Chapter I

THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION.
1777–1787.

The Constitution as a Resort for Shoppers in Civil Rights.—Every Kind of
Article to be found either for Ordinary or Exceptional Use.—The Fringe
called Preamble; its Thread, Texture, and Quality.—Counterfeit
Patterns and Simulations easily detected.—Piles of heavy Cloths for
the Country’s Winter Use in War, Financial Storms, etc.—Executive and
Legislative Ready-made Clothing.—Judicial White Goods.—Hosiery for
Congressional Understandings, swift or slow.—A Variety of
Miscellaneous Wares; Contrivances for catching People with Colored
Skins; Habeas Corpus Non-Suspenders; Muzzles for violent or hungry
Congressmen; Handsome Checks on the Treasury; Specimens of tender Gold
and Silver; Militia Uniforms; Padlocks for securing Houses against
Searches; Jury-Boxes, Trial Balances, and other Goods.—The Sumner
Patent.—The latest Novelty to prevent Electoral Black-and-White Suits
from being stripped off.—State-Rights Dresses, and strong Federal
Out-Fits.—Messrs. Calhoun, J. Davis, Webster, Clay, etc.—The
Manufacture of bright Buttons, called “Coins.”—The Fifteenth
Amendment.—Doubtful Packages.—Paper Money as a Substitute for real
Money.—Unauthorized Use of the Constitutional Bazaar.—Seekers of Goods
never made.—Nicholas Biddle and his Gold Suit.—Everybody suited at the
Federal Store.—Of excessively sharp and dense-headed Shoppers.—How
Articles are mistaken.—Water-proof Goods for River and Harbor Dredging
and for Lighting Coasts.—Of long Selvedges, or Railroad Strips, and
their wonderful Elasticity.—Rights and Lefts.

What Stewart’s New York emporium is to shoppers for goods, the Constitution of the United States is to shoppers for civil and political rights. There one may find whatever he is in quest of, and may very often see things, beautiful in texture, color, and quality, which he would never require, even if he lived as long as his long-winded ancestor Methuselah. On his very first entrance, he will stop to look at that very handsome fringe, “the preamble,” woven together in such exquisite tissue-work. As he examines it, he will note the quality of the material, the even strands “more perfect union,” “justice,” “domestic tranquillity,” “common defence,” “general welfare,” “blessings of liberty,” braided together by the deft, expert, and strong fingers of the people of the United States “for themselves” and “their posterity,”—a bit of domestic hand-weaving which has now lasted over fourscore years, and is still bright in color, and, although much handled and tumbled about, just as good as new. Patterns have been taken from it, and cheap imitations attempted; but these latter are just as easy of detection as cottonized linen, dyed hair, or carminized blushes.

THE STATE TAKES LEAVE OF THE COLONY.
(p. 314)
]

There, too, one finds readily and in abundance heavy cloths for the country’s wear through the wintry storms of financial distress, foreign wars, or domestic insurrection; ready-made clothing for legislative and executive use; white linen goods for the judges, as stainless as snow, although not quite as cheap; a great variety of under-garments to fit the powers of Congress, and a large assortment of hosiery to encase with restrictive woof its rapid understandings.

As one advances, he finds a miscellaneous collection of rights; patent contrivances to give people in one State the same expansion, weight, and solidity as in another; admirably adjusted devices for catching persons with colored skins, when attempting to run off with them over boundary lines,—a device ingeniously stamped “labor-saving machines,”—an article in great demand between 1850 and 1861 in the southern portion of the Union. On the same counter lie _habeas corpus_ non-suspenders, a strap occasionally called for by passionate judges and choleric magistrates; tacks, which can only be driven in all over the surface of America up to the same point; muzzles over legislative bills and hungry congressmen, to prevent them from pecking at the estates of people politically decapitated, and from whetting up the keen edge of _ex post facto_ laws; handsome checks on the treasury; good bills of lading, current in all the ports of the Union, if at any time introduced in any one of them; specimens of gold and silver, made very tender in all the States, especially during a time of plenty, and before a war; and a large variety of odd gear, to prevent people from getting into, or, if in, out of, trouble.

