DELIVERED AT ELLWOOD SPRINGS, NEAR PORT GIBSON, MISS., NOVEMBER 2, 1850.
FELLOW-CITIZENS: I
shall speak to you to-day, not as Whigs, not as Democrats, but as citizens of a
common country having a common interest and a common destiny.
The events of the
last ten months have precipitated a crisis in our public affairs which many of
the wisest and sagest among us have fondly hoped was yet distant many long
years.
It is not my purpose
to enter upon a critical review of the late most extraordinary conduct of the
President and of Congress. I am not at liberty to suppose, that a people whose
dearest rights have been the object of attack for ten months and more, have
failed to keep themselves informed of the more prominent events as they have
transpired. We ought, to-day, to inquire what is to be done in the future,
rather than what has been done in the past.
I confess my
inability to counsel a great people as to the best mode of proceeding in an
emergency like the present. Instead of imparting advice to others, I feel
myself greatly in need of instruction. But, I will not on this account refuse
to contribute an expression of my own best reflections, when, as in this
instance, I am called upon to do so.
To the end that you
may clearly understand my conclusions, it will be necessary for me to present a
brief summary of the events which have brought us to our present perilous
condition. To go no further back than the last year, we shall find that in
Mississippi, at least, the great body of the people were aroused to a sense of
the impending danger. At a meeting assembled in the town of Jackson early in
the last year, both Whigs and Democrats united in an address to the country,
giving assurance that the time had come for action.
Gentlemen of high
character, of great popularity, and merited influence, headed this meeting; a
convention of the state was recommended, and every indication was given to the
country that, in the judgment of these gentlemen, the time had actually come
for bold and decisive action. This movement was seconded in almost every county
in the state; and wherever the people assembled, delegates were appointed to a
general state convention; and in every instance, so far as I am informed, these
delegates were chosen from the two great political parties, one-half Whigs and
the other half Democrats. The contemplated convention assembled at Jackson, in
October, and recommended a convention of the Southern States, to assemble at
Nashville, at some future day, to be agreed upon among the states. The
Mississippi movement was responded to with great unanimity in several of our
sister states—in Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida. There
seemed to be for a time, a very general and united sentiment in favor of the
proposed convention at Nashville. The scheme was not without warm and
influential friends in North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana and
Texas. The other slaveholding states, to wit, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri,
gave little or no indication of a disposition to favor it. Early in the autumn
of 1849 some of the first friends of the southern movement began to falter;
and, as time advanced, they continued to recede from their bold stand in
defence of the South. The secret influences which were at work to produce these
unhappy results, will be found, I apprehend, elsewhere than in the places now
pointed out. We are now told by some, that they discovered a better state of
feeling at the North toward the South. Others pretend to have been convinced
that the movement was premature, and calculated to embarrass the action of
Congress; whilst a much more numerous, and a much more dishonest class, pretend
to have discovered that this convention was to be nothing less than an
assemblage of conspirators, treasonably bent on the destruction of the Union.
Whilst all this was
going on, the sagacious politician and the man of thought did not fail to see
the true reasons for all this infidelity to a once cherished and favorite
measure. The truth was, that ambitious and aspiring politicians had discovered
that the southern movement was distasteful to General Taylor, General Cass, and
other distinguished gentlemen, then high in the confidence of their respective
party friends. The movements in California began to develope the true policy of
General Taylor, and the "Nicholson Letter" had received a new reading
from General Cass. It became apparent that the South must be sacrificed, or
party leaders repudiated, and party ties obliterated, and politicians had begun
to take sides accordingly, when Congress assembled in December. Up to this
time, however, there remained enough of southern influence to keep a powerful
phalanx of southern men closely allied for common defence. The effort to
organize the House of Representatives, made it manifest, that the South meant
something more than an idle bravado in the course she had taken. For almost an
entire month, the first successful step in the election of a Speaker had not
been taken; and at last, when Mr. Cobb was chosen, it was by a plurality, and
not, as usual, by a majority of the votes given. At this time, there was
manifested the most determined spirit in defence of the rights of the South.
Still, the close observer could not fail to see that the insidious spirit of
party was busy at work.
President Taylor
transmitted his annual message to Congress, and General Cass treated us to
another reading of the "Nicholson Letter."
The President's
message did not lift the curtain high enough to exhibit all that had been done
in California. He gave us a bird's eye view, and told us to go it blind for the
balance. He intimated that he had very little to do with the proceedings in
California; yet he presented a paper which he denominated the constitution of
California; and in two several communications, he pressed the consideration of
that paper upon Congress, and he earnestly recommended the admission of the
state of California into the Union at an early day.
These proceedings,
and these earnest recommendations, could not fail to elicit a searching
investigation on the part of southern members. It became a matter of interesting
inquiry, as to who made the pretended constitution; how the people came to be
assembled for that purpose; who appointed the time for holding the elections;
who decided on the qualification of voters; who decided that California had the
requisite population to entitle her to one or more representatives in Congress,
without which she could not be a state. It was known that Congress had never so
much as taken legal possession of the country, and it became a subject of
anxious inquiry to know who it was that had kindly performed all the functions
usually devolved on Congress; who it was that, in aid of the legislative power
of the country, had taken the census to ascertain the population; had passed
upon the qualification of voters; had appointed the time, place, and manner of
holding elections; who it was, in short, that had done all that had usually
been required preparatory to the admission of a new state into the Union.
