Carl Schurz

“ Once a federal judge, no power on earth, save a revolution, can remove him. There is, then, a department of the general government originating in the appointing power of the general government itself; irresponsible to the people; for their terms of office end only with their lives; irresponsible under the constitution, for they decide for themselves what the constitution is. Where is, then, the security of our rights? Where the guaranty of our liberties? ”

“ Sir, I have heard that argument before I landed upon the shores of this Republic. I have heard this claim set up against all liberal aspirations in the old world; against every attempt of the people to throw off the shackles of despotism. And, sir, it fills my soul with sinister misgivings when in the very bosom of this republic, I see them instill into the hearts of the people that superstitious belief in the necessity of a strong central government.
People are but to apt to take a childish pleasure in the great actions of state, performed on the boards of our general government. ”

“ How can it respect the rights of man, which are in direct contradiction to its very essence? How can it respect the freedom of public opinion, which pronounces against it? How can it respect the fundamental liberties of the people which are an obstacle in the way of its aspirations? How can it respect the spirit of the Constitution, which is hostile to its pretensions? How can it respect the constitutional limits of the powers of the general government, which impedes the execution of its plans? ”

“ But that surrender of rights and those grants of power must not transcend the limits set my that general principle. All surrenders of rights and all grants of power beyond those limits are concessions to despotism. — All assumptions of power beyond those limits are usurpation. Hence the true source of sovereignty is not in society, as the aggregate of individuals, but in the individuals who in the aggregate constitute the people. ”

“ Look over the annals of the world and then tell me, is it not true, that the cruellest tyranny and the bloodiest revolutions would hardly have disgraced the history of mankind if nations had not submitted and acquiesced when it was time to resist? The advocates of submission when there was to be resistance; the advocates of peace, when war was necessary, have to answer for seas of blood and tears. They were a greater scourge to humanity than all those warlike adventurers whose glory consisted in the number of their slain, and whose immortality is measured by the extent of their devastations. ”

“ May I never behold the day when the people of this country, setting on the ruins of their greatness, their hearts full of grief and sorrow, will, with wistful eyes, look back on times gone by, and scrutinize the pages of their history, and say: — here we ought to have resisted, and there we ought to have stood firm and so we ought to have stemmed the current of centralizing power, and all would be well now! ”

“ Oh sir, I have spent many a midnight hour over the awful problem, how human liberty can be brought in accordance with the strictest order of the social machinery; how the conspiracies of lurking despotism can be disarmed without a struggle and the rights of man be placed above all dangers of collision and conflicts. ”

“ And here, sir, I touch one of the sorest points of our national polity. The Federal Judiciary is an anomaly in our Constitutional system. It is the only branch of our general government which stands above all responsibility. Our Presidents, our Senators and our Representatives are responsible to their constituents. They are tried in the Supreme Court of public opinion! But where is the tribunal to which the federal judiciary have to answer for their official acts? It is true they are subject to impeachment, but for what? For treason, bribery and other high crimes, and misdemeanors. ”

“ The protection of the natural rights of man is the principal aim and end of all political organizations. Civil liberty can be no other than natural; that is, absolute liberty, so far restrained by human laws, as is necessary for the protection of the liberty and rights of the other members of society. This is the fundamental principle upon which our social compact rests. It means nothing but a mutual guaranty of the enjoyment of equal rights. Whatever may be said of the obligations of individual man to society and of society to the individuals — this principle covers it all. ”

“ They already like too much to see their servants appear in a gorgeous outfit of power and act the great and mighty. Take care not to make them forget that the principal guaranty of their rights, their liberties, their security, their welfare and their greatness does not not consist in a splendid representation, but in that dismemberment of political authority which keeps the power near the original source of sovereignty; a system which is modest in its outward appearance, but renders governments weak in doing mischief, and the people strong in doing good. ”

“ When the federal administration shall again attack the fundamental liberties of our people and the rights of our State, Mr. Lynde will hardly have firmness enough to defend them, but he will have ability enough to form an excuse for deserting them. — When the tide of encroaching usurpation shall again dash against us, he will hardly find in his soul strength enough to resist, but in his store of precedents and authorities, he will find material enough to justify his submission. Such are not the men for times like these. ”

