is
right, Abolitionists may take office and help Liberty, we must
remember that by the same rule, slaveholders may take office and
lawfully use all their power to help Slavery. If this be so, how
absurd to keep crying out of this and the other thing it is
"unconstitutional."

Away with such logic! If we have a Constitution, let us remember
Jefferson's advice, and not make it "waste paper by construction."
The man who tampers thus with the sacred obligation of an
oath,--swears, and Jesuit like, keeps "reserved meanings" in his own
breast,--does more harm to society by loosening the foundations of
morals, than he would do good, did his one falsehood free every
slave from the Potomac to the Del Norte.

OBJECTION IV.

"The oath does not mean that I will positively do what I swear to do,
but only that I will do it, _or submit_ to the penalty the law awards.
If my actions in office don't suit the nation, let them impeach me."

ANSWER. That is, John Tyler may, without consulting Congress, plunge
us into war with Mexico--incur fifty millions of public debt--lose a
hundred thousand lives--and the _sufficient recompense_ to this
nation will be to impeach John Tyler, Esq., and send him home to his
slaves! These are the wise safeguards of Constitutional liberty! He
has faithfully kept it "as he understands it." What is a Russian
slave? One who holds life, property, and all, at the mercy of the
Czar's idea of right. Does not this description of the power every
officer has here, under our Constitution, reduce Americans to the
same condition?

But, is it true that the bearing of the penalty is an excuse for
breach of our official oaths?

The Judge who, in questions of divorce, has trifled with the
sanctity of the marriage tie--who, in matters of property has
decided unjustly, and taken bribes--in capital cases has so dealt
judgment as to send innocent men to the gallows--may cry out,
"If you don't like me, impeach me." But will impeachment restore the
dead to life, or the husband to his defamed wife? Would the community
consider his submission to impeachment as equivalent to the keeping
of his oath of office, and thenceforward view him as an honest,
truth-speaking, unperjured man? It is idle to suppose so. Yet the
interests committed to some of our officeholders' keeping, are more
important often than even those which a Judge controls. And we must
remember that men's ideas of right always differ. To admit such a
principle