Congressman Albert G. Brown’s Speech on the Slavery Question, August 29, 1850

SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, AUGUST 29, 1850.

MR. BROWN said he designed to make a few remarks only in reply to the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. McClernand], and the gentleman from New York [Mr. Brooks], who had just taken his seat. Both these gentlemen had taken a position which had been assumed since the beginning of the session by many gentlemen from the Northern States, and had put forth views which they seemed to regard as likely to obtain the favor of the South. If these gentlemen (said Mr. B.) were right in supposing that we of the South are mere shadows, occupied only in the pursuit of shadows, then they might succeed in the object at which they aim. But if we are real, substantial men, things of life and not shadows, then they will find themselves mistaken in their views. What was it the South had demanded? She had asked to be permitted to go into these newly-acquired territories, and to carry her property with her, as the North does; and he desired to tell his friends from Illinois and from New York, that she would be satisfied with nothing less than this. It was in vain to tell the people of the South that you will not press the proviso excluding slavery, because circumstances are such as to exclude slavery without the operation of this provision, and therefore it is not necessary to adopt it. He would tell gentlemen who use this argument, that the southern people care not about the means by which slavery is to be excluded. They will not inquire whether nature is unpropitious to the existence of slavery there, while they know that the whole course and desire of the North has been with a view to its exclusion from the shores of the Pacific. It was only necessary to look at the history of the last few years to satisfy ourselves that it has been the purpose of the North to produce this exclusion.

The honorable gentleman from Illinois had administered a welldeserved rebuke to the factious spirit of free soil, as manifested in the proposition of the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Root]; for that he (Mr. B.) felt as profoundly grateful as any other man. It was a spirit which ought to be rebuked everywhere. It deserved the universal execration of all good men. But it was his duty to say to his honorable friend, that so much of his remarks as were directed against the proviso, on the ground that it was not necessary to our exclusion, failed to excite his (Mr. B.'s) gratitude, as they would fail to elicit the gratitude of the southern people. The gentleman from Illinois would not be informed that he had Mr. B.'s highest respect as a gentleman, and his sincere personal regard—but, as a southern man, he felt bound to say at all times, and on all occasions, to all persons, friends and foes, that he and his section demanded as a right an equal participation in all these territories, and they could not feel grateful to any man who placed his opposition to the proviso on no higher grounds than that they were excluded by other means. If his honorable friend had placed his opposition to the proviso on the grounds that the South had rights, and that those rights ought to be respected, then Mr. B. and the whole South would have felt a thrill of gratitude which none of them would be slow to express. If the proviso was wrong, it ought to be opposed on the high ground of principle, and not on the feeble assumption that it was unnecessary. To oppose it on the ground that it was not necessary, was to say in effect that it would be sustained if it was necessary.

The gentleman from New York had just informed the House that he was elected as a Wilmot proviso man, and now he rises and makes it his boast that he is backing out from the position he then assumed.

Mr. BROOKS (Mr. Brown yielding) said, that although this proviso was made a test, he had told the people who elected him that he would not pledge himself to vote for it; that he was willing to remain at home, but that, if he was elected, he must go as an independent man.

Mr. BROWN resumed. The gentleman from New York had certainly taken high ground. But, if he was not mistaken, that gentleman was the editor of a daily paper in New York (the Express), and in that journal, unless he was again mistaken, the Wilmot proviso had been supported. The gentleman, therefore, had not left much room for doubt as to his real sentiments. There was very little occasion for him now to come forward and to say whether he was for or against the proviso. But he desired to ask that gentleman, whether he was for or against this proviso when its adoption was deemed necessary for the exclusion of slaves from the new territories? If he was then in favor of the proviso, the fact that he is now opposed to it, because he is satisfied that the

South cannot carry her slaves thither on account of the hostility of the climate and soil, and other more potential causes, his position was one not calculated to excite the gratitude of the friends of the South.

Mr. BROOKS (Mr. Brown yielding) said, he had not changed one principle, but he had been converted to the gentleman's doctrine of nonintervention, or non-action. It had always been his opinion that the power of the general government ought never to be exercised, whether in favor of or against slavery. If the South should suffer from her inability to carry her slave property into these territories, the North would suffer still more if she was permitted to do so, because her citizens would not consent to go to these territories if slavery existed there.

Mr. HOLMES. I congratulate the whole country that the gentleman from New York has given up his adhesion to the Wilmot proviso.

Mr. BROWN (resuming). The conversion of the gentleman from New York to the doctrine of non-intervention had come about as much too late as his abandonment of the Wilmot proviso. They were both too late to do any good. If the gentleman had kept his hands off slavery before the last presidential election, then, indeed, the southern people might have had some reason for gratitude. But, instead of doing that, the gentleman adheres to the proviso until it is too late for non-intervention to do any good, and then he forsakes the former and becomes a convert to the latter.

The gentleman from New York appeared to be greatly horrified at what he was pleased to call political associations on this floor—at the strange phenomenon of the two great extremes of the North and the South voting together. He would explain this apparent inconsistency. The South regarded the whole of the territory to latitude 42° and east of the Rio Grande as the property of Texas, and was not disposed to permit any portion of that territory to be surrendered for the purpose of being made free soil. This was the position occupied by the southern extreme. The northern extreme considers the title of the United States to all this territory as clear beyond dispute, and therefore are opposed to purchasing it. This is the reason why the two extremes are acting together on principles apparently antagonistical, for the purpose of defeating this bill. Is it remarkable that he (Mr. B.) and his southern associates, believing conscientiously that the title to the country, in the language of the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Marshall], is in Texas, and that the United States has neither title nor color of title, should refuse to give it up? Is it strange that other gentlemen, believing, as they say they do, that the title of the United States is clear and indisputable, should refuse to pay Texas ten millions to withdraw an unfounded claim? Gentlemen may pretend to marvel at this singular political conjunction, but they all know perfectly well the motives which have produced it.

He, however, deemed that it would be found quite as remarkable a political phenomenon that the gentleman from New York, and many of his political friends from the South, should be found cheek-by-jowl with these same detested Free-Soilers on another question. We vote with them from exactly opposite motives, as the gentleman and the whole country very well know. But from what motive does the gentleman and his southern friends vote with them for the admission of California? Is there any opposite motive there? None, sir, none. There is one motive common to them all, and that is, the admission of a free state into the Union. The gentleman expresses special wonder that we are found voting with the Free-Soilers. Can he give any other reason than the one just assigned why he and his southern friends vote with them on another question?

Until the gentleman could assign some satisfactory reason why he and his party, North and South, were found in political fellowship with every Free-Soiler and Abolitionist in the land for the admission of California, it would be modest to suppress his wonder at the accidental association of Free-Soilers and southern gentlemen on the boundary of Texas.

The difference between us (said Mr. B.) is this: we act with them from extremely opposite motives; you from concurrent opinions and sentiments; and we will leave to posterity and the country to decide which stands most justified in the eyes of all honest and impartial men.

But his main object in rising to address the House was to say what were the demands of the South. She asks for an equal participation in the enjoyment of all the common property; and if this be denied, she demands a fair division. Give it to her, give it by non-intervention, by non-action, or by any other means, and she will be satisfied. This is her right, and she demands it. But if, instead of doing this, the North insists on taking away the territory and abridging the rights of the South, she will not submit to the wrong in peace, nor meanly kiss the hand that smites her. He uttered no threat, but it was his duty to say that the South could neither forget nor forgive a wrong like this. She cannot forget that these new territories were purchased in part by her blood and treasure, and she will not forgive the power that snatches them from her. He had never undertaken to say what course the South would feel it her duty to pursue on the consummation of her unjust exclusion from these territories, but he would say, that the act of her exclusion would sink like a poisonous arrow into the hearts of her people, and it would rankle there, and in the hearts of their children, as long as the union of these states continued. The consummation of northern policy may not produce an immediate disunion of these states; but it will produce a disunion of northern and southern hearts; and he left it to others to say whether a political union under such circumstances could be long maintained, or whether it was worth maintaining.

It can excite no feeling of gratitude that the gentleman from New York [Mr. Brooks] says he is now opposed to the Wilmot proviso. He is for the spirit of the proviso. He would be for its letter, if it was necessary for our exclusion. He consents to abandon it simply because it is useless. There was a day when it was potential. Then the gentleman was for it. Now, when he supposes our exclusion almost perfect, and the means at hand for its entire consummation, he magnanimously abandons the proviso. Wonderful liberality! Amazing generosity to the South! If the gentleman is not canonized as the most generous man of his age, surely gratitude will have failed to perform her office.

We of the South well understand the means employed for our exclusion. This proviso, once so much in favor with the gentleman from New York, now so graciously abandoned, performed its office. It was held in terrorem over California: southern property, termed as property always is, was kept out of the country. The column of southern emigration was checked at the onset—whilst every appliance was resorted to to swell the column of northern emigration. Every means was resorted to which political ingenuity could devise and federal power make effective, to hurry on this emigration, and then, with indecent haste, the emigrants, yet without names or habitations in the country, were induced to make a pretended state constitution, and insert in it the Wilmot proviso. The gentleman need not be told how far the federal administration was responsible for these things. He need not be reminded that he and his quondam proviso friends were prominent actors in all these scenes. Need he be told that the proviso was the SHIBBOLETH of their power? It was used so long as it was effective. It was used for our prostration, and now it is thrown aside for no better reason than that it is useless— that it is no longer necessary.

