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"THERE MUST BE FREE DISCUSSION." —
ROBERT M. LA FOLLETTE
Free Speech in Wartime
It follows the full text transcript of
Robert M. La Follette's Free Speech in
Wartime address, delivered in the Senate, Washington DC —
October 6, 1917.
The subheadings in this speech
are La Follette's.
This is page 1 of 2 of this
speech.
Go to page
2.
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Mr. La Follette:
Mr. President, |
I rise to a
question of personal privilege.
I have no
intention of taking the time of the Senate with
a review of the events which led to our entrance
into the war except in so far as they bear upon
the question of personal privilege to which I am
addressing myself.
Six members of the Senate and 50 members of the
House voted against the declaration of war.
Immediately there was let loose upon those
Senators and Representatives a flood of
invective and abuse from newspapers and
individuals who had been clamoring for war,
unequaled, I believe, in the history of
civilized society.
Prior to the declaration of war every man who
had ventured to oppose our entrance into it had
been condemned as a coward or worse, and even
the President had by no means been immune from
these attacks.
Since the declaration of war the triumphant war
press has pursued those Senators and
Representations who voted against war with
malicious falsehood and recklessly libelous
attacks, going to the extreme limit of charging
them with treason against their country.
This campaign of libel and character
assassination directed against the Members of
Congress who opposed our entrance into the war
has been continued down to the present hour, and
I have upon my desk newspaper clippings, some of
them libels upon me alone, some directed as well
against other Senators who voted in opposition
to the declaration of war.
One of these newspaper reports most widely
circulated represents a Federal judge in the
State of Texas as saying, in a charge to a grand
jury — I read the article as it appeared in the
newspaper and the headline with which it is
introduced:
DISTRICT JUDGE WOULD
LIKE TO TAKE SHOT AT TRAITORS IN CONGRESS
(By Associated Press leased wire)
Houston, Texas.,
October 1,1917
Judge Waller
T. Burns, of the United States district
court, in charging a Federal grand jury at
the beginning of the October term today,
after calling by name Senators STONE of
Missouri, HARDWICK of Georgia, VARDAMAN of
Mississippi, GRONNA of North Dakota, GORE of
Oklahoma, and LAFOLLETTE of Wisconsin, said:
"If I had
a wish, I would wish that you men had
jurisdiction to return bills of
indictment against these men. They ought
to be tried promptly and fairly, and I
believe this court could administer the
law fairly; but I have a conviction, as
strong as life, that this country should
stand them up against an adobe wall
tomorrow and give them what they
deserve. If any man deserves death, it
is a traitor. I wish that I could pay
for the ammunition. I would like to
attend the execution, and if I were in
the firing squad I would not want to be
the marksman who had the blank shell."
The above
clipping, Mr. President, was sent to me by
another Federal judge, who wrote upon the margin
of the clipping that it occurred to him that the
conduct of this judge might very properly be the
subject of investigation. He enclosed with the
clipping a letter, from which I quote the
following:
I have been
greatly depressed by the brutal and unjust
attacks that great business interests have
organized against you. It is a time when all
the spirits of evil are turned loose. The
Kaisers of high finance, who have been
developing hatred of you for a generation
because you have fought against them and for
the common good, see this opportunity to
turn the war patriotism into an engine of
attack. They are using it everywhere, and it
is a day when lovers of democracy, not only
in the world, but here in the United States,
need to go apart on the mountain and spend
the night in fasting and prayer. I still
have faith that the forces of good on this
earth will be found to be greater than the
forces of evil, but we all need resolution.
I hope you will have the grace to keep your
center of gravity on the inside of you and
to keep a spirit that is unclouded by
hatred. It is a time for the words, "with
malice toward none and charity for all." It
is the office of great service to be a
shield to the good man's character against
malice. Before this fight is over you will
have a new revelation that such a shield is
yours.
If this newspaper clipping were a single or
exceptional instance of lawless defamation. I
should not trouble the Senate with a reference
to it. But, Mr. President, it is not.
