The great abolition movement commenced in earnest, January 1, 1831. Wm. Lloyd Garrison published, at Boston, theLiberator, with the motto—"Our countrymen are all mankind." Benjamin Lundy, and perhaps others, had preceded Garrison, but not until after the Webster-Hayne debate did the abolition movement spread. Thenceforth it took deeper root in the human conscience, and it had advocates of determined spirit throughout the North, led on fearlessly, not alone by Garrison, but by Rev. Dr. Channing, Rev. James Freeman Clarke, and, later, by Rev. Samuel May (Syracuse, N. Y.), Gerritt Smith, the poet Whittier, Wendell Phillips, Theodore Parker, Horace Mann, Charles Sumner, Joshua R. Giddings, Owen Lovejoy, and others, who spoke from pulpit, rostrum, and some in the halls of legislation; others in the courts and through the press. The enforcement of the fugitive-slave law was often violent, and always added new fuel to the fierce and constantly growing opposition to slavery.
The Anti-Slavery party was not one wholly built on abstract sentiment of philanthropists, but it involved physical resistance: Violence to violence.
The American Anti-Slavery Society was founded at a National Anti-Slavery Convention held in Philadelphia, in December, 1831.
Hard upon the establishment of theLiberatorcame the Nat Turner insurrection in Southampton County, Virginia (August, 1831). This gave to the South a fresh ground to complain of the North. Turner's insurrection was held to be the legitimate fruit of abolition agitation. Turner was an African of natural capacity, who quoted the Bible fluently, prayed vehemently, and preached to his fellow slaves.
He told them, as did Joan of Arc, of "Voices" and "Visions," and of his communion with the Holy Spirit. An eclipse of the sun was the signal to strike their enemies and for freedom. The massacre lasted forty-eight hours, and sixty-one whites, women and children not spared, were victims. On the other hand, negroes were shot, tortured, hanged, and burned at the stake on whom the slightest suspicion of complicity fell.
The Nat Turner negro slave insurrection is the only one known to slavery in the United States. Others may possibly have been contemplated. The John Brown raid was not a negro insurrection. Even in the midst of the war (1861-65), believed by most slaves to be a war for their freedom, insurrections were unknown.(55)
The African race, the most wronged through the centuries, has been the most docile and the least revengeful of the races of the world.
(45) Confederate Con., Art. 1, Sec. 8, par. 1.
(46) The South in the days of slavery had, practically, no manufactories.
(47) Benton,Thirty Years' View, vol. i., p. 343.
(48) Rhodes,Hist. U. S., vol. i., pp. 49-50.
(49) January 26, 1830.
(50) For this report and history see Benton'sThirty Years' View, vol. i, pp. 580, etc.
(51)Thirty Years' View, vol. ii., chap. clxxxix.; Historical, etc. Examination,Dred Scott Case(Benton), p. 139.
(52) Historical, etc., Examination,Dred Scott Case(Benton), p. 141-4.
(53)Ibid., p. 181.
(54) Historical, etc., Ex.,Dred Scott Case, pp. 181-2.
(55) There were some small insurrections and some threatened ones in the colonies as early as 1660, the guilty negroes or Indians being then punished by crucifixion, burning, and by starvation; other insurrections took place in the Carolinas and Georgia in 1734, and the Cato insurrection occurred at Stono, S. C., in 1740. There was a wide spread "Negro Plot" in New York in 1712. These attempts alarmed the colonies and caused some of them to take steps to abolish slavery.—Sup. of African Slave-Trade U. S., pp. 6, 10, 22, 206.
Texas was a province of Mexico when the latter seceded from Spain through a "Proclamation of Independence" by Iturbide (February 24, 1821) with a view to establishing a constitutional monarchy. At the end of about two years of Iturbide's reign, this form of government was overthrown, and he was compelled (March 19, 1823) to resign his crown. Through the efforts, principally of General Santa Anna, a Republic was established under a Constitution, modelled, in large part, on that of the United States, which went into full effect October 4, 1824. Spain did not formally recognize the independence of Mexico until 1836. The Mexican Republic was opposed to slavery, and after some of her provinces had decreed freedom to slaves its President (Guerro), September 15, 1829, decreed its total abolition, but as Texas, on account of slave- holding settlers from the United States, demurred to the decree, another one followed, April 5, 1837, by the Mexican Congress, also abolishing slavery, without exception, in Texas. Despite these decrees the American settlers carried slaves into Texas, which became part of the State of Coahuila, whose Constitution also forbade the importation of slaves.
Thus was slavery extension to the southwest cut off by a power not likely ever to be in sympathy with it. It is worthy of note that neither the independent Spanish blood (notwithstanding Spain's deep guilt in the conduct of the slave trade), nor that blood as intermixed with the Indian, nor the Mexican Indians themselves, ever willingly maintained human slavery in America. Mexico's established religion under the Constitution, being Roman Catholic, did not permit its perpetuation. The Pope of Rome, in the nineteenth century and earlier, had denounced it as inhuman and contrary to the divine justice.
The maintenance of slavery in Texas was regarded as of paramount importance to the South, and as slavery could not exist in Texas under Mexican authority, efforts were put forth to secure her independence, then to annex her to the United States as a State wherein slavery should exist. Even Clay, as Secretary of State, under Adams, in 1827, proposed to purchase Texas. President Jackson, in 1830, offered $5,000,000 for Texas. The Mexican Government, foreseeing the coming danger, by law prohibited American immigration into Texas, but this was unavailing, as the ever-unscrupulous hand of slavery was reaching out for more room and more territory to perpetuate itself. Americans, like their natural kinsmen the Englishmen, then regarded not the rights of others, the weak especially, when the slave power was involved.
Sam Houston, of Tennessee, a capable man who had fought under Jackson in the Indian wars, inspired by his pro-slavery proclivities in 1835, went to Texas avowedly to wrest Texas from free Mexico, and, it is said, of his real intentions President Jackson was not ignorant.
The unfortunate internal political contentions in Mexico gave the intruding Americans pretexts for disputes which soon led to the desired conflicts with the Mexican authorities.
Santa Anna, who had, through a revolution, put himself at the head of the new Mexican Republic, attempted to coerce the invading settlers to observance of the laws, but in this was only partially successful. On March 2, 1836, a TexasDeclaration of Independencewas issued, signed by aboutsixtymen,twoof whom only were Texas-Mexicans, and this was followed by a Constitution for the Republic of Texas, chief among its objects being the establishment of human slavery. Santa Anna, with the natural fierceness of the Spanish-Indian, waged a ferocious war on the revolutionists. A garrison of 250 men at "The Alamo," a small mission church near San Antonio, was taken by him after heroic resistance, and massacred to a man.
"Thermopylae had her messenger of defeat, but The Alamo had none."
