USA > Georgia > The bench and bar of Georgia: memoirs and sketches. With an appendix, containing a court roll from 1790-1857, etc., volume I > Part 11
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This is my real feeling,-that which induces this address. I do not assume to guide public opinion, but simply to express my own at the call of those who have a right to ask it. Yet, in doing so, I must speak plainly, and must necessarily come in conflict with some of the opposing opinions which have been urged with so much vehemence during the present canvass. If this shall subject me to the vituperation which has been so lavishly indulged, I will rely on the intelligence and honorable feeling of my countrymen to spare me the humiliation of replying to such assaults.
As an appropriate introduction to the remarks which I propose to submit to your consideration, it becomes necessary to advert for a moment to the condition of parties in our State. The ancient issues which divided the Whig and Democratic parties have either ceased to exist or have been for the time laid aside. A party has arisen, which, drawing its support from the ranks of both of its predecessors, presents new and important questions to public consideration. The Whig party, although not dead, as has been vainly supposed, abstains as a party from entering into this contest. As a conservative body, it nevertheless exists, and must continue to do so as long as a genuine spirit of conservatism is cherished by the people of Georgia. From the Union party,-which was the offspring of an occasion,-as well as from the Democratic party, large draughts have been made by this new adventurer in the political field. The majority of the Democratic party, however, remains intact, and is strengthened by some (in point of numbers) inconsiderable accessions from the ranks of its
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ancient opponents, and, perhaps, yet more by the fact that the great majority of them have hitherto stood aloof from the contending parties.
The Democratic party, even thus mutilated, advances boldly to the conflict, waging uncompromising hostility against this new aspirant to political power. The present contest is therefore waged between this un- broken remnant of the ancient Democracy, strengthened as I have before intimated, and an association of individuals, or orders, who have assumed to themselves the name of the American party. In the mancuvring preparatory to the actual conflict, the Democratic party, with its usual tact, has secured a position to windward, by which it has the privilege of becoming the assailant, and of selecting its point of attack, while its oppo- nents, organized for the purpose of correcting abuses, have found them- selves unexpectedly put on the defensive.
In this state of the controversy, the questions we are to consider relate, ---
1. To the object contemplated by the American party.
2. To the means proposed for its accomplishment.
We are first, then, to examine the object of this party,-to ascertain its character, and to determine its tendency to promote or conflict with the public welfare. Its first great object -- that which is elemental and primary, and to which all others are considered as auxiliary or antici- pated as results, as it is expressed in their own language-is that Ameri- cans shall govern America; that is, that the people of the country-those to whom it belongs-shall govern the country. This would seem to be a simple, undeniable, and acceptable proposition, recognised by every civilized community, and maintained even among the tribes of the forest; and so it would be received here and now among us, if it could be viewed simply and on its own merits, apart from those extraneous considerations with which it has been connected and complicated and by which it is influ- enced. It is inconceivable that any considerable number of American citizens, whether natives or those who have been heretofore naturalized, could be willing to surrender the government of their country to foreigners, and to that description of foreigners who are annually, and in such im- mense numbers, migrating to our shores. The naked proposition, simply presented at the domestic firesides of our citizens, would hardly find an advocate. But it is not considered simply and on its own merits. The aspirations of individuals and the interests of party combine to forbid it. A great party wielding the power of the Government has attained and maintains its power by the aid of a vote which is substantially foreign, although the voters may have passed through the forms of a hurried natu- ralization. It is natural that they should be unwilling to concur in any measure which might divest them of this power or have a tendency to diminish their present or prospective means of securing and increasing it. They are therefore, under the promptings of interest, the advocates of the foreigner, zealous to maintain and willing to extend his privilege of partici- pating in the government of the country. And then, again, the aspirants to political eminence-those in search of official position in the State or in the Union, who would win the support of this great party-must worship at the altars which they have consecrated, and be eloquent in the assertion of the rights of the foreigner,-as if he had any rights here until we had conferred them. Call to your recollection the thrilling speeches to which you have listened at the various gatherings which you have attended,-the pious horror which has been expressed at the alleged
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violation of liberty of conscience, the touching pictures which have been drawn of our country as the asylum of the oppressed, the bold assertion of the fitness of the foreign immigrant to share your most cherished privi- leges in the same extent in which you yourselves enjoy them,-and then consider from whom this declamation comes; say if it proceeds from the disinterested advocates of the common interest, or the bold and selfish assertors of their own.
To accomplish the object expressed in their primary, elementary maxim, that Americans shall govern America, the American party proposes,- 1. Substantial modifications of the acts regulating naturalization.
