At this period Judge Jay was especially active with his pen. In 1839 was published his "View of the Action of the Federal Government in Behalf of Slavery." This work was the first effective exposure of the manner in which the United States Government had been used for many years by pro-slavery statesmen to carry out their own ends. Judge Jay showed the shameful position in which the National Government had been placed before the nations of the world when the President and his diplomaticrepresentatives were forced by the Slave Power to demand the return of fugitive slaves and compensation for their loss when shipwreck had allowed them to attain liberty on a foreign shore; when the armies of the United States were sent to Florida at enormous expense to capture alleged runaway private property; when the power of the Government was strained to prevent abolition in Cuba and to introduce slavery into Texas. The efforts to suppress the right of petition and freedom of debate in Congress were thoroughly described. An account, humiliating to every American, was given of the condition of the national capital itself, converted by the fostering protection of the United States Government into the chief slave-market of the Union.
Judge Jay's next publication was entitled, "On the Condition of Free People of Colour in the United States." He showed that they were denied the right to the franchise, to liberty of locomotion, to the lowest employment in the public service; that their education was impeded almost to prohibition and that even their industry was hampered by cruel restrictions. Worst of all, they might at any time be seized and sold into slavery without recourse to law. In 1840 appeared his pamphlet on "The Violation by the House of Representatives of the Right of Petition." These writings had a wide circulation among persons not reached by the ordinary antislavery literature, and their influence was highly beneficial.
Although the woman question was the ostensiblecause of the schism of 1840, there were several other differences which tended quite as much to divide the abolition camp. While the Garrison party continued to depend solely upon moral agitation and opposed all political effort, a numerous and powerful body in the antislavery ranks began to look to the ballot-box as the instrument of reform. In 1840, under the leadership of Gerrit Smith, Alvan Stewart, Myron Holley, Elizur Wright, Joshua Leavitt, and William Goodell, a convention at Albany organized the Liberty party by the nomination of James G. Birney, of Kentucky, for President, and of Thomas Earle, of Pennsylvania, for Vice-President. Out of a total of about two and a half million votes cast at this election, the candidates of the Liberty party received a little over seven thousand. W. H. Harrison, the whig candidate, defeated his democratic opponent, Martin Van Buren. Although the abolition vote was not large, it gave the party great encouragement, and an address was issued congratulating the friends of the slave that a new power to overthrow slavery had been found in "the terse literature of the ballot-box."
Judge Jay's attitude towards the formation of the Liberty party appears in a correspondence which took place between him and Gerrit Smith in July, 1840. "I suppose you have come, as well as myself," wrote Smith, "to the conclusion that whilst American slavery exists our national political parties will be essentially and irrevocably pro-slavery parties, andthat abolitionists cannot, therefore, vote consistently for the candidates of such parties. If you have come to this conclusion, you of course admit that we are under the necessity of designating our own candidates for law-makers and that the object of the Freeman's State Convention to be held in Syracuse the first Wednesday in August is proper. Now, when we come together in that convention there is one thing which, next to the blessing of Heaven, we shall need far more than any other. I mean your consent that we shall put you in nomination for governor. Will you enable me to insure the convention of that consent? If you will, you will in so doing render a very great service to our holy cause—a service which I see not how we can well dispense with. If there be anything selfish in your heart, we have, of course, nothing to address to it. We do not expect to elect you, and we are well aware that your nomination would expose you to pro-slavery ridicule and hatred. If you give your consent to the nomination, we know that such consent must proceed from your disinterested and self-sacrificing love for the antislavery cause. Do, my dear sir, give us your name; we can rally about it those who will be dead to the power of any other name."
To this strong appeal Jay gave the following reply:
"I was last evening favoured with your letter of the 20th inst. asking me to consent to be the abolition candidate for governor at the ensuing election. The request implies aconfidence in the strength and sincerity of my attachment for the abolition cause that demands my acknowledgments. I cannot now embrace the opportunity afforded by your letter of entering at large into the question of a distinct abolition party; but justice to myself and respect for you induce me to mention some general principles which I think applicable to the present case.
"An abolition political party supposes a union for the election of rulers without regard to the sentiments of the associates or their candidates on any other subject than that of slavery. Of course the party and the rulers elected by them may have the most opposite and irreconcilable opinions on every topic but one of local and national interest; yet it is supposed such discordant materials will form one homogeneous mass. Abolitionists give but little promise of such wonderful unity in the future. I doubt the practicability of forming such a party; and I moreover question whether such a party would be consistent with our obligations as citizens. It is evident that this party could effect its professed object, the abolition of slavery, only in a course of years, and in the meantime it isto neglect and disregard every other interest. The party as such can have no opinion and exert no influence either in elections or elsewhere in relation to the trade, the finances, internal improvements, foreign affairs, or the military power of the nation, and no inquiry is to be allowed into the opinions of candidates on these most important topics.
"I fear the very attempt to form such a party will prove injurious to the antislavery cause. It excites dissensions among ourselves. On this point I will not enlarge. It will present in its results a false and disheartening estimate of the number of abolitionists; because as many antislavery men will refuse to support the abolition candidates, the canvass will represent us as far less numerous than we really are.Moreover, the abolitionists who are thus called out of the political parties can of course exercise no more influence in them. We are depriving the parties of the little salt that keeps them from utter putrefaction. Had the whig abolitionists in the last Legislature been nominated by an abolitionist party they would not have been elected and we should not now have the glorious and blessed jury law.
"I have never approved under present circumstances of any further organized interference by abolitionists with elections than the official questioning of candidates. Under that system every abolitionist might exert a powerful influence merely by withholding his vote, without giving his suffrage for one to whom he was politically opposed. The experiment failed, but by whose fault? Seward and Bradish, Marcy and Tracy, dealt frankly with us. Yet abolitionists made but little difference between the friends and foes. Had Bradish had 20,000 votes more than Seward the conversion of our politicians to abolition would have been general and instantaneous, and slavery would have received an irremediable wound. And can we believe that if abolitionists would not then refrain from voting for the party, they will now consent to vote against it?
"I am very far from thinking that it can never be right and proper to set up abolition candidates without regard to party preferences. Had the question of emancipation been almost equally poised in the British Parliament it would have been patriotic to turn the scale by a temporary abandonment of the contested objects and the election of antislavery members. And so also I can readily conceive of circumstances in which it may be the duty of the abolitionists of a particular State or district to suspend for a time their labours for the slave in order to unite with the friends of temperance to carry some great point. But taking into consideration theexisting circumstances of the antislavery cause, I am not clear that the formation of an abolition political party, disregarding all the other interests of the country, is consistent with either duty or policy, and of course it becomes me to decline the request with which you have honoured me. May God enlighten and direct us, and when we cannot think alike may He give us the graces of meekness and charity."
CHAPTER VI.
