BINGHAMTON, N. Y.,
September 13, 1853.
MY DEAR SIR—I have
this moment received your favor of the 10th, calling my attention to a
communication in the Washington Union,
charging me in substance with having favored and advocated the Wilmot Proviso
in the Senate of the United States, in 1847, and presenting partial extracts of
a speech I then made to prove it.
The
"free-soil" journals of this State have recently made a similar
discovery, probably aided by similar optics; but as these journals, because of
this very speech, and the vote thereon, honored me with the distinction of
stereotyping my name enclosed in black lines, at the head of their columns for
months, and recommended that I be burned in effigy, and treated with personal
indignities and violence, it gave me little concern to see them endeavoring to
divert attention from their own position by assaulting me in an opposite
direction. Nor, since the Washington Union
has furnished its contribution, should I have thought the matter worth my
notice. Those who are pursuing me in my retirement, whether as open and manly
opponents or otherwise, have their service to perform and their parts assigned
them, and I have no more disposition to disturb their vocation than I have to
inquire as to the nature and amount of their wages, or question the manner in
which they execute their work.
I was honored with a
seat in the Senate of this State four years, and there introduced resolutions
upon the subject of slavery, and spoke and voted thereon; was President of the
same body two years, and was seven years a Senator in Congress—from the
annexation of Texas until after the passage of the compromise measures. I have,
too, for the last twenty years, often been a member of conventions—county,
State and national; have presented resolutions, made speeches and proposed
addresses; and if, in my whole political course, a speech, vote, or resolution
can be found favoring the heresy of "freesoil," I will consent to occupy
a position in the public judgment as degraded as the most malevolent of that
faction, or its most convenient accomplice.
Near the close of
the session of 1847, I returned to my seat in the Senate from a most painful
and distressing domestic affliction, and found the Three Million bill under
discussion, during which the Wilmot Proviso (so called) was offered, and my
colleague, General Dix, presented resolutions from our Legislature, passed with
great unanimity, instructing us to vote in favor of the proviso. General Dix
advocated the adoption of the proviso, and voted for it. I spoke against its
adoption and voted against it, and, in so doing, aroused against me free-soil
and abolition malignity throughout the country.
The main subject
under discussion was the propriety of placing a fund of three millions in the
hands of the President for the purpose of negotiating a treaty of peace with
Mexico by the purchase of territory. The proviso was an incidental question,
and treated accordingly. Neither my frame of mind nor the exigencies of the
occasion afforded me an adequate opportunity to consider or discuss the
question; but the whole drift and spirit of what I did say upon the subject,
although imperfectly reported, was against all slavery agitation, as will be
seen by the following extracts:
“As
though it were not enough to legislate for the government of such territory as
may be procured under and by virtue of this appropriation, if any shall be made—which
of course rests in uncertainty—this amendment, forsooth, provides for the
domestic regulation of ‘any territory on the continent of America which shall
hereafter be acquired by or annexed to the United States, or in any other
manner whatever.’ And thus this wholesome and pacific measure must be subjected
to delay and the hazards of defeat, the war must be prosecuted afresh with all
its engines of destruction, or abandoned by a craven and disgraceful retreat;
one campaign after another be lost, while the wily and treacherous foe and his
natural ally, the vomito, are preying
upon the brave hearts of our patriotic soldiery; that we may legislate, not
merely for the domestic government of Mexican territory in the expectation that
we may hereafter obtain it, but that we may erect barriers to prevent the sugar
manufacturer and cotton planter of the South from extending his plantation and
his slavery towards the polar regions.
“If,
then, the popular judgment shall commend that pioneer benevolence, which seeks
to provide for the government of territory which, though its acquisition yet ‘sleeps
in the wide abyss of possibility,’ may be acquired by this proposed
negotiation; if the appropriation shall be made and a negotiation opened, and
the President shall propose to accept for indemnity, and the Mexican government
to cede a portion of territory, and terms shall be stipulated and a treaty be
made between the two governments and ratified by both; and the territory be
organized by the legislation of Congress; what adequate encomiums shall be
lavished upon that more comprehensive philanthropy and profound statesmanship, which,
in a bill designed to terminate a bloody and protracted war, raging in the
heart of an enemy's country, casts into this discussion this apple of domestic
discord under the pretence of extending the benevolent ægis of freedom over any
territory which may at any time or in any manner, or upon any part of the
continent, be acquired by the United States? It is no justification for the
introduction of this element of strife and controversy at this time and upon
this occasion, that it is abstractly just and proper, and that the Southern
States should take no exception to its provisions. All knew the smouldering
materials which the introduction of this topic would ignite—the sectional
strife and local bitterness which would follow in its train; all had seen and
read its fatal history at the last session, and knew too well what
controversies, delays, and vexations must hang over it—what crimination and
recrimination would attend upon its toilsome and precarious progress, and what
hazard would wait upon the result—how it would array man against man, State
against State, section against section, the South against the North, and the
North against the South—and what must be, not only its effects and positive
mischiefs, but how its disorganizing and pernicious influences must be extended
to other measures necessary to sustain the arm of government.
