Mr. PUGH. Cannot the people unite before
they make & constitution ?
Mr. CHAMBERS. Just as much as you unite
before you make a convention
Mr. PUGH. That is a union; isn't it?
Mr. CHAMBERS. I said so. That is not
my proposition.
Mr. PUSH. I said that the people were
above the constitution; and they must unite
before they can make a written agreement.
Mr, CHAMBERS. Very good; but the gen-
tleman's idea is certainly very crude. I do not
know whether we can agree upon terms or
not; but at the rate gentlemen go here—we
have had steam, I know, some time ago, and
almost everything except ballooning; and I
think we have had gome ballooning lately.
I take the ground distinctly that there is not
an officer of the government who can hold
his position for one half hour except by vir-
tue of the constitution. If there is no constitution,
if the constitution is dead, as the
gentleman told us, and if we are under mili-
tary —
Mr. PUGH, I never said that. I only sug-
gested that it might be possible in the future.
Mr. CHAMBERS. Under what authority then
does the government arrest men and take
them away, and so with a dozen different
instances of the violation of the constitution?
You justify it;—how? Come; stand up and
say like a man—how ?
Mr. PUGH. Military necessity.
Mr. CHAMBERS. That is it; outside of and
.against the constitution.
Mr PUGH. Not necessarily.
Mr. CHAMBERS. No doubt but the gentleman
is honest in his view. But how would he
get along with his doctrine if the peace party
or the Jeff Davis party should some day pre-
vail? It is all nonsense—it is bosh—to be
talking about the Union, and the necessity
of preserving the Union. If it were not a
tragedy there would be something like a
farce in this matter. What does the gentle-
man tell us? This constitution may yet be
trampled under foot. This tabernacle, this
shell, this bark, is to be utterly abolished,
to pass down to posterity the blessed gov-
ernment which our ancestors have made.
Mr. PUGH. I did not say the government;
I said the nation—the people.
Mr. CHAMBERS. Well, sir; the nation
"What is the nation? There are nations of
all sorts. There are Hindoos, Hottentots,
Seminoles, and all sorts of people. Is it that
sort of thing? Or what is it? I have a
motion—it seems I am wrong—that the government
of this nation is to be perpetuated
because it secures to its citizens the largest
enjoyment Of civil liberty consistent with
government. I can make this declaration
too, not in the words of the gentleman, that
I would trample the constitution under foot,
but that whenever it shall] be the case that
this constitution is so destroyed as to be su- |
perceded by military necessity, meaning
thereby the right to commit the acts which
have been enumerated by my friend from
Somerset, when that comes to be the Union
or the government under which I am to live,
1 want to go beyond this shore, across the At-
lantic, and find a domicil somewhere where its
parchment is respected. Whenever the parch-
ment—thereby meaning the solemn, the sa-
cred, the fundamental principles recorded
upon it—becomes the subject of jeer and jest,
and scorn, threatened to be made cinders of,
or trampled in the dust, this nation has no
charms for me. I desire to go where I may
know what are my rights; and where,
knowing them I can have them protected.
The idea of violating the constitution, tread-
ing it under foot, to secure liberty to those
who are to come after us, is an. idea which is
not a very beautiful one, but is certainly the
most offensive one I have heard upon this
floor.
Now, sir, a word about the propriety of
this proposed oath. At the proper time 1
shall propose the entire separation of the lat-
ter part of it. As I have taken some pains
distinctly to express, our allegiance is due to
the constitution; and if there be any sense
in which it is due to the government, it is
due to those authorities which constitute the
government by virtue of the constitution.
But who would recognize under these words,
allegiance to the constitution and the laws
made in pursuance thereof? Well may it be
remarked, Tempora mutantur et nos mutamur
in illis. Is it intended to mean anything
more by the word "government?" With
regard to the oath I have heretofore taken
I have pot a word to say. I have sworn ex
animo, and I stand here in the presence of
this house and of my God to say that I have
never violated it. I throw into the teeth of
the calumniator the falsehood of any expres-
sion to the contrary. I am willing to take
it again. I mean to obey the constitution
and the laws; and at present I do not know
of anything that could tempt me to violate it.
1 object to this then, because it is unneces-
sary, If the government consists of the
constitution and the laws made under it, it is
unnecessary to repeat it. It is unnecessary
to put the same oath in various forms.
But gentlemen have given the strongest
reasons for the latter part of this oath, ex-
cluding sympathizers with the offenders
against the government. They say that in
their own consciences men know whether
they have violated this or not. Why should
there be any appeal to any man's conscience?
He has to go before the public authorities and
make an oath in a set form, a precise formula
of words, which he has no authority at the
time to say he interprets thus and so, a form
which he knows those who administer it
mean to have a different sense from that in
which he takes it, while in his judgment and |