In this mass of newspaper clippings which I have
here upon my desk, and which I shall not trouble
the Senate to read unless it is desired, and
which represent but a small part of the
accumulation clipped from the daily press of the
country in the last three months, I find other
Senators, as well as myself, accused of the
highest crimes of which any man can be guilty —
treason and disloyalty — and, sir, accused not
only with no evidence to support the accusation,
but without the suggestion that such evidence
anywhere exists. It is not claimed that Senators
who opposed the declaration of war have since
that time acted with any concerted purpose
either regarding war measured or any others.
They have voted according to their individual
opinions, have often been opposed to each other
on bills which have come before the Senate since
the declaration of war, and, according to my
recollection, have never all voted together
since that time upon any single proposition upon
which the Senate has been divided.
I am aware, Mr. President that in pursuance of
this general campaign of vilification and
attempted intimidation, requests from various
individuals and certain organizations have been
submitted to the Senate for my expulsion from
this body, and that such requests have been
referred to and considered by one of the
committees of the Senate.
If I alone had been made the victim of these
attacks, I should not take one moment of the
Senate's time for their consideration, and I
believe that other Senators who have been
unjustly and unfairly assailed, as I have been,
hold the same attitude upon this that I do.
Neither the clamor of the mob nor the voice of
power will ever turn me by the breadth of a hair
from the course I mark out for myself, guided by
such knowledge as I can obtain and controlled
and directed by a solemn conviction of right and
duty.
But, sir, it is not alone Members of Congress
that the war party in this country has sought to
intimidate. The mandate seems to have gone forth
to the sovereign people of this country that
they must be silent while those things are being
done by their Government which most vitally
concern their well-being, their happiness, and
their lives. today and for weeks past honest and
law-abiding citizens of this country are being
terrorized and outraged in their rights by those
sworn to uphold the laws and protect the rights
of the people. I have in my possession numerous
affidavits establishing the fact that people are
being unlawfully arrested, thrown into jail,
held incommunicado for days, only to be
eventually discharged without ever having been
taken into court, because they have committed no
crime. Private residences are being invaded,
loyal citizens of undoubted integrity and
probity arrested, cross-examined, and the most
sacred constitutional rights guaranteed to every
American citizen are being violated.
It appears to be the purpose of those conducting
this campaign to throw the country into a state
of terror, to coerce public opinion, to stifle
criticism, and suppress discussion of the great
issues involved in this war.
I think all men recognize that in time of war
the citizen must surrender some rights for the
common good which he is entitled to enjoy in
time of peace. But sir, the right to control
their own Government according to constitutional
forms is not one of the rights that the citizens
of this country are called upon to surrender in
time of war.
Rather in time of war the citizen must be more
alert to the preservation of his right to
control his Government. He must be most watchful
of the encroachment of the military upon the
civil power. He must beware of those precedents
in support of arbitrary action by administrative
officials, which excused on the plea of
necessity in war time, become the fixed rule
when the necessity has passed and normal
conditions have been restored.
More than all, the citizen and his
representative in Congress in time of war must
maintain his right of free speech. More than in
time of war must maintain his right of free
speech. More than in times of peace it is
necessary that the channels for free public
discussion of governmental policies shall be
open and unclogged. I believe, Mr. President,
that I am now touching upon the most important
question in this country today — and that is the
right of the citizens of this country and their
representatives in Congress to discuss in an
orderly way frankly and publicly and without
fear, from the platform and through the press,
every important phase of this war; its causes,
the manner in which it should be conducted, and
the terms upon which peace should be made. The
belief which is becoming wide spread in this
land that this most fundamental right is being
denied to the citizens of this country is a fact
the tremendous significance of which, those in
authority have not yet begun to appreciate. I am
contending, Mr. President, for the great
fundamental right of the sovereign people of
this country to make their voice heard and have
that voice heeded upon the great questions
arising out of this war, including not only how
the war shall be prosecuted but the conditions
upon which it may be terminated with a due
regard for the rights and the honor of this
Nation and the interests of humanity.
I am contending for this right because the
exercise of it is necessary to the welfare, to
the existence, of this Government to the
successful conduct of this war, and to a peace
which shall be enduring and for the best
interest of this country.
Suppose success attends the attempt to stifle
all discussion of the issues of this war, all
discussion of the terms upon which it should be
concluded, all discussion of the objects and
purposes to be accomplished by it, and concede
the demand of the war-mad press and war
extremists that they monopolize the right of
public utterance upon these questions
unchallenged, what think you would be the
consequences to this country not only during the
war but after the war?
