Senator John C. Calhoun to Andrew Pickens Calhoun, February 23, 1848

Senate Chamber 23d Feb. 1848

MY DEAR ANDREW, The treaty with Mexico has just been laid before the Senate, and read. It will be warmly opposed, but I think it will be approved by the body. It will be a fortunate deliverance, if it should be. A sudden impulse in that case, would be given to commerce, accompanied by a rise of price in our great staple so soon as it is known in England.

The Slave question will soon come up, and be the subject of deep agitation. The South will be in the crisis of its fate. If it yields now, all will be lost.

I enclose a speech by Mr Yulee on his amendment to Mr Dickenson resolutions. They express substantially my views. Indeed, (in confidence), he is one of the members of our mess and has conversed with me freely on the principles, which control the question involved; but the execution is all his own. Love to all.

SOURCE: J. Franklin Jameson, Editor, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1899, Volume II, Calhoun’s Correspondence: Fourth Annual Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, Correspondence of John C. Calhoun, p. 744

No Union With Slaveholders!

KISSING THE CHAIN!

Shall Massachusetts stand erect no longer,

But stoop in chains upon her downward way,

Thicker to gather on her limbs, and stronger,

Day after day?’

In our last number, we gave a brief account of the ridiculous, spasmodic and inconsistent action of the House of Representatives of this State on the presentation of petitions, asking for a Convention of the People to devise measures for a peaceable secession of Massachusetts from the Union, for the intolerable grievances there in set forth; first, how those petitions were precipitately laid on the table by an overwhelming majority, and thus denied the courtesy of a reference; and how, the Whigs taking the alarm on seeing Mr. BOUTWELL (the ostensible leader of the Democratic party in the House) rise on his seat to object to such a course of action as a virtual denial of the right of petition, that vote was almost instantaneously reconsidered, and the petitions were referred to the Committee on the Judiciary. What has since transpired, up to the time our paper goes to press, we proceed to inform our readers.

On Friday last, the Committee with hot haste (forty-eight hours after receiving the petitions) reported that the petitioners have leave to withdraw. Thus no time was afforded for the presentation of a large number of similar petitions still circulating for signatures, and no opportunity was given the petitioners to be heard in behalf of the object prayed for. Hitherto, for several years past, petitions of this nature have been regularly sent to the Legislature, and in every instance received without hesitancy, duly referred, deliberately considered, and repeatedly supported by counsel before the Committee, even the hall of the House of Representatives being granted on several occasions for a hearing. By the rules of the House, the report of the present Committee was laid over for that day; but, as if anxious to make a special display of ‘patriotism,’ and to exonerate the Free Soil movement from every suspicion of ‘fanaticism,’ Mr. Wilson, of Natick, the proprietor of the Boston Republican, moved that the rules be suspended, and that the vote on the report of the Committee be taken by yeas and nays, that no time be lost to signify to the country and the world where Massachusetts stands in regard to this ‘glorious Union’!! The motion prevailed, and the report was accepted—Yeas, ALL except 1—Mr. TOLMAN, (Free Soiler,) of Worcester. In common with a multitude of others, we are astonished and indignant at the conduct of Mr. WILSON in this matter—of one who has displayed, on so many occasions in the House, both as a Whig and as a Free Soiler, a manly front on the subject of slavery, and at all times received at the hands of the abolitionists his full share of the credit. What his motive was for thus precipitating action, we leave him to explain. If it was with any hope of personal or party advantage, he will assuredly find that he has ‘reckoned without his host.’ If, in his conscience, he really believes that an active and willing support of the Union involves nothing of criminality—if he believes that the Union is promotive of liberty and equality, instead of chains and slavery—why then we could not reasonably expect that he would sanction a movement for its dissolution. Nevertheless, it is none the less extraordinary—especially in view of all he has said and done respecting the aggressions of the Slave Power—that he should be eager to outstrip both Whig and Democrat in his zeal to do an act which he knew would give special pleasure to the Southern brokers in the trade of blood, and gain nothing for Massachusetts but there fresh contempt for her disgusting servility.

One man—only one man of the two hundred and fifty who voted—was found willing or able to stand erect in the HOUSE on a question of justice, to say nothing of liberty; and while a single member retains his manhood, we will not despair of the old Bay State! Mr. TOLMAN, by his solitary vote, had displayed an independence as rare as it is commendable, and a fearlessness of consequences which indicates the man of integrity immeasurably above the party politician. Let the time-serving sneer at him, and the vile and malignant abuse him; it shall only place in stronger contrast his worth and their baseness. Of course, we are not commending him as a disunionist—for he is not, otherwise he would not be found in the Legislature; but only for his sense of justice, and of what constitutes fair treatment. As a member of the Judiciary Committee, he objected to its hasty report as equally unwise and unnecessary,—the subject presented for their consideration being one of the gravest character and greatest solemnity, justifying a patient hearing in its elucidation. He dissented not from the conclusion of the report, that the petitioners have to withdraw their petitions, but only from the haste with which intentionally made, so to give no opportunity to their signers to vindicate their course. This is all he meant to imply in giving his negative in the House; and for this he deserves the approbation of all decent, fair-minded, honorable men. He is no trading politician, but a working-man, a mechanic, of great integrity of character and lively conscientiousness, and must respected by those who know him. As a proof of his moral firmness, it deserves to be stated to his credit, in this connection, that he refused some profitable offers to furnish government wagons to be used in the Mexican war, regarding that war as he did as most wicked and inexcusable. It is so rare a thing for conscience to be stronger than the love of gain, that every instance like this is an oasis in the desert. It is evident that Mr. Tolman is not a man to be sneered or frowned down. In the House, he stood actually in the majority, for he was in the right and the right is with God, who is more than multitudinous.

Mr. BOUTWELL, in contending for a reference of the petitions, as due to a just regard for the right of petition, pursued a course for which we intended to accord him our thanks and all due credit; but his subsequent behavior has vitiated an otherwise meritorious act. On Tuesday, as one of the committee, we requested him to present to the House sundry petitions from Boston and other places, numerously and respectably signed, on the subject of disunion, similar to those already presented; and also a remonstrance signed by FRANCIS JACKSON and others against the precipitate action of the Committee and the House on the petitions, and asking for a hearing as a matter of Justice. Much to our surprise, but more to his own discredit, Mr. BOUTWELL positively declined complying with the request! On the question of the Union he was eminently patriotic—very conscientious; he could never think, for one moment, of presenting such petitions. ‘But is it a matter of conscience, or a rule of action with you,’ we asked, ‘never to present a petition, except you can give it your sanction?’ He could not say it was. ‘Why, then, the present refusal? Do you believe there is any one, either in this Commonwealth or out of it, who would suppose that you were in favor of a dissolution of the Union merely from the fact of your presenting these petitions?’ He did not suppose there was. ‘you can make as many disclaimers as you may think proper; to these we do not object; these we are prepared to expect; but we still desire these petitions and this remonstrance to be laid before the House.’ He should prefer that some other person would present them. ‘But the same excuse that you make might be made by every other member; and where then would be the right of petition? If a memorial relating to the liberty of the people of Massachusetts, and to the millions in this country who are groaning in bondage, couched in respectful and solemn phraseology, is to be denied a presentation, so may all others of an inferior nature if the petitions are in error as to the form or substance of their request, is it not obviously the true way to allay popular agitation for the Legislature to show wherein they err?’ He had no doubt that the dissolution of the Union would be the abolition of slavery; but he went for the Union as the lesser of two evils! Humane man—upright moralist—profound logician! To cease ‘striking hands with thieves and consenting with adulterers’—to refuse any longer to join in the enslavement of three millions of the people of this country—would certainly give liberty to the oppressed, and put an end to all the woes and horrors of the slave system, but it would be injurious to ourselves!! How disinterested the action, how exact the calculation! See what folly it is to obey God by remembering them that are in bonds as bound with them, and loving our neighbors as ourselves! See how safe, profitable and. expedient it is to commit sin, perpetrate robbery, and exercise tyranny, on a gigantic sale! ‘The end sanctifies the means—I am for doing evil that good may come’—is the moral philosophy of this leader of the Democratic party.

