Free States

“ Not only the cause of American liberty, but the grand cause of liberty throughout the whole earth, depends, in a great measure, on upholding the Constitution and Union of these States. If shattered and destroyed, no matter by what cause, the peculiar and cherished idea of United American Liberty will be no more for ever. There may be free states, it is possible, when there shall be separate states. There may be many loose, and feeble, and hostile confederacies, where there is now one great and united confederacy. ”

“ The great field of law which concerns the permanent relations of free states is not yet covered by a recognized science. Must there not therefore emerge from this conception of a universal and common law of nature and of nations, a third science of law, covering this field, which will take as its basal proposition the doctrine that free statehood is the normal and rightful condition of all communities on the earth's surface within suitable limits for the formation of a just public sentiment, and which will concern itself with the permanent relations between free states? ”

“ What shall we say of that government which has not power or inclination to insure the exercise of those solemn rights and immunities which it guarantees? To declare a man to be free, and equal with his fellow, and then to refrain from enacting laws powerful to insure him in such freedom and equality, is to trifle with the most sacred of all the functions of sovereignty. Have not the United States done this very thing? Have they not conferred freedom and the ballot, which are necessary the one to the other? ”

“ Let the asperities growing out of the controversy die with the controversy. All I ask is, that in future we recognize the right of the people of a Territory to form a Free State, or a Slave State, as they may choose, and come into the Union on an equality with the other States. ”

“ Do you say that the people of the free state have nothing to do with it, and can do nothing? Would to God this were true! But it is not true. The people of the free states have defended, encouraged, and participated; and are more guilty for it, before God, than the South, in that they have not the apology of education or custom.
If the mothers of the free states had all felt as they should, in times past, the sons of the free states would not have been the holders, and, proverbially, the hardest masters of slaves; ”

“ Outside of mere personal considerations I saw, or thought I saw, that in the nature of the case the sceptre of power had passed from the old slave and rebellious States to the free and loyal States, and that hereafter, at least for some time to come, the loyal North, with its advanced civilization, must dictate the policy and control the destiny of the republic. I had an audience ready made in the free States; one which the labors of thirty years had prepared for me, and before this audience the freedmen of the South needed an advocate as much as they needed a member of Congress. ”

“ I love our free and happy government, but not because it confers any new rights upon us. Our rights spring from a nobler source than human constitutions and governments,—from the favor of Almighty God.
“We are not indebted to the Constitution of the United States, or of this State, for the right of free discussion. We are thankful that they have hedged it about with so noble a defence. ”

“ The sympathies available for the purpose are those of race, language, religion, and, above all, of political institutions, as conducing most to a feeling of identity of political interest. When a few free states, separately insufficient for their own defense, are hemmed in on all sides by military or feudal monarchs, who hate and despise freedom even in a neighbor, those states have no chance for preserving liberty and its blessings but by a federal union. ”

“ From an address put forth by the colonists of Liberia to the free people of color of the United States, we make a few extracts:
"The first consideration which caused our voluntary removal to this country, and the object which we still regard with the deepest concern, is liberty — liberty in the sober, simple, but complete sense of the word; not a licentious liberty, nor a liberty without government, or which should place us without the restraint of salutary laws; but that liberty of speech and conscience which distinguishes the free enfranchised citizens of a free state. ”

“ Are not those States nominally republics? What is there that interferes with the free disposition which they might make of themselves? Do they not possess all the rights and forms of popular sovereignty? ”

“ Therefore call these free states, or popular governments, or what you please; when we consider the majority of their inhabitants, and regard the natural rights of mankind, they must appear, in reality and truth, no better than pitiful and oppressive oligarchies. ”

“ The Free States, and all the States, are then at liberty to accept or to reject;" and he added, "In my opinion the people of the United States will not consent to bring into the Union a new, vastly extensive and Slaveholding country, large enough for a half a dozen or a dozen States. ”

“ Strange, that nevertheless all states which have a free constitution,—all in which it is a recognized principle that the nation, and not any privileged class—not even that of its official servants—is the main object,—follow a totally opposite system. ”

“ In free states, therefore, the wisest laws are never, perhaps, dictated by the interest and spirit of any order of men: they are moved, they are opposed, or amended, by different hands; and come at last to express that medium and composition which contending parties have forced one another to adopt. ”

“ In other words, the doctrine was that the States had the right to subject a large portion of their people to the absolute dominion and despotic rule of another portion, and to determine at their discretion by what means that despotic rule of man over man should be set on foot and perpetuated, no matter how flagrantly hostile those means might be to the fundamental rights and liberties upon which the whole fabric of free government rests. ”

“ The great lesson of history is that the nature of man, at any rate of civilized European man, is the same in all times and places, and that there is no time or place whose experience may not supply us with some teaching. But free states naturally supply the best lessons for free states. The difference in scale between the free states of various ages is after all only an accidental difference which does not go to the root of the matter. ”

“ We sometimes say that the Civil War in our own country was fought over a principle, but that is something less than the truth. The fundamental question at issue was plainly that of the rights of certain states at a particular time to be independent and free. ”

