The new President, Taylor, thought that all further controversy about the Territorial organization of California might now be avoided, by skipping the Territorial period and status altogether, and organizing California immediately as a Commonwealth. He sent a commissioner to examine the situation on the ground and make report. Whether the commissioner imparted the President's scheme to General Riley, the military Governor, or not, we are not informed. We have good reason, however, to suspect it, since Riley immediately issued a call for a convention of the people of California to frame a Commonwealth.
The people quickly responded by choosing delegates, and the delegates met at Monterey on September 1st, 1849. By October 13th, their work was completed, and the organic law which they drafted was ratified by the people, on November 13th. One of its provisions was the prohibition of slavery. The filling up of California by immigration had been too sudden for the holders of slaves to take part in the movement. It was accomplished, it could be accomplished, only by bold, alert, shrewd adventurers, untrammelled by families or stupid African retainers. It was reported that every delegate in the convention voted for the prohibition of slavery, and the people ratified the instrument containing it by a vote of fifteen to one.
The President informed Congress, in his message of December 4th, 1849, of the proceedings in California, and manifested his desire to admit California into the Union at once. He also predicted that the people ofNew Mexico would soon follow the example of the Californians. The policy of the Administration in reference to this question was thus clearly defined, and was, whether intentional or not, a policy favorable to the prohibition of slavery in both California and New Mexico. The slaveholders, or rather the slavery extensionists, regarded the President's position as treachery to his section.
The policy of the slavery extensionists was to organize California and New Mexico as Territories, without the prohibition of slavery in them, giving thus time and opportunity for slaveholders to settle in them, with their slaves, and, when the time should come for the formation of Commonwealth governments in them, to vote an organic law perpetuating slavery. This policy was manifested anew in the bill introduced into the Senate, on the last day of December, 1849, by Mr. Foote, of Mississippi, for the organization of the entire Mexican cession into three Territories—California, Deseret or Utah, and New Mexico.
The slavery question in Congress had now come, however, to include more than the matter of the governmental organization of the territory acquired from Mexico. There was, in the first place, the question of the Texas boundary, in that, by the Joint Resolution annexing Texas, the adjustment of that boundary, as regarded foreign states, at least, was reserved to Congress. Texas, as we know, claimed the Rio Grande from mouth to source, and thence the longitude to the forty-second parallel of latitude as her southwestern and western boundary. She came into the Union with a law on her statute book asserting this boundary. The Treaty with Mexico, recognizing the line of the Rio Grande to thelimits of New Mexico, and ceding New Mexico, made the question of the Texan boundary a purely internal question for the United States, if it was any longer a question. The Abolitionists and anti-slavery-extensionists wanted to reduce Texas in area, since slavery was established by the law of the Commonwealth throughout its entire extent. They therefore interpreted the Resolution of annexation as reserving that power to Congress, even after the question had become purely internal. The slavery extensionists, on the contrary, contended that the power reserved to Congress in reference to the Texan boundary was now obsolete, since it expressly related only to the adjustment of the same with Mexico, and that had been accomplished by the Treaty. Then, there was the war debt of Texas, which was justly a charge upon the United States—although the Resolution of annexation repudiated it—since it was hypothecated upon revenue, the proceeds from which were being covered into the United States Treasury, the customs collected in the Texan ports. And, then, there was the question of the rendition of fugitive slaves, since the execution of the existing law, that of 1793, in regard to this matter, had been rendered so difficult by the movements of the Abolitionists, after 1835, as to make a more strenuous measure necessary, unless the slaveholders would abandon their constitutional rights to the rendition of their escaped slaves. And, lastly, there was the ever-recurring question of slavery and the slave-trade in the District of Columbia, which was still clamoring for a hearing.
Already, before the closing week of January, 1850, had bills been brought forward, both in the Senate and in the House, touching all of these subjects, except, perhaps, the last, when, on the 29th, Mr. Clay came forward with his famous proposition for the adjustment of them all in one grand scheme.
