important changes to the office.

The volume adopts this approach because the presidency today continues to challenge analysis just as it continues to rise above biography as the best means of analysis. Does the president have the power to reclassify the immigration status of millions of persons? Can the president fire an independent counsel? What does it mean to say the president can decide whether there will be war or not? These questions are ripped from the headlines, but the headlines could be from this decade or any of several others.

This uncertainty over the length and breadth of the president鈥檚 power comes not only because the Constitution does not and cannot settle every political controversy, but also because the Constitution begins its own presentation of the presidency with a kind of puzzle. Article Two states, 鈥淭he executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.鈥� This presumes that there is a power or a set of powers that can be identified as executive even before there is a constitution. That means that either by nature or by custom, the executive power exists and can be identified. This is further suggested by the fact that Article One gives Congress only the legislative powers 鈥渉erein granted,鈥� that is, those specifically listed in the Constitution, presumably in Article One, Section 8. The problem, however, is that Article Two also goes on to list the powers given to the president in Section Two, leading many commentators to argue that Article Two should be read in the same way as Article One. Others argue that the Constitution intended the difference between Articles One and Two, and that this difference suggests that the president has all the executive power, while Congress only has those legislative powers herein granted.

This puzzle is only partially the result of the language of the text, because there is a deeper problem in designing the presidency. As the executive, the president鈥檚 job is to execute the laws. This is the first principle of separation of powers: he who makes laws cannot execute them. In the context of England, separation of powers was first and foremost a check on kingly power. In the context of the United States of the 1780鈥檚, however, separation of powers was accepted as an article of faith, but it was employed to be a check on legislative power. So the Framers of the Constitution made special effort not only to have a separate executive, but also an independent executive, that is, a president with his own electoral constituency and source of authority. But even with this innovation there remained an underlying feature of monarchical discretion. The person who executes the laws will also be the one to determine whether and when to execute the laws. Even if this does not mean the president has the power to make new law, it does reveal that the president as executive is not necessarily simply the enforcement arm of Congress. Rather, as Madison explains in Federalist No. 51, each department is given a 鈥渨ill of its own.鈥� With its own will, and with the unusual wording of the Vesting Clause at the beginning of Article Two, the presidency is an institution that forces serious reflection on what it means to live under the rule of law.

Each of the selections in this volume can be grouped with others and is meant to start a conversation about the presidency. Does the Constitution give the war power to the president or to Congress? Who elects presidents and whom do presidents represent? Can the president remove any executive branch official for any reason, or can Congress create offices that exist beyond the supervisory role of the Chief Executive? Does the Constitution give the president the power to break the law? These questions are enduring not only because we disagree about their answers but also because we disagree about how we should answer them, or rather about who should answer. This volume, then, is first and foremost an invitation to teachers and students to join the dialogue suggested by the documents. Rather than offering a series of precedents or important historical events, the documents offer opportunities for close study and will reward the instructor who can find the time for extended discussion.

It is important to note that my claim that these questions are enduring has some bearing on an important part of teaching the presidency. I have in mind the modern presidency. Several selections in this volume will invite students to reflect upon the emergence and importance of a modern presidency, but others will invite students to ask whether a deeper continuity is the more important story when it comes to the development of the presidency. That is, teachers and students should not take the modern presidency thesis for granted. Like other textbook accounts of the presidency, it has to be assessed in light of the evidence.

In closing, I am grateful to Allison Brosky, who transcribed these documents. Two anonymous readers for the press helped me decide which texts were important and pointed me to several that I had not considered. Sarah Morgan Smith and David Tucker were generous and clear in their editorial guidance. Finally, I want to thank the professors who taught me the presidency, including Michael Nelson at Rhodes College, Sid Milkis at Brandeis University, and Marc Landy and Bob Scigliano at Boston College. Thanks to these men, I have been thinking about these documents since 1992, and I hope it gives them some pleasure to see my own attempt to pull them into a single volume.

This publication was made possible through the support of a grant by the John 颅Templeton 颅Foundation. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the editors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the John Templeton Foundation.

[1]鈥塛oodrow Wilson, Constitutional Government in the United States (New York: Columbia University Press, 1908), 54.

