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Show SPEECH. Speech of Hon. [Honorable] Roger Q. Mills, of Texas, in the House of Representatives, Tuesday, March 14, 1882. Mr. Mills said: Mr. Speaker: In common with all the people of the United States of both parties and all religious creeds outside the boundaries of Utah, I am opposed to polygamy. I am as anxious as any friend of this bill to see it pass away, and am willing to aid in the accomplishment of that end in the proper way, but I am opposed to this bill and to the methods adopted by it. While I oppose polygamy, I will not suffer myself to be led into the perpetration of a greater wrong against the whole American people. Those who profess to be greatly incensed against this "relic of barbarism" are not contented to have all the machinery of the judiciary of Utah placed in their hands, but want the Territorial government as well. They now have the Governor and the Judge and the District Attorney and the Marshal, and this bill gives them the Jury. Is not that power enough to convict every polygamist and fill all the prisons in Utah? Why do they want the Legislature? If polygamy is what they want to extirpate, what do they want with the eighth and ninth sections of the bill? These sections throw the right of self-government of the Territory into the hands of a returning board. They establish an oligarchy, not a republic. They are wholly at war with every principle of government recognized by our fathers. There is something besides polygamy that is desired to be accomplished. That is not the only sin of those unhappy people. There are three classes who are confederated in this movement against them. There are the religionists, who are sincere. They wish polygamy uprooted, and forgetting the history of the Church and the teachings of its founder, they are trying to propagate the doctrines of Christ with the instrumentalities of Mahomet. They are mistaken, but they are honest and sincere. They wish to achieve a great good, but are traveling the wrong road to reach it. For them I have great respect, and all I would say to them is to consult once more the record of the great teacher ??, and search diligently to see if they can find any warrant from Him for propagating the truth by the sword or by the physical power of government. He came into the world in the midst of polygamy. In His day all the people of the world practiced polygamy. For the first time it was proclaimed by Him "they twain shall be one flesh." He and He alone established monogamy, and His apostles taught it wherever they went. His church and His doctrine have spread all over Europe and America and are spreading all over the earth. But not by the power of government; not by the conquest of the sword, but by the inherent power of the truth. The elementary principles of liberty and just government are found in His teachings. He forced no man to act with Him. Every man's actions to be acceptable to Him had to come from his own consent. He labored to enlighten his judgment and awaken his conscience and draw him by his own consent. He treats with man everywhere as a free man, and the great lesson He taught, and the great lesson His apostles after Him taught, was the lesson of self-government. The Pharisees taught their followers to govern other people; Christ taught them to let other people alone and govern themselves. The doctrine of one was intolerance, bigotry, and persecution; that of the other was self knowledge, self humiliation, self-government, and self improvement. One is the doctrine of despotic governments; the other is the doctrine of a liberty-loving and free people. Again, we have among the advocates of this bill those who are incensed against the people of Utah because they are Democrats. They see the people of the Western Territories, and especially this one, growing up in the faith of the fathers. They see them voting with that party who they believe are trying to secure the happiness of the great masses of the people. They see them beyond the reach of money, and going to the polls and casting their votes against those who are using their official power in the interest of the great moneyed power that is now dominating the country. They see Democracy spreading all over the West, and they are anxious to extirpate that. And denouncing the Democratic people of Utah as polygamists, and thus placing them beyond the sympathy of their fellow citizens, they can proceed with their engines of persecution. The gentlemen who have concocted the scheme to disfranchise the people of Utah, or force them to abandon their Democratic convictions, will find themselves as greatly mistaken as they were when they tried the same experiment in the Southern States. The Southern people were denounced as disloyal to the Government, a sufficient number of them were disfranchised to give their local governments into the hands of negroes and carpet-baggers, in the vain hope that the spirit of the people would be broken, or, in the language of the Declaration of Independence, that they would be "fatigued" into compliance with the will of the party in power. It was a mistake and a grievous one. It only taught the people how inestimable was the principle of self-government, how cruel was the power of centralization. It intensified their Democratic convictions. They appealed to the conscience and judgment of their fellow citizens in every section of the Union. They exposed the persecutions to which they were subjected, and by the aid of an enlightened public opinion, they threw off the yoke of oppression and one by one resumed their stations in the Union of free and sovereign States. But there remains the third party in the alliance; those who oppose polygamy because the people of Utah have some property -- the patriots who question Naboth's loyalty because of Naboth's vineyard. They are to be the instruments through which the great moral reformation is to be wrought. They are to hold the