David Crockett, an uneducated, eccentric Tennessean, who was a celebrated hunter, Indian fighter, story teller, wit, and member of Congress three terms (where he opposed President Jackson, and refused to obey any party commanding him "to-go-wo-haw-gee," just at his pleasure) here lost his life. On the 27th of the same month 500 more Americans at Goliad were also massacred. These atrocities were used successfully to produce sympathy and create excitement in the United States. On April 21, 1836, a decisive battle was fought at San Jacinto between Santa Anna's army of 1500 men and a body of 800 men under General Sam Houston, in which the former was defeated, and Santa Anna, the President of Mexico, captured. While a prisoner, to save his life he immediately concluded an armistice with Houston, agreeing to evacuate Texas and procure the recognition by Mexico of its independence. This the Mexican Congress afterwards refused. But in October, 1836, with a Constitution modelled on that of the United States, the Republic of Texas (recognizing slavery) was organized, with Houston as President, and forthwith the United States recognized its independence.
In a few months application was made to the United States to receive it into the Union, but on account of a purpose to divide Texas into a number of slave States to secure the preponderance of the slave political power in the Union, which for want of sufficient population was not immediately possible, her admission was delayed, and Sam Houston's Republic of Texas existed for above eight years. President Van Buren, who succeeded Jackson as President, was opposed to its annexation, and it was left to the apostate Tyler to take up the business.
He, too, would have failed but Mr. Upshur, his Secretary of State, being killed in 1844 by the accidental explosion of a cannon, John C. Calhoun became his successor. The latter at once arranged a treaty of annexation, but this the Senate rejected. Both Van Buren and Clay, leading candidates of their respective parties for the Presidency in 1844, were opposed to the annexation; the former was defeated for nomination, and the latter at the election, because, during the canvass, to please the slaveholding Whigs he sought to shift his position, thus losing his anti-slavery friends, "whose votes would have elected him"; and Polk became President. Annexation, however, did not wait for his administration.
In the House of Representatives, in December, 1844, an attempt was made to admit Texas, half to be free and half slave, making two States.
By resolutions of Congress, dated March 1, 1845, consent was given to erect Texas into a State with a view to annexation; and in order that she might be admitted into the Union such resolutions provided that thereafter four other States, with her consent, might be formed out of its territory. In August succeeding, a Constitution was framed prohibiting emancipation of slaves (56) and authorizing their importation into Texas, which was thereafter adopted by the people of the Republic of Texas, under which Congress, by resolution (December 29, 1845) formally admitted Texas into the Union—the last slave State admitted.
As a sop to Northern "dough-faces," and to induce them to vote for the resolutions of March 1st, it recited that the new States lying south of latitude 36° 30´ should be admitted with or without slavery as their inhabitants might decide, those north of the line without slavery. In the subsequent adjustment of the north boundary line of Texas, it was foundno part of itwas within two hundred miles of 36° 30´; so all of Texas (in territory an empire, in area 240,000 square miles, six times greater than Ohio) was thus dedicated forever, by law, to human slavery, in the professed interest of the nineteenth century civilization. The intrigue, the bad faith, the perfidy by which this great political and moral wrong was consummated were laid up against the "day of wrath."
(56) How different is Texas' Constitution of 1876, the first paragraph of which runs: "Texas is a free and independent State."
With Texas came naturally a desire for more slave territory. Wrong is never satiated; it hungers as it feeds on its prey.
Pretence for quarrel arose over the boundary between Texas and Mexico. The United States unjustly claimed that the Rio Grande was the southwestern boundary of Texas instead of the Nueces, as Mexico maintained. Mexico was invaded, her cities, including her ancient capital, were taken, and her badly-organized armies overthrown. Congress, by an Act of May 13, 1846, declared that "by the act of the Republic of Mexico a state of war existed between that government and the United States," and it virtually ended in September, 1847, though the final treaty of peace at Guadalupe Hidalgo was not signed until February 2, 1848. While the annexation of Texas was regarded by Mexico as a cause of war, yet she did not declare war on that ground.
The principle of "manifest destiny" was proclaimed for the United States. In the prosecution of the war, with shameless effrontery it was justified on the necessity that "we want room" for the two hundred millions of inhabitants soon to be under our flag.
Answering this cry, put up by Senator Cass of Michigan, SenatorThomas Corwin, in a spirit of prophecy, said:
"But you still say you wantroomfor your people. This has been the plea of every robber-chief from Nimrod to the present hour. I dare say, when Tamerlane descended from his throne, built of seventy thousand human skulls, and marched his ferocious battalions to further slaughter,—I dare say he said, 'I want room.' Alexander, too, the mighty 'Macedonian Madman,' when he wandered with his Greeks to the plains of India, and fought a bloody battle on the very ground where recently England and the Sikhs engaged in a strife for 'room' . . . Sir, he made quite as much of that sort of history as you ever will. Mr. President, do you remember the last chapter in that history? It is soon read. Oh! I wish we could understand its moral. Ammon's son (so was Alexander named), after all his victories, died drunk in Babylon. The vast empire he conquered to 'get room' became the prey of the generals he trained; it was desparted, torn to pieces, and so ended. Sir, there is a very significant appendix; it is this: The descendants of the Greeks— of Alexander's Greeks—are now governed by a descendant of Attilla."
Through the greed of the slave power Texas was acquired, and they still longed for more slave territory, and weak Mexico alone could be depleted to obtain it.
Southern California and New Mexico had a sufficiently warm climate for slavery to flourish in.
The war was far from popular, though the pride of national patriotism supported it. Clay and Webster each opposed it, and each gave a son to it.(57)
Abraham Lincoln, then for a single term in Congress, spoke against it, but, like most other members holding similar views, voted men, money, and supplies to carry it on.
Senator Benton of Missouri, a party friend to the administration of Polk and favoring the war, said:
"The truth was, an intrigue was laid for peace before the war was declared! And this intrigue was even part of the scheme for making war. It is impossible to conceive of an administration less warlike, or more intriguing, than that of Mr. Polk. They were men of peace, with objects to be accomplished by means of war. . . . They wanted a small war, just large enough to require a treaty of peace, and not large enough to make military reputations dangerous for the Presidency."(58)
It was predicted the war would not last to exceed "90 to 120 days." The proposed conquest of Mexico was so inlaid with treachery that this prediction was justified. The Administration conspired with the then exiled Santa Anna "not to obstruct his return to Mexico."
"It was the arrangement with Santa Anna! We to put him back in Mexico, and he to make peace with us: of course anagreeable peace. . . not without receiving a consideration: and in this case some millions of dollars were required—not for himself, of course, but to enable him to promote the peace at home."(59)
Accordingly, in August, 1846, before Buena Vista and other signal successes in the war, the President asked an appropriation of $2,000,000 to be used in promoting a peace.