RIGHT OF PEOPLE TO
DISCUSS WAR ISSUES
Mr. President, our
Government, above all others, is founded on the
right of the people freely to discuss all
matters pertaining to their Government, in war
not less than in peace, for in this Government
the people are the rulers in war no less than in
peace. It is true, sir, that Members of the
House of Representatives are elected for two
years, the President for four years, and the
Members of the Senate for six years, and during
their temporary official terms these officers
constitute what is called the Government. But
back of them always is the controlling sovereign
power of the people, and when the people can
make their will known, the faithful officer will
obey that will. Though the right of the people
to express their will by ballot is suspended
during the term of office of the elected
official, nevertheless the duty of the official
to obey the popular will continues throughout
this entire term of office. How can that popular
will express itself between elections except by
meetings, by speeches, by publications, by
petitions, and by addresses to the
representatives of the people? Any man who seeks
to set a limit upon those rights, whether in war
or peace, aims a blow at the most vital part of
our Government. And then as the time for
election approaches and the official is called
to account for his stewardship — not a day, not
a week, not a month, before the election, but a
year or more before it, if the people choose —
they must have the right to the freest possible
discussion of every question upon which their
representative has acted, of the merits of every
measure he has supported or opposed, of every
vote he has cast and every speech that he has
made. And before this great fundamental right
every other must, if necessary, give way, for in
no other manner can representative government be
preserved.
Mr. President, what I am saying has been
exemplified in the lives and public discussion
of the ablest statesman of this country, whose
memories we most revere and whose deeds, we most
justly commemorate. I shall presently ask the
attention of the Senate to the views of some of
these men upon the subject we are now
considering.
Closely related to this subject of the right of
the citizen to discuss war is that of the
constitutional power and duty of the Congress to
declare the purposes and objects of any war in
which our country may be engaged. The
authorities which I shall cite cover both the
right of the people to discuss the war in all
its phases and the right and the duty of the
people's representatives in Congress to declare
the purposes and objects of the war. For the
sake of brevity, I shall present these
quotations together at this point instead of
submitting them separately.
DISCUSSION BY AMERICAN
STATESMEN
Henry Clay
[1777-1852], in a memorable address at
Lexington, Ky., on the 13th day of November,
1847, during the Mexican War, took a strong
position in behalf of the right of the people to
freely discuss every question relating to the
war, even though the discussion involved a
strong condemnation of the war policy of the
Executive. He also declared it to be not only
the right but the duty of the Congress to
declare the objects of the war. AS a part of
that address he presented certain resolutions
embodying his views on these subjects. These
resolutions were adopted at that meeting by the
people present, and were adopted at many other
mass meetings throughout the country during the
continuance of the Mexican War.
For introducing in this body some time ago a
resolution asserting the right of Congress to
declare the purposes of the present war, I have,
as the newspaper clippings here will show, been
denounced as a traitor and my conduct
characterized as treasonable.
As bearing directly upon the conduct for which I
have been so criticized and condemned, I invite
your attention to the language of Henry Clay in
the address I have mentioned.
He said:
But the havoc
of war is in progress and the no less
deplorable havoc of an inhospitable and
pestilential climate. Without indulging in
an unnecessary retrospect and useless
reproaches on the past, all hearts and heads
should unite in the patriotic endeavor to
bring it to a satisfactory close. Is there
no way that this can be done? Must we
blindly continue the conflict without any
visible object or any prospect of a definite
termination? This is the important subject
upon which I desire to consult and to
commune with you. Who in this free
Government is to decide upon the objects of
a war at its commencement of at any time
during its existence? Does the power belong
to collective wisdom of the Nation in
congress assembled, or is it vested solely
in a single functionary of the Government?
A declaration of war is the highest and most
awful exercise of sovereignty. The
convention which framed our Federal
constitution had learned from the pages of
history that it had been often and greatly
abused. It had seen that war had often been
commenced upon the most trifling pretexts;
that it had been frequently waged to
establish or exclude a dynasty; to snatch a
crown from the head of one potentate and
place it upon the head of another; that it
had often been prosecuted to promote alien
and other interests than those of the nation
whose chief had proclaimed it, as in the
case of English wars for Hanoverian
interests; and, in short, that such a vast
and tremendous power ought not to be
confined to the perilous exercise of one
single man. The convention therefore
resolved to guard the war-making power
against those great abuses, of which, in the
hands of a monarch, it was so susceptible.