It was seen at once
that no census had been taken; and although the Constitution required that the
representatives should be apportioned among the states according to population,
no steps had been taken to ascertain whether California had the requisite
population to entitle her to one member, whereas she was claiming two. It was
seen that the time, place, and manner of holding the elections, had all been
arranged by a military commander, notwithstanding the Constitution required
that this should be done by law. It was seen, and admitted on all hands, that
California was asking admission on terms wholly and entirely different from
those on which other states had made similar applications. Gentlemen favoring
her admission, were wont to answer our objections with a shrug
of the shoulders, and a lamb-like declaration that "there had been some irregularity."
Irregularities, fellow-citizens! Shall conduct like this, pass with that simple
and mild expression that it was "irregular?" Was it nothing more than
irregular to dispense entirely with taking a census? Was it only a little irregular
to permit everybody to vote-white, black, and red; citizens, strangers, and
foreigners? Was it simply irregular for General Riley, by a military
proclamation, to decide the time, place, and manner of holding the elections?
Was it, I ask you, fellow-citizens, nothing more than an irregular proceeding,
for a military commander to dispense entirely with the authority of Congress,
the law-making power, and of his own will to set up a government hostile to the
interests and rights of the Southern States of this Union? If the rights and
interests of all the states had been respected, and all had concurred in the
opinion that the proceeding had only been a little irregular, it might have
been passed over with a mental protest against a recurrence of its like in
future.
But when it is seen
that these "irregularities" amount to a positive outrage upon
fourteen states of the Union, an outrage against which these states earnestly
protested, it becomes us to inquire more seriously into the causes which led to
their perpetration, and to take such decisive measures as shall protect us
against like "irregularities" in future. Does any man doubt that
slavery prohibition lay at the bottom of all the "irregularities" in
California?
Does not every one
know, that but for the question of slavery, these unprecedented outrages would
never have been perpetrated? Is there a gentleman outside of a lunatic asylum
who does not know that if California had framed a pro-slavery instead of an
anti-slavery constitution, her application for admission into the Union would
have been instantaneously rejected? And yet, in view of all these and a
thousand other pregnant facts, we are expected to content ourselves with a
simple declaration that "the proceeding was a little irregular,
but it was the best that could be done." What, fellow-citizens, does this
whole matter amount to, as it now presents itself? The southern people joined
heart and hand in the acquisition of territory-shed their blood-laid down their
lives-expended their treasure in making the acquisition, and forthwith the
federal authority was employed to exclude them from all participation in the
common gain. The threat was uttered, and kept constantly hanging over them,
that if they dared enter those territories with their slave property, it would
be taken from them. Thus were they intimidated and kept out of the country; no
slave-owner would start to California with his slave property, when Congress
was day by day threatening to emancipate his negroes, if he dared to introduce
them into that country. Not content with thus intimidating southern property,
the federal power was employed in instigating an unauthorized people to do that
which the Congress of the United States had not the power to do, to wit, to
pass the "Wilmot proviso."
It is well known
that the California constitution contains the "Wilmot proviso" in
terms. It is equally well know that this proviso has been sanctioned by
Congress, and that the sanction of Congress imparts to it its only vitality.
Without that sanction, it is a nullity, a dead letter, an absolute nought. Who,
then, is responsible for it but Congress-the Congress which gave to it its
sanction, and thereby imparted to it vitality, and moved it into action?
Congress, we are told, could not, and dared not pass the proviso; but the
people of California could propose it, and Congress could sanction it, and
thereby give it existence. The people of Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and
other states, might ask Congress to pass the "Wilmot proviso," but
Congress dare not do it, because there was no power under the Constitution to
authorize it; but if the people of California asked it, then it was a very
different question-then Congress had all the constitutional power which the
case required. Let the truth be told. The Wilmot proviso was an old question;
it had been discussed-its enormity had been exposed, and the mind of the South
was firmly and fixedly made up not to submit to its passage. It was necessary,
therefore, to take this new track, and before the South could recover from her surprise,
pass the odious proviso, and then present the naked issue of a humiliating
submission on the one side, or disunion on the other.
Who,
fellow-citizens, were these people of California, whose voice has been so
potential in the work of your exclusion, your humiliation, and your
disgrace? — were they American citizens? No, sir, no! they were adventurers
from all parts of the world. In this blood-bought country may have been found
the Sandwich Islander, the Chinese, the European of every kingdom and country.
That there were many American citizens in the country, is most true; but the
whole were mixed up together, and all voted in the work of your exclusion. How
humiliating to a Southron, to see his own government thus taking sides against
him, and standing guard, while foreign adventurers vote to take from him his
rights, and then to see that government seizing hold of such a vote and holding
it up as a justification of the final act of his ignominious exclusion. Can any
true son of the once proud and noble South witness these things without a
blush? Does patriotism require us to hug these outrages to our bosom? Must we
forget our natural interests, and kiss the hand that inflicts these cruel
blows? Have we sunk so low that we dare not complain of wrongs like these, lest
the cry of disunion shall be rung in our ears?
