The Inaugural.
Our readers have of course read and formed their opinions of the Inaugural
Address of President Lincoln, and we propose to say but few words upon one or
two points.
The general tone, principles and suggestions of the message must meet the hearty
commendation of every Republican, and every friend and well-wisher of the Federal
Constitution. Extreme political men whose points converge to the South, and
who adopt three-fourths of Daniel Webster's creed, and "know no North,
no East, no West," while they reject the other fourth and do know of South:
these men will be dissatisfied and find fault, complaining of inability to understand
the address! smelling after some secret as a police officer looks for a secret
hole in a thief's trunk ; and grumbling most of all because there is so little
in the address, either in matter or spirit, which a decent man can find fault
with; such men will find fault with it. They would if it had been written by
an inspired prophet. It matters not with them what the address is: it is enough
that it came from President Lincoln, and that he came from the republican party.
They have been defeated; and hardly anything requires more philosophy or grace
even, than for a whipped man to admit anything to be good which his whipper
does. Patriotism may be strong, but human rancor is often its conqueror; and
it would not be very uncharitable to suppose that there are some among our defeated
politicians whose feelings of revenge for their defeat overpower their desire
for the best welfare of their country and of the human race. Such men will find
fault, pick flaws, suspect, intimate secret evil purposes, invent defamatory
stories, oppose, embarrass, multiply obstacles; and do all they can to produce
difficulty and confusion inextricable, that they may have the ecstatic joy of
crying out--"There! I told you so."-- There are a few such, we suppose,
scattered about, and they will make what ado they can; but the great body of
the people, who are accustomed to look with a single eye in the public good,
will approve every word of the address.
There is one point which is important, and yet has escaped general notice,
in newspaper comments. It is that relating to the Supreme Court. He does not
admit that court to be as authoritative as many persons claim it to be. Its
decisions should be confined in their operation to the specific cases in which
they are delivered, and not is expanded into universal law controlling Congress,
the President, the Departments, and the country. Then, if one decision is wrong,
a subsequent decision may be right; while, on the principle that every decision
has the force of universal law, there can be no setting right a wrong decision.
This is undoubtedly the true doctrine on this subject. It is true that there
should if possible be some consistency in decisions of the courts; but if reverence
for consistency is to be supreme, then the court will soon become a power too
tyrannical to be borne, and will be a nuisance rather than a blessing. Even
with the qualified restraint claimed by the President, there is room for gross
abuse of power, as our own history manifests. For, in spite of the doctrine
of "precedents," our court, while as stiff as bristles to adhere to
every decision ever made in behalf of the slaveholding interests, has been as
ductile and plastic as soft wax, in reference to these which have been adverse
to that interest, and several important decisions of the court made years ago
in favor of liberty, have of late years been overruled, and the dogmas of slavery
have been substituted for the principles of freedom. However, there is hope
for a change the other way now. If the people are true to themselves and to
freedom, and will sustain a free court, and provide freedom-loving judges, the
principle of our jurisprudence will soon be re-confirmed to those of constitutional
liberty, and the three departments of government will move on harmoniously together
in working out the problem of man's self-government--the problem whether it
is better for men to govern themselves, or to be governed by others; in short,
whether liberty is more conducive to human happiness, than despotism.
The good work of renovating the supreme court will begin sooner than could
reasonably have been expected, as there are two vacancies now which will be
filled by Mr. Lincoln. As the court is almost a unit on slavery pretentions,
we must have a chance to do what is necessary for a full emancipation of that
court from the disgraceful thraldom in which it has of late been held.
But the words of warning from the new President will have a bracing influence
for freedom on that bench; and we doubt if, today, such a decision as that the
Dred Scott case could be wrung from the court, if that decision had not been
made. In fact, that decision would not have been made if Fremont had been elected.
Judges are men, and moved as other men are. Four years ago if seemed safe to
give slavery a seven-leagued boot and let it stride right through the constitution
like an elephant through a garden plot, for the people had voted for the supremacy
of slavery, and what should judges do but follow the people? We have a different
result now, and the court will feel it, and but for the awkwardness of turning
on their own decisions, would render much less offensive and insolent decisions
than they did then. As fast as those in awkward positions now can be purged
from the bench and others of other blood and other feelings can be substituted,
it is to be hoped it will be done--- Meantime the present judges, feeling the
tonic influence of northern air, will be less ready and anxious to crawl before
the imperious power they have so servilely obeyed; and the manly tones of the
Presidential voice on this subject, will have no small influence in infusing
something of a more liberal sentiment and bearing upon, even the present wearers
of the national ermine. Thanks to President Lincoln for not forgetting this
important instrumentally in the cause of freedom if rightly used--or of oppression
if abused. |