offices, legislative, executive, and judicial. They are looking to their reward -- in this world, not in the next. They will vote charters to railroads and other corporations through the Legislature. They will grant bounties of other people's bonds, and hawk and peddle them through the streets. They will live and fatten on the spoil and plunder of the wretched people, who are subjected to their power, and this will continue until an indignant public opinion shall whip them out of power, and compel Congress to restore the government to its rightful owners, the people of the Territory. By the passage of this bill all control over the local affairs of the Territory is gone from its people. They will be required to endure great suffering and sacrifices without the least power of correcting the evil. It will no longer be a government by the people, for the people, but a government of robbers protected by the Federal Government while they plunder the people. If there is one principle in our structure of free government more prominent than all others, it is that one, so often asserted, that every distinct political community is clothed with the inherent right of self-government. It was born in the throes of oppression. It is the shield and the buckler of the weak and powerless. It is a fortress and sure hiding place where the votary of liberty may find an asylum when the ?? hand of power strikes at his heart. The first compact of government formed by English speaking people on this continent established and proclaimed it as their right and bequeathed it as an inheritance to their children. Driven from their homes and native land by persecution, intolerance and bigotry, they purchased with their valor this vast continent and dedicated it as the home of a free and happy people -- and free and happy because a self-governed people. It is the germ from which was quickened into being all the distinct political communities that to-day constitute the proud and powerful commonwealths of our national Union. It was written in the charters of all the colonies. It was stoutly maintained in all the controversies with the Crown, from Plymouth to Lexington and all the struggles that lay between Lexington and Yorktown. It was asserted in the Declaration of Independence at the beginning of the Revolution; it was acknowledged and conceded by the Crown in the treaty of peace at the end. It was asserted in the Articles of Confederation and repeated again in the Constitution. It has kept pace with the growth of the United States as they have advanced in years and increased in power. Our fathers were born in that faith, grew to manhood, waxed old, and died in it, and left it as the most valuable legacy they could bequeath to their children. In the organization of the Northwestern Territories, the first young States that were organized and prepared for future admission with the original thirteen, it was written down and guaranteed by the pen and hand of Thomas Jefferson. It has been the ruling principle in the organization and government of all the Territories ever since, and ought to be observed as a sacred principle. The only instances where it has been departed from were in the contest about slavery and this of polygamy. With the American people, consent is the foundation stone, the bedrock upon which all just government stands. Consent is the moral quality that legalizes all power. Every other exercise of power, under whatever pretext is [unreadable line] the consent of Virginia as to how Massachusetts shall be governed, not the consent of New York as to how North Carolina shall be governed, not the consent of all the other States as to how Rhode Island shall be governed, but the consent of each to its own government. In national affairs where all are to be affected, the consent of all is to be obtained, as in this House. In local affairs, where only the community is to be affected, its consent alone is to be given. These, sir, are the rights and privileges of the States that have grown to full sovereignty. Are not the rights of the people in the young States growing up to maturity equally strong? Where can you draw any line of just distinction? This principle has ever been dear to the American people, because it secured beyond peradventure the preservation of their liberties and the promotion of their happiness. As long as each community holds every sinew of power in its own hands, it is secure against all oppression, because at the bidding of its own will it may correct every error or mistake. The government is but the utterance of its own voice through its representatives. If they prove unfaithful in the charge of public trusts, they may be arraigned at the bar of public opinion by the sovereignty of the public will, where the trust may be revoked or redressed. But when one people are governed by another, the power to oppress is in the hands of one, the suffering to be endured is in the person of another. The possessor of the power may wield it according to the amount of his passion or his prejudice. He has no responsibility to hold either his conscience or his passion in check. Over his actions his victim has no control. There is no tribunal at whose bar he can call him to account. The thunderbolt is in a hand that is lifted far beyond his reach, and when it is not within his power to escape its stroke. This is despotic government, and this, the government this bill is giving to American citizens in the Territory of Utah. But it is said that Congress has the power to govern the people as it pleases in the Territories. And the same doctrine was advanced in another legislative assembly, some days ago. It is the argument of a tyrant, I care not where it is uttered. Congress has the power to do wrong; and a great wrong, but that is not a rightful exercise of power; it is an abuse of power. Congress has the power to admit a Territory into the Union, and a power to keep it out forever. It has the power to destroy its government, and