Congressman Horace Mann, February 6, 1850

FEB 6.

I really think, if we insist upon passing the Wilmot Proviso for the Territories, that the South—a part of them — will rebel. But I would pass it, rebellion or not. I consider no evil so great as that of the extension of slavery.

SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, p. 288

Congressman Horace Mann, February 14, 1850

FEB. 14.

You ejaculate a prayer for my protection. I do not feel in any personal danger. I mean to tell them what I think, and in such a way that they shall understand me. But I am principled against doing it offensively.

If Mr. Clay had demanded immunity for slavery in the States and in the District only, he would have demanded nothing more than the South claims as absolute right; and so it would, in their eyes, have wanted the reciprocity of a compromise. Nobody but the abolitionists of the Garrison school pretends to interfere with slavery in the States; and non-interference with slavery in the District, now only fifty square miles, would have seemed to them paltry. I think, regarding the thing as a compromise, Mr. Clay has done pretty well. But I do not concede their right to carry slavery into the Territories at all; and therefore I will never yield to their claim to carry it there, come what will. I should prefer dissolution even, terrible as it would be, to slavery extension.

SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, p. 289

Congressman Horace Mann, February 20, 1850

FEB. 20.

You are mistaken in supposing the great majority of the South would rejoice if slavery were not extended; at least, this is true of the men who control public sentiment. Mr. Clay is almost a dictator in Kentucky. His personal popularity saves him.

We live a hurried and confused life here. So much labor to be performed, and such short days to work in; such mighty events to control and regulate, and so little of public spirit and intelligence to direct them! Life is quickened to an almost unconscious whirl. One thing alone makes it tolerable to me,—the possibility of doing something to favor the right or to check the wrong.

SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, p. 292

Abraham Lincoln’s Speech at Leavenworth, Kansas, December 3, 1859

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: You are, as yet, the people of a Territory; but you probably soon will be the people of a State of the Union. Then you will be in possession of new privileges, and new duties will be upon you. You will have to bear a part in all that pertains to the administration of the National Government. That government, from the beginning, has had, has now, and must continue to have a policy in relation to domestic slavery. It cannot, if it would, be without a policy upon that subject. And that policy must, of necessity, take one of two directions. It must deal with the institution as being wrong or as not being wrong.

Mr. Lincoln then stated, somewhat in detail, the early action of the General Government upon the question—in relation to the foreign slave trade, the basis of Federal representation, and the prohibition of slavery in the Federal territories; the Fugitive Slave clause in the Constitution, and insisted that, plainly that early policy, was based on the idea of slavery being wrong; and tolerating it so far, and only so far, as the necessity of its actual presence required.

He then took up the policy of the Kansas-Nebraska act, which he argued was based on opposite ideas—that is, the idea that slavery is not wrong. He said: “You, the people of Kansas, furnish the example of the first application of this new policy. At the end of about five years, after having almost continual struggles, fire and bloodshed, over this very question, and after having framed several State Constitutions, you have, at last, secured a Free State Constitution, under which you will probably be admitted into the Union. You have, at last, at the end of all this difficulty, attained what we, in the old North-western Territory, attained without any difficulty at all. Compare, or rather contrast, the actual working of this new policy with that of the old, and say whether, after all, the old way—the way adopted by Washington and his compeers—was not the better way.”

Mr. Lincoln argued that the new policy had proven false to all its promises—that its promise to the Nation was to speedily end the slavery agitation, which it had not done, but directly the contrary—that its promises to the people of the Territories was to give them greater control of their own affairs than the people of former Territories had had; while, by the actual experiment, they had had less control of their own affairs, and had been more bedeviled by outside interference than the people of any other Territory ever had.

He insisted that it was deceitful in its expressed wish to confer additional privileges upon the people; else it would have conferred upon them the privilege of choosing their own officers. That if there be any just reason why all the privileges of a State should not be conferred on the people of a Territory at once, it only could be the smallness of numbers; and that if while their number was small, they were fit to do some things, and unfit to do others, it could only be because those they were unfit to do, were the larger and more important things—that, in this case, the allowing the people of Kansas to plant their soil with slavery, and not allowing them to choose their own Governor, could only be justified on the idea that the planting a new State with slavery was a very small matter, and the election of Governor a very much greater matter. “Now,” said he, “compare these two matters and decide which is really the greater. You have already had, I think, five Governors, and yet, although their doings, in their respective days, were of some little interest to you, it is doubtful whether you now, even remember the names of half of them. They are gone (all but the last) without leaving a trace upon your soil, or having done a single act which can, in the least degree, help or hurt you, in all the indefinite future before you. This is the size of the Governor question. Now, how is it with the slavery question? If your first settlers had so far decided in favor of slavery, as to have got five thousand slaves planted on your soil, you could, by no moral possibility, have adopted a Free State Constitution. Their owners would be influential voters among you as good men as the rest of you, and, by their greater wealth, and consequent, greater capacity, to assist the more needy, perhaps the most influential among you. You could not wish to destroy, or injuriously interfere with their property. You would not know what to do with the slaves after you had made them free. You would not wish to keep them as underlings; nor yet to elevate them to social and political equality. You could not send them away. The slave States would not let you send them there; and the free States would not let you send them there. All the rest of your property would not pay for sending them to Liberia. In one word, you could not have made a free State, if the first half of your own numbers had got five thousand slaves fixed upon the soil. You could have disposed of, not merely five, but five hundred Governors easier. There they would have stuck, in spite of you, to plague you and your children, and your children's children, indefinitely. Which is the greater, this, or the Governor question? Which could the more safely be intrusted to the first few people who settle a Territory? Is it that which, at most, can be but temporary and brief in its effects? or that which being done by the first few, can scarcely ever be undone by the succeeding many?

He insisted that, little as was Popular Sovereignty at first, the Dred Scott decision, which is indorsed by the author of Popular Sovereignty, has reduced it to still smaller proportions, if it has not entirely crushed it out. That, in fact, all it lacks of being crushed out entirely by that decision, is the lawyer's technical distinction between decision and dictum. That the Court has already said a Territorial government cannot exclude slavery; but because they did not say it in a case where a Territorial government had tried to exclude slavery, the lawyers hold that saying of the Court to be dictum and not decision. “But,” said Mr. Lincoln, “is it not certain that the Court will make a decision of it, the first time a Territorial government tries to exclude slavery?”

Mr. Lincoln argued that the doctrine of Popular Sovereignty, carried out, renews the African Slave Trade. Said he: “Who can show that one people have a better right to carry slaves to where they have never been, than another people have to buy slaves wherever they please, even in Africa?”

He also argued that the advocates of Popular Sovereignty, by their efforts to brutalize the negro in the public mind—denying him any share in the Declaration of Independence, and comparing him to the crocodile—were beyond what avowed pro-slavery men ever do, and really did as much, or more than they, toward making the institution national and perpetual.

He said many of the Popular Sovereignty advocates were “as much opposed to slavery as any one;” but that they could never find any proper time or place to oppose it. In their view, it must not be opposed in politics, because that is agitation; nor in the pulpit, because it is not religion; nor in the Free States, because it is not there; nor in the Slave States, because it is there. These gentlemen, however, are never offended by hearing Slavery supported in any of these places. Still, they are “as much opposed to Slavery as anybody.” One would suppose that it would exactly suit them if the people of the Slave States would themselves adopt emancipation; but when Frank Blair tried this last year, in Missouri, and was beaten, every one of them threw up his hat and shouted “Hurrah for the Democracy!”

Mr. Lincoln argued that those who thought Slavery right ought to unite on a policy which should deal with it as being right; that they should go for a revival of the Slave Trade; for carrying the institution everywhere, into Free States as well as Territories; and for a surrender of fugitive slaves in Canada, or war with Great Britain. Said he, “all shades of Democracy, popular sovereign as well as the rest, are fully agreed that slaves are property, and only property. If Canada now had as many horses as she has slaves belonging to Americans, I should think it just cause of war if she did not surrender them on demand.[”]

“On the other hand, all those who believe slavery is wrong should unite on a policy, dealing with it as a wrong. They should be deluded into no deceitful contrivances, pretending indifference, but really working for that to which they are opposed.” He urged this at considerable length.

