ence to this subject, has been superseded by the Committee on the Postoffice, which has bestowed so much attention on it, and which is so much more minutely acquainted with the diseased state of the department than your committee can be, that it would be presumption on their part to attempt to add to their recommendation.

But, as extensive and dangerous as is the patronage of the executive through the postoffice department, it is not much less so in reference to the public funds, over which, as has been stated, it now has unlimited control, and, through them, over the entire banking system of the country. With a banking system spread from Maine to Louisiana, from the Atlantic to the utmost West, consisting of not less than five or six hundred banks, struggling among themselves for existence and gain, with an immense public fund under the control of the executive, to be deposited in whatever banks he may favour, or to be withdrawn at his pleasure, it is impossible for ingenuity to devise any scheme better calculated to convert the surplus revenue into a most potent engine of power and influence; and, it may be added, of peculation, speculation, corruption, and fraud. The first and most decisive step against this danger is that already proposed, of distributing the surplus revenue among the states, which will prevent its growing accumulation in the banks, and, with it, the corresponding increase of executive power and influence over the banking system. In addition, your committee have reported a bill to charge the deposite banks at the rate of per cent. per annum for the use of the public funds, to be calculated on the average monthly deposites; to prohibit transfers, except for the purpose of disbursements; and to prevent a removal of the public funds from the banks in which they are now, or may hereafter be deposited, without the consent of Congress, except as is provided in the bill. The object of the bill is to secure to the government an equivalent for the use of the public funds, to prevent the abuses and influence incident to transfer-warrants, and to place the deposite banks, as far as it may be practicable, beyond the control of the executive.

In addition to these measures, there are, doubtless, many others connected with the customs-Indian affairs, public lands, army; navy, and other branches of the administration-into which, it is feared, there have crept many abuses, which have unnecessarily increased the expenditures and the number of persons employed, and, with them, the executive patronage; but to reform which would require a more minute investigation into the general state of the administration than your committee can at present bestow. Should the measures which they have recommended receive the sanction of Congress, they feel a strong conviction that they will greatly facilitate the work of carrying accountability, retrenchment, and economy through every branch of the administration, and thereby reduce the patronage of the executive to those safe and economical limits which are necessary to a complete restoration of the equilibrium of the system, now so dangerously disturbed. Your committee are deeply impressed with the necessity of commencing early, and of carrying through to its full and final completion, this great work of reform.

The disease is daily becoming more aggravated and dangerous, and, if it be permitted to advance for a few years longer with the rapidity with which it has of late, it will soon pass beyond the reach of remedy. This is no party question. Every lover of his country and of its institutions, be his party what it may, must see and deplore the rapid growth of patronage, with all its attendant evils, and the certain catastrophe which awaits its farther progress, if not timely arrested. The question now is not how, or where, or with whom the danger originated, but how it is to be arrested; not the cause, but the remedy ; not how our institutions and liberty have been endangered, but how they are to be rescued.

XI.

A REPORT ON THAT PORTION OF THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE WHICH RELATED TO THE ADOPTION OF EFFICIENT MEASURES TO PREVENT THE CIRCULATION OF INCENDIARY ABOLITION PETITIONS THROUGH THE

MAIL, FEBRUARY 4, 1836.

The Select Committee to whom was referred that portion of the President's Message which relates to the attempts to circulate, through the mail, inflammatory appeals, to excite the slaves to insurrection, submit the following report:

THE Committee fully concur with the President as to the character and tendency of the papers which have been attempted to be circulated in the South through the mail, and participate with him in the indignant regret which he expresses at conduct so destructive of the peace and harmony of the country, and so repugnant to the Constitution and the dictates of humanity and religion. They also concur in the hope that, if the strong tone of disapprobation which these unconstitutional and wicked attempts have called forth does not arrest them, the non-slaveholding states will be prompt to exercise their power to suppress them, as far as their authority extends. But, while they agree with the President as to the evil and its highly dangerous tendency, and the necessity of arresting it, they have not been able to assent to the measure of redress which he recommends that Congress should pass a law prohibiting, under severe penalty, the transmission of incendiary publications through the mail, intended to instigate the slaves to insurrection.

After the most careful and deliberate investigation, they have been constrained to adopt the conclusion that Congress has not the power to pass such a law; that it would be a violation of one of the most sacred provisions of the Constitution, and subversive of reserved powers essential to the preservation of the domestic institutions of the slaveholding states, and, with them, their peace and security. Concurring, as they do, with the President in the magnitude of the evil and the necessity of its suppression, it would have been the cause of deep regret to the committee, if they thought the difference of opinion, as to the right of Congress, would deprive the slaveholding states of any portion of the protection which the measure recommended by the President was intended to afford them. On the contrary, they believe all the protection intended may be afforded, according to the views they take of the power of Congress, without infringing on any provision of the Constitution on one side, or the reserved rights of the states on the other.