Mr. BOUTWELL may reconcile—if he can—the consistency of his acts in refusing to present a disunion petition to the House; and then, after its presentation by other hands, protesting against its being summarily laid upon the table as a virtual denial of the right of petition, and advocating its reference to the Judiciary Committee. We are unable to reconcile discrepancies so glaring.

We admonished him—as we would admonish all politicians—that this great and solemn question is not to be dodged, crowded down, or shuffled out of sight, with impunity—that those who are pressing it are not lacking in intelligence or spirit, neither are they to be discouraged by defeat or intimidated by censure—that it is the religious element, it its purest and most disinterested manifestation, by which they are impelled—a dread of sin, a hatred of tyranny, a sacred love of liberty, and a sentiment of obedience to God, overriding all party ties and all constitutional requirements—and therefore not to be trifled with.

On Wednesday forenoon, Mr. TOLMAN presented the remonstrance of Francis Jackson and others, against the action of the House on Friday last, as follows:

To the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts:

The undersigned, petitioners ‘for a Convention of the People of this Commonwealth to devise measures for a peaceful Secession of Massachusetts from the Union,’ respectfully ask for a reconsideration of the vote of the House, on Friday last, by which those petitioners had leave to withdraw their petition—basing their request and their remonstrance against the action of the house on the following grounds:—

1. That the petitioners had no opportunity to be heard before your Committee in support of the object prayed for; the action both of the Committee and the House manifesting, in the judgment of the undersigned, precipitancy, and being without any good precedent.

2. That if a patient hearing is cheerfully conceded to petitions touching matters of the smallest pecuniary interest, much more does the same, of right, belong to questions involving the welfare, honor and liberty of millions.

3. That while your petitioners are subjected, by the Constitution and laws of the United States, and therefore of this Commonwealth, to heavy fines for obeying the law of God, and refusing to deliver up the fugitive slave, or giving him aid and protection, they feel that they have a right to be heard in asking to be relieved from such immoral obligations.

4. That while citizens of this Commonwealth, on visiting Southern States, are seized, thrust into privation, condemned to work with felons in the chain-gain, and frequently sold on the auction block as slaves;—and while the governments both of the United States and of the Southern States have refused, or made it penal, to attempt a remedy—and while this Commonwealth has given up all effort to vindicate the rights of its citizens as hopeless and impracticable, under the present Union—it is manifestly the duty of the Commonwealth, as a Sovereign State, to devise some other measure for the redress and prevention of so grievous a wrong, which your petitioners are profoundly convinced can be reached only by a secession from the present union.

5. That while the matter touched on in said petitions has attracted so much attention, and awakened so deep an interest in all parts of the country, it is clearly the duty of the legislature, in the opinion of the undersigned, either to hear the reasons on which the petitioners found their request, or, at least, to make a plain statement of the petitioners’ mistake as to the form or substance of the remedy prayed for.

6. That on a subject so momentous, the precipitate rejection of a petition, without reason given therefore, or opportunity offered to the petitioners to support their request, is a virtual denial of the right of petition.

FRANCIS JACKSON,

WM. LLOYD GARRISON,

EDMUND QUINCY,

WENDELL PHILLIPS,

WM. I. BOWDITCH,

JOHN ROGERS,

EDMUND JACKSON,

CHARLES F. HOVEY,

CHARLES K. WHIPPLE,

SAMUEL MAY, JR.,

JOHN M. SPEAR,

ROBERT F. WOLLCUT,

BOURNE SPOONER.

Mr. Tolman made a few sensible remarks, defining his own position, and expressing his conviction that the petitioners had not been fairly treated. He therefore moved that the remonstrance he referred to the Committee of the Judiciary.

Mr. Codman, of Boston, moved that the remonstrants have leave to withdraw their remonstrance; and on this the yeas and nays were ordered—41 to 125.

Mr. Earle, of Worcester, moved to refer the remonstrance to the Special committee on Slavery, and supported his motion in some earnest and forcible remarks. A long debate ensued—Messrs. Earle and Tolman, Griswold of Greenfield, Branning of Tyringham, and Wilson of Natick, supporting the commitment, and Messrs. Codman, Schouler and Kimball of Boston, Hoar of Concord, and Smith of Enfield, (the last named an orthodox deacon, in appearance ‘a sleek oily man of God,’) opposing it.

Mr. Williams, of Taunton, demanded the previous question, which was ordered, thus cutting off the motion to commit.

The yeas and nays were then taken on Mr. Codman’s motion to give the remonstrants leave to withdraw, and the motion was carried—yeas 192, nays 63—Mr. Boutwell, of Groton, voting in the affirmative.

It is due to Mr. Wilson of Natick, to say that his course on this occasion was manly, explicit and commendable. In explanation of his vote on Friday, he said he was not aware that the petitioners desired a hearing: if he had been, he would not have voted that they should have leave to withdraw their petitions until they had been fully and fairly heard. We accept the explanation, and so would mitigate the severity of our censure; at the same time wondering that he should have supposed that he should have been the first to hasten the action of the House on this subject. Well, this is our defence—

‘Though we break our fathers’ promise, we have nobler duties first:

The traitor to Humanity is the traitor most accurst!

Man is more than Constitutions—better rot beneath the sod,

Than be true to Church and state while we are doubly false to God!’

SOURCE: “No Union With Slaveholders!” The Liberator, Boston, Massachusetts, Friday, February 22, 1850, p. 2, cols. 5-6

The Massachusetts Body of Liberties, December 1641

[The Massachusetts " Body of Liberties," the first code of laws established in New England, was compiled by Nathaniel Ward (c. 1578-1652) a leading English Puritan minister, who had been trained as a lawyer. He came to the colony in 1634, and was for a time pastor at Ipswich. The "Liberties" were established by the Massachusetts General Court in December, 1641.]

THE LIBERTIES OF THE MASSACHUSETS COLLONIE IN NEW ENGLAND, 1641

THE free fruition of such liberties, Immunities, and priveledges as humanitie, Civilitie, and Christianitie call for as due to every man in his place and proportion, without impeachment, and infringement, hath ever bene and ever will be the tranquillitie and Stabilitie of Churches and Commonwealths. And the deniall or deprivall thereof, the disturbance if not the ruine of both.

We hould it therefore our dutie and safetie whilst we are about the further establishing of this Government to collect and expresse all such freedomes as for present we foresee may concerne us, and our posteritie after us, And to ratify them with our sollemne consent.

Wee doe therefore this day religiously and unanimously decree and confirme these following Rites, liberties, and priveledges concerneing our Churches, and Civil State to be respectively, impartiallie, and inviolably enjoyed and observed throughout our Jurisdiction for ever.