And the security against those abuses which
its wisdom devised was to vest the
war-making power in the congress of the
united States, being the immediate
representatives of the people and the
States. So apprehensive and jealous was the
convention of its abuse in any State in the
Union without the consent of Congress.
Congress, then in our system of government,
is the sole depository of that tremendous
power.
Mr. President, it is impossible for me to quote
as extensively from this address as I should
like to do and still keep within the compass of
the time that I have set down for myself; but
the whole of the address is accessible to every
Senator here, together with all of the
discussion which followed it over the country,
and in these times it would seem to me worthy of
the review of Senators and of newspaper editors
and of those who have duties to discharge in
connection with this great crisis that is upon
the world.
I quote further:
The
Constitution provides that Congress shall
have power to declare war and grant letters
of marque and reprisal, to make rules
concerning captures on land and water, to
raise and support armies, and provide and
maintain a navy, and to make rules for the
government of the land and naval forces.
Thus we perceive that the principal power,
in regard to war, with all its auxiliary
attendants, is granted to Congress. Whenever
called upon to determine upon the solemn
question of peace or war, Congress must
consider and deliberate and decide upon the
motives, objects, and causes of the war.
If that be true is
it treason for a Senator upon this floor to
offer a resolution dealing with that question?
I quote further from Mr. Clay:
And, if a war
be commenced without any previous
declaration of its objects, as in the case
of the existing war with Mexico, Congress
must necessarily possess the authority, at
any time, to declare for what purposes it
shall be further prosecuted. If we suppose
Congress does not possess the controlling
authority attributed to it, if it be
contended that a war having been once
commenced, the President of the United
States may direct it to the accomplishment
of any object he pleases, without consulting
and without any regard to the will of
Congress, the convention will have utterly
failed in guarding the Nation against the
abuses and ambition of a single individual.
Either Congress or the President possess if
and may prosecute it for objects against the
will of Congress, where is the difference
between our free Government and that of any
other nation which may be governed by an
absolute czar, emperor, or king?
In closing his address Mr. Clay said:
I conclude,
therefore, Mr. President and fellow
citizens, with entire confidence, that
congress has the right, either at the
beginning or during the prosecution of any
war, to decide the objects and purposes for
which it was proclaimed or for which it
ought to be continued. And I think it is the
duty of congress, by some deliberate and
authentic act to declare for what objects
the present war shall be longer prosecuted.
I suppose the President would not hesitate
to regulate his conduct by the pronounced
will of congress and to employ the force and
the diplomatic power of the Nation to
execute that will. But is the President
should decline or refuse to do so and, in
contempt of the supreme authority of
congress, should persevere, in waging the
war for other objects than those proclaimed
by Congress, then it would be the imperative
duty of that body to vindicate its authority
by the most stringent and effectual and
appropriate measures. And it, on the
contrary, the enemy should refuse to
conclude a treaty containing stipulations
securing the objects designated by Congress,
it would become the duty of the whole
Government to prosecute the war with all the
national energy until those objects were
attained by a treaty of peace. There can be
no insuperable difficulty in Congress making
such an authoritative declaration. Let it
resolve, simply, that the war shall or shall
not be a war of conquest; and, if a war of
conquest, what is to be conquered. should a
resolution pass disclaiming the design of
conquest, peace would follow in less than 60
days, if the President would conform to his
constitutional duty.
Mr. Clay as a part
of that speech presented certain resolutions
which were unanimously adopted by the meeting
and which declared that the power to determine
the purposes of the war rested with Congress,
and then proceeded clearly to state the
purposes, and the only purposes, for which the
war should be prosecuted.
The last one of these resolutions is so
pertinent to the present discussion that I
invite your attention to it at this time. It is
as follows:
Resolved, That
we invite our fellow citizens of the United
States who are anxious for the restoration
of the blessings of peace, or, it the
existing war shall continue to be
prosecuted, are desirous that its purposes
and objects shall be defined and know, who
are anxious to avert present and future
perils and dangers, with which it may be
fraught, and who are also anxious to produce
contentment and satisfaction at home, and to
elevate the national character abroad, to
assemble together in their respective
communities, and to express their views,
feelings, and opinions.
