No. 13.
THE ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER.
CAN ABOLITIONISTS VOTE OR TAKE OFFICE UNDER THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION?
"The preservation, propagation, and perpetuation of slavery is the vital and animating spirit of the National Government."
NEW YORK: AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, 142 NASSAU STREET
1815.
INTRODUCTION.
The American Anti-Slavery Society, at its Annual Meeting in May, 1844, adopted the following Resolution:
_Resolved_, That secession from the present United States government is the duty of every abolitionist; since no one can take office, or throw a vote for another to hold office, under the United States Constitution, without violating his anti-slavery principles, and rendering himself an abettor of the slaveholder in his sin.
The passage of this Resolution has caused two charges to be brought against the Society: _First_, that it is a _no-government_ body, and that the whole doctrine of non-resistance is endorsed by this vote:--and _secondly_, that the Society transcended its proper sphere and constitutional powers by taking such a step.
The logic which infers that because a man thinks the Federal Government bad, he must necessarily think _all_ government so, has at least, the merit and the charm of novelty. There is a spice of arrogance just perceptible, in the conclusion that the Constitution of these United States is so perfect, that one who dislikes it could never be satisfied with any form of government whatever!
Were O'Connell and his fellow Catholics non-resistants, because for two hundred years they submitted to exclusion from the House of Lords and the House of Commons, rather than qualify themselves for a seat by an oath abjuring the Pope? Were the _non-juring_ Bishops of England non-resistants, when they went down to the grave without taking their seats in the House of Lords, rather than take an oath denying the Stuarts and to support the House of Hanover? Both might have purchased power at the price of one annual falsehood. There are some in this country who do not seem to think that price at all unreasonable. It were a rare compliment indeed to the non-resistants, if every exhibition of rigid principle on the part of an individual is to make the world suspect him of leaning towards their faith.
The Society is not opposed to government, but only to _this_ Government based upon and acting for slavery.
With regard to the second charge, of exceeding its proper limits and trespassing on the rights of the minority, it is enough to say, that the object of the American Anti-Slavery Society is the "entire abolition of slavery in the United States." Of course it is its duty to find out all the sources of pro-slavery influence in the land. It is its right, it is its duty to try every institution in the land, no matter how venerable, or sacred, by the touchstone of anti-slavery principle; and if it finds any one false, to proclaim that fact to the world, with more or less of energy, according to its importance in society. It has tried the Constitution, and pronounced it unsound.
No member's conscience need be injured--The qualification for membership remains the same, "the belief that slave-holding is a heinous crime"--No new test has been set up--But the majority of the Society, for the time being, faithful to its duty of trying every institution by the light of the present day--of uttering its opinion on every passing event that touches the slave's welfare, has seen it to be duty to sound forth its warning,
NO UNION WITH SLAVEHOLDERS.
No one who did not vote for the Resolution is responsible for it. No one is asked to quit our platform. We, the majority, only ask him to extend to our opinions the same toleration that we extend to him, and agreeing to differ on this point, work together where we can. We proscribe no man for difference of opinion.
It is said, that having refused in 1840, to say that a man _ought to vote_, on the ground that such a resolution would be tyrannical and intolerant, the Society is manifestly inconsistent now in taking upon itself to say that no abolitionist _can_ consistently vote. But the inconsistency is only apparent and not real.
There may he a thousand reasons why a particular individual ought not to do an act, though the act be innocent in itself. It would be tyranny therefore in a society which can properly take notice of but one subject, slavery, to promulgate the doctrine that all its members ought to do any particular act, as for instance, to vote, to give money, to lecture, to petition, or the like. The particular circumstances and opinions of each one must regulate his actions.
All we have a right to ask is, that he do for the slave's cause as much as he does for any other of equal importance. But when an act is wrong, it is no intolerance to say to the whole world that it ought _not to be done_. After the abolitionist has granted that slavery is wrong, we have the right to judge him by his own principles, and arraign him for inconsistency that, so believing, he helps the slaveholder by his oath.
The following pages have been hastily thrown together in explanation of the vote above recited. They make no pretension to a full argument of the topic. I hope that in a short time I shall get leisure sufficient to present to our opponents, unless some one does it for me, a full statement of the reasons which have led us to this step.
I am aware that we non-voters are rather singular. But history, from the earliest Christians downwards, is full of instances of men who refused all connection with government, and all the influence which office could bestow, rather than deny their principles, or aid in doing wrong. Yet I never heard them called either idiots or over-scrupulous. Sir Thomas More need never have mounted the scaffold, had he only consented to take the oath of supremacy. He had only to tell a lie with solemnity, as we are asked to do, and he might not only have saved his life, but, as the trimmers of his day would have told him, doubled his influence. Pitt resigned his place as Prime Minister of England, rather than break faith with the Catholics of Ireland. Should I not resign a petty ballot rather than break faith with the slave? But I was specially glad to find a distinct recognition of the principle upon which we have acted, applied to a different point, in the life of that Patriarch of the Anti-Slavery enterprise, Granville Sharpe. It is in a late number of the Edinburgh Review. While an underclerk in the War Office, he sympathized with our fathers in their struggle for independence.