Does not the gentleman from New York know very well that the California constitution is no constitution until adopted by Congress? Does he not know that that constitution contains the proviso? Does he not know that the proviso is powerless in that constitution until sanctioned by Congress? And does he not mean to vote for that constitution, with the full intent and purpose of giving vitality to that proviso? With how much of liberality—with how much of justice to the South, does the honorable gentleman come forward to assure us that he is against the proviso? The gentleman is opposed to ingrafting the proviso on the territorial bills for Utah and New Mexico; and we thank him for his opposition. But what reason does the gentleman give for this opposition? The decrees of God have already excluded us. He has no idea that slavery would ever penetrate the country opposed to the proviso, because it is unnecessary. If it was at all necessary for our exclusion, the honorable gentleman would be for it. He must excuse us if our gratitude fails to become frantic for this singular exhibition of forbearance and liberality.

Mr. Brown was willing to trust the rights of the South on the strict doctrine of non-intervention. If God, in his providence, had in fact decreed against the introduction of slavery into Utah and New Mexico, he and his people bowed in humble submission to that decree. We think the soil and climate are propitious to slave labor; and if they are not, we shall never seek the country with our slaves. All we ask of you is, that you will not interpose the authority of this government for us or against us. We do not fear the Mexican laws, if you will in good faith stand by the doctrine of non-intervention. We will risk the protection of the Federal Constitution, and the banner of the stars and stripes, for ourselves and our property. All we ask of you is, that you will in good faith stand neutral.

He had never announced his purpose of voting against the territorial government for Utah. He meant to vote for it, and he should vote for the territorial government for New Mexico if the boundary was so arranged as to respect the rights of Texas. He was opposed to the admission of California, because her constitution was a fraud—a fraud deliberately perpetrated for the purpose of excluding the South; but he was in favor of giving governments to Utah and New Mexico on the ground of strict non-intervention. He did not want to be cheated in this business, and he therefore proposed this question to the honorable gentleman from New York: Suppose we pass these Utah and New Mexican bills at this session without the Wilmot proviso; and suppose the Southern people commence moving into the territories with their slaves, and it becomes apparent that they are to be slave territories and ultimately slave states; and suppose that the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Root], at the opening of the next Congress, offers the Wilmot proviso with a view to check our emigration and to exclude us from the territories with our slaves, will the gentleman, if a member of Congress, then vote for the proviso?

Mr. BROOKS replied in the negative, as far as he was heard.

Mr. BROWN. Then if we take our slave property into the territories, we are assured that we are not to be disturbed in its peaceable and quiet enjoyment by any act of this government.

Mr. BROOKS said, that if he should be here he certainly should not vote to repeal any territorial bill for which he had voted. He only spoke for himself.

Mr. BROWN was gratified to hear this statement; whilst he could not insist on the gentleman answering for the North, he must express his regret that he did not feel authorized to answer at least for his political friends. The gentleman had answered manfully, and, he did not doubt, sincerely; and if the whole North, or a majority even, would answer in the same way, it would go far towards restoring harmony. He asked honorable gentlemen whether they were ready to pipe to the tune set them by the gentleman from New York? If they were, the whole South. would listen. It was a kind of music they liked to hear from the North. There was in it more of the gentle harp, and less of the war-bugle than they had been accustomed to from that quarter.

Mr. BROOKS said, it appeared after all that there was no essential difference between them.

Mr. BROWN. So far as this Congress is concerned, we ask nothing more than that we shall be treated as equals, and that no insulting discrimination should be made in the action of Congress against slave property. If the gentleman agrees to this, there can be no essential difference between us.

Now, Mr. Speaker, to the subject of the Texas boundary. Is there one man in this House, or throughout the nation, who does not know that but for the question of slavery, there would be no such question as that of the Texas boundary? Suppose, sir, that Texas and New Mexico were both as clearly slaveholding countries as North and South Carolina, how long, sir, do you think it would take this Congress to fix a boundary between them? Not one hour—certainly not one day. Of what consequence could it be to the North, whether Texas extended to the 32d or to the 42d degree, or to any intermediate point? Take out the question of slavery, and of what consequence is it where the boundary of Texas may be fixed? Does any man suppose that the money-loving men of the North would vote ten millions of dollars from a common treasury to buy a slip of soil from a slaveholding State, simply to give it to a slaveholding Territory? No, no. We all understand this matter. If the country is left in the possession and ownership of Texas, it must be slave territory, and if it is given up to New Mexico, you mean that it shall become free territory, and you do not intend to leave any stone unturned to accomplish this end. We know this, and we govern ourselves accordingly. Let northern gentlemen speak out on this subject.

The thin covering, that they want to do justice between Texas and New Mexico, furnishes a poor disguise to the real purpose. We all know that slavery restriction is the lever with which you are lifting the title of Texas off this country, and giving it up to New Mexico; and we all know that you are attempting to do this without right, or color of right, to perform such an act.

Mr. MCCLERNAND (Mr. Brown yielding) said, that Texas claimed the Rio Grande for its whole extent to be her western boundary. By the resolutions annexing Texas to the United States, slavery is interdicted north of 36° 30' within her professed limits. The amendment proposed by the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Boyd) provides that slavery may exist in any portion of the territory west of the boundary of Texas, as proposed by the Senate bill, between 32° and 38° north latitude, east of the Rio Grande. That is, the amendment provides that slavery may exist in any part of said territory, according as the people inhabiting it may determine for themselves when they apply for admission into the Union. So that to the extent of so much of said territory now claimed by Texas, lying between 36° 30′ and 38° north latitude, the South, according to the test of my able and worthy friend from Mississippi, stands upon a better footing under the amendment proposed than she does under the resolutions of Texas annexation.

Mr. BROWN resumed. If we are left in that condition in which we were by the annexation resolutions, we are satisfied. What we ask in regard to Utah, New Mexico, and California, is, that the North will not, by means direct or indirect, disturb us then in the quiet enjoyment of our property. What we ask in regard to Texas is, that you will abide by the resolutions of annexation. We are satisfied with the contract, and we are opposed to making any other. This contract gives us all south of 36° 30' as slave territory, and dedicates all north of that line to free soil. We stand by this. If gentlemen want to buy from Texas her territory north of 36° 30′, let them do it. They had his full consent to give her ten, twelve, or fifteen millions of dollars. He should interpose no objection. But when it came to selling out slaveholding Texas with a view of enabling the North to make New Mexico a non-slaveholding state the more readily, he felt it his duty to interpose by all the means in his power. He never meant to give his vote for any proposition or combination of propositions which looked to the deprivation of Texas of one inch of her rightful soil. He wanted to deal fairly by all parts of the country. He trusted he should be as ready to act fairly by the North as by the South, but he invoked the vengeance of Heaven if ever he gave his vote for any bill or proposition to buy the soil of a slave state to convert it into free soil.

SOURCE: M. W. Cluskey, Editor, Speeches, Messages, and Other Writings of the Hon. Albert G. Brown, A Senator in Congress from the State of Mississippi, p. 208-14

Daniel S. Dickenson

In a recent issue of the Washington Union, an article appeared, in which, to the astonishment of the country, an attempt was made to disparage the public conduct of Daniel S. Dickenson. What purpose the writer sought to serve, we are at a loss to divine, but that he meant to sink Mr. Dickenson in the esteem of the South, is evident from the nature of the article, unless it be unwarrantable to infer a murderous intent from a savage stab at the very seat of life. Be the blow, however, the stroke of a felon or a friend, it is not the less incumbent upon every Southern man, and especially upon every Virginian, to interpose a defence of the South and Virginia, when they were assailed by traitorous hands.

By every obligation of gratitude and of honor are we of the South bound to sustain Daniel S. Dickenson, under any circumstances and against any foe. When an attempt is made by our enemies to strike him down because of his services to us, this obligation comes upon us with irresistible weight. But we do injustice to Mr. Dickenson. It is not to the South only that he may look for protection against the wrath of those who would immolate him because of his heroic resistance of the aggressions of abolition. Upon every patriot and friend of the Constitution and the Union, no matter in what State or section, he has a claim for sympathy and support.

It is idle to attempt to impeach the consistency and honor of Dickenson's devotion to the South. It has been illustrated under circumstances which would have appalled any but the stoutest and truest heart. Mr. Dickenson's was not mere parade of patriotism which incurs no risk and renders no service. He struck for the South and the Union at a critical moment, and he now suffers the penalty of his patriotism in exclusion from office and in the assassin stab of abolitionists. We need not recount his services to the South. They may be read in the history of the country. They are fresh in the memory of all. Among all the gallant spirits of the North, who in the hour of trial bravely fought for the constitutional rights of the South, Dickenson stood pre-eminent, for the absolute devotion of heart and soul with which he surrendered himself to our cause. The South recognized his service at the time by a gushing fervor of gratitude and universality of admiration, such as she has extended to no other public man. His image was on every Southern heart; his praises were on every Southern tongue.

If it be allowable to appeal to so selfish a motive, we might tell the South that her interest as well as her honor demands that she do justice to her Northern friends. If we shrink from sustaining such men as Daniel S. Dickenson we must prepare to fight our battles alone.