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The act of Congress entitled 鈥淎n act to enforce the provisions of the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and for other purposes,鈥� approved April 20, A. D. 1871, being a law of extraordinary public importance, I consider it my duty to issue this my proclamation calling the attention of the people of the United States thereto, enjoining upon all good citizens, and especially upon all public officers, to be zealous in the enforcement thereof, and warning all persons to abstain from committing any of the acts thereby prohibited.

This law of Congress applies to all parts of the United States and will be enforced everywhere to the extent of the powers vested in the Executive. But inasmuch as the necessity therefore is well known to have been caused chiefly by persistent violations of the rights of citizens of the United States by combinations of lawless and disaffected persons in certain localities lately the theater of insurrection and military conflict, I do particularly exhort the people of those parts of the country to suppress all such combinations by their own voluntary efforts through the agency of local laws and to maintain the rights of all citizens of the United States and to secure to all such citizens the equal protection of the laws.

Fully sensible of the responsibility imposed upon the executive by the act of Congress to which public attention is now called, and reluctant to call into exercise any of the extraordinary powers thereby conferred upon me except in cases of imperative necessity, I do, nevertheless, deem it my duty to make known that I will not hesitate to exhaust the powers thus vested in the executive whenever and wherever it shall become necessary to do so for the purpose of securing to all citizens of the United States the peaceful enjoyment of the rights guaranteed to them by the Constitution and laws.

It is my earnest wish that peace and cheerful obedience to law may prevail throughout the land and that all traces of our late unhappy civil strife may be speedily removed. These ends can be easily reached by acquiescence in the results of the conflict, now written in our Constitution, and by the due and proper enforcement of equal, just, and impartial laws in every part of our country.

The failure of local communities to furnish such means for the attainment of results so earnestly desired imposes upon the National Government the duty of putting forth all its energies for the protection of its citizens of every race and color and for the restoration of peace and order throughout the entire country.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this 3d day of May, A. D. 1871, and of the Independence of the United States the ninety-fifth.

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Mr. Speaker, when a young woman graduates from college and starts looking for a job, she is likely to have a frustrating and even demeaning experience ahead of her. If she walks into an office for an interview, the first question she will be asked is, “Do you type?”

There is a calculated system of prejudice that lies unspoken behind that question. Why is it acceptable for women to be secretaries, librarians, and teachers, but totally unacceptable for them to be managers, administrators, doctors, lawyers, and Members of Congress?

The unspoken assumption is that women are different. They do not have executive ability, orderly minds, stability, leadership skills, and they are too emotional.

It has been observed before, that society for a long time discriminated against another minority, the blacks, on the same basis – that they were different and inferior. The happy little homemaker and the contented “old darkey” on the plantation were both produced by prejudice.

As a black person, I am no stranger to race prejudice. But the truth is that in the political world I have been far oftener discriminated against because I am a woman than because I am black.

Prejudice against blacks is becoming unacceptable although it will take years to eliminate it. But it is doomed because, slowly, white America is beginning to admit that it exists. Prejudice against women is still acceptable. There is very little understanding yet of the immorality involved in double pay scales and the classification of most of the better jobs as “for men only.”

More than half of the population of the United States is female. But women occupy only 2 percent of the managerial positions. They have not even reached the level of tokenism yet. No women sit on the AFL-CIO council¹ or Supreme Court. There have been only two women who have held Cabinet rank, and at present there are none. Only two women now hold ambassadorial rank in the diplomatic corps. In Congress, we are down to one Senator and 10 Representatives.

Considering that there are about 3 1/2 million more women in the United States than men, this situation is outrageous.

It is true that part of the problem has been that women have not been aggressive in demanding their rights. This was also true of the black population for many years. They submitted to oppression and even cooperated with it. Women have done the same thing. But now there is an awareness of this situation particularly among the younger segment of the population.

As in the field of equal rights for blacks, Spanish-Americans, the Indians, and other groups, laws will not change such deep-seated problems overnight. But they can be used to provide protection for those who are most abused, and to begin the process of evolutionary change by compelling the insensitive majority to reexamine its unconscious attitudes.