But already jealousy and envy toward the generals in the field had arisen, which culminated in President Polk offering to confer on Senator Thomas H. Benton (of his own party) the rank of Lieutenant- General, with full command, thus superseding the Whig Generals, Winfield Scott and Zachary Taylor, then possible Presidential candidates.(60)
The acquisition of more territory from Mexico being no secret, a bill for the desired appropriation precipitated, unexpectedly, a most violent discussion of the slavery question, never again allayed until slavery was eliminated from the Union.
A Democratic Representative from Pennsylvania, David Wilmot, who favored the acquisition of California and New Mexico, for the purpose of "preserving the equilibrium of States," and as an offset to the already acquired slave State of Texas, which was then expected to be soon erected into five slave States, moved, August, 1846, the following proviso to the "two million bill":
"That no part of the territory to be acquired should be open to the introduction of slavery."
This famous "Wilmot Proviso" never became a part of any law; its sole importance was in its frequent presentation and the violent discussions over it.
Thus far the national wrong against Mexico had for its manifest object the spread of slavery.
The proposition to seize Mexican territory and dedicate it to freedom threw the advocates of slavery and the war into a frenzy, and consternation in high circles prevailed.
The proviso was adopted in the House, but failed in the Senate. It was, in February, 1847, again, by the House, tacked on the "three million bill," but being struck out in the Senate, the bill passed the House without it. But the proviso had done its work; the whole North was alive to its importance, and Presidential and Congressionaltimberblossomed or withered accordingly as it did or did not fly a banner inscribed "Wilmot Proviso."
Calhoun, professing great alarm and great concern for the Constitution, on February 19, 1847, introduced into the Senate his celebrated resolution declaring, among other things, that the Territories belonged to the "several States . . . as their joint and common property." "That the enactment of any law which should . . . deprive the citizens of any of the States . . . from emigrating with their property [slaves] into any of the Territories . . . would be a violation of the Constitution and the rights of the States, . . . and would tend directly to subvert the Union itself."
Here was the doctrine of state-rights born into full life, with the old doctrine of nullification embodied. Benton, speaking of the dangerous character of Calhoun's resolution, said of them:
"As Sylla saw in the young Caesar many Mariuses, so did he see in them many nullifications."
Benton, quite familiar with the whole history of slavery before, during, and after the Mexican War, himself a Senator from a slave State, says the Wilmot proviso "was secretly cherished as a means of keeping up discord, and forcing the issue between the North and the South," by Calhoun and his friends, citing Mr. Calhoun's Alabama letter of 1847, already quoted, in proof of his statement.
By the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (February, 1848) for $15,000,000 (above $3,000,000 more than was paid Napoleon for the Louisiana Purchase), New Mexico and Upper California were ceded by Mexico to the United States, and the Rio Grande from El Paso to its mouth became the boundary between the two countries. Upper California is now the State of California, and the New Mexico thus acquired included much of the present New Mexico, nearly all of Arizona, substantially all of Utah and Nevada, and the western portion of Colorado, in area 545,000 square miles, which, together with the Gadsden Purchase, by further treaty with Mexico (December 30, 1853) for $10,000,000 more, completed the despoiling of the sister Republic. The territory acquired by the last treaty now constitutes the southern part of Arizona and the southwest corner of New Mexico.
Almost contemporaneous with the invasion of Mexico, and as part of the plan for the acquisition of her territory, Buchanan, then Secretary of State, dispatched Lieutenant Gillespie, of the United States Army,viaVera Cruz, the City of Mexico, and Mazatlan, to Monterey, Upper California, ostensibly with dispatches to a consul, but really for the purpose of presenting a mereletter of introductionand a verbal request to Captain John C. Fremont, U.S.A., then on an exploring expedition to the Pacific Coast. The Lieutenant found Fremont at the north end of the Great Klamath Lake, Oregon, in the midst of hostile Indians. Theletterbeing presented, Gillespie verbally communicated from the Secretary a request for him to counteract any foreign scheme on California, and to cultivate the good-will of the inhabitants towards the United States.
On this information Fremont returned, in May, 1846 (the month the war opened on the Rio Grande), to the valley of the Sacramento. His arrival there was timely, as already the ever-grasping hand of the British was at work. There had been inaugurated (1) the massacre of American settlers, (2) the subjection of California to British protection, and (3) the transfer of its public domain to British subjects. Fremont did not even know war had broken out between the United States and Mexico, yet he organized at first a defensive war in the Sacramento Valley for the protection of American settlers, and blood was shed; then he resolved to overturn the Mexican authority, and establish "California Independence." The celerity with which all this was accomplished was romantic. In thirty days all Northern California was freed from Mexican rule—the flag of independence raised; American settlers were saved, and the British party overthrown.
Since its discovery by Sir Francis Drake—two hundred years—England had sought to possess the splendid Bay of California, with its great seaport and the tributary country. The war between the United States and Mexico seemed her opportune time for the acquisition, but her efforts, both by sea and land, were thwarted by her only less voracious daughter.(61)
Often in human affairs events concur to control or turn aside the most carefully guarded plans. California and the other Mexican acquisitions were by the war party—the slave propagandists—fore- ordained to be slave territory. The free State men had done little to favor its theft and purchase, and it was therefore claimed that they of right should have little interest in its disposition.
Just nine days (January 24, 1848) before the treaty of peace (Guadalupe Hidalgo), John A. Sutter, a Swiss by parentage, German by birth (Baden), American by residence and naturalization (Missouri), Mexican in turn, by residence and naturalization, together with James A. Marshall, a Jerseyman wheelwright in Sutter's employ, while the latter was walking in a newly-constructed and recently flooded saw-mill tail-race, in the small valley of Coloma, about forty-five miles from Sacramento (then Sutter's Fort), in the foot- hills of the Sierras, picked up some small, shining yellow particles, which proved to be freegold.(62)
"The accursed thirst for gold" was now soon to outrun theaccursed greedfor more slave territory. The race was unequal. The whole world joined in the race for gold. The hunger for wealth seized all alike, the common laborer, the small farmer, the merchant, the mechanic, the politician, the lawyer and the clergyman, the soldier and the sailor from the army and navy; from all countries and climes came the gold seeker; only the slaveholder with his slaves alone were left behind. There was no place for the latter with freemen who themselves swung the pick and rocked the cradle in search of the precious metal.
California, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona still give up their gold and their silver to the free miner; and the financial condition and prosperity of the civilized countries of the world have been favorably affected by these productions, but of this we are not here to speak. Slavery is our text, and we must not stray too far from it.
Turning back to the negotiations for the first treaty with Mexico, we find, to her everlasting credit, though compelled to part with her possessions, she still desired they should continue to be free.