It would have been
some consolation to know that the framers of this California constitution meant
to live under it themselves. Even this little boon is denied us. We all know
that the men who have gone to California are mere sojourners there; they mean
to stay a little while, and then return to their homes in other parts of the
world. Hundreds and thousands have already left the country, and others will
follow their example. Not one-half of the persons who aided in the formation of
the so-called constitution of California are there now; and in a year or two
more the population will have undergone an entire revolution.
We have heard that
there were many hundred thousand people in California. The number in the
country at the time the constitution was framed has been estimated at two
hundred thousand or more, and this has been constantly urged in excuse for
their assumption of the right to make a constitution and set up an independent
state government.
When asked by what
authority a few interlopers from abroad undertook to snatch from the rightful
owners the rich gold mines on the Pacific, and to appropriate to free soil all
that vast territory lying between the thirty-second and forty-second degrees of
north latitude-embracing an area larger than the states of Louisiana,
Mississippi, Tennessee, and Alabama-we have been told they were a great and
growing people; that there were a quarter of a million of inhabitants in the
country, and hundreds of thousands on their way there. Let us examine the truth
of these bold assertions. If there is any country on earth where there are no
women and children, where the whole population consists of full-grown men, that
country is California. We all know that the emigration has been confined to the
adult male population, who have gone on a visit of observation, leaving their
families and friends behind, and intending to return. We all know that in the
matter of voting there was no restriction; every male inhabitant over the age
of twenty-one years was allowed to vote, and on the important question of
adopting a state constitution, the poll-books showed less than thirteen
thousand voters. If there was a quarter of a million of people in the country,
how shall we account for this meagre vote? The fact is, this is but another
link in the great chain of deception and fraud by which we have been denied our
rights n the country-by which we and our posterity have been cheated out of the
most valuable property on earth-by which we have been reduced to the sad
alternative of submitting to the most humiliating deprivation of our rights, or
driven to a severance of the bonds which unite us to the North.
If the gross
injustice, the deep injury and wrong which we are called upon to suffer, had
ceased with the consummation of this California fraud, we might have bent our
heads in humiliation and in sorrow, and, without daring to complain of the
tyranny of our oppressors, have borne it in silence. But it did not stop here.
The cup of our degradation was not quite full to overflowing; and it was
determined to wrest from the slaveholding state of Texas, one-third of her
rightful territory. In the perpetration of this fraud the North had two
powerful allies, and both, I am pained to say, furnished by the South. One was
the ten millions of dollars taken from a common treasury, and the other the
vote of one-half the southern delegation in Congress.
I hold in my hand a
map of Texas. It speaks more eloquently in defence of Texas than the ablest orator
has ever yet spoken. Here on this map is the boundary of Texas, as marked first
by her sword, and then made legible by the act of her Legislature in December,
1836. See, it extends from the mouth of the Rio Grande to the source of that
river, and it reaches to the forty-second degree of north latitude. Here, too,
is marked on this map the "Clay compromise line," and the" line
of adjustment," as laid down in the final act of
dismemberment, commonly known as Pearce's bill. Keep these lines in your memory,
fellow citizens, while we recur for one moment to the history of the
reannexation of Texas to the United States.
What is that
history? I need not relate the whole of it. I need not say how like an ardent
lover we wooed and won this fair daughter of the Saxon blood. Texas was young,
blooming, and independent; we wooed her as the lover wooes his mistress. She
fell into our arms, and with rapturous hearts we took her for better or for
worse. Fathers Clay and Van Buren forbade the bans; but the people cried, with
a loud voice, "Let the marriage go on." It did go on; Texas merged
her separate independence into that of the United States, and here in my hands
is the marriage contract. Here is the treaty, here the resolution of
annexation. It will be seen that we took her just as she was just as she
presented herself. We took that Texas which lay east of the Rio Grande, and all
along that river from its mouth to its source, and south of the 42d parallel of
latitude north. We took the Texas which was defined by the act of December,
1836; we took the Texas marked on this map. I hold it up before you. It is a
portrait of the fair damsel as she was, before her limbs were amputated by the
northern doctors, aided by surgeons Clay, Pearce, Foote, and others from the
South.
Turn to the
resolutions of annexation. I hold them here; without pausing to read them, I
will state what no man can deny. They expressly stipulate, that all that part
of Texas lying south of the parallel of 36 degrees and 30 minutes north
latitude, shall remain slave territory; and all north shall be free territory
after its admission into the Union as states. With this written agreement
between the high contracting parties, how can any man come forward and say that
Texas never extended to the parallel of 361 degrees? How dare any man pretend
that Texas did not extend north of that line and up to 42 degrees? I will not
insult your understanding by debating so palpable a proposition before you. It
is as clear as the sun in yonder heavens, that at the period of annexation, the
whole country supposed we were acquiring all the territory east of the Rio
Grande, and up to 42 degrees. The only party on earth who expressed a doubt on
this point was Mexico, and for acting on her expressed doubts, we went to war
with her, all parties in this country at least uniting in the war; and when we
had whipped her, and obtained not only her recognition of the Texas boundary,
but a cession of New Mexico and California, into the bargain, what do we hear?