This proposition provided, in the first place, for the immediate admission of California as a Commonwealth, with suitable boundaries, and without any restrictions as to slavery; in the second place, for the establishment of Territorial governments in all of the remainder of the Mexican cession, without any restrictions as to slavery; in the third place, for fixing the western boundary of Texas, so as to exclude any portion of New Mexico; in the fourth place, for the assumption of the Texan debt contracted before annexation and hypothecated upon the Texan customs, on condition of the relinquishment by Texas of all claims on New Mexico; in the fifth place, for the abolition of the slave-trade in the District of Columbia, in slaves brought into the District from the outside for the purpose of sale; and in the sixth place, for a more effective law for the rendition of fugitive slaves. The resolutions also contained declarations that slavery did not then exist in any of the territory acquired from Mexico, and that Congress had no power to prohibit or obstruct trade in slaves between the slaveholding Commonwealths.
In spite of the fact that Mr. Clay asked the Senators to consider his propositions carefully before committing themselves, and suggested that they should lay over for a week, the Southern Senators immediately proceeded to attack the plan at several points. They objected to California being allowed to jump the Territorial period of probation and preparation for Commonwealth government. They declared Mr. Clay's dictum about the existing illegality of slavery in the territory acquired from Mexico to be an assumption, and asserted that slavery was legal everywhere in the United States, unless a positive law forbade it. They vindicated the claims of Texas to the boundaries designated by the Act of the TexanCongress in 1836. And while some of them were not decidedly opposed to the abolition of the slave-trade in the District of Columbia, most of them deprecated meddling with the subject at all, and wanted to substitute for Mr. Clay's proposition on the subject a declaration of the lack of any power in Congress to deal with slavery in the District. The improvement of the fugitive slave-law was about the only thing in the entire plan which met with their approval. Mr. Jefferson Davis said outright that he wanted a positive recognition from Congress of the legality of slavery in the new territory south of the parallel of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes.
On the other hand, the Abolitionists and the anti-slavery-extensionists insisted upon the immediate admission of California, with its anti-slavery constitution; upon the insertion of the principle of the Wilmot proviso in the Territorial organization of the remainder of the acquisition from Mexico; upon the contraction of the Texan limits, without any compensation to Texas; upon the abolition of the slave-trade in the District of Columbia, and a declaration of the power of Congress to deal with slavery in the District; and upon a jury trial, at the place of apprehension, for every claimed fugitive from labor.
The contradiction between these views appeared irreconcilable. We may say, however, that a start toward an approach was caused by the transmission of California's application to Congress for admission, as a Commonwealth, into the Union.
This happened on February 13th. On the following day, Mr. Douglas moved to take up the President's message accompanying the application, and thus to consider the California question separately from the others. Mr. Clay agreed to this. Mr. Foote, of Mississippi, scolded Mr. Clay for thus betraying the South, but theSoutherners were made to feel that they must modify their opposition to Mr. Clay's plan, if they desired to avoid something like this.
On March 4th, Mr. Calhoun made his last great speech upon the whole political situation, its threatening character, and its possible rectification. He was too feeble to pronounce it himself, and it was read for him by Senator Mason. Mr. Calhoun's propositions were, that the Union was endangered; that the immediate cause of the danger was the universal discontent prevailing in the South from the feeling that the South could no longer remain with safety and honor in the Union; and that the cause of this feeling was the fact that the balance of power between the two sections of the country in the Government was gone, and the stronger section was endeavoring to make the Government an unlimited centralized democracy, and use it for interfering in the internal affairs of the weaker, and for absorbing the substance, as well as destroying the rights, of the weaker.
He suggested as remedies for the evils, which he thought existed and impended, an equal division of the territory to the Pacific between the North and the South, an amendment to the Constitution restoring the balance of power between the two sections, proper laws for the rendition of fugitives from labor, and cessation of the agitation of the slavery question.
What should be the provisions of the amendment, restoring the balance of power in the Government, and how the cessation of the agitation could be compelled, were not explained. It was not easy to see how these points could be advanced beyond the position of general propositions. It was, however, a great and solemn presentation of the whole question, and it made a great impression.
