'/j^/;/^,/-^, YALE UNIVERSITY OCT 1 8 ^930 LI BR ABY :A.3DDRESS BEFORE THE OLDEST INHABITANTS' ASSOCIATION OF WASHINGTON, D. 0., By Mr. A. G. Riddle, 159th ANNIVERSARY OF WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY. JUDD i DETVVEILER, PRINTERS. WASHINGTON, D. C. ^l33G,G32,, i -1 ARGUMENT. Great tnen— Their coming— Mary Ball— George Washington— His work — Its estimate — We could not have formed the Constitution — Recon struction a stupendous blunder— Unable to deal with its abiding evils — Was a political necessity — Freedmen, as citizens, an inert mass-^ A solid South a solid worth — Colored leaders — Remedy, a division of colored citizens between the two parties. The North denies suffrage to the colored citizens in this District as, does the South, and for the same reason. The District — Its needs— Its late government expunged— Citizens disfran chised- — That made permanent — The true reason — Is unconstitutional — Decision of the Supreme Court — Position of Washington excep tional — Congress cannot govern it — ^This shown— The laws in force in it— Specimens — Attempts to codify — ist, 2d, 3d, and 4th Codes — Why Congress cannot govern the District — Justice to Congress — The House — Law-makers are foreigners— Have Districts of their own — ¦ The District must be postponed to the Nation — Progress of the Dis trict — Madison — Must become a State — Now has the full constitution — The colored citizen should vote here — Till 'then the South not to ^ be condemned — If Republican party uiiequaLlo the question will perish — What we owe that race — We need a constant exercise of self- government — Our sons never reach full American age — Effects, etc. Venerable Gentlemen of this Honored Order : GREAT MEN---WASHINGTON AND HIS WORK. We have a way of saying that we no longer have great O7 men ; the earth no longer brings them forth. We have dis tinguished men, eminent men, any quantity of first men; every place has many. ' "He is one of our very first men." One important thing lost sight of, we may remember, for the consolation of we common men in this country, we have lifted up the mass ; have so elevated ourselves that there is no longer the great difference there once was between great and common men. They may loom large in the distance ; they diminish as we approach, and We meet men about our size. We common men do the common, work— are born to it. Great men come as naturally to the great jobs. Their coming is a mystery. " The first we know of them, thfey are at work; theri we do not recognize them' readily. Men (3) believe great men are specially raised up. They are them selves unconscious of that. The men born to missions are, as we find, always cranks — mental-moral tramps'. Who knows the law producing great men? Who will undertake, of all the boys born, to name one who will be great or eminent ? They come from the most unexpected- homes — laborers' cottages often — are never born in purple; no one proclaims them. We find them at their work; that is their proclamation. They are never born alone ; they come in groups. That has ever been the law, as if they would want the help . of giants. The greatest is the great one of a group of great. ^ Poets come together. Homer a,lone of his time survives. . All the song of that day is ascribed to him. That is the fortune of a great man ; all the work of his age becomes his. Shakespeare ! see how he came attended. He may live alone three thousand years hence. Byron and Shelley were stars of a constellation ; so Goethe was attended by peers. Prophets, closely allied to the poets, come in schools ; so do the orators always ; so the discoverers and inventors ; so of the great generals and great artists. Why is it? Wash ington did not come alone. He would have done little if he had. Great statesmen, great orators, great commanders, surround-ed him ; he was greatest of all — greater than all ; so great that much that others did is esteemed his. Great epochs do not produce great men. Great mBn make great ages. The revolution did not make Washington. He and his compeers made the revolution. Below and back of them were latent causes, divers, produc ing both. Inscrutable are the causes — the hidden germs and springs that go to the production of great men — beyond the mere movements of a race or people. A strange thing in the world's history is, that very rarely has a great man been followed by a great son. Phillip was followed by Alexander, and there are similar instances in the history of the early Turkish sultans. Edward III was father of the Black Prince, and William Pitt, first Earl of Chatham, was followed by William Pitt the younger. In our history are the Adamses. These men were fortunate in their choice of wives. A great man was never born of a weak, common-place mother — though they may spring from a common-place father. A mother cannot impart what she has liot to give ; she does more than receive and transmit — she gives of her own strength. Here was Augustine Washington — the third generation of Washingtons in Virginia — whose first wife left him with four children. Of these, Lawrence and Augustine lived through manhood. On the 6th of March, 1730, he wedded Mary Ball, forever blessed among women. Her first child, born two years later, was George Washington. Had an an cient hero achieved his position, the legend of his birth would tell of attendant wonders in the heavens and prodi gies on the eartli. A nimbus would surround his mother's head. An English lord chancellor, a statesman and an orator, said that the test of the progress of a people, a State, or