“ Sir, whenever political life is regulated by constitutional forms, and by that infinite ramification of power, called self-government there can be no uniformity and regularity of movements, like that of a clock. ”

“ Aye, northern men were put to shame by slave-holders who, like the gallant Kentuckian, did not suffer their generous impulses to be stifled by their education, and their interests, and we had the deep mortification to see even one of the giant minds of the Free States, in an evil hour, pluck down his laurels leaf by leaf, and prostrating himself before the ruling power, make humble bids for southern favor. ”

“ People of Wisconsin, we have come to a point where it is loyalty to resist, and treason to submit. You have to choose between reformation and revolution! You shrink back from revolution? Then do not forget, that the straightest way to revolution is macadamized with submission and acquiescence.
Sir, it is a common thing to see man quail before great responsibilities. This is one of the weaknesses of human nature, but that weakness has been the source of the greatest calamities which ever befell the nations of the earth. ”

“ We had supposed that within the boundaries of these States the humblest human being was entitled to a trial by jury, but we are told that the laws of the State are not in existence for a man, whom some slave holder may, with or without right, claim as his property. — We had supposed that the States might perform the duty to deliver up fugitives, as the constitution has imposed it upon them, according to their own forms of justice, but we are told that the judicial satraps whom they have set over us, may sneer at the Statue authorities and whip them in according to their sovereign notions. ”

“ Revolution or reformation is his alternative. Sir, the people will have to resort to revolution when it is too late for reform. But as long as reform is possible, it will be too early for revolution. Where is the possibility of reform? It is as a return to first principles. It is in a revival of the original spirit of the constitution; it is in strict construction. ”

“ The reason is that there are but few men whose convictions are not ruled by their sympathies, whether their sympathies have grown out of their education, their interests, or the nobler instincts of human nature. I do not hesitate to say that the different currents of argument which distinguish our political parties from each other have engendered in the minds of men, different systems of logic, which can hardly be brought into agreement. People almost cease to understand each other. Is not this the most charitable thing that can be said of our federal judges? ”

“ There is almost nothing left to be proud of, but the gallant independence of our Supreme Court; and the spirit of liberty, which caused the people to sustain them. — Will you sacrifice that also? Will you suffer the enemies of your liberties to nestle in your own citadel? ”

“ Give us the President and the Senate and the House, and still, there is a citadel of the slave power, and of all the usurping and despotic tendencies of governmental authority which cannot be carried by storm; there is an irresponsible branch of government unelected by and independent of the people, which sets itself up as the sovereign arbiter of the constitution, which claims exclusive authority to decide what powers the States have delegated and what powers they have reserved ”

“ They are apt to forget, that an assumed power to do good, in most cases implies an assumption of power to do evil. And when that restriction is once disregarded, when that limit of delegated authority is once overstepped, where are new limits to be found? Usurpation cannot defend and sustain itself but by new and repeated usurpation. Having originated in an unauthorized accumulation of power, it must try further to accumulate in order not to lose the store of authority already laid up. It never will, it never can stop of itself — it must be stopped by others.
Let us return to the constitution. ”

“ There is centralized authority in full play. There a function of government claiming to be supreme, removed from the original source of sovereignty to an unmeasurable distance, entrenched in irresponsibility, endeavoring gradually to absorb all the organized powers around it. Sir, it requires but little sagacity to discern the danger and to foresee the consequences. ”

“ This was the prevailing spirit of the times when the Federal compact was formed. It dictated all the provisions of the Constitution, which had any reference to the subject; without encroaching upon vested rights, the statesmen of that generation endeavored first to prevent the spread of the evil and then to cut its roots. The ordinance of 1787 was already there, excluding slavery from every foot of territory which the United States then possessed; and the first congress under the constitution solemnly affirmed it. ”

“ The masses had for a long time borne the burden of their wrongs, which they were suffering, not without resistance, but hardly aware that there was a remedy. Then the doctrines of the rights of man, incorporated in elaborate theories of government, broke upon them like a ray of sunshine. ”