Abraham Lincoln
was a Member of congress at the time of the
Mexican War. He strongly opposed the war while
it was in progress and severely criticized
President Polk on the floor of the House because
he did not state in his message when peace might
be expected.
[Lincoln served in
the House of Representatives 1847-1849. James K. Polk
(1795-1849) served in the House of
Representatives 1825-1839, and was president of
the United States 1845-1849.]
In the course of his speech Lincoln said:
At its
beginning, Gen. Scott was by this same
President driven into disfavor, if not
disgrace, for intimating that peace could
not be conquered in less than three or four
months. But now, at the end of 20 months
[...] this same President gives a long message,
without showing us that as to the end he
himself has even an imaginary conception. As
I have said, he knows not where he is. He is
a bewildered, confounded, and miserably
perplexed man. God grant he may be able to
show there is not something about his
conscience more painful than his mental
perplexity.
Writing to a friend who had objected to his
opposition to Polk in relation to this power of
the President in war, Lincoln said:
The provision
of the constitution giving the war-making
power to Congress was dictated, as I
understand it, by the following reasons:
Kings had always been involving and
impoverishing their people in wars,
pretending generally, if not always, that
the good of the people was the object. This
our convention understood to be the most
oppressive of all kingly oppressions, and
they resolved to so frame the constitution
that no man should hold the power of
bringing this oppression upon us. But your
view destroys the whole matter and places
our President where kings have always stood.
I now quote from the speech of Charles Sumner,
delivered at Tremont Temple, Boston, November 5,
1846.
John A. Andrew,
who was the great war governor of Massachusetts,
as I remember, presided at this public meeting,
which was in support of the independent
nomination of Dr. I.G. Howe as Representative in
Congress. Mr. Sumner was followed by Hon.
Charles Francis Adams, who also delivered an
address at this meeting.
[Charles Sumner
(1811-1874) served in the Senate 1851-1874. John A. Andrew
(1818-1867) was governor of Massachusetts
1860-1866. Charles Francis Adams (1807-1886)
served in the House of Representatives
1859-1861.]
This is the view
of Mr. Sumner on the Mexican War, which was then
in progress, as expressed by him on this
occasion:
The Mexican
War is an enormity born of slavery. [...]
Base in object, atrocious in beginning,
immoral in all its influences, vainly
prodigal of treasure and life, it is a war
of infamy, which must blot the pages of our
history.
In closing his eloquent and powerful address, he
said:
Even if we
seem to fail in this election we shall not
fail in reality. The influence of this
effort will help to awaken and organize that
powerful public opinion by which this war
will at last be arrested. Hand out, fellow
citizens, the white banner of peace; let the
citizens of Boston rally about it; and may
it be borne forward by and enlightened,
conscientious people, aroused to
condemnation of this murderous war, until
Mexico, now wet with blood unjustly shed,
shall repose undisturbed beneath its folds.
Contrast this position taken by Charles Sumner
at Tremont Temple with that of the Secretary of
the Treasury, Mr. McAdoo.
[William Gibbs McAdoo
(1863-1941) was secretary of the treasury
1913-1918. He served in the Senate 1933-1938.]
He is now touring the country with all the
prestige of his great financial mission and the
authority of his great financial mission and the
authority of his high place in the
administration. I quote the language of the
authorized report of his speech before the
Bankers' Association of West Virginia, September
21, 1917. According to daily press reports he is
making substantially the same denunciation in
all his addresses:
America
intends that those well-meaning but
misguided people who talk inopportunity of
peace when there can be no peace until the
cancer which has rotted civilization in
Europe is extinguished and destroyed forever
shall be silenced. I want to say here and
now and with due deliberation that every
pacifist speech in this country made at this
inopportune and improper time is in effect
traitorous.
In these times we had better turn the marble
bust of Charles "Sumner to the wall. It ill
becomes those who tamely surrender the right of
free speech to look upon that strong, noble,
patriotic face.