I. No mans life shall be taken away, no mans honour or good name shall be stayned, no mans person shall be arested, restrayned, banished, dismembred, nor any wayes punished, no man shall be deprived of his wife or children, no mans goods or estaite shall be taken away from him, nor any way indammaged under colour of law or Countenance of Authoritie, unlesse it be by vertue or equitie of some expresse law of the Country waranting the same, established by a generall Court and sufficiently published, or in case of the defect of a law in any partecular case by the word of God. And in Capitall cases, or in cases concerning dismembring or banishment according to that word to be judged by the Generall Court.

2. Every person within this Jurisdiction, whether Inhabitant or forreiner, shall enjoy the same justice and law, that is generall for the plantation, which we constitute and execute one towards another without partialitie or delay.

3. No man shall be urged to take any oath or subscribe any articles, covenants or remonstrance, of a publique and Civill nature, but such as the Generall Court hath considered, allowed, and required.

4. No man shall be punished for not appearing at or before any Civill Assembly, Court, Councell, Magistrate, or Officer, nor for the omission of any office or service, if he shall be necessarily hindred by any apparent Act or providence of God, which he could neither foresee nor avoid. Provided that this law shall not prejudice any person of his just cost or damage, in any civil action.

5. No man shall be compelled to any publique worke or service unlesse the presse be grounded upon some act of the generall Court, and have reasonable allowance therefore.

6. No man shall be pressed in person to any office, worke, warres, or other publique service, that is necessarily and suffitiently exempted by any naturall or personall impediment, as by want of yeares, greatnes of age, defect of minde, fayling of sences, or impotencie of Lymbes.

7. No man shall be compelled to goe out of the limits of this plantation upon any offensive warres which this Comonwealth or any of our friends or confederats shall volentarily undertake. But onely upon such vindictive and defensive warres in our owne behalfe or the behalfe of our freinds and confederats as shall be enterprized by the Counsell and consent of a Court generall, or by authority derived from the same.

8. No mans Cattel or goods of what kinde soever shall be

pressed or taken for any publique use or service, unlesse it be by warrant grounded upon some act of the generall Court, nor without such reasonable prices and hire as the ordinarie rates of the Countrie do afford. And if his Cattel or goods shall perish or suffer damage in such service, the owner shall be suffitiently recompenced.

9. No monopolies shall be granted or allowed amongst us, but of such new Inventions that are profitable to the Countrie, and that for a short time.

10. All our lands and heritages shall be free from all fines and licenses upon Alienations, and from all hariotts, wardships, Liveries, Primer-seisins, yeare day and wast, Escheates, and forfeitures, upon the deaths of parents or Ancestors, be they naturall, casuall or Juditiall.

11. All persons which are of the age of 21 yeares, and of right understanding and meamories, whether excommunicate or condemned shall have full power and libertie to make there wills and testaments, and other lawful alienations of theire lands and estates.

12. Every man whether Inhabitant or fforreiner, free or not free shall have libertie to come to any publique Court, Councel, or Towne meeting, and either by speech or writeing to move any lawfull, seasonable, and materiall question, or to present any necessary motion, complaint, petition, Bill or information, whereof that meeting hath proper cognizance, so it be done in convenient time, due order, and respective manner.

13. No man shall be rated here for any estaite or revenue he hath in England, or in any forreine partes till it be transported hither.

14. Any Conveyance or Alienation of land or other estaite what so ever, made by any woman that is married, any childe under age, Ideott or distracted person, shall be good if it be passed and ratified by the consent of a generall Court.

15. All Covenous or fraudulent Alienations or Conveyances of lands, tenements, or any heriditaments, shall be of no validitie to defeate any man from due debts or legacies, or from any just title, clame or possession, of that which is so fraudulently conveyed.

16. Every Inhabitant that is an howse holder shall have free fishing and fowling in any great ponds and Bayes, Coves and Rivers, so farre as the sea ebbes and flowes within the presincts of the towne where they dwell, unlesse the free men of the same Towne or the Generall Court have otherwise appropriated them, provided that this shall not be extended to give leave to any man to come upon others proprietie without there leave.

17. Every man of or within this Jurisdiction shall have free libertie, notwithstanding any Civill power to remove both himselfe, and his familie at their pleasure out of the same, provided there be no legall impediment to the contrarie.

Rites, Rules, and Liberties concerning Juditiall proceedings

18. No mans person shall be restrained or imprisoned by any authority whatsoever, before the law hath sentenced him thereto, if he can put in sufficient securitie, bayle or mainprise, for his appearance, and good behaviour in the meane time, unlesse it be in Crimes Capitall, and Contempts in open Court, and in such cases where some expresse act of Court doth allow it.

19. If in a general Court any miscariage shall be amongst the Assistants when they are by themselves that may deserve an Admonition or fine under 20 sh. it shall be examined and sentenced amongst themselves, If amongst the Deputies when they are by themselves, it shall be examined and sentenced amongst themselves, If it be when the whole Court is togeather, it shall be judged by the whole Court, and not severallie as before.

20. If any which are to sit as Judges in any other Court shall demeane themselves offensively in the Court, The rest of the Judges present shall have power to censure him for it, if the cause be of a high nature it shall be presented to and censured at the next superior Court.

21. In all cases where the first summons are not served six dayes before the Court, and the cause breifly specified in the warrant, where appearance is to be made by the partie summoned, it shall be at his libertie whether he will appeare or no, except all cases that are to be handled in Courts suddainly called, upon extraordinary occasions, In all cases where there appeares present and urgent cause any assistant or officer apointed shal have power to make our attaichments for the first summons.

22. No man in any suit or action against an other shall falsely pretend great debts or damages to vex his adversary, if it shall appeare any doth so, The Court shall have power to set a reasonable fine on his head.

23. No man shall be adjudged to pay for detaining any debt from any Crediter above eight pounds in the hundred for one yeare, And not above that rate proportionable for all somes what so ever, neither shall this be a coulour or countenance to allow any usurie amongst us contrarie to the law of god.

24. In all Trespasses or damages done to any man or men, If it can be proved to be done by the meere default of him or them to whome the trespasse is done, It shall be judged no trespasse, nor any damage given for it.

25. No Summons pleading Judgement, or any kinde of proceeding in Court or course of Justice shall be abated, arested or reversed upon any kinde of cercumstantiall errors or mistakes, If the person and cause be rightly understood and intended by the Court.

26. Every man that findeth himselfe unfit to plead his owne cause in any Court shall have Libertie to imploy any man against whom the Court doth not except, to helpe him, Provided he give him noe fee or reward for his paines. This shall not exempt the partie him selfe from Answering such Questions in person as the Court shall thinke meete to demand of him.

27. If any plantife shall give into any Court a declaration of his cause in writeing, The defendant shall also have libertie and time to give in his answer in writeing, And so in all further proceedings betwene partie and partie, So it doth not further hinder the dispach of Justice then the Court shall be willing unto.

28. The plantife in all Actions brought in any Court shall have libertie to withdraw his Action, or to be nonsuited before the Jurie hath given in their verdict, in which case he shall alwaies pay full cost and chardges to the defendant, and may afterwards renew his suite at an other Court if he please.

29. In all actions at law it shall be the libertie of the plantife and defendant by mutual consent to choose whether they will be tryed by the Bensh or by a Jurie, unlesse it be where the law upon just reason hath otherwise determined. The like libertie shall be granted to all persons in Criminall cases.

30. It shall be in the libertie both of plantife and defendant, and likewise every delinquent (to be judged by a Jurie) to challenge any of the Jurors. And if his challenge be found just and reasonable by the Bench, or the rest of the Jurie, as the challenger shall choose it shall be allowed him, and tales de cercumstantibus impaneled in their room.