Slavery, as has already been shown, did not exist in Mexico by law; and California and New Mexico held no slaves, so, during the negotiations, the Mexican representatives begged for the incorporation of an article providing that slavery should be prohibited in all the territory to be ceded. N. P. Trist, the American Commissioner, promptly and fiercely resented the bare mention of the subject. He replied that if the territory to be acquired were tenfold more valuable, and covereda foot thickwith pure gold, on the single condition that slavery was to be excluded therefrom, the proposition would not be for a moment entertained, nor even communicated to the President.(63)
Though the invocation was in behalf of humanity, the "invincible Anglo-Saxon race" (so cried Senator Preston in 1836) "could not listen to the prayer of superstitious Catholicism, goaded on by a miserable priesthood."
Now that California and New Mexico were United States territory, how was it to be devoted to slavery to reward the friends of its acquisition?
As slavery was prohibited under Mexican law, this territory must by the law of nations remain free until slavery was, by positive enactment, authorized therein. This ancient and universal law, however, was soon to be disregarded or denied by the advocates of the doctrine that the Constitution of the United States spread itself over territories, and, by force of it, legalized human slavery therein, and guaranteed to citizens of a State the right to carry their property—human slaves included—into United States territory and there hold it, by force of and protected by the Constitution, in defiance of unfriendly territorial or Congressional legislation. This novel claim also sprung from the brain of Calhoun, and was met with the true view of slavery, to wit: That it was a creature solely of law; that it existed nowhere of natural right; that whenever a slave was taken from a jurisdiction where slaves could be held by law, to one where no law made him a slave, his shackles fell off and he became a free man. The soundness of the rule that a citizen of a State could carry his personal property from his State to a Territory was admitted, but it was claimed he could not hold it there if it were not such as the laws of the Territory recognized as property. In other words, he might transfer his property from a State to a Territory, but he could not take with him the law of his State authorizing him to hold it as property. The law of thesitusis of universal application governing property.
It remains to briefly note the effort to extend and interpret the Constitution, with the sole view to establish and perpetuate human slavery.
Near the close of the session of Congress (1848-49), Mr. Walker of Wisconsin, at the instigation of Calhoun moved, as a rider on an appropriation bill, a section providing a temporary government for such Territories, including a provision to "extend the Constitution of the United States to the Territories." This astounding proposition was defended by Calhoun, and, with his characteristic straightforwardness, he avowed the true object of the amendment was to override the anti-slavery laws of the Territories, and plant the institution of slavery therein, beyond the reach of Congressional or territorial law.
Mr. Webster expounded the Constitution and combated the newly brought forward slave-extension doctrine, but a majority of the Senate voted for the amendment.
The House, however, voted down the rider, and between the two branches of Congress it failed. For a time appropriations of necessary supplies for the government were made to depend on the success of the measure.(64)
Thus again the newly acquired domain escaped the doom of perpetual slavery.
But we have done with the Mexican War and the acquisition of Mexican territory. It remains to be told how this vast domain was disposed of. No part of it ever became slave.
There was not time in Polk's administration to dispose of it. General Zachary Taylor, the hero of Palo Alto, Resaca, Monterey, and Buena Vista, became President, March 4, 1849. He was wholly without political experience and had never even voted at an election. He was purely a professional soldier, and a Southerner by birth and training; was a patriot, possessed of great common sense, and knew nothing of intrigue, and was endowed with a high sense of justice, and believed in the rights of the majority. He belonged to no cabal to promote, extend, or perpetuate slavery, and, probably, in his conscience was opposed to it. His Southern friends could not use him, and when they demanded his aid, as President, to plant slavery in California, he not only declined to serve them, but openly declared that California should be free. In different words, but words of like import, he responded to them, as he did to General Wool, at a critical moment in the battle of Buena Vista. Wool remarked: "General, we are whipped." Taylor responded: "That is for me to determine."(65)
(57) Lt.-Col. Henry Clay, Jr., fell at Buena Vista February 23, 1847, and Maj. Edward Webster died at San Angel, Mexico, January 23, 1848.
(58)Thirty Years' View, vol. ii., p. 680.
(59)Ibid., p. 681.
(60) Taylor became President March, 1849, succeeding Polk, and died in office July 9, 1850. Scott was nominated by his party (Whig) in 1852, and defeated; Franklin Pierce, a subordinate General of the war, was elected by his party (Democrat) President in 1852.
(61)Thirty Years' View, vol. ii., pp. 688-692.
(62)Hist. Ready Ref., vol. i, p. 350.
(63) Trist's letter to Buchanan, Secretary of State, Von Holst, vol. iii., p. 334.
(64) Historical Ex., etc.,Dred Scott Case, pp. 151-9. This is the first Congress where its sessions were continued after twelve o'clock midnight, of March 3d, in the odd years.Ibid., pp. 136-9.
(65)Hist. of Mexican War(Wilcox), p. 223.
The slavery agitation first began in 1832 on a false tariff issue, and precipitated upon the country in 1835, on the lines of nullification and disunion, and was again revived at the close of the Mexican War, and continued violently through 1849 and 1850. The year 1850 will be ever memorable in the history of the United States as a year wherein all the baleful seeds of disunion were sown, which grew, to ripen, a little more than ten years later, intodisunionin fact. Prophetically, a leading South Carolina paper in its New Year-Day edition, said:
"When the future historian shall address himself to the task of portraying the rise, progress, and decline of the American union, the year1850will arrest his attention, as denoting and presenting the first marshalling and arraying of those hostile forces and opposing elements which resulted in dissolution."
At the close of Polk's administration an inflammatory address, drawn and signed by Calhoun and forty-one other members of Congress from the slave States, was issued, filled with unfounded charges against the North, professing to be a warning to the South that a purpose existed to abolish slavery and bring on a conflict between the white and black races, and to San Domingoize the South, which could only be avoided, the address states:
"By fleeing the homes of ourselves and ancestors, and by abandoning our country to our slaves, to become the permanent abode of disorder, anarchy, poverty, misery, and wretchedness."
This manifesto did not go quite to the extent of declaring for a dissolution of the Union, but it appealed to the South to become united, saying, if the North did not yield to its demands, the South would be the assailed, and
"Would stand justified by all laws, human and divine, in repelling a blow so dangerous, without looking to consequences, and to resort to all means necessary for that purpose."(66)
TheSouthern Presswas set up in Washington to inculcate the advantages of disunion, and to inflame the South against the North. It portrayed the advantages which would result from Southern independence; and assumed to tell how Southern cities would recover colonial superiority; how ships of all nations would crowd Southern ports and carry off the rich staples, bringing back ample returns, and how Great Britain would be the ally of the new "United States South." In brief, it asserted that a Southern convention should meet and decree a separation unless the North surrendered to Southern demands for the extension of slavery, for its protection in the States, and for the certain return of fugitive slaves; it urged also that military preparation be made to maintain what the convention might decree.