Why, that Texas never owned one foot of territory north of 36 degrees. Though
we agreed that all of Texas south of 364 should be slave territory, and all
north of that line free territory, we are told that, in truth and in fact,
Texas only extended to some undetermined point between 32 and 34 degrees of
latitude north. Why do men thus stultify themselves? Why do men speak and
attempt to reason for the purpose of throwing a cloud over the title of Texas
to this territory? Need I tell you, fellow-citizens, that slavery! slavery!!
slavery!!! and nothing but slavery, is at the bottom of all this business.
Take the question of
domestic slavery out of the way, and this whole dispute about the true boundary
of Texas could and would have been settled in nine hours, and in a manner most
satisfactory to all parties. It was precisely because Texas was a slaveholding
state, and her soil slave soil, beyond all cavil or dispute, that it was found
important by the North to cut these ninety-three thousand sections off and
attach them to New Mexico. As a part of Texas it was secure to the South; as a
part of New Mexico, the North had the power and the will to make it free soil.
If Texas and New Mexico had both been free, or both slave states, there would
have been little or no dispute about the true boundary between them. Texas is,
and must ever remain, a slaveholding state; New Mexico, if not already free
soil, is under the dominion of northern power, and will be made so in due
season. In these facts will be found the only reason for the nine months'
struggle in Congress on the question of boundary. The northern mind is fully
made up that no more slave states shall be added to the Union. This is more
distinctly announced than any other article in their political creed. We all
know this. And let me ask you, fellow-citizens, if there is one man among you
all, who supposes that northern politicians, resolved as they all are to limit
the slave states to their present number, would be so ridiculously silly as to
cut off ninety-three thousand square miles of slaveholding Texas for the
purpose of making of it one or two additional slave states? The North has the
power to do as she pleases, and no man in this country doubts that she will
please to make free territory of these ninety-three thousand square miles which
she has wrested from Texas, with the aid of ten millions of dollars and a large
number of southern votes.
I shall never forget
the hour when this measure of gross iniquity to the South passed the House of
Representatives. On Wednesday we defeated it by forty-four majority; on
Thursday we defeated it again by eight majority; on Friday they carried it over
us by ten votes; and when the result was announced, there went up from the
lobbies, from the galleries, and from the floor of the Hall of Representatives,
one long, loud, wild, maniac yell of unbridled rejoicing-the South was
prostrate, and Free Soil rejoiced. The South was degraded, fallen, and her
enemies rioted. Ten millions of dollars had been flung to the hungry pack who
hang like wolves around the treasury, and there was frantic joy in all their
hearts and upon all their tongues. They assembled on the banks of the Potomac,
and in utter defiance of every decent regard for the father of his country-they
assembled under the very shade of the Washington monument and there fired a
hundred guns. Thus did they, in manifestation of their wild rejoicing over the
prostrate South, and their own clutching of the ten millions of dollars. Nor
did they pause here, but with drums beating, fifes blowing, and banners
streaming, they paraded the streets of Washington. They called out Mr. Clay,
and he spoke to them; they called out Mr. Cobb, Mr. Douglas, Mr. Foote, and I
know not who else, and they all spoke to them. It was a night of riot and
revelry. The foul deed had been done, and when there should have been sorrow
and mourning, there was ecstasy and the wild notes of untamed rejoicing.
I left the street,
filled as it was with this motley crew of free negroes and half-clad boys,
bankers, brokers, barbers and beggars, northern Free Soilers and southern
patriots-ay, southern patriots-patriots whose affections had out-grown their
country, and who had taken "all the world and the rest of mankind"
into their tender keeping-I left it and them, and retired to my private
chamber, there to brood over the sorrows of my stricken and fallen country. But
I was not long left to myself and the sorrows of my country. We were summoned
to yet another sacrifice. The South no longer had the power of resistance, and
a generous foe would not have stricken her again. But the northern wolf had
tasted blood. The southern shepherd was unfaithful to his flock, and another
lamb was taken.
The slave trade in
the District of Columbia was abolished. It was by this name they called the
deed. It was more than this. It was an act to punish the intentions of masters
and to emancipate their slaves. The bill declares that if slaves are brought to
the District of Columbia for the purpose of being sold in said district, or
anywhere else, they shall be free. The law does not punish the act of selling
or offering to sell, but it punishes the intention to sell; and how, pray? Not
by fining the master, or by sending him to prison, but by emancipating his
slave. How this law is to operate in practice, I need not say. It is to all
intents and purposes an act of abolition. Under it, men's intentions will be
judged of by swift juries, by abolition juries, and their slaves set at
liberty. Does any man doubt that abolition juries will be found in the District
of Columbia, and in the city of Washington? There are in the district sixteen thousand free
negroes, and twenty-three hundred slaves. Slavery
is wearing out there, and to-day, fellow-citizens, I would as soon risk a New
York or Philadelphia jury on a question involving slavery, as a Washington City
jury. The people there are growing more and more hostile to this species of
property every day, and I pity the master who has his intentions tried
before a jury taken from among them.
These,
fellow-citizens, are the healing measures-the measures of peace. This the
vaunted adjustment of which so much has been said, and for the passage of which
the cannon has been fired, the drums beat, fifes blown, banners displayed, and
all the evidences of national rejoicing exhibited.
