“Now, we undertake to say that there is not a member of the Society of Friends, in free or slave states, who, whether acting as amagistrate or as citizen, could carry out the provisions of this most atrocious bill, without rendering himself liable to immediate expulsion from a society whose character would be disgraced, and whose discipline would be violated, by such action. It has been, in times past, the misfortune of the Society of Friends to be vilified, caricatured, and misrepresented; but we remember nothing, even in the old days of persecution, so hard to bear as the compliments of the Massachusetts senator. Whatever his ‘authority’ may have been, we do not hesitate to pronounce it unqualifiedly false to the last degree.”
“Now, we undertake to say that there is not a member of the Society of Friends, in free or slave states, who, whether acting as amagistrate or as citizen, could carry out the provisions of this most atrocious bill, without rendering himself liable to immediate expulsion from a society whose character would be disgraced, and whose discipline would be violated, by such action. It has been, in times past, the misfortune of the Society of Friends to be vilified, caricatured, and misrepresented; but we remember nothing, even in the old days of persecution, so hard to bear as the compliments of the Massachusetts senator. Whatever his ‘authority’ may have been, we do not hesitate to pronounce it unqualifiedly false to the last degree.”
Now what shall be thought of a cause that requires such a series of fabrications as Mr. Webster is here proved to have made, or of the man that can make it!
There are many other points presented by Mr. Webster’s speech of the 7th of March, or by what he has since said and written to defend it, which seem to me as unwarrantable in fact, and as reprehensible in principle, as any above enumerated. I shall close these notes, however, with one comment more; reserving others,—though sincerely hoping never to have occasion to use them.
Among the excoriations with which Mr. Webster amused himself and his southern new-born pro-slavery admirers, on the 7th of March last, he flayed nobody half so deeply or so complacently, as he did his old fellow-senators, Messrs. Dix, of New York, and Niles, of Connecticut. He scored them to the living flesh, and then soothed their smarting wounds by vitriol and caustic, as though he loved them. Their agency in the Texas swindle, he made odiously conspicuous. He taunted them with heart-piercing innuendo for their compulsory retirement from public life. And then he portrayed them as occupying their enforced vacation in attempting to rouse the people to save those regions from the curse of slavery, which, but for their sins, never would have been exposed to it. He worked up the scene so graphically, that every one mocked at their contemptible plight, and at the ridiculous contrast between the swiftness of their offence and the lameness of their expiation. The effect was dramatic. The pro-slavery part of the gallery and the floor responded with a shout of laughter. Yet devoted and long-tried friends of Mr. Webster were there, whom no darkness of blindness could prevent from seeing that his bitter sarcasm against the ex-senators, though calculated to make the “unskilful laugh,” must make the “judiciousgrieve.” They could not fail to see that he, Mr. Webster himself, at that very moment, was occupying precisely the same pro-slavery ground, which Messrs. Dix and Niles had occupied, when they brought in Texas and “reännexed” California and New Mexico. He was exerting all his great talents to do an act of precisely the same character which Messrs. Dix and Niles had done;—that is, to open new territory to slavery. And doubtless the first thought which arose in many a mind was the same melancholy one which spontaneously arose in my own, that should he succeed in arguing down, or laughing down the “Wilmot” as he twice scornfully called the great proviso of freedom; and should he then betake himself to penitence and prayer, and by years of effort, strive to stay back from slavery the regions he had doomed to it, he would only have elevated himself to the very “platform” on which Messrs. Dix and Niles stoodwhen he made them the objects of his taunts and ridicule!