JUDGE JAY CONTINUES TO SUPPORT THE ANTISLAVERY CAUSE BY HIS ADVICE AND WRITINGS.—IN CONSEQUENCE OF HIS OPINIONS HE IS DEPRIVED OF HIS SEAT ON THE BENCH.—HIS VISIT TO EUROPE.—HIS VIEWS ON THE LIBERTY PARTY.—ON THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS.—HIS "REVIEW OF THE MEXICAN WAR."—HIS ADVOCACY OF INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION AS A REMEDY FOR WAR.—HIS WORK IN THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH.
Afterthe division in the ranks of the antislavery societies in 1840, Judge Jay ceased to take an active part in their proceedings, preferring to support the cause independently by his writings. But he was continually applied to by the societies to assist them by his advice, to give legal opinions on the positions which they wished to take, and to prepare documents which required special judgment and ability.
In April, 1842, Jay prepared an address to the British Antislavery Society, at the request of Mrs. Lydia Maria Child, who wrote on behalf of the American Antislavery Society. A little later, again by request of Mrs. Child, he gave a legal opinion on the advisability of carrying to the Supreme Court the cases of three men who had been condemned inMissouri to twelve years' imprisonment for aiding slaves to escape.
He continued his membership in the American and Foreign Antislavery Society in New York. Here he laboured unceasingly to keep the society fast to its declared purpose, and to prevent it from adding new doctrines and objects which he believed must result in further divisions injurious to the cause.
In April, 1841, he wrote on this subject to Lewis Tappan:
"I am glad the society will not be concerned in establishing a missionary station in Africa. The great vice of our antislavery societies has been, and is, meddling with things they have no right to meddle with, and this they have done on a most vicious principle, that the end sanctifies the means. In general, abolitionists mean well; but they grievously mistake when they think themselves authorized to pursue, in their associated capacity, whatever benevolent or religious plan they individually approve. They unite for certain specified purposes, and receive money expressly to forward those purposes; and to employ their associated influence or their common funds for other distinct purposes is not, in my opinion, consistent with strict morality."
In August, 1841, Judge Jay was requested by the Executive Committee of the American and Foreign Antislavery Society to allow his name to be announced as a regular contributor to the society's organ, theReporter. He took this opportunity to repeat his warnings against the departure of the abolitionists from the line of action which they hadmarked out for themselves in the early days of the agitation.
"As an abolitionist I have deeply deplored the dissensions which have marred our harmony and almost annihilated our moral influence; and I have constantly and resolutely abstained, as far as my sense of duty would permit me, from aggravating those dissensions by partaking in them. The obvious tendency of theannouncementcontemplated by your resolution is to impress the public with the belief that the gentlemen who are held forth as the future contributors to theReportermaintain the principles and approve the course of that paper. Such an impression, so far as regards myself, would be most strictly accurate were the principles and course of the paper to continue such as they have hitherto been. To the American and Foreign Antislavery Society I did fondly look as a refuge for such abolitionists as had been expelled from the old society by the faithlessness of those who converted it into an instrument for spreading other than antislavery doctrines. I did, notwithstanding past experience, regard the constitution of the new society as affording a guarantee that its members would not be required to support any other principles and measures than such as were indicated in that instrument. In consequence of this belief I did not decline office in the society, and I aided in defraying the expenses and in filling the columns of theReporter. The paper was conducted with ability and honesty, promised to exert a happy influence in restoring peace and harmony to our ranks. The society was pledged by its constitution 'carefully to abstain from all the machinery of party political arrangements in effecting the objects,' and theReporterfaithfully conformed itself to this pledge. But in the very last number we are informed that at the last meeting a vote of the society,'nearly unanimous,' was taken in favour of striking this pledge from the constitution, but that inasmuch as the notice required by Article X. had not been given, the amendment was notconstitutionallyadopted. The pledge is therefore virtually, although not formally, withdrawn; and we have every reason to believe that at the next meeting it will be expunged from the constitution. It is therefore obvious that the society, instead of being a rallying point for abolitionists, is henceforth to be a mere partisan organization, excluding from its fellowship multitudes of honest, zealous, and consistent abolitionists because they cannot adopt the maxim now promulgated in certain quarters, that the friends of immediate emancipation should labour to secure for themselves all the loaves and fishes in the gift of the republic—the power and emoluments ofevery office, from that of President of the United States to that of Path Master of a ward district. The vote of the society just mentioned is tantamount to a declaration that it will as soon as possible employ all the machinery of party political arrangement for the exclusive elevation of abolitionists to political power. This is not an object for which I have associated with abolitionists, nor is it one in which I intend to co-operate with them. But theReporter, I am bound to believe, will be used as an instrument to effect this object, because I am bound to believe that the official organ of the society will not fail to advocate and pursue its avowed policy. Hence I cannot and ought not to give it in advance my confidence and countenance by complying with the request with which you have honoured me.
"I have thus frankly stated my sentiments without intending to impeach the motives of others, and without meaning to assume a hostile attitude towards the friends and supporters of what is denominated the Third party. With thatparty I cannot conscientiously and consistently unite, but I have purposely abstained from publicly mingling in the controversies to which it has given rise, and I have now expressed my dissent from it only because I could not otherwise explain my refusal of your polite invitation.
"In justice to myself, permit me to remark that my opinions on slavery and abolition have undergone no change, and that every principle I have ever avowed as an abolitionist is still cherished by me with no other difference than possibly a stronger conviction than formerly of its truth and importance.
"That we may all be guided by wisdom from above and be enabled not merely to break the bonds of the slaves, but in our conduct to adorn our Christian profession, is my fervent wish."
The antislavery societies, by the admission into their proceedings of projected reforms having no connection with their ostensible object, had gradually become divided and weakened. Jay had protested unceasingly against this course, but the tendency had been irresistible. "Our antislavery societies," he wrote in 1846, "are, for the most part, virtually defunct. Antislavery conventions are whatever the leaders present happen to be; sometimes disgustingly irreligious, and very often Jacobinical and disorganizing; and frequently proscriptive of such of their brethren who will not consent to render abolition a mere instrument for effecting certain political changes having no relation whatever to slavery."
The antislavery societies had accomplished the noble and seemingly hopeless task of arousing thenational conscience from its lethargy. Their labours had started and given irresistible impulse to a movement on behalf of the slave which was not to rest until emancipation was attained. But the active conduct of this movement was now passing from their hands into the domain of politics. The contest had become a national issue, to be fought out in legislative halls and to be determined at the polls.
In August, 1843, the national convention of the Liberty party was held at Buffalo. This convention was more largely attended than the first, every free State excepting New Hampshire having sent delegates. James G. Birney was again nominated for President, and Thomas Morris, of Ohio, for Vice-President. The canvass was carried on with great vigour and spirit. The Birney vote in 1843 showed a large increase, amounting to 60,000. It caused the election of Polk and gave to the abolitionists the balance of power in New York and Michigan.