I cannot believe in
the sincerity of these singular demonstrations. I cannot think that our
ignominious exclusion from California affords
cause for joy. I
cannot believe that the bill to punish a master's intention, by emancipating
his slave, has sent joy to southern hearts. I do not believe that the
dismemberment of Texas has filled the South with rejoicing. Men make up their
minds to submit to wrong, and pride induces them to put the best possible face
upon it. Men whose hearts are wrung with agony, will smile, because they are
too proud to weep. Men, like boys, may whistle to keep their courage up. But
when causes like these exist for mourning, it is useless to tell me that men
with southern hearts rejoice-the thing is impossible.
I am told that Texas
has not been dismembered. That in the kindest spirit, the United States has proposed
to pay her ten millions of dollars, to relinquish her claim to the territory
which has been annexed to New Mexico. Let us examine the sincerity of this
statement. The United States, speaking through the Executive, and through
Congress, says to Texas: We want this country, and we mean to have it; you are
weak, and we are strong. Give up the country quietly, and we will pay you ten
millions of dollars; refuse, and here is the army, the navy, and the
militia." Look at the power of the United States; look at the threat of
the President to reduce Texas to submission. Look at the conduct of southern
senators and representatives. Look at all this, and then turn your eyes towards
Texas; see her feeble and weak, without money, without arms; in debt, and without
credit; and tell me if it is left to her free choice to determine whether she
will accept or reject this proposition? The overgrown bully approaches a weak
and feeble man, without friends and without the means of defence, and says,
"I want your land; give it up quietly, and I will pay you for it, and if
you refuse, bear in mind, I am stronger than you, and here are my guns, here my
daggers, and there my armed servants to do my bidding. Choose what you will
do." Will not every man's sense of justice revolt at conduct like this? Is
the man thus treated, a free agent? In thus taking his property, has not an outrageous
wrong, a positive robbery, been perpetrated? I leave it to the good sense of
this audience to give the answer.
But we are told that
Texas is to be liberally paid, and therefore, if she accepts the proposition
and gives up the land, we have no just cause of complaint. I do not know what
sum of money would be liberal compensation to a sovereign state for being
despoiled of one-third of her territory. For myself, I would not consent to
sell the poorest county in Mississippi to the Free-Soil party for all the gold
on this side of the Atlantic. But when I hear of the liberality of this
proposition, it leads me to inquire who pays the money. We can all afford to be
liberal at the expense of other people. Do the Free-Soilers
pay this ten millions of dollars? Not at all; they get the land, that's clear,
and that we pay the greater part of the money is equally clear. The money is to
be paid from the national treasury. I am not about to launch into any
discussion of the finances, but I want to show who it is that must pay this ten
millions of dollars to Texas. We derive our national revenue chiefly from a
duty levied on goods imported into the country. Now, it will not be denied that
these imports are nothing else than the proceeds of the exports. It is
perfectly clear that if we cut off the exports, we suspend the imports. If we
have nothing to sell, we shall have nothing to buy with, and consequently
imports must cease; and if imports cease, revenue will cease. We shall export
this year, in cotton alone, near one hundred millions of dollars in value; this
will form the basis of one hundred millions of dollars in goods imported.
If the government
levies a duty of thirty-five per cent. on these, her revenue from this source
alone will be thirty-five millions of dollars. Now, suppose we abstract this
cotton from the exports, do we not see that we cut off the imports to a like
extent, and in cutting off the imports that we likewise cut off the revenue?
But seeing all this, says one, I do not yet perceive that you have shown how it
is that the cotton grower pays the revenue. Go with me, if you please, a little
further. Suppose my friend who sits before me, and who raises five hundred
bales of cotton, shall ship that cotton, and himself dispose of it in Liverpool
for twenty-five thousand dollars. Suppose he invests the money in merchandise
and lands it in New Orleans. The government charges him a duty of thirty-five per
cent. for the privilege of landing his goods. Now answer me this question,
would it have been any worse for my friend to have been charged thirty-five per
cent. on the value of his cotton as he went out, with the privilege of bringing
back his goods free of duty, than it would be to let him take his cotton free
of charge and tax him thirty-five per cent. duty on the return cargo? For
myself, I cannot see that it would make the least difference whether he paid as
he went out, or as he came in. But I am told the planter does not bring back
the proceeds of his cotton. He sells it, and the importing merchant brings back
the proceeds and pays the duty. Let it be borne in mind that every man who
handles the cotton, from the moment it leaves the planter until it comes back
in the form of merchandise, handles it on speculation; and I should like to
know which one of these speculators it is that loses the thirty-five per cent.
which the government collects. The treasury receives the money; somebody pays
it; and in my judgment, that somebody is the planter. The slaveholding states
furnish two-thirds of our entire exports, and if I am right in this theory,
they pay two-thirds of the revenue, and consequently will pay two-thirds, or nearly
seven millions of the ten millions of dollars given to Texas for the territory
of which she has been so unjustly despoiled.
I beg pardon for
this digression, and shall return at once to the subject before us.