There is a special obligation in Virginia to sustain Mr. Dickenson in his struggles with the abolitionists. She has become in some sort surety for the consistency and integrity of his public character. She gave him the highest attestation of her esteem and affection in the Baltimore Convention, by casting her vote for him for President of the United States, and any aspersion on him touches her own honor.—She cannot be silent when calumny assails him.

In another column the reader will find an article in vindication of Mr. Dickinson, from the pen of one among the most eminent public men in Virginia—one who, himself among the most fearless and faithful of the champions of our Northern friends, and who, as a member of Congress with Mr. Dickenson, can attest his noble and self sacrificing exertions in the defence of our rights.

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Blog Editor’s Note: The spelling of Senator Dickinson’s surnam switches from its correct spelling to Dickenson frequently in this article, I have kept the spellings as they occur in the original.

SOURCE: “Daniel S. Dickenson,” Richmond Enquirer, Richmond, Virginia, Friday Morning, September 16, 1853, p. 2

Senator Daniel S. Dickinson to Henry Orr, September 13, 1853

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.

Sincerely yours,

D. S. DICKINSON.

TO HENRY E. ORR, Esq., Washington, D. C.

SOURCE: John R. Dickinson, Editor, Speeches, Correspondence, Etc., of the Late Daniel S. Dickinson of New York, Vol. 2, p. 476-81

John L. Dawson to Senator Robert M. T. Hunter, August 25, 1855

BROWNSVILLE, [PA.], August 25th, 1855.

DEAR HUNTER: I received your letter of the 20th instant this morning and have just shipped the box containing the map of "Superior" to the care of Gallaher Young & Co., Fredericksburg Va. I sent it from here to Pitts[burg]h to G. W. Cass who will forward it to you by Adams Express. The numbering of the Lots begins on Robertson Avenue: Odd numbers on the right, even numbers on the left. This reference will enable you to ascertain without difficulty the Nos. of your lots.

There was no map prepared, showing the general division. I had one coloured for you and one for myself by which I could distinguish your lots and my own. Gov[ernor] Bright had one also prepared, showing his lots. I consider your lots as of equal value with our division. The most valuable lots at the present time are these on Second Street, for the reason that nearly all of the improvements are on that street. The value of the lots will depend upon many future contingencies which no man can foresee, but at present I am of opinion that the most valuable improvements will be upon Left Hand river and between said river and Hollinshead Avenue. The Piers have not yet been divided. Quebec Pier is the only one improved and is in a good position. The next two piers below Quebec, and between it and Left Hand, will be still more valuable. The most of the lots and blocks will be ready for a final division this fall. The Superior City to which you refer as mentioned in Newtons advertisement is the Town site for which we are contending. It embraces 320 a[cres] and is very valuable. It is important that we establish our right to the same. Newton has taken a good many releases from the pre-emptors and will persevere, until he gets all. Bright seemed to think this of no consequence, but I urged him to procure all if possible. I sent you a "Superior Chronicle" containing a letter written by a Mr. Mitchell from St. Louis descriptive of the Town and its advantages, which I presume you have received. Mitchell bought a considerable interest and secured a pre-emption to 160 a[cres] in the vicinity of the town. His statements are to be relied upon. I repeat that is the prettiest site for a large City that I have ever seen. Its position geographical, commercial and political is great, and it is destined to be a great place, and no mistake. The pier will not cost more than 20 or 25 thousand dollars, and but little dredging will be necessary to make the harbor a good one.

What say you to the Canadian or British project of a ship canal directly to connect Lakes Huron and Ontario via Lake Semcoe and the Georgian Bay avoiding the circuit of Erie, Detroit River and St Clair and Flats and a great portion of Lake Huron, curtailing about 900 miles of Distance.

In politics I fear there is trouble ahead. The Southern Statesmen must act with great discretion and aid the democracy of the North in heading the Common enemy, headed by Chase[,] Seward and Co. The free soilers and abolitionists will not unite with the K[now] N[othings] and I therefore believe that we can elect our President. It is of the greatest important to you as well as to the party and the country that you take good care to have your friends from Virginia and elsewhere in the Cincinnati Convention. If the nomination should go South, the vote of Virginia will go far in giving it the proper direction. In a word it is an important movement and requiring our whole attention.

SOURCE: Charles Henry Ambler, Editor, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1916, in Two Volumes, Vol. II, Correspondence of Robert M. T. Hunter (1826-1876), p. 169-70

Senator David R. Atchison* to Senator Robert M. T. Hunter, March 4, 1855

PLATTE CITY, [Mo.], March 4, 1855.

DEAR HUNTER: The Elections in Kansas came off on the 30th ult, the pro slavery ticket prevailed every where as far as heard from, by overwhelming majorities; we stormed Lawrence or New Boston as it is called; The Abolitionists did "hang their guilty heads," now let the Southern men come on with their slaves 10,000 families can take possession, of and hold every acre of timber in the territory of Kansas, and this secures the prairie. Missouri will furnish 5000 of the 10,000; and the whole State will guarantee protection. We had at least 7,000 men in the territory on the day of the election and one third of them will remain there. We are playing for a mightly stake, if we win we carry slavery to the Pacific Ocean if we fail we lose Missouri Arkansas and Texas and all the territories, the game must be played boldly. I know that the Union as it Exists is in the other scale, but I am willing to take the holyland. You never saw a people better up to the mark than ours. It was hard to get up but now the only difficulty is to keep within bounds. When the returns are all in I will send them to you. You will no doubt see your humble servant held up by the Abolition press as a Bandit, a ruffian, an Aaron Burr, dont believe a word of it. I have saved hundreds of their necks, and kept their cabins from being burnt to the ground; there was not the least disturbance where I was present, and that was on the Nemaha, elsewhere in a few instances the hickory was used upon the most impudent of them.

_______________

* A Senator in Congress from Missouri, 1843-1855.

SOURCE: Charles Henry Ambler, Editor, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1916, in Two Volumes, Vol. II, Correspondence of Robert M. T. Hunter (1826-1876), p. 160-1

Diary of Corporal John Worrell Northrop, Friday, May 6, 1864

BEHIND THE ENEMY'S GUNS; LEE AND LONGSTREET.

Up at earliest dawn. Feeling quite well. The sound of battle was in our ears. The ground is very foul here; a winter camp and a fresh battle ground. Dead cavalrymen, killed yesterday are in our midst, our men bury them. At daylight Longstreet's corps came up on a forced march, moving close to us; it was two hours passing. General Longstreet and staff call at General Lee's headquarters, a hundred yards distant. The fore part of last night several batteries were hurried past, sent, I think, to Lee's right. I think this early fighting is to facilitate a movement by our left wing around Lee's right. Hard to get water. They let a few men out with canteens under guard. When Longstreet returned to his column he was accompanied by General Lee. A short time they stood together dismounted, with bared heads, opposite us on the other side of Longstreet's cheering columns hastening to battle. Grave  concern was on their faces. Magnificent men; but I felt oppressed with the fact of their attitude toward their country, fighting to disrupt it, to maintain a claim of right to perpetuate slavery by unlimited extension; to curse the whole country as it curses the South. Educated to serve the Nation, sworn to do it, they break their oaths by acts most treasonable, justifying their course by the flimsy pretext of the acts of their states in seceding because a president, not their choice is elected. It is apalling how men of large ability and boasted dignity, stultify themselves! the greater the men the greater their responsibility for wrongful acts. The roar of deadly battle this good morning witnesseth their and their associates sin. What wretched perversion of the sentiment of patriotism! Their cause fails, God rules! General Lee and staff passed close to me at 7 o'clock, galloping to the front. He has a pleasant face, peculiarly impressive but stern; an imperative temperament that inspires confidence, admiration and fear, the austere features lighted by geniality and persistent characteristics signifying strength of nature, but liable to act from illogical and dangerous influence that appeals to prejudice, narrow pride, warped by false traditions; a bent of character when once it espouses illegitimate conclusions, devotes his best ability to accomplish ends his better judgment had condemned.

The battle had opened at 5 o'clock, our sixth corp[s] attacking. Firing terrific, nearer this point than last night but farther west, came nearer steadily, our forces driving till Longstreet's corp[s] reached the field, overlapping our line and regained the position from which our forces had driven them. Had our attack occurred an hour earlier, decisive defeat of the Rebel forces engaged must have resulted before Longstreet could have arrived. Our lines are reported in confusion and falling back.

The rest of our party who avoided capture last night, are brought in after trying all night to escape. Officers are as humble as privates, look full as serious over prospects. Talk of exchange as soon as the campaign is over, July at the farthest. But the duration of this campaign is uncertain. A great disaster on either side would need it. If there are no decisive results, and a prospect of transferring the struggle to the vicinity of Richmond—Butler is already near there—it will be longer than any other Virginia campaign. Lee will get no peace as long as Grant maintains a position between Fredericksburg and Richmond, until he is in his stronghold; then Lee's fate will be settled. Fortunate we shall be if we see our lines by September. By 8 a. m. fighting ceased; wounded coming in fast. Confederates taken to field hospitals, our wounded put with us. Some have lain all night, are chilled badly. It is hard to see so many bleeding men shot through faces, arms, legs, bodies, broken limbs, distorted mouths, one with eye-ball dangling on his cheek, blood clotted on his face, neck and breast. They let us help them from ambulances. They cry for water, some stupid, some shaking with chills and crying for blankets. Rebels claim they whipped us yesterday; but they have no advantage except in position; in that they are losing. They admit two generals killed and Longstreet wounded. Fog clears away; gets pleasant.