He then took up some of the objections to Republicans. They were accused of being sectional. He denied it. What was the proof? “Why, that they have no existence, get no votes in the South. But that depends on the South, and not on us. It is their volition, not ours; and if there be fault in it, it is primarily theirs, and remains so, unless they show that we repeal them by some wrong principle. If they attempt this, they will find us holding no principle, other than those held and acted upon by the men who gave us the government under which we live. They will find that the charge of sectionalism will not stop at us, but will extend to the very men who gave us the liberty we enjoy. But if the mere fact that we get no votes in the slave states makes us sectional, whenever we shall get votes in those states, we shall cease to be sectional; and we are sure to get votes, and a good many of them too, in these states next year.

“You claim that you are conservative; and we are not. We deny it. What is conservatism? Preserving the old against the new. And yet you are conservative in struggling for the new, and we are destructive in trying to maintain the old. Possibly you mean you are conservative in trying to maintain the existing institution of slavery. Very well; we are not trying to destroy it. The peace of society, and the structure of our government both require that we should let it alone, and we insist on letting it alone. If I might advise my Republican friends here, I would say to them, leave your Missouri neighbors alone. Have nothing whatever to do with their slaves. Have nothing whatever to do with the white people, save in a friendly way. Drop past differences, and so conduct yourselves that if you cannot be at peace with them, the fault shall be wholly theirs.

“You say we have made the question more prominent than heretofore. We deny it. It is more prominent; but we did not make it so. Despite of us, you would have a change of policy; we resist the change, and in the struggle, the greater prominence is given to the question. Who is responsible for that, you or we? If you would have the question reduced to its old proportions go back to the old policy. That will effect it.

“But you are for the Union; and you greatly fear the success of the Republicans would destroy the Union. Why? Do the Republicans declare against the Union? Nothing like it. Your own statement of it is, that if the Black Republicans elect a President, you won't stand it. You will break up the Union. That will be your act, not ours. To justify it, you must show that our policy gives you just cause for such desperate action. Can you do that? When you attempt it, you will find that our policy is exactly the policy of the men who made the Union. Nothing more and nothing less. Do you really think you are justified to break up the government rather than have it administered by Washington, and other good and great men who made it, and first administered it? If you do you are very unreasonable; and more reasonable men cannot and will not submit to you. While you elect [the] President, we submit, neither breaking nor attempting to break up the Union. If we shall constitutionally elect a President, it will be our duty to see that you submit. Old John Brown has just been executed for treason against a state. We cannot object, even though he agreed with us in thinking slavery wrong. That cannot excuse violence, bloodshed, and treason. It could avail him nothing that he might think himself right. So, if constitutionally we elect a President, and therefore you undertake to destroy the Union, it will be our duty to deal with you as old John Brown has been dealt with. We shall try to do our duty. We hope and believe that in no section will a majority so act as to render such extreme measures necessary.”

Mr. Lincoln closed by an appeal to all—opponents as well as friends—to think soberly and maturely, and never fail to cast their vote, insisting that it was not a privilege only, but a duty to do so.

SOURCE: Roy P. Bassler, Editor, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume 3, p. 497-502 which cites Illinois State Journal, December 12, 1859 as its source.

Alexander H. Stephens to the Editor of the Federal Union,* August 30, 1848

Clinton, Ga. 30th, Aug., 1848.

Mr. Editor: In passing through this place, I have just seen your paper of yesterday's date which contains some enquiries addressed to me, to which I cannot hesitate to give a prompt reply “in such reasonable length and respectful terms” as to secure, I trust, a place in your columns.

And that I may be distinctly understood, I will give the entire communication and my answer to each enquiry in order:

To The Hon. A. H. Stephens:

It is known to you, that your motion to lay upon the table the “Compromise bill”¹ of the Senate, during the late session of Congress, has produced considerable excitement in this district. You have been nominated as the Whig candidate for re-election. If you should have opposition, it is scarcely to be doubted that this bill will be the main issue involved in the canvass. It is therefore eminently desirable that your sentiments should be clearly understood as to what are the rights of the South and how far they are affected by the bill. A careful perusal of your speech has left our mind in doubt as to your opinion upon several essential points. We therefore venture respectfully to propound to you a few interrogatories, to which we ask a reply.

I. Do you believe that Congress has the right under the Constitution, to prohibit slavery in the territories belonging to the United States?

To your first enquiry I answer, that I do not believe that Congress has the right, either in honor, justice or good faith, to prohibit slavery in the territories belonging to the United States and thus to appropriate the public Domain entirely to the benefit of the people of the non-slaveholding states — and hence I have uniformly voted against the Oregon bill which contained a section excluding slavery, notwithstanding most if not all my Democratic colleagues have repeatedly voted for a bill organizing a Government there with such exclusion — and notwithstanding Mr. Polk has lately signed a bill which contained such an exclusion.

So far as New Mexico and California are concerned, and towards which your enquiries are doubtless mainly directed, there is no express provision in the Constitution which applies either directly or indirectly to them. They are to be considered as acquired by conquest, and there is no article or clause in the Constitution that relates in the remotest degree to the government of conquests. I do not believe that the framers of the Constitution contemplated that such a contingency would ever happen — and hence the silence of the Constitution upon that subject. But as the Supreme Court of the United States have repeatedly held the doctrine that the power to make conquest does belong to the General Government, though not expressly granted, it is not my purpose to say anything upon that point now. The only point in your enquiry relates to the government of the conquest, and to that point I answer explicitly that I consider the conquest, according to the best authorities upon the laws of nations, as belonging to the people of the United States — to all the citizens of the United States, the South as well as the North. When the treaty is fully complied with these provinces will constitute a public domain acquired by the common valor, blood and treasure of all. And in the government of them the rights and interests of the South should be looked to, guarded and protected as well as the North by all proper and necessary laws. Until they are admitted into the United States the government of them must devolve upon Congress or such territorial legislatures as may be created and authorized by Congress. And any legislation by Congress or by the territorial legislatures which would exclude slavery would be in direct violation of the rights of the Southern people to an equal participation in them and in open derogation of that equality between the states of the South and North which should never [be] surrendered by the South. And I hold also that any legislation by Congress or by the territorial legislatures which does not secure and protect the rights of the South as fully and as completely in the enjoyment of their property in slaves as it does the rights of the people of the North in the enjoyment of their property in these territories is manifestly unjust, in violation of the rights of the South, and a surrender of that equality between the different members of this confederacy which shall never be made by my sanction.

Your second enquiry is in the following words:

II. From your replies to Mr. Stanton of Tennessee, on pages 10 and 11 of your speech, we clearly infer that it is your opinion that the Constitution of the United States does not guarantee to the slaveholder the right to remove with his property into any territory of the United States and to be protected in the undisturbed use and enjoyment of his slaves as property. Do we properly construe your meaning?

And in reply you will allow me to say that you seem greatly to misapprehend my answer to Mr. Stanton. The purport of my answer to him was (I have not the speech before me) that the Constitution did secure and guarantee the rights of the master to his slave in every state and territory of the Union where slavery was not prohibited by law. But that it did not establish it in any territory or State where it was so prohibited. And the same I reaffirm. It is too plain a question to admit of argument. It is one of those truths which under our system of government may be considered as a political axiom. Everybody knows that the Constitution secures and guarantees property in slaves in Georgia and in all the slave States, but that it does not secure the use and enjoyment of such property in New York or any of the States where slavery is prohibited.

Your third question is in the following words:

III. If the right spoken of in the 2d question does exist under the Constitution in reference to territory generally, does it exist in relation to New Mexico and California?

And in answer to it I say that I hold that the Constitution does secure and guarantee the rights of the master to property in his slave in all the territories belong to the United States where slavery is not prohibited. With regard to the territories, the same principle holds which is applicable to the states. I do not maintain the position that slavery cannot be maintained without positive law. But I say that according to all the decisions of all the courts I have ever seen in all civilized nations, it cannot be maintained and protected where it is prohibited by express law. In all the states of this Union where it is not prohibited, the Constitution secures and protects it; but in those states where it is prohibited it does not protect it further than to provide for the recapture of runaway slaves — and the same principle I have no doubt from the decisions of the Supreme Court would by that tribunal be held to be applicable to the territories. By the Missouri Compromise slavery was prohibited from all that portion of the Louisiana cession out of Missouri, North of 36:30 degrees of North latitude. Slavery by that Compromise was in effect abolished in all that territory. For by the laws in force in the territory at the time of the acquisition slavery was recognised and had existence. There is a large territory now unoccupied which is embraced in the provisions of that Compromise and from which by that Compromise slavery is prohibited. And can any man believe that if a slaveholder should carry his slave into that territory where slavery is prohibited, that the Supreme Court of the United States would recognise his right and protect him in holding his slave there?