“ It meant to affirm that laws and state institutions ought to be built upon an assumption that men were, or would be but for law, not all unfree, but all free, and that freedom ought to be considered, not a product of social struggle and monarchical favor or caprice, but an ideal good which states could only limit, and that they ought not to do this except for good and specific reason, duly established. ”

“ And in that land there are no six millions of grown men—I speak of the Free States—excluded from the constitution of their country and its electoral franchise; there, you will find a free Church, a free school, free land, a free vote, and a free career for the child of the humblest born in the land. ”

“ But the Nation they founded remains. The United States are still free and independent. The "government derives its just power from the consent of the governed," and fifty millions of free people remember with gratitude the heroes of the Revolution. ”

“ Your progress through a portion of the whole States which originally constituted the American confederacy, has called forth such manifestations of public feeling as leave no doubt that the liberty enjoyed by the people of those States, has created in their hearts a generous sympathy for the advocates of civil liberty who have endeavoured to establish free institutions in Europe. ”

“ The pledge for a free government arising from the extent and situation of our territory is so transcendant, that the enemies of a republican form of government craftily inculcate an opinion, that this form is not adapted for an extensive territory ”

“ If I have a wish dearer to my soul, than that my ashes may be mingled with those of a Warren and Montgomery—it is—that these American States may never cease to be free and independent! ”

“ Indeed, in a free government, almost all other rights would become utterly worthless, if the government possessed an uncontrollable power over the private fortune of every citizen. ”

“ We offer it to you—a Union based upon universal liberty, impartial justice and equal rights, upon sacred pledges faithfully fulfilled, upon the faith of the Nation nobly vindicated; a Union without a slave and without a tyrant; a Union of truly democratic States; a Union capable of ripening to full maturity all that is great and hopeful in the mind and heart of the American people; a Union on every square foot of which free thought may shine out in free utterance; a Union between the most promising elements of progress, between the most loyal impulses in every section of this vast Republic ”

“ What is liberty? The power of governing yourselves. If you adopt this Constitution, have you this power? No: you give it into the hands of a set of men who live one thousand miles distant from you. Let the people but once trust their liberties out of their own hands, and what will be the consequence? First, a haughty, imperious aristocracy; and ultimately, a tyrannical monarchy. No people on earth are, at this day, so free as the people of America. All other nations are, more or less, in a state of slavery. They owe their constitutions partly to chance, and partly to the sword ”

“ And by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States and parts of States are, and henceforward shall be, free; ”

“ (We therefore the representatives of the United States of America in General Congress assembled, appealing to the supreme judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states; ”

“ Thus "dependence," as a fictitious and vicious form of connection, is, it would appear, forever opposed to "connection" of a just and proper kind. If it were attempted to sum up the issue of the American Revolution in an epigram, would not that epigram be: "'Colony,' or 'Free State?' 'Dependence,' or 'Just Connection?' 'Empire,' or 'Union?'"
According to the opinion of the Revolutionary statesmen, as it would seem, a universal right of free statehood does not imply a universal right of self-government. Statehood and self-government are two different and distinct conceptions. ”

“ Not only the supremacy of old England is to be shaken off, but a new organization of society is to be built up on the basis of liberty and equality. That is the Declaration of Independence! That is the American Revolution! All men free and equal! Not even the broad desert of the Atlantic ocean stops the triumphant shout. Behold, the nations of the old world are rushing to arms. ”

“ In other words, you, my Democratic friends, in the name of liberty asserted the right of one man, under State law, to deprive another man of his freedom; in the name of democracy you asserted the right of one class of people under State law to rule despotically over another class; in the name of self-government you asserted the right of the States to exclude a large portion, sometimes even amounting to a majority of their population, from all participation in self-government. ”

“ It presents, for the first time, the question, whether that government, which was established for the promotion of justice, which was founded on the great principles of the revolution, as proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence, can, consistently with the genius of our institutions, become a party to proceedings for the enslavement of human beings cast upon our shores, and found, in the condition of freemen, within the territorial limits of a free and sovereign state? ”

“ Is it not likely to be true that the moral tone of the republic —our estimation of constitutional liberty—will be lessened by the creation of a body of civilized people over whom our flag waves as an emblem of power only? ”

“ We have examples of republics where the love of country and of liberty at one time were the dominant passions of the whole mass of citizens, and yet, with the continuance of the name and forms of free government, not a vestige of these qualities remaining in the bosoms of any one of its citizens. ”

“ When the condition of the country had fully revealed the incapacity of its government to provide for its wants, these men were naturally looked to, to construct a system which should save it from anarchy. And their great capacities, their high, disinterested purposes, their freedom from all fanaticism and illiberality, and their earnest, unconquerable faith in the destiny of their country, enabled them to found that government, which now upholds and protects the whole fabric of liberty in the States of this Union. ”

“ But it may be observed, that the opportunities may be diminished, and the permanency defeated, by the equalizing tendency of our laws.
No free country has ever been without parties, which are a natural offspring of freedom. ”

“ It was the hopes of our people to have their trade on a respectable footing. But it never entered into my head that we should quit liberty, and throw ourselves into the hands of an energetic government. Do you want men to be more free, or less free, than they are? Gentlemen have been called upon to show the causes of this measure. ”