LEAVE BATTLE LINE FOR PRISON—INTERVIEW REBEL OFFICER.

At 10 a. m. about 700 prisoners started for Orange Court House. Day hot, road dusty. We meet supply trains, ambulances, troops and a few conveyances with civilians pushing to the front, and for twenty miles groups of stragglers limping on, some lying down, the hardest looking lot of men ever seen trying to get to their commands. As we met the troops they cried, "What brigade's that?" "Are you on to Richmond?" "Where's Grant?" We were told that already a large portion of his army was north of the Rappahannock. Sneers, jeers and words of contempt we did not notice; but when they told us we were whipped we replied bitterly, "You fool yourselves." Till noon we march fast, the guard keeping ranks closed up, threatening if one lagged. We suffered with thirst, wallowed in a constant cloud of dust, panted with heat and chafed over our terrible luck.

Our guard claims to be General Lee's bodyguard; better men than the general run of Rebel soldiers. They grew sociable and easy with us. We halted at noon near a creek in woods by the roadside, until lately an army camp, and rested an hour. Bathing my head and neck freely in the stream, I felt better. A man about forty years old, a Captain, was eager to talk politics. I saw him talking to one of our soldiers who was irritated by his secesh notions, which he put forward in a good natured but overbearing way. The boy could not stand it and "blew on him" and took another seat. Anxious for a little Copperhead philosophy from a Southerner, I took a position nearly in front of him, my friend Thompson on my right, and called him out. The group that listened were convinced that Northern sympathizers are of the Virginia stripe, the same bird that can see only in the night of slavery and Southern rights and the art of secession; and while he believed in secession he was not of the "fire-eater" temperament but would have preferred the further way round to the same point. That is, he preferred that the slavery question be settled in favor of slaveholders in the Union. But "Black Republicans" and "Nigger Stealers" had seized the bridge, and the South had gone all one way by the Secession route." "We conservatives fell in at last feeling elated and sure," said he, "that when we get secession, friends at the North will help us to pin to the wall the radicals, hang abolishionists, suppress every newspaper like old Greeley's and stop the incendiary preaching against slavery, and reestablish the Union on Southern ideas proclaimed by Alexander H. Stephens in his inauguration speech, making slavery the chief cornerstone of a new government."

We accepted his declaration as very frank and representative of so-called Virginia conservatives. Consequently they rejoiced to see a party crying down the administration, praying that that party shall rise to power, in Northern States, hurl every man from positions of trust that does not believe in the policy of the extreme Southern leaders on the slavery doctrine, with the fiercenes of vigilance committees. I had read much of this many times in stanch newspapers, ratification speeches and in platforms. While in his mind lurked a love for Union, he said: "First and always the independence of the South must be the end of this war." If Northern "doe-faces" would still whine for a Union on "time-honored principles" namely, on any terms dictated by Calhoun disciples, their manhood and patriotism is a nullity. A thousand times have I wept and raved that Northerners should palaver over this deliberate treason of the South, failing to see the issue so plain that he who runs may read. There never was a more direct conflict of principles than this in which America is engaged.

To detail all was said is impossible. I give some points to show his logic. I open by saying it was foolish to "flare up," that we ought to be able to talk even if we were prisoners, but if we could not express our views we had nothing to say; that if free discussion had been allowed by the South for the last thirty years instead of hanging Northerners for expressing opinions we would thought better of each other, the problem would have been solved without war.

Tis home is at Leesburg, Va., in Union lines. His wife resides there. He had known General Lee many years and from the first was ready to follow him either way in this contest; so was all northern Virginia. He confirmed my assertion that if Lee had stood for the Union and offered his services, that the majority of Virginians would have been on the side of the Union, and there would have been no State of West Virginia; also that Lee deprecated secession, regarded it revolutionary and contrary to the intention of the founders of the government, and if successfully it would multiply the very evils slaveholders complain of. But he justified his ultimate course by the fact that his State had seceded, that it had a right to secede, and that his duty to Virginia was paramount to his allegiance to the national government.

 "A majority of Southern men are States rights," said he, "and when it appeared that the South would secede, State after State, it was plain to Southerners that the Union had gone to pieces,—nothing left to hang to, even if every Northern State should legalize nigger slavery and embellish all Northern political platforms with Southern notions about that 'peculiar institution.' Southern rights, secession, and slavery is the prevailing trend, out and out slave confederacy the aim. No man of character can live in the South and attain success without slaves, or an heirdom, pecuniarily or socially. A slave holder has standing; it is a certificate of character, a credential that takes him everywhere, to be master and owner of labor. He holds the church in his hand, and in his grip the politicians and the state. The press must be his tool. He is master of society as well as his slaves; commands respect from centers of fashion and trade, even in England and France regardless of professed aversion to slavery. You had not a merchant in New York, of wealth and influence, who did not cater to the hated slave-power; always will out of the Union the same as in."

He owned slaves when the war began; he had thirty-three. He said: "You nigger stealers got all but one, and he is a cook in Lee's army." Then to my surprise he said:

"I never did believe slavery right; it began by stealing and piracy, and you fellows mean it shall end the same way. It is practically the curse, of the South, degrading to the master morally; degrading to the mass who never did and never can hold slaves; yet the mass are the bone and sinew of its strength. Slavery is to be the cornerstone of the Confederacy; but that stone rests upon the bare backs of the non-slave holding rank and file. They must be our military strength. They are not and cannot be our industrial strength; that belongs to the slaves under the whip. The wealth, social and political power, lie with slave owners; they are the land owners; they rule the white mass as effectually and at less cost than they control the blacks. The future of the South is a military empire and necessarily a wealthy power."

I endorsed his prophesy, if the South should succeed, and asked: "If slavery is not right, why are you fighting to maintain it? Why will it not be abolished? He said:

"The South has made it a permanent system not only of domestic importance, but a state policy, a source of social, economical and political strength. The abolishionists are not strong enough

to abolish it; secession has placed it beyond their reach. It is an accomplished fact. If the Confederacy is not recognized this summer it will be be [sic] after the fall election. The wealth power of the North, then, through commercial and financial interests, will be weighed against you."

"You are deluded, Sir, in assuming that secession, if successful, will put slavery beyond the growing power of abolishionism. Freedom is progressive; your boast arrays civilization and progress against you. Again you are wrong in assuming that the Confederacy will be recognized this year or next. The rabid spirit of the slave power has called into greater force the love of liberty, the principle written in the Declaration of Independence, than has been known for ages. The very fact that your great men of Virginia today repudiate Washington, Jefferson, Henry and Madison, convicts you of treason to the spirit of '76. Your apparent chance of success as it seemed to exist has gone. You stole States, forts, arms, men trained at government cost, until we had nothing left in the South and but little in the North. We then proposed to coax you to old fashioned loyalty patched with a new slavery grant. But you thought you had it all. We now propose to restore the Union and purge it of slavery. Instead of recognition you will see that secession will go to pieces and your Confederacy will collapse. We were unprepared for this fight, you boasted you were ready. We are now ready and your power must wane. It will cost less to save the Union without slavery than with it. Should you now offer to accept our first purpose, to save the Union, with slavery, the North would scorn it. The trend is against your scheme of a black Utopia, a slave owning, slave breeding, slave selling, slave working empire.

"Had the Democrats of the North done as they might have done you would not have been here, boys. Abe Lincoln could not have carried on the war. The abolishionists will have a sweet time up North this fall if they run McClellan for president." "What did you expect they would do?"

"Do what they said they would, oppose the draft and war by force, not let the abolishionists rule."

"Is it possible you expected what you call the Democrats would assist you?"

"We cal'lated their opposition to Lincoln would prevent war, but they kept still and let him control the people and gave him power in Congress and had not nerve to oppose him."

"But it was your party that gave him power in Congress by seceding; they boasted North that Lincoln could not choose his Cabinet except by sanction of a Democratic Senate."

"Yes, but we had seceded, and there would have been less bloodshed had they shed some."

"You deceived yourselves."

"Should not have been deceived had Seymour led the New York riot. When he was elected Governor the South rejoiced; New York would send no more men and when that riot came up we expected great things; but instead of running it he let it run itself; he might have helped us there."

"What, you don't suppose Horatio Seymour is in sympathy with secession! He will stand for the Union till the last." My aim was to make them believe that the North is a unit. So I added: "The people of the South have, and will rely in vain upon this element; the mere difference of opinion never will injure our strength. The North is as one man on the question of Union and never will give it up; they can whip you and will do it."

"See what they will do if they elect McClellan, he is your best man; you never ought to have removed him."

"Will you come back into the Union if he should be elected?"

"Never; we'd be d----d fools to come into the Union then. Never; until all States shall have adopted policies favorable to slavery!"