nation is the rank in which it places Washington. By the universal consent of all civilized peoples, this son of Mary stands the first of mankind. When his monument was built^every race, nation, and people — from remote lands, from the graves of buried empires, from the lonely islands of the sea — brought their most enduring substances, glad. and proud to aid in its upbuilding — in a way a needless labor ! Why set up monuments to the fame that fills the arches of the sky, and forever will, till those forms of light vanish,- till the earth unpeopled wanders darkling in sunless space. The structure makes concrete our reverent love and gratitude, with no thought of commemorating this fame. Return to the argument. To this pair were born four more children, all, as were the older, good, sensible, common place men and women and no more — remembered only as the kindred of George Washington. How came it? Had George been but the one child, and thus endowed and thus destined the wonder would be less. But none of his brothers 6 or sisters shared of his great qualities. Why was it ? What is the law ? With him, as with all great men, no one an ticipated his future. No one noted him, his sayings and doings, and, as always happens, when fame came to him the wise and curious, from scantest material, invented what seemed a fitting childhood and boyhood for him. If we only knew of the advent of one of the to-be famous! If the man himself knew ! George unconsciously went about the work of his time in the ordinary wa.3^ It would seem as if Mary — great mother — from the first was aware that unusual powers had been imparted to this son; and certainly she, with the scrupulous integrity of a clear, far-seeing, strong-brained, just soul, guarded the treasure and directed the feet of her child with rare wisdom and courage ; and the wonder is that more such children were not born of her — the only woman who could bear such a child. She too shall have her monument. I am not to follow the career of Washington, nor attempt any analysis of his labors, his qualities, or his character. Genius itself, with creative imagination and apt powers of expression, can say nothing new or impart new interest to the old. It was his fortune to render to his countrymen and to the world some of the greatest services and benefits ever conferred, and as such they are acknowledged and honored. We cannot say that this — these were the product of his head and hand alone. A great group of men shared to their best in his labors. We can say that without him that group of great men could never have accomplished the work. He was the great center — the magnet — ^the bond of union, and strength, and ever-enduring courage. Without him the great cause would have gone to ruin in a month. Even after the war, had it not been for him the broken, warring, lost fragments of the American States, would have been added to the wide wreckage of human endeavor that strews the devious pathways of human history. In this way all we have gained, as well as much that we have avoided of ill, is due to him— is his work. We have a way of saying that our Government is the greatest, the wisest, and the best that God ever aided men to form. It is time we had passed the day of silly boasting. It, or something like it, has been tried by other hberated peoples, with whom it did not work. The Latin races have not found it suited to them. Our fathers were still English men. The nearly two hundred years had not fully Ameri canized them — we are only full Americans now. It was the rare gift of the makers of this Government to have the sa gacity and wisdom to see what their exceptional conditions required, and the skill, courage, and constructive ability to franie a scheme of government probably the best adapted to their needs. This is rare praise. In this sense it was one of the wisest and best. Save us, there was not then nor now a people who could successfully work it. It would have failed then in the hands of any man but Washington. Let us be done with Fourth of July babble, and study and understand and appreciate what we have and how we got it. So, too, we have outgrown some other things — our young people's sensitiveness as to what others say about us. I lived through the green age of Capt. Basil Hall, and Mrs. TroUope, and her " Dornestic Manners of the Americans." * One of the merits of our Constitution is, that it deals largely in general principles, which, in the hands of wise legislators, are in a way flexible and easy of application to many conditions. Unlike the later State constitutions, which, instead of being institutional, are sections of irrepeal- able statutes, that are found impracticable — can neither be got a,round or got over. ( The Government, thus formulated and carefully planted Ind nursed by Washington, took strong root and grew. Vigorous growth was essential. The' tests of war, of party, * Capt. Cyril Smellfungus, as Edward Everett called him. His was, then the sharpest pen in America ; Willis aud Curtis and Lowell were then growing. So I cau recall the later advent of Dickens, with his red vest and cockney manners, and the abominably silly ovations on his re ception in the Eastern cities, which he repaid in small notes. No wonder they disliked them. What would then have been said of Kipling's snarl ing letters ? They are old letters and should have been lefft in India. factional, and sectional strife, but strengthened and con firmed it. The war for its destruction made it perpetual ; made this city its enduring home. RECONSTRUCTION A BLUNDER. Some things due