A disunion convention actually met at Nashville, near the home of Jackson, but the old hero was then in his grave.(67) It assumed to represent seven States. It invited the assembling of a "Southern Congress." South Carolina and Mississippi alone responded to this call. In the Legislature of South Carolina secession and disunion speeches were delivered, and throughout the South public addresses were made, and the press advocated and threatened dissolution of the Union unless the North yielded all.(68)
All this and more to immediately effect the introduction of slavery into California and New Mexico. The South saw clearly that the free people of the Republic were resolved that there should be no more slave States, but believed that the mercantile, trading people, and small farmers of the North would not fight for their rights, and hence intimidation seemed to them to promise success.
It had its effect on many, and, unfortunately, on some of America's greatest statesmen.
By a singular coincidence the Thirty-first Congress, which metDecember, 1849, embraced among its members Webster, Clay, Calhoun,Benton, Cass, Corwin, Seward, Salmon P. Chase, John P. Hale, Hamlinof Maine, James M. Mason, Douglas of Illinois, Foote and Davis ofMississippi, of the Senate; and Joshua R. Giddings, Horace Mann,Wilmot of Pennsylvania, Robert C. Schenck, Robert C. Winthrop,Alexander H. Stephens, and Thaddeus Stevens, of the House.
To avert the impending storm of slavery agitation then threatening disunion, Clay, by a set of resolutions, with a view to a "lasting compromise," on January 29, 1850, proposed in the Senate a general plan of compromise and a committee of thirteen to report a bill or bills in accordance therewith.
His plan was:
1. The admission of California with her free Constitution.
2. Territorial governments for the other territory acquired from Mexico, without any restriction as to slavery.
3. The disputed boundary between Texas and New Mexico to be determined.
4. Thebona fidepublic debt of Texas, contracted prior to annexation, to be paid from duties on foreign imports, upon condition that Texas relinquish her claim to any part of New Mexico.
5. The declaration that it was inexpedient to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, without the consent of Maryland and the people of the District, and without compensation to owners of slaves.
6. The prohibition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia.
7. A more effectual provision for the rendition of fugitive slaves.
8. A declaration that Congress has no power to interfere with the slave trade between States.
These resolutions and the plan embodied led to a most noteworthy discussion, chiefly participated in by Clay, Webster, Calhoun, Benton, Seward, and Foote. The debate was opened by Clay. He favored the admission of California with her already formed free State Constitution, but he exclaimed:
"I shall go with the Senator from the South who goes farthest in making penal laws and imposing the heaviest sanctions for the recovery of fugitive slaves and the restoration of them by their owners."
He, however, tried to hold the olive branch to both the North and the South, and pleaded for the Union. He pathetically pleaded for mutual concessions, and deprecated, what he then apprehended,warbetween the sections, exclaiming:
"War and dissolution of the Union are identical."
After prophesying that if a war came it would be more ferocious, bloody, implacable, and exterminating than were the wars of Greece, the Commoners of England, or the Revolutions of France, Senator Clay predicted that it would be "not of two or three years' duration, but a war of interminable duration, during which some Philip or Alexander, some Caesar or Napoleon, would arise and cut the Gordian knot and solve the problem of the capacity of man for self-government, and crush the liberties of both the several portions of this common empire."
Happily, events have falsified most of these prophecies.
Then came the dying Calhoun, with a last speech in behalf of slavery and on the imaginary wrongs of the South. His last appearance in public life was pathetic. Broken with age and disease, enveloped in flannels, he was carried into the Capitol, where he tottered to the old Senate Hall and to a seat. He found himself too weak to even read his last warning to the North and appeal for his beloved institution. The speech was written, and was read in his presence by Senator Mason of Virginia. He referred to the disparity of numbers between the North and the South by which the "equilibrium between the two sections had been destroyed." He did not recognize the fact that slavery alone was the cause of this disparity. He professed to believe the final object of the North was "the abolition of slavery in the States." He contended that one of the "cords" of the Union embraced "plans for disseminating the Bible," and "for the support of doctrines and creeds."
He said:
"The first of thesecordswhich snapped under its explosive force was that of the powerful Methodist Episcopal Church. The nextcordthat snapped was that of the Baptists, one of the largest and most respectable of the denominations. That of the Presbyterian is not entirely snapped, but some of its strands have given way. That of the Episcopal Church is the only one of the four great Protestant denominations which remains unbroken and entire."
He referred to the strong ties which held together the two great parties, and said:
"This powerfulcordhas fared no better than the spiritual. To this extent the union has already been destroyed by agitation."
He laid at the door of the North all the blame for the slavery agitation.
The admission of California as a free State was the immediate, exciting cause for Calhoun's speech.
Already, on October 13, 1849, after a session of forty days, a Convention in California had, with much unanimity, framed a Constitution which, one month later, was, with like unanimity, adopted by her free, gold-mining people. It prohibited slavery. It had been laid before Congress by President Taylor, who recommended the immediate admission under it of California as a State.
President Taylor had not overlooked the disunion movements. In his first and only message to Congress he expressed his affection for the Union, and warningly said:
"In my judgment its dissolution would be the greatest of calamities, and to avert that should be the study of every American. Upon its preservation must depend our own happiness, and that of countless generations to come. Whatever dangers may threaten it, I shall stand by it and maintain it in its integrity, to the full extent of the obligations imposed and the power conferred on me by the Constitution."
Recommending specially that territorial governments for New Mexico and Utah should be formed, leaving them to settle the question of slavery for themselves, President Taylor, in his Message, said further:
"I repeat the solemn warning of the first and most illustrious of my predecessors against furnishing any ground for characterizing parties by geographical discriminations."
Alluding to these passages, Calhoun, in his last speech, said:
"It (the Union) cannot, then, be saved by eulogies on it, however splendid or numerous. The cry of 'Union, Union, the glorious Union,' can no more preventdisunionthan the cry of 'Health, Health, glorious Health,' on the part of the physician can save a patient from dying that is lying dangerously ill."
To the allusion of the President to Washington, Calhoun sneeringly said:
"There was nothing inhishistory to deter us from seceding from the Union should it fail to fulfil the objects for which it was instituted."
The prime objects for which the Union was formed, were, as he contended, the preservation, perpetuation, and extension of the institution of human slavery. In the antithesis of this speech he asked and answered:
"How can the Union be saved?
"To provide for the insertion of a provision in the Constitution, by an amendment which will restore to the South in substance the power she possessed of protecting herself before the equilibrium between the sections was destroyed by the action of this government."
The speech did not state what, exactly, this amendment was to be, but it transpired that it was to provide for the election oftwoPresidents, one from the free and one from the slave States, each to approve all acts of Congress before they became laws.
Of this device, Senator Benton said:
"No such double-headed government could work through even one session of Congress, any more than two animals could work together in the plough with their heads yoked in opposite directions."(69)
In the same month (March 31, 1850) the great political gladiator and pro-slavery agitator and originator and disseminator of disunion doctrines was dead;(70) but there were others to uphold and carry forward his work to its fatal ending.