It is for this reason that I wish to introduce today a proposal that has been before every Congress for the last forty years and that sooner or later must become part of the basic law of the land – the equal rights amendment.

Let me note and try to refute two of the commonest arguments that are offered against this amendment. One is that women are already protected under the law and do not need legislation. Existing laws are not adequate to secure equal rights for women. Sufficient proof of this is the concentration of women in lower paying, menial, unrewarding jobs and their incredible scarcity in the upper level jobs. If women are already equal, why is it such an event whenever one happens to be elected to Congress?

It is obvious that discrimination exists. Women do not have the opportunities that men do. And women that do not conform to the system, who try to break with the accepted patterns, are stigmatized as “odd” and “unfeminine.” The fact is that a woman who aspires to be chairman of the board, or a Member of the House, does so for exactly the same reasons as any man. Basically, these are that she thinks she can do the job and she wants to try.

A second argument often heard against the equal rights amendment is that it would eliminate legislation that many States and the Federal Government have enacted giving special protection to women and that it would throw the marriage and divorce laws into chaos.

As for the marriage laws, they are due for a sweeping reform, and an excellent beginning would be to wipe the existing ones off the books. Regarding special protection for working women, I cannot understand why it should be needed. Women need no protection that men do not need. What we need are laws to protect working people, to guarantee them fair pay, safe working conditions, protection against sickness and layoffs, and provision for dignified, comfortable retirement. Men and women need these things equally. That one sex needs protection more than the other is a male supremacist myth as ridiculous and unworthy of respect as the white supremacist myths that society is trying to cure itself of at this time.

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The notion that men and women stand as equals before the law was not the original understanding, nor was it the understanding of the Congress that framed the Civil War amendments. . . .

Mid-nineteenth century feminists, many of them diligent workers in the cause of abolition, looked to Congress after the Civil War for an express guarantee of equal rights for men and women.¹ But the text of the Fourteenth Amendment appalled the proponents of a sex equality guarantee. Their concern centered on the abortive second section of the amendment, which placed in the Constitution for the first time, the word “male.” Threefold use of the word “male,” always in conjunction with the term “citizen,” caused concern that the grand phrases of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment – due process and equal protection of the laws – would have, at best, qualified application to women.

After close to a century’s effort, the suffrage amendment was ratified, according to female citizens the right to vote. The most vigorous proponents of that amendment saw it as a beginning, not as a terminal point. Three years after the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, the National Women’s Party succeeded in putting before Congress the equal rights amendment that has been reintroduced in every Congress since 1923. . . .

Persons unacquainted with the history of the amendment deplore its generality and the absence of investigation concerning its impact. The models of the due process and equal protection clauses should suffice to indicate that the wording of the amendment is a thoroughly responsible way of embodying fundamental principle in the Constitution. Before the amendment was proposed, the National Women’s Party, with the aid of a staff of lawyers and expert consultants, tabulated state and federal legislation and court decisions relating to the status of women. Advisory councils were formed, composed of different economic and professional groups of women – industrial workers, homemakers, teachers and students, federal employees. Each council conducted studies of the desirability of equal rights and responsibilities for men and women. Reading debates on the amendment in the law journals of the 1920s is enlightening. The objections still voiced in 1973 were solidly answered then.

Opponents of the amendment suggest the pursuit of alternate routes: particularized statutes through the regular legislative process in Congress and in the states, and test case litigation under the Fourteenth Amendment. Only those who have failed to learn the lessons of the past can accept that counsel. . . .

. . . A recent government computer search, the solicitor general told the Supreme Court this term, revealed that 876 sections in the United States Code contain sex-based references. Similar searches in some of the states have turned up hundreds of state statutes in need of revision.

Will major legislative revision occur without the impetus of the equal rights amendment? Probably not if past experience is an accurate barometer. . . .

A preview of the kind of revision that can be expected under the stimulus of the amendment has been provided by legislative analyses in some of the states. These analyses should reassure those who fear intolerable change in the wake of the amendment. They propose extension of desirable protection to both sexes; for example, state minimum wage laws would be extended to men; in no case do they propose depriving either sex of a genuine benefit now enjoyed.