Judge Jay had never considered himself as belonging to either the Whig or the Democratic party. He believed that his judicial position should debar him from active partisanship. Above all, his disapproval of the policy adopted by both political parties towards the slavery question disinclined him to be a member of either. His attitude towards the Liberty party, on its formation in 1840, was set forth in the letter written to Gerrit Smith declining the nomination for governor, which was quoted at length in the last chapter. Judge Jay then doubted the expediency ofa separate political party making abolition its article of faith and test of membership. But as events proceeded, as both the great parties seemed irrevocably pledged to the support of slavery, above all, as both favoured the annexation of Texas, Jay became a pronounced and active member of the Liberty party.
He viewed the annexation proceedings with horror, as the death-knell of emancipation and as a scheme of wicked injustice which must react injuriously upon the whole nation. In March, 1843, he wrote to Dr. H. J. Bowditch, of Boston: "The full and entire triumph of the antislavery cause is near and certain, provided that Texas is kept out of the Union. On this point are centred all my fears. I am not disheartened by the corruption of politicians, nor the deathlike apathy of the community, so long as we remain independent of the renegade republic. Give us time and we can arouse the community from its stupor, we can change public opinion, and politicians will bellow aloud for abolition the moment they find it popular. The danger is that before this change is effected the slaveholders will demand the annexation of Texas as the price of the presidency and that one or more of the candidates will consent to pay it."
When Birney was nominated in 1843, Jay wrote to Gerrit Smith: "I congratulate you upon this result. Birney is a man for whom Christians and patriots can consistently vote. He shall have my cordial support. In my opinion, the selection is creditable to the Libertyparty, and if it continues to give us candidates of this character, it will be a blessing to our country.... To that party I shall be true so far, and so far only, as it shall be true to itself. May God direct its measures for the protection of our own rights and for the ultimate liberation of the slave."
Judge Jay was as anxious that the Liberty party should keep faithfully to its antislavery purpose as he had been in the case of the antislavery societies. He believed that the party must end in failure if it allowed extraneous and dividing policies to be admitted to its platform. On this subject he wrote in September, 1845, to Henry B. Stanton, who had invited him to a convention in Boston:
"Notwithstanding the annexation of Texas, great good may result from the Liberty party, provided it be faithful to itself, and be wisely conducted. Hence I am distressed by whatever threatens to impair its integrity and usefulness. You are not ignorant, I presume, of the strenuous efforts now making to change its character and to convert it from an antislavery party into one for matters and things in general.
"It is proposed by men of talents, energy, and influence that the party shall in future maintain:
"That the Federal Government has the Constitutional power to abolish slavery in theStates.
"That the clergy shall be subject to all the burdens and enjoy all the privileges of other citizens. This is aimed at the clergy of New York who are not eligible to office, but exempted, to a great extent, from taxation. No man is hereafter to be acknowledged to belong to the Liberty party unlesshe objects to the State showing any indulgence to the ministers of religion. They must be enrolled in the militia, and, like others, called out to work on the highway.
"That custom-houses be abolished, and with them all protective duties.
"That the salaries of the President and Congressmen be reduced.
"That the legal profession is a privileged caste and should be abolished.
"That the public lands be given away.
"That all monopolies, by which I understand incorporated companies, banks, railroads, etc., be abolished.
"That women should exercise the right of suffrage and be eligible to office, etc., etc., etc.
"It is needless to say that if these tests of membership of the Liberty party be adopted, we shall drive from us all whose judgment or whose consciences revolt at them, while those who remain in the party will regard the removal of slavery as a very subordinate object of their labours. My purpose of troubling you with this letter is to suggest to you the expediency of the convention adopting a resolution in which, without alluding to the efforts making to change the character of the party, it shall declare that the sole objects of the party are the abolition of slavery, the deliverance of the Federal Government from its influence, and the elevation of the coloured race to equal rights with the whites; and inviting all who approve of those objects to co-operate with us, whatever may be their opinion on questions of State or national policy."
At the Liberty party convention held at Newburg in October, 1845, Judge Jay was unanimously nominated as a candidate for Senator. In his letteraccepting the nomination, he took occasion again to urge the exclusion of irrelevant subjects from the platform of the party.
"Recent circumstances induce me to accompany my acceptance of this nomination with some remarks. Attempts are making to render the Liberty party subservient to other objects than the overthrow of slavery and the elevation of the coloured people. To these attempts I can lend no aid. While I most explicitly accord to every abolitionist the right of expressing his own opinions on every political and religious subject, I as explicitly deny the right, and shall strenuously resist the attempt, to make me and other members responsible for opinions not necessarily involved in the great objects for the attainment of which the party was formed. In the pursuit of those objects I will cordially and honestly co-operate with others from whose sentiments I dissent; but I cannot co-operate with them in promoting religious and political changes which I believe to be wrong, in order to increase the influence and hasten the triumph of the Liberty party. To do so would be to act upon the principle, as wicked and detestable as slavery itself, that the end justifies the means. The fact that many good men who unite in abhorrence of slavery entertain conflicting views of the expediency and morality of various proposed reforms seems to me a sufficient reason why the Liberty party should not permit itself to be distracted by the other questions which agitate the community, and which in truth are of but little moment compared with the great evil with which we are struggling."
In 1846 Jay wrote again on this subject: "I shall leave the Liberty party whenever it makes abolitiona pack-horse to carry favourite measures unconnected with slavery, whether those measures are of whig or democratic origin."
Early in the year 1843 the antislavery opinions and labours of Judge Jay caused the loss of his seat on the bench of Westchester County, which he had occupied for more than twenty-five years with such general approval as to cause his steady reappointment term after term by governors of the State who were his political opponents. The circumstances of his removal are described in a letter which he wrote to Mr. Minot Mitchell, in May, 1843:
"I thank you for your friendly letter in relation to my removal from the bench. The loss of an office which I had held for about a quarter of a century (and which I had contemplated resigning in the course of the present year) is not a matter of personal regret. My motive in holding for so long a time a situation which subjected me to no little inconvenience and yielded no emolument was a desire to be useful, and a belief that I could exert on the bench a wholesome moral influence. How far that belief was well founded is for others to decide. To myself, it is grateful to know that my official conduct, whatever mistakes I may have made, has been pure, unbiased by personal partialities, and uninfluenced by any fear except that of my Maker.
"To the gentlemen of the Westchester bar generally, as well as to yourself in particular, I am deeply indebted for the uniform kindness and courtesy with which I have been treated; and had I known at the December term that we were not to meet again, I would have embraced the opportunity of publicly acknowledging my obligations to them, and of bidding them an affectionate farewell.
"Under the circumstances of the case, it would be an affectation of humility to ascribe my loss of office to any dissatisfaction with my official conduct on the part of the bar or the public. TheNew York Plebeian, amid all its vituperative clamour for my dismissal, does not even hint a charge against me as a judge, and the editor of theWestchester Herald, notwithstanding his blind devotion to his party, bears a flattering testimony to my ability as a 'jurist,' and admits that my 'moral worth' is not questioned, as he believes, 'by any man in the country.'