On March 7th, Mr. Webster made his famous speech, giving his great influence to pacification and compromise, and to the preservation of the Constitution. He told the Northerners that they were bound by the agreement with Texas to admit four new Commonwealths from Texan territory, under the usual conditions; that they were bound by the Constitution to deliver up fugitive slaves; and that since nature had made slavery impossible in California and New Mexico, they ought not to irritate the Southerners by demanding a Congressional prohibition of slavery therein. He told the Southerners, on the other hand, that they should desist from denying to citizens from Northern Commonwealths, temporarily within the jurisdiction of Southern Commonwealths, the rights of citizens. And he told the Abolitionists that they should measure their ideas of right, in some degree at least, by the standard of the common consciousness of the country, and modify them, in some degree, thereby. His words were received with great satisfaction by all moderate and prudent men. Of course, they did not satisfy the extremists, either in the North or the South, but they settled the minds of many who were wavering, and moved the work of temporary pacification, at least, several stages onward.
During the course of the debate upon Mr. Clay's resolutions, and before the great efforts either of Mr. Calhoun or Mr. Webster, Mr. Bell, of Tennessee, had offered some propositions, looking to the admission of California as a Commonwealth, and to the formation of Territorial government for New Mexico. On the day after Mr. Webster's great speech, Mr. Foote moved the reference of Mr. Bell's resolutions to a select committee of thirteen members. No vote, however, was immediately taken, but the debate uponboth sets of resolutions dragged on from day to day, and was made more complicated by the introduction of a bill from the committee on Territories, providing for the immediate admission of California, and the formation of Territorial governments for New Mexico and Utah.
On March 31st, Mr. Calhoun passed away. The announcement of his death, the eulogies pronounced upon his memory, and the funeral rites, were most solemn and impressive occasions. The influence of the sad event seemed, for the moment, to soften the hearts of those who had associated with him toward one another. It seemed as if political foes would be willing to join hands across his bier.
On April 11th, Mr. Mangum, of North Carolina, moved to refer the resolutions of Mr. Clay, along with those of Mr. Bell, to the committee suggested by Mr. Foote. Mr. Foote accepted Mr. Mangum's motion as an amendment to his own. After a most determined opposition by Senator Benton to Mr. Foote's motion, during which temper rose so high that Mr. Benton threatened to cudgel Mr. Foote, and Mr. Foote actually drew a pistol upon Mr. Benton, both in the course of the debate in the Senate chamber, Mr. Foote's motion was passed. On the next day, April 19th, the members of the committee were chosen by ballot. They were Mr. Clay, Mr. Bell, Mr. Berrien, Mr. Bright, Mr. Cass, Mr. Cooper, Mr. Dickinson, Mr. Downs, Mr. King, Mr. Mason, Mr. Mangum, Mr. Phelps, and Mr. Webster. Seven members, including the chairman, Mr. Clay, were from the South and six from the North.
On May 8th, Mr. Clay made the report, and offered the bills, from the grand committee, covering all thesubjects referred. The first bill provided for the admission of California, with the Commonwealth organization formed by her people the preceding autumn; for the Territorial organization of Utah and New Mexico, without any slavery restriction, and with restrictions upon the Territorial legislatures against passing any acts in regard to slavery; for fixing the northern boundary of Texas upon a line drawn from a point on the Rio Grande twenty miles above El Paso to the point on the Red River where the line of the one hundredth degree of longitude intersects this river; for quit-claiming, so to speak, to Texas the claims of the United States to the country between the Nueces and the Rio Grande; and for paying Texas a sum of money, in consideration of the discharge of the United States from all obligations to pay the Texan debt, and of the surrender of all claims by Texas to country north of the northern boundary as fixed in the bill.