31. In all cases where evidences is so obscure or defective that the Jurie cannot clearely and safely give a positive verdict, whether it be a grand or petit Jurie, It shall have libertie to give a non Liquit, or a spetiall verdict, in which last, that is in a spetiall verdict, the Judgement of the cause shall be left to the Court, And all Jurors shall have libertie in matters of fact if they cannot finde the maine issue, yet to finde and present in their verdict so much as they can, If the Bench and Jurors shall so suffer at any time about their verdict that either of them cannot proceede with peace of conscience the case shall be referred to the Generall Court, who shall take the question from both and determine it.

32. Every man shall have libertie to replevy his Cattell or goods impounded, distreined, seised, or extended, unlesse it be upon execution after Judgement, and in paiment of fines. Provided he puts in good securitie to prosecute his replevin, And to satisfie such demands as his Adversary shall recover against him in Law.

33. No mans person shall be arrested, or imprisoned upon execution or judgment for any debt or fine, If the law can finde competent meanes of satisfaction otherwise from his estaite, and if not his person may be arrested and imprisoned where he shall be kept at his owne charge, not the plantife's till satisfaction be made, unlesse the Court that had cognizance of the cause or some superior Court shall otherwise provide.

34. If any man shall be proved and Judged a common Barrator vexing others with unjust frequent and endlesse suites, It shall be in the power of Courts both to denie him the benefit of the law, and to punish him for his Barratry.

35. No mans corne nor hay that is in the feild or upon the Cart, nor his garden stuffe, nor any thing subject to present decay, shall be taken in any distresse, unles he that takes it doth presently bestow it where it may not be imbesled nor suffer spoile or decay, or give securitie to satisfie the worth thereof if it come to any harme.

36. It shall be in the libertie of every man cast condemned or sentenced in any cause in any Inferior Court, to make their appeale to the Court of Assistants, provided they tender their appeale and put in securitie to prosecute it, before the Court be ended wherein they were condemned, And within six dayes next ensuing put in good securitie before some Assistant to satisfie what his Adversarie shall recover against him; And if the cause be of a Criminall nature for his good behaviour, and appearance, And everie man shall have libertie to complaine to the Generall Court of any Injustice done him in any Court of Assistants or other.

37. In all cases where it appeares to the Court that the plantife hath wilingly and witingly done wronge to the defendant in commencing and prosecuting an action or complaint against him, They shall have power to impose upon him a proportionable fine to the use of the defendant or accused person, for his false complaint or clamor.

38. Everie man shall have libertie to Record in the publique Rolles of any Court any Testimony given upon oath in the same Court, or before two Assistants, or any deede or evidence legally confirmed there to remaine in perpetuam rei memoriam, that is for perpetuall memoriall or evidence upon occasion.

39. In all actions both real and personall betweene partie and partie, the Court shall have power to respite execution for a convenient time, when in their prudence they see just cause so to doe.

40. No conveyance, Deede, or promise whatsoever shall be of validitie, If it be gotten by Illegal violence, imprisonment, threatening, or any kinde of forcible compulsion called Dures.

41. Everie man that is to Answere for any criminall cause, whether he be in prison or under bayle, his cause shall be heard and determined at the next Court that hath proper Cognizance thereof, And may be done without prejudice of Justice.

42. No man shall be twise sentenced by Civill Justice for one and the same Crime, offence, or Trespasse.

43. No man shall be beaten with above 40 stripes, nor shall any true gentleman, nor any man equall to a gentleman be punished with whipping, unles his crime be very shamefull, and his course of life vitious and profligate.

44. No man condemned to dye shall be put to death within fower dayes next after his condemnation, unles the Court see spetiall cause to the contrary, or in case of martiall law, nor shall the body of any man so put to death be unburied 12 howers unlesse it be in case of Anatomie.

45. No man shall be forced by Torture to confesse any Crime against himselfe nor any other unlesse it be in some Capitall case, where he is first fullie convicted by cleare and suffitient evidence to be guilty, After which if the cause be of that nature, That it is very apparent there be other conspiratours, or confederates with him, Then he may be tortured, yet not with such Tortures as be Barbarous and inhumane.

46. For bodilie punishments we allow amongst us none that are inhumane Barbarous or cruel.

47. No man shall be put to death without the testimony of two or three witnesses or that which is equivalent thereunto.

48. Every Inhabitant of the Countrie shall have free libertie to search and veewe any Rooles, Records, or Regesters of any Court or office except the Councell, And to have a transcript or exemplification thereof written examined, and signed by the hand of the officer of the office paying the appointed fees therefore.

49. No free man shall be compelled to serve upon Juries above two Courts in a yeare, except grand Jurie men, who shall hould two Courts together at the least.

50. All Jurors shall be chosen continuallie by the freemen of the Towne where they dwell.

51. All Associates selected at any time to Assist the Assistants in Inferior Courts, shall be nominated by the Townes belonging to that Court, by orderly agreement amonge themselves.

52. Children, Idiots, Distracted persons, and all that are strangers, or new comers to our plantation, shall have such allowances and dispensations in any cause whether Criminal or other as religion and reason require.

53. The age of discretion for passing away of lands or such kinde of herediments, or for giveing, of votes, verdicts or Sentence in any Civill Courts or causes, shall be one and twentie yeares.

54. Whensoever any thing is to be put to vote, any sentence to be pronounced, or any other matter to be proposed, or read in any Court of Assembly, If the president or moderator thereof shall refuse to performe it, the Major parte of the members of that Court or Assembly shall have power to appoint any other meete man of them to do it, And if there be just cause to punish him that should and would not.

55. In all suites or Actions in any Court, the plaintife shall have libertie to make all the titles and claims to that he sues for he can. And the Defendant shall have libertie to plead all the pleas he can in answere to them, and the Court shall judge according to the intire evidence of all.

56. If any man shall behave himselfe offensively at any Towne meeting, the rest of the freemen then present, shall have power to sentence him for his offence. So be it the mulct or penaltie exceede not twentie shilings.

57. Whensoever any person shall come to any very suddaine untimely and unnaturall death, Some assistant, or the Constables of that Towne shall forthwith sumon a Jury of twelve free men to inquire of the cause and manner of their death, and shall present a true verdict thereof to some neere Assistant, or the next Court to be helde for that Towne upon their oath.

Liberties more peculiarlie concerning the free men

58. Civill Authoritie hath power and libertie to see the peace, ordinances and Rules of Christ observed in every church according to his word so it be done in a Civill and not in an Ecclesiastical way.

59. Civill Authoritie hath power and libertie to deal with any Church member in a way of Civill Justice, notwithstanding any Church relation, office or interest.

60. No church censure shall degrade or depose any man from any Civill dignitie, office, or Authoritie he shall have in the Commonwealth.

61. No Magestrate, Juror, Officer, or other man shall be bound to informe present or reveale any private crim or offence, wherein there is no perill or danger to this plantation or any member thereof, when any necessarie tye of conscience binds him to secresie grounded upon the word of god, unlesse it be in case of testimony lawfully required.

62. Any Shire or Towne shall have libertie to choose their Deputies whom and where they please for the Generall Court. So be it they be free men, and have taken there oath of fealtie, and Inhabiting in this Jurisdiction.

63. No Governor, Deputy Governor, Assistant, Associate, or grand Jury man at any Court, nor any Deputie for the Generall Court, shall at any time beare his owne chardges at any Court, but their necessary expences shall be defrayed either by the Towne or Shire on whose service they are, or by the Country in generall.