"Nor have I been proscribed on account of my political opinions. Those opinions belong to the old Washington school—I have never concealed them; and they are the same now as they were when I received office from Governors Tompkins, Clinton, Throop, and Marcy, and when President Jackson tendered to me an important and lucrative appointment.
"For twenty years or more I have had no connection with party politics, and have attended no party meeting. It appeared to me unbecoming a judge to be a political partisan; and I, moreover, observed so much profligacy, venality, and hypocritical profession in both parties, that I could not conscientiously identify myself with either. I have for years voted for those I believed to be the most honest of the candidates offered for my suffrage, without regard to the party dogmas they professed.
"That the people of Westchester had lost their confidence in me and wished me to descend from the bench is not pretended. On the contrary, I have the most abundant and gratifying proofs of the correctness of your remark, that my removal has occasioned in the county, with all political parties, unusual dissatisfaction and complaint.
"If, then, my removal has been effected contrary to the wishes of the county, and not because I lacked in ability orintegrity, nor even on account of my politics, it becomes a matter of public interest to inquire with what motives and with what views the chief magistrate of New York dispenses the patronage intrusted to him by the constitution for the good of the State.
"Governor Bouck has, in this instance, as in another far more important, only acted as the instrument of a faction which, while prating aboutequal rights, is ever ready and eager to barter the welfare, honour, and freedom of the North for Southern votes.
"You may recollect that previous to my last appointment I was permitted to hold over for a year after my term of office had expired. This extraordinary delay in filling a vacancy on the bench was not the result of accident or inadvertency. It arose from doubts entertained by the leaders at Albany whether the party would gain more at the South than it would lose in Westchester by my removal. Mr. Van Buren was then a candidate for the presidency, and I was shown a confidential letter from one of his particular friends at Albany to an influential democrat of this county, discussing the expediency of my removal. The letter was put into my hands by the gentleman to whom it was addressed. It was admitted by the writer that my conduct as a judge was irreproachable, and that there were no other objections to my reappointment than my antislavery sentiments. My only fault in the eyes of this champion of equal rights was that I was opposed to converting men and women into beasts of burden. Still, he was apprehensive that my removal forsucha cause might savour of persecution forabstract opinions; in other words, might be unpopular; and he wished to know what the party in Westchester deemed most expedient. After a year's deliberation and hesitation, I was reappointed. Mr. Van Buren is again a candidate, butnowhe has a Southern democrat for a competitor;and his party in the State being so strong that he can well afford to risk a little dissatisfaction in Westchester, it is deemed prudent to propitiate the demon of slavery by offering a victim, however humble, on his altar. ThePlebeian, devoted to Mr. Van Buren's election, avowed with unblushing frankness that my reappointment would be calculated to prejudice the Democratic party 'in the eyes of our Southern brethren.'
"Thus, it seems that in order to elevate Mr. Van Buren to the presidency the magistrates of the free, sovereign, and independent State of New York are to be selected with reference to the good pleasure of Southern slaveholders.
"Pardon, my dear sir, the egotism of this letter. I have been compelled to speak of myself in order to expose the canting profligacy of our demagogues, and to illustrate one of the numberless accursed influences of slavery. This abhorred system, which in the South makes merchandise of the souls and bodies of men, is at the same time trafficking in the politics, the religion, and the liberties of the North, and putrefying whatever it touches. Against this system I have contended, as did my father before me, and the leisure Governor Bouck has given me shall be faithfully devoted to a continuance of the warfare."
The "leisure" given to him by Governor Bouck had first to be used by Jay in an attempt to restore his health, which for several years had been failing. In the autumn of 1843 he determined upon a visit to Egypt, and on the 1st of November he sailed from New York in the "Victoria," of 1100 tons, accompanied by his wife and his daughters Maria and Augusta. After a short visit to London, the party sailed fromSouthampton for Malta in the "Great Liverpool" of the Oriental Line, with passengers and mail bound to India. At Malta Jay was interested in meeting the famous wit, scholar, and diplomatist, John Hookham Frere, who entertained him at his house outside the walls of the city.
While in England, Jay had been requested by John Beaumont, on behalf of the British and Foreign Antislavery Society, to take charge of a quantity of antislavery tracts printed in the Arabic language, and to insure their distribution. After his arrival in Cairo, Jay gave packages of the tracts to several persons whose facilities for distributing them in Egypt were greater than his own. Others he disposed of himself. "During the short time I was in Egypt," he said in a letter, "I distributed tracts in the slave market, in the bazaars, in a public coffee-house, in the hotels, and to persons in the streets." And he was much struck with the fact that what he could do peacefully in Egypt, in a portion of his own country would have endangered his life.
On his return home, Jay visited Paris, and while there communicated to the Duc de Broglie the motives of the Southern statesmen in seeking the annexation of Texas, and made no secret of his hope that France would oppose the proceedings.[C]
The events leading up to the annexation of Texas and the Mexican War were followed by Jay with the closest attention. The injustice and cruelty with which Mexico was treated throughout these proceedings by the United States Government excited his warmest indignation. He was deeply grieved at events which seemed to postpone indefinitely the emancipation of the slaves; his fears were aroused for the security of free institutions in the North by the great impetus given to the Southern spirit of domination. But above all he felt the disgrace incurred by his own country in forcing upon a weak and friendly power a desolating war for the sole object of wresting from it a territory to be peopled by slaves. The result of Jay's minute knowledge of this dark page in American history was embodied in a volume entitled "A Review of the Causes and Consequences of the Mexican War," which was publishedin 1849. In this searching "Review" Jay exposed the parentage of the movement for the acquisition of Texas in the desire of the South to extend the territory devoted to slavery, with the twofold object of creating a new market for slave-breeders and of giving to the slave States an overwhelming control of Congress. He traced the devious paths of intrigue by which a rebellion was fomented in Texas by Americans settled there for that express purpose; the encouragement and aid given secretly to the rebels by the United States; the recognition of their independence; and finally the subterfuges adopted to achieve the annexation in violation of international rights and the Constitution itself. Jay set forth plainly the fact that hostilities were begun by the United States troops; he described the military operations by which a weak and defenceless people were reduced to consent to a dismemberment of their country; he showed the enormous cost in life and money involved in this war undertaken to furnish a new market for slaves and new power to slaveholders. Jay's "Review of the Mexican War" is a contribution to the history of the country which students cannot afford to pass unread. The views expressed in it are painful to patriotism for the reason that they are dictated by the pure patriotism which would make known the whole truth as a warning to posterity.
The book on the Mexican War was written originally for the American Peace Society, which had offered a prize for the best work on the subject. Thecommittee appointed to pass judgment on the dissertations presented in competition awarded the prize to Jay's book on condition that he should expunge from it all "general censures on the Whig party." Jay refused to comply with this condition and the prize went to another. But the Peace Society recognized that the value of Jay's book lay in its impartial character and caused it to be published as the exposition of the society's views.