to the war are not out of place on this great anniversary, the day that made all our anniversaries possible. ' We may compare and contrast ourselves and our works of the last war and the exigencies it caused, with the labors of Washington and his compeers under the demands of the first war. In the dismal days of failure of the first and second years of our war, there were many recurring times when the reflection was uttered in sickness of soul, " We could not have achieved the Revolution." May we not say now that we could not have formulated and grown the Constitution and Government? It may be remembered that from our labors we excluded the men of one-half of the Republic — the half that produced Washington, the Lees, Henrys, Pen- dletons, and Rutledges. The Man of men who had managed, conducted, and sometimes led us through the war, was also absent. Perhaps no human skill was equal to the task • which the North had, iii a way, brought upon itself. Looking at the work now, after the fourth of a century, the course pursued seems a gigantic blunder, the evils of which still convulse the land. They are now too great for the very able men who conduct the councils of the majority in Congress, who lead when their partisans will follow. These men, in full accord with the Executive head, a man not unequal to ~ his position, are baffled by the very evils flowing from our faulty readjustment of the political condi tions springing from the war. While the land of Wash ington, whose representatives have long reoccupied their old places at the council board, content themselves with thwart ing the will of the majority, as if content with the wide spread disorder. They certainly propose no remedies. Of 9 all days, this is the one on which a man should utter his in-- nerino3t convictions on this grave matter. We— or, rather, the war— freed the slaves. The war com pelled the proclamation, dictated its own policy, fought itself That is why it succeeded. The South was conquered by the war, after it had first conquered the North. These millions thus freed were not deported. Since the Assyrian's time that has not been attempted on a large plane. Nebuchadnezzer would have carried away the masters. He was sagacious. The emancipated had not the impulse of primitive tribes to remove themselves. There was no land to which they might flee. They were free — were to remain. They were not prepared to make conquests, like the escap ing Israelites from Egypt. They were without leaders — have, none now. The;ljnasters, stung by the defeat from the lost field — im poverished in their war-wasted lands and homes; their slaves, their most available property, changed to profitless persons in their houses and on their estates — the problems of life, property, and government now forthe first time arose, under such conditions, in human history. These ex-masters and ex-slaves were to dwell, rule, govern together as politi cal equals. The Constitution was the underlying law of the land, the States indestructible political entities. The action of some of the Legislatures at once showed that the freedmen could not be left to their guardianship. On the other hand, the men who fought the war in Con gress, the Cabinet, in the field, and still full of the war spirit, were hardly the best men to deal with the problems which they could not avoid. The war-horse never works well to the plough and cart. He is not always safe in the family carriage. He has visions of the listed field, of the headlong charge. He fancies be hears the bugle when anything reminds him of the war. There was theThirteenth Amendment affirming emancipa tion, the Fourteenth — finally the Fifteenth. Congress had rejected the Southern Representatives of the old regime. Then came fierce war with the President, to complicate mat- 10 ters. The National Union Convention had alarmed the- Republicans. Meantime the military district system, with the brigadiers and soldiers, was in full tide. This last was most un-Ameri(ian. It gave the Northern Democracy vast leverage. THE NEW STATE GOVERNMENTS. Republican supremacy was menaced at the North. At the crisis the freedmen were drafted, so to say, as the working power, into the organized new State governments. They were masses by the hundred thousand, whose only schooling was in generations of slavery, in whom the sav age virtues of their ancestors had long since given place to the civilized vices of their masters. Men who had no con ception of personal obedience to municipal law, and no idea of what that was, were made the working units of the new political organizations to govern their ex-masters and them selves, elect, be elected, make and enforce laws. The head is supposed to lodge the brains, is esteemed the dominant organ, and rules. The new scheme reversed that- theory and elevated the heads antithesis to rule. It did not work well. ¦ It never has, though often tried. The re sult was not a decent travesty of government. It was much worse. George Washington resting on the everlasting granite of his character, and wielding the primal forces with which nature hollowed the basins of the oceans and fashioned the continents, would have failed here. George would not have undertaken the quest. I know very well the exigency which led to this enter prise. There was a notable though not a large gathering of men, some of the most notable of that day and some with slender claim to be heard there, to discuss the scheme. " The question " (the political condition of the recovered States), . said the head of the third co-ordinate department, " must be