He said the administration would have interfered with slavery if they had not gone to war. I quoted from the Chicago resolutions, speeches and the resolutions of Congress after they had seceded and left the power in the hands of the Republicans, showing they were anxious to give them every guarantee not to interfere with the local establishment of slavery by legislation; that they persisted in revolt and measures were adopted accordingly. "You invited war," I said, "and that invites the use of the war power against slavery. After it is over you may resume rightful relations in other matters but slavery will be ended."

"Well, niggers run into Pennsylvania and they would not let them come back."

"Recognize your Confederacy; will not the nigger go over? Will it not be an inducement to run away? Will your fugitive slave law apply?"

"Yes, they may run away."

"Will we as a nation give them up?"

"I don't know; reckon not."

"What will you do if we don't?"

"We'll fight for them."

"What have you gained there?"

"It's a state right to secede; you deny it, we establish it."

"Could you maintain a Confederacy three years?"

"I presume not; South Carolina'd kick up a muss in six months and raise h--l."

"Then the other States would have to assume the obligations of the Confederacy; this would produce discontent; what would you do?"

"Well, I s'pose we'd whip her back."

Taking him by the buttonhole, I said: "Where are your state rights, man?"

Amid the shouts of the boys he laughed, frowned, colored, and was much agitated, and said:

"Damn her; she and Massachusetts ought to've been shoved into the ocean years ago."

"That can't be done; you'd whip her back and that is precisely what we are doing only on a larger scale. Can you blame us for whipping you back?"

"Never can do it. We will have our independence; without that there will not be a slave in the South; a man is a fool that thinks we are fighting for compromise, or will give up till we are whipped, or force you to concede our rights."

"So we might as well have it out and end the matter, slavery question and all."

"Yes, sir; we agree on that."

"We are going to do it," shouted the boys.

Giving him a Union hardtack and receiving one of his, feeling heartily thankful that we had over an hour's talk with an officer of Lee's bodyguard, we pursued our dreary journey, considerably rested.

TALKS AND INCIDENTS AT GORDONSVILLE.

Passing Mine Run we got a view of that formidable position which we invested in December last and realized the wisdom of General Meade's caution in retiring. The most important place on the route is Old Verdersville where we raided her public wells. Many of our men were overcome with thirst, heat and cramps. Griffith and I had some dried currants and Jamaica ginger which we distributed much to their relief. It was eight in the evening, and very dark when we arrived at Orange Court House. They put us in the court house yard which is paved with cobble stones and surrounded by an iron fence, so crowded that there was not room for all to lie down. We had come 25 miles, was faint, tired, dejected; had eaten but little all day, piecing out the remnant of rations drawn May 3 and 4, not knowing when the Rebels would issue any.

SOURCE: John Worrell Northrop, Chronicles from the Diary of a War Prisoner in Andersonville and Other Military Prisons of the South in 1864, p. 30-8

Senator John C. Calhoun: The Address of the Southern Delegates in Congress to their Constituents, January 15, 1849

We, whose names are hereunto annexed, address you in discharge of what we believe to be a solemn duty, on the most important subject ever presented for your consideration. We allude to the conflict between the two great sections of the Union, growing out of a difference of feeling and opinion in reference to the relation existing between the two races, the European and African, which inhabit the southern section, and the acts of aggression and encroachment to which it has led.

The conflict commenced not long after the acknowledgment of our independence, and has gradually increased until it has arrayed the great body of the North against the South on this most vital subject. In the progress of this conflict, aggression has followed aggression, and encroachment encroachment, until they have reached a point when a regard for your peace and safety will not permit us to remain longer silent. The object of this address is to give you a clear, correct, but brief account of the whole series of aggression and encroachments on your rights, with a statement of the dangers to which they expose you. Our object in making it is not to cause excitement, but to put you in full possession of all the facts and circumstances necessary to a full and just conception of a deep-seated disease, which threatens great danger to you and the whole body politic. We act on the impression, that in a popular government like ours, a true conception of the actual character and state of a disease is indispensable to effecting a cure.

We have made it a joint address, because we believe that the magnitude of the subject required that it should assume the most impressive and solemn form.

Not to go further back, the difference of opinion and feeling in reference to the relation between the two races, disclosed itself in the Convention that framed the Constitution, and constituted one of the greatest difficulties in forming it. After many efforts, it was overcome by a compromise, which provided in the first place, that representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the States according to their respective numbers; and that, in ascertaining the number of each, five slaves shall be estimated as three. In the next, that slaves escaping into States where slavery does not exist, shall not be discharged from servitude, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom their labor or service is due. In the third place, that Congress shall not prohibit the importation of slaves before the year 1808; but a tax not exceeding ten dollars may be imposed on each imported. And finally, that no capitation or direct tax shall be laid, but in proportion to federal numbers; and that no amendment of the Constitution, prior to 1808, shall affect this provision, nor that relating to the importation of slaves.

So satisfactory were these provisions, that the second, relative to the delivering up of fugitive slaves, was adopted unanimously, and all the rest, except the third, relative to the importation of slaves until 1808, with almost equal unanimity. They recognize the existence of slavery, and make a specific provision for its protection where it was supposed to be the most exposed. They go further, and incorporate it, as an important element, in determining the relative weight of the several States in the Government of the Union, and the respective burden they should bear in laying capitation and direct taxes. It was well understood at the time, that without them the Constitution would not have been adopted by the Southern States, and of course that they constituted elements so essential to the system that it never would have existed without them. The Northern States, knowing all this, ratified the Constitution, thereby pledging their faith, that faith has been kept and that pledge redeemed we shall next proceed to show.

With few exceptions of no great importance, the South had no cause to complain prior to the year 1819—a year, it is to be feared, destined to mark a train of events, bringing with them many, and great, and fatal disasters, on the country and its institutions. With it commenced the agitating debate on the question of the admission of Missouri into the Union. We shall pass by for the present this question, and others of the same kind, directly growing out of it, and shall proceed to consider the effects of that spirit of discord, which it roused up between the two sections. It first disclosed itself in the North, by hostility to that portion of the Constitution which provides for the delivering up of fugitive slaves. In its progress it led to the adoption of hostile acts, intended to render it of non-effect, and with so much success that it may be regarded now as practically expunged from the Constitution. How this has been effected will be next explained.

After a careful examination, truth constrains us to say, that it has been by a clear and palpable evasion of the Constitution. It is impossible for any provision to be more free from ambiguity or doubt. It is in the following words: "No person held to service, or labor, in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another State, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due." All is clear. There is not an uncertain or equivocal word to be found in the whole provision. What shall not be done, and what shall be done, are fully and explicitly set forth. The former provides that the fugitive slave shall not be discharged from his servitude by any law or regulation of the State wherein he is found; and the latter, that he shall be delivered up on claim of his owner.

We do not deem it necessary to undertake to refute the sophistry and subterfuges by which so plain a provision of the Constitution has been evaded, and, in effect, annulled. It constitutes an essential part of the constitutional compact, and of course of the supreme law of the land. As such it is binding on all, the Federal and State Governments, the States and the individuals composing them. The sacred obligation of compact, and the solemn injunction of the supreme law, which legislators and judges, both Federal and State, are bound by oath to support, all unite to enforce its fulfilment, according to its plain meaning and true intent. What that meaning and intent are, there was no diversity of opinion in the better days of the Republic, prior to 1819. Congress, State Legislatures, State and Federal Judges and Magistrates, and people, all spontaneously placed the same interpretation on it. During that period none interposed impediments in the way of the owner seeking to recover his fugitive slave; nor did any deny his right to have every proper facility to enforce his claim to have him delivered up. It was then nearly as easy to recover one found in a Northern State, as one found in a neighboring Southern State. But this has passed away, and the provision is defunct, except perhaps in two States.¹

When we take into consideration the importance and clearness of this provision, the evasion by which it has been set aside may fairly be regarded as one of the most fatal blows ever received by the South and the Union. This cannot be more concisely and correctly stated, than it has been by two of the learned judges of the Supreme Court of the United States. In one of his decisions² Judge Story said: "Historically it is well known that the object of this clause was to secure to the citizens of the slaveholding States the complete right and title of ownership in their slaves, as property, in every State of the Union, into which they might escape, from the State wherein they were held in servitude." "The full recognition of this right and title was indispensable to the security of this species of property, in all the slaveholding States, and, indeed, was so vital to the preservation of their interests and institutions, that it cannot be doubted, that it constituted a fundamental article without the adoption of which the Union would not have been formed. Its true design was to guard against the doctrines and principles prevalent in the non-slaveholding States, by preventing them from intermeddling with, or restricting, or abolishing the rights of the owners of slaves."

Again: "The clause was therefore of the last importance to the safety and security of the Southern States, and could not be surrendered by them without endangering their whole property in slaves. The clause was accordingly adopted in the Constitution by the unanimous consent of the framers of it—a proof at once of its intrinsic and practical necessity."

Again: "The clause manifestly contemplates the existence of a positive unqualified right on the part of the owner of the slave, which no State law or regulation can in any way regulate, control, qualify, or restrain."