Proceeding to the rear of our Constitutional bazaar, the shopper will find the very latest styles and modes of civil rights; pieces adapted to dress and re-dress pulpits and printing-presses; militia uniforms; arms without quarterings; padlocks to secure houses from being entered and searched; devices to keep property from being taken for public use without proper payment; jury-boxes and trial balances.

But the very latest article added to this great emporium is a curious contrivance, said to have been invented by a Down-Easter named Sumner, for preventing one man, even if he be draped in a mourning skin, from being owned by another man. Of course it would strike any one but an American as a very needless article, especially out of place among staple goods, and one which ought never to be called for in a country which takes such pains and pride to claim and proclaim that other invention of a man down South, called Jefferson, whereby one man is made equal to every other man. Still, it is well known that the Sumner unclasping machine is a very useful one, and well supplies a need long felt.

Attempts are now made, as we write, to introduce into public use another article, called the Fifteenth Amendment, and to put upon it the Constitutional patent-mark, an article which is calculated to hinder any evilly disposed person from stripping off from another at election time,—a period when a certain strange _rabies_ seizes Americans and makes them inclined to tear each other and their clothing,—their electoral vestments, or voting suits, especially if they do not suit them. The new pattern is black and white, and although it has had as yet a checkered fate,—some preferring it all white, some all black, others white with a leaden-colored border,—it is thought by shrewd buyers that the novelty will soon come into general use. These last-named goods are far from being fashionable at the South.

One of the most surprising characteristics of our fashionable Constitutional shopping-place is, that everybody finds here just the article to suit his taste, judgment, and even his fancy, whimsical as it may be. If Mr. J. C. Calhoun or Mr. J. Davis wants a complete outfit for States rights, he walks in, and has no difficulty in finding it just to his liking, and in a considerable variety of shades and materials. He puts his hand on one of the new styles marked “Article X,” and is confirmed in his choice by reading upon the label the manufacturer’s description: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” He turns around, and, traversing other departments, discovers sundry other articles of like style to match these. He also lights upon more gauzy, thin, or fine-spun, fleecier goods to throw around the exposed shoulders of the States.

On the other hand, if Mr. D. Webster or Mr. H. Clay desires a thorough suit for the central Federal figure of Uncle Samuel, he is shown directly to the sections where he can procure quantities of them; hats to cover banking brains; coats and vests to put over the inner works, to aid digestion and promote internal improvement; pants, hosiery, and boots to keep up our Uncle’s advancing strides over mountains, plains, and rivers. Such customers are, of course, walked up directly to section eight, and there are shown in a large box ample and well-made garments of the desired description. On the top of this box the fabricators have put this explanation: “To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers.”

It was supposed by many of the original members of the firm, who got up this grand Constitutional bazaar, that Uncle Sam’s concern had the exclusive right to make those bright, popular buttons called “coin,” or “money”; but it was discovered in a very short time that there was an elastic provision in the articles of copartnership, which allowed the individual members of the firm to manufacture, each on his own account, these shining disks, and even to invent and put forth for sale paper substitutes, which at length became so much in vogue as to drive the metallic article, at times, wholly out of the market. Paper collars have not had a livelier run, nor damper shrinkages than these.

Statements are often put forth by people sitting on benches and having a grave, sometimes a grave-clothes air, doubting the right of the Federal store to stamp exclusively and to put out for its own particular profit, a variety of things, kept there in well-locked sections; it being claimed that the composing members have a concurrent power to make, stamp, and vend the same goods. On some of these points the discussion is still going on, and as the partners are a jealous, sharp set, it is not likely soon to terminate.