passed out of the field of national politics. It can only be done by restoring the States to their places under the Con stitution. The Republican party is necessary to the pre served Republic. The freedmen are necessary to the party of preservation." It was replied " that the proposed govern- 11 ment would be more odious to the North than the generals and soldiers. The army would be as necessary to them as to the military governors." The 14th amendment disfranchised the men of the South engaged in the war, to be restored only by Congress. It was supposed Congress would so exercise this power as to secure staunch support to the new governments, and it used the power most liberally. The governments, the frame-work, were sustained. The times were I'evolutionary, men were accustomed to violence and blood. We look more leniently upon political crimes than those prompted by malice, lust, or lucre ; and very soon the old idea was realized, the head was in its ancient place, and the colored citizen was nearly in Ms old place, where he still is, substantially. By the erection of the new State governments and making the freedmen their citizens, the Republicans placed them out of their own power for protection or succor. The instances where Copgress can legislate directly upon the citizens of a State are few and unimportant. The instances in which it can legislate upon States for any purpose are hard to find. The Fourteenth Amendment has a scarcely worthy device whereby the Southern States were to be induced to recognize the political rights of the colored citizen or be punished for not so doing — a provision they have utterly disregarded and which has never been enforced against them or sought to be. The Republicans, as the sole reined}', now propose and at tempt to pass an election law to ensure to the power to vote, its due exercise by the colored citizen. Thus far they have failed. The Democrats declare it never shall pass. They have even threatened to secede — from Chicago — if it does. The South is united on this. It is now as when legalized slavery existed. Everything was made to yield to sustain that. The condition politically has not changed a hair. What an awful hindrance this is to the South. Why don't they invent an escape from it? What an obstruction, annoyance, and peril this state is to the whole of the Re public. Has not the South learned that its stupid inertness 12 is always confronted by a solid North, and always will be ? Nothing is wanted to ensure it at the next general election but the execution of the stupid threat of rebellion against: Christopher Columbus, of blessed memory. THE REAL CAUSE. What is the gist of this deplorable state, its nerve-center ? The colored citizens are Republicans — will vote the Repub lican ticket — are solid ; hence the solid South which is corre lated every four years by a solid North. Why are these people to-day Republicans, all in a mass? They are of no e'arthly use to the Republican party, but a hindrance. That is the great cause of their own political paralysis. It renders them powerless to help themselves as to help others, or be helped. Gratitude to the Republicans ? Oh, the cause for that was cancelled long ago. THE REMEDY. As one present and doing his best to help form the Re-. publican party and who has had no thought or wish but for its steady, success, who has a great liking for Democrats — as private citizens — I wish fully half of the colored citizens would, as speedily as is decent, become and remain Democrats all through the South. Had I the ear of the Southern Republican leaders, black and white, I would implore that they, as soon as practicable, require that at least a half, and not the worst half, become politically Democrats and stay such. There is very little. difference in the working doctrines of the two parties. The Democrats begun six years ago to administer the Govern ment according to Repubhcan principles and policy, and did it very well. Indeed, nobody will seriously think of 'running it on any other. A division of the colored voters South is the only practical solution of this great question. It places them on ground' where they can be useful and receive recognition and bene fits. In losing them the National Republicans gain rather than Ibse. Massed as they now are, they compel the mass 13 of the white citizens to herd as Democrats. Prevent them from becoming practical Republicans, whatever may be their views. Divide and there will be a competition between the two parties for the colored vote. The race will become of political consequence and receive the consideration due to American citizens. THE COLORED MASS — THEIR LEADERS. In all these years their attitude has been that of a man whose journey is delayed by a river, and who supinely sits upon its bank to wait for it to run by, so he can proceed on his way. The river — -Running runs. And will run forever on. It is time they were up and doing for themselves. We Republicans can do nothing for them. They are a hin drance to us, a hindrance to the South, to the Republic; a mass of the dead past, to which the Nation is chained, com pelling us to fight over our dead issues and keep alive great irritations, hopelessly chronic. This people are here to stay. They must be elevated, or we descend. There must be a common plain of association with them, and the lower it is the worse for all. We, the children of a thousand years of civilization, enriched by all the older world gave us, are im patient, intolerant of this the youngest race in progress. We cannot wait for the slower Indian — we kill