Calhoun was early accounted a sincere and honest man, a patriot of moderate views, and at one time was much esteemed North as well as South. It is believed than an unfortunate quarrel with President Jackson dashed his hopes of reaching the Presidency, and so embittered him that he became the champion, first of nullification, then of disunion.
There is not room here to speak in detail of the other champions of the great debate on the Clay resolutions.
On the 18th of April these resolutions, and others of like import, were referred to a committee of thirteen, with Clay as its chairman. This was Clay's last triumph, and he accepted it with the greatest joy, though then in ill health and fast approaching the grave.(71)
Of his joy, Benton, in a speech at the time, said:
"We all remember that night. He seemed to ache with pleasure. It was too great for continence. It burst forth. In the fullness of his joy and the overflow of his heart he entered upon the series of congratulations."(72)
The sincere old hero was doomed to much disappointment; he did not live, however, to see his views on slavery contained in the Compromise measures (1) overthrown by an act of Congress four years later, (2) by a decision of the Supreme Court seven years later, and then (3) made an issue on which the South seceded from the Union and precipitated a war, in which for ferocity, duration, and bloodshed, his prophecies fell far short. On the 8th of May this memorable committee reported its recommendations somewhat different from his resolutions.
Its report favored:
1. The postponement of the subject of the admission of new States formed out of Texas until they present themselves, when Congress should faithfully execute the compact with Texas by admitting them.
2. The admission forthwith of California with the boundaries she claimed.
3. The establishment of territorial government, without the Wilmot Proviso, for New Mexico and Utah; embracing all territory acquired from Mexico not included in California.
4. The last two measures to be combined in one bill.
5. The establishment of the boundary of Texas by the exclusion of all New Mexico, with the grant of a pecuniary equivalent to Texas; also to be a part of a bill including the last two measures.
6. A more effectual fugitive-slave law.
7. To prohibit the slave trade, not slavery, in the District of Columbia.
Bills to carry out these recommendations were also reported.
A discussion ensued in both branches of Congress, which continued for five months; and daily Clay met and presided in caucus over what he called the Union men of the Senate, including Whigs and Democrats.
These measures were supported by Clay, Webster, Cass, Douglas, andFoote; opposed by Seward, Chase, Hale, Davis of Massachusetts, andDayton, anti-slavery men; also by Benton, an independent Democrat,a slaveholder in Missouri and the District of Columbia,(73) and byJefferson Davis, and others of the Calhoun Southern type.
President Taylor opposed the Clay plan. He denominated the blending on incongruous subjects as an "Omnibus Bill." He favored dealing with each subject on its own merits. He regarded the Texas and New Mexico boundary dispute as a question between the United States and New Mexico, not between Texas and New Mexico.(74) He favored the admission of California with her free State Constitution. Even earlier, he announced that he would approve a bill containing the Wilmot Proviso. He indignantly responded to Stephens' and Toombs' demands in the interests of slavery, coupled with threatened disunion, by giving them to understand he would, if necessary, take the field himself to enforce the laws, and if the gentlemen were taken in rebellion he would hang them as he had deserters and spies in Mexico.(75)
Taylor died (July 8, 1850) pending the great discussion, chagrined and mortified over the unsettled condition of his country. His last words were: "I have always done my duty; I am ready to die. My only regret is for the friends I leave behind me."
He was a great soldier and patriot, and his character hardly justified the whole of the common appellation, "Rough and Ready." He was perhaps always ready, but not rough; on the contrary, he was a man of peace and order. On his election to the Presidency he desired some plan to be adopted for California by which "to substitute the rule of law and order there for the bowie knife and revolver."(76)
In August, 1850, the great debate ceased, and voting in the Senate commenced. The plan of the "thirteen" underwent changes, their bills being segregated, substitutes were offered for them, and many amendments were made to the several bills. Davis of Mississippi insisted upon the extension of the Missouri Compromise line—36° 30´—to the Pacific Ocean. This brought out Mr. Clay's best sentiments. He said:
"Coming as I do from a slave State, it is my solemn, deliberate, and well matured determination that no power, no earthly power, shall compel me to vote for the positive introduction of slavery, either south or north of that line. Sir, while you reproach, and justly, too, our British ancestors for the introduction of this institution upon the continent of America, I am, for one, unwilling that the posterity of the present inhabitants of California and New Mexico shall reproach us for doing just what we reproach Great Britain for doing for us."
The Wilmot Proviso made its appearance for the last time when Seward offered it as an amendment. It failed in the Senate by a vote of 23 to 33.
Finally, when the bill for the admission of California was ready for a vote, Turney of Tennessee moved to limit the southern boundary of the State to 36° 30´, so as to allow slavery in all territory south of that line. This failed, 24 to 32, the South voting almost unitedly for the amendment.
Mr. Benton was a prominent exception. To him the friends of freedom owed much for support, by speech and vote. While he opposed Clay's plan, he voted with the free State party on all questions of slavery, save on the Wilmot Proviso, which he deemed unnecessary to the exclusion of slavery from territory where the laws of Mexico, still in force, excluded it.
The California bill passed, August 13th, 34 to 18. Clay is not recorded as voting. He may have been absent or paired. Webster had become Secretary of State, and Winthrop succeeded him in the Senate. To emphasize the opposition, ten Senators immediately had read at the Secretary's desk a protest, with a view to its being spread on the Journal. This was refused, after a most spirited debate, as being against precedent.(77) The protest was a long complaint against making the Territory of California a State without its being first organized, territorially, and an opportunity given to the South to make it a slave State, and for admitting it as a free State, thus destroying the equilibrium of the States; the protestors declaring that if such course were persisted in, it would lead to a dissolution of the Union. A bill establishing New Mexico with its present boundaries, also Utah, was passed in August, leaving both to become States with or without slavery. A fugitive- slave act was likewise passed at the same time in the Senate. The whole of the bills covered by the compromise having in some form passed the Senate, went to the House, where, after some animated discussion, they all passed, in September following, and were approved by President Fillmore.