What compensation
has been offered the South for her interest in all the vast territories derived
from Mexico, for this spoliation of Texas, and the emancipation act in the
District of Columbia? We are told that the North gave us the fugitive slave
law. This, fellow-citizens, was our right under the Constitution. It could not
be refused. No man who had sworn to support the Constitution could refuse to
vote for an efficient law for the surrender of fugitive slaves, unless he was
willing to commit wilful and deliberate perjury. I do not thank the North for
passing the fugitive slave law. I will not thank any man or any power for
doling out to me my constitutional rights. If the North will execute the
law in good faith, I shall think better of them as brethren and friends than I
now do. Time will determine whether they will do this.
These acts have
passed. They are now on the statute books, and the question arises--shall we
tamely submit to their operation, and if we resist, in what manner, and to what
extent shall we carry that resistance? I am not appalled by the cry of
disunion, so often and so foolishly raised, whenever resistance is spoken of.
There are things more terrible to me than the phantom of disunion, and one of
these is tame submission to outrageous wrong. If it has really come to this,
that the Southern States dare not assert and maintain their equal position in
the Union, for fear of dissolving the Union, than I am free to say that the
Union ought to be dissolved. If the noble edifice, erected by our fathers, has
become so rickety, worm-eaten, and decayed, that it is in danger of falling
every time the Southern States assemble to ask for justice, then the sooner it
is pulled down the better. I am not so wedded to the name of Union as to remain
in it until it shall fall and crush me.
I have great
confidence that the government may be brought back to its original purity. I
have great confidence that the government will again be administered in
subordination to the Constitution; that we shall be restored to our equal
position in the confederacy, and that our rights will again be respected as
they were from 1783 to 1819. This being done, I shall be satisfied-nothing
short of this will satisfy me. I can never consent to take a subordinate
position. By no act or word of mine shall the South ever be reduced to a state
of dependence on the North. I will cling to the Union, and utter its praises
with my last breath, but it must be a Union of equals; it must be a Union in
which my state and my section is equal in rights to any other section or state.
I will not consent that the South shall become the Ireland of this country.
Better, far, that we dissolve our political connection with the North than live
connected with her as her slaves or vassals. The fathers of the republic
counselled us to live together in peace and concord, but these venerable sages
and patriots never counselled us to surrender our equal position in the Union.
By their lives, they gave us lessons in the hornbook of freedom. If Washington
could speak to us to-day from the tomb, he would counsel us against submission.
He resisted less flagrant acts of usurpation and tyranny, and took up arms
against his king. The flatterers of royalty called this treason. If we resist
the greater outrages, can we hope to escape the name of traitor?
Let me say to you,
in all sincerity, fellow-citizens, that I am no disunionist. If I know my own
heart, I am more concerned about the means of preserving the Union than I am
about the means of destroying it. The danger is not that we shall dissolve the
Union, by a bold and manly vindication of our rights; but rather that we shall,
in abandoning our rights, abandon the Union also. So help me God, I believe the
submissionists are the very worst enemies of the Union. There is certainly some
point beyond which the most abject will refuse to submit. If we yield now, how
long do you suppose it will be before we shall be called upon to submit again?
And does not every human experience admonish us that the more we yield, the
greater will become the exaction of the aggressors? To the man who thinks and
says that we have been wronged, and yet submits in sullen silence, I can only
say, you reason badly for the Union. But to the man who rejoices in the late
action of Congress, who fires cannon, beats drums, and unfurls banners with
mottoes of joy written on them to such a man I can say, with a heart filled
with sorrow, however well meant these acts may be, they invite aggression on
our rights, and will lead to certain and in inevitable disunion.
The best friend of
the Union is he who stands boldly up and demands equal justice for every state
and for all sections. If I have demanded more than this, convince me, and I
will withdraw the demand. But I shall stand unawed by fear and unmoved by
flattery in demanding for Mississippi the same justice that is meted out to the
greatest and proudest state in the Confederacy.
If the Union cannot
yield to this demand, I am against the Union. If the Constitution does not
secure it, I am against the Constitution. I am for equal and exact justice, and
against anything and everything which denies it.
This justice was
denied us in the "adjustment bills" which passed Congress. But we are
not to infer that the fault was either in the Union or in the Constitution. The
Union is strength, and if not wickedly diverted from its purposes, will secure
us that justice and that domestic tranquillity which is our birthright. The
Constitution is our shield and our buckler, and needs only to be fairly
administered to dispense equal and exact justice to all parts of this great
Confederacy.
Has the South
justice in California? Have her rights been respected in any part of the
territories? Has she been fairly dealt with in the matter of the Texas
boundary? Was good faith observed in the passage of the anti-slavery bill for
the District of Columbia? Does the North exhibit a spirit of love, charity,
good neighborhood, and brotherly kindness in the perpetual warfare which she
wages on our property? Is the Union now what it was in 1783? Did our fathers
frame a constitution and enter into a union which gave the right of aggression
to one-half the states, and obliged the other half to submit without a murmur?
Would Washington, and Jefferson, and Madison, have entered into such a union
with Adams, and Hancock, and Jay? To all these questions there can be but one
answer, we all know. Every thinking, reasoning man knows, that in the war upon
slavery, the Constitution and the Union have been diverted from their original
purposes. Instead of being shields against lawless tyranny, they have been made
engines of oppression to the South. And am I, a southern citizen, to be
deterred from saying so by this senseless cry of disunion? Am I to see my
dearest rights taken from me, and my countrymen denied all participation in, or
enjoyment of the common property, and be afraid to speak ? Must I witness the
dismemberment of a southern state and a whole catalogue of wrongs, and fail to
speak, lest the Union shall crumble and fall about my ears? I hope the Union is
made of sterner stuff, but I am free to say, if the Union cannot withstand a
demand for justice, I shall rejoice to see it fall.