Under the existing laws, five years' residence in the country and a compliance with the forms prescribed by them entitle a foreigner to citizenship, and to all the privileges which you enjoy,-with two or three exceptions, to which it is not necessary to refer. The American party desire to enlarge this term,-to provide for a more accurate scrutiny of the claims of persons applying for naturalization, and against the immi- gration of paupers and felons into the United States.
In my judgment, these measures would be eminently conducive to the public welfare. This is with me no new opinion, and it is not now for the first time expressed. Several years ago the subject engaged the at- tention of Congress. As Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, I made a report to the Senate, contemplating a full and final report, at the then next session, on the return of certain commissioners, to ascertain the various frauds which were alleged to exist in the grant, and subsequent use, of naturalization-papers. Before that time, changes in the Senate resulted in placing a Democratic Senator at the head of the Committee, and the matter was abandoned.
I do not think it necessary to enter into an elaborate argument to prove that the indiscriminate admission of foreigners after a residence of five years to the privilege of citizenship is an evil. We are making-we have thus far successfully made-an experiment of self-government. Our free institutions, which have hitherto been found efficient for national advance- ment and for individual security, have been indebted for their support to the loyalty of our people rather than to their own compulsive powers. The founders of the Republic were men qualified for their office,-united in reverence for the laws, in resistance to oppression, in devotion to the principles of civil liberty; and the spirit which animated them was in- fused into the institutions which they established. It was only such men who could have founded such a government. Men animated by a simi- lar spirit can alone preserve it. Let the abortive attempts in revolu- tionary France to establish and maintain free institutions attest the truth of this assertion.
Now, I propound this inquiry :- Are the foreigners who are being, and especially at the approach of our election, so rapidly incorporated among us, likely to be animated by this salutary spirit, fitted to be the guardians of our free institutions ? I would be very sorry to deny that among these emigrants there are some worthy men, who, when familiarized to our in- stitutions by long residence among us, may become good citizens and capable of participating in our privileges; but no candid man will deny that a large proportion are of a very different character, consisting for the most part of Red Republicans or anarchists, criminals, and paupers,-or will venture, when dismounted from the stump, calmly to assert that five years' residence here will qualify an ignorant foreigner thoroughly to un-
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derstand our institutions and loyally to conform to them. Then let it be remembered that each one of these who is admitted to the exercise of the elective franchise without being thus qualified, and who is consequently liable to be led astray by the artifice of the demagogue or coerced by the threatened anathema of his priest, annuls the vote of one citizen,-may, in fact, expunge your vote or mine. Then consider the number and character of the people who are annually cast upon our shores. I do not mean to trouble you with statistics. I dare say the records have been ransacked by opposing candidates for your favor, and that the results are familiar to you. I take from the papers of the day those to which I refer,- incontrovertible statements.
Bear in mind, then, the fact that a foreign immigration, which up to the year 1800 did not exceed five thousand persons, has risen since 1850 to half a million, and which, looking to the state of Europe, will probably in a very short time amount up to a million a year. Now, give a free scope to your benevolent feelings ; exercise the most extended charity in estimating the probable number of those who are worthy mnen, capable by a proper probationary term of being rendered good citizens, and what a fearful residue will remain, what a mass of poisonous ingre- dients to be infused into the body politic! The census of 1850 shows that the number of foreign paupers and criminals exceeded that of native paupers and criminals, although the native population was seven times greater than the foreign. What would be your feelings if poverty and crime existed in this proportion and to this extent among yourselves ? If the quantum of pauperism and vice which existed among you was the proportion of a population seven times greater in number than your own, what security would you have for your free institutions ? what guarantee for your individual rights ?
Consider, also, that these emigrants, shunning the South from their un- willingness to compete with slave-labor, and flocking to the North, from their abolition tendencies, in search of kindred spirits, are thus rapidly increasing the majority against you in Congress at every appor- tionment, and will, unless checked, in no very great length of time place the Constitution and the institutions of the South at the mercy of fanati- cism.
And how are these calamities to be averted, if this horde of foreigners rapidly increasing is to be annually added to your society? The plagues of Egypt were mercies,-since they were guided by divine benevolence, and stayed by his omnipotence when the deliverance of his chosen people was effected. But who shall stay this moral pestilence if you are insen- sible to your danger? If persevered in, in what can it eventuate but in the ruin of the Republic?"Can the noble system of government esta- blished by our fathers be administered by men like these ?
