125 New England Secessionist (1811)
Mr. Speaker, there is a great rule of human conduct which he who honestly observes cannot err widely from the path of his sought duty. It is to be very scrupulous concerning the principles you select as the test of your rights and obligations. To be very faithful in noticing the result of their application and to be very fearless in tracing and exposing their immediate effects and distant consequences. Under the sanction of this rule of conduct, I am compelled to declare it as my deliberate opinion that if this bill passes the bonds of this union are virtually dissolved, that the states which compose it are free from their moral obligations, and that as it will be the right of all so it will be the duty of some to prepare definitely for a separation. Amicably if they can, violently if they must. [original emphasis]
The bill which is now proposed to be passed has this assumed principle for its basis: that the three branches of this national government, without recurrence to conventions of the people in the states or to the legislatures of the states, are authorized to admit new partners to a share of the political power in countries out of the original limits of the United States. Now this assumed principle I maintain to be altogether without any sanction in the Constitution. I declare it to be a manifest and atrocious usurpation of power of a nature dissolving, according to undeniable principles of moral law, the obligations of our national compact and leading to all the awful consequences which flow from such a state of things.
Sir, what is this power we propose now to usurp? Nothing less than a power changing all the proportions of the weight and influence possessed by the potent sovereignties composing this Union. A stranger is to be introduced to an equal share, without their consent. Upon a principle pretended to be deduced from the constitution, this government after this bill passes may and will multiply foreign partners in power at its own mere motion. At its irresponsible pleasure in other words, as local interests, party passions, or ambitious views may suggest. This is not so much a question concerning the exercise of sovereignty as it is who shall be sovereign. Whether the proprietors of the good old United States shall manage their own affairs in their own way or whether they and their Constitution and their political rights shall be trampled underfoot by foreigners introduced through a breach of the Constitution. The proportion of the political weight of each sovereign state constituting this union depends upon the number of the states which have a voice under the compact.
But, says the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Rhea), “these people have been seven years citizens of the United States.” I deny it Sir. As citizens of New Orleans or of Louisiana, they never have been and by the mode proposed they never will be citizens of the United States. But, says the same gentleman, “if I have a farm, have not I a right to purchase another farm in my neighborhood and settle my sons upon it and in time admit them to a share in the management of my household?” Doubtless, Sir. But are these cases parallel? Are the three branches of this government owners of this farm called the United States? I desire to thank heaven, they are not. I hold my life, liberty, and property and the people of the state from which I have the honor to be a representative hold theirs by a better tenure than any this national government can give. We hold these by the laws, customs, and principles of the commonwealth of Massachusetts. Behind her ample shield we find refuge and feel safety. I beg gentlemen not to act upon the principle that the commonwealth of Massachusetts is their farm.
But, the gentleman adds, “what shall we do if we do not admit the people of Louisiana into our union? Our children are settling that country.” Sir, it is no concern of mine what he does. This constitution never was and never can be strained to lap over all the wilderness of the west without essentially affecting both the rights and convenience of its real proprietors. It was never constructed to form a covering for the inhabitants of the Missouri and the Red River country. And whenever it is attempted to be stretched over them, it will rend asunder.
Is there a moral principle of public law better settled or more conformable to the plainest suggestions of reason, than that the violation of a contract by one of the parties may be considered as exempting the other from its obligations? Again, it is settled as a principle of morality among writers on public law that no person can be obliged beyond his intent at the time of the contract. Now who believes, who dare assert, that it was the intention of the people when they adopted this constitution to assign eventually to New Orleans and Louisiana a portion of their political power and to invest all the people those extensive regions might hereafter contain with an authority over themselves and their descendants?
Do you suppose the people of the Northern and Atlantic States will or ought to look on with patience and see representatives and senators from the Red River and Missouri pouring themselves upon this and the other floor, managing the concerns of a sea-board fifteen hundred miles at least from their residence, and having a preponderancy in councils into which constitutionally they could never have been admitted? I have no hesitation upon this point. They neither will see it nor ought to see it with content. It is the part of a wise man to foresee danger and to hide himself. This great usurpation which creeps into this House under the plausible appearance of giving content to that important point, New Orleans, starts up a gigantic power to control the nation.
Upon the actual condition of things there is, there can be, no need of concealment. It is apparent to the blindest vision. By the course of nature and conformable to the acknowledged principles of the constitution, the sceptre of power in this country is passing towards the Northwest. Sir, there is to this no objection. The right belongs to that quarter of the country. Enjoy it. It is yours. Use the powers granted as you please. But take care in your haste after effectual dominion not to overload the scale by heaping it with these new acquisitions. Already the old states sink in the estimation of members when brought into comparison with these new countries. We have been told that “New Orleans was the most important point in the union.” A place out of the union, the most important place within it!
We have been asked, “what are some of the small states when compared with the Mississippi Territory?” The gentleman from that territory (Mr. Poindexter) spoke the other day of the Mississippi as “of a high road between”. Good heavens! Between what, Mr. Speaker? Why “the Eastern and Western States.” So that all the northwestern territories, all the countries once the extreme western boundary of our union are hereafter to be denominated Eastern States! There is no limit to men’s imaginations, on this subject, short of California and Columbia River.
With respect to this love of our union concerning which so much sensibility is expressed, I have no fear about analyzing its nature. There is in it nothing of mystery. It depends upon the qualities of that union and it results from its effects upon our and our country’s happiness. It is valued for “that sober certainty of waking bliss” which it enables us to realize. It grows out of the affections and has not and cannot be made to have anything universal in its nature. Sir I confess it, the first public love of my heart is the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. There is my fireside, there are the tombs of my ancestors. The love of this union grows out of this attachment to my native soil and is rooted in it. I cherish it because it affords the best external hope of her peace, her prosperity, her independence. I oppose this bill from no animosity to the people of New Orleans but from the deep conviction that it contains a principle incompatible with the liberties and safety of my country. I have no concealment of my opinion. The bill, if it passes, is a death blow to the constitution. It may afterwards linger; but lingering, its fate will at no very distant period be consummated.
Source: Josiah Quincy, Speech on the Passage of the Bill to enable the People of the Territory of Orleans to form a Constitution and State Government, January 14, 1811, 4-23. https://archive.org/details/toldcontemporari03hartrich/page/410/mode/2up
