It is no exaggeration, but a literal truth, to say that, by the Constitution
— not as I interpret it, but as it is interpreted by those
who pretend to administer it — the properties, liberties, and lives of the
entire
people of the United States are surrendered unreservedly into the hands of
men who, it is provided by the Constitution itself, shall never be
"questioned" as to any disposal they make of them.
Thus the Constitution (Art. I, Sec. 6) provides that, "for any speech or
debate (or vote), in either house, they (the senators and representatives)
shall not be questioned in any other place."
The whole law-making power is given to these senators and representatives
(when acting by a two-thirds vote); [1] and this provision protects them from
all responsibility for the laws they make.
[1] And this two-thirds vote may be but two-thirds of a quorum — that is
two-thirds of a majority — instead of two-thirds of the whole.
The Constitution also enables them to secure the execution of all their
laws, by giving them power to withhold the salaries of, and to impeach and
remove, all judicial and executive officers, who refuse to execute them.
Thus the whole power of the government is in their hands, and they are made
utterly irresponsible for the use they make of it. What is this but
absolute, irresponsible power?
It is no answer to this view of the case to say that these men are under
oath to use their power only within certain limits; for what care they, or
what should they care, for oaths or limits, when it is expressly provided,
by the Constitution itself, that they shall never be "questioned," or held
to any resonsibility whatever, for violating their oaths, or transgressing
those limits?
Neither is it any answer to this view of the case to say that the men
holding this absolute, irresponsible power, must be men chosen by the
people (or portions of them) to hold it. A man is none the less a slave
because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years.
Neither are a people any the less slaves because permitted periodically to
choose new masters. What makes them slaves is the fact that they now are,
and are always hereafter to be, in the hands of men whose power over them
is, and always is to be, absolute and irresponsible.
[2]
Of what appreciable value is it to any man, as an individual, that
he is allowed a voice in choosing these public masters? His voice
is only one of several millions.
The right of absolute and irresponsible dominion is the right of property,
and the right of property is the right of absolute, irresponsible dominion.
The two are identical; the one necessarily implies the other. Neither
can exist without the other. If, therefore, Congress have that absolute
and irresponsible law-making power, which the Constitution — according to
their interpretation of it — gives them, it can only be because they own
us as property. If they own us as property, they are our masters, and their
will is our law. If they do not own us as property, they are not our
masters, and their will, as such, is of no authority over us.
But these men who claim and exercise this absolute and irresponsible
dominion over us, dare not be consistent, and claim either to be our
masters, or to own us as property. They say they are only our servants,
agents, attorneys, and representatives. But this declaration involves an
absurdity, a contradiction. No man can be my servant, agent, attorney,
or representative, and be, at the same time, uncontrollable by me, and
irresponsible to me for his acts. It is of no importance that I appointed
him, and put all power in his hands. If I made him uncontrollable by me,
and irresponsible to me, he is no longer my servant, agent, attorney, or
representative. If I gave him absolute,
irresponsible power over my
property, I gave him the property. If I gave him absolute, irresponsible
power over myself, I made him my master, and gave myself to him as a slave.
And it is of no importance whether I called him master or servant, agent
or owner. The only question is, what power did I put in his hands? Was
it an absolute and irresponsible one? or a limited and responsible one?
For still another reason they are neither our servants, agents, attorneys,
nor representatives. And that reason is, that we do not make ourselves
responsible for their acts. If a man is my servant, agent, or attorney,
I necessarily make myself responsible for all his acts done within the
limits of the power I have intrusted to him. If I have intrusted him, as
my agent, with either absolute power, or any power at all, over the persons
or properties of other men than myself, I thereby necessarily make myself
responsible to those other persons for any injuries he may do them, so long
as he acts within the limits of the power I have granted him. But no
individual who may be injured in his person or property, by acts of
Congress, can come to the individual electors, and hold them responsible
for these acts of their so-called agents or representatives. This fact
proves that these pretended agents of the people, of everybody, are really
the agents of nobody.
If, then, nobody is individually responsible for the acts of Congress, the
members of Congress are nobody's agents. And if they are nobody's agents,
they are themselves individually responsible for their own acts, and for the
acts of all whom they employ. And the authority they are exercising is
simply their own individual authority; and, by the law of nature — the
highest of all laws — anybody injured by their acts, anybody who is
deprived by them of his property or his liberty, has the same right to hold
them individually responsible, that he has to hold any other trespasser
individually responsible. He has the same right
to resist them, and their
agents, that he has to resist any other trespassers.