The committee, with these preliminary remarks, will now proceed to establish the positions which they have assumed, beginning with the first--that the passage of a law would be a violation of an express provision of the Constitution. In the discussion of this point, the committee do not deem it necessary to inquire whether the right to pass such a law can be derived from the power to establish postoffices and postroads, or from the trust of "preserving the relation created by the Constitution between the states," as supposed by the President. However ingenious or plausible the arguments may be by which it may be attempted to derive the right from these or any other sources, they must fall short of their object. The jealous spirit of liberty which characterized our ancestors at the period when the Constitution was adopted, forever closed the door by which the right might be implied from any of the granted powers, or any other source, if there be any other. The committee refer to the amended article of the Constitution, which, among other things, provides that Congress shall pass no law which shall abridge the liberty of the press-a provision which interposes, as will be hereafter shown, an insuperable objection to the measure rec

ommended by the President. That the true meaning of this provision may be fully comprehended, as bearing on the point under consideration, it will be necessary to recur briefly to the history of the adoption of the Constitution.

It is well known that great opposition was made to the adoption of the Constitution. It was acknowledged on all sides, at the time, that the old confederation, from its weakness, had failed, and that something must be done to save the country from anarchy and convulsion; yet, so high was the spirit of liberty -so jealous were our ancestors of that day of power, that the utmost efforts were necessary, under all the then existing pressure, to obtain the assent of the states to the ratification of the Constitution. Among the many objections to its adoption, none were more successfully urged than the absence in the instrument of those general provisions which experience had shown to be necessary to guard the outworks of liberty: such as the freedom of the press and of speech, the rights of conscience, of trial by jury, and others of like character. It was the belief of those jealous and watchful guardians of liberty, who viewed the adoption of the Constitution with so much apprehension, that all these sacred barriers, without some positive provision to protect them, would, by the power of construction, be undermined and prostrated. So strong was this apprehension, that it was impossible to obtain a ratification of the instrument in many of the states without accompanying it with the recommendation to incorporate in the Constitution various articles, as amendments, intended to remove this defect, and guard against the danger apprehended, by placing these important rights beyond the possible encroachment of Congress. One of the most important of these is that which stands at the head of the list of amended articles, and which, among other things, as has been stated, prohibits the passage of any law abridging the freedom of the press, and which left that important barrier against power under the exclusive authority and control of the states.

That it was the object of this provision to place the freedom of the press beyond the possible interference of Congress, is a doctrine not now advanced for the first time. It is the ground taken, and so ably sustained by Mr. Madison, in his celebrated report to the Virginia Legislature, in 1799, against the alien and sedition law, and which conclusively settled the principle that Congress has no right, in any form or in any manner, to interfere with the freedom of the press. The establishment of this principle not only overthrew the sedition act, but was the leading cause of the great political revolution which, in 1801, brought the Republican party, with Mr. Jefferson at its head, into

power.

With these remarks, the committee will turn to the sedition act, in order to show the identity in principle between it and the act which the message recommends to be passed, as far as it relates to the freedom of the press. Among its other provisions, it inflicted punishment on all persons who should publish any false, scandalous, or malicious writing against the government, with intent to defame the same, or bring it into contempt or disrepute. Assuming this provision to be unconstitutional, as abridging the freedom of the press, which no one now doubts, it will not be difficult to show that if, instead of inflicting punishment for publishing, the act had inflicted punishment for circulating through the mail for the same offence, it would have been equally unconstitutional. The one would have abridged the freedom of the press as effectually as the other. The object of publishing is circulation; and to prohibit circulation is, in effect, to prohibit publication. They both have a common object-the communication of sentiments and opinions to the public; and the prohibition of one may as effectually suppress such communication as the prohibition of the other; and, of

*The article is in the following words:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and petition the government for a redress of grievances."

course, would as effectually interfere with the freedom of the press, and be equally unconstitutional.

But, to understand more fully the extent of the control which the right of prohibiting circulation through the mail would give to the government over the press, it must be borne in mind that the power of Congress over the postoffice and the mail is an exclusive power. It must also be remembered that Congress, in the exercise of this power, may declare any road or navigable water to be a post-road; and that, by the act of 1825, it is provided “that no stage, or other vehicle which regularly performs trips on a post-road, or on a road parallel to it, shall carry letters." The same provision extends to packets, boats, or other vessels, on navigable waters. Like provision may be extended to newspapers and pamphlets; which, if it be admitted that Congress has the right to discriminate in reference to their character, what papers shall or what shall not be transmitted by the mail, would subject the freedom of the press on all subjects, political, moral, and religious, completely to its will and pleasure. It would, in fact, in some respects, more effectually control the freedom of the press than any sedition law, however severe its penalties. The mandate of the government alone would be sufficient to close the door against circulation through the mail; and thus, at its sole will and pleasure, might intercept all communication between the press and the people, while it would require the intervention of courts and juries to enforce the provisions of a sedition law, which experience has shown are not always passive and willing instruments in the hands of government, where the freedom of the press is concerned.