Much trouble has arisen in regard to a large number of bills of credit which have been issued by, and are still outstanding against, the large Federal concern. Some have questioned their power to manufacture this kind of paper and make it equal to hard coin. Others have doubted the legality of the step which the firm took in making this paper good for certain purposes, and not receivable as pay for certain kinds of debts due to the house, arguing that if coin was better than paper, then the paper could not justly be made an equivalent; and if no better, then that paper ought in all cases to be received as well by the firm as by others. After much argument before them, however, that popular court, the ballot, gave a verdict against those who so reasoned, and rendered a decree that, if there were no other good reasons, the arguments _pro interesse suo_ and _ad necessitatem_, especially when impelled by the motor of war, were too convincing to be set aside, and so legalized the discrimination.

Very many people make an unauthorized use of the bazaar. They go in for articles so absurd, so trifling, or so unusual, that all the clerks laugh outright, as soon as the inquiries are made. Some people, especially members of Congress, candidates for office, small lawyers, raised by short hand-levers up towards a large occasion, which they find it difficult to reach, when talking of the things themselves, their own pockets, or their chances of offices and places, assert, when told that such things do not exist, that they can find them in the old Constitutional store.

Accordingly, they post thither, and make themselves ridiculous or disagreeable, by tumbling over and soiling the goods that lie there in honest piles, to find their peculiar article. Some of these shoppers last mentioned are very keen-eyed, gifted with those optics spoken of by Hudibras, which see

“Things which are not to be seen,”

and fancy that they see, in their mind’s eye, patterns of what they are after, when in truth the patterns are not at all similar. If the goods found are speckled, checked, spotted, or figured, and the sample which they have brought has any specks, checks, spots, or figures in it, bearing the most general resemblance, but readily distinguishable from the goods inspected by any the most careless observer, if disinterested, they hasten away and proclaim very loudly that the same goods, of precisely the same material, color, make, and style, are found in heaps in the Constitutional shop. There is nothing so sharp as such eyes, except the single eye to the public good.

So, on the other hand, obtuse, dense-headed observers, unaccustomed to make distinctions, rush to the Constitutional with confused or ill-defined recollections of the patterns or styles they want, and buy and bring away packages of goods which, when exposed to a clear light, are at once seen to be wholly dissimilar. As in large stores, some people become confused by the variety, and select at random, or in a perplexed glamour, articles to match pieces at home either in color, texture, or quality, and assent with a mixed mind to the adroit suggestions of the salesman; so in the various sections into which our Constitutional store is divided up, many good people, even deacons, vestry-men, the annual subscriber to missionary papers, and systematic charity bestowers, become, in the shifting cross-lights of commentaries, and remarks of story-tellers and others, as confused and astray in their notions, and lose their own not over-strong heads as completely as congressmen at an evening session, or the President during the closing hours of the last night of the congressional barbecue.

There is no store so much talked about all over the United States as this Constitutional one; and there are no goods so generally used or so popular as those which are either actually obtained there, or fancied to be in it for sale. Nicholas Biddle once got a gold-colored suit there which he wore in and around the vaults of the United States Bank, in Philadelphia, from 1816 to 1836; but General Jackson, for various reasons, some of which were very peculiar and of a hickory color, others as sound as oak, took such a dislike to it, that he finally persuaded the people that it was a very poor suit, and, in fact, never came from the Constitutional store, but was a deceptive imitation of goods there.

Many persons have gone to the Federal store, to procure water-proof constitutional goods, to wear in dredging rivers and harbors, in laying down watery ways across States, and when at work on the coast, or exposed to the chilling winds from State capitols. Others insist upon purchasing there, also, long selvedges, or narrow, iron-colored strips, which some declare to be very excellent material for binding States; while others assert that it is only calculated for hemming them in uncomfortably. Some of these strips have a very elastic element in them, and can be made to stretch in parallel lines from Washington to the farthest border of the Union. The bands, or bindings, which they use, are also wonderfully elastic, and can be multiplied like stars to the bewildering gaze of an enthusiastic drinker.

On the whole, it may be said, that while this great American store contains piles of invaluable goods, it is supposed by intelligent persons to hold more rights than were ever left to men.

THE IRREPRESSIBLE NEGRO.
(p. 322)
]