It is not my purpose now to speak of the constitutionality of the Missouri Compromise — I am speaking of it as a practical question under the decisions of the Supreme Court; and according to principles settled by that Court, does any man believe that the rights of the master would be protected by that Court in that territory, or any other territory of the United States, where slavery is prohibited, until the prohibition is removed by competent authority, any more than in a State where slavery is prohibited? In New Mexico and California slavery was abolished and prohibited by express law at the time of the conquest. And according to the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, which no man can gainsay or deny; (I mean the fact of the decisions; I do not now speak of their correctness), all the laws which were of force at the time of the conquest will continue in force until altered by competent authority, except such as were inconsistent with the Constitution of the United States or the stipulations of the treaty. Is the prohibition of slavery by the local law of any state or place inconsistent with the Constitution of the United States? If it is, those laws of New Mexico and California will become abrogated and necessarily cease to operate upon the final fulfilment of the treaty stipulations. But if the prohibition of slavery by the local law of any state or place is not inconsistent with the Constitution according to the decisions of the Supreme Court, they will of course remain of force until altered by competent authority. My own opinion is, that neither the existence of slavery or non-existence of it by the local law of any place is inconsistent with any provision of the Constitution. The Constitution extends over states where slavery exists as well as where it is prohibited. Slavery depends upon the law of the place, which may be either written or unwritten. And where it exists the Constitution protects it, but it does not establish it where it is prohibited.

I have heard some argue that the laws in New Mexico and California prohibiting slavery there were similar to the laws concerning the establishment of religion. I consider the cases totally different. for this plain reason: An established religion is inconsistent with an express provision of the Constitution.

But the non-existence or prohibition of slavery by the local law of any State or place is not inconsistent with any provision of the Constitution. It is in vain for any man to attempt to deceive himself or others upon this point. And it is worse than in vain to attempt to make the Southern people believe that any right was secured to them by the late proposed Compromise bill which without any legal protection referred the matter to the Supreme Court. The only right it pretended to secure was the right of a law suit — and that existed without the Compromise just as amply and as fully as it did under it. And under the circumstances if any man can suppose that the Court, at the end of the suit, would decide in favor of the rights of the Southern people, he cannot doubt but that the same decision would be made even if the Wilmot Proviso were passed.

But to proceed to your fourth question, which is as follows:

IV. We infer from the tenor of your speech that you do not believe the right exists in relation to New Mexico and California, because of the decrees of 1829 and 1837 abolishing slavery throughout the Republic of Mexico. If so, what right of the South is surrendered by the Compromise bill, and how is it surrendered?

To this I answer that your inference is entirely wrong. I do believe that we of the South have a right to an equal participation in this acquisition, notwithstanding the decrees and acts of Mexico abolishing and prohibiting slavery in New Mexico and California — and a right that I never intend to abandon or surrender by my vote. It is the right which belongs to us as a portion of the conquerors of the country. It is public property, belonging as I have said before to all the citizens of the country — to the people of the South as well as the North. It is common property, and the principles applicable to it are well expressed by Vattel, as follows:

All the members of a corporation have an equal right to the use of the common property. But respecting the manner of enjoying it, the body of the corporation may make such regulations as they think proper, provided that those regulations be not inconsistent with that equality of right which ought to be preserved in a communion of property. Thus a corporation may determine the use of a common forest or a common pasture, either allotting it to all the members, according to their wants, or allotting each an equal share, but they have no right to exclude any one of the members, or to make a distinction to his disadvantage, by assigning him a less share than that of the others. (Vattel's L[aw of] Nations], 113.)

These are the principles I hold: Congress has no right to exclude the South from an equal share, and it is the duty of Congress to see that the rights of the South are as amply protected as the rights of the North. And it was this right of legal protection for the property of the South that was surrendered in that bill. If Congress has the power to declare exactly how far the interests of the North shall be protected, if they have the power to extend the Missouri Compromise line, they certainly have the power to say in clear and distinct words that up to that line on the South the rights of the South shall be protected — and not after prohibiting us from going North of that line leave us to contest with the Courts our rights on the South of it. This is what the Compromise bill did. It excluded us from the whole of Oregon, and left us to the Courts to decide whether we should be allowed to carry and hold our property in New Mexico and California. For such a Compromise I shall never vote.

Your fifth question is as follows:

V. If by virtue of the Constitution of the United States, we have not the right to carry our slaves into these territories, we ask, upon what principle do you claim it, in behalf of your constituents? Do you claim it, upon the broad principle of justice arising from the fact that It is the fruit of common blood and common treasure? If so, do you expect Congress, constituted as it now is, or is hereafter likely to be, will ever recognise this principle of justice, and by positive legislation authorise the extension of slavery into those territories?

And in answer I say, that I do claim it “upon the broad principle of justice arising from the fact that it is the fruit of common blood and common treasure.” And I do expect that Congress constituted as it is will recognise this principle of justice when the South presents an unbroken front, as it ought to do, against paying one dollar for the territories unless this justice is awarded to them; and you will here permit me to bring to your mind a reminiscence not inapplicable on the present occasion. When the annexation of Texas was at first started by Mr. Tyler, by a treaty which left this question of vital importance to the South unsettled, I opposed it. I was then bitterly assailed by the paper which you now conduct for opposition to this great Southern measure upon all occasions when I addressed the people of Georgia. In 1844, I declared that I was in favor of the annexation of Texas upon proper principles — but I was utterly opposed to the Tyler treaty for several reasons, the main one of which was that the slave question was left open in it, the rights of the South were not secured by it, and that I should never vote for any plan of annexation that did not settle this question in the compact of union and secure these rights in terms clearly and distinctly defined. This position I maintained in your own city, and if you will turn to the files of the Federal Union and examine an editorial of the first week in July, 1844, I think you will see that this position of mine was alluded to and it was denounced as amounting to a total opposition to the whole measure and it was said (I quote from memory) that I was insisting upon what never could be obtained. But I had taken my position firmly, not to be deterred by any fears or alarms or denunciations. And from that position and its success a profitable lesson may now be learnt. I made a speech in Congress when a plan for annexation similar to the Tyler treaty was offered, in which I maintained the same position and stated the only grounds upon which I should vote for annexation. They were the same grounds which I had advocated throughout 1844. Seven Southern Whigs stood by me — we held the balance of power in the House. And when all other plans offered (and there were a number) failed (neither of which secured the rights of the South), then Mr. Brown (after conference with me and others) offered his with the Missouri Compromise in it; and that passed by my vote and the other seven Whigs, and it could not have passed in the Committee of the Whole House without our votes, as the proceedings of the House will show. The firm and inflexible course I and seven other Southern Whigs took upon that question secured the rights of the South and obtained the establishment of the Missouri Compromise, which it was said by the Federal Union could never be obtained. And if a similar course shall be taken and maintained by all parties at the South, the same Compromise or one as good can be obtained again. I have taken the same stand now and I intend to maintain it in defiance of all assaults and denunciations that may be made against me from any and every quarter.

The sixth and last of your enquiries, is as follows:

VI. If you should be of opinion that we have the constitutional right to carry our slaves into these territories, would you sooner risk the recognition and vindication of that right before Congress where there is a decided majority in both branches against us, or before the Supreme Court where it is well known that a majority of the Bench are from slaveholding States?

We are aware, that you deprecate in very strong terms any reference to the complexion of the Supreme Court upon this subject. Tour deprecation may be the result of a sentiment which we by no means condemn. Yet we do not agree with you in its application in this instance. The South are in a minority, we fear a doomed minority, on this subject, and we are therefore disposed to vindicate our rights by all honorable means. We certainly should not refuse to accept justice because the tribunal to whom we apply are supposed to be favorable to our cause. With all deference to your views on this point, we must be indulged in the belief that your indignation savors more of transcendentalism than of sound, practical statesmanship.

