Wendell Phillips, Theodore C. Pease, Speeches, Lectures and Letters of Wendell Phillips: Volume 1

[422] a million of soldiers, the fruitful, that inevitable source of fresh debts and new wars. I pass by all that; yet lying within those causes are things enough to make the most sanguine friends of free institutions tremble for our future. I pass those by. But let me remind you of another tendency of the time. You know, for instance, that the writ of habeas corpus, by which government is bound to render a reason to the judiciary before it lays its hands upon a citizen, has been called the high-water mark of English liberty. Jefferson, in his calm moments, dreaded the power to suspend it in any emergency whatever, and wished to have it in “eternal and unremitting force.” The present Napoleon, in his treatise on the English Constitution, calls it the gem of English institutions. Lieber says that habeas corpus, free meetings like this, and a free press, are the three elements which distinguish liberty from despotism. All that Saxon blood has gained in the battles and toils of two hundred years are these three things. But to-day, Mr. Chairman, every one of them--habeas corpus, the right of free meeting, and a free press — is annihilated in every square mile of the Republic. We live to-day, every one of us, under martial law. The Secretary of State puts into his bastile, with a warrant as irresponsible as that of Louis, any man whom he pleases. And you know that neither press nor lips may venture to arraign the government without being silenced. At this moment one thousand men, at least, are “bastiled” by an authority as despotic as that of Louis,--three times as many as Eldon and George III. seized when they trembled for his throne. Mark me, I am not complaining. I do not say it is not necessary. It is necessary to do anything to save the ship. [Applause.] It is necessary to throw everything overboard in order that we may float. It is a mere question whether you prefer the despotism of Washington or that of Richmond. I prefer that of Washington. [Loud