As a sample of laws destined for the scrap heap if the amendment is ratified, consider these: Arizona law stipulates that the governor, secretary of state, and treasurer must be male. In Ohio only men may serve as arbitrators in county court proceedings. In Wisconsin barbers are licensed to cut men’s hair and women’s hair, but cosmeticians may attend to women only. Georgia law, still faithful to Blackstone, provides:

The husband is head of the family and the wife is subject to him; her legal civil existence is merged in the husband’s, except so far as the law recognizes her separately, either for her own protection, or for her benefit, or for the preservation of public order.

Another embarrassment from the same state reads: “Any charge or intimation against a white female of having sexual intercourse with a person of color is slanderous without proof of special damages.” Legislative inertia keeps laws of this kind on the books. Prof. Thomas Emerson summarized the situation this way: “It is not a weakness but a strength of the amendment that it will force prompt consideration of changes that are long overdue.” . . .

In the 1971 term, a new direction was signaled when the Supreme Court responded affirmatively to two complaints of unconstitutional sex discrimination. In Reed v. Reed, 404 U.S. 71 (1971), the Court . . . relied on the due process clause to hold that an unwed father who wished to retain custody of his children had to be given a hearing of the kind that would be accorded to any mother or any married father. The opinions in both cases were laconic; they provided an uncertain basis for predicting the Court’s future course.

On May 14, 1973, in Frontiero v. Richardson, 411 U.S. 677, the Court moved forward more swiftly than many had anticipated; in effect, it served notice that sex discrimination by law would no longer escape rigorous constitutional review. . . .

. . . If the equal rights amendment is adopted, the hard task of revision will be undertaken in earnest; absent ratification, comprehensive revision may continue to be regarded as “premature and unnecessary.”

Reasoned appraisal of the amendment requires consideration of the realities of life for an increasing population of women in the latter half of the twentieth century. . . . [O]ver the last fifty years the percentage of working women in the population has approximately doubled, and the projection is that this trend will accelerate. . . .

With the disappearance of home-centered economic activity, and the possibility now open to women to determine whether and when to bear children, perceptive persons of both sexes recognize that there is no justification for confining women to a role of their own.

Some aspects of the traditional arrangement disfavor men, and some exact a toll from both sexes. Women who have paid serious attention to laws that appear to disfavor men agree with the position stated by Sarah Grimke, noted abolitionist and advocate of equal rights for men and women. She said in 1837: “I ask no favors for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.” Favors rarely come without an accompanying detriment. Too often men of the law fail to grasp this basic point.

A number of “horribles” have been raised in opposition to the amendment. Four of them dominate the literature of amendment opponents.

First horrible. Women will lose the benefit of protective labor laws. Today, challenges to these laws rarely emanate from male employers who wish to overwork women. Since the passage of Title VII,² they have come overwhelmingly from blue-collar working women to overcome what they regard as a system that protects them against higher paying jobs and promotions. In the vast majority of Title VII employment discriminations cases, courts have understood these challenges. Legislatures are beginning to abandon disingenuous protection for women and to extend genuine protection to all workers. Models are ample. In Norway, for example, where opposition to “special protection for women only” came predominantly from women’s organizations, a 1956 workers protective act assures safe and healthy conditions for employees of both sexes. Moreover, extension rather than invalidation of laws that benefit only one sex is a route recently traveled by the Supreme Court. In Frontiers v. Richardson, fringe benefits for married male members of the military were extended to married female members. The National Women’s Party put it this way decades ago in 1926: protective legislation that is desirable

Should be enacted for all workers. . . . Legislation that in-cludes women but exempts men . . . limits the woman worker’s scope of activity . . . by barring her from econ-omic opportunity. Moreover, restrictive conditions [for women but not for men] fortifies the harmful assump-tions that labor for pay is primarily the prerogative of the male.

Second horrible. Wives will lose the right to support. Only if our legislatures or courts act capriciously, spitefully, without regard for the public welfare, and in flagrant disregard of the intent of the Amendment’s proponents. In a growing number of states the equal rights amendment will occasion no change whatever in current support law. In these states, and under the amendment in all states, either husband or wife can be awarded support depending on the couple’s circumstances. Who pays in any particular family will depend upon the division of responsibilities within that family unit. If one spouse is the breadwinner and the other performs uncompensated services at home, the breadwinning spouse will be required to support the spouse who works at home.