“This
bill not only suffered defeat at the last session, but has been subjected to
the delays, hazards, and buffetings of this, by reason of this misplaced
proviso. Upon it the very antipodes of agitation have met and mingled their
discordant influences. This proviso, pretending to circumscribe the limits of
slavery, is made the occasion for the presentation of declaratory resolves in
its favor, and the bill becomes, as if by mutual appointment, the common battle
ground of abstract antagonisms; each theoretic agitation is indebted to the
other for existence, and each subsists alone upon the aliment provided ready to
its hand by its hostile purveyor. The votaries of opposing systems seem to have
drawn hither to kindle their respective altar-fires, and to vie with each other
in their efforts to determine who shall cause the smoke of their incense to
ascend the highest. Both are assailing the same edifice from different angles,
and for alleged opposing reasons— both declare that their support of the bill
depends upon the contingency of the amendment, and the efforts of both unite in
a common result, and that is, procrastination and the hazard of defeat. The
common enemy is overlooked and almost forgotten, that we may glare upon each
other over a side issue and revive the slumbering elements of controversy, in
proposing to prescribe domestic regulations for the government of territory
which we have some expectation we may hereafter, possibly, acquire. This
exciting and troublesome question has no necessary connection with this bill,
and if, indeed, it can ever have any practical operation whatever, it would
certainly be equally operative if passed separately. * * * * * *
“But
suppose we do not, after all, as we well may not, obtain by negotiations any
part of Mexican territory, what a sublime spectacle of legislation will a
clause like this present to the world? It will stand upon the pages of the
statute as an act of the American Congress designed to regulate the government
of Mexican territory, but whose operation was suspended by the interposition of
the Mexican veto; a chapter in our history to be employed by our enemies as
evidence of rapacity, of weakness, and depraved morals; a target for the jeers
and scoffs of the kingly governments of the earth, for the derision of Mexico
herself, and the general contempt of mankind—a lapsed legacy to the memory of
misplaced benevolence and abortive legislation.
“And what is more humiliating is, that the enemies of popular freedom throughout the world are scowling with malignant gratification to see this great nation unable to prosecute a war against a crippled and comparatively feeble enemy, without placing in the foreground of its measures this pregnant element of controversy, which the world sees and knows is the canker which gnaws at the root of our domestic peace; and when it is known that from this cause, especially, we have practically proved our inability to unite in the prosecution of a war, or to provide measures to establish peace, we shall be regarded as a fit object for contumely, and be laughed to scorn by the despicable government with which we are at strife, and which we have hesitated to strike because of her weakness and imbecility."
That part of the
speech which, with more ingenuity than candor, has been clipped out to suit the
necessities of my accusers and convict me of “free soil” sentiments, was my
explanation of the general sentiment of the Northern people, in reply to a suggestion
that all must be abolitionists, because the legislature instructed upon all
questions relating to slavery with great unanimity. The following is the
extract:
“So
far as I am advised or believe, the great mass of the people at the North
entertain but one opinion upon the subject, and that is the same entertained by
many at the South. They regard the institution as a great moral and political
evil, and would that it had no existence. They are not unaware of the
difficulties which beset it, and do not intend to provoke sectional jealousies
and hatred by ill-timed and misplaced discussions. They will not listen to the
cry of the fanatic, or favor the design of the political schemer from the North
or the South; nor will they ever disturb or trench upon the compromises of the
constitution. They believe the institution to be local or domestic: to be
established or abolished by the States themselves, and alone subject to their
control; and that federal legislation can have very little influence over it. But
being thus the institution of a local sovereignty, and a franchise peculiar to
itself, they deny that such sovereignty or its people can justly claim the
right to regard it as transitory and erect it in the Territories of the United
States without the authority of Congress, and they believe that Congress may
prohibit its introduction into the Territories while they remain such,” &c.
The legislative
instructions were nearly unanimous, and the popular sentiment of the State was
equally harmonious. Being a believer in and advocate for the doctrine of
instruction (which up to that time had been only employed to uphold the
principles of the constitution), and being anxious to represent and reflect,
wherever I could, the true sentiment of my State, I indicated my willingness on
a future and suitable occasion to vote as the legislature had instructed,
without any repetition of its direction; but subsequent events and developments
and further reflection admonished me, that I should best discharge my duty to
the constitution and the Union by disregarding such instructions altogether;
and although they were often afterwards repeated, and popular indignities
threatened, I disregarded them accordingly.
And now, my dear
sir, I leave this matter where, but for your kind letter, I should have
permitted it to repose-upon the judgment of a people who have not yet
forgotten, nor will they soon forget, who sustained and who assailed their
country's constitution in the moment of its severest trial, the perversions of
necessitous politicians to the contrary not withstanding. But it was perhaps
due to confiding friends, that the sinister misrepresentation should be
corrected; and I thank you for the attention which enabled me to do it.
SOURCE: John R.
Dickinson, Editor, Speeches, Correspondence, Etc., of the Late Daniel
S. Dickinson of New York, Vol. 2, p. 476-81
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