Mr. President, Daniel Webster
[1782-1852],
then in the zenith of his power, and with the
experience and knowledge of his long life and
great public service in many capacities, to add
weight to his words, spoke at Faneuil Hall,
November 6, 1846, in opposition to the Mexican
War. He said:
Mr. Chairman,
I wish to speak with all soberness in this
respect, and I would say nothing here
to-night which I would not say in my place
in Congress or before the whole world. The
question now is, For what purposes and to
what ends is this present war to be
prosecuted?
What will you say to the stature of the
statesmanship that imputes treason to his
country to a Member of this body who introduces
a resolution having no other import than that?
Webster saw no reason why the purposes of the
war in which his country was engaged should not
be discussed in Congress or out of congress by
the people's representatives or by the people
themselves.
After referring to Mexico as a weak and
distracted country he proceeded:
It is time for
us to know what are the objects and designs
of our Government.
It is not the habit of the American people,
nor natural to their character, to consider
the expense of a war which they deem just
and necessary
— not only
just, but necessary —
but it is
their habit and belongs to their character
to inquire into the justice and necessity of
a war in which it is proposed to involve
them.
Mr. Webster discussed the Mexican War at
Springfield, Mass., September 29, 1847, and
again, while the war was in progress, he did not
hesitate to express his disapproval in plain
language.
Many battles had been fought and won, and our
victorious armies were in the field, on foreign
soil.
Sir, free speech had not been suppressed. The
right of the people to assemble and to state
their grievances was still an attribute of
American freedom. Mr. Webster said:
We are, in my
opinion, in a most unnecessary and therefore
a most unjustifiable war.
Whoever expects to whip men, free men, in this
country into a position where they are to be
denied the right to exercise the same freedom of
speech and discussion that Webster exercised in
that speech little understand the value which
the average citizen of this country places upon
the liberty guaranteed to him by the
Constitution. Sir, until the sacrifices of every
battle field consecrated to the establishment of
representative government and of constitutional
freedom shall be obliterated from the pages of
history and forgotten of men, the plain
citizenship of this country will jealously guard
that liberty and that freedom and will not
surrender it.
To return to my
text. Mr. Webster said:
We are in my
opinion, in a most unnecessary and therefore
a most unjustifiable war. I hope we are
nearing the close of it. I attend carefully
and anxiously to every rumor and every
breeze that brings to us any report that the
effusion of blood, caused, in my judgment,
by a rash and unjustifiable proceeding on
the part of the Government, may cease.
He makes the charge that the war was begun under
false pretexts, as follows:
Now, sir, the
law of nations instructs us that there are
wars of pretexts. The history of the world
proves that there have been, and we are not
now without proof that there are, wars waged
on pretexts; that is, on pretenses, where
the cause assigned is not the true cause.
That I believe on my conscience is the true
character of the war now waged against
Mexico. IF believe it to be a war of
pretexts; a war in which the true motive is
not distinctly avowed, but in which
pretenses, afterthoughts, evasions, and
other method are employed to put a case
before the community which is not the true
case.
Think you Mr. Webster was not within his
constitutional rights in thus criticizing the
character of the war, its origin and the reasons
which were given from time to time in
justification of it?
Mr. Webster discusses at length what he
considers some of the false pretexts of the war.
Later on he says:
Sir, men there
are whom we see and whom we hear speak of
the duty of extending our free institutions
over the whole world if possible. We owe it
to benevolence, they think, to confer the
blessings we enjoy on every other people.
But while I trust that liberty and free
civil institutions, as we have experienced
them, may ultimately spread over the globe,
I am by no means sure that all people are
fit for them: nor am I desirous of imposing,
or forcing, our peculiar forms upon any
nation that does not wish to embrace them.