You are told that your number so largely exceeds that of the foreign population that all apprehension of danger is idle. I do not mean to give offence to any man, but to speak in the sincerity of my heart, when I say that such an argument seems to me to estimate very humbly the under- standings of those to whom it is addressed. In the open, manly defence of your rights and liberties, of that glorious Constitution bequeathed to you by your fathers, of your homesteads and your households, -in the de- fence of these against an open and manly assault, you are competent to resist not only the foreigners among us, but a world in arms. God forbid that one American bosom should palpitate with craven fear in view of
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such a conflict ! But this is not the danger which menaces. Every man unworthy of citizenship, who is admitted to its privileges, is an enemy in your camp,-a moral leper, spreading contagion far and wide. The morals of the community are corrupted, its heart is tainted, by such asso- ciation : for, however stained with crime, the stamp of citizens makes them politically a part of yourselves. Can you bear the amalgamation ?
And why should you bear it ? Foreigners aided us in the Revolutionary struggle. Ay, and they have received their rewards. They became in- corporated among us, or have voluntarily gone elsewhere in quest of new adventure. But we invited immigration. Ay, at the close of our Revo- lutionary War, when amid its toils and privations we had achieved our in- dependence, we had a sparse and exhausted population and an extensive and uncultivated domain. We required an increase of population for the purpose of internal improvement and external defence; and, conforming to this policy, our system of naturalization was established. Europe was then calm,-at least free from the menace of intestine commotion. Party spirit among ourselves was comparatively quiescent. We invited foreign- ers, and we received them. They came to us in small numbers, mingled with our people, and peacefully pursued the avocations of industry. ill this is changed. We have population sufficiently numerous for every present purpose, and without the aid of immigration we are increasing in number as rapidly as we could desire. Notwithstanding this, there is an annual outpouring upon us of the restless and unquiet spirits of Europe, its paupers and criminals. Not mingling with us as when their numbers were small, they are now sufficiently numerous to herd together, to live apart from us, to constitute distinct foreign societies in the midst of the native population. In the bitterness of our party contests, this foreign vote has been eagerly, and often by unworthy incans, sought after and obtained, alternately, by both parties; and, acting as a unit, the boast of Kossuth has been realized : it holds the balance, and may decide our elections.
This is a state of things not to be borne by American freemen. This foreign incursion must be regulated or checked; and the American party Itas its origin in the conviction of this necessity. The very general exist- ence of this conviction has secured to them a support beyond the limits of their association. I concur with them in the belief that the laws regu- lating immigration and the naturalization of foreigners ought to be sub- jected to a thorough and searching revision ; that the term of probation should be largely extended ; that, to protect us from the intrusion of pau- pers and criminals, provision ought to be made for the ascertainment, by our consuls abroad, of the character and condition of persons proposing to emigrate to the United States, and that every safeguard which the wisdom of Congress can devise should be thrown around the emendatory statute, to prevent and punish its evasion.
2. As a further means of attaining their object, the individuals com- posing the American party have bound themselves by mutual pledges, cach to the other, to unite their exertions for its accomplishment. I suppose such a pledge, either expressed or implied, is the tie which con- nects the members of every party. As to their organization, their ritual, their particular modes of proceeding and recognition, and the secrecy which has hitherto been observed in their proceedings, all of which have given occasion for so much eloquent and ingenious declamation and de- nunciation, I am not required to express an opinion, for these, it is un-
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derstood, have been abandoned by their National Council, and all that is now required for admission into their order is the approval of their prin- ciples. One of these-that which announces their determination not to vote for or appoint Romanists to office-has been the subject of much re- prehension, and has been assailed as a violation of the liberty of con- science which is secured by the Constitution. The provisions of that in- strument, which are supposed to be violated, are contained in the con- cluding clause of the third section of the sixth article, and in the first clause of the first article of the amendments. The first, after providing for administering an oath to different public functionaries, contains the following provision :-
But no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the United States.
The second declares
That Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
By what process of reasoning these provisions of the Constitution can be made to conflict with the right of the citizen to the unlimited exercise of his own free and uncontrolled will in the enjoyment of his elective franchise, I am utterly at a loss to discover ; and I have sought it in vain in such arguments of the objectors as I have had an opportunity of perusing. The first clause relates to persons elected to office, and requires that they shall have the oath of office administered to them without being subjected to any religious test. And this is the whole scope and effect of the act. It does not even remotely interfere with the right of an individual to exercise his own judgment in determining whether the religion of the candidate, or the want of it, ought or ought not to influ- ence him in casting his vote for or against him. This seems almost too plain for argument. If a voter believes the religion of a candidate to be unsound or dangerous to an extent which would induce distrust in the ordinary transactions of life, it is not only his right but his duty to with- hold his confidence and his vote. No provision of the Constitution forbids it, and duty to the country requires it. It would be wrong in the Government to make this test, because it is an exercise of discretion which the people have not intrusted to them, but have reserved to them- selves. Thus, that which would be wrong in the Government is the right and duty of the citizen. How far this may apply to Romanists is a matter for the exercise of individual judgment, and for that alone. I would not feel that native American Romanists, trained in the principles of civil liberty, of reverence to the Constitution and laws, and devoted to the Union, would come within its scope. For the rest, to show that the view of the American party is sustained by a man of large intelligence and of undoubted piety, I subjoin the letter of Mr. Wesley .- remarking only that the attempt to restrict his opinions to the particular state of affairs existing at the time when his letter was written is simply futile, since it is perfectly obvious that they are of enduring applicability,-at least until Romanists shall abandon those precepts of their religion to which Mr. Wesley refers :-
LETTER OF JOHN WESLEY.