The second bill provided that a fugitive from labor must be delivered up on the order of any judge or commissioner of the United States authorized by the laws of the United States so to act, and that such judge or commissioner was authorized to issue such order on presentation to him, by the claimant of the fugitive, of a copy of the record of a competent court in the Commonwealth, Territory, or District from which the fugitive was said to have escaped, before which the facts of ownership, identity, and escape had been satisfactorily proven. The judge or commissioner issuing such order was required, in case the fugitive declared himself to be a free man, to demand of the claimant of the fugitive a bond, with surety, for $1,000, pledging the claimant to accord the fugitive a trial by jury of the question of his freedom, in a competent court of the Commonwealth,Territory, or District from which he was said to have escaped.
The third bill provided for the abolition of the slave-trade in the District of Columbia, and for the liberation of any slave brought into the District for the purposes of sale or dépôt.
The debate began immediately upon the first bill, and the opposition to it from both sections advanced about the same arguments as were employed against these same subjects when presented in the form of Mr. Clay's resolutions. The discussion continued through May, June, and July, until, at the end of July, nothing remained of the bill but that part of it which provided for the Territorial organization of Utah. The general plan of the compromise was lost.
The whole country was amazed, disappointed, and angry. The Senators were quickly and decidedly made to feel that they dare not separate without doing something to heal the distractions of the land.
The death of President Taylor, on July 9th, and the accession of Mr. Fillmore, made the Administration more favorable to the measures included in the compromise plan. On August 6th, he communicated to Congress the fact that the Governor of Texas, P. H. Bell, in execution of an act of the Texas legislature, was extending the jurisdiction of Texas over the disputed territory on the eastern border of New Mexico, and that the President, as military Governor, in highest instance, of New Mexico, felt obliged to resist the movement, and that he had informed the Governor of Texas of his purpose. He besought Congress to avert the calamity which now threatened, by attending at onceto the matter of the boundary between Texas and New Mexico.
Under this pressure, the Senate took up the Texan boundary bill, introduced by Mr. Pierce, of Maryland, which provided that the northern boundary of Texas should be the parallel of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes from the one hundredth degree of longitude to the one hundred and third degree; that the western and southwestern boundary should be the one hundred and third parallel of longitude from the northern line to latitude thirty-two degrees, thence along this parallel westward to the Rio Grande, thence the Rio Grande to the Gulf; and that ten millions of dollars should be paid Texas for agreeing to this boundary, and for relinquishing all claims on the United States in regard to the payment of her public debt. On August 9th, the bill passed the Senate.
On the 13th, the Senate took up the bill for the immediate admission of California, reported from the committee on Territories, and passed it by a large majority.
On August 15th, the Senate passed the bill from the committee on Territories for the Territorial organization of New Mexico, without any provision as to slavery. The bill for the organization of Utah had passed, it will be remembered, on August 1st, as the remnant of the compromise plan.
The Senate then took up the Fugitive Slave Bill reported in March from the Judiciary committee. Inasmuch as the United States Supreme Court had given its opinion, in the case of Prigg versus Pennsylvania, that Commonwealth officers were not required by the Constitution of the United States to render any assistance in the rendition of fugitive slaves, the Judiciarycommittee had so constructed its bill as to make use of the machinery of the central Government alone in the execution of the proposed law. The bill was a somewhat more stringent measure than that proposed by Mr. Clay's committee. It did away with the right of a fugitive claiming to be a freeman to a trial by jury of the question of his freedom in a competent court of the Commonwealth, Territory, or District from which he was said to have escaped. It made it the duty of the marshals and deputy marshals of the United States courts to obey and execute all of the warrants and precepts issued under the provisions of the Act. It imposed a penalty of fine and imprisonment upon any person knowingly hindering the arrest of a fugitive, or attempting to rescue one from custody, or harboring one, or aiding one to escape. And it made the fee of the commissioner $10 in case he should issue the certificate of arrest to the claimant of the fugitive, and only $5 in case he should not. Otherwise it was substantially the same as the bill proposed by the Clay committee. The Senate passed this bill, on August 26th.