him, at the proper point of starvation. There are too many of the Negro. He is too tough and capable ; is a being of great possibilities of culture and power. Millions, and yet they are mere units — not having even ethnic or tribal bonds — nothing but color, a common misfortune, a present hopeless state, a helpless waiting. They are a people without traditions connecting them with any past. Thus far no leader has appeared among them. If one had, with the instincts, the grasp and power of the really great, he would have led them with their citizenship, sagaciously, to a position where it would be for the interest of the dominant race to care for 14 them. He would not hold them helplessly massed in torpid a,ntagonism to the men who inevitably must rule. We have the same problem here in this District; the same race under similar conditions. It is because of this presence that our own race are here so patient under their debased un- American position in the Republic, which I will discuss. I linger a moment to venture a word of the educated, cultured colored leaders, whose chief value so far is, to dem onstrate the capabilities of their race, which are large. They are leaders with no following, and cannot have- in their present position. Think of it ! These, the most advanced, the nearest to us in developed capacity, are ever looking to us for our favor, our recognition, our applause, if.mayhap, they may gain some distinguishing personal position. And the Executive is supposed to favor the race or not as he advances one of it. This he must do with utmost caution. The offices are for the use of the people ; and it must be an extreme case that warrants the appointment of a person in a place, where he is for any reason odious or obnoxious. These leaders stand out from their race, ask recognition from us, compete with each other for oyr favor, are rivals — enemies, while the common mass of the colored share to the fullest, our vulgar estimate of the men of their own race. If they: need a lawyer, a doctor, an artist, or mechanic they pass the com petent men of their own race for one of ours, because of their color, and the young colored professional man has to com pete with the white men of his profession, for the patronage of his, own race. This state of things is not due to any natural deficiency of the colored -men, professional or lay; but is the unavoid able result of their position ; and if they would only look to and stand by and advance each other, the colored problem would take a perceptible step toward solution, I do not discuss the important point whether there is such a ques tion distinct from other political problems. It is at least one of them, of overshadowing importance, upon which,if a man has any thought, he should straightway utter it. 15 THE DISTRICT — ITS NEEDS. Reverently we will invoke the presence, on this his day, of the august shade of Washington. His queries will not be of the grand structures of the Government, nor of the elegant residences of the wealthy, nor yet of the wondrous beauty of the city. But he asks : " What of the people? What of ' their rights, their privileges, under the exceptional govern ment ordained for them ? Surely, surely, the people of the capital have to the largest shared of the best and most ex tensive benefits that their deservings and the wisdom of rulers could devise. They should be models illustrative, in the eyes of the nations, of the blessings of our institutions." Illustrious spirit! the people of your city are citizens but in name. Save sitting as jurors, they possess no pretense of any right, power, or privilege of the American citizen. They • are not consulted as to the imposition of the taxes they pay, nor yet of the purpose to which they shall be applied. " How is this ? Have you forgotten that we declared that .all the powers of a government can be derived only from the people, and can alone be exercised by their free consent ? How have you been bribed to relinquish this birthright of American citizens outweighing all price? Tell me, what did you receive in exchange ? " We received nothing ; were never consulted. With severity : " Your rights could be taken from you only as forfeiture for the greatest crimes. In what were you found guilty, that a whole people should suffer? " Revered Father, we are guiltless of offense ; were not ac cused. " Not accused ! Speak you for your fellows. Make this clear, 0 man of this generation ! " It has been said that Congress alone could govern us; that it cannot delegate this power even to the people to be governed. " Where got your Congress this power ? You say you did not grant it. It could be derived from no other source. 16 The exclusion of our constitution Was against interference of the States— all outside powers. Congress was to govern, but assuredly in accord with American ideas. This, your :government, is in violation of the most fundamental of them. Men of the younger generations, have you never heard of the utterance of James Madison upon this ques tion in the great exposition of our work by himself, Hamil ton, and Jay — our understanding of our own work? Or, have men come to know more of what we intended than did we?" Great Sire, it is also said that we cannot be trusted with the government of ourselves; that we have been tested, tried. " What sarcasm is this and what irony applied to Con gress ! The result of its exclusive government, then, has been to reduce you in intelligence and virtue to a point where you can no longer be trusted to care for yourselves. What must the other peoples think of