Taking up the subject that war does now exist,
Mr. Webster asks:
What is our
duty? I say for one, that I suppose it to be
true — I hope it to be true — that a
majority of the next House of
Representatives will be Whigs; will be
opposed to the war. I think we have heard
from the East and the West, the North and
the South, some things that make that pretty
clear. Suppose it to be so. What then? Well,
sir, I say for one, and at once, that unless
the President of the United States shall
make out a case which shall show to congress
that the aim and object for which the war is
now prosecuted is no purpose not connected
with the safety of the Union and the just
rights of the American people, then Congress
ought to pass resolutions against the
prosecution of the war, and grant no further
supplies. I would speak here with caution
and all just limitation. It must be admitted
to be the clear intent of the constitution
that no foreign war would exist without the
assent of Congress. This was meant as a
restraint on the Executive power. But, if,
when a war has once begun, the President may
continue it as long as he pleases, free of
all control of Congress, then it is clear
that the war power is substantially in his
own single hand. Nothing will be done by a
wise Congress hastily or rashly, nothing
that partakes of the nature of violence or
recklessness; a high and delicate regard
must, of course, be had for the honor and
credit of the Nation; but, after all, if the
war should become odious to the people, if
they shall disapprove the objects for which
it appears to be prosecuted, then it will be
the bounden duty of their Representatives in
Congress to demand of the President a full
statement of his objects and purposes. And
if these purposes shall appear to them not
to be founded in the public good, or not
consistent with the honor and character of
the country, then it will be their duty to
put an end to it by the exercise of their
constitutional authority. If this be not so,
then the whole balance of the Constitution
is overthrown, and all just restraint on the
Executive power, in a matter of the highest
concern to the peace and happiness of the
country is over thrown, and all just
restraint on the Executive power, in a
matter of the highest concern to the peace
and happiness of the country, entirely
destroyed. If we do not maintain this
doctrine; if it is not so — if Congress, in
whom the war-making power is expressly made
to reside, is to have no voice in the
declaration or continuance or war; if it is
not to judge of the propriety of beginning
or carrying it on — then we depart at once,
and broadly, from the Constitution.
Mr. Webster concluded his speech in these
memorable words:
We may be
tossed upon an ocean where we can see no
land — nor, perhaps, the sun or stars. But
there is a chart and a compass for us to
study, to consult, and to obey. That chart
is the Constitution of the country. That
compass is an honest, single-eyed purpose to
preserve the institutions and the liberty
with which God has blessed us.
In 1847 Senator Tom Corwin
[1794-1865]
made a memorable speech in the Senate on the
Mexican War. It was one of the ablest addresses
made by that very able statesman, and one of the
great contributions to the discussion of the
subject we are now considering. At the time of
Senator Corwin's address the majority in
Congress were supporting the President. The
people up to that time had had no chance to
express their views at an election. After
referring to the doctrine then preached by the
dominant faction of the Senate, that after war
is declared it must be prosecuted to the bitter
end as the President may direct, until one side
of the other is hopelessly beaten and devastated
by the conflict, with one man — the President —
in sole command of the destinies of the Nation,
Mr. Corwin said:
With these
doctrines for our guide, I will thank any
Senator to furnish me with any means of
escaping from the prosecution of this or any
other war, for an hundred years to come, if
it please the President who shall be, to
continue it so long. Tell me, ye who contend
that, being in war, duty demands of Congress
for its prosecution all the money and every
able-bodied man in America to carry it on if
need be, who also contend that it is the
right of the President, without the control
of Congress, to march your embodied hosts to
Monterey, to Yucatan, to Mexico, to Panama,
to China, and that under penalty of death to
the officer who disobeys him — tell me, I
demand it of you — tell me, tell the
American people, tell the nations of
Christendom, what is the difference between
your democracy and the most odious, most
hateful despotism, that a merciful God has
ever allowed a nation to be afflicted with
since government on earth began? You may
call this free government, but it is such
freedom, and no other, as of old was
established at Babylon, at Susa, at Bactriana,
or Persepolis. Its parallel is scarcely to
be found when thus falsely understood, in
any, even the worst, forms of civil polity
in modern times. Sir, it is not so; such is
not your Constitution; it is something else,
something other and better than this.
Lincoln, Webster, Clay, Sumner — what a galaxy
of names in American history! They all believed
and asserted and advocated in the midst of war
that it was the right — the constitutional right
— and the patriotic duty of American citizens,
after the declaration of war and while the war
was in progress, to discuss the issued of the
war and to criticize the policies employed in
its prosecution and to work for the election of
representatives opposed to prolonging war.