To this I answer that I consider the reference of this subject to the Supreme Court as a total abandonment of the question by the South. According to repeated decisions of that court upon the principles involved in it, I cannot see how any man can look upon it in any other light. But I will here say, that I am opposed to referring any political question to that court. And as a Representative in Congress, as long as I shall have the honor of remaining there, I shall never avoid responsibility by turning any question over to the Supreme Court or any other body. I shall, as I have heretofore done, maintain the equal and just rights of my constituents upon all questions; and I shall demand that they be clearly and distinctly recognised by Congress, that they may be amply protected by all others before whom they may come for action; and when these rights are left to the courts to determine, by my sanction they shall be so clearly set forth and defined that the courts shall be bound to protect them, in their decisions. And I say to you and the people of the 7th. Congressional District, that I shall never return as your and their Representative and tell them I have secured their rights by getting an act passed which will enable them to carry their slaves to California and New Mexico to encounter a law suit whenever they get there, which will cost more than their slaves are worth. If I can never get a better compromise for them than such an one as that, I shall never agree to any at all. They have that right independently of any thing I can do for them, and that is a right which no act of Congress can deprive them of.

_______________

* From the Federal Union, Milledgerllle, Ga., Sept. 12, 1848.

¹ The Clayton compromise hill.

SOURCE: Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, Editor, The Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1911, Volume 2: The Correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens, and Howell Cobb, p. 117-24

Henry L. Benning* to Howell Cobb, February 23, 1848

Columbus [ga.], 23d Feby., 1848.

Dear Howell, You ask me to write you soon and fully my views of Cass's letter and Dickinson's resolution. I have had so much to do lately that I could not attempt an answer until now, although your letter of the 3d inst., has been on hand for a fortnight. What you require of me involves, I think, my opinion as to the course which ought to be pursued by the democatic party to secure the next Presidency. On a question of such magnitude I am not prepared to speak with confidence; and yet upon your invitation . . . I will venture a suggestion or two.

First then, I do not object to Mr. Dickinson's resolutions. Still I must say that they are not precisely the thing according to my notion of what the exigency demands. The sins are chiefly sins of omission. The resolutions do not declare what principle ought to govern in the interval between the time of acquiring territory and the time at which the people thereof may choose to settle those “questions of domestic policy”, which it is left to them to settle.

Again, they very indistinctly, if at all, condemn the principle of the Wilmot proviso. If I am not mistaken in that principle, it is that Congress may prohibit slavery in acquired territory as long as it remains territory. Now, Mr. D's resolutions say no more than that Congress cannot do anything inconsistent with the right of the people of the territories to form themselves into States equally sovereign with the old states. The W. Proviso principle is not inconsistent with this right. That which it is inconsistent with is the right of the people of the territories to hold slaves therein if Congress forbids.

Once more, no general principle is announced by the resolutions upon the question of the quantity of territory we ought to require from Mexico in a treaty of peace. Perhaps these omissions are merits, but I venture to think not, and more audacious still, to send you what I deem the remedy in three resolutions, or rather two, ac companying this. The first is new, the second, one of Mr. D's unchanged, and the third is the other of his with some additions important but not in my opinion affecting the abstract principle on which the resolution rests.

Why these alterations? Let us consider for a moment the strength of the two parties in a sectional point of view. We see the Whig majorities, both certain and expected, chiefly in the free states, the Democratic in the slave. We see also already organized in some of the important free states a third party having naturally more sympathy with the Whigs than with the Democrats, and in the other free states no inconsiderable amount of the same third party in the state of raw material. If we add together the votes of the certain free Whig states, 51, and of those in which the abolitionists are supposed by the Whigs to have a casting vote, viz, N. Y. 36, Pa. 26, Ind. 12, Me. 9, N. H. 6, we shall have 51 plus 84 equals 135. Now even allowing for Wisconsin, 143 elects, so that those free states with either Ky. 12, N. C. 11, or Mo. 8, may dictate their man. We see too in New York strong symptoms of this abolition element becoming truly formidable, and in Pa. we distrust somewhat—a very little—the ability of the new soldiers under the banner of free trade to resist the temptation which the enemy will assuredly offer them in the resurrection of the Act of 1842. Further, we behold the Whigs in their conventions, legislatures and public meetings North already adopting the Wilmot Proviso, and on the other hand the Democrats generally ejecting the “perilous stuff” from their stomachs, as witness the letters and speeches of Buchanan, Dallas, Cass, etc., Dickinson's resolutions, and the general tone of the press. Seeing all this and much more of the same sort, are we not obliged to infer as a thing accomplished, 1st: That the Whigs intend to bid for Abolition bodaciously? And 2d: That they can afford to bid higher for it than can the Democrats, supposing the latter base enough to enter the lists? And are we not bound also to admit that true policy demands of the Democrats to endeavor to counteract the effect of the fusion of the two factions into one? Can this be done at all except by looking to the slave states?

If, however, we carry the slave states, we have but 117 votes. It won't do, then, to hazard the loss of much of our strength in the free states. The problem is to gain South and not lose North. It is the aim of the resolutions which I send you to solve it.

First then, I say that the Whigs reckon without their host when they count upon absorbing abolition, because they will nominate either Clay or Taylor; and the abolitionists, the honestly mad ones, will die at the stake before they will vote for the reprobate who dares say in word or deed that man may hold property in man— may traffic and trade in human flesh—particularly when his opponent will be a non-slaveholder and a patriot competent to utter any amount of innocent but "moral and religious sentiment" against the “peculiar institution.” What says 1844? Has Mr. Clay set his negroes free since? And Genl. Taylor, a sugar planter, on the poisonous banks of the Mississippi; he is in a much worse predicament, beyond the reach of any fable in Æsop, because by his avowed innocence of all knowledge of political questions and by his self-imposed inexorable taciturnity he will not be able even to tell the abolitionists so much as that he believes slavery to be a great moral and political evil.

But suppose this eccentric faction shedding from its humid hair pestilence upon the nations shall, contrary to the best founded expectations, flying from its orb, sink into the sun of Whiggery. Console yourself because you could not by any possibility prevent it, and because all will not be lost. Democracy will have over-balancing accessions from other sources. The last four years have been fruitful in the product of every good thing, including voters, both indigenous and naturalized. It is not extravagant, I think, for our party to reckon upon two thirds of the former and nine tenths of the latter. Why there are but three modes, or rather two and a half, suggested for conducting the war — to fight, to tax, and to take — which is one; to back clean out of a conquered country, telling the cutthroats that we were unrighteously, unconstitutionally, and damnably there from the first, which is two — to back partly out to an unnamed line, going we only know from ocean to ocean, across the continent where it is all desert and mountain, and there to fight to the very death, provided always that any enemy should dare come up and knock a chip off of Jonathan's head — which is half a one. Now, will any but the old fools (of all fools the worst you know) take up with the second or third of these plans? The young have no more sense than to believe that war is war—blood, chains, gold, territory, and no more “sentiment” than to smite, to rivet, to sieze, and to annex. They feel that woe to the vanquished is weal to the victor. We may call these young fellows ours. How many are there? The New York Herald says 800,000 — two thirds of that number are 530,000, half of which 260.000 would be the excess in our favor. Of them 160 or 170 thousand are in the free states. Then the naturalized vote must be quite large. Again, how Democratic the Army is becoming, even the regulars. Every letter from it will be a personal appeal to father, brother, friends, to put down those who give aid and comfort to the enemy. Above all, our annexation policy must bring recruits from all classes and quarters. All this being so, are we not able to despise the nauseous compound?

How, then, are we to “gain South”? I say by the principle contained in the last clause of the third of the resolutions, declaring that citizens of the slave states may settle with their slaves in the acquired territory until such time as the people thereof see fit to forbid it by legislation. The adoption of this will not carry a single slave into such territory, not one, but it will carry many a vote into the ballot box. Mere barren option, never to be availed of tho' it is, still the candidate who refused it could not at the South in a contest with one who conceded it stand a fire of blank cartridges. What Hotspur felt is nature:

I'd give thrice as much land to any well deserving friend.