The opinion of the other learned judges was not less emphatic as to the importance of this provision and the unquestionable right of the South under it. Judge Baldwin, in charging the jury, said:³ "If there are any rights of property which can be enforced, if one citizen have any rights of property which are inviolable under the protection of the supreme law of the State, and the Union, they are those which have been set at nought by some of these defendants. As the owner of property, which he had a perfect right to possess, protect, and take away—as a citizen of a sister State, entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens of any other States—Mr. Johnson stands before you on ground which cannot be taken from under him—it is the same ground on which the Government itself is based. If the defendants can be justified, we have no longer law or government." Again, after referring more particularly to the provision for delivering up fugitive slaves, he said: "Thus you see, that the foundations of the Government are laid, and rest on the right of property in slaves. The whole structure must fall by disturbing the corner-stone."

These are grave and solemn and admonitory words, from a high source. They confirm all for which the South has ever contended, as to the clearness, importance, and fundamental character of this provision, and the disastrous consequences which would inevitably follow from its violation. But in spite of these solemn warnings, the violation, then commenced, and which they were intended to rebuke, has been full and perfectly consummated. The citizens of the South, in their attempt to recover their slaves, now meet, instead of aid and co-operation, resistance in every form; resistance from hostile acts of legislation, intended to baffle and defeat their claims by all sorts of devices, and by interposing every description of impediment—resistance from judges and magisrates—and finally, when all these fail, from mobs, composed of whites and blacks, which, by threats or force, rescue the fugitive slave from the possession of his rightful owner. The attempt to recover a slave, in most of the Northern States, cannot now be made without the hazard of insult, heavy pecuniary loss, imprisonment, and even of life itself. Already has a worthy citizen of Maryland lost his life⁴ in making an attempt to enforce his claim to a fugitive slave under this provision.

But a provision of the Constitution may be violated indirectly as well as directly; by doing an act in its nature inconsistent with that which is enjoined to be done. Of the form of violation, there is a striking instance connected with the provision under consideration. We allude to secret combinations which are believed to exist in many of the Northern States, whose object is to entice, decoy, entrap, inveigle, and seduce slaves to escape from their owners, and to pass them secretly and rapidly, by means organized for the purpose, into Canada, where they will be beyond the reach of the provision. That to entice a slave, by whatever artifice, to abscond from his owner, into a non-slaveholding State, with the intention to place him beyond the reach of the provision, or prevent his recovery, by concealment or otherwise, is as completely repugnant to it, as its open violation would be, is too clear to admit of doubt or to require illustration. And yet, as repugnant as these combinations are to the true intent of the provision, it is believed, that, with the above exception, not one of the States, within whose limits they exist, has adopted any measure to suppress them, or to punish those by whose agency the object for which they were formed is carried into execution. On the contrary, they have looked on, and witnessed with indifference, if not with secret approbation, a great number of slaves enticed from their owners, and placed beyond the possibility of recovery, to the great annoyance and heavy pecuniary loss of the bordering Southern States.

When we take into consideration the great importance of this provision, the absence of all uncertainty as to its true meaning and intent, the many guards by which it is surrounded to protect and enforce it, and then reflect how completely the object for which it was inserted in the Constitution is defeated by these two-fold infractions, we doubt, taking all together, whether a more flagrant breach of faith is to be found on record. We know the language we have used is strong, but it is not less true than strong.

There remains to be noticed another class of aggressive acts of a kindred character, but which instead of striking at an express and specific provision of the Constitution, aims directly at destroying the relation between the two races at the South, by means subversive in their tendency of one of the ends for which the Constitution was established. We refer to the systematic agitation of the question by the Abolitionists, which, commencing about 1835, is still continued in all possible forms. Their avowed intention is to bring about a state of things that will force emancipation on the South. To unite the North in fixed hostility to slavery in the South, and to excite discontent among the slaves with their condition, are among the means employed to effect it. With a view to bring about the former, every means are resorted to in order to render the South, and the relation between the two races there, odious and hateful to the North. For this purpose societies and newspapers are everywhere established, debating clubs opened, lecturers employed, pamphlets and other publications, pictures and petitions to Congress, resorted to, and directed to that single point, regardless of truth or decency; while the circulation of incendiary publications in the South, the agitation of the subject of abolition in Congress, and the employment of emissaries are relied on to excite discontent among the slaves. This agitation, and the use of these means, have been continued with more or less activity for a series of years, not without doing much towards effecting the object intended. We regard both object and means to be aggressive and dangerous to the rights of the South, and subversive, as stated, of one of the ends for which the Constitution was established. Slavery is a domestic institution. It belongs to the States, each for itself to decide, whether it shall be established or not; and if it be established, whether it should be abolished or not. Such being the clear and unquestionable right of the States, it follows necessarily that it would be a flagrant act of aggression on a State, destructive of its rights, and subversive of its independence, for the Federal Government, or one or more States, or their people, to undertake to force on it the emancipation of its slaves. But it is a sound maxim in politics, as well as law and morals, that no one has a right to do that indirectly which he cannot do directly, and it may be added with equal truth, to aid, or abet, or countenance another in doing it. And yet the Abolitionists of the North, openly avowing their intention, and resorting to the most efficient means for the purpose, have been attempting to bring about a state of things to force the Southern States to emancipate their slaves, without any act on the part of any Northern State to arrest or suppress the means by which they propose to accomplish it. They have been permitted to pursue their object and to use whatever means they please, if without aid or countenance, also without resistance or disapprobation. What gives a deeper shade to the whole affair, is the fact, that one of the means to effect their object, that of exciting discontent among our slaves, tends directly to subvert what its preamble declares to be one of the ends for which the Constitution was ordained and established: "to insure domestic tranquillity," and that in the only way in which domestic tranquillity is likely ever to be disturbed in the South. Certain it is, that an agitation so systematic—having such an object in view, and sought to be carried into execution by such means—would, between independent nations, constitute just cause of remonstrance by the party against which the aggression was directed, and if not heeded, an appeal to arms for redress. Such being the case where an aggression of the kind takes place among independent nations, how much more aggravated must it be between confederated States, where the Union precludes an appeal to arms, while it affords a medium through which it can operate with vastly increased force and effect? That it would be perverted to such a use, never entered into the imagination of the generation which formed and adopted the Constitution, and, if it had been supposed it would, it is certain that the South never would have adopted it.

We now return to the question of the admission of Missouri into the Union, and shall proceed to give a brief sketch of the occurrences connected with it, and the consequences to which it has directly led. In the latter part of 1819, the then territory of Missouri applied to Congress, in the usual form, for leave to form a State Constitution and Government, in order to be admitted into the Union. A bill was reported for the purpose, with the usual provisions in such cases. Amendments were offered, having for their object to make it a condition of her admission, that her Constitution should have a provision to prohibit slavery. This brought on the agitating debate, which, with the effects that followed, has done so much to alienate the South and North, and endanger our political institutions. Those who objected to the amendments, rested their opposition on the high grounds of the right of self-government. They claimed that a territory, having reached the period when it is proper for it to form a Constitution and Government for itself, becomes fully vested with all the rights of self-government; and that even the condition imposed on it by the Federal Constitution, relates not to the formation of its Constitution and Government, but its admission into the Union. For that purpose, it provides as a condition, that the Government must be Republican.

They claimed that Congress has no right to add to this condition, and that to assume it would be tantamount to the assumption of the right to make its entire Constitution and Government; as no limitation could be imposed, as to the extent of the right, if it be admitted that it exists at all. Those who supported the amendment denied these grounds, and claimed the right of Congress to impose, at discretion, what conditions it pleased. In this agitating debate, the two sections stood arrayed against each other; the South in favor of the bill without amendment, and the North opposed to it without it. The debate and agitation continued until the session was well advanced; but it became apparent, towards its close, that the people of Missouri were fixed and resolved in their opposition to the proposed condition, and that they would certainly reject it, and adopt a Constitution without it, should the bill pass with the condition. Such being the case, it required no great effort of mind to perceive, that Missouri, once in possession of a Constitution and Government, not simply on paper, but with legislators elected, and officers appointed, to carry them into effect, the grave questions would be presented, whether she was of right a Territory or State; and, if the latter, whether Congress had the right, and, if the right, the power, to abrogate her Constitution, disperse her legislature, and to remand her back to the territorial condition. These were great, and, under the circumstances, fearful questions—too fearful to be met by those who had raised the agitation. From that time the only question was, how to escape from the difficulty. Fortunately, a means was afforded. A Compromise (as it was called) was offered, based on the terms, that the North should cease to oppose the admission of Missouri on the grounds for which the South contended, and that the provisions of the Ordinance of 1787, for the government of the Northwestern Territory, should be applied to all the territory acquired by the United States from France under the treaty of Louisiana lying North of 36° 30', except the portion lying in the State of Missouri. The Northern members embraced it; and although not originating with them, adopted it as their own. It was forced through Congress by the almost united votes of the North, against a minority consisting almost entirely of members from the Southern States.

Such was the termination of this, the first conflict, under the Constitution, between the two sections, in reference to slavery in connection with the territories. Many hailed it as a permanent and final adjustment that would prevent the recurrence of similar conflicts; but others, less sanguine, took the opposite and more gloomy view, regarding it as the precursor of a train of events which might rend the Union asunder, and prostrate our political system. One of these was the experienced and sagacious Jefferson. Thus far, time would seem to favor his forebodings. May a returning sense of justice and a protecting Providence, avert their final fulfilment.