64. Everie Action betweene partie and partie, and proceedings against delinquents in Criminall causes shall be briefly and destinctly entered on the Rolles of every Court by the Recorder thereof. That such actions be not afterwards brought againe to the vexation of any man.

65. No custome or prescription shall ever pervaile amongst us in any morall cause, our meaneing is maintaine any, thinge that can be proved to be morrallie sinfull by the word of god.

66. The Freemen of every Towneship shall have power to make such by laws and constitutions as may concerne the wellfare of their Towne, provided they be not of a Criminall, but onely of a prudential nature, And that their penalties exceede not 20 sh. for one offence. And that they be not repugnant to the publique laws and orders of the Countrie. And if any Inhabitant shall neglect or refuse to observe them, they shall have power to levy the appointed penalties by distresse.

67. It is the constant libertie of the free men of this plantation to choose yearly at the Court of Election out of the freemen all the General officers of this Jurisdiction. If they please to dischardge them at the day of Election by way of vote. They may do it without shewing cause. But if at any other generall Court, we hould it due justice, that the reasons thereof be alleadged and proved. By General officers we meane, our Governor, Deputy Governor, Assistants, Treasurer, Generall of our warres. And our Admirall at Sea, and such as are or hereafter may be of the like generall nature.

68. It is the libertie of the freemen to choose such deputies for the General Court out of themselves, either in their owne Townes or elsewhere as they judge fitest. And because we cannot foresee what varietie and weight of occasions may fall into future consideration, And what counsells we may stand in neede of, we decree. That the Deputies (to attend the Generall Court in the behalfe of the Countrie) shall not any time be stated or inacted, but from Court to Court, or at the most but for one yeare, that the Countrie may have an Annuall libertie to do in that case what is most behoofefull for the best welfaire thereof.

69. No Generall Court shall be desolved or adjourned without the consent of the Major parte thereof.

70. All Freemen called to give any advise, vote, verdict, or sentence in any Court, Counsell, or Civill Assembly, shall have full freedome to doe it according to their true judgements and Consciences, So it be done orderly and inofensively for the manner.

71. The Governor shall have a casting voice whensoever an Equi vote shall fall out in the Court of Assistants, or generall assembly, So shall the presedent or moderator have in all Civill Courts or Assemblies.

72. The Governor and Deputy Governor Joyntly consenting or any three Assistants concurring in consent shall have power out of Court to reprive a condemned malefactour; till the next quarter or generall Court. The generall Court onely shall have power to pardon a condemned malefactor.

73. The Generall Court hath libertie and Authoritie to send out any member of this Comanwealth of what qualitie, condition or office whatsoever into forreine parts about any publique message or Negotiation. Provided the partie sent be acquainted with the affaire he goeth about, and be willing to undertake the service.

74. The freemen of every Towne or Towneship, shall have full power to choose yearly or for lesse time out of themselves a convenient number of fitt men to order the planting or prudentiall occasions of that Towne, according to Instructions given them in writeing, Provided nothing be done by them contrary to the publique laws and orders of the Countrie, provided also the number of such select persons be not above nine.

75. It is and shall be the libertie of any member or members of any Court Councell or Civill Assembly in cases of makeing or executing any order or law, that properlie concerne religion, or any cause capitall, or warres, or Subscription to any publique Articles or Remonstrance, in case they cannot in Judgement and conscience consent to that way the Major vote or suffrage goes, to make their contra Remonstrance or protestation in speech or writeing, and upon request to have their dissent recorded in the Rolles of that Court. So it be done Christianlie and respectively for the manner. And their dissent onely be entered without the reasons thereof, for the avoiding of tediousnes.

76. Whensoever any Jurie of trialls or Jurours are not cleare in their Judgments or consciences conserneing any cause wherein they are to give their verdict, They shall have libertie in open Court to advise with any man they thinke fitt to resolve or direct them, before they give in their verdict.

77. In all cases wherein any freeman is to give his vote, be it in point of Election, makeing constitutions and orders or passing sentence in any case of Judicature or the like, if he cannot see reason to give it positively one way or an other, he shall have libertie to be silent, and not pressed to a determined vote.

78. The Generall or publique Treasure or any parte thereof shall never be exspended but by the appointment of a Generall Court, nor any Shire Treasure, but by the appointment of the freemen therof, nor any Towne Treasurie but by the freemen of that Township.

Liberties of Women

79. If any man at his death shall not leave his wife a competent portion of his estaite, upon just complaint made to the Generall Court she shall be relieved.

80. Everie marryed woeman shall be free from bodilie correction or stripes by her husband, unlesse it be in his owne defenc upon her assalt. If there be any just cause of correction complaint shall be made to Authoritie assembled in some Court, fror which onely she shall receive it.

Liberties of Children

81. When parents dye intestate, the Elder sonne shall have a doble portion of his whole estate reall and personall, unlesse the Generall Court upon just cause alleadged shall judge otherwise.

82. When parents dye intestate haveing noe heires males of their bodies their Daughters shall inherit as Copartners, unles the Generall Court upon just reason shall judge otherwise.

83. If any parents shall wilfullie and unreasonably deny any childe timely or convenient mariage, or shall exercise any unnaturall severitie towards them, such children shall have free libertie to complaine to Authoritie for redresse.

84. No Orphan dureing their minoritie which was not committed to tuition or service by the parents in their life time, shall afterwards be absolutely disposed of by any kindred, freind, Executor, Towneship, or Church, nor by themselves without the consent of some Court, wherein two Assistants at least shall be present.

Liberties of Servants

85. If any servants shall flee from the Tiranny and crueltie of their masters to the howse of any freeman of the same Towne, they shall be there protected and susteyned till due order be taken for their relife. Provided due notice thereof be speedily given to their maisters from whom they fled. And the next Assistant or Constable where the partie flying is harboured.

86. No servant shall be put of for above a yeare to any other neither in the life time of their maister nor after their death by their Executors or Administrators unlesse it be by consent of Authoritie assembled in some Court or two Assistants.

87. If any man smite out the eye or tooth of his manservant, or maid servant, or otherwise mayme or much disfigure him, unlesse it be by meere casualtie, he shall let them goe free from his service. And shall have such further recompense as the Court shall allow him.

88. Servants that have served deligentlie and faithfully to the benefitt of their maisters seaven yearse, shall not be sent away emptie. And if any have bene unfaithfull, negligent or unprofitable in their service, nothwithstanding the good usage of their maisters, they shall not be dismissed till they have made satisfaction according to the Judgement of Authoritie.

Liberties of Forreiners and Strangers

89. If any people of other Nations professing the true Christian Religion shall flee to us from the Tiranny or oppression of their persecutors, or from famyne, warres, or the like necessary and compulsarie cause, They shall be entertayned and succoured amongst us, according to that power and prudence, god shall give us.

90. If any ships or other vessels, be it freind or enemy, shall suffer shipwrack upon our Coast, there shall be no violence or wrong offerred to their persons or goods. But their persons shall be harboured, and relieved, and their goods preserved in safety till Authoritie may be certified thereof, and shall take further order therein.

91. There shall never be any bond slaverie, villinage or Captivitie amongst us unles it be lawfull Captives taken in just warres, and such strangers as willingly selle themselves or are sold to us. And these shall have all the liberties and Christian usages which the law of god established in Israell concerning such persons doeth morally require. This exempts none from servitude who shall be Judged thereto by Authoritie.