this exemplification of republican institutions? Speak freely, men of this day, to this matter, that we may judge of those who govern as of you who are thus governed. How, in what have you shown inability for self-government ? " THE LATE DISTRICT GOVERNMENT. Listen, most illustrious of men ! Twenty years ago we asked for an enlarged municipal government, wholly elec tive. With care we drew out the scheme in form and asked its enactment. Its form was preserved ; but when it came back to us as a law approved by your successor in the great office, we found, oh, Great Benefactor, our Governor and Sec retary were to be appointed by the President. So, also, was the Boards of Public Works and of Health. The council — our senate — was to be appointed, also, by him. All the jus tices of the peace, all our officers and boards, created or then in existence, were appointive by the President, his Governor, and council. Not bne was elective. We, the people, could only elect twenty-two delegates to the lower house and a non-voting delegate to the House of ^7 Representatives. This was the full extfent of our power. This travesty of an American Government by the people entered upon its labors June 1, 1871, and was unqualifiedly repealed by its authors June 20, 1874, because we had in that time and way, shown ourselves incompetent to govern ourselves, and that with Congress all the time supervising the acts of the legislature. Nay, it doubled our taxation for that year, because its own agents, governors, councilors, board of pub lic works, and others had exercised their functions in a way not pleasing to it. Congress then hastily extemporized a com- missional government, and three gentlemen from three re mote States were called to rule over us. " My children," we may imagine the vanishing shade as saying in solemn sadness, " if you are content with this utter loss of citizens' rights, that in a measure justifies your de privation of them. No people numerous as are you can fail, thus submissive, to lose the high and noble personal qualities developed alone by the constant exercise of citizen rights and powers. I care not what you may have received instead of these withheld ; nothing can compensate for their loss. Adieu." DISFRANCHISEMENT PERPETUAL. One thing here I may say further. After four years of that makeshift, no-voting experiment. Congress, June 11, 1878, ordained it as a permanent government, with some slight amendments of the temporary scheme, some improvements, and one most decidedly for the worse, the military commissioner. By this act disfranchisement was perpetuated. In the intervening years men of fortune had built residences ; power ful Senators, wealthy Representatives, the great tribunes of the people of the States, had become property-owners ; so also had there come to be a large, ^ very large, percentage of the males eligible to the elective franchise, of the colored race, parts of the same race which the South, as we have just seen, have excluded by means of their own, from the use of the franchise; and rather than that they should vote, impose taxation on this to-be-favored property and its owners, the franchise was abolished, or rather the only sub- 2 18 jects for its exercise were ; a more ingenious but more sinister method than that practiced at the South, and much more efficacious:. The pure whites, descendants of the soldiers under the immediate command of him whose day we here commemorate, were necessarily disfranchised also. I do not say that this was the sole reason. T do say that had it not been for these colored citizens, the franchise for some pur poses would have been continued. The leaders' who would compel the rulers of the South to give honest effect to the colored suffrage, deny it here, where they are the exclusive legislators, and to do this the more effectively,. they un- Americanized 200,000 ; citizens by blood, birth, inheritance, and the provisions of the Constitution and of their own laws. And this in violation of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment, that prohibi,ts States from like legislation, and forbids Congress also as well, as I will show you. DISFRANCHISEMENT UNCONSTITUTIONAL. I assert that this sweeping from us the right of the elective franchise, and with it all citizen rights, was a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. I refer you to that famous clause in section ten, article first, of the Constitution : '' No State shall pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts." "XIV. All persons born or naturalized in the United .States, &c. * * * * ' * * No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall," etc. Proclaimed July 28, 1868. 15 Stats., p. 708. Compare, contrast these prohibitions. They are of one character, one nature; their purpose the same — to secure the inviolability of the fundamental principles,^ the primal bonds of human association. The one forever secures the faith bf contracts among men ; the other, more fundamfental, protects man's rights from the invasion of the government itself. Each, in terms, excludes the United States, acting by its Congress from its provision. Yet, in fact and law, if one of these does include Congress, 19 so must the other. Neither is framed to prevent the States from infringing a power granted by the Constitution to Con gress, but simply from working wrong directly by legislation. Is anybody prepared to insist that Coi^ig-ress has an express grant of power to do the gravest wrong and injustice; pass a law, the direct purpose of which is to strip from men all semblance of the right of self-government, and place that in the hands of others ? I need not argue this on principle. It needs but to be stated. It is a great self-evident truth that would be obscured by argument. Happily, the great Supreme Court has directly adjudged this matter. The act of February 25, 1862 (12 Stats., 345), authorizing the issue of Treasury notes ¦ as money, declares that " they shall also be lawful money and a legal tender in payment of all debts," &c. They were tendered in payment of a promis,Sory note made before the law was enacted, and it was contended that it impaired the obligation of the note and hence was void — was unconstitutional. 