It remains to speak briefly of the Fugitive-Slave Act. It was odious to the North in the extreme. United States Commissioners were provided for to act instead of state magistrates, on whom jurisdiction was attempted to be conferred by the Act of 1793.Ex-partetestimony was made sufficient to determine the identity of the negro claimed, and the affidavit of an agent or attorney was made sufficient. The alleged fugitive was not permitted, under any circumstances, to testify. He was denied the right to trial by jury. The cases were to be heard in a summary manner. The claimant was authorized to use all necessary force to remove the fugitive adjudged a slave. All process of any court or judge was forbidden to molest the claimant, his agent or attorney, in carrying away the adjudged slave. United States marshals and their deputies were authorized to summon bystanders as aposse comitatus; and all good citizens were commanded, by the act, to aid and assist in the prompt and efficient execution of the law; all under heavy penalty for failing to do so. The officers were liable, in a civil suit, for the value of the negro if he escaped. Heavy fine or imprisonment was to be imposed for hindering or preventing the arrest, or for rescuing or attempting to rescue, or for harboring or concealing the fugitive, and, if any person was found guilty of causing his escape, a further fine of $1000 by way of civil damages to the owner. In case the commissioner adjudged the negro was the claimant's slave, his fee was fixed at $10, and if he discharged the negro, it was only $5. The claimant had a right, in case of apprehended danger, to require the officer arresting the fugitive to remove him to the State from whence he fled, with authority to employ as many persons to aid him as he might deem necessary, the expense to be paid out of the United States Treasury. This act became a law September 18, 1850. The law contained so many odious provisions against all principles of natural justice and judicial precedents that it could not be executed in many places in the North. The consciences of civilized men revolted against it, and the Abolitionists did not fail to magnify its injustice; on the other hand, the pro-slavery agitators saw in its imperfect execution new and additional grounds for complaint against the North.
What, then, was intended to be a settlement of the slavery agitation proved to be really a most violent reopening of it.
Webster, like Clay, did not survive to witness the next great discussion in Congress on the slavery question, which resulted in overturning much that was supposed to have been settled; nor did they live to hear thundered from the supreme judicial tribunal of the Union the appalling doctrines of the Dred Scott decision. Webster died October 24, 1852. Benton lived to condemn the great tribunal for this decision in most vehement terms. He died April 10, 1858. But few of the leading participants of the 1850 debates lived to witness the final overthrow of slavery. Lewis Cass, however, who, though a Democrat, generally followed and supported Clay in his plan of compromise, not only lived to witness the birth of the new doctrine of "Squatter Sovereignty" (and to support it), but to hear that slavery was, according to our Supreme Court, almost national; then to see disunion in thelive tree;then war; then slaves proclaimed free as a war measure; then disunion overthrown on the battle-field; then restoration of a more perfect Union, wherein slavery and involuntary servitude was forbidden by the Constitution.(78)
In the succeeding Presidential election (1852) the two great parties endorsed the late action of Congress in relation to the Territories and slavery.
The Whig platform declared the acquiescence of the party in all its acts: "The act known as the Fugitive Slave Law included. . . . as a settlement in principle and substance of the dangerous and exciting questions which they embrace. . . . We will maintain them and insist on their strict enforcement."
On this platform General Winfield Scott was nominated for thePresidency.
The Democratic platform of the same year, having first denied that Congress had power under the Constitution to interfere with slavery in the States, declared also that the party would "abide by and adhere to a faithful execution of the acts known as the Compromise measures settled by the last Congress,—the act for reclaiming fugitives from service or labor included."
Franklin Pierce, of New Hampshire, a subordinate officer (Brigadier- General) under Scott in Mexico, of no special renown, but a polite and respectable gentleman, was nominated and elected on this platform by a decided vote; Scott carrying only Massachusetts, Vermont, Kentucky, and Tennessee. The "Free-Soil" party nominated John P. Hale of New Hampshire on a platform repudiating the Compromise measures, declaring against the aggressions of the slave power and for:
"No more slave States, no slave territory, no nationalized slavery, and no national legislation for the extradition of slaves. That slavery is a sin against God, and a crime against man, which no human enactment or usage can make right; and that Christianity, humanity, and patriotism alike demand its abolition.
"That the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 is repugnant to the Constitution, to the principles of the common law," etc.
The Whig party, with this election, disappeared; its great leaders were dead, and it could not vie with the Democratic party in pro- slavery principles. There was no longer room for two such parties. The American people were already divided and dividing on the living issue of freedom or slavery. Slavery, like all wrong, was ever aggressive, and demanded new constitutional expositions in its interest by Congress and the courts, and it tolerated no more temporizing or compromises. Its advocates tried for a time to unite in the Democratic party.
(66)Thirty Years' View, vol. ii., pp. 733-6.
(67) Jackson died June 8, 1845, past seventy-eight years of age.
(68)Thirty Years' View, ii., p. 782.
(69)Thirty Years' View, vol. ii., p. 747.
(70) His remains were entombed in St. Philip's churchyard, Charleston, S. C. In 1865, on that city's occupancy by the Union forces, friends seized and secreted them from fancied desecration by the conquerors.—Draper'sCivil War in Am., vol. i., p. 565.
(71) Born April 12, 1777, died June 29, 1852.
(72)Thirty Years' View, vol. ii., p. 764.
(73)Thirty Years' View, vol. ii., p. 759.
(74)Ibid., p. 765.
(75)Hist. of the U. S.(Rhodes), vol. i., pp. 134 (190).
(76)Hist. Pac. States, H. H. Bancroft, vol. xviii., p. 262.
(77)Thirty Years' View, vol. ii., p. 770.
(78) Cass died March 17, 1866, eighty-two years of age.
Over the disposition of the Territory of Nebraska it remained to have the last Congressional struggle for the extension of slavery. This Territory in 1854 comprised what are now the States of Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming. It was a large part of the Louisiana Purchase, in area 485,000 square miles, twelve times as large as Ohio, about ten times the size of New York, 140,000 square miles larger than the original thirteen States,(79) and more than four times the area of Great Britain and Ireland. It was what was left of the purchase after Louisiana, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, and Indian Territory were carved out. It then had only about one thousand white inhabitants.
The desire to still placate the threatening South and to win its political favor, led some great and patriotic men of the North to attempt measures in the interest of slavery.
On January 4, 1854, Stephen A. Douglas, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Territories, made a report embodying constitutional theories not hitherto promulgated, and questioning or repudiating others long supposed to have been settled.
The report announced the discovery of a new principle of the Compromise measures of 1850.
It declared:
"They were intended to have a far more comprehensive and enduring effect than the mere adjustment of difficulties arising out of the recent acquisition of Mexican territory. They were designed to establish certain great principles, which would not only furnish adequate remedies for existing evils, but in all time to come avoid the perils of similar agitation by withdrawing the question ofslaveryfrom the halls of Congress and the political arena, committing it to the arbitration of those who are immediately interested in and alone responsible for its consequences. . . . A question has arisen in regard to the right to hold slaves in the Territory of Nebraska. . . . It is a disputed point whether slavery is prohibited in the Nebraska country byvalidenactment. In the opinion of eminent statesmen. . . . the eighth section of the act preparatory to the admission of Missouri is null and void."
The eighth section prohibited slavery in the Louisiana Territory north of 36° 30´, hence from the Nebraska Territory. The report reiterated the absurd doctrine:
"That the Constitution. . . . secures to every citizen an inalienable right to move into any of the Territories with his property, of whatever kind and description, and to hold and enjoy the same under the sanction of law."
