CHAPTER XII.

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GEORGE WASHINGTON.

On the 16th of June the following communication was received, and those following at the dates mentioned, from the spirit of George Washington:

“From my home and congenial associations in the spirit world I come to you to-day feeling and hoping that I may possibly be of some service to my country, which I have never ceased to love with the tenderness of a mother’s love for her children. Indeed, my country—the noble young republic—was kind to and considerate of me far above my merits.

“In the memorable struggle for independence I was assigned to duty at the head of the colonial army, and by this circumstance occupied a position that attracted to me more general attention than to others who were in nowise less meritorious. After seven long years of patient suffering, heroic endurance, and almost superhuman exertion, our gallant and illy-provided army won an honorable peace, and I trust an imperishable renown. A nation of freemen was brought into being, and a system of government established far in advance of its predecessors. The old Roman republic, grand in many respects and a marvel of excellence for its time, was still in many regards vastly inferior to our own. Being at the head of the brave army whose herculean efforts, exerted under many disadvantageous circumstances, eventuated so gloriously, it was natural, although no more worthy than many others who rendered patriotic services, that I should be chosen the first executive of the young republic. This, to me, was a most flattering testimonial of the high appreciation of and affection for the gallant citizen soldiery who so valiantly acted in the stirring and sanguinary events of the memorable contest. Regarding my elevation to the chief magistracy of the nation as a reflection of public sentiment as indicated more than as a personal compliment to myself, it behooved me by discreet official conduct and patriotic action to show that the general appreciation and esteem for that noble soldiery was not misplaced nor unworthily bestowed.

“If I have rendered worthy services to my country, either in the line of military duty or in the performance of civil trust, or both, they must proclaim my right to speak from my higher conscious life to my countrymen on matters pertaining to their best and dearest interests. If the gallant army that fought to a successful issue the battles of freedom in the infancy of its struggles here have claims upon the attention and consideration of the present generation, and those of the future, they beg you to earnestly consider the words that may fall from my lips and pen. I have marshaled those mighty hosts of noble souls in spirit land, and with them have recounted our struggles and sacrifices for you and those to come after you, and they are in hearty accord with what I shall deem proper to say to the nation through the much abused and little understood channel of human mediumship. You will hear from me in the immediate future in obedience to the purpose indicated.”June 23, 1882:

“Your complex system of government needs and will receive reconstruction or remodeling. When we emerged from the revolutionary struggle, and came to give the fruits of our hard earned victory some definite shape in the formation of a government for the new nation, we adopted the articles of confederation as the best we could then devise. It required but a short time to teach us that they were defective, and that prudence and wisdom dictated something different and better. The constitution was consequently fashioned and superseded the confederation, and there has never been any disagreement as to the superior wisdom of the constitutional form of government, at least, as an improvement on the original confederation form. When this had been accomplished we were fully persuaded that the reorganization of the government under the constitution was the apex of statesmanship and the acme of the science of governmental construction, and were consequently happy and content. But alas, for poor human foresight. It very soon became evident that the new arrangement was imperfect, if not absolutely defective, and twelve amendments to the new constitution were proposed by Congress and ratified by the states. After and as the result of the late unhappy conflict between discordant states, or, rather, rebellion of certain states by secession against the rightful authority and sovereignty of the federal government, several additional amendments became necessary and imperative, and they were accordingly incorporated and ingrafted upon the already amended constitution. And now others are earnestly talked of and advocated; and does this not teach you the plain lesson that your system is still imperfect?

“The trouble is found to be that statesmanship is without foreknowledge, and is either blind to or oblivious of the requirements of the future. In other words, that the ceaseless mutations of human affairs, the ever acting and onward march of the law of change and progression, fail to strike the consciousness of statesmen or to secure their recognition. Of one thing you may be assured, your plan of government will be revised and remodeled to its vast betterment. When the time comes this will be most vehemently resisted by those who on all questions affecting the interests of the race and the happiness of mankind persist in remaining with the bats and owls of past ages rather than to be baptized in the light of the present and the foregleams of the future. But they must get out of the way of the car of progress or be crushed beneath its merciless and continually revolving wheels.”

June 30, 1882:

“In the formation of your present system of government three co-ordinate branches were established—the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial—and they were designed to be checks, one upon the other. If in the zeal and frenzy of partisan strife, or under the baleful influence of venality and corruption, the legislative department should exceed its constitutional authority or enact legislation inimical to the public interests, the executive was invested with the veto privilege whereby the evil might be arrested. If, however, the President should be found to be in accord and sympathy with the legislative branch in its hurtful legislation, and gave thereto the sanction of his approving signature; or, in case the President exercised his veto power in the particular matter, and Congress should pass the measure over his objections by the requisite two-thirds of each branch, then and in either of these events there still remained the supreme court with its supervisory power or power of final determination.