Off the Bruite Creature

92. No man shall exercise any Tirranny or Crueltie towards any bruite Creature which are usuallie kept for man's use.

93. If any man shall have occasion to leade or drive Cattel from place to place that is far of, so that they be weary, or hungry, or fall sick, or lambe, It shall be lawful to rest or refresh them, for competant time, in any open place that is not Corne, meadow, or inclosed for some peculiar use.

94. Capitall Laws

I.

If any man after legall conviction shall have or worship any other god, but the lord god, he shall be put to death.¹

2.

If any man or woeman be a witch, (that is hath or consulteth with a familiar spirit,) they shall be put to death.²

3.

If any person shall Blaspheme the name of god, the father, Sonne or Holie Ghost, with direct, expresse, presumptuous or high handed blasphemie, or shall curse god in the like manner, he shall be put to death.³

4.

If any person committ any wilfull murther, which is manslaughter, committed upon premeditated malice, hatred, or Crueltie, not in a mans necessarie and just defence, nor by meere casualtie against his will, he shall be put to death.⁴

5.

If any person slayeth an other suddaienly in his anger or Crueltie of passion, he shall be put to death.⁵

6.

If any person shall slay an other through guile, either by poysoning or other such divelish practice, he shall be put to death.⁶

7.

If any man or woeman shall lye with any beaste or bruite creature by Carnall Copulation, They shall surely be put to death. And the beast shall be slaine, and buried and not eaten.⁷

8.

If any man lyeth with mankinde as he lyeth with a woeman, both of them have committed abhomination, they both shall surely be put to death.⁸

9.

If any person committeth Adultery with a maried or espoused wife, the Adulterer and Adulteresse shall surely be put to death.⁹

10.

If any man stealeth a man or mankinde, he shall surely be put to death.¹⁰

11.

If any man rise up by false witnes, wittingly and of purpose to take away any mans life, he shall be put to death.¹¹

12.

If any man shall conspire and attempt any invasion, insurrection, or publique rebellion against our commonwealth, or shall indeavour to surprize any Towne or Townes, fort or forts therein, or shall treacherously and perfediouslie attempt the alteration and subversion of our frame of politie or Government fundamentallie, he shall be put to death.

95. A Declaration of the Liberties the Lord Jesus hath given to the Churches

I.

All the people of god within this Jurisdiction who are not in a church way, and be orthodox in Judgement, and not scandalous in life, shall have full libertie to gather themselves into a Church Estaite. Provided they doe it in a Christian way, with due observation of the rules of Christ revealed in his word.

2.

Every Church hath full libertie to exercise all the ordinances of god, according to the rules of scripture.

3.

Every Church hath free libertie of Election and ordination of all their officers from time to time, provided they be able, pious and orthodox.

4.

Every Church hath free libertie of Admission, Recommendation, Dismission, and Expulsion, or deposall of their officers, and members, upon due cause, with free exercise of the Discipline and Censures of Christ according to the rules of his word.

5.

No Injunctions are to be put upon any Church, Church officers or member in point of Doctrine, worship or Discipline, whether for substance or cercumstance besides the Institutions of the lord.

6.

Every Church of Christ hath freedome to celebrate dayes of fasting and prayer, and of thanksgiveing according to the word of god.

7.

The Elders of Churches have free libertie to meete monthly, Quarterly, or otherwise, in convenient numbers and places, for conferences, and consultations about Christian and Church questions and occasions.

8.

All Churches have libertie to deale with any of their members in a church way that are in the hand of Justice. So it be not to retard or hinder the course thereof.

9.

Every Church hath libertie to deale with any magestrate, Deputie of Court or other officer what soe ever that is a member in a church way in case of apparent and just offence given in their places, so it be done with due observance and respect.

10.

Wee allowe private meetings for edification in religion. amongst Christians of all sortes of people. So it be without just offence for number, time, place, and other cercumstances.

11.

For the preventing and removeing of errour and offence that may grow and spread in any of the Churches in this Jurisdiction, And for the preserveing of trueith and peace in the severall churches within themselves, and for the maintenance and exercise of brotherly communion, amongst all the churches in the Countrie, It is allowed and ratified, by the Authoritie of this Generall Court as a lawful libertie of the Churches of Christ. That once in every month of the yeare (when the season will beare it) It shall be lawfull for the minesters and Elders, of the Churches neere adjoyneing together, with any other of the breetheren with the consent of the churches to assemble by course in each severall Church one after an other. To the intent after the preaching of the word by such a minister as shall be requested thereto by the Elders of the church where the Assembly is held, The rest of the day may be spent in publique Christian' Conference about the discussing and resolveing of any such doubts and cases of conscience concerning matter of doctrine or worship or government of the church as shall be propounded by any of the Breetheren of that church, will leave also to any other Brother to propound his objections or answeres for further satisfaction according to the word of god. Provided that the whole action be guided and moderated by the Elders of the Church where the Assemblie is helde, or by such others as they shall appoint. And that no thing be concluded and imposed by way of Authoritie from one or more churches upon an other, but onely by way of Brotherly conference and consultations. That the trueth may be searched out to the satisfying of every mans conscience in the sight of god according his worde. And because such an Assembly and the worke thereof can not be duly attended to if other lectures be held in the same weeke. It is therefore agreed with the consent of the Churches. That in that weeke when such an Assembly is held, All the lectures in all the neighbouring Churches for that weeke shall be forborne. That so the publique service of Christ in this more solemne Assembly may be transacted with greater deligence and attention.

96. Howsoever these above specified rites, freedomes Immunities, Authorites and priveledges, both Civill and Ecclesiastical are expressed onely under the name and title of Liberties, and not in the exact forme of Laws or Statutes, yet we do with one consent fullie Authorise, and earnestly intreate all that are and shall be in Authoritie to consider them as laws, and not to faile to inflict condigne and proportionable punishments upon every man impartiallie, that shall infringe or violate any of them.

97. Wee likewise give full power and libertie to any person that shall at any time be denyed or deprived of any of. them, to commence and prosecute their suite, Complaint or action against any man that shall so doe in any Court that hath proper Cognizance or judicature thereof.

98. Lastly because our dutie and desire is to do nothing suddainlie which fundamentally concerne us, we decree that these rites and liberties, shall be Audably read and deliberately weighed at every Generall Court that shall be held, within three yeares next insueing, And such of them as shall not be altered or repealed they shall stand so ratified, That no man shall infringe them without due punishment.

And if any Generall Court within these next thre yeares shali faile or forget to reade and consider them as abovesaid. Tile Governor and Deputy Governor for the time being, and every Assistant present at such Courts, shall forfeite 20sh. a man, and everie Deputie 1osh. a man for each neglect, which shall be paid out of their proper estate, and not by the Country or the Townes which choose them, and whensoever there shall arise any question in any Court amonge the Assistants and Associates thereof about the explanation of these Rites and liberties, The Generall Court onely shall have power to interprett them.

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1 Deut. xiii. 6, 10. Deut. xvii. 2, 6. Ex. xxii. 20.

2 Ex. xxii. 18.

Lev. xx. 27. Deut. xviii. 10.

3 Lev. xxiv. 15, 16.

4 Ex. xxi. 22.

Numb. xxxv. 13, 14, 30, 31.

⁵ Numb. xxv. 20, 21. Lev. xxiv. 17.

⁶ Ex. xxi. 14.

⁷ Lev. xx. 15, 16.

⁸ Lev. xx. 13.