But in the way of Bargain I'd cavil on the ninth part of a hair.

But won't its adoption do us more harm at the North than even so much good as this at the South can outweigh? It is not possible. Remember how far Dickinson's untouched resolutions go. These say “it is best” (mind you only expediency) to leave questions of domestic policy, that is whether there shall or shall not be slavery, to the people of the territory. So then it is best to let the people there make it a slave territory if they will. Going thus far will not damage us, it is agreed. Why? Because the good sense of the people North sees that such a permission is a mere vanity. Like laying duties upon cotton — or coal at Newcastle. Now how much further does my amendment go? It only affirms that it is best (expediency too) on many momentous accounts to permit the citizens of all the states to have an equal right of removal into the acquired territory and of holding there as property whatever they held as such where they came from. It does not affirm that such “citizens” have a right to do this or that Congress has not the right to forbid it. The constitutional question, so difficult, such a tool of death in the hands of madmen whether at the North or the South, is honorably and fairly got rid of, as indeed it is in Dickinson's original resolution to the extent to which it goes. For the most that can be made out of the expression “by leaving”, “by permitting” is that it is doubtful whether Congress has power on this subject “to bind and to loose” and therefore that it ought not to interfere to do either. Now, if the reasons assigned by Buchanan, Cass, etc., are sufficient to prove the harmlessness of leaving the question of slavery to the people of the territory, they are equally sufficient to prove the harmlessness of permitting all citizens to remove into the territory with their slaves and there to hold them in bondage. Those reasons amount to this, that the interest of slaveholders will prevent them from wishing to cross the Rio Bravo with their slaves, and so of course the people to pass the laws on the subject to slavery, being all non-slaveholders, will prohibit it. Why is it the interest of the slaveholder to keep away? On account of incompatibility of soil, climate, productions, danger of loss by facilities for escape, and on account of the region being now by the laws of Mexico free. Every one of these reasons will still affect the interest of the slaveholder to the same extent if my amendment should be adopted. It may be said that one of those reasons, viz: that drawn from the fact that the territory is now by law free and a slave going there would become free on touching the soil, would not apply if slave owners were “permitted” to take their slaves and hold them as such in the territory. Practically it is all the same. I submit that a prudent slaveholder will be as shy of putting himself and his slaves in the power of Mexican laws to be made, as of those already made. Very well. The good sense of Northern Democracy can as easily see this as the other. and the prospect of carrying Ky., N. C., and Md., with the principle, and of losing S. C. and all that she can influence, without it, will make the scales fall from their eyes in a trice. One thing is never to be forgotten, that committed as the party is, it cannot in its wildest dreams hope for the vote of an abolitionist, and further, that the action of the abolitionists as a party as to keeping embodied or subsiding into Whiggery will depend upon what the Whigs do and not upon anything that we can do, unless we undo all that we have done. In such a case ought we not to follow the dictates of ordinary prudence?

If the war continues we ought to proclaim some such principle as that embodied in the first resolution. If we elect our man with that as one of bur battle cries, be sure Mexico won't waste minutes before she will come with a decent proposition for peace. And I think the sooner the thing is done the better. Let it have time [to] feel its way into grace and favor and for the Whigs to commit themselves against it. However, as to “grace and favor”, there is no fear that it will need friends. True, we shall continue to hear the dog-in-the-manger growl of the Charleston Mercury. He has been so long only showing his teeth that we have come to believe that is all they were made for. All North it will out run the Cholera, as Prince John said to Jesse.¹ Bye the bye, I have just seen the N. Y. Herald's account of the Utica convention. The address is able, not so well written as that of the Albany convention. There is one good thing in it, the declaration that they don't make W. Provisoism a test, a sine qua non. This being so, it has occurred to me that our Baltimore convention could not by any possibility have evidence enough presented to it to decide which to admit, Hunkers or Barnburners, nor the heart to risk making martyrs of the innocent, to the triumph of the guilty, and that therefore it would be obliged as a matter of sheer conscience not to be at home to New York but still to do a good part by her all the same as if she were admitted inside. That is, nominate some man staunch, staunch as Chimborazo, on all the test questions, the sine qua nons, so that both divisions of the democracy may be gratified. Howell, I am death for Equity. Now, equality is equity. By presenting such a candidate the two wings will “spread” themselves in rivalry to speed the common body. What do you think of this. Bright, ain't it.

Well, this is the hand which I want to deal you at Baltimore. I am bound to say that there are some good cards in it. And anybody can play it. Genl. Cass is a good old man, Dallas is a gentleman, Buchanan is touched with the tariff, a man of vigor, tho’, very great, sufficient doubtless to bear letting that drop out of his veins. I care not so much for the player as the cards.

Yes, the grand thing for success is harmony, unanimity in the principles and measures to be sent before the country in the address and resolutions respecting the war question and the territory question, chiefly the last. You Democrats in the House have nothing to do, being a minority, except to ascertain this common ground, compare notes, yield a little, and it will be yielded unto you. Keep the slavery question out of the way of any public discussion in the convention. What the convention does ought to be done without delay, without fuss, with perfect unity and perfect unanimity. Let its work instantly spring forth complete in every part, like Minerva from the head of Jupiter. If there is a will there is a way. There are Democrats in Congress from nearly every State, and what they can all agree upon be sure they can get their several state delegations to Baltimore to agree upon. And then, out of abundance of caution, let one member of Congress, if possible, from each state go down to Baltimore as a lobby member, an organ of assimilation. You know we shall all be strangers to one another. Why can't we organize victory. I see I have written reams. It shows at least that I take interest in the cause and that I am disposed to accomplish the object of your letter, that is (ain't it?) to enable you fellows at Washington to find out which way the wind blows. Write to me again. Speak out. Condemn what I have proposed if it ought to be done, tell me what's better — above all tell me the probable “platform” as well as the man. Dix and Shunk I forgot about. Either will do well, so far as I am at present advised.

P. S. — Tell Iverson I will answer his in a day or two, and show him this. I don't care who sees it.

Send me the address and resolutions of our last convention at Baltimore, if you can do it easily.

[Resolutions enclosed with the foregoing.]

Resolved: That the United States have the intelligence and the virtue and the power to administer with safety, with justice and with equity any quantity of territory which they may honorably acquire from any foreign nation.

Resolved: That true policy requires the government of the United States to strengthen its political and commercial relations upon this continent by the annexation of such continuous territory as may conduce to that end and can be justly obtained, and that neither in such acquisition nor in the territorial organization thereof can any conditions be constitutionally Imposed or institutions be provided for or established inconsistent with the right of the people thereof to form a free sovereign state with the powers and privileges of the original members of the confederacy.

Resolved: That in organizing a territorial government for territory acquired by common blood and common treasure, and conferring in its achievement common glory, the principles of self government will be best promoted, the spirit and meaning of the Constitution best observed, the sentiments of justice of equality and of magnanimity best consulted, the self sacrificing love for the Union best maintained and strengthened, and the shining examples of mutual forbearance and compromise set us by our fathers in every dark day of our past career best emulated, by leaving all questions which concern the Domestic policy of such territory to the unrestrained Legislation of the people thereof, and until such legislation forbid, by permitting the citizens of every state to settle therein and to hold as property there whatever they may have held as property in the states from which they came.

_______________

* A lawyer of Columbus, Ga., previously a college chum of Howell Cobb's, and always a keen student of public affairs; associate-justice of the supreme court of Georgia, 18531861; brigadier-general in the Confederate army.

¹”Prince John” Van Buren, to Jesse Hoyt.

SOURCE: Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, Editor, The Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1911, Volume 2: The Correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens, and Howell Cobb, p. 97-103

Amos A. Lawrence, July 1857

We look on the great question as now settled, and all political movements in Kansas as having chiefly a local interest. Some of us stood ready to have made a much greater sacrifice had it been necessary, somewhat commensurate with that made by yourself and others. For months I felt as though I held my property and even my life by an uncertain tenure; but with a numerous family of children and a loving wife, I did not intend to part with either until it was necessary to bring up the “forlorn hope.” But I have never had the least doubt about our carrying it ultimately. Please not show this to any one, for I never wrote it before, and never reflect upon it without devout gratitude to God for having spared me so great a sacrifice. Now we must be magnanimous to the South. Slavery cannot be extended. Whether it can ever be got rid of in this country is doubtful. It is a curse imposed by the sins of our ancestors, and we must bear it patiently.