“But it may be very properly asked, what if the supreme court should be influenced by the same or similar considerations as the other co-ordinate branches, what help, relief, or remedy, is left to the people and the nation? It can only be answered—force, revolution, rebellion. Does not this plain statement present a dangerous contingency and indicate a palpable weakness?

“It should be remembered that in our form of republican government all powers are derived from the people, and it should be furthermore very emphatically understood that all powers belong to them. If this view is correct, then in the hypothetical case mentioned for the purpose of illustration, the people themselves should be the last court of resort, or the high court of appeals.

“It was thought by the founders of your government that the judiciary would always be pure and safe, but unfortunately experience has taught us quite differently. It is humiliating to an American citizen, whether he be in or out of the body, to be compelled to make this confession. But truth not only justifies but demands it, and it is best that it be frankly made and acknowledged.”August 14, 1882:

“We are not permitted, for prudential reasons, to tell you how the new system is to be fashioned. To do so would not facilitate its accomplishment, but might possibly operate detrimentally by inducing premature consideration and discussion. Suffice it to say that the subject has been deliberately considered and the plan carefully matured by wise statesmanship in the realm of causation, and will be given to your world at the proper time and in the proper way.

“I desire to briefly discuss two propositions:

“1st. What are the duties of the citizen to the government, or what the government has the right to exact of and from the citizen?

“2d. What are the duties of the government to the people, or what the people have the right to exact of and from their government?

“First. The citizen owes the government affection and homage. This springs from patriotism and self-interest.

“Second. To render a cheerful obedience to and acquiescence in all lawfully constituted authority, reserving always and of primary importance the natural and inalienable right when all civil remedies prove unavailing, of revolution against and resistance to, tyranny, usurpation, and oppression.

“Third. Prompt compliance with all the lawful edicts and mandates of government. If they are deemed unlawful, unjust, and oppressive, first appealing to judicial supervision and all lawful means for relief and protection—revolution the dernier ressort.

“Fourth. Loyally protecting, defending, and sustaining the government when assailed from within or without, and when waging a just war upon a foreign foe, or in the suppression of an unjust and indefensible internal war, insurrection, or rebellion.

“Fifth. Aiding the government both in peace and war by being honest to and with it in official station, and by helping to uphold and foster its credit and honor.

“These comprise mainly the duties of the citizen to his government. He owes other duties to society and the local community in which he resides, but they are not considered pertinent or germane to our proposition.

“I speak of sustaining the government in war. War is a terrible thing to contemplate, and we would gladly crush it out in its every vestige, but you seem as yet not to have outgrown and developed above and beyond it, and therefore we are compelled to notice the subject, however painful and sorrowful it may be. The time is not so very far distant in the future when nations and men will progress beyond this horrible relic of barbarism, when the fierce god of war will give place to the sweet and gentle spirit of peace and brotherly love; when all differences will be amicably adjusted without a resort to the arbitrament of the sword and the instruments of devastation, bloodshed, and death.”

August 17, 1882:

“In a certain sense the people are the children of the government, and in a still more important sense the government is the offspring of the people. If you ask me what, under the law of your present state of development, are the duties of the child to the parent, I answer obedience, maintenance, and protection. If you ask me the duties of the parent to the child, I answer maintenance, education, and protection. The family government was the first government in the infancy of the race from which all other governments naturally and progressively sprang, and their relations and reciprocating duties are much the same.

“I now reach the second proposition: What are the duties of the government to the people, or what have the people the right to demand of their government? It is the bounden duty of the government, under the constitution, to afford ample and plenary protection to the citizen in the exercise and enjoyment of civil and religious liberty. This protection is due to the humblest as well as the most exalted. The powers of your government are adequate to this end, if properly and effectively wielded, and if exercised without fear or favoritism.

“Again, it is the duty of government to see that public affairs are so managed that its burdens may fall lightly upon the people and mostly upon those ablest to bear them. A judicious system of obtaining revenue to meet the exigencies of government and the liquidation of the national public debt by taxing incomes on accumulated wealth and its investment in various speculative methods, would be most salutary to the attainment of the object.