At last, on September 16th, the Senate passed the bill recommended by Mr. Clay's committee, for the abolition of the slave-trade in the District of Columbia.
One after another, all these bills passed the House of Representatives, against great opposition, but with no material alteration, except the connection of the bill for the organization of Territorial government in New Mexico with that for the adjustment of the Texan boundary, in which change the Senate acquiesced, and were all signed by the President; and before the first session of the Thirty-first Congress expired, on September 30th, 1850, the great work of pacification, as it was hoped and believed to be, had been accomplished.
THE EXECUTION OF THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW, AND THE ELECTION OF 1852
THE EXECUTION OF THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW, AND THE ELECTION OF 1852
Change of Attitude of the Slaveholders by the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850—The First Cases Under the New Law—The Opposition to the Execution of the Law—Establishment of the "Underground"—The Support of the Law by the Political Leaders—The President's Support of the Law—Joshua R. Giddings—Petitions for the Repeal of the Law—The Shadrach Case—The Investigation of the Case by Congress—The Question of Increasing the Power of the President to Execute the Law—The Sims Case—Excitement in Boston Over the Rendition of Sims—The "Jerry Rescue"—The President's Rebuke—Mr. Foote's Finality Resolutions—The Failure of the Resolutions to Pass the Senate, but Their Success in the House—The National Conventions of 1852 and the Finality of the Compromise Measures—The Deaths of Clay and of Webster, and the Appearance of a Free-soil Candidate—The Overwhelming Democratic Victory of 1852—The True Policy of the Slaveholders, and Their Failure to Discern It.
Down to the time of the enactment of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, it may be said that the slaveholders were acting, in a certain sense, on the defensive. Before 1787, slavery had been regarded as a temporary relation, demanded by the moral and intellectual degradation of the Africans, and by the necessities of the social structure in which Anglo-Saxon and negro were brought together. It had been considered that the rise of the negro in civilization, by his contact with the white race,would gradually change this relation in the direction of freedom. In fact it had done so, in a considerable degree. But the formation of the Constitution of 1787, the invention and use of the cotton-gin, the acquisition of Louisiana, and the general subsidence of the revolutionary spirit of the eighteenth century, were all unfavorable to further progress in this only proper and correct direction. Between 1830 and 1840, a strong retrogressive movement set in, as we have seen, provoked indeed, in a considerable degree, by the Abolition propaganda; and in consequence of it, the slaveholders abandoned the only moral principle upon which slavery could be justified, and began to adopt the idea of the permanency of the relation, and to undertake the adjustment of the laws, customs, institutions, and policies of the country to this idea. And, at last, by the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, they committed the whole country to this course. In a word, they made slavery by this law a national matter, and they did it from the property point of view of slavery, the point of view which exhibits it in its most hateful light, and from which no moral justification whatsoever for its existence can be found.
It is true that the Constitution commanded the return of fugitive slaves, and that the Supreme Court of the United States had interpreted the provision as vesting the power of executing this command in, and imposing the duty of its execution exclusively upon, the general Government, but it was a fatal policy for the slaveholders to insist upon the realization of this right through the general Government. In fact, it was a fatal policy to insist upon its realization at all. There was no way to effect it without requiring the aid of the North in the perpetuation of slavery. The attempt to effect it was, therefore, the assumption of an offensive attitude on the part of the slaveholders, an attitude which was bound toprovoke a general hostility to slavery throughout the North, instead of the indifference which had prevailed under the idea that slavery was an institution of the Southern Commonwealths, with which the North and the general Government had no concern. Calhoun and Rhett and Davis had seen this danger, and they were not supporters of a national fugitive slave law. They preferred to consider the matter of the rendition of fugitive slaves as a special compact between the "States," and treat its non-fulfilment as a rupture of the Union. Possibly, protected as their "States" were by the border slaveholding Commonwealths, they did not feel the necessity of such a law. At any rate, it was the border slaveholding Commonwealths which wanted the law.