SOURCE: William Lawrence, Life of Amos A. Lawrence: With Extracts from His Diary and Correspondence, p. 111-2

George S. Denison to Salmon P. Chase, May 15, 1862

New York, May 1862.

Sir: You desired me to put in writing the statements made to you by me while in Washington. In compliance with that request I have the honor to submit the following. The printed portions were written by myself.

WESTERN TEXAS.

A very large portion of the population of Western Texas continue loyal. In Austin (the Capital) three-fourths of the residents are loyal, and dare express their sentiments openly. In most other places any expression of opinion favorable to the Government is not tolerated. The Germans can be relied on almost without exception.

It is important that Western Texas should be made a Free State, and it can be accomplished. It is important because, thereby, the Slave States will be surrounded by the Free, and the slave power be rendered incapable of extension. They now hope to acquire some portion of Mexico for slavery, and while they hold Western Texas, will not cease to strive for that end. Hence, from its geographical position, Western Texas, is more important (with respect to slavery) than any other portion of the United States. It is very healthy, adapted to white labor, and but few slaves are there. In most portions of that country slave labor is not profitable, and, among others, the Germans are well known to be opposed to it. Among the leading Union men areEx-Governor Pease, Judge Norton (editor of the Intelligencer) A. J. Hamilton (former member of Congress) and Judge Paschal — all of Austin. I cannot say whether they desire a Free State, but most Texas loyalists would do anything for the sake of the Union. Mr. Charles Anderson is perhaps the best man the Government could select for a high civil position. He is well known there, is popular, able, eloquent and fearless, and his recent persecution by the rebel authorities enlisted the sympathy of all Union men, and of some others.

Col. Bomford was made prisoner of war by Gen. Twigg's surrender. He has been exchanged and is assigned to the 16th regiment of Regular infantry — is a graduate of West Point — was distinguished in Mexico — has been stationed several years in Texas, and, I understand, has recently been highly recommended by Gen. Scott for an appointment of Brigadier. He is a fine officer, and thoroughly familiar with Western Texas, its resources, forts, road, etc., the character of the people and their method of fighting.

“Sibley’s Brigade” contained about Twenty seven Hundred men, and went to New Mexico. There were some respectable men in it, but most were ruffians and desperadoes, and all would fight well. Most of them were armed each with a double-barrel shot-gun and navy revolver, though some had minie muskets (stolen from U. S.) or common rifles, and four companies had nothing but unwieldy lances. For artillery they had nine mountain howitzers. These were all mounted men, and were joined in Arizona by Col. Baylor's regiment numbering seven hundred, and provided with other artillery (ordinary brass field pieces). I should think there were in February last, about 1,000 men at the various forts in the Indian country, some or all of whom, I understood were to be sent on to reinforce Sibley. The colonels of the regiments serving under Sibley are Riley (formerly of Ohio) Green (formerly of Tennessee), Steele (formerly Capt. U. S. Army), and Baylor. They were insufficiently supplied with provisions — nor did they have sufficient ammunition — for so long an expedition. I have frequently seen Sibley's Brigade, and what I say about it, is reliable.

In February last, there were about Seven Thousand men around and between Galveston and Houston. Fortifications (field works) were prepared near Galveston, and they had considerable artillery there, including a few siege guns said to have been brought from New Orleans. There had already been sent out of the State (as I was informed) Thirteen to Fifteen Thousand men besides Sibley's Brigade. I was told by a Rebel officer that Thirty Two Thousand men were then underarms in Texas, including troops at Galveston, Houston and Brownsville. I think his statement greatly exaggerated, though he included all the home-guards, organized militia, etc., most of whom are poorly armed.

There were at or near Brownsville eight or nine hundred men. Fort Brown is near the town and contains eighteen guns, as I am informed. They also have four or five mountain howitzers and at least one battery of field pieces. Matamoras is opposite Brownsville, and the Rebels have organized quite an extensive trade there. Vessels sail for Matamoras and land their cargoes at Brownsville. These two towns are twenty or twenty-five miles from the mouth of the Rio Grande. Large amounts of coffee have been imported from Mexico through Brownsville and sent to Eastern Texas and Louisiana. Many officers of the regular army have heretofore been stationed at Fort Brown and know all about it. It is said not to have been much strengthened by the rebels.

Mr. George Giddings of San Antonio was proprietor of the San Antonio and San Diego overland mail line. Early last winter he was appointed, by Jefferson Davis, agent to receive and collect all cotton contributed in the Southwest, for the Confederate government. It was said that he also received a large amount of Confederate money with which to buy cotton. It was said — and believed by all — that he was instructed to take all the cotton he could collect, through Brownsville to Matamoras or Tampico, and export it to Foreign countries, bringing back in exchange arms and munitions of war. I am unable to say whether the plan was relinquished subsequently to my leaving, but at that time he had a great number of Mexican carts in his employ, and almost all transportation there is done by these carts.

Corpus Christi is the healthiest place on the coast of Western Texas, and a majority of the inhabitants were for the Union. The harbor is not good, but troops can march from there to within thirty miles of San Antonio, and have good drinking water all the way — an important consideration in that dry country. Officers of the regular army, familiar with Texas, can tell where a landing should be made, much better than I can. It is important however, that an army once landed, should push forward rapidly so as to give protection to Union men who would otherwise be forced into the rebel army or massacred. Probably Twenty-five Thousand Federal troops could take and hold the whole State — certainly the Western portion. Col. Bomford thought fifteen Thousand could march even from Galveston to San Antonio, and garrison all important points on the road.

The Eastern part of the State, including Houston and Galveston, is Secession, though there are many Union men even there. I found Union men in all the states through which I passed, except Mississippi.

The want of arms is severely felt and this want is becoming[g] greater rapidly. I do not think they have received from abroad more than one tenth, certaintly not more than one-fifth, of the arms which are reported to have been received. I refer to reports prevalent in the South, all of which may not have been heard of in the North. I never saw but one foreign musket in the hands of a Southern soldier.

The Southern leaders do not hesitate to make any statement which will encourage their own people.

The gentleman from Memphis referred to in the printed column was a Mr. Randolph, an East Tennessee Union man, who had been to Memphis to attend the Legislature, of which he was a member. He passed through Corinth about the twentieth of March, or a little later. At that time there were between Forty and Forty-Five Thousand rebel troops there. Reinforcements came in as fast as they could be raised. The battle of Shiloh was fought about sixteen days afterward. They might have received reinforcements at the rate of 2,000 per day, but I should not think they received more than one thousand per day. According to this estimate the rebel force in that battle was not far from Sixty Thousand.

About the first of April, the number of troops in East Tennessee, as well as I could judge, was not far from ten thousand, of whom between three and four thousand were at Cumberland Gap, which is a position strong by nature and strongly fortified.

The gentleman referred to in the printed column is named McDowell, a nephew of Gen. Floyd and a relative of our Gen. McDowell. I knew him in Texas, and he is now an officer in the Rebel army. He said that immediately after Floyd ceased to be Secretary of War, a plantation with negroes in South Carolina, was purchased in Mrs. Floyd's name, and $700,000 in cash paid down for it.

The journey from N. Orleans to Richmond occupied seven days. I was told by members of the Rebel Congress in Richmond — (among others, Col. Wilcox, formerly U. S. Congressman from Mississippi) — that they now expected the war would continue six or seven years longer. I have also heard military men there say the same. Secretary Benjamin told me that the Federals arrested and put in prison every one who reached them from the South. In case their large armies are dispersed, their intention undoubtedly is, to adopt a general system of guerilla warfare, and thus wear out their enemies, and make the Government weary of the war.

In the Gulf States East of the Mississippi river, it seemed to me that nearly every able bodied man had been sent to the war. In the State of Mississippi, but few men were to be seen in any of the villages through which I passed. It is necessary, however, in estimating the number of troops they can raise, to note the following facts.

1st. In the beginning of the war thousands left the South and came North. I estimate the number at not less than fifty Thousand men, nor more than 100,000.

