First, you
will remember, it was passionately maintained that the Constitution of
the United States does not know the Common Law; and now it is insisted
that Common Law (so far as slavery is concerned) is as inherent in the
Constitution as the black pigment is in the negro. You cannot wash it
out; it inheres physiologically in the Constitution. I tell you, reader,
we are _fast_ people indeed; we travel fast in our opinions, with now
and then a somerset for the delectation of the philosopher.
Let us sit down, and have a philosophical conversation; above all, let
us discard sentiment, feeling,--what you call heart, and all that sort
of thing. You know how much mischief Las Casas has done by allowing his
feelings to interfere when the Spaniards roasted Indians, from what he
chose to call diabolical lust of gold, and sheer, abstract cruelty. Poor
Bishop! He belonged to the softs. Let us be philosophers, economists,
and, above all, Constitutionalists. Some philosophers, indeed, have
said that all idea of Right and Wrong, and the idea that there is
a difference between the two, must needs, first of all, start from
sentiment; but leave, I implore you, such philosophic fogyism behind
you.
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