The first apprehension of an escaped slave, under the new Act, was made in the city of New York. One James Hamlet, who had three years before left his mistress, Mary Brown, of Baltimore, was the victim. He had a wife and children in New York. He was surprised at his work, hastily tried, and delivered to Mrs. Brown's agent, who conducted him back to Baltimore. When the news of the event spread abroad it created great excitement among the negro population throughout the North, and great indignation on the part of the white citizens in many quarters.
It was calculated that there were from fifteen to twenty thousand escaped slaves living at that time in the non-slaveholding Commonwealths who were liable to apprehension under the law; and every person having any negro blood, whether escaped from slavery or not, felt the insecurity created by the law. Meetings of persons belonging to these classes were immediately held in Boston and New York, and resolutions were passed at them, praying the white people to move for the repeal of the law.
In answer, so to speak, to these appeals, mass-meetings of white people were held in Lowell, Syracuse, and Boston, at which the law was denounced, its repeal demanded, and aid pledged to the negroes in the North in resisting the execution of the law. Ministers of the Gospel, such as Beecher, Storrs, Furness, Spear, and Cheever, rained down denunciations upon the law from their pulpits, declared it to be in direct contravention of the law of God, and counselled resistance to its execution.
In the midst of this excitement two Georgia slaves, named William and Ellen Crafts, had succeeded in reaching Boston, and were concealed by some of the most high-toned people of that city, the Hillards, Lorings, and Parkers, from their pursuers, and aided in a successful escape to England. The first branch of the "Underground," established after the passage of the law, ran through very respectable quarters.
The lawyers, politicians, and statesmen now felt that it was high time for them to call the people back to the proper comprehension and observance of their constitutional duties. Clay, Webster, Cass, Douglas, Buchanan, Shields, Curtis, Choate, and many others, instructed the people, both in speeches and written articles, in regard to the constitutionality of the law, and their duty to obey its requirements. With this the tide of public opinion began to change, and the idea that it was the constitutional duty of the North to the South to secure the execution of the law began to prevail. Such was the state of feeling when the Congressional session of 1850-51 opened, on December 2nd.
In his message to Congress President Fillmore proclaimed his adherence to the Compromise Measures, as afinal settlement of the subjects to which they related, said that he believed the great mass of the American people sympathized with him, indicated that he would veto any measure for the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law, and declared that he would execute the laws to the utmost of his ability and to the extent of the power vested in him.
This bold and determined language on the part of the President, who had been considered in the North as personally hostile to the Fugitive Slave Law, took the North somewhat by surprise, painfully so in some quarters, while it was highly approved at the South. It undoubtedly contributed, ultimately and in large degree, to the suppression of the resistance in the North to the execution of the law. At the moment, however, it drew out some of the bitterest denunciations of the law which were ever pronounced.
Mr. Joshua R. Giddings, of Ohio, moved the reference of this part of the message to the Judiciary committee in the House of Representatives, and made a speech in support of his motion, which was an anti-slavery harangue of the most radical and violent character, and in the course of which he denounced the President and Mr. Webster in unmeasured language as apostates from principle and suitors for Southern favor. The reckless outburst of radical extravagance, although somewhat balanced by many points of sound sense, disgusted the House, and it voted down Mr. Giddings' motion by a large majority.
Petitions began now to flow into Congress for the repeal of the law. Generally they were laid upon the table, but more than once a fierce debate was opened, which threatened to precipitate another contest over the right of petition. It was about the time that the Senate was considering whatto do with one of these petitions, offered by Mr. Hamlin, of Maine, in February of 1851, that the news of the failure of the law in the Shadrach case reached Washington. Shadrach, claimed slave of John DeBree, of Norfolk, Va., was rescued by a negro mob, while held in custody in the court-house in Boston under a warrant from the United States Commissioner, Mr. George T. Curtis, and was spirited away to Canada. The mob seems to have had no difficulty in accomplishing its purpose.