As nearly all the newspapers of both parties had supported the war, they were loth to notice a book which placed the object of their encomiums in so unpleasant a light. But many private letters were received by Jay which showed him that he had the approval of the best minds. Joshua R. Giddings wrote: "Thanks be to Him who rules the destiny of nations that we have among us competent and faithful men who possess the moral courage to stand forth and chronicle, in the language of truth, the barbarities of which the nation is guilty. The history of this age will speak to those who come after facts which will cause our descendants to blush. Your 'Review of the Mexican War' is faithful and just.... In writing it you have performed a service to your country and to mankind infinitely greater than was ever performed by any military officer."
"Every portion of it," wrote Charles Francis Adams, "commands my unqualified assent. That in the course of God's providence good may be ultimately educed out of evil is the only compensating reflectionwhich we can draw from the observation of so much wrong. It may be that out of the very measures so wickedly devised to sustain a system of crime may come the means by which it will be overthrown. That your book will do great service in combining and perpetuating the evidence bearing upon this portion of American history, I do not for a moment doubt. It is my profound conviction that there never was a more wicked and unjustifiable war, promoted by one party and connived at by the other, than the late war with Mexico."
The prevention of war was a subject which had occupied the mind of Judge Jay for a number of years. The result of his reflections was that system of international arbitration which has become since his death so efficacious a method of settling international disputes. A pamphlet entitled "War and Peace: the Evils of the First and a Plan for Preserving the Last" was still in manuscript in his desk when, in 1841, Joseph Sturge, the celebrated English philanthropist, visited Bedford. Jay read the pamphlet to Sturge, who was so much struck by the work that he embodied a portion of it in a book which he published on his return to England. The views of Jay attracted the attention of the English Peace Society, who published the whole pamphlet in London in 1842. Jay's plan for the prevention of war was exceedingly simple. It provided that a stipulation should be made in every treaty that future international differences should be referred first to arbitration,to attempt a peaceful settlement. The idea was heartily approved by Cobden, who wrote to Judge Jay: "If your government is prepared to insert an arbitration clause in the pending treaties I am persuaded that it will be accepted by our government." The scheme of arbitration thus proposed by Jay, and supported by Joseph Sturge and his friends of the English Peace Society, was approved by peace congresses held in Brussels in 1848, in Paris in 1849, and in London in 1851. Having thus attracted general attention, it was recommended by protocol No. 23 of the Congress of Paris held in 1856 after the Crimean War, which protocol was unanimously adopted by the plenipotentiaries of France, Austria, Great Britain, Prussia, Russia, Sardinia, and Turkey. These governments declared their wish that the States between which any serious misunderstanding might arise should, before appealing to arms, have recourse, as far as circumstances might allow, to the good offices of a friendly power. The honour of the introduction of this measure in the first Congress belongs to Lord Clarendon, whose services had been solicited by Joseph Sturge and Henry Richard. It was subsequently referred to by Lord Derby as worthy of immortal honour. Lord Malmsbury pronounced it an act "important to civilization and to the security of the peace of Europe." The protocol was afterwards approved by all the other powers to which it was referred, more than forty in number. The plan thus suggested by Judge Jay for the prevention of war bore fruit duringhis life, and was destined in after-years to become established in the mind of the civilized world as the true remedy for the greatest scourge of nations.[D]
Judge Jay was an earnest and active member of the Episcopal Church, but he was never blind to its imperfections. He deplored as much as any man the countenance given by the church to slavery, but he believed that reformation must and would come from within. He had no sympathy with the "come-outers." Concerning them he wrote in 1846: "Infidelity is now vigorously availing itself of the conduct of the clergy in relation to this subject to assail the blessed religion of which they are the ministers. A sect is forming who profess to believe that the church is so corrupted by slavery that good men are required to separate from her. These people call themselves 'come-outers.' Lecturers are enlisted in their service, and the clergy, as identified with the cause of human bondage, are daily held up to public detestation as heartless hypocrites." Jay would not deny the justice with which the attacks on the clergy were made, and he laboured to place the church where it belonged, in the front rank of the great humanitarian movement. To his efforts were largely due the admission of coloured clergy to the conventions of the church, and the gradual abolition of that spirit of caste which prevented a white clergyman from recognizing a black one as fit to deliberate with him onmatters relating to their common religion. To destroy this race hatred, so contrary to the spirit of Christianity, and to arouse the church to its duty of active opposition to slavery, were Jay's constant endeavours in the conventions of the church. His pen also was frequently occupied with the same subject. His "Letter to Bishop Ives" of North Carolina was a severe yet just arraignment of clergymen who justified slavery from the Scriptures, and it exposed the wickedness of their course in language and with arguments to which they and their sympathizers were unable to reply.
When a "History of the American Church," by Samuel Wilberforce, was published in England, there was naturally in America much curiosity to see the work. Two American publishers announced their intention of reprinting it. But time passed and no reprint appeared. The explanation is given in the words of Jay: "The author of the 'History' in the course of his work advances certain doctrines on the subject of 'slavery' and of 'caste in the church' which it is thought inconvenient to discuss, and which cannot be admitted in this republic without sealing the condemnation of almost every Christian sect among us and overwhelming our own church with shame and confusion. There are, it is to be feared, but few among our twelve hundred clergymen who, on reading the 'History,' would not find their consciences whispering, 'Thou art the man,' and who would not be anxious to conceal the volume from their parishioners. Henceits suppression." Jay was determined that the truths regarding the Episcopal Church in America set forth by the celebrated Dr. Wilberforce should not be quite unattainable by the clergy and laity especially concerned. In 1846 he caused those passages of the "History" relating to slavery to be printed, and introduced them with forcible remarks of his own in the pamphlet entitled "A Reproof of the American Church by the Bishop of Oxford."
William Jay
William Jay
CHAPTER VII.
UNPOPULARITY OF THE ABOLITIONISTS.—THE COMPROMISES OF 1850 AND THE FUGITIVE-SLAVE LAW.—JAY'S REPLY TO WEBSTER'S 7th OF MARCH SPEECH.—THE ATTITUDE OF THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH.—THE ABROGATION OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE.—DISUNION.
Theprospect was dark for the antislavery cause in 1850. Its friends had increased steadily in numbers and in earnestness. But the Slave Power had mustered all its forces in an aggressive campaign which aimed to make slavery a national instead of a local institution, to introduce it into territory hitherto free, and to browbeat the North into submission to every demand of the slaveholder. The compromise measures adopted this year in Congress—above all, the Fugitive-Slave Law—marked the successful advance of arrogant Southern dictation. In the North, the dislike of antislavery men and the willingness to satisfy the South at the expense of conscience was expressed in such scenes as the attack of the Rynders mob on the meeting of the American Antislavery Society in New York and the passive attitude towards it adopted by the authorities. Although the plan of putting down the abolitionists by force had provedimpracticable, no efforts were spared to make their lives uncomfortable by the attacks of the press and by the pressure of social disapproval. "Our politicians," wrote Jay to Charles Sumner, "may pride themselves on their adroitness in pandering to popular prejudices, and in acquiring power and influence by seasonable changes of opinion and conduct. But a day is coming when their motives and actions will be judged by a very different tribunal than public opinion, and when a single act of benevolence, a single sacrifice of personal consideration to the cause of truth, will outweigh a whole life of obsequiousness and political trickery.