⁹ Lev. xx. 19,and 18, 20. Deut. xxii. 23, 24.

¹⁰ Ex. xxi. 16.

¹¹ Deut. xix. 16, 18, 19.

SOURCE: Charles William Eliot, Editor, The Harvard Classics: American historical documents, 1000-1904, pp. p. 70-89

Diary of George Templeton Strong: February 10, 1860

Opera tonight with Ellie and Mrs. Georgey Peters and her papa; Der Freischutz in an Italian version. The Germanism of that opera is so intense that any translation of its text is an injustice to Weber’s memory, but its noble music can afford to be heard under disadvantages. Max was Stigelli, and very good. Agatha (Colson) was respectable. She knew how her music ought to be sung and tried hard, but had not the vigor it demands. Caspar (Junca) was pretty bad.

Query: if there ever existed a Caspar who could sing “Hier in diesem Jammerthal” as it ought to be sung, or an Agatha who could do justice to the glorious allegro that follows her “leise, leise, fromme Weise”? I enjoyed the evening, also Wednesday evening, when we had Charley Strong and wife in “our box’’ and heard The Barber, delightfully rendered. Little Patti made a most brilliant Rosina and sang a couple of English songs in the “Music Lesson’’ scene, one of them (“Coming through the Rye’’) simply and with much archness and expression. This little debutante is like to have a great career and to create a furor in Paris and St. Petersburg within five years. . . .

Last night I attended W. Curtis Noyes’s first lecture before the Law School of Columbia College.⁵ It was carefully prepared, and (to my great relief) honored by an amply sufficient audience. The lecture room was densely filled, and Oscanyan told me sixty or seventy were turned away. We may have to resort to the Historical Society lecture room (in Second Avenue).

There is much less talking of politics now that a Speaker is elected.

I think a cohesive feeling of nationality and Unionism gains strength silently both North and South, and that the Republican party has lost and is daily losing many of the moderate men who were forced into it four years ago by the Kansas outrages and the assault on Sumner. If the South would spare us its brag and its bad rhetoric, it would paralyze any Northern free-soil party in three weeks. But while Toombs speechifies and Governor Wise writes letters, it’s hard for any Northern man to keep himself from Abolitionism and refrain from buying a photograph of John Brown.

Southern chivalry is a most curious and instructive instance of the perversion of a word from its original meaning; lucus a non lucendo seems a plausible derivation when one hears that word applied to usages and habits of thought and action so precisely contrary to all it expressed some five hundred years ago. Chivalry in Virginia and Georgia means violence to one man by a mob of fifty calling itself a Vigilance Committee, ordering a Yankee school mistress out of the state because she is heterodox about slavery, shooting a wounded prisoner, assailing a non-combatant like Sumner with a big bludgeon and beating him nearly to death. Froissart would have recognized the Flemish boor or the mechanic of Ghent in such doings. Sir Galahad and Sir Lancelot in the Morte d’Arthur would have called them base, felon, dishonorable, shameful, and foul.

Burke announced sixty years ago that "the age of chivalry” was gone, and "that of calculators and economists had succeeded it.” Their period has likewise passed away now, south of the Potomac, and has been followed by a truculent mob despotism that sustains itself by a system of the meanest eavesdropping and espionage and of utter disregard of the rights of those who have not the physical power to defend themselves against overwhelming odds, that shoots or hangs its enemy or rides him on a rail when it is one hundred men against one and lets him alone when evenly matched, and is utterly without mercy for the weak or generosity for the vanquished. This course of practice must be expected of any mere mob when rampant and frightened, but the absurdity is that they call it “chivalry.” There was something truly chivalric in old John Brown’s march with his handful of followers into the enemy’s country to redeem and save those he held to be unjustly enslaved at peril of his own life. For that enterprise he was hanged, justly and lawfully, but there was in it an element of chivalry, genuine though mistaken, and criminal because mistaken, that is nat to be found in the performances of these valiant vigilance committeemen.

_______________

⁵ William Curtis Noyes (1805—1864), one of the foremost New York lawyers, and owner of a magnificent law library, had distinguished himself in numerous cases; notably in the prosecution of the Wall Street forger Huntington, and in protecting the New Haven Railroad stockholders from the consequences of Schuyler’s embezzlement.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 7-9

Diary of Gideon Welles, Sunday, July 13, 1862

On Sunday, the 13th of July, 1862, President Lincoln invited me to accompany him in his carriage to the funeral of an infant child of Mr. Stanton. Secretary Seward and Mrs. Frederick Seward were also in the carriage. Mr. Stanton occupied at that time for a summer residence the house of a naval officer, I think Hazard, some two or three miles west, or northwest, of Georgetown. It was on this occasion and on this ride that he first mentioned to Mr. Seward and myself the subject of emancipating the slaves by proclamation in case the Rebels did not cease to persist in their war on the Government and the Union, of which he saw no evidence. He dwelt earnestly on the gravity, importance, and delicacy of the movement, said he had given it much thought and had about come to the conclusion that it was a military necessity absolutely essential for the salvation of the Union, that we must free the slaves or be ourselves subdued, etc., etc.

This was, he said, the first occasion when he had mentioned the subject to any one, and wished us to frankly state how the proposition struck us. Mr. Seward said the subject involved consequences so vast and momentous that he should wish to bestow on it mature reflection before giving a decisive answer, but his present opinion inclined to the measure as justifiable, and perhaps he might say expedient and necessary. These were also my views. Two or three times on that ride the subject, which was of course an absorbing one for each and all, was adverted to, and before separating the President desired us to give the question special and deliberate attention, for he was earnest in the conviction that something must be done. It was a new departure for the President, for until this time, in all our previous interviews, whenever the question of emancipation or the mitigation of slavery had been in any way alluded to, he had been prompt and emphatic in denouncing any interference by the General Government with the subject. This was, I think, the sentiment of every member of the Cabinet, all of whom, including the President, considered it a local, domestic question appertaining to the States respectively, who had never parted with their authority over it. But the reverses before Richmond, and the formidable power and dimensions of the insurrection, which extended through all the Slave States, and had combined most of them in a confederacy to destroy the Union, impelled the Administration to adopt extraordinary measures to preserve the national existence. The slaves, if not armed and disciplined, were in the service of those who were, not only as field laborers and producers, but thousands of them were in attendance upon the armies in the field, employed as waiters and teamsters, and the fortifications and intrenchments were constructed by them.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 70-1

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: April 9, 1865

Bright and beautiful. Rev. Mr. Dashiell called, after services. The prayer for the President was omitted, by a previous understanding.

Rev. Dr. Minnegerode, and others, leading clergymen, consider the cause at an end. A letter from Gen. Lee has been found, and its authenticity vouched for (Rev. Dr. M. says) by Judge Campbell, in which he avows his conviction that further resistance will be in vain—but that so long as it is desired, he will do his utmost in the field.

And Dr. M. has information of the capture of three divisions of Longstreet since the battle of Sunday last, with some eight generals among them Lieut.-Gen. Ewell, Major-Gen. G. W. Custis Lee, etc.

The clergy also seem to favor a convention, and the resumption by Virginia of her old position in the Union—minus slavery. Charlottesville has been named as the place for the assembling of the convention. They also believe that Judge Campbell remained to treat with the United States at the request of the Confederate States Government. I doubt. We shall now have no more interference in Cæsar's affairs by the clergy-may they attend to God's hereafter!