For many years the subject of slavery in reference to the territories ceased to agitate the country. Indications, however, connected with the question of annexing Texas, showed clearly that it was ready to break out again, with redoubled violence, on some future occasion. The difference in the case of Texas was adjusted by extending the Missouri compromise line of 36° 30', from its terminus, on the western boundary of the Louisiana purchase, to the western boundary of Texas. The agitation again ceased for a short period.

The war with Mexico soon followed, and that terminated in the acquisition of New Mexico and Upper California, embracing an area equal to about one half of the entire valley of the Mississippi. If to this we add the portion of Oregon acknowledged to be ours by the recent treaty with England, our whole territory on the Pacific and west of the Rocky Mountains will be found to be in extent but little less than that vast valley. The near prospect of so great an addition rekindled the excitement between the North and South in reference to slavery in its connection with the territories, which has become, since those on the Pacific were acquired, more universal and intense than ever.

The effects have been to widen the difference between the two sections, and to give a more determined and hostile character to their conflict. The North no longer respects the Missouri compromise line, although adopted by their almost unanimous vote. Instead of compromise, they avow that their determination is to exclude slavery from all the territories of the United States, acquired, or to be acquired; and, of course, to prevent the citizens of the Southern States from emigrating with their property in slaves into any of them. Their object, they allege, is to prevent the extension of slavery, and ours to extend it, thus making the issue between them and us to be the naked question, shall slavery be extended or not? We do not deem it necessary, looking to the object of this address, to examine the question so fully discussed at the last session, whether Congress has the right to exclude the citizens of the South from immigrating with their property into territories belonging to the confederated States of the Union. What we propose in this connection is, to make a few remarks on what the North alleges, erroneously, to be the issue between us and them.

So far from maintaining the doctrine, which the issue implies, we hold that the Federal Government has no right to extend or restrict slavery, no more than to establish or abolish it; nor has it any right whatever to distinguish between the domestic institutions of one State, or section, and another, in order to favor the one and discourage the other. As the federal representative of each and all the States, it is bound to deal out, within the sphere of its powers, equal and exact justice and favor to all. To act otherwise, to undertake to discriminate between the domestic institutions of one and another, would be to act in total subversion of the end for which it was established—to be the common protector and guardian of all. Entertaining these opinions, we ask not, as the North alleges we do, for the extension of slavery. That would make a discrimination in our favor, as unjust and unconstitutional as the discrimination they ask against us in their favor. It is not for them, nor for the Federal Government to determine, whether our domestic institution is good or bad; or whether it should be repressed or preserved. It belongs to us, and us only, to decide such questions. What then we do insist on, is, not to extend slavery, but that we shall not be prohibited from immigrating with our property, into the Territories of the United States, because we are slaveholders; or, in other words, that we shall not on that account be disfranchised of a privilege possessed by all others, citizens and foreigners, without discrimination as to character, profession, or color. All, whether savage, barbarian, or civilized, may freely enter and remain, we only being excluded.

We rest our claim, not only on the high grounds above stated, but also on the solid foundation of right, justice, and equality. The territories immediately in controversy—New Mexico and California—were acquired by the common sacrifice and efforts of all the States, towards which the South contributed far more than her full share of men,⁵ to say nothing of money, and is, of course, on every principle of right, justice, fairness, and equality, entitled to participate fully in the benefits to be derived from their acquisition. But as impregnable as is this ground, there is another not. less so. Ours is a Federal Government—a Government in which not individuals, but States, as distinct sovereign communities, are the constituents. To them, as members of the Federal Union, the territories belong; and they are hence declared to be territories belonging to the United States. The States, then, are the joint owners. Now it is conceded by all writers on the subject, that in all such Governments their members are all equal—equal in rights and equal in dignity. They also concede that this equality constitutes the basis of such Government, and that it cannot be destroyed without changing their nature and character. To deprive, then, the Southern States and their citizens of their full share in territories declared to belong to them, in common with the other States, would be in derogation of the equality belonging to them as members of a Federal Union, and sink them, from being equals, into a subordinate and dependent condition. Such are the solid and impregnable grounds on which we rest our demand to an equal participation in the territories.

But as solid and impregnable as they are in the eyes of justice and reason, they oppose a feeble resistance to a majority, determined to engross the whole. At the last session of Congress, a bill was passed, establishing a territorial government for Oregon, excluding slavery therefrom. The President gave his sanction to the bill, and sent a special message to Congress assigning his reasons for doing so. These reasons presupposed that the Missouri compromise was to be, and would be, extended west of the Rocky Mountains, to the Pacific Ocean. And the President intimated his intention in his message to veto any future bill that should restrict slavery south of the line of that compromise. Assuming it to have been the purpose and intention of the North to extend the Missouri compromise line as above indicated, the passage of the Oregon bill could only be regarded as evincing the acquiescence of the South in that line. But the developments of the present session of Congress have made it manifest to all, that no such purpose or intention now exists with the North to any considerable extent. Of the truth of this, we have ample evidence in what has occurred already in the House of Representatives, where the popular feelings are soonest and most intensely felt.

Although Congress has been in session but little more than one month, a greater number of measures of an aggressive character have been introduced, and they more aggravated and dangerous, than have been for years before. And what clearly discloses whence they take their origin, is the fact, that they all relate to the territorial aspect of the subject of slavery, or some other of a nature and character intimately connected with it.

The first of this series of aggressions is a resolution introduced by a member from Massachusetts, the object of which is to repeal all acts which recognize the existence of slavery, or authorize the selling and disposing of slaves in this District. On question of leave to bring in a bill, the votes stood 69 for and 82 against leave. The next was a resolution offered by a member from Ohio, instructing the Committee on Territories to report forthwith bills for excluding slavery from California and New Mexico.⁶ It passed by a vote of 107 to 80. That was followed by a bill introduced by another member from Ohio, to take the votes of the inhabitants of this District, on the question whether slavery within its limits should be abolished.

The bill provided, according to the admission of the mover, that free negroes and slaves should vote. On the question to lay the bill on the table, the votes stood, for 106, against 79. To this succeeded the resolution of a member from New York, in the following words:

"Whereas the traffic now prosecuted in this metropolis of the Republic in human beings, as chattels, is contrary to natural justice and the fundamental principles of our political system, and is notoriously a reproach to our country, throughout Christendom, and a serious hinderance to the progress of republican liberty among the nations of the earth. Therefore,

 

"Resolved, That the Committee for the District of Columbia be instructed to report a bill, as soon as practicable, prohibiting the slave trade in said District."

On the question of adopting the resolution, the votes stood 98 for, and 88 against. He was followed by a member from Illinois, who offered a resolution for abolishing slavery in the Territories, and all places where Congress has exclusive powers of legislation, that is, in all forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings, purchased by Congress with the consent of the Legislature of the State.

This resolution was passed over under the rules of the House without being put to vote.

The votes in favor of all these measures were confined to the members from the Northern States. True, there are some patriotic members from that section who voted against all of them, and whose high sense of justice is duly appreciated; who in the progress of the aggressions upon the South have, by their votes, sustained the guaranties of the Constitution, and of whom we regret to say many have been sacrificed at home by their patriotic course.

We have now brought to a close a narrative of the series of acts of aggression and encroachment, connected with the subject of this address, including those that are consummated and those still in progress. They are numerous, great, and dangerous, and threaten with destruction the greatest and most vital of all the interests and institutions of the South. Indeed, it may be doubted whether there is a single provision, stipulation, or guaranty of the Constitution, intended for the security of the South, that has not been rendered almost perfectly nugatory. It may even be made a serious question, whether the encroachments already made, without the aid of any other, would not, if permitted to operate unchecked, end in emancipation, and that at no distant day. But be that as it may, it hardly admits of a doubt that, if the aggressions already commenced in the House, and now in progress, should be consummated, such in the end would certainly be the consequence.

Little, in truth, would be left to be done after we have been excluded from all the territories, including those to be hereafter acquired; after slavery is abolished in this District and in the numerous places dispersed all over the South, where Congress has the exclusive right of legislation, and after the other measures proposed are consummated. Every outpost and barrier would be carried, and nothing would be left but to finish the work of abolition at pleasure in the States themselves. This District, and all places over which Congress has exclusive power of legislation, would be asylums for fugitive slaves, where, as soon as they placed their feet, they would become, according to the doctrines of our Northern assailants, free, unless there should be some positive enactments to prevent it.

Under such a state of things the probability is, that emancipation would soon follow, without any final act to abolish slavery. The depressing effects of such measures on the white race at the South, and the hope they would create in the black of a speedy emancipation, would produce a state of feeling inconsistent with the much longer continuance of the existing relations between the two. But be that as it may, it is certain, if emancipation did not follow, as a matter of course, the final act in the States would not be long delayed. The want of constitutional power would oppose a feeble resistance. The great body of the North is united against our peculiar institution. Many believe it to be sinful, and the residue, with inconsiderable exceptions, believe it to be wrong. Such being the case, it would indicate a very superficial knowledge of human nature, to think that, after aiming at abolition, systematically, for so many years, and pursuing it with such unscrupulous disregard of law and Constitution, that the fanatics who have led the way and forced the great body of the North to follow them, would, when the finishing stroke only remained to be given, voluntarily suspend it, or permit any constitutional scruples or considerations of justice to arrest it. To these may be added an aggression, though not yet commenced, long meditated and threatened to prohibit what the abolitionists call the internal slave trade, meaning thereby the transfer of slaves from one State to another, from whatever motive done, or however effected. Their object would seem to be to render them worthless by crowding them together where they are, and thus hasten the work of emancipation. There is reason for believing that it will soon follow those now in progress, unless, indeed, some decisive step should be taken in the mean time to arrest the whole.