2nd. The mortality by sickness in the Southern army has been great. In the last part of October I learned (indirectly) from an officer of high position, that Thirty Thousand southern soldiers had already died from sickness alone. Assuming this to be true, their whole loss from sickness up to the present time cannot be less than Sixty Thousand.

3rd. Thousands have returned home invalids, and will be of no further use during the war. I cannot estimate the number well, but should think that (including those disabled by wounds) it is at least 30,000 and probably twice as many.

4th. Their loss in killed, deserters and prisoners has been large. You can estimate this number better than I can.

The above statements only approximate to the truth. Throughout the South it is impossible to obtain any accurate information. Facts are suppressed for fear of discouraging the people now in rebellion. It really seems to me that the rebels cannot raise many more men than they now have in the service. At any rate they would not be efficient, unless supplies of arms, etc. are received from abroad. It is the opinion of the Federal officers before-mentioned (Col. Bomford and others) that the United States needs more men in the field — at least 100,000 more.

The Yellow Fever generally prevails in New Orleans about one year out of three. It can be prevented by strict quarantine, though this fact is sometimes disputed. The epidemic generally commences in the last part of August (seldom before the 15th) and ends with the first frost, which usually occurs in the first week of November. The number of inhabitants remaining in the city during an epidemic is about Eighty Thousand, and the number of deaths is usually about four thousand or a little more. Sometimes (never except twice) the disease is very malignant and does not yield to former remedies, as in 1853, when it commenced in May and Thirteen Thousand died in the city during the epidemic. With proper sanitary and hospital arrangements I should estimate the number of the army who would escape the disease entirely, at ten per cent. of the whole, and the number who would die at not more than ten per cent. If there is no yellow fever, they would probably be as healthy as Southern soldiers. Probably ninety nine out of a hundred of the Southern army would suffer as much from Yellow fever as our own soldiers, and they will never undertake to occupy any place where the epidemic already prevails. This disease is prevalent along the whole Gulf coast from Key West to the Rio Grande, except the islands, the Texas Coast near Corpus Christi and a few other localities. It extends far inland where the country is slightly elevated above the sea, but never prevails in Western Texas except near the coast.

The Southern climate (near the Gulf) is far less healthy for armies than the Northern, but undoubtedly Federal armies will suffer from sickness no more and probably less, than Southern armies under the same circumstances. I am informed that this was true in the Mexican War. The second year is said to be more dangerous to Northern men than the first. They should be sent South in the Fall or Winter, and, during the hot season, sanitary precautions used, which all good physicians understand.

I think the South can be conquered without abolishing slavery in the Gulf States or elsewhere. To abolish it in the Gulf States would produce a unanimity among the people of those States which does not now exist. They all abhor the idea of the negroes being set free among them and (as they express it) made their equals. It is worth while to treat with conciliation and kindness those who are, or have been, Union men.

The original secessionists are a minority in every state except South Carolina, and perhaps Mississippi. Conciliation and kindness toward them is utterly thrown away. They expect and deserve the same treatment they have given Union men in their midst, and will fight to the last. But few of them will become good citizens again, and when subdued many of them will leave the country forever.

If Western Texas is to become a Free State, it must be before the close of this war. Eastern Texas is more populous and strongly pro-slavery, and will prevent any division of the state in time of peace.

With more time I could have made the foregoing statements more concise. I shall be gratified if they prove to be of any use.

SOURCE: Diary and correspondence of Salmon P. Chase, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1902, Vol. 2, p. 300-6

Governor Salmon P. Chase to Thomas Spooner, Esq.,* New York City, New York, December 18, 1859

Columbus, Dec 18, [1859.]

Dear Spooner: From what you say in yours of the 14th, I infer you had not received mine previously written to you. It was directed to Cincinnati, and perhaps it has since reached you.

I do not desire to be quoted as expressing any opinions as to time or place of holding the Convention, or as to the mode of its organization either in respect to membership or number of delegates — or mode of electing them. The reasons for my not desiring even to seem to influence members of the Convention are obvious.

You, as our Ohio member, have a right to my views, and I will give them to you briefly:

1st. The Convention should be held between the Alleghenys and the Mississippi. It would be best, I think, to hold it at Pittsburg, Wheeling, Cincinnati or Covington, but next best, to hold it at Columbus, Indianapolis, Springfield or St Louis. Among these next best places, my judgment would incline to Indianapolis.

2d. The Convention should be held soon after the Democratic. This, I think, would be best. No considerable harm would probably result, however, if not held till the 17th June, as in 1856.

3. The Convention should be composed of all who are opposed to the extention of Slavery beyond the limits of Slave States, and in favor of reform in National Administration. The call should be addressed to Republicans and all others, without distinction of party, willing to unite for these objects. A resolution should be adopted expressing the opinion of the Committee that the members of the People's party of New Jersey and Penn'a, and all citizens of other States holding similar political principles, are regarded as described in the call and invited to participate in the Convention, but the Call should not be addressed to those parties as such.

4. The Committees should apportion the delegates among the States by recommending the election of, say, four Senatorial delegates from each State, and one Representative from each Congressional District, and additional representatives from each Congressional District for each six or seven thousand votes cast for Republican candidates, and another for a majority fraction of that number. Votes for opposition or people's Candidates in New Jersey or Pennsylvania, and for Anti-Lecompton Democrats supported by the Republicans, should be counted the same as Republican votes.

5. The Committee should recommend, and strongly recommend, the election of Senatorial delegates by State Conventions, and of Representative Delegates by District Conventions.

I have no time to argue these views. I am, however, strong in the faith that their adoption would secure fairness and equal representation in the nomination — harmony and vigor in the support of the nominees — In what is now a duty — success not merely for our organization but for our principles — success, therefore, lasting and honorable.

Ashley, I understand, will represent Kentucky under Clay's proxy. You can show this letter to him and if you think proper to Mr. Willey or Mr. Howard of Connecticut. Let me hope that you and Ashley will act together. It is desirable, many ways.

_______________

* From letter book 7, pp. 61-62

SOURCE: Diary and correspondence of Salmon P. Chase, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1902, Vol. 2, p. 283-4

Senator Salmon P. Chase to Congressman Lewis D. Campbell,* May 25, 1855

Cincinnati, May 25th [1855.]

Dear Sir: On my return this evening from the East, I find your note of the 18th on my table, and I shall answer it frankly according to your wish.

Last fall the Independent Democrats or Freesoilers entered heartily and earnestly into the people's anti-nebraska movement, animated by the simple desire to redress the Nebraska wrong. They accepted frankly the State Candidates of the 13th July Convention, neither of whom was taken from their ranks. After the election many of them, and not a few also of the liberal whigs and Democrats, anxious that some token of the popular approval of my course as Senator should be given and especially moved, as I suppose, by the consideration that in consequence of the ascendency of the administration party in the Legislature, I alone of all the earnest opponents of the Nebraska Iniquity from Ohio, could not be approved by a re-election, manifested a disposition to make me the candidate of the people's movement this fall. They were pleased to think, also, that my nomination and election to that office would afford to the friends of freedom throughout the union a most significant indication that Ohio would tread no step backward from the glorious stand she has just taken against slavery and the domination of Slavepower. To the suggestions of these friends I have uniformly replied by an unhesitating avowal of the gratification which such an endorsement of the people would give me, provided I could be nominated and elected without any surrender or modification of my well known principles of political action.

Had I supposed that opposition to my nomination would have been made in the particular quarters in which it has since appeared I should have promptly declined to allow my name to be proposed at all. Nothing but the gratification and advantage of the implied indorsement, and the belief that my election under the circumstances would greatly inspirit and encourage the friends of freedom outside of Ohio, could have induced me to consent to the use of my name, and these considerations would not have prevailed with me, had I not supposed that the nomination for Governor would this year be cheerfully conceded to the choice of the distinctive anti-slavery men. As things now are I confess myself much embrassed, and quite undecided as to the course which duty to myself, to the cause, and to the friends who have honored me with their confidence require me to pursue. One thing, however, seems plain, which is that no duty, whatever, under existing circumstances, requires me to accept a nomination for atty. general or Supreme Judge, and certainly my inclination does not lead me in that direction. For the rest, I can only say that it would be infinitely more agreeable to me to support my old friend Brinkerhoff, than to be a candidate myself, if he could be said at this time to represent the pure element of opp. to Slavery extension & Slav'y domination. But if he is to be forced upon them, and his election taken as triumph of another element, it is obvious that this must have a powerful influence on the course of those with whom the Slavery question is paramount to every other.