"The truths we advocate are unpalatable to the two extremes of society. We shock the coarse, vulgar prejudices of the rabble, while the disinterested benevolence we profess is to them an enigma to be solved only by the imputation of fanaticism. At the same time we disturb the tranquil consciences of the rich, thwart the calculations of politicans, and interrupt the harmony subsisting between our merchants and their Southern customers. Hence the upper classes look upon us as impertinent and exceedingly ungenteel, and unfit to move in the higher circles. I cannot tell how far your personal experience coincides with mine, butIknow whereof I affirm. I have advanced no ultra-fanatical doctrines in politics or religion. On the subject of slavery I have but reiterated the opinions of many of the best and greatest men in England and in our own country. I have advocated no congressionalaction except such as Mr. Webster, in his better days, pronounced constitutional, and I have condemned all forcible resistance to the Fugitive-Slave Law. Yet solely on account of my antislavery efforts, I find myself nearly insulated in society."
The Compromise measures of 1850 were repulsive and disheartening to the antislavery men in the North. And no circumstance connected with them was more discouraging than the change of front made by Daniel Webster—his abandonment of the Wilmot Proviso and his concession to the Southern demand for the extension of slavery into the new territory acquired by the Mexican War. Webster's speech of the 7th of March was answered by Judge Jay in a letter to theEvening Postof March 20th, and was afterwards published as a pamphlet and widely circulated. In this letter Jay recalled the eloquent and positive declaration of Webster made in the Senate on August 10, 1848, after New Mexico and California had been acquired:
"My opposition to the increase of slavery in this country, or to the increase of slave representation, is general and universal. It has no reference to the lines of latitude or points of the compass. I shall oppose all such extension at all times and under all circumstances, even against all inducements, against all supposed limitation of great interests, against all combinations, against all compromises."
These words were contrasted by Jay with Webster's present excuse for abandoning opposition to the extension of slavery on the ground that the laws of"physical geography" made slavery impossible in the new territory and to forbid its existence there was merely "to re-enact the will of God."
"To what," asked Jay, "did this solemn, emphatic, unqualified asservation refer? Did he then know that there was a foot of territory in the United States over which it was morally and physically impossible to extend slavery? Was he promising in these impressive terms to oppose what he was conscious would never be attempted? Did he make this pledge before his country with a mental reservation to unite hereafter with General Cass and the slaveholders in denouncing and scorning the Proviso? Did he mean to deceive his own party? Did he desire to keep up an angry agitation throughout the nation for electioneering purposes, and did he thus intimate his belief in the danger of the extension of slavery and slave representation, when he well knew that the fiat of the Almighty had rendered such extension impossible? Was he then acquainted with the law of physical geography which would render the Proviso 'a re-enactment of the will of God?' And did he purposely conceal the secret of this law in his own breast, when by revealing it he might have stilled the raging billows of popular passion which threatened to ingulf the Union? To suppose all this would be to impute to Mr. Webster a degree of trickery and turpitude rarely paralleled even among politicians. Hence we are bound to assume that the law of nature on which henowrelies is a recent discovery, subsequent at least to the 10th August, 1848. It is, however, extraordinary that a gentleman of his acquirements did not sooner become acquainted with 'this law of physical geography—the law of the formation of the earth, that settles forever, beyond all terms of human enactment, that slavery cannot exist in California or New Mexico.' It is to be regrettedthat Mr. Webster did not condescend to demonstrate the existence of this law and to explain the mode of its operation. He indeed tells us that our new territories are 'Asiatic in their formation and scenery'; but this fact does not prove his law, since slavery has existed for ages amid the scenery of Asia; it exists in the deserts of Africa, has existed in every country of Europe, and now exists in the frozen regions of Russia. This law, moreover, must have been enacted by the Creator since 1824, or its operation must have been suspended in deference to the Spanish government; for under that government negro slavery did exist in California and New Mexico, and it ceased in 1824, not by the 'law of physical geography,' but by a Mexican edict. Thousands of slaves are employed in the mines of Brazil, and Mr. Webster does not explain how his law forbids their employment in the mines of California....
"He pays a sorry compliment to the common sense of the people in offering to them at the eleventh hour a new and unheard-of law of 'physical geography,' together with the 'Asiatic scenery and formation' of the conquered territories, as anexcusefor violating the faith he had plighted in behalf of the Proviso. He has shocked the moral sense of a large portion of the community by giving in advance his sanction to the Fugitive-Slave Law, which makes the liberty or bondage of a citizen depend on the affidavit of a slaveholder and the judgment of a post-master—a law which converts sympathy for guiltless misery into crime, and threatens to tenant our jails with our most estimable men and women. But Mr. Webster underrates the intelligence and sensibilities of the masses. Relying on the Southern affinities of our commercial cities, on the subserviency of politicians, on the discipline of party, and on his own great influence, Mr. Webster looksdownupon the people; but the time is probably not far distant when the people will cease to look up to him. Partieswill accept of any leaders who can acquire for them the spoils of the day, but in the political history of our country the people have never placed their affections upon any man in whose stability and consistency they did not confide."
To give such assistance as he could to a fugitive slave had always been regarded by Judge Jay as a duty. "The slaveholders," he had written, "with their accustomed impudence and mendacity, apply the termtheftto the humane and Christian efforts to assist a slave in escaping from his home of bondage. In their sense of the expression, I glory in being a slave-stealer, and I inculcate upon my children the duty, the Christian duty, of this kind of theft." He had sheltered and aided many runaways at his home at Bedford, and his will contained a bequest of a thousand dollars to be used for this purpose. His son John gave his services as a lawyer constantly and successfully to prevent the return of fugitive slaves.
When the Fugitive-Slave Bill became a law Judge Jay was applied to by many individuals, societies, and periodicals to give his views concerning it. "The law," he said in a private letter, "is an outrage upon the Constitution of our country and the precepts of our religion. It is a burlesque on justice and on all the acknowledged rules of evidence in the trial of issues. The demand it makes upon individual citizens to aid in hunting and enslaving their fellow-men is diabolical. I have made up my mind to suffer imprisonment and the spoiling of my goods rather than hazard my soul by rendering any active obedience tothis sinful law. It is horrible that so many of our fashionable cotton divines are now preaching up the supremacy of human law and virtually dethroning Him whose ambassadors they profess to be."
"In my opinion, every Northern slave-catcher is a base man, and every lawyer who takes reward against the innocent is a disgrace to a noble profession. I myself shall offer no forcible resistance against the execution of this most wicked law, but I trust that, through the grace of God, I would go to the scaffold sooner than obey it."