I will demand my
rights and the rights of my section, be the consequences what they may. It is
the imperative duty of every good citizen to maintain and defend the
Constitution and the Union, and this can only be done by demanding and
enforcing justice. Let us make this demand and let us enforce it, and let the
consequences rest on the heads of those who violate the Constitution and
subvert the Union in this war upon justice, equality, and right.
We are told that our
difficulties are at an end; that, unjust as we all know the late action of
Congress to have been, it is better to submit, and especially is it better,
since this is to be the end of the slavery agitation. If this were the end,
fellow-citizens, I might debate the question as to whether submission
would not be the better policy. Such is my love of peace, such my almost
superstitious reverence for the Union, that I might be willing to submit if
this was to be the end of our troubles. But I know it is not to be the end. I
know it has not been the end thus far. What have we seen? On the passage of all
these bills through Congress, the North stood shocked and overawed at the
enormity of the wrong done the South; but Washington city rejoiced, Baltimore
rejoiced, Richmond rejoiced. Instead of the thunder notes of resistance coming
back upon the capitol, we were greeted with songs and shouts, and the merry
peals of hearts filled with joy. Seward, the abolition senator from New York,
encouraged by these indications, introduced a bill to abolish slavery in
the District of Columbia. It got only five votes. The North had not yet
recovered from the shock which a glance at her own bold work had inflicted on
her. After a few more days, the news of rejoicing at Louisville, at Augusta,
and Nashville, came rolling back upon the wings of the lightning, and Seward
asked another vote, and the result was nine in the affirmative. The cautious
Dayton, and the still more cunning Winthrop, and men of that class, all the
while protesting that it was yet too soon to urge that
measure. They saw and knew full well that the firing of cannon and beating of
drums were empty signs. They judged rightly, that no people rejoice in heart at
their own degradation. But this rejoicing still went on; they fired the cannon,
and beat the drums, and flung out their banners all over the South-at Natchez
and New Orleans, at Mobile and at Jackson, at Memphis and Montgomery. Not only
were the Giddingses and the Sewards, the Chases, Hales, and Kings, and all the
enemies of the South, thus assured that there would be no resistance, but, in
the echo of the booming cannon and in the shrill notes of the merry fife, they
were assured that the South was filled with rejoicings and merry songs. What
was the effect of all this? Why, fellow-citizens, the vote was taken in the
House on the bill to abolish slavery out-and-out in the District of Columbia,
and it got fifty-two votes, and there were twenty-nine of its friends absent
the largest vote ever given in Congress on the direct proposition. Look at
these things. Look to the fugitive slave law in New York, Massachusetts, Ohio,
and elsewhere. Look to the late extraordinary triumph of Seward in New York.
Look to the success of the Free Soilers in the late elections. Listen to the
notes of preparation everywhere in the Northern States, and tell me if men do
not wilfully deceive you when they say that the slavery agitation is over. I
tell you, fellow-citizens, it is not over. It never will be over so long as you
continue to recede before the pressure of northern power. You cannot secure
your rights; you cannot save the Union or the Constitution, by following the
timid counsels of the submissionists. Pursue these counsels, and they will lead
to a sacrifice of all that we hold dear-of life, liberty, property, and the
Union itself. By a submission you may secure, not a union, but a connection with
the North. It will be such a connection as exists between Ireland and England,
Poland and Russia, Hungary and Austria. It will not, it cannot be the Union of
our fathers-it cannot be a union of equals.
You can save the
Union, fellow-citizens, and you can do it by a stern resistance to wrong.
I have seen the Free
Soil elephant of the North. He is governed by the instincts of his species. He
never crosses a bridge without first pressing it with his foot to see if it
will sustain his ponderous frame. Make the bridge strong, and he will cross;
but let it be weak, and he will stay on his own side. If you want this
Free-Soil elephant among you, make the bridge strong, give him assurance
of submission, convince him that he may pass the gulf that divides
you in safety, and he will come among you and destroy you. If you would keep
him out, show him the yawning chasm, and convince him that if he attempts to
cross he will be precipitated to the bottom, and, my life upon it, he will be
content to remain at home.
The North will
inflict all that the South will bear, even to a final emancipation of the negro
race. She will inflict nothing that you will not bear.
I am detaining you,
fellow-citizens, beyond the time which I allotted to myself; allow me to bring
these remarks to a close.
I am for resistance.
I am for that sort of resistance which shall be effective and final. Speaking
to you as a private citizen, I shall not hesitate to express my individual
opinions freely and fearlessly as to the best mode of resistance. I do not
ask-I do not expect any one to adopt my opinions. They are the result of my own
best reflections, and they will not be abandoned, except to embrace others more
likely to prove effective in practice.
I approve of the
governor's convocation of the legislature. The measure was called for by the
emergencies of the hour, and was, in my judgment, eminently wise and proper.