“In order that the wise purposes of good government be carried out, and that honesty, frugality, and the most rigid economy should characterize every department of the public service, it is essentially and indispensably important that honesty and capacity alone should be regarded as commanding qualities for public official positions. Dishonesty and corruption and bribery in public stations ought to be severely punished, else there remains no safety and security to confiding constituencies. When your government offices reek with corruption and no alarm is manifested and no corrective measures adopted, you are not far from the yawning brink of the precipice over which your liberties and free institutions are sure to be precipitated. It is the duty of the government, in the interest of a confiding trusting people to hunt down the official vampires and parasites who thus insidiously prey upon the vitals of government, and inflict upon them such penalties as are commensurate with their enormous crimes. To allow them to go on with impunity and exempt from punishment is to invite and encourage corruption, and to suggest the safety of its increase.”

August 18, 1882:

“It is the duty of government to foster, uphold, and defend labor in its unequal struggle against the greed of capital to the end that capital may not utterly crush it beneath its scornful and merciless heel. I tell you in all seriousness that on this subject you are approaching the verge of a volcano whose wrathful pent-up fires can not be much longer controlled, nor is it desirable that they should be unless a speedy change in the treatment of labor by capital, involving justice and right, is brought about. It is a delusion and in opposition to all human experience to expect capital, uncompelled by law, to become quickened in conscience and pervaded by a sense of equity and right. The government must stretch forth its strong arm and compel the exercise by authoritative and coercive power of a spirit of justice and fair dealing that belongs to a common humanity. Revivify and re-adopt that virtuous and beneficent doctrine of the earlier patriotic statesmanship of the republic, namely: ‘The greatest good to the greatest number.’ The men and women who toil and sweat in poverty constitute the greatest number, and he must indeed be blind to truth and deaf to justice who fails to discover or concede that the toiling millions have wrongs done them by the greedy rapacity of capital, and which appeal with vehement persistency for redress—aye, we fear in a little while, for retaliative and retributive vengeance. They have the right to claim protection from the steady and stealthy encroachments of capital whereby the rich grow richer and the poor poorer. Capital and labor are mutually interested in each others’ welfare and prosperity, and are alike equally entitled to protection when dealing justly with each other, but under the present order of things labor is at the mercy of capital, and receives not justice at its hands. And this great government fought into existence by the common people, defended in every succeeding struggle by the common people, and which claims to be a government of the people and by the people and for the people, stands idly by with folded arms and with an apparent serene complacency permits the great masses of the people to become hopelessly impoverished, while the exclusive and favored few become enormously enriched. Verily has the government by its inaction and failure to interpose, become truly and in the sight of heaven a particeps criminis in producing this wretched and deplorable condition of affairs.”August 21, 1882:

“You have a tariff system, which for unrighteousness in the cruelty of its exactions, is without a parallel in modern times. It is unjust and oppressive; wholly indefensible, and with scarcely a palliating feature. My circumscribed power in communicating will not allow me to argue the question in extenso, or as I would like to. Your tariff is not only unjustly discriminative, but painfully oppressive in its operations, especially so far as the interests of the consumers are concerned. Why do you not honestly examine the subject in its bearings in the laudable endeavor to ascertain to whose benefit it inures. The government to some extent is benefited in the matter of revenue, but the capitalists are more largely the beneficiaries, and it is for them and their interests that you legislate. Have you not yet discovered, if not by close and analytical reasoning, at least by an observance of its practical operations, that the poor artisans, skilled mechanics, and other labors immediately connected with your manufactures, are not favored by high rates of tariff, and that protection to home manufacturing by imposts on imported commodities does not enhance the interests or confer blessings upon the consumers of your manufactured articles. Have you not yet realized the fact that exorbitant and restrictive protection fosters only the interests of invested capital, with no real advantage to the toiling operatives and to the oppressive detriment of consumers? If the operatives in your manufacturing establishments were benefited by high tariffs it would be manifested and plainly discernible in prosperous accumulations and in their happy contentment. The opposite of all this is true, and it does not require a philosopher to discover it. Why trades unions, repeated and frequent strikes, and an unmistakably unhappy condition of unrest, if the benefits accruing from the system beneficially inured to the workmen? The masses of your toiling people are inclined to suffer and bear injuries and injustice with a patience and forbearance not characteristic of any other people under the broad canopy of heaven, and when they protest by strike or otherwise you may safely assume that they are in the right, and have just grievances. The people not directly connected with the manufacturing interest, but who are the purchasers of its products, have exhibited a still more remarkable degree of patient forbearance, for they are much more numerous and less directly dependent. They have been sorrowfully blinded to their true interests by unconscionable politicians and political tricksters, and most dearly have they paid for their confidence and ignorance. We see signs of the awakening of the hitherto slumbering sensibilities of the people, and feel assured that in the not remote future will be aroused a sentiment among the masses that will compel a change of front on this subject in the meting out of even-handed and impartial justice.”