The Senate, on motion of Mr. Clay, passed a resolution, on February 18th, 1851, calling upon the President for information concerning the failure of the law in the Shadrach case, and the means he had adopted to meet the occurrence, and asking the President if, in his opinion, further means should be placed at his disposal by Congress for enabling him to execute the laws with more success.
On the 21st, the reply of the President was received. It contained an account of the occurrence in Boston; a summary of the laws of the United States and of Massachusetts on the subject of confining United States prisoners in the jails of the Commonwealth, which demonstrated the fact that Massachusetts had forbidden the use of her jails and the aid of her officials in fugitive slave cases; a declaration of opinion that the President was authorized by the Constitution to use the regular army and navy, when, in his judgment, it was necessary for the suppression of violence and the execution of the laws, and without giving warning of his intention by any proclamation; and a suggestion to Congress to confirm this opinion by a positive act, which would include the militia as well as the regular army and navy, and would authorize a marshal or commissioner of theUnited States to summon an organized militia force as a part of the posse comitatus.
Mr. Clay immediately moved the reference of the communication to the Judiciary committee. This motion called out a three days debate in the Senate, during which it became manifest that the extremists, from both the North and the South, had little faith in the power of the Government to execute the law, and were unfavorable to the policy of using the military power in its execution. Mr. Chase and Mr. Hale, on the one side, and Mr. Butler, Mr. Davis, and Mr. Rhett, on the other, contended that the provision of the Constitution guaranteeing the rendition of fugitive slaves did not require a Congressional act, even if it authorized one. Mr. Davis said that he would see Massachusetts quit the Union rather than execute the law by military power within her limits. It was evident that these men were not anxious to have the law executed at all. Their motives for the same must have been very different, but it would hardly be an unfair speculation if one should imagine that the slaveholders were not averse to having the failure of the law for another count in their indictment against the Union.
The moderate men, however, of both the North and the South, claimed that the law was constitutional, that it was politic and necessary, that it had been successfully executed in a number of cases, that it could be executed in practically all cases, that it must be, even though it should require the whole military power of the country, and that the great mass of the people would sustain it as carrying out the pledges of the Constitution.
Mr. Clay's motion was finally unanimously voted, and, on March 3rd, two reports were presented to theSenate, one signed by all the members of the Judiciary committee except Mr. Butler, of South Carolina, and the other by Mr. Butler alone. The former expressed the opinion that the President already possessed full and adequate powers to execute the laws, and that no further legislation upon the subject was necessary. It also held that the organized military could be summoned and used by a civil officer as a part of the posse comitatus. Mr. Butler, while agreeing with the other members in recommending no further legislation for the execution of the law, denied that the President had the power from the Constitution to use the regular army and navy at his own discretion in suppressing insurrections and executing the laws, and held that the President could employ these forces for such purposes in the same manner only that he could employ the militia, that is, under the Congressional Acts of 1795 and 1807, which required, among other things, that a proclamation should precede the actual employment of military power in such cases.
Congress closed its session, on the next day, without having changed or modified the law, and without having given the President any additional means for its execution. The thoughts of men were turned again upon the incidents of its execution.
During the spring of 1851, several cases of slave apprehension occurred, the most exciting of which was that of Thomas Sims, claimed in Boston by Mr. James Potter, of Georgia. He was arrested by the City Marshal on the charge of having committed a larceny, and put under guard in the Court House. Charles G. Loring, Robert Rantoul, Jr., and Samuel E. Sewall, lawyers of much ability and men of high social standing, offered their services in defence of the negro. After applying to several judges of thesupreme court of the Commonwealth, without success, for a writ of habeas corpus, they finally obtained one from Judge Woodbury, and argued the case before him. The Judge finally refused to interfere with the possession of the negro by the United States Marshal. The United States Commissioner, Mr. George T. Curtis, then heard the case, and issued the certificate for the rendition of the fugitive to his master. In the early morning of the next day, the negro was conducted by three hundred armed policemen to the wharf and placed on board a vessel bound for Savannah. The vessel sailed safely out of port, and the Fugitive Slave Law was, at last, executed in Boston.