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* From letter-book 6, pp. 190-191. Lewis Davis Campbell, 1811-1882; Member of Congress 1849-1858, United States minister to Mexico 1865-1868

SOURCE: Diary and correspondence of Salmon P. Chase, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1902, Vol. 2, p. 273-4

Senator Salmon P. Chase to Edward S. Hamlin, June 28, 1852

Washington, June 28, 1852.

My Dear Sir, I received only today your letter of the 15th. I left the city on the adjournment over upon the assembling of the Whig Convention and was detained by the necessity of making some summer arrangement for my daughter who is at school in New York, and whose school has a vacation at this time. I was detained beyond my expectation and only reached the City this morning.

I agree with you in thinking that I cannot consistently sustain Pierce, King, and the Slavery Platform of Baltimore. I have declared my purpose not to do so. What is to be done beyond I am not so clear about. If we could have an Independent Democratic Rally, thoroughly democratic in name & fact, without wild extravagance and without any shrinking from a bold avowal of sound principles, I should support it cheerfully. But a mere freesoil rally will simply elect Pierce and, I fear, ensure the indefinite extension of slavery. Can we have such a rally?

We might have had, could we have prevailed on the New York Barnburners to stand firm. Indeed if they had only stood firm we should never have been placed in a situation making a rally necessary. If 1 had time I could tell you much on this subject. Now without a single New York leader remaining firm what can we do? Whom can we nominate? At present it seems to me that we must endeavor to organize without nominations—upon the Herkimer principle of refuting our support to nominations we cannot honorably support. A Democratic Association with its members pledged to carry out their democratic principles in to practical & consistent application to the slavery & other questions, & refusing their support at this election to Pierce & King, because of their own positions & the character of the platforms they are nominated upon — this seems to me the best present measure Next we should do what is possible to have a good nomination on a right platform & under the right name at Pittsburgh. If Wilmot and some good western Democrat say Spalding could be nominated for President & Vice President we could get a good vote for them of the right sort. Hale don't want the nomination. He wishes to be free to canvass New Hampshire.

My impression derived from a journey in New York is that Pierce will not carry that State. The Whigs here are confident that Scott will carry Ohio. What do you think?

I wish we could have the right kind of a Press in Ohio. But where can we get the money. I wd. give $500 — who besides?

SOURCE: Diary and correspondence of Salmon P. Chase, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1902, Vol. 2, p. 242-3

Senator Salmon P. Chase to [Milton Sutliff?], November 17, 1850

Private.

Cincinnati, Nov. 17, 1850.

My Dear Sir, Your letter, like the “royal Charlie” of the Cannie Scots “was long in coming.” It was dated Nov. 7 and I only recd. it yesterday.

I am much obliged to you for it; and like your general views. I do not believe that the Free Democrats, if they act prudently, will be put to the necessity of voting for any man such as Wade or any counterpart in the Old Line Democracy for Senator for the full term. I should dislike greatly to see them descend so far from the position which Morse, Townshend, Smart & Swift maintained under worse circumstances in 1848-9. I would almost say that I would prefer a Coalition between the Hunkers of both sides, to such a descent. But our friends in the Legislature must judge for themselves The responsibility is upon them. I am assured by Capt Radter, who was one of the Chief Engineers of the “Peoples Line” last winter that he went into it with great reluctance, and that if he & his fellow democrats had been met with the liberality and openness, which Townshend & Morse displayed the winter before it would never have been organized. Cooperation between Free Democrats & Old Line Democrats is more natural than Cooperation between either & Whigs because there is more agreement of principle; and I have so great confidence in the power of principles, that I do not doubt that a union, on right ground & honorable terms for both sides, can be had, if our friends go to work in the right spirit, and in a liberal temper, maintaining their principles firmly, & letting it be seen distinctly that their action is governed by a paramount regard to them.

I suppose the most important first step will be to determine who shall compose the Free Democratic Caucus. The rule, proposed by Dr. Townshend, two years ago is I think the true one: that all who claim to participate in its proceedings shall subscribe a declaration that they hold, as of paramount importance, the political principles of the Buffalo & Columbus Platforms, and will support no candidates for the Presidency or Vice Presidency who are not able & avowed opponents of the Extension of Slavery into New Mexico & Utah, but will act with the Party which holds these principles and whose Candidates occupy that position, namely the Free Democracy; and that they will act together as members of the Legislature so far as they conscientiously can after mutual consultation. This seems to me now and seemed to me then as far as honest men can go, and no farther than any sincere free democrat would cheerfully go.

I suppose that the Senate Caucus constituted on this principle will embrace yourself, Pardee, Randall & I suppose Lyman: and that the House Caucus will embrace Morse, Plumb, Pore, Bradley, Kent Johnson, of Medina, Thompson of Lorain & Williamson. You will find Pardee I suppose agreeing fully with you, and Randall will probably agree with you generally. I hope Mr. Lyman may also do so, but I do not know him & have heard that he may feel himself under obligation to the Whigs. I wish you could see Randall, and converse with him. A great deal will depend on his course. He has done much mischief heretofore, I fear, by his action under bad advice & influence. But I trust Beaver & Blake being out he may do well, follow in the convictions of his own judgment, which, if he will trust it fully & boldly will, I believe, guide him safely. In the House the Free Democrats of radical sympathies will have a clear majority in Caucus. They will only need to act cautiously but firmly, looking before them carefully and not fearfully.

The French say “it is the first step that costs.” This is true. The beginning is full brother to the end generally.

If the session begins right, in mutual good will & cooperation between the Free Democrats & Old Line, I shall hope the best results. One side having the Speaker and the other the Clerk in each House, & the subordinate officers of the organization being fairly distributed, and the Committees fairly arranged every thing will, I trust, go well.

I have no personal interest in the result; but a very deep concern in the ascendancy of free democratic principles. May God grant that truth and reason and justice may govern: and that if 1 am mistaken I may be overruled.

I enclose some resolutions which it seems to me the Free Dems & Old Liners can agree on. Without the use of any violence of language they cover the entire ground.

I expect to be in Cleveland by noon Thursday & stay till Friday morn I wish I could meet you and some other friends there.

[Enclosure.]

Resolved  That the Constitution of the United States established a General Government of limited powers, expressly reserving all powers, not thereby delegated, to the States and to the People.

Resolved, That among the powers delegated to the General Government by the Constitution, that of legislating upon the subject of fugitives from service is not to be found; while that of depriving any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law is expressly denied.

Resolved That in the judgment of this General Assembly, the Act of Congress in relation to fugitives from service, approved Septr. 18, 1850 is unconstitutional not merely for want of power to Congress to legislate on the subject, but because the provisions of the act are in several important particulars repugnant to the express provision of the Constitution.

Resolved That it is the duty of the Judges of the Several Courts of this State to allow the Writ of Habeas Corpus to all persons applying for the same in conformity with the laws of this State, and to [sic] conform in all respects to subsequent proceedings to the provisions of the same.

Resolved, That while the Constitution of the United States confers on Congress no power to interfere with the internal legislation of the Several States and consequently no power to act within State limits on the subject of slavery it does require that Congress, whenever, beyond the limits of any State, it has exclusive legislative power, [sic] shall provide, efficient securities for the personal liberty of every person unconvicted of Crime.

Resolved, That it is the duty of Congress to repeal all acts by which any person is deprived of liberty without due process of law and especially all acts by which any person is held in Slavery in any place subject to exclusive national jurisdiction.

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* Lent by Mr. Homer E. Stewart, Warren, Ohio.

SOURCES: Diary and correspondence of Salmon P. Chase, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1902, Vol. 2, p. 220-3; Journal of the Senate of the State of Ohio, Volume 49, For the First Session of the Forty-ninth General Assembly, Commencing on Monday December 2, 1850, p. 47.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The recipient of this letter is not stated, however, Ohio Senator Milton Sutliff introduced to above resolutions in the Ohio Senate on December 11, 1850, making it highly likely this letter was addressed to Mr. Sutliff,