The question then is, Will the measures of aggression proposed in the House be adopted?

They may not, and probably will not be this session. But when we take into consideration, that there is a majority now in favor of one of them, and a strong minority in favor of the other, so far as the sense of the House has been taken; that there will be in all probability a considerable increase in the next Congress of the vote in favor of them, and that it will be largely increased in the next succeeding Congress under the census to be taken next year, it amounts almost to a certainty that they will be adopted, unless some decisive measure is taken in advance to prevent it.

But, if even these conclusions should prove erroneous—if fanaticism and the love of power should, contrary to their nature, for once respect constitutional barriers, or if the calculations of policy should retard the adoption of these measures, or even defeat them altogether, there would be still left one certain way to accomplish their object, if the determination avowed by the North to monopolize all the territories, to the exclusion of the South, should be carried into effect. That of itself would, at no distant day, add to the North a sufficient number of States to give her three fourths of the whole; when, under the color of an amendment of the Constitution, she would emancipate our slaves, however opposed it might be to its true intent.

Thus, under every aspect, the result is certain, if aggression be not promptly and decidedly met. How it is to be met, it is for you to decide.

Such then being the case, it would be to insult you to suppose you could hesitate. To destroy the existing relation between the free and servile races at the South would lead to consequences unparalleled in history. They cannot be separated, and cannot live together in peace, or harmony, or to their mutual advantage, except in their present relation. Under any other, wretchedness, and misery, and desolation would overspread the whole South. The example of the British West Indies, as blighting as emancipation has proved to them, furnishes a very faint picture of the calamities it would bring on the South. The circumstances under which it would take place with us, would be entirely different from those which took place with them, and calculated to lead to far more disastrous results. There the Government of the parent country emancipated slaves in her colonial possessions—a Government rich and powerful, and actuated by views of policy (mistaken as they turned out to be), rather than fanaticism. It was besides, disposed to act justly towards the owners, even in the act of emancipating their slaves, and to protect and foster them afterwards. It accordingly appropriated nearly $100,000,000 as a compensation to them for their losses under the act, which sum, although it turned out to be far short of the amount, was thought at the time to be liberal. Since the emancipation, it has kept up a sufficient military and naval force to keep the blacks in awe, and a number of magistrates, and constables, and other civil officers, to keep order in the towns and on plantations, and enforce respect to their former owners. To a considerable extent these have served as a substitute for the police formerly kept on the plantations by the owners and their overseers, and to preserve the social and political superiority of the white race. But, notwithstanding all this, the British West India possessions are ruined, impoverished, miserable, wretched, and destined probably to be abandoned to the black race.

Very different would be the circumstances under which emancipation would take place with us. If it ever should be effected, it will be through the agency of the Federal Government, controlled by the dominant power of the Northern States of the Confederacy, against the resistance and struggle of the Southern. It can then only be effected by the prostration of the white race; and that would necessarily engender the bitterest feelings of hostility between them and the North. But the reverse would be the case between the blacks of the South and the people of the North. Owing their emancipation to them, they would regard them as friends, guardians, and patrons, and centre, accordingly, all their sympathy in them. The people of the North would not fail to reciprocate and to favor them, instead of the whites. Under the influence of such feelings, and impelled by fanaticism and love of power, they would not stop at emancipation. Another step would be taken—to raise them to a political and social equality with their former owners, by giving them the right of voting and holding public offices under the Federal Government. We see the first step toward it in the bill already alluded to—to vest the free blacks and slaves with the right to vote on the question of emancipation in this District. But when once raised to an equality, they would become the fast political associates of the North, acting and voting with them on all questions, and by this political union between them, holding the white race at the South in complete subjection. The blacks, and the profligate whites that might unite with them, would become the principal recipients of federal offices and patronage, and would, in consequence, be raised above the whites of the South in the political and social scale. We would, in a word, change conditions with them—a degradation greater than has ever yet fallen to the lot of a free and enlightened people, and one from which we could not escape, should emancipation take place (which it certainly will if not prevented), but by fleeing the homes of ourselves and ancestors, and by abandoning our country to our former slaves, to become the permanent abode of disorder, anarchy, poverty, misery, and wretchedness.

With such a prospect before us, the gravest and most solemn question that ever claimed the attention of a people is presented for your consideration: What is to be done to prevent it? It is a question belonging to you to decide. All we propose is, to give you our opinion.

We, then, are of the opinion that the first and indispensable step, without which nothing can be done, and with which every thing may be, is to be united among yourselves, on this great and most vital question. The want of union and concert in reference to it has brought the South, the Union, and our system of government to their present perilous condition. Instead of placing it above all others, it has been made subordinate, not only to mere questions of policy, but to the preservation of party ties and ensuring of party success. As high as we hold a due respect for these, we hold them subordinate to that and other questions involving our safety and happiness. Until they are so held by the South, the North will not believe that you are in earnest in opposition to their encroachments, and they will continue to follow, one after another, until the work of abolition is finished. To convince them that you are, you must prove by your acts that you hold all other questions subordinate to it. If you become united, and prove yourselves in earnest, the North will be brought to a pause, and to a calculation of consequences; and that may lead to a change of measures, and the adoption of a course of policy that may quietly and peaceably terminate this long conflict between the two sections. If it should not, nothing would remain for you but to stand up immovably in defence of rights, involving your all—your property, prosperity, equality, liberty, and safety.

As the assailed, you would stand justified by all laws, human and divine, in repelling a blow so dangerous, without looking to consequences, and to resort to all means necessary for that purpose. Your assailants, and not you, would be responsible for consequences.

Entertaining these opinions, we earnestly entreat you to be united, and for that purpose adopt all necessary measures. Beyond this, we think it would not be proper to go at present.

We hope, if you should unite with any thing like unanimity, it may of itself apply a remedy to this deep-seated and dangerous disease; but, if such should not be the case, the time will then have come for you to decide what course to adopt.

R. M. T. HUNTER,Virginia.

JAMES M. MASON, “

ARCHIBALD ATKINSON, “

THOMAS H. BAYLY, “

R. L. T. BEALE, “

HENRY BEDINGER, “

THOMAS S. BOCOCK, “

WILLIAM G. BROWN, “

R. K. MEADE, “

R. A. THOMPSON, “

J. R. J. DANIEL, North Carolina.

A. W. VENABLE, N. Carolina.

A. P. BUTLER, South Carolina.

 J. C. CALHOUN, “

ARMISTEAD BURT, “

I. E. HOLMES, “

R. B. RHETT, “

R. F. SIMPSON, “

D. WALLACE, “

J. A. WOODWARD, “

H. V. JOHNSON, Georgia.

ALFRED IVERSON, “

HUGH A. HARALSON, “

DAVID L. YULEE, Florida.

S. U. DOWNS, Louisiana.

J. H. HARMANSON, “

EMILE LA SERE, “

I. E. MORSE, “

T. PILSBURY, Texas.

DAVID S. KAUFMAN, “

SOLON BORLAND, Arkansas.

J. K. SEBASTIAN, “

R. W. JOHNSON, “

HOPKINS L. TURNEY, Tennessee.

F. P. STANTON, “

D. R. ATCHISON, Missouri.

WILLIAM R. KING, Alabama.

B. FITZBATRICK, “

JOHN GAYLE, “

F. W. BOWDON, “

S. W. HARRIS, “

S. W. INGE, “

JEFFERSON DAVIS, Mississippi.

HENRY S. FOOTE, “

P. W. TOMPKINS, “

A. G. BROWN, “

W. S. FEATHERSTON, “

JACOB THOMPSON, “

P. S. Since this address was prepared a motion to reconsider Mr. GOTT's resolutions has passed the House of Representatives, and they are now the subject of further proceedings.

_______________

¹ Indiana and Illinois.

² The case of Prigg vs. the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

³ The case of Johnson vs. Tompkins and others.

⁴ Mr. Kennedy, of Hagerstown, Maryland.

⁵ Being nearly two on the part of the South to one on the part of the North. But taking into consideration that the population of the North is two thirds greater than the South, the latter has furnished more than three times her due proportion of volunteers.

Total number of volunteers from the South—Regiments	33
Battalions	14
Companies	120
Total number of volunteers from the South,	45,640
Total number of volunteers from the North-Regiments	22
Battalions	2
Companies	12
Total number of volunteers from the North,	23,084

⁶ Since reported to the House.

SOURCES: Richard Crallé, Editor, The Works of John C. Calhoun: Volume VI: Reports and Public Letters of John C. Calhoun, p. 290-313; James Stryker, Editor, The American Quarterly Register and Magazine, Volume 3, No. 1, p. 276-87; The American Review: A Whig Journal, Devoted to Politics and Literature, New Series Vol. III.—Whole Vol. IX, No. XV March 1849, p. 313 for the date of the address.