'The Court said: "It is true that this prohibition is not applied informs to the Government of the United States. Congress has express power to enact bankrupt laws, and we do not say that a law made in the execution of any other express power, which incidentally only impairs the obliga tion of a contract, can be held to be unconstitutional for that reason. " But we think it clear that those who framed and those who adopted the Constitution, intended that the spirit of this prohibition should pervade the entire body of legislation, and that the justice which the Constitution was ordained to establish was not thought by them to be compatible with legislation of an opposite tendency. In other words, we cannot. doubt that a law not made in pursuance of an express power, which necessarily and in its direct operation impairs the obligation of contracts, is inconsistent with the spirit of the Con- J. Chfford in Hepburn vs. Griswold, 8 Wall, 603 ; see p. 623. 20 The Court held that when the note was made it could only be discharged by gold and silver, and hence the pro vision making it payable iri a mere paper promise to pay, was void. In Knox ¦ys. Lee, and also in Parker vs. Davis (12 Wall., 457), the question was agaih solemnly passed upon. The Court held that a payment in legal-tender notes did not impair the obhgation of the contract. That was a promise to pay in money, declared to be money by Congress, at the time the note fell due. The Court conceded that if the law did directly and purposely impair the obligation to pay it would be void. The three cases concur that Congress cannot directly im pair the obhgation of a contract, but if in the execution of a direct g^ant an incidental condition of things should arise, by which the obligation was impaired, the law would never theless be valid. That is the rule to be applied to this legislation. If in a state of war it becomes necessary to set aside the civil govern ment by the citizens and substitute the military, as an inci dent, the civil rights of citizens must for the time be sus pended with the writ of habeas corpus ; but that any man can be found who will contend that Congress, in a reign of peace, can, as it declares it has, permanently, not merely suspend but annihilate citizen rights in this District, now, when the question is for the first time made, is gravely doubted. THE POSITION OF WASHINGTON EXCEPTIONAL. The position of this city is unlike that of any other American city, in this : Every other city is under the fostering care of an immediate State government, beyond which, for its national protection, is the National Government. These are supple mented by its own municipal government, of ample powers for its corporate purposes. CONGRESS INCOMPETENT TO GOVERN THE DISTRICT. We have neither State, or municipal, and no other organi zation than the District boundaries. We are 260,000 people 21 delivered, stripped and bound, into the hands of Congress at its discretion, which does not treat us as an American people. It governs us, and has, and will, precisely as might be ex pected. Great and, in the main, wise and patriotic as it is the Congress of the United States is the worst body that can be devised for the exclusive legislation of this, in many ways, favored city. This is established by the whole course of its exercise of this powers in the premises. Take an in stance long-continued, chronic, ludicrous : The District, this city, has been under this exclusive Con gressional government since 1800 — ninety-one years. By act of Congress the laws in force in Maryland February 27, 1801, were continued iri force in the District until changed by Con gress. Whoever would know what this means, remember ing that we had the entire body of the common law, let him consult the two huge quarto unpaged volumes of statutes of that venerable State (Kilty's Statutes), where he will find the royal charter of Charles, by the scant grace of God, etc., all the colonial statutes, beginning with those enacted at St. Mary's, May 10, 1692. Let him examine Alexander's volume - of a thousand pages of English statutes, in force in Maryland till the Declaration of Independence, and so remained the law of the land and came to us. These, supplemented by the acts of Congress, scattered through its twenty-five huge tomes, the ordinances of the municipal corporations of Wash ington, Georgetown, and of the Levy Court, for the land outside the hmits of the two cities. Then came a volume of statutes from the late legislature of the District itself These crude, undigested statutes constitute the present laws of this law- blessed land on the northern bank of the Potomac, within the lines of the ancient cession of Maryland. To these may be added the elder ecclesiastic law. Certainly no equal por tion of the earth's surface is so buried and burdened with the more or less dead and decaying foliage of legislative bodies, kings and kings' c