FOOTNOTES:[12]The above criticism on Mr. Webster’s latinity aroused many self-supposed scholars, or at least fair proficients in the Latin grammar, to take up the pen in his defence. But unluckily, the quills they seized were plucked, not from the Roman eagle, but from the wings of some of those “unclean birds,” to which Mr. Webster had introduced them. Among the most conspicuous of these defenders of Mr. Webster’s ludicrous blunder, was Professor Felton, of Harvard College. If any person wishes to see one of the most neat, elegant, and at the same time thorough cases ofdeplumation, any where to be found in literary history, in which an individual who strutted on to the stage as apeacock, was soon obliged to leave it as adaw, he has only to read Dr. Beck’s articles in “The Literary World,” in which the fabricated quotation of Mr. Webster, and Professor Felton’s defence of it, are shown to be exceedingly bad as Latin, and much worse as logic.[13]Cong. Globe, 1st session 30th Congress, p. 533.[14]Professor Stuart, in a pamphlet entitled “Conscience and the Constitution,” pp. 78, 9, steps in to defend Mr. Webster’s position that we are bound, by contract with Texas, to admit from her territory, “slave states to the number of four;” and he incidentally refers to and combats my views on this subject.I respectfully submit to the revered and learned professor a single consideration, which I trust will convince him that I am not in error.For argument’s sake, admit the contract with Texas to be unimpeachable; although, if it be so, I see not why any one Congress may not absorb and exhaust all the power to admit new states, which the constitution contains, by making contracts for centuries to come, for all the new states that shall be admitted; and for all the applications for admission that shall be rejected. But, admitting the validity of the Texan contract, what does it purport? That “new states,” “not exceeding four,” “may be formed out of the territory thereof.” Those south of 36° 30´, may be slave; that, or those, north of 36° 30´, shall be free; the whole “not exceeding four.” Here, then, is an executory and mutual contract. It is executory; because it is not to be executed at the time of making, butin futuro. It is mutual, because, for the State of Texas, and for the one or more slave states, south of 36° 30´, there are to be one or more free states north of it.Now, the principle is so clear that I think no one will for a moment dispute it, that when an executory and mutual contract is to be executed, say at four different times, each preceding act of execution must be such as to allow of the ultimate execution of the whole. Neither the first, second, nor third act of execution, must be so executed as to render the fourth impossible. Neither the first, second, nor third act, must be so executed in favor of either of the parties, as to render the execution of the fourth, in favor of the other party, impossible. But if Texas can have “slavestates to the number offour,” formed in succession out of her territory, then, as the whole number to be formed is not to exceed “four,” there can benofree state formed, under the alleged contract.It is not within my knowledge that such an interpretation of this supposed contract was ever suggested by any Texan citizen, or by any southern man. I suppose it to have been advanced,first, by a northern senator; and seconded,first, by a northern divine.
[12]The above criticism on Mr. Webster’s latinity aroused many self-supposed scholars, or at least fair proficients in the Latin grammar, to take up the pen in his defence. But unluckily, the quills they seized were plucked, not from the Roman eagle, but from the wings of some of those “unclean birds,” to which Mr. Webster had introduced them. Among the most conspicuous of these defenders of Mr. Webster’s ludicrous blunder, was Professor Felton, of Harvard College. If any person wishes to see one of the most neat, elegant, and at the same time thorough cases ofdeplumation, any where to be found in literary history, in which an individual who strutted on to the stage as apeacock, was soon obliged to leave it as adaw, he has only to read Dr. Beck’s articles in “The Literary World,” in which the fabricated quotation of Mr. Webster, and Professor Felton’s defence of it, are shown to be exceedingly bad as Latin, and much worse as logic.
[12]The above criticism on Mr. Webster’s latinity aroused many self-supposed scholars, or at least fair proficients in the Latin grammar, to take up the pen in his defence. But unluckily, the quills they seized were plucked, not from the Roman eagle, but from the wings of some of those “unclean birds,” to which Mr. Webster had introduced them. Among the most conspicuous of these defenders of Mr. Webster’s ludicrous blunder, was Professor Felton, of Harvard College. If any person wishes to see one of the most neat, elegant, and at the same time thorough cases ofdeplumation, any where to be found in literary history, in which an individual who strutted on to the stage as apeacock, was soon obliged to leave it as adaw, he has only to read Dr. Beck’s articles in “The Literary World,” in which the fabricated quotation of Mr. Webster, and Professor Felton’s defence of it, are shown to be exceedingly bad as Latin, and much worse as logic.