(What law? The law of the place whence it came, or the law of the place to which it was taken? Not even an ox or an ass can be held as property save under the law of the place where it is; nor is the title to the soil valid except under the law of the place where it is located. As well as might a person claim the right to move to a Territory and there own the land by virtue of the Constitution and the laws of the State of his former residence as to claim under them the right to own and sell his slave in a Territory. The difficulty is, while the emigrant might take with him his human chattel, he could not take with him the law permitting him to hold it.)
The report did not, however, as presented, propose to repeal the Missouri Compromise line that had stood thirty-four years with the approval of the first statesmen of all parties in the Union.
It assumed simply to interpret for the dead Clay and Webster their only four-year-old work, and ran thus:
"The Compromise Measures of 1850 affirm and rest upon the following propositions:
"First—That all questions pertaining to slavery in the Territories, and the new States to be formed therefrom, are to be left to the decision of the people residing therein.
"Second—That 'all cases involving the title to slaves' and 'questions of personal freedom' are to be referred to the jurisdiction of the local tribunals, with the right to appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States.
"Third—That the provisions of the Constitution, in respect to fugitives from service, are to be carried into faithful execution in all 'the organized Territories,' the same as in the States."
The first of these propositions, in another form, announced the new doctrine of popular sovereignty, soon thereafter popularly called "Squatter Sovereignty," in derision of the rights thus to be vested in the territorialsquatter, however temporary his stay might be. It was opposed to the principle of Congressional right (expressly granted by the Constitution (80)) to provide rules (laws) and regulations for United States territory until it became clothed with statehood.
The second proposition announced nothing new, as cases involving titles to slaves, or questions of personal freedom, must necessarily go for final determination to the courts, with a right of appeal.
The third proposition, like the second, was a mere platitude.
The bill accompanying the report, as first presented, required that any part of Nebraska Territory admitted as a state (as provided in the New Mexico and Utah Acts of 1850) "shall be received into the Union with or without slavery, as its Constitution may prescribe at the time of admission." This, too, was not new in any sense, as new States had ever been thus received. The anti-slavery press and societies, and all people opposed to further slavery aggression and extension, at once took alarm and violently assailed the new doctrines of the report; the South, too, at first viewed them with surprise, denominating them "a snare set for the South," yet later regarded them as favorable to the extension of slavery. Southern statesmen, however, determined to force Douglas to amend them so as to accomplish the ends of the South. Accordingly, Senator Dixon of Kentucky, on January 16th, offered an amendment to the Nebraska Bill providing for the absolute repeal of the Missouri Compromise line. This amendment Douglas, apparently with reluctance,(81) accepted, after a consultation with Jefferson Davis, then Secretary of War, and President Pierce, both of whom promised it their support.(82)
January 23, 1854, Douglas presented a substitute for his original bill, wherein it was provided that the restriction of the Missouri Compromise "was superseded by the principles of the legislation of 1850, and is hereby declared inoperative."
The new bill divided the Territory in two parts; the southern, called Kansas, lay between 37° and 40° of latitude, extending west to the Rocky Mountains, and the northern was still called Nebraska.
As early as 1853 a movement in Missouri was started, avowedly to make Nebraska slave Territory, and this was well known to Douglas and the supporters of his newly announced doctrines. Kansas, lying farthest south, was climatically better suited for slavery than the new Nebraska. Before the bill passed, plans were made to invade Kansas from Missouri and Arkansas by slaveholders with their slaves.
January 24, 1854, theAppeal of the Independent Democrats inCongress to the People of the United Stateswas published.
Chase and Giddings of Ohio were its authors; some verbal additions, however, were made to it by Sumner and Gerritt Smith.(83)
ThisAppealwas signed by S. P. Chase, Charles Sumner, Joshua R. Giddings, Edward Wade, Gerritt Smith, and Alexander De Witt; three at least of whom were then, or soon became first among the great statesmen opposed to human slavery. TheAppealdeclared the new Nebraska Bill would "open all the unorganized Territories of the Union to the ingress of slavery." A plot to convert them "into a dreary region of despotism, inhabited by masters and slaves," to the exclusion of immigrants from the Old World and free laborers from our own States. It reviewed the history of Congressional legislation on slavery in the Territories, reciting, among other things, that President Monroe approved the Missouri Compromise after his Cabinet had given him a written opinion that the section restricting slavery was constitutional.
John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State, John C. Calhoun, Secretaryof War, Wm. H. Crawford, Secretary of the Treasury, and Wm. Wirt,Attorney-General—three from slave States—then constituted Monroe'sCabinet.
TheAppealwarningly proceeded:
"The dearest interests of freedom and the Union are in imminent peril. Demagogues may tell you that the Union can be maintained only by submitting to the demands of slavery. We tell you that the Union can only be maintained by the full recognition of the just claims of freedom and man. When it fails to accomplish these ends it will be worthless, and when it becomes worthless it cannot long endure. . . . Whatever apologies may be offered for the toleration of slavery in the States, none can be offered for its extension into the Territories where it does not exist, and where that extension involves the repeal of ancient law and the violation of solemn compact.
"For ourselves, we shall resist it by speech and vote, and with all the abilities which God has given us. Even if overcome in the impending struggle, we shall not submit. We shall go home to our constituents, erect anew the standard of freedom, and call on the people to come to the rescue of the country from the dominion of slavery. We will not despair; for the cause of human freedom is the cause of God."
These patriotic expressions electrified the whole country. The North was aroused to their truth, the South seized upon them as threats of disunion, and still louder than before, if possible, called for a united South to vindicate slavery's rights in the Territories. Douglas attempted in the Senate to answer theAppeal. This led to an acrimonious debate, participated in by Chase, Sumner, Seward, Everett, and others, too long to be reviewed here.
Senator Benjamin F. Wade, of Ohio, took a prominent part in the memorable debate over the Douglas-Nebraska Bill. He was bold, and never dealt in sophistry, but in plain speech.
Mr. Badger, of North Carolina, while making a slavery-dilution argument, appealingly said:
"Why, if some Southern gentleman wishes to take the nurse who takes charge of his little baby, or the old woman who nursed him in childhood, and whom he called 'Mammy' until he returned from college, . . . and whom he wishes to take with him . . . into one of these new Territories, . . . why, in the name of God, should anybody prevent it?"
Mr. Wade responded:
"The Senator entirely mistakes our position. We have not the least objection, and would oppose no obstacle to the Senator's migrating to Kansas and taking his old 'Mammy' along with im. We only insist that he shall not be empowered tosellher after taking her there."
Mr. Chase moved to amend the bill by adding the words:
"Under which the people of the Territories, through their appropriate representatives, may, if they see fit, prohibit the existence of slavery therein."
This amendment failed, but it served to test the good faith of those who supported the squatter sovereignty feature of the bill.
After a long struggle the bill passed, and was approved by thePresident in May, 1854.
(79) Area of original thirteen States, 354,504 square miles.
(80) "Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States," etc.—Art. IV., Sec. 3, Con. U. S.