surrender it to anarchy. It has the power to refuse to support its people when invaded by a public enemy. It has the power to declare its peaceful inhabitants in insurrection and send an army upon them. All this is simply an abuse of power. The Government owes to every citizen, wherever he may reside, in a State or Territory, the protection of every rightful citizenship, and it is a duty from which it cannot shrink without dishonor. If a government may not shrink from the discharge of the duty of protection without dishonor, when words can characterize the act, what it turns upon its people and itself becomes the oppressor. I have been taught from my earliest recollection that arbitrary power was a monster that could live in no land where the English language was spoken, much less in this land of written constitutions bristling all over with interdictions against every encroachment upon the liberties of the people. Have American citizens in the Territories no rights that Congress is bound to respect? Can Congress try them by court martial or military commission? Can it deny them trial by jury? Can it refuse them bail? Can it forbid them the privilege of being confronted with their accusers or the compulsory process of the court to compel the attendance of their own witnesses? As American citizens we are born with these rights inhering in our persons. Do we forfeit them by leaving the parental roof in one of the States and going upon the public lands in the Territories? What a gratifying spectacle it must be to adherents of Divine right to see the American Congress striking down the right of self-government in one of the Territories, and re-enacting the odious test oaths and bills of attainder that blotted the pages of English history in the days of the Stuarts. With what pride will they point to the outlawry of 150,000 people, and the subjection of their live [life], liberty, and property to the mercy of a board of five royal regents, chosen on account of their unrelenting hostility to the unhappy people who are made their victims, by the American Congress, in the land of Washington and Adams and Jefferson. This imperial commission is empowered to carry at its girdle the keys of death and hell. It is clothed with power to pass on the moral qualifications of every officer elected by the people, and from their judgement there is no appeal. They are vested with power to close the doors of the legislative assembly of the people upon their own representatives and fill the vacant seats with the product of their own spawn. This venal instrument of oppression is not wholly unknown to fame. It has left a record as indelible, as infamous on the pages of our recent history. For a few dark and melancholy years it wielded an unchallenged scepter in the Southern States. It filled the legislative halls with its own creatures, and the complacent slaves without murmur registered the decrees of their masters. In my own State they took from the people the election of every executive and judicial officer. And when the legislative officers were to be chosen they surrounded the polls with the janissaries whom they had created to drive away those who came to vote for legislative officers who were not the willing instruments of their oppression. They gave the Governor, whom they installed in defiance of the public will, the power to suspend the habeas corpus, and levy and collect fines upon whole communities by armed violence. The legislative hall of the Southern States under the government of returning boards like the temple at Jerusalem under the Roman proconsuls, became a den of thieves. Do we wish to reanimate the putrid carcass and deliver to its keeping the people of Utah? Does any one believe that the returning board will act differently? Do you think it will give certificates to the officers elected by the people? Have we not here before our eyes proof conclusive that it will exclude the officers elected by the people and give certificates to its own creatures? In the election for Delegate from Utah to Congress one candidate received 18,000 votes, and the other about 1,300?, and yet the chief magistrate of the Territory gave the certificates [unreadable line] was defeated by more than 1?,000 votes. If a fair trial of the polygamists is all you want, the first seven sections of the bill make ample provision for that. With the judge, the district attorney, the marshal and the jury all in your hands you can fill all the prisons in Utah and the adjoining Territories. What more do you want? I repeat it, why do you want to overturn the Territorial government? There is something beyond a craving for a higher order of morality; there is something more than a hungering and thirsting after righteousness. The hermits and monks that are preaching this crusade are not of those who vex their righteous souls from day to day about the immorality of this modern Sodom. Their knees are not indurated like the knees of James the Just from much kneeling. What is the real object? Tear off the mask and come out into the light of day and tell us why you want to get your hands on the Legislative Assembly of Utah. Before closing, I want to call the attention of the admirers of Stephen A. Douglas to the Democratic doctrine as he taught it. I send to the Clerk and ask him to read the paragraph marked: The principle under our political system is, that every distinct political community, loyal to the Constitution and the Union, is entitled all the rights, privileges, and immunities of self-government in respect to their local concerns and internal policy, subject only to the Constitution of the United States. That, sir, is the principle of the Democratic government, the principle of our fathers' and the only principle upon which we all can be free and happy and transmit the blessings of liberty to our children. Because this bill violates this fundamental principle of free government, I can under no sort of circumstances give it my assent. |