Thursday,] HILLARD. [June 23d. Basis of Representation. The motion was agreed to. The Convention accordingly went into COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE, Mr. Wilson, of Natick, in the Chair. The CHAIRMAN stated the question to be upon the Majority Report from the Committee on the House of Representatives. Mr. HILLARD, of Boston. I should hardly have taken part in the discussion, had not the chairman of the Committee which reported the resolves under consideration, (Mr. Griswold,) done me the honor of fortifying some of his positions by my authority. Had I remained silent, there might have been a touch of disingenuousness in this course, as I might have thereby seemed to assent to a direction given to my language to which I am not prepared to yield an entire assent. It is true that after the measure of my abilities and opportunities, I have read and thought upon the subject of town organization, and I yield to no man in this Convention or out of it in respect for that organization, and no man is more prepared to make efforts or sacrifices to keep it in all its purity and all its efficiency. But the local independence of towns is one thing, and their relative weight in the central government is another. Because it is important that town-meetings should retain their administrative functions unimpaired, it by no means follows that they should have the lion's share in the central legislature. Because the voters in a town of five hundred inhabitants have as perfect a right to manage the internal affairs of that town, as have the voters in a town with five thousand in-❘ habitants, it by no means follows that they shall have an equal voice in determining matters in which they have a common interest, in direct proportion to those numbers. In short, local authority, or sovereignty, if you will, is one thing, and combined action is another. Between the two, there is a chasm which my sympathies cannot overleap, which my understanding cannot overbridge. It is true that all the towns in the State are partners in the common weal, but it by no means follows that they are equal partners. Nor does it seem to me, as has been remarked in this hall, that if you take away from the towns the right to elect representatives, as such, you deprive them of the brightest jewel in their crown. On the contrary, it seems to me that the right to manage their internal affairs is their most essential right. The right to choose a representative is an accidental right. One is a right hand or a right eye. The other is a garment, graceful and becoming it may be, but a mere garment, which may be taken off and put on without any essential injury to the substance itself. Now, Sir, the relations of the towns towards the Commonwealth are not unlike the relations of individuals towards the community. It is sometimes said that men in entering society give up a part of their natural rights in exchange for the protection which society extends to such as are retained. But it seems to me that this is what grammarians would call a hysteron proteron, or in common language, "putting the cart before the horse." There are, strictly speaking, no rights in a state of nature-if such a state can be conceived of. Rights are the children of society-the creatures of relation. Robinson Crusoe, while alone on his desolate island, could have no rights, strictly speaking, because in that condition there was no possibility of wrongs; but when his man Friday made his appearance upon the stage, the union of the two generated a whole offspring of rights and duties. Now, the whole framework of society, with all the cumbrous and expensive machinery of government, is nothing more or less, than an adjustment of individual rights and general rights-a settlement of the conflicting claims of the individual and the community. The idea of a free government is, that each individual shall retain so much of his own rights as is consistent with the common welfare-the general safety of the people always being the supreme law. Mr. Burke says, "To form a free government—that is, to temper together the opposite elements of liberty and restraint in one consistent work-requires much thought, deep reflection, a sagacious, powerful and combining mind." Society is, indeed, an aggregate of the most delicate and complex machinery, where the rights of individuals and society cross each other at every step; and it is one of the most difficult problems to solve, how to apportion the rights of individuals on the one side and of society on the other. This may be illustrated in a thousand ways. We allow, for instance, every man the right to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscienceand it is a sacred right; but we should not allow a company of Shakers to perform their saltatory devotions upon Boston Common. Every father has the right to govern his own family, but if he treats his children with excessive cruelty, society interferes. Every man has the right to deal with his own property as he pleases, but if he erects a nuisance on his land, society comes in and removes it. A man has the right to publish his opinions, but if he libel his neighbor, he must answer for it. Now the problem before us is, how to reconcile the rights of the individual towns of the Com monwealth with the rights of the whole people