Underlying the amendment is the premise that a person who works at home should do so because she, or he, wants to, not because of an unarticulated belief that there is no choice. The essential point, sadly ignored by the amendment’s detractors, is this: the equal rights amendment does not force anyone happy as a housewife to relinquish that role. On the contrary, it enhances that role by making it plain that it was chosen, not thrust on her without regard to preference.

Third horrible. Women will be forced to serve in the military. Only if men are, and assignments would be made on the basis of the individual capacity rather than sex. With the draft terminated, it is high time for consideration of the other side of that coin. Women who wish to enlist must meet considerably higher standards than men; women in service are denied fringe benefits granted men and do not receive equal vocational training opportunities. The reason for higher standards for women was given by an Air Force colonel in a deposition taken in December, 1972. He explained: “We have had and we continue to have roughly twice as many women apply[ing] as we are able to . . . take. . . . We don’t have an excess of men over what we can take.”

Young women’s groups uniformly testified during congressional hearings on the amendment that they did not wish exemption from responsibility for service. Conspicuous among these groups was the 200,000 member Intercollegiate Association of Women Students, a group appropriately characterized as “middle American.”

In 1948, long before women and the military became an emotion-charged issue in connection with the equal rights amendment, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower observed:

Like most old soldiers I was violently against women sol-diers. I thought a tremendous number of difficulties would occur, not only of an administrative nature . . . but others of a more personal type that would get us into trouble. None of that occurred. . . . In the disciplinary field, they were . . . a model for the Army. More than this their influence throughout the whole command was good. I am convinced that in another war they have got to be drafted just like the men.

Final horrible. Rest rooms in public places could not be sex separated. Emphatically not so, according to the amendment’s proponents in Congress, who were amused at the focus on the “potty problem.” Apart from referring to the constitutional regard for personal privacy, they expressed curiosity about the quarter from which objections to current arrangements would come. Did the people who voiced concern suppose that men would want to use women’s rest rooms or that women would want to use men’s? In any event, the clever solution devised by the airlines suggests one way out of the problem.

Some people have expressed fear of a “flood of litigation” in the wake of the equal rights amendment. But the dramatic increase in sex discrimination litigation under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments in the 1970s is indicative that, if anything, ratification of the amendment will stem the tide. The amendment will impel the comprehensive legislative revision that neither Congress nor the states have undertaken to date. The absence of long overdue statutory revision is generating cases by the hundreds across the country. Legislatures remain quiescent despite the mounting judicial challenges, challenges given further impetus by the Supreme Court’s decision in Frontiero v. Richardson. Ratification of the amendment, however, would plainly mark as irresponsible any legislature that did not undertake the necessary repairs during the two-year period between ratification and effective date.

To date, three fifths of the states have ratified the amendment; these thirty states represent a clear majority of the country’s population. One state, Nebraska, has attempted to withdraw its ratification. But New Jersey and Ohio took the same action with respect to the Fourteenth Amendment, and New York ratified and then withdrew its ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment. Congress at that time evidently concluded that ratification, once accomplished, could not be undone. New Jersey and Ohio counted to constitute the requisite three fourths for promulgation of the Fourteenth Amendment. New York was counted among the states that ratified the Fifteenth Amendment.

The equal rights amendment, in sum, would dedicate the nation to a new view of the rights and responsibilities of men and women. It firmly rejects sharp legislative lines between the sexes as constitutionally tolerable. Instead, it looks toward a legal system in which each person will be judged on the basis of individual merit and not on the basis of an unalterable trait of birth that bears no necessary relationship to need or ability. As the Federal Legislation Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York explained:

[T]he Amendment would eliminate patent discrim-ination, including all laws which prohibit or discourage women from making full use of their political and economic capabilities on the strength of notions about the proper “role” for women in society. Any special exemptions or other favorable treatment required by some women because of their physical stature or family roles could be preserved by statutes which utilize those factors – rather than sex – as the basis for distinction.

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