The right of Lincoln, Webster, Clay, Sumner to
oppose the Mexican War, criticize its conduct,
advocate its conclusion on a just basis, is
exactly the same right and privilege as that
possessed by every Representative in Congress
and by each and every American citizen in our
land today in respect to the war in which we are
now engaged. Their arguments as to the power of
Congress to shape the war policy and their
opposition to what they believed to be the
usurpation of power on the part of the Executive
are potent so long as the Constitution remains
the law of the land.
English history, like our own, shows that it has
ever been the right of the citizen to criticize
and, when he thought necessary, to condemn the
war policy of his Government.
DISCUSSION BY ENGLISH
STATESMEN
John Bright
consistently fought the Crimean War with all the
power of his great personality and noble mind;
he fought it inch by inch and step by step from
the floor of the English Parliament. After his
death Gladstone, although he had been a part of
the ministry that Bright had opposed because of
the Crimean War, selected this as the theme for
his eulogy of the great statesman, as best
portraying his high character and great service
to the English people.
[John Bright
(1811-1889) served in the House of Commons
1843-1889. William E. Gladstone (1809-1898) was
prime minister 1868-1874, 1880-1885, 1886, and
1892-1894.]
Lloyd-George aggressively opposed the Boer War.
[David Lloyd
George (1863-1945) was prime minister
1916-1922.]
Speaking in the House of
Commons July 25, 1900, in reply to the prime
minister, he said:
He has led us
into two blunders. The first was the war.
But worse than the war is the change that
has been effected in the purpose for which
we are prosecuting the war. We went into the
war for equal rights; we are prosecuting the
war. We went into the war for equal rights;
we are prosecuting it for annexation. [...]
You entered into these two Republics for
philanthropic purposes and remained to
commit burglary. [...] A war of annexation,
however, against a proud people must be a
war of extermination, and that is,
unfortunately, what it seems we are now
committing ourselves to — burning homesteads
and turning men and women out of their
homes.
I am citing this language, Mr. President, as
showing the length to which statesmen have gone
in opposing wars which have been conducted by
their governments and the latitude that has been
accorded them.
[...] The
right honorable gentleman has made up his
mind that this war shall produce
electioneering capital to his own side. He
is in a great hurry to go to the country
before the facts are known. He wants to have
the judgment of the people in the very
height and excitement of the fever. He wants
a verdict before the pleadings are closed
and before 'discovery' has been obtained. He
does not want the documents to come, but he
wants to have the judgment of the country
upon censured news, suppressed dispatches,
and unpaid bills.
In a speech delivered October 23, 1901.
Lloyd-George charged that the English Army had
burned villages, blown up farmhouses, swept away
the cattle, burned thousands of tons of grain,
destroyed all agricultural implements, all the
mills, the irrigation works, and left the
territory "a blackened devastated wilderness."
He said:
In June the
death rate among the children in the Orange
River Colony camps was at the rate of 192
per thousand per annum, and in Transvaal 233
per thousand per annum. In July the figures
were 220 and 336 per thousand per annum,
respectively. In August they had risen to
250 and 468, and in September to 442 in
Orange River Colony and to 457 in the
Transvaal. These are truly appalling
figures. It means that at that rate in two
years' time there would not be a little
child left in the whole of these two new
territories. The worst of it is that I can
not resist the conclusion that their lives
could have been saved had it not been that
these camps had been deliberately chosen for
military purposes. In the few camps near the
coast there is hardly any mortality at all
— observe that
here is a criticism of the military policies of
his government —
and if the
children had been removed from the Orange
River Colony and the Transvaal to the
seacoasts, where they could have been easily
fed and clothed and cared for, their lives
might be saved; but as long as they were
kept up in the north there was a terrible
inducement offered to the Boer commanders
not to attack the lines of communication.
[...] If I were to despair for the future of
this country it would not be because of
trade competition from either American or
Germany, or the ineffectiveness of its army,
or anything that might happen to its ships;
but rather because it used its great,
hulking strength to torture a little child.
Had it not been that his ministry had shown
distinct symptoms of softening of the brain.
I would call the torpor and indifference
they are showing in face of all this,
criminal. It is a maddening horror, and it
will haunt the Empire to its dying hour.
What wonder is it that Europe should mock
and hiss at us? Let any honest Britisher
fearlessly search his heart and answer this
question: Is there any ground for the
reproach flung at us by the civilized world
that, having failed to crush the men, we
have now taken to killing babes?
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