of the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth is an aggregate of individual communities, it is true; but all these individual communities have their rights, and the fact that all have rights sets a limitation to the rights of each one. We have to solve this problem, and in order to do it correctly we must give to each one of the towns of the Commonwealth just so much of their primitive, original, individual rights as is consistent with the welfare of the whole, and especially must we do it in such a manner as to work no injustice in any quarter. I have listened, Mr. Chairman, with much interest and with much profit to this debate. I think the tone and temper of the discussion have been honorable to the Convention and honorable to the State. And it has been interesting to me in more points than one. In the course of the discussion we have seen the civic and the rural elements of society brought in collision, and an attempt at reconcilement and compromise. It is the renewal of a very old contest. This was the ground of the antagonism between the Doric and Ionian races in Greece, which found its last expression in the civil war between Athens and Sparta, which led to the final downfall of Greece. It is these two principles which have operated to bring about parliamentary reform in England, which commenced as long ago as six hundred years since, when Simon De Montfort summoned into parliament the representatives of the boroughs, the mechanics and the tradesmen. We may well conceive of the indignation of the barons and lords of England, when they learned that the delegates of clothiers and weavers were to take part in the government of the realm over which they had before exercised exclusive control. This was the first attempt to take from landed property its lion's share in the government of that country, and to transfer it to personal property. The same struggle has continued more or less down to the present time. It is not generally known that Mr. Pitt-the younger Pitt-was a parliamentary reformer. In 1785 he proposed several changes in the representation, and in the course of his remarks upon that occasion he promulgated one or two opinions which cannot be unprofitable for us to hear. He said that his object was to make the House of Commons an assembly which should have the closest union and the most perfect sympathy with the mass of the people. I submit that this is as vital and pregnant a maxim to-day and here, as it was then and there. He also said, it is an incontestable doctrine of antiquity that the state of representation has changed with the change of circum [June 23d. stances. It is equally true as a general maxim or axiom, in all progressive and representative governments, that the state of representation must change with the change of circumstances. This great struggle came to a head about twenty years since. It led to a conflict in England unparalleled both for the ability which was infused into it, and for the passions which were called into birth on both sides, for the whole interests of England were suspended and concentrated upon that one point. There was but one thought in the minds of the people, and but one throb in that vast heart. Parliamentary reform was, in point of fact, carried through a breach of the Constitution of England. The constitutional function of the House of Lords was paralyzed, and parliamentary reform went through the House of Commons and over the House of Lords. The arguments with which that battle was fought on the one side and the other, are not identical with our own, because our towns are not boroughs, and they are not rotten but sound. Not identical, I say, but similar. The parallel is not exact, but it is marked. But by some strange device, some conjuror's trick, although the banners and symbols are the same, yet the combatants seem to have changed sides. I find here the tory argument spoken from the lips of the progressive party. The Democratic Sauls are now among the conservative prophets, and Democracy itself seems to have smoothed its rugged front, and instead of sounding its trumpets and sharpening its weapons, it capers nimbly in a lady's chamber to the seductive breathings of the conservative lute. Here is my friend for Berlin, who made a most able and weighty speech, which if it had been delivered in the House of Lords in 1831, would have been pronounced a most excellent tory argument. Lyndhurst would have cried "hear, hear," Eldon would have cheered, and the iron duke himself would have stretched forth a congratulatory hand. [Laughter.] Now the arguments on both sides may teach us a lesson, that we may greatly magnify and overstate both the prospective advantages and disadvantages of any change to which our passions are strongly given. That experiment has been under trial for twenty years, and I presume that the most bigoted Tory in England would say, that the highest essential institutions of England are not weakened by the change. But on the other hand, I believe it will be generally admitted that the House of Commons has not gained in point of ability, and that the tone of debates, if anything, is somewhat lower than under the old system. I agree to much of what has been said in behalf of the Majority Report. I confess to a weakness, shall I call it, in favor of land and land