Diary of Edward Bates, Friday, June 24, 1859

[Cold, rainy weather.] Barton I suppose will not go today — nor Coalter, who rides his (B[arton]'s) saddle horse, while B.[arton] drives his new horses. Right of Search.⁹

Carlisle's [sic] Frederick the Great, Vol 2. 524 — Citing the Gentlemen's Magazine for 1739. p 103 — A notable instance in which popular influence is brought to bear upon the English Ministry and Parliament. The object was to force England into war with Spain — for maritime ‘outrages’ in the American seas. The Spaniards claimed the right of search and, in some instances enforced it with cruel insolence — as in the case of the English Capt. Jenkins, who was boarded by a Spanish garda costa off the coast of Florida, his vessel rum[m]aged and plundered, and himself grossly abused — whipped, half-hanged, and one ear cut off—. This led to the Spanish war and the overthrow of Walpole's long administration. The ministry was against the war mitigated the outrages as far as possible, and insisted on peace. But public opinion prevailed against the power of the crown, removed the minister and made the war.

[A clipping from a Missouri newspaper giving "By telegraph from Washington" Senator Douglas's letter of June 22 stating the conditions upon which he would be willing to have his name presented to the Democratic National Convention as a candidate for President. They were: Adherence to the principles of the Compromise Measures of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, and the Cincinnati Platform of 1856, "as expounded by Mr. Buchanan in his letter accepting the nomination." He will not accept the nomination, if the platform thrusts into the party creed new issues such as a revival of the African Slave Trade or the doctrine that the Constitution of the United States either establishes or prohibits slavery in the Territories of the United States.']

As long ago as Nov:, 58, in private letters to Mr. Welling¹⁰ of the Nat:[ional] Intel [ligencejr. and Mr. Kidgway of the Richmond Whig (besides in several newspaper articles previously) I assumed that Mr. D.[ouglas] was in position to dictate to his party; as the southern democrats needed him quite as much as he needed them. This letter is the dictation, and his party must obey him or dissolve itself.

Mr. D.[ouglas] however is no statesman. He is only a very cunning politician. He can never succeed before the whole people, without presenting some absorbing question to make them forget his anticedents [sic]. In order to keep in with present rulers and present popular whims, he has lent his name to extreme notions and fantastic propositions [.]           

1. He is the author of the "Wilmot proviso" in the joint resolution, for the admission of Texas. 1845[.] Also in the Oregon territorial bill.

2. He introduced a bill to create the State of California and thrust it into the Union.

3. To pander to Prest: Pierce'[s] silly scruples, he proposed to improve harbors by local tonnage duties[.]  

4. He holds that according to the Dred Scot[t] case, the Constitution carries slavery into the Territories. And yet he holds that slavery being there by force of the constitution, still, Congress, must not protect it there. But, notwithstanding its constitutional existance [sic] there, still, he holds that the Territorial Legislature can exclude it.

5. On Prest: Buchanan's demand of a grant of the war power — the right to use the army and navy to redress the wrongs of our people in Mexico and on the Isthmus — Mr. D.[ouglas] said in debate, that the Prest: ought not only to have the particular power now demanded from Congress, but every where and always.

Note. This last is referred to in the able speech of Senator Dixon¹¹ of Cont. on the 30.000.000 bill¹² — see Nat[ional] Intel:[ligencer] June 30. 1859.

6. Mr. D.[ouglas] being for a long time, chairman of the Com[mitt]ee. on Territories and as such having the drawing of the Organic acts, habitually introduced clauses importing that the Constitution was the law of the Territories — and that the Territories themselves are a part of the U. S. (see specially the Nebraska act §'s 6 and 14.)

Moreover, (see same §6) power is granted to the legislature over " all rightful subjects of legislation consistent with the Constitution of the U. S. and the provisions of this act?'' Other acts, it seems, may be overridden at pleasure.

The § 14. declares that the Constitution and laws of the U. S. not locally inapplicable shall have the same force in the Territory of N.[ebraska] as elsewhere within the U. S. Except, &c (the Mo. Compromise). But the proviso (Badger's¹³) declares that nothing herein contained shall be construed to revive or put in force any law or regulation [legislation] which may have existed prior to 20[6] Mar:[ch] 1820 either protecting[,] establishing, prohibiting or abolishing slavery.

Note.14 In Harper's Monthly Magazine for Sept. 1859, Mr. Douglas comes out in an elaborate article upon Slavery in the Territories¹⁵ which being reduced to its elements, is nothing more nor less than Mr. Cass' old notion of Squatter Sovereignty. Note again¹⁶ — The Nat[iona]l. Intelligencer¹⁷ has come out in a series of articles (editorial) not professing to answer Mr. D.[ouglas] but answering him effectually, both by argument and by historical references.

[A reprint from the London Photographic News of a paragraph announcing the "Extraordinary Discovery" that sounds can be photographed.']

When this is brought to pass, we shall realise the thought of the Poet—

" Where Truth in person doth appear,

Like words congeal'd in northern air[.] "

and this other thought —

"He out of words could extract matter,

And keep it in a glass, like water."

_______________

⁹ In red pencil.

¹⁰ Supra, June 20, 1859, note 3.

¹¹ James Dixon of Hartford, Connecticut: Whig congressman, 1845— 1849: Republican U. S. senator, 1857-1869; strong supporter of Lincoln in the War and of Johnson in Reconstruction. This speech against the acquisition of Cuba on the ground that it was a scheme to further slave interests was one of his best efforts.

¹² Supra, April 20, 1859, note 4.