August 24, 1882:

“Another subject of engrossing importance to your weal is the threatening and dangerous attitude of monopoly and corporate power. Your railroad corporations are assuming gigantic proportions, and bode no good to you if left uncontrolled and unregulated by law. Your liberties are not only menaced for many causes, but by this corporate power all the avenues and departments of your government are being influenced detrimentally to the general public interest, if not absolutely sullied by the corroding elements of corruption. These corporations, by the many influences they are enabled to exert, if left unrestrained by legislation, will control your government and its vast machinery as effectually and completely as the planets perform their circuits in obedience to the inflexible and unerring laws of the universe.

“It is nonsense to talk about the absence of constitutional power over the subject. Your national legislature has ample warrant, under the constitutional provision conferring authority upon Congress to regulate commerce among the states, and Congress should exercise that authority promptly and fearlessly. Railroads are common carriers, and are, when considered in connection with this power conferred upon Congress, public, and not private, highways. The Supreme Court of the United States has frequently affirmed this power as residing in the legislative department of the government. Unless regulated and restrained, these corporations may impose such exorbitant rates of transportation as to destroy ordinary profits on manufactured and other commodities, and necessitate an insufferable and unbearable increase to meet the exigency of increased rates of transportation, and, of course, to the detriment and oppression of consumers. The government must take the matter in hand for the protection of the people. Competition will prove unavailing without restrictive legislation; for the railroads would engage in pooling, and thereby render nugatory the natural advantages of competition. This monopoly constitutes the most threatening element in the country, and will be felt too soon, if not prevented by judicious exercise of governmental authority. The use of steam, as applied to railroads, steamboats, and steamships, was unknown to the founders of your government and the framers of your constitution, or more definite provisions would have been made in relation to the subject of regulating commerce. Why can not your statesmen be as patriotic and as true to the public?

“Although mainly chartered by the states, they are not authorized by implication or otherwise to pursue the selfish course of only subserving the interests of capital, but for the convenience and benefit of the great body of the people in commerce and travel as well. They have, by exercising all undue influence, corrupted courts and legislatures, and will, ere long, as they have already to some extent, invade the sacred precincts of your elections, corrupting the sanctity of the ballot-box, and demoralizing the independence of electors. Then your government will become a farce, and your free institutions subject to the whims and caprices of unholy and unconscionable monopoly power.”

August 25, 1882:

“The great agricultural interests upon which you mostly depend for all of your material prosperity receive no protection from your tariff legislation, but are compelled to pay tribute to manufacturing by paying tariffs on manufactured agricultural implements used on the farm by the increased prices on the same. Besides, this great interest (agricultural) is at the mercy of railroad corporations in high rates of transporting the products of the farm to market, and in the end the burden falls on the consumers of such products.

“The recent tariff commission created by Congress, and its members appointed by the President, is a miserable subterfuge and sham, as you will ultimately ascertain. The dodging of the responsibility by Congress, of an immediate revision of the tariff and the correction of its abuses and vices, ought to be vigorously condemned. There exists no valid reason why the old war tariff rates should be continued in this era of profound peace and general prosperity of trade and business. Under the constitution, tariff taxation can only be imposed on imported articles for the purposes of revenue to the government, and this, however arranged, is amply sufficient to afford incidental protection to home manufactories. The time is coming when free trade and open, untrammelled commerce with all nations will be the policy of all wise governments, and the sooner it is brought about the better.

“The currency policy will also be changed, and a great wrong therein righted. The national banking system projected into being early in the late war, and which had its necessities for an apology, will be abrogated and done away with, and a currency furnished directly by the government to the people, without the intervention and agency of private banking corporations. This will be cheaper, safer, and more durable, predicated, as it will be, upon the good faith of the American people and their government, and secured by their prosperity.

“The time will come when the flag of the American republic will float over Canada, all the British Possessions on this continent, the island of Cuba, the natural key to the Gulf of Mexico, as well as over the cultivated valleys, arid plateaus, and towering mountains of the land of the Montezumas, beyond the Rio Grande. Then will your system of government be remodeled and reconstructed upon a plan infinitely superior to your present one, and the United States will not only become the greatest nation the earth has ever known, but the nucleus around which, in time, all other nations will cluster and revolve, shouting the anthem of human equality and freedom and universal liberty.

G. Washington.


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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