owners. I should be sorry that the time should ever come for instance, when a plurality in the House of Representatives of Massachusetts should not be composed of farmers. I think that that prejudice, | if prejudice it may be called, which from the beginning of time seems to have gathered around land and the possession of land, has its origin in some instinct of our nature, which is a true instinct. It is not easy to understand why our confidence seems to go out towards the men who are possessed of acres, but the fact is and ever has been so. Take the English House of Commons and the French Chamber of Deputies. In the French Chamber of Deputies the majority is made up of men of talent, clever men, brilliant writers, intellectual adventurers, who come up to Paris with tongues and pens, set up to be bought by the highest bidder. In the House of Commons, on the other hand, there is a considerable proportion of what are called country gentlemen, men who are sent there because they possess landed property. They are not generelly held to be very wise or brilliant men, but I contend that they make a far better legislative body than the same number of brilliant Frenchmen; and, paradoxical as it may seem, I contend that too much talent, too much oratorical power, if you will, in any deliberative assembly, is an evil, as well as too little. I think one reason why the House of Commons is a better legislative body than any French Chamber of Deputies, is because there is the plain homely element of good sense lying at the bottom of its deliberations-because there are so many men there whose minds and characters have been trained under the responsibility of landed property. Many things have been said in the course of this debate, to which I cannot agree. I listened with much admiration to the speech of my friend, the delegate for Manchester, (Mr. Dana,) but not throughout with uniform assent. I trust he will permit me to discuss some points of difference, with a candor which is perfectly consistent with the spirit of friendship. He and I have sat at the feet of the same political Gamaliels. We cannot widely differ as to principles, but only as to the application of them. He laments the downfall for instance of the provinces of France, and wishes that they could be restored, but it is as impossible, of course, as he well knows, to restore the provinces of France, as it is to ingraft the colors of sunrise upon the light of noon-day. What was the fact? The kingdom of France before the Revolution was an aggregate of several provinces differing in institutions, laws, customs, origin, and in language even. Brittany differed from Navarre more than Massachusetts from Louisiana. [June 23d. France, at that time, was a mosaic of diversity, kept together by the strong compression of despotism. When that compression was removed by the Revolution, the only alternative was to break up France into separate kingdoms, or to reconstruct the whole system by means of departments. This latter they did. What was the result? The affections of the people were divorced from the provinces around which they had clung, and not having had time to entwine themselves around the departments, were transferred to Paris and the central power. Two generations have grown up since that time, the people have become attached to the departments, and the consequence is, if I mistake not, that Paris by no means wields proportionately the same power which she did sixty years ago. At any rate, no administration has changed that division into departments, and therefore it cannot be an unmingled evil. The gentleman for Manchester, (Mr. Dana,) in the course of his remarks, let fall a drop or two of blistering dew upon the city of Boston. I winced a little at that portion of his speech. As Mr. Pepys, the diarist, in the time of Charles the Second, said of a rent in his new camlet cloak, "it was a trifle, but it troubled me." I wish the Committee had heard from other lips than his that stupid sarcasm of John Randolph's, which, like all the good things of that distinguished Virginian I have had the fortune to hear, owes its preservation not to the salt of its wit, but the vinegar of its malice. The same John Randolph said of the secret ballot, that if it did not find the people that adopted it a nation of scoundrels, it would soon make them so. That sally does not seem to be received with quite so much favor as the fling at Boston. In my opinion one is worth about as much as the other. For one, I do not shrink from a comparison between Boston and Athens. For one, I am thankful that I do not live in a city where three men out of four are slaves as well as foreigners. I am thankful that my life and fortunes are not at the mercy of that fierce and cruel democracy which banished Aristides, poisoned Phocion and Socrates. I will set the trial by jury against the Parthenon, habeas corpus against the temple of Theseus, constitutional law, regulated liberty, free schools and charitable institutions against poetry, art and philosophy; and in summing up, I will find a balance to the credit of Boston. I regret that my friend for Manchester, (Mr. Dana,) should have felt himself called upon to add even one jot or tittle to a sentiment towards Boston which has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished. I am