Ten o'clock P.M. A salute fired—100 guns—from the forts across the river, which was succeeded by music from all the bands. The guard promenading in front of the house says a dispatch has been received from Grant announcing the surrender of Lee!

I hear that Gen. Pickett was killed in the recent battle!

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p. 473-4

Theodore Parker, December 24, 1859

ROME, December 24, 1839.

What a stormy time you are having in America! Your cradle was rocked in the Revolution, and now in your old age you see the storm of another Revolution beginning: none knows when and where it shall end. Yesterday, the telegraph brought us the expected intelligence that the Slaveholders had hung Captain John Brown! Of course I knew from the moment of his capture what his fate would be; the logic of Slavery is stronger than the intellect or personal will of any man, and it bears all Southern politicians along with it. No martyr whose tragic story is writ in the Christian books ever bore himself more heroically than Captain Brown; for he was not only a martyr, any bully can be that, but also a SAINT—which no bully can ever be. None ever fell in a more righteous cause:— it has a great future, too, which he has helped bring nearer and make more certain. I confess I am surprised to find love for the man, admiration for his conduct, and sympathy with his object, so wide-spread in the North, especially in New England, and more particularly in dear, good, old Boston! Think of the Old South on the same platform with Emerson and Phillips! Think of sermons like Wheelock's, Newhall's, Freeman Clarke's, and Cheever's Thanksgiving sermon at New York-an Orthodox minister of such bulk putting John Brown before Moses! The New York Herald had an extract from ———’s sermon. It was such as none but a mean soul could preach on such an occasion; but we must remember that it taxes a mean man as much to be mean and little, as it does a noble one to be grand and generous. Every minister must bear sermons after his kind; "for of a thorn men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble-bush gather they grapes." I rather think the Curtises did not fire a hundred cannon on Boston Common when they heard that John Brown was hung, as they did when the Fugitive Slave Bill passed. There has been a little change since 1850, and men not capable of repentance are yet liable to shame and if they cannot be converted, may yet be scared.

Well, things can never stand as they did three months ago. On the morning of the 19th of April, 1775, at day-break, Old England and New—Great Britain and the Thirteen Colonies were one nation. At sunrise, they were two. The fire of the grenadiers made reconciliation impossible, and there must be war and separation. It is so now. Great events tarn on small hinges, and let mankind march through. How different things happen from what we fancy! All good institutions are founded on some great truth of the mind or conscience; and, when such a truth is to be put over the world's highway, we think it must be borne forward on the shoulders of some mighty horse whom God has shod strong all round for that special purpose, and we wonder where the creature is, and when he will be road-ready; and look after his deep footprints, and listen for his step or his snorting. But it sometimes happens that the Divine Providence uses quite humble cattle to bear his most precious burdens, both fast and far. Some 3000 or 4000 years ago, a body of fugitives — slaves — poor, leprous, ill-clad, fled out of Egypt, under the guidance of a man who slew an Egyptian. He saw a man do a vile thing to one of his slaves, and lynched him on the spot then ran for it.

Those fugitive slaves had a great truth. The world, I think, had not known before "The Oneness of God;" at least, their leader had it, and for hundreds of years did this despised people keep the glorious treasure which Egypt did not know which Greece and Rome never understood. Who would have thought the ark of such salvation would have been trusted to such feeble hands!

Some 1800 or 1900 years ago, who would have looked to a Jewish carpenter of Galilee, and a Jewish tent-maker of Tarsus in Cilicia, with few adherents fishermen—obscure people—unlearned and ignorant men, who would have looked to such persons for a truth of religion which should overturn all the temples of the old world, and drive the gods of Olympus from their time-honored thrones of reverence and power? The Rome of the Popes is, no doubt, as Polytheistic as the Rome of the Cæsars-but the old gods are gone, and men worship the Fisherman and the Tent-maker.

It was the Augustinian Monk who broke the Roman Hierarchy to atoms. Tough in the brains, tough in the bones, mighty also by his love of the people and his trust in God, he did what it seemed only the great councils of the learned could accomplish-he routed the Popes, and wrested the German world from their rude and bloody gripe.

At a later day, when the new Continent which God had kept from the foundation of the world—a virgin hid away between the Atlantic and the Pacific seas— was to be joined to Humanity, in the hopes of founding such a Family of Men as the world had never seen, was there any one who would have thought that the Puritan, hated in his British home, and driven out thence with fire and sword, would be the Representative of Humanity, and claim and win that Bride, and wed her too, with nuptials now so auspicious? Yet so it turns out; and the greatest social and political achievement of the human race is wrought out by that Puritan, with his Bride— whose only dower was her broad lands. Really, it seems as if God chose the small things to confound the great. But when we look again, and study carefully the relation which these seemingly insignificant agents bear to the whole force of Humanity, then it appears they were the very agents most fit for the work they did. I think it will turn out so in the case of Captain Brown. What the masterly eloquence of Seward could not accomplish, even by his manly appeal to the Higher Law, nor the eloquence of Phillips and Sumner, addressed to the conscience and common sense of the people, seems likely to be brought to pass by John Brown—no statesman, no orator, but an upright and downright man, who took his life in his hand, and said, "Slavery shall go down even if it be put down with red swords!" I thanked God for John Brown years ago: he and I are no strangers, and still more now his sainthood is crowned with martyrdom. I am glad he came from that Mayflower company that his grandfather was a captain in the Revolutionary war:—the true aristocratic blood of America runs in such veins. All the grand institutions of America, which give such original power to the people, came from that Puritan stock, who trusted in God, and kept their powder dry—who stood up straight when they prayed, and also when they fought. Yes, all the grand original ideas, which are now on their way to found new institutions, and will make the future better than the past or present they come from the same source.

Virginia may be the mother of Presidents, (she yet keeps the ashes of two great ones, only their ashes, not their souls,) but it is New England that is mother of great ideas. God is their Father mother also of communities, rich with intelligence and democratic power.

John Brown came from a good lineage; his life proves it and his death. It is not for you or me to select the instruments wherewith the providence of mankind has the world's work done by human hands; it is only for us to do our little duty, and take the good and ill which come of it.

When the monster which hinders the progress of Humanity is to be got rid of, no matter if the battle-axe have rust on its hilt, and spots, here and there, upon its blade-mementoes of ancient work; if its edge have but the power to bite, the monster shall be cloven down, and mankind walk triumphantly on, to-morrow, to fresh work and triumphs new.

But I did not mean to write you such a letter as this it wrote itself, and I couldn’t help it. I cannot sleep nights, for thinking of these things. I am ashamed to be sick and good for nothing in times like these, but can't help it, and must be judged by what I can do, not can't and don't.

It is curious to find the slaves volunteering to go to shoot men (in buckram) who are coming "a thousand at a time, to rescue Captain Brown"! The African is as much superior to the Anglo-Saxon in cunning and arts of hypocrisy — except the ecclesiastical as he is inferior in general power of mind. Didn't a negro in Savannah tell a Northern minister, "I no want to be free! I only 'fraid to be slave of sin! dat's it, massa, I's fraid of de Debil, not of massa!" What a guffaw he gave when with his countrymen alone! and how he mimicked the gestures of the South-side, white-choked priest, who bore "his great commission in his work"!

But I end as I began — what a stormy time is before us! There are not many men of conscience like John Brown, but abundance of men of wrath; and the time for them-I know not when it is.

Farewell!

Theo. Parker

SOURCE: James Redpath, Editor, Echoes of Harper’s Ferry, p. 88-92

Speech of Congressman Albert G. Brown, November 2, 1850

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