I trust the legislature
will order a convention of the state. Give the people a chance to speak. Let
the voice of the sovereign state be heard speaking through a
regularly-organized convention, and it will command respect. Our bane has been
our divisions. We never can unite as one man-our people are too much imbued
with the early prejudices of their native homes. Congregated from all the
states of the Union, and from many foreign countries, they never can unite on
one common platform. But the majority can speak, and if that majority speaks
through a convention legally elected, its voice will silence dissension. It
will be the voice of a sovereignty-it will command respect.
What if
three-fourths of the people of Mississippi are for resistance, the other fourth
makes as loud a noise, and their voice sounds as large in New York or
Massachusetts. What if five-sixths of your delegation in Congress have spoken
the sentiment of the state, the other sixth has protested that he speaks the
voice of the state. Let the people speak! Let them speak through the
ballot-box. Let a convention be called, and through that convention, let us
speak the sentiments of the sovereign state.
I should hope that
such a movement in Mississippi would be responded to in most, if not all the
Southern States. I should have great confidence that South Carolina, Georgia,
Alabama, and Florida, would meet us on a common platform, and resolve with us
to stand or fall together.
I speak with great
deference, but with the utmost freedom as to what course Mississippi and the
other states should pursue. I speak for myself alone, and no man or party is in
any way responsible for what I say.
We should demand a
restoration of the laws of Texas in hæc verba over the
country which has been taken from her and added to New Mexico. In other
words, we should demand the clear and undisputed right to carry our slave
property to that country, and have it protected and secured to us after we get
it there; and we should demand a continuation of this right and of this
security and protection.
We should demand the
same right to go into all the territories with our slave property, that
citizens of the free states have to go with any species of property, and we
should demand for our property the same protection that is given to the
property of our northern brethren. No more, nor less.
We should demand
that Congress abstain from all interference with slavery in the territories, in
the District of Columbia, in the states, on the high seas, or anywhere else,
except to give it protection, and this protection should be the same that is
given to other property.
We should demand a
continuation of the present fugitive slave law, or some other law which should
be effective in carrying out the mandate of the Constitution for the delivery
of fugitive slaves.
We should demand
that no state be denied admission into the Union, because her constitution
tolerated slavery.
In all this we
should ask nothing but meagre justice; and a refusal to grant such reasonable
demands would show a fixed and settled purpose in the North to oppress and
finally destroy the Southern States. If the demands here set forth, and such
others as would most effectually secure the South against further disturbance,
should be denied, and that denial should be manifested by any act of the
Federal Government, we ought forthwith to dissolve all political connection
with the Northern States.
If the Southern
States, in convention, will lay down this or some other platform equally broad
and substantial, and plant themselves upon it, I know there are hundreds and
thousands of good men and true at the North, who will take positions with them,
and stand by them to the last. In the present condition of our counsels, we can
never expect support from the North. Distracted and divided at home and in Congress,
those at the North who are disposed to aid us, are left in doubt as to which is
the true southern side of the question. Suppose Mr. Dallas, Mr. Paulding, or
some other friend of the South, should undertake our defence, would he not be
met with language like this: "Look at Clay, look at Benton, look at
Houston, look at hundreds in the South-listen to the roar of their cannon and
the music of their drums, and do you, sir, pretend to know more of southern
rights than the South knows of her own rights." What could our northern
friends say to a speech like this? No, fellow-citizens, no! Do not place your
friends at the North in this condition. Erect a platform on which they may
stand and fight your battles for you. When the Free-Soiler points to the Clays,
the Bentons, the Houstons, and others, enable your friends to point to
Mississippi and Georgia, and Alabama, and South Carolina, assembled in
conventions. And when the Free-Soiler appeals to the cannon roaring and the
drums beating, let your friends appeal to the voice of sovereign states
demanding justice, equality, and liberty on the one side, or disunion on the
other.
If I hesitate to
embrace the doctrine of disunion, it is because the North has, to some extent,
been inveigled into her present hostile position towards the South by our own
unfaithful representatives, and encouraged to persevere in the mad policy by
the ill-advised conduct of some of our own people. A portion of the southern
senators and representatives voted for the admission of California, and large
numbers sustained the Texas spoliation bill. The whole advantages of these
measures inured to the benefit of the North, and we could not reasonably expect
northern men to do more for us than our own representatives. We have great
reason to complain of the North, but we have much greater reason to complain of
our own unfaithful servants. The North is deceived as to the true condition of
southern sentiment, but they have been deceived by our own people. Let us
undeceive them. Let us prepare to strike for justice, equality, liberty. But
let us first give fair warning, and let that warning be given in an authentic
and authoritative form. Let us do this, and if then we are forced to strike, we
shall be sustained by all good men, we shall be sustained by God, and our own
clear consciences.
These are my
opinions, fellow-citizens, freely expressed. I do not ask you to sanction them
or to adopt them as your own, unless you approve them. I have but one motive,
and that is to serve my afflicted country. Wholly and entirely southern in my
sentiments and feelings, I have never debated with myself what course it were
best for me to pursue. Ambition might have led me to the North, but as I loved
the land of my birth more than the honors and emoluments of power and of place,
I have taken sides with the South. Her destiny shall be my destiny. If she
stands, I will stand by her, and if she falls, I will fall with her.
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. 246-61