“ If actuated by the very best of motives, they are apt to become impatient of the restrictions which prevent them from doing all that good they wish to do. Endeavoring to adapt the extent of their power to the extent of their purposes, however honest the latter may be, they will, unconsciously perhaps, overstep the limits of the authority delegated to them, and suddenly find themselves tearing down the guarantees which protect the vested rights of others. ”

“ Lynde is some ten or fifteen years older than he. — This is indeed a great misfortune, although it might be said in reply that Judge Story, when he ascended the Supreme Bench of the United States, was still younger. — Too young! It is a common thing, sir, that those speak most of age and experience, who with age will never acquire experience. To measure a man's wisdom by the number of his years, would be just as reasonable as to measure the greatness of an orator by the length of his speeches. ”

“ Whenever the responsible branches of government may hesitate to venture upon an act of doubtful character, they will entrench themselves behind the irresponsible department and the latter may serve as a screen to the most glaring usurpations of authority. ”

“ They tell us “there must be a supreme authority, to which, everything else has to submit; your doctrine of co-ordinate powers and concurrent jurisdictions will incessantly bring forth collisions and conflicts.” Sir, that is the language held by the advocates of centralized authority and despotism throughout the world. There is but one form of government in which there are no collisions of co-ordinate authorities, no conflict of concurrent jurisdiction, and that is complete absolutism. ”

“ The subject presents itself to my mind in three different aspects: as a question of principle, a question of constitutional construction and a question of policy. I have often heard men sneer at general principles when applied to practical questions of policy. Our government, they say, has grown and developed itself out of facts, not out of abstractions; specious political theories are invented in order to give the results of history an artificial meaning and to befog the practical sense of the people. ”

“ Philosophers, in philanthropic dreams, built up ideal structures in which mankind was to dwell, and nothing could exceed the irresistible pathos with which human rights were asserted, and the subtle nicety with which they were defined. ”

“ I long to see descend to us that sublime order which reigns in regions above, where different solar systems rotate side by side, in eternal harmony, undisturbed even by the wanderings of the comet which draws its irregular lines across their spheres. ”

“ Well did the moral sense of the people rise in revolt from time to time, as in '40 and '48, but the politicians, greedy of the spoils or official honors, succeeded in debauching the political morals of the people again and again, and after short struggles, the slave power resumed the staff of command. ”

“ They speak of strict construction, while they permit the widest latitude to the slave power. They swear fealty to the constitution with all its compromises while they unceremoniously strike down the Missouri Compromise. They speak of popular sovereignty, while they try to force upon a people a slave constitution against their will. — They declaim of their tender love for the poor and landless, while they vote down the Homestead bill. ”

“ I hope the people have not lost all the wisdom of vigilance. Last year I had the honor to address the people of Chicago on a subject similar to this, and the leading ideas of my discourse were, that a democratic system of government cannot bear a direct contradiction between political principles and social institutions, and then, that an interest which is incompatible with a free expression of public opinion, cannot be compatible with a democratic form of government. ”

“ In that young man, sir, there is strength founded in conviction, there is calmness springing from peace of mind, there is firmness resting upon principle! That young man was born to stand like a rock, and power will have no awe for him. He is healthy in body and mind, sound, sound to the core! (Applause.) That is the material out of which judges are carved, who will protect in whatever danger there may arise, your rights, your property and your liberties! Citizens of Wisconsin! You have to choose. Our poor State has suffered much ”

“ The allurments of power are among the strongest temptations for the human soul, and there are but few men who, in the exercise of delegated authority, will never lose sight of the original rights of those that delegated it. ”

“ Do not tell me that the character of the judges and their exalted and independent position, will place them above the reach of common motives. Oh, sir, it has been said, and repeated, ten thousand times, that judges are but mortal men; very, very mortal in one respect, and sometimes, unfortunately, not quite mortal enough in another. But suppose the members of the federal judiciary were far above the average in purity and honesty, will that prevent them from erring? ”