sorry that he should have cast one stick upon a fire, out of whose heat none but vipers can come. As the bread that he and I both eat comes from the business community of Boston; from men, some of whom are rich and all of whom hope to be rich, it does not become us, like froward children, to strike at the hand that feeds us. I recognize the sentiment of local gratitude as well as of personal gratitude, and I would not cast a stone at the tree whose fruits I eat. Not that there was not much of truth in all that my friend has said. I admit that the pursuit, as well as the possession of wealth, spreads snares for the soul. I admit that the love of money is the root of much evil, but I respectfully submit, that a gentleman who addresses this Committee from the vantage ground of character and talent which that gentleman does, should speak with a moral responsibility attaching not only to his words, but to the inferences naturally to be drawn from his words. He will pardon me for saying, if, as I was listening to his adroit and well considered language, I was reminded of some lines of Pope, descriptive of the character of Addi son: "Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, He did not say in so many words that Boston was a mercenary encampment of selfish moneyseekers. He did not say that the spirit of liberty had gone out in the spirit of trade, like the flame of a candle in an exhausted receiver. But I submit that he opened the door, through which others might pass to that conclusion. I have lived longer in Boston than he. I know its people as well, and I do not think that the charge or insinuation is, in point of fact, true. I think that, of all good things, there is as much in Boston now as at any previous period. But it is unprofitable to bandy judgments. His opinions are as good as mine anywhere; and doubtless better before this body. But, supposing it to be true, that the pulse of liberty does not beat quite so fiercely in the cities as in the country, my friend has read and thought enough about politics to know that the prosperity of a State rests upon two elements, the spirit of liberty and the spirit of law, the principle of progress, and the principle of repose; that these must be combined like the nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere, to give the greatest amount of vitality; and if you have too much of one, it is just as bad as to have too much of the other. Surely, that timid conservatism, which comes either from the hope of obtaining property or losing it, is not a thing that we can afford to throw away. It does offer some resistance, imperfect though it be, to that spirit of headlong change which goes roaring about the land seeking [June 23d. whom and what it may devour. My friend knows, to borrow an illustration from the element with which his genius is so indissolubly associated, that if you spread the canvas of the ship, and take out the ballast and rudder, she will soon land at Davy Jones's locker. And does any man suppose that in this country we are in dan ger of suffering from want of liberty? Just as much, Mr. Chairman, as the inmates of Noah's Ark were of perishing with thirst in the middle of the deluge. Perhaps this sentiment towards Boston is a contagious disease. My friend for Manchester sits near to my fervid young friend for Northboro', (Mr. Burlingame,) who charmed us a few days since with a very brilliant piece of declamation, a specimen of scene-painting, in which somewhat exaggerated forms were so commended by the powerful gas-lights of passion and fancy, that if we began with criticism, we ended with admiration. I think that gentleman, (Mr. Burlingame,) who represents a town which he has not seen, misrepresents a city that he has seen. Not that what he said is not literally true; not that he might not pick out a hundred men in Boston, whom I should call rich, whom you might put under the sods at Mount Auburn, and no great harm be done. But man is an inferencedrawing animal, and I protest against the inference. If it be meant that such is the character of the rich men of Boston, I beg leave to dissent from the conclusion. On the other hand, I think there is no community in which property is more administered with regard to its duties as well as its rights. I believe there is no place in which the wealth of the wealthy flows out more than in Boston, not only in those broad streams of charity upon which the great burdens of humanity rest, but also in those rills of private benevolence which betray the secret of their course only by the livelier green of happiness which they diffuse. The lines of that gentleman have fallen to him nearer the wealth of Boston than my own. It is my lot to gain a modest subsistence by modest professional toils. I have no other thing to look back upon in the past, and I have nothing else to look forward to in the future. Within the last year, three of these rich men have been gathered to their fathers. Their names are Amos Lawrence, Robert G. Shaw, and Thomas B. Wales. If the men and women and children, who have felt in the death of these men a substantial and palpable loss, who have felt that, by their removal, a portion of the daily sunshine on their path had been taken away-I say if these men, women and children could come up here to testify against the injustice