Concerning the constitutionality of the law, Judge Jay wrote to Josiah Quincy: "The fugitive-slave clause in the Constitution is of course obligatory, but there is a wide distinction between the fugitive-slaveclauseand the fugitive-slavelaw. The Constitution gives no power to Congress to legislate on the subject, but imposes on the States the obligation of rendition. Chief-Justice Hornblower, of New York, and Chancellor Walworth, of New York, long since pronounced the fugitive law of '93 unconstitutional on this very ground."
The demoralization caused by the execution of the law was described by Jay in a letter to Gerrit Smith: "It is scoundrelizing our people. Cruelty and injustice are cultivated as virtues, Christian love and sympathy with human suffering are treated as prejudices to be conquered, and zeal in hunting slaves is made the test of patriotism and of fitness for office. But the most diabolical effect of the law is the competition ithas excited among our politicians to offer the blood of their fellow-citizens in exchange for Southern votes."
To a committee of free coloured men who asked Judge Jay's advice regarding the propriety of arming themselves to prevent being kidnapped under the law, he said: "Most deeply do I sympathize with you in your unhappy state. With your wives and children, you are now placed at the disposal of any villain who is ready to perjure himself for the price you will bring in the human shambles of the South. With less ceremony and trouble than a man can impound his neighbour's ox, you may be metamorphosed from a citizen of the State of New York into a beast of burden on a Southern plantation. On leaving your house in the morning you may be enticed into another, where one of the newly appointed commissioners, after reading one affidavit, made a thousand miles off, and another that you are the person named in the first, or on the bare oath of the kidnapper himself, may inform you, to your amazement and horror, that you are aslave. The fetters previously prepared are placed on your limbs, and in a few minutes you are travelling with railroad velocity to a Southern market. Never again will you behold your wife and children, nor will any tidings from them ever reach your ear. The remainder of your life is to be one of toil and stripes.... Yet," he continued, "leave, I beseech you, the pistol and the bowie-knife to Southern ruffians and their Northern mercenaries. Thatthis law will lead to bloodshed I take for granted, but let it be the blood of the innocent, not of the guilty. If anything can arouse the torpid conscience of the North, it will be our streets stained with human blood shed by the slave-catchers."
The Fugitive-Slave Law, in Jay's opinion, was the natural sequence to the attempt to put down the antislavery movement by force: "For years, most strenuous efforts, prompted by commercial and political views, were made to deprive the opponents of slavery of their constitutional privileges by lawless violence. The right of petition was suspended, the freedom of debate interrupted, the sanctity of the post-office violated, public meetings dispersed, printing-presses destroyed, furious mobs excited, churches sacked, private houses gutted, and even murder perpetrated. All this violation of rights was regarded with complacency by many who had much at stake, so long as abolitionists alone were the victims. But the spirit of aggression thus raised and fostered is seeking new subjects on which to exercise its power. 'Gentlemen of property and standing' are now beginning to feel alarmed about socialism, anti-rentism, agrarianism, etc. Hence, of late we hear much of the importance of conservatism, as it is called. The political movements of the last few months seem to indicate that our landlords and cotton lords and merchant princes regard an alliance with the aristocracy of the South as at least in some degree a security against the violation of vested rights, sequestration of rents, oppressivetaxation, unequal laws, etc. To the influence of gentlemen of this class the late slave law owes its passage.
"And is it indeed believed that the rights of the rich will be protected by familiarizing the populace with the practice of injustice and cruelty towards the poor? Will the sight of innocent men seized in our streets and sent in fetters to till the broad fields of great landowners increase the reverence felt for land titles? Is it wise to give the people practical lessons in the demolition of all the barriers raised by the common law for the protection of the weak against the strong? Is it true conservatism to obliterate in the masses the sense of justice, the feelings of humanity, the distinction between right and wrong?"
The tacit support given to slavery by the Episcopal Church at large and the active support given to it by many individual clergymen was a source of constant grief to Judge Jay and a frequent subject of his thoughts. "You well know," he wrote to Joseph Sturge, "what a mighty effort has been made by our Northern traders in Southern votes and merchandise, under the leadership of Daniel Webster, to roll back the antislavery tide. To a certain extent they have succeeded. The commercial interest in the great towns, through a rivalry for the Southern trade, has professed great alacrity in slave-catching, and political aspirants for office under the Federal Government find it expedient to make slave-hunting the test of patriotism. But the religious feeling of the commonalty—thatis, of those who are not pre-eminently gentlemen of property and standing—is shocked by the enormous cruelty and injustice of the fugitive law. To overcome this feeling, which in its demonstrations is exceedingly inconvenient to our merchants and office-seekers, the clergy have been urged by the press and other agencies to come out in support of the law—in other words, to give the sanction of the gospel of Christ to the enslavement of innocent men. Some pastors who preach in fine churches to rich and fashionable city congregations have complied. You must understand that many of our brokers, merchants, lawyers, and editors were exceedingly scandalized by the opposition of religious people to this vile law, and they have trembled for the honour of our holy religion when some of its professors contended that an impious law was not binding on the conscience."
The position of the church was strongly stated by Jay in a letter to Rev. Hiram Jelliff: "It is one of the most melancholy circumstances of the condition of the coloured people that so many of the ministers of the Lord Jesus Christ are among their most influential enemies. The church of the living God is the great buttress of slavery and caste in the United States. If any plea can be urged in behalf of infidelity, it is that Christianity as represented by multitudes of its official teachers authorizes the abrogation of all its precepts of humility, justice, and benevolence in the treatment of persons to whom God has given a coloured skin. Look at the conventions ofNew York and Pennsylvania excluding ministers and disciples of the crucified Redeemer merely because they are poor and despised! I confess, my dear sir, that were I a young man, with no early religious impressions and about to decide on the truth or falsehood of revelation, I fear I should be strongly tempted to believe that a religion such as it is practically exhibited by your cotton-parsons could not and did not proceed from a just and benevolent being. I have had great opportunities of knowing the effect produced by the countenance given to slavery and caste by the church on the faith of many kind-hearted and conscientious people, and in all sincerity I declare that our pro-slavery clergy, our negro-hating clergy, our slave-catching clergy, are the most successful apostles of infidelity in the country. I write thus freely to you because your course is in direct opposition to those I condemn. The Saviour eat, drank, and lodged with the Samaritans, who were the negroes of Judea, a despised, degraded caste, from whom a Jew disdained to receive even a cup of water.... May God bless and reward your labours."