[13]Cong. Globe, 1st session 30th Congress, p. 533.
[13]Cong. Globe, 1st session 30th Congress, p. 533.
[14]Professor Stuart, in a pamphlet entitled “Conscience and the Constitution,” pp. 78, 9, steps in to defend Mr. Webster’s position that we are bound, by contract with Texas, to admit from her territory, “slave states to the number of four;” and he incidentally refers to and combats my views on this subject.I respectfully submit to the revered and learned professor a single consideration, which I trust will convince him that I am not in error.For argument’s sake, admit the contract with Texas to be unimpeachable; although, if it be so, I see not why any one Congress may not absorb and exhaust all the power to admit new states, which the constitution contains, by making contracts for centuries to come, for all the new states that shall be admitted; and for all the applications for admission that shall be rejected. But, admitting the validity of the Texan contract, what does it purport? That “new states,” “not exceeding four,” “may be formed out of the territory thereof.” Those south of 36° 30´, may be slave; that, or those, north of 36° 30´, shall be free; the whole “not exceeding four.” Here, then, is an executory and mutual contract. It is executory; because it is not to be executed at the time of making, butin futuro. It is mutual, because, for the State of Texas, and for the one or more slave states, south of 36° 30´, there are to be one or more free states north of it.Now, the principle is so clear that I think no one will for a moment dispute it, that when an executory and mutual contract is to be executed, say at four different times, each preceding act of execution must be such as to allow of the ultimate execution of the whole. Neither the first, second, nor third act of execution, must be so executed as to render the fourth impossible. Neither the first, second, nor third act, must be so executed in favor of either of the parties, as to render the execution of the fourth, in favor of the other party, impossible. But if Texas can have “slavestates to the number offour,” formed in succession out of her territory, then, as the whole number to be formed is not to exceed “four,” there can benofree state formed, under the alleged contract.It is not within my knowledge that such an interpretation of this supposed contract was ever suggested by any Texan citizen, or by any southern man. I suppose it to have been advanced,first, by a northern senator; and seconded,first, by a northern divine.
[14]Professor Stuart, in a pamphlet entitled “Conscience and the Constitution,” pp. 78, 9, steps in to defend Mr. Webster’s position that we are bound, by contract with Texas, to admit from her territory, “slave states to the number of four;” and he incidentally refers to and combats my views on this subject.
I respectfully submit to the revered and learned professor a single consideration, which I trust will convince him that I am not in error.
For argument’s sake, admit the contract with Texas to be unimpeachable; although, if it be so, I see not why any one Congress may not absorb and exhaust all the power to admit new states, which the constitution contains, by making contracts for centuries to come, for all the new states that shall be admitted; and for all the applications for admission that shall be rejected. But, admitting the validity of the Texan contract, what does it purport? That “new states,” “not exceeding four,” “may be formed out of the territory thereof.” Those south of 36° 30´, may be slave; that, or those, north of 36° 30´, shall be free; the whole “not exceeding four.” Here, then, is an executory and mutual contract. It is executory; because it is not to be executed at the time of making, butin futuro. It is mutual, because, for the State of Texas, and for the one or more slave states, south of 36° 30´, there are to be one or more free states north of it.
Now, the principle is so clear that I think no one will for a moment dispute it, that when an executory and mutual contract is to be executed, say at four different times, each preceding act of execution must be such as to allow of the ultimate execution of the whole. Neither the first, second, nor third act of execution, must be so executed as to render the fourth impossible. Neither the first, second, nor third act, must be so executed in favor of either of the parties, as to render the execution of the fourth, in favor of the other party, impossible. But if Texas can have “slavestates to the number offour,” formed in succession out of her territory, then, as the whole number to be formed is not to exceed “four,” there can benofree state formed, under the alleged contract.
It is not within my knowledge that such an interpretation of this supposed contract was ever suggested by any Texan citizen, or by any southern man. I suppose it to have been advanced,first, by a northern senator; and seconded,first, by a northern divine.