"Orders reached his office to ship munitions of war to the revolted colonies. If his hand had entered the account of such a cargo, it would have contracted in his eyes the stain of innocent blood. To avoid this pollution, he resigned his place and his means of subsistence at a period of life when be could no longer hope to find any other lucrative employment." As the thoughtful clerk of the War Office takes his hat down from the peg where it has used to hang for twenty years, methinks I hear one of our opponents cry out, "Friend Sharpe, you are absurdly scrupulous." "You may innocently aid Government in doing wrong," adds another. While Liberty Party yelps at his heels, "My dear Sir, you are quite losing your influence!"
And indeed it is melancholy to reflect how, from that moment the mighty underclerk of the War Office(!) dwindled into the mere Granville Sharpe of history! the man of whom Mansfield and Hargrave were content to learn law, and Wilberforce, philanthropy.
One friend proposes to vote for men who shall be pledged not to take office unless the oath to the Constitution is dispensed with, and who shall then go on to perform in their offices only such duties as we, their constituents, approve. He cites, in support of his view, the election of O'Connell to the House of Commons, in 1828, I believe, just one year before the "Oath of Supremacy," which was the objectionable one to the Catholics, was dispensed with. Now, if we stood in the same circumstances as the Catholics did in 1828, the example would be in point. When the public mind is thoroughly revolutionized, and ready for the change, when the billow has reached its height and begins to crest into foam, then such a measure may bring matters to a crisis. But let us first go through, in patience, as O'Connell did, our twenty years of agitation.
Waiving all other objections, this plan seems to me mere playing at politics, and an entire waste of effort.
It loses our high position as moral reformers; it subjects us to all that malignant opposition and suspicion of motives which attend the array of parties; and while thus closing up our access to the national conscience, it wastes in fruitless caucussing and party tactics, the time and the effort which should have been directed to efficient agitation.
The history of our Union is lesson enough, for every candid mind, of the fatal effects of every, the least, compromise with evil. The experience of the fifty years passed under it, shows us the slaves trebling in numbers;--slaveholders monopolizing the offices and dictating the policy of the Government;--prostituting the strength and influence of the Nation to the support of slavery here and elsewhere;--trampling on the rights of the free States, and making the courts of the country their tools. To continue this disastrous alliance longer is madness. The trial of fifty years only proves that it is impossible for free and slave States to unite on any terms, without all becoming partners in the guilt and responsible for the sin of slavery. Why prolong the experiment? Let every honest man join in the outcry of the American Anti-Slavery Society,
NO UNION WITH SLAVEHOLDERS.
WENDELL PHILLIPS.
_Boston, Jan_. 15, 1845.
THE NO-VOTING THEORY.
"God never made a CITIZEN, and no one will escape as a man, from the sins which he commits as a citizen."
Can an abolitionist consistently take office, or vote, under the Constitution of the United States?
1st. What is an abolitionist?
One who thinks slaveholding a sin in all circumstances, and desires its abolition. Of course such an one cannot consistently aid another in holding his slave;--in other words, I cannot innocently aid a man in doing that which I think wrong. No amount of fancied good will justify me in joining another in doing wrong, unless I adopt the principle "of doing evil that good may come."
2d. What do taking office and voting under the Constitution imply?
The President swears "to execute the office of president," and "to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." The judges "to discharge the duties incumbent upon them agreeably to the constitution and laws of the United States."
All executive, legislative, and judicial officers, both of the several States and of the General Government, before entering on the performance of their official duties, are bound to take an oath or affirmation, "_to support the Constitution of the United States_."
This is what every office-holder expressly _promises in so many words_. It is a contract between him and the _whole nation_. The voter, who, by voting, sends his fellow citizen into office as his representative, knowing beforehand that the taking of this oath is the first duty his agent will have to perform, does by his vote, request and authorize him to take it. He therefore, by voting, impliedly engages to support the Constitution. What one does by his agent he does himself. Of course no honest man will authorize and request another to do an act which he thinks it wrong to do himself!
Every voter, therefore, is bound to see, _before voting_, whether he could himself honestly swear to _support_ the constitution. Now what does this oath of office-holders relate to and imply? "It applies,"
says Chief Justice Marshall, "in an especial manner, to their conduct in their official character." Judge Story, in his Commentaries on the Constitution, speaks of it as "a solemn obligation to the due execution of the trusts reposed in them, and to support the Constitution." It is universally considered throughout the country, by common men and by the courts, as a promise to do what the Constitution bids, and to avoid what it forbids. It was in the spirit of this oath, under which he spake, that Daniel Webster said in New York, "The Constitution gave it (slavery) SOLEMN GUARANTIES.
To the full extent of these guaranties we are all bound by the Constitution. All the stipulations contained in the Constitution in favor of the slaveholding States ought to be fulfilled; and so far as depends on me, shall be fulfilled, in the fulness of their spirit and to the exactness of their letter."
It is more than an oath of allegiance; more than a mere promise that we will not resist the laws. For it is an engagement to "support them"; as an _officer_ of government, to carry them into effect. Without such a promise on the part of its functionaries, how could government exist? It is more than the expression of that obligation which rests on all peaceable citizens to _submit_ to laws, even though they will not actively _support_ them. For it is the promise which the judge makes, that he will actually _do_ the business of the courts; which the sheriff assumes, that he will actually _execute_ the laws.
Let it be remarked, that it is an oath to support _the_ Constitution--that is, _the whole of it_; there are no exceptions.
And let it be remembered, that by it each _one_ makes a contract with the _whole_ nation, that he will do certain acts.
3d. What is the Constitution which each voter thus engages to support?