Occupying, as Judge Jay did, a position of leadership in both the Episcopal Church and the antislavery movement, it was to him that men most frequently turned for advice on subjects relating to the connection between the church and slavery. From mature minds, such as that of Senator Salmon P. Chase, from divinity students and young men contemplating connection with a religious body, cameinquiries regarding the duty of joining the church or of remaining a member. To a young man Jay wrote in 1854: "I shall say nothing of the claims of the Episcopal Church as arising from her doctrines, forms, and government, except that I know of no church which, judgedby its authorized standards, is more scriptural and more conducive to holiness in this life and to salvation in the next. You desire to enter this church but have not been able to overcome the objection arising from its connection with slavery, and would like to know, for your information, how I reconcile my continuance in this church with my antislavery opinions. Assuredly I could not belong to a church which exacted of its members an admission of the lawfulness of human bondage. Of such a sin and folly the Episcopal Church is guiltless. No sanction of slavery can be found in any of her standards, and hence I can very consistently hold the doctrines of the church and join in its prayers and rites and at the same time regard American slavery as the sum of all villainies. There are in the church slaveholding bishops, clergymen, and communicants,plenty of them. But I am not responsible for their presence.... There never has been, and I suppose there never will be, a widely extended church without unworthy pastors and members. Apurechurch composed of fallible and sinful men is a figment of the imagination.... Many popish doctrines and practices are occasionally advocated by our Puseyites. But I, as a private member of the church, am in no degree responsible for theheresies of Puseyism nor the more disgusting heresies of cotton-divinity.... In my opinion, in nine cases out of ten an antislavery Christian can do more good to his own soul, to the cause of Christ, and to the interests of the slave by remaining in his church and there battling for truth and justice, than by going in search of a pure church. It often happens when an abolitionist abandons an alleged pro-slavery church he finds no other that suits him. Hence the public worship of God and the Sacraments are neglected. Gradually he and his family learn to live without God in the world, and finally enter upon that broad road which leads to destruction."
The position assumed by the Episcopal Church towards the rights and elevation of the blacks was indicated by the refusal of the Diocesan Council of New York to admit the coloured church of St. Philip, although the parish was constitutionally entitled to be represented and her minister and delegates were entitled to seats and votes. Judge Jay opposed earnestly a majority report from a committee on the question of their admission, which contended that the applicants belonged to a race "socially degraded, and improper associates for the class of persons who attend our conventions." Such an apology for the violation of the constitutional rights ordained by the State, and such a presentation of the theological views entertained by the committee on the unity of the church and the catholic brotherhood of its members, was not calculated to strengthen the oppositionto St. Philip's; and the Christian world breathed more freely when, after a nine years' struggle to obtain a vote on the question maintained by Judge Jay and his son, the coloured parish was admitted by a large majority of both orders.
In 1854 Southern aggression had nearly reached its culminating point. The Missouri Compromise was abrogated; the Kansas-Nebraska Bill threw open to slavery an immense territory hitherto free, under the subterfuge invented by General Cass and Senator Douglas of "popular sovereignty." Slavery was thus to extend over the vast regions in the centre of the continent. An indefinite number of new slave States were to be admitted into the Union, which would give the control of the Senate, and consequently of all legislation, forever to the Slave Power.
In February, 1854, Judge Jay received an invitation to address the Anti-Nebraska Convention of the Free Democracy of Massachusetts. His age and health prevented a journey to Boston, but he wrote to the committee of invitation as follows:
"It is meet and right that the stupendous iniquity now about to be perpetrated should be resisted by the true-hearted citizens of that State which, more than any other in the confederacy, has debauched the moral sentiment of the nation and prepared the community for submission to the most insolent usurpation yet attempted by the Slave Power. The present effort to extend the dominion of the whip to the northern limits of the United States is the legitimate consequence of the disastrous and disgraceful concessions of 1850. Thoseconcessions were effected more through the ability and labours of the late distinguished senator from Massachusetts than of any of his coadjutors. Mr. Webster, avowing the entire constitutionality of the Wilmot Proviso and having voted for it in relation to Oregon, objected to its application to the newly conquered territories on the ground that theirAsiatic sceneryandgeographical conformationrendered itphysically impossiblefor negro slavery ever to exist in them. Unhappily for his novel and extraordinary theory, numerous slaves were at the time he spoke held in California.... Slaves are at this day held in New Mexico.
"Mr. Webster, in giving his earnest and cordial support to the atrocious Fugitive-Slave Act, candidly acknowledged on the floor of the Senate that in 'his judgment' Congress had no constitutional power to legislate on the subject, the obligation of surrendering fugitives resting on the States. Yet he scrupled not in his subsequent addresses to speak in terms of unmeasured obloquy of every lawyer who presumed to deny the constitutionality of that horrible law. He admitted the right of Congress to grant the fugitive a trial by jury, yet was unwearied in his advocacy of a law denying to the most helpless of mortals that important safeguard of personal liberty....
"The course of this gentleman at a moment when the dearest principles of liberty, justice, and humanity were vehemently assailed was rapturously applauded by the monied, the literary, and the ecclesiastical aristocracy of Massachusetts, and the New England Church has to a great extent canonized his memory.
"The ardour evinced by the city of Boston in the surrender of Simms, and the intense servility and degradation accompanying that surrender, together with the emphatic endorsement of Mr. Webster's conduct, have exerted an influence inbehalf of human bondage and in derogation of Christian obligation far beyond the bounds of Massachusetts. The moral bulwark raised at the North against slavery in times past by the religious sentiment and the respect for the rights of man is nearly demolished.
"The Slave Power, taking advantage of the present paralysis of the Northern conscience and the frantic cupidity of our demagogues and merchants for Southern votes and Southern trade, is about placing its yoke on willing and bending necks.
"Think not that Nebraska is to be the terminus of slaveholding encroachments. New slave States are from time to time to be carved out of Mexico. Cuba is to be wrested from Spain and St. Domingo re-enslaved and annexed. As the field for slave labour widens and widens, the supply will be found inadequate to the demand. The discovery will then be made that both religion and policy require the repeal of the prohibition of the African slave-trade. We shall be told of the Christian duty of bringing the pagans of Africa to our own civilized shores and of preparing them for heaven by the discipline of the whip and the teachings of slave-drivers, while politicans and political economists will insist on the removal of the restriction as essential to the development of our national wealth and enterprise. In vain will Virginia and the other breeding States strive to retain their present lucrative monopoly of the human shambles. The cotton and sugar States, together with the newly acquired slave States, aided by Northern politicians, will establish free trade in the bodies and souls of men.
"The Southern Church is almost without exception the unblushing champion of slavery, while the Northern Church, adopting a time-serving, heartless, and often hypocritical neutrality, and holding in its fraternal embrace slave-breeders and slave-traders, has virtually taught that the vilest outrageson both the civil and religious rights of the black man are perfectly compatible with the highest sanctity in his white oppressor. Some of our religious journals are sadly grieved and scandalized by the alleged discovery that certain opponents of slavery are infidels. For my own part, I know of no form of infidelity so hideous as that which impiously claims the authority of Almighty God for abrogating all His laws in behalf of justice and mercy in reference to our conduct towards millions of our countrymen not of the same colour as ourselves. This cutaneous Christianity, so insulting to the Deity, so disastrous to man, is fast becoming the national religion.