of this charge, this hall would not be sufficient to contain their numbers. But, Sir, it is not for me to pass encomiums upon Boston. She needs not that service at my hands. I am here to represent, and not to praise her. She is here, in open court. Gibes and sneers, and spurts of rhetoric and ejaculations of prejudice, she disdains to respond to; but all charges, distinctly and articulately propounded, she is ready to meet. She is and has been "a city set upon a hill." From her birth down to this hour, her path has lain in light, and her works have been done at noon-day. Study her history, page by page, and period by period; observe her institutions for the relief of the sorrows of humanity; see her intelligent and enterprising population, and if you will find any community, far or near, past or present, large or small, superior to Boston, in all that is honorable, excellent and of good report, in all that elevates and embellishes life, then, and not till then, will I confess that I have loved her, "Not wisely, but too well." Now, I confess, Mr. Chairman, I am more afraid of the poverty of Boston, than of its wealth. Poverty is of kinds as well as degrees--and we have a poverty in Boston which wears a different aspect from that in the country towns. In these last, it is painful but not hopeless-struggling, but submissive; often sorely tried, but never utterly cast down. It is a poverty friendly to virtue, friendly to religion, friendly to the domestic affections; and in its sharp bracing air, strong minds and vigorous characters are reared. In these rural towns the poor man's lot is not embittered by the sight of great inequalities in fortune. He is poor, but his neighbors are not rich; he is not ashamed to cast his vote; he is not ashamed to attend town-meetings; he is not ashamed to walk to the house of God in company with his friends. He has local attachments-a home and a family; he is not a limb cut off from the community in which he lives; he is bound to it by ties of sympathy. His poverty is not degrading. It is soothed and lightened by kind offices, neighborly acts, and seasonable charities. The burden of gratitude is so gently laid, that it is lightly borne; and when the last hour comes, he feels that he is not to be thrust into some unseemly hole like rubbish shot from a cart, but that his neighbors will bear him decently and reverently to the grave, and smooth the turf over his lifeless remains. But there is a poverty in Boston which is of another class. Boston, like all other large towns, is a city of refuge for those social outlaws and outcasts whom the country throws off from its green lap. It is a place of refuge for that [June 23d. poverty whose roots are sin and whose fruit is death. This is a poverty which is rebellious, destructive, exterminating, hopeless, homeless, and Godless. This is the poverty which prow's around our dwellings as wolves around a sheepcote, seeking an unguarded point where they may enter. It is a poverty embittered by the sight of enormous wealth-the luxuries of which it cannot enjoy; it is a poverty which hardens and brutalizes; it suppresses the man and brings out the tiger. This is the poverty that we have to fear. It is now a cloud no bigger than a man's hand, but swelled as it is daily by foreign and domestic accretions, who shall say whether, in the future, we are to be as safe from it as we are now. I have always felt, and I have sometimes said, that in our great cities, the aggregation of immense wealth at one end of the scale, and the increasing amount of hopeless poverty at the other, did involve an element of peril to wealth itself, and that the moment the rich men forget the duties of property, the moment that they cease to bridge this interval between themselves and the poor by the perpetual exercise of sympathy, and by the constant recognition of a common humanity and a common brotherhood, then their wealth would be in danger of falling upon the mercy of the merciless. And it is only in this-it is only in the moral element, flowing from Christianity and humanity, that a corrective is to be found to the danger which always threatens a country, in which, while the rich are growing richer, the poor are growing poorer. Much has been said, in the course of this discussion, about centralization. I think that word is often misunderstood. In order to get at its true meaning we must distinguish between the functions of government and the functions of administration. They are very distinct though often confounded. We may find an illustration of the two in the relation of the father of a family to his household. Government corresponds to the discipline which he exercises over his children and his servants, and administration corresponds to the care he takes of his property. Now government must always be central, no matter where it may be, no matter of what institutions it may be compounded. The government of this State is as much a unit as the government of Russia, but the difference is that ours is a plural unit; it is a unit compounded of several aggregates; and therein we seek efficiency. But all governments that exist at all are central; they are one and indivisible. But with regard to administration, there are two systems; one, which we have, which devolves upon the community that comes the near |