From these remarks, it must be apparent that, to prohibit publication on one side, and circulation through the mail on the other, of any paper, on account of its religious, moral, or political character, rests on the same principle; and that each is equally an abridgment of the freedom of the press, and a violation of the Constitution. It would, indeed, have been but a poor triumph for the cause of liberty, in the great contest of 1799, had the sedition law been put down on principles that would have left Congress free to suppress the circulation through the mail of the very publications which that odious act was intended to prohibit. The authors of that memorable achievement would have had but slender claims on the gratitude of posterity, if their victory over the encroachment of power had been left so imperfect.

It will, after what has been said, require but few remarks to show that the same principle which applied to the sedition law would apply equally to a law punishing, by Congress, such incendiary publications as are referred to in the message, and, of course, to the passage of a law prohibiting their transmission through the mail. The principle on which the sedition act was condemned as unconstitutional was a general one, and not limited in its application to that act. It withdraws from Congress all right of interference with the press, in any form or shape whatever; and the sedition law was put down as unconstitutional, not because it prohibited publications against the government, but because it interfered at all with the press. The prohibition of any publication on the ground of its being immoral, irreligious, or intended to excite rebellion or insurrection, would have been equally unconstitutional; and, from parity of reason, the suppression of their circulation through the mail would be no less so.

But, as conclusive as these reasons are against the right, there are others not. less so, derived from the powers reserved to the states, which the committee will next proceed to consider.

The message, as has been stated, recommends that Congress should pass a law to punish the transmission through the mail of incendiary publications intended to instigate the slaves to insurrection. It of course assumes for Congress a right to determine what papers are incendiary and intended to excite insurrection. The question, then, is, Has Congress such a right? A question of vital importance to the slaveholding states, as will appear in the course of the discussion.

After examining this question with due deliberation, in all its bearings, the committee are of opinion, not only that Congress has not the right, but to admit it would be fatal to the states. Nothing is more clear than that the admission of the right, on the part of Congress, to determine what papers are incendiary, and, as such, to prohibit their circulation through the mail, necessarily involves the right to determine what are not incendiary, and to enforce their circulation. Nor is it less certain that, to admit such a right, would be virtually to clothe Congress with the power to abolish slavery, by giving it the means of breaking down all the barriers which the slaveholding states have erected for the protection of their lives and property. It would give Congress, without regard to the prohibition laws of the states, the authority to open the gates to the flood of incendiary publications which are ready to break into those states, and to punish all who dare resist as criminals. Fortunately, Congress has no such right. The internal peace and security of the states are under the protection of the states themselves, to the entire exclusion of all authority and control on the part of Congress. It belongs to them, and not to Congress, to determine what is, or is not, calculated to disturb their peace and security; and, of course, in the case under consideration, it belongs to the slaveholding states to determine what is incendiary and intended to incite to insurrection, and to adopt such defensive measures as may be necessary for their security, with unlimited means of carrying them into effect, except such as may be expressly inhibited to the states by the Constitution. To establish the truth of this position, so essential to the safety of those states, it would seem sufficient to appeal to their constant exercise of this right at all times, without restriction or question, both before and since the adoption of the Constitution. But, on a point of so much importance, which may involve the safety, if not the existence itself, of an entire section of the Union, it will be proper to trace it to its origin, in order to place it on a more immovable foundation.

That the states which form our Federal Union are sovereign and independent communities, bound together by a constitutional compact, and are possessed of all the powers belonging to distinct and separate states, excepting such as are delegated to be exercised by the General Government, is assumed as unquestionable. The compact itself expressly provides that all powers not delegated are reserved to the states and the people. To ascertain, then, whether the power in question is delegated or reserved, it is only necessary to ascertain whether it is to be found among the enumerated powers or not. If it be not among them, it belongs, of course, to the reserved powers. On turning to the Constitution, it will be seen that, while the power of defending the country against external danger is found among the enumerated, the instrument is wholly silent as to the power of defending the internal peace and security of the states, and, of course, reserves to the states this important power, as it stood before the adoption of the Constitution, with no other limitation, as has been stated, except such as are expressly prescribed by the instrument itself. From what has been stated, it may be inferred that the right of a state to defend itself against internal dangers is a part of the great, primary, and inherent right of self-defence, which, by the laws of nature, belongs to all communities; and so jealous were the states of this essential right, without which their independence could not be preserved, that it is expressly provided by the Constitution, that the General Government shall not assist a state, even in case of domestic violence, except on the application of the authorities of the state itself: thus excluding, by a necessary consequence, its interference in all other cases.

Having now shown that it belongs to the slaveholding states, whose institutions are in danger, and not to Congress, as is supposed by the message, to determine what papers are incendiary and intended to excite insurrection among

* See 4th article, 4th section, of the Constitution.