Sın :- Some time ago a pamphlet was sent me, entitled " An Appeal from the Protestant Association to the People of Great Britain." A day or two since, a kind of answer to this was put into my hand, which pronounces its style contemptible,
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its reasoning futile, and its object malicious. On the contrary, I think the style of it is clear, easy, and natural; the reasoning, in general, strong and conclusive ; the object or design kind and benevolent. And, in pursuance of the same kind and benevolent design, -- namely, to preserve our happy Constitution, -I shall endeavor to confirm the substance of that traet by a few plain arguments.
With persecution I have nothing to do: I persecute no man for his religious principles. Let there be as boundless freedom in religion as any man can conceive. But this does not touch the point. I will set religion, true or false, utterly out of the question. Suppose the Bible, if you please, to be a fable, and the Koran to be the word of God. I consider not whether the Romish religion is true or false, - build nothing on the one or the other supposition. Therefore away with all your commonplace declamation about intolerance and persecution for religion ! Suppose every word of Pope Pius's creed to be true : suppose the Council of Trent to have been infallible : yet I insist upon it that no Government not Roman Catholic ought to tolerate men of the Roman Catholic persuasion.
I prove this by a plain argument, (let him answer it that can : ) that no Roman Catholic does or can give security for his allegiance or peaceable behavior. I prove it thus :-- It is a Roman Catholic maxim, established not by private men, but by public council, that "no faith is to be kept with hereties." That has been openly avowed by the Council of Constance, but it has never been openly diselaimed. Whether private persons avow or disavow it, it is a fixed maxim of the Church of Rome. But, as long as it is so, nothing can be more plain than that the members of that Church can give no reasonable security to any Government for their alle- giance and peaccable behavior. Therefore they ought not to be tolerated by any Government, Protestant, Mohammedan, or Pagan. You say, "Nay, but they take the oath of allegiance." True, -five hundred oaths : but the maxim " no faith is to be kept with hereties" sweeps them all away as a spider's web. So that still no Governments that are not Roman Catholic can have any security of their allegiance.
Again : those who acknowledge the spiritual power of the Pope cani give no security of their allegiance to any Government : but all Roman Catholics acknow- ledge this ; therefore they can give no security for their allegianee. The power of granting pardons for all sins past, present, and to come, is and has been for many centuries one branch of his spiritual power. But those who acknowledge him to have their spiritual power ean give no security for their allegiance, since they believe the Pope ean pardon rebellion, high-treason, and all other sins whatso- ever. The power of dispensing with any promise, oath, or vow, is another branch of the spiritual power of the Pope : all who acknowledge his spiritual power must acknowledge this. But whoever acknowledges the dispensing power of the Pope can give no security for his allegiance to any Government. Oaths and promises are none ; they are as light as air: a dispensation makes them null and void. Nay, not only the Pope, but even a priest, has power to pardon sins! This is an essential doctrine of the Church of Rome. But they that acknowledge this cannot possibly give any security for their allegiance to any Government. Oaths are no security at all, for the priest can pardon both perjury and high-treason. Setting their religion aside, it is plain that upon principles of reason no Government ought to tolerate men who cannot give any security to that Government for their allegiance and peaceable behavior. But this no Romanist can do, not only while he holds that " no faith is to be kept with hereties," but so long as he acknowledges either priestly absolution or the spiritual power of the Pope.
If any one pleases to answer this, and set his name, I shall probably reply. But the productions of anonymous writers I do not promise to take any notice of.
I am, sir, your humble servant, JOHN WESLEY.
CITY ROAD, January 12, 1780.
The whole force of the second provision is spent in the prohibition to Congress. It forbids Congress to " make any law respecting an establish- ment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." It does not forbid individuals to make such establishments. On the contrary, we have many of them. It relates to the legislation of Congress, not to the vote of the citizen ; and the foreign zeal which would distort these pro- visions of the Constitution so as to divest the citizen of the uncontrolled Vor. I .- 7
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exercise of his elective franchise is, as it seems to me, alike alien from the Constitution and the plainest dictates of reason.
The twelfth article of the Philadelphia Platform has been the subject of much commentary. I state, without discussing them, my own opinions on the subject of which it treats.
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