¹³ George E. Badger of North Carolina: secretary of the Navy, 1841; Whig U. S. senator, 1846-1855; opponent of the War with Mexico, of the Wilmot Proviso, of "squatter sovereignty," and of secession: a pro-slavery nationalist who supported the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

¹⁴ Added later.

¹⁵ Stephen A. Douglas, "The Dividing Line between Federal and Local Authority. Popular Sovereignty in the Territories," Harper's New Monthly Magazine, XIX (September, 1859), 519-537.

¹⁶ Added still later.

¹⁷ Sept. 10, 13, 15, 17, and 20, 1859.

SOURCE: Howard K. Beale, Editor, Annual Report of The American Historical Association For The Year 1930, Vol. 4, The Diary Of Edward Bates, pp. 26-9

Congressman Horace Mann, January 7, 1850

WASHINGTON, Jan. 7, 1850.

Mr. A. has infinitely slender cause to praise Mr. Cobb for putting Mr. Giddings on the Committee on Territories, and Mr. Allen on the District Committee, and Mr. King on the Judiciary; for he has so buried them up with Southern Democrats, that they cannot get their heads high up enough to breathe. With such a committee as Mr. Winthrop would have appointed, we should have met with no obstacles in getting our measures before the country and the House. Now we shall encounter the most serious of obstacles at every step; and, if it is possible for skill or power to bar out all antislavery measures, it will be done.

There is no end to the perversions of partisans. A partisan cannot be an honest man, whether he be a political or a religious partisan. How necessary it is to cultivate the seeds of truth in the young! Nothing can be, or can approach to be, a substitute for it. So of the great principle, that it is for the interest of every man to be a true man, and that by no possibility can perversion or error be useful. How the world needs to be educated!

Does H. get exact and complete ideas of things? Can he reproduce what you teach him? This is an all-important part of teaching. Has a lesson been so learned that the pupil can restate it in words, or exemplify it in act, or draw it on blackboards, &c.? This is the test to which learners should be early subjected. I am very glad about the music. We pity Laura Bridgeman for the privation of her physical powers; but how many of us need to be pitied for the privation of faculties whose absence deforms just as much as a loss of the senses! One of these is music.

SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, p. 285

Congressman Horace Mann, January 11, 1850

We have been going the same rounds, in attempting to choose a Clerk, which occupied us three weeks before we chose a Speaker. It is most irksome business, and cuts away all the ties that bind me to office.

We have just this minute elected a Clerk from Tennessee. He is a Southerner, but as unobjectionable as any Southerner can be. He does not hold slaves; but he was once a member of Congress, and voted with the slave-party through and through. I have not voted for him at all, though he is a Whig. We had an exciting time at the close of the voting, and before the vote was declared. The Southern Democrats, seeing how near he was to being elected, came over to him one after another, and at last gave him just enough. That is the way. They are always more true to slavery than to Democracy. It is a good result; but I am rejoiced that I did not help to bring it about. During the whole voting, the Northern Whigs came round me, and some of our Massachusetts men too, and urged and besought me to change my vote. At one moment, when only one more vote was wanted, forty men turned bescechingly to my seat. I shook my head at them all; and at that moment a Southern man on the other side of the House jumped up, and changed his vote. This settled it.

SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, p. 286-7

Henry R. Jackson* to Howell Cobb, June 21, 1848

Savannah [ga.], 21st June, 1848.

My Dear Cousin, Since the reception of your last letter I have been so constantly occupied with some vexatious law business which has kept me on the run in Savannah and taken me up into the country, that I have actually been unable to find the letter to reply to it. I have not said so much in opposition to the Calhoun clique as was my disposition, because I did not think it altogether a prudent course. With reference to those papers of the Dem. party in Georgia that had advocated the Florida and Alabama resolution, I have not sought a collision, either with the Constitutionalist or the Telegraph, because I thought the probabilities strong that both of these papers, if let alone, would eventually come out warmly for Cass, should he be the nominee of the Convention. I did not think that angry collision would operate beneficially for the party. Therefore I contented myself with simply expressing my own views fully and firmly. As events have proved, both the Constitutionalist and Telegraph are out for Cass, and are consequently thrown into opposition themselves to the Calhoun, Yancey and Charleston Mercury clique. I think it better that this should be so than that they should have been excited into animosity by a general onslaught upon them on the part of the other presses of the State.

But in the name of all that is rational, what induced the Georgia delegates in the national convention to vote for that resolution of Yancey's¹ After having voted for the nomination of Cass, how could they vote for the resolution (a pack of nonsense in itself) with the interpretation put upon it by Yancey himself? Did they not perceive that it would operate prejudicially to us in Georgia? And how could they at any rate vote for such outrageous nonsense?

My views always have coincided with yours upon this subject. I am as clear as daylight in my ideas upon it. Gen. Cass is right throughout. He has suggested the only ground upon which a Southern man can stand, and I am convinced that reflection will bring all Southern Democrats (not disposed to quit the party at any rate) to his zealous support . . .

_______________

* A lawyer, editor, and Democratic politician of Savannah, Ga., judge of the superior court of Georgia (eastern circuit), 1849-1853, brigadier-general in the Confederate army.

¹ Yancey had offered the following as an amendment to the report of the committee on resolutions at the Baltimore convention: “Resolved, That the doctrine of non-interference with the rights of property of any portion of this confederation, be it In the States or in the Territories, by any other than the parties interested In them. is the true republican doctrine recognized by this body.” This resolution was defeated, 246 to 38.

SOURCE: Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, Editor, The Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1911, Volume 2: The Correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens, and Howell Cobb, p. 110-1