Congressman Horace Mann, January 28, 1850

JAN. 28, 1850.

This morning I was introduced to a gentleman from North Carolina, who wanted to have a talk with me about slavery. He is embedded in all the doctrines in its favor. He has been offering all commercial, economical, and pecuniary arguments to me in reference to slavery in the Territories. As to the moral and religious aspect of the question, he is as firm for slavery as William Lloyd Garrison is against it. He says he is willing to take up with any portion of the new territory which the South can accept, as a decent pretext for surrendering the rest. I told him I would give the South any money as an equivalent, any amount of the public lands which they may turn into money; but one inch of territory for slavery never! let what would come.

Dark clouds overhang the future: and that is not all; they are full of lightning.

SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, p. 287-8

Charles Sumner to Lord Morpeth, January 8, 1850

The slavery question has become paramount here at last. The slave States threaten to dissolve the Union if slavery is prohibited by Congress in the new Territories or abolished in the District of Columbia. I trust that Congress will do its duty, regardless of threats. What the result may be it is impossible to determine. The Canadian question promises to help antislavery. The annexation of that colony to the United States would 'redress the balance' which has been turned in favor of slavery by the annexation of Texas. I do not observe, however, any disposition at present to interfere in the question between that colony and the imperial government. I am anxious that it should be left to the parties without any intervention. I shall enclose this in a note to a friend now in London,—Mr. Burlingame.¹ Though young in years, he has won a brilliant reputation as a public speaker.

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¹ Anson Burlingame.

SOURCE: Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. 3, p. 211-2

Resolution of Senator Sam Houston: January 14, 1850

Mr. Houston submitted the following resolution for consideration; which was read, and ordered to be printed:

Whereas the Congress of the United States, possessing only a delegated authority, have no power over the subject of negro slavery within the limits of the United States, either to prohibit or interfere with it in the States, Territories, or District where, by municipal law, it now exists, or to establish it in any State or territory where it does not exist; but, as an assurance and guaranty to promote harmony, quiet apprehension, and remove sectional prejudice, which, by possibility, might impair or weaken love and devotion to the Union in any part of the country, it is hereby

Resolved, That, as the people in Territories have the same inherent right of self-government as the people in the States, that if, in the exercise of such inherent right, the people in the newly acquired territories, by the annexation of Texas and the acquisition of California and New Mexico, south of the parallel of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes of north latitude, extending to the Pacific ocean; shall establish negro slavery or prohibit it, that such establishment or prohibition of negro slavery, in the formation of their State governments, shall be deemed no objection to their admission as State or States into the Union, in accordance with the constitution of the United States.

SOURCE: Journal of the Senate of the United States of America, Being the First Session of the Thirty-First Congress: Begun and Held in the City of Washington, December 3, 1849, p. 74-5

David F. Boyd to William T. Sherman, September 27, 1860

September 27, 1860.

I am much obliged to you for the copy of your brother's speech. It is an able production and marks him, as he had already proved himself to be, a deep thinker and a strong reasoner. I regret very much that he is on the wrong side – his premises I do not grant him. I believe he designs no other injustice to the South than to keep slaves out of the territories, and since the Supreme Court says that under the Constitution they can be carried there, the mere agitation of that matter, free-soilism (not abolitionism), is not sufficient cause for the South to attempt to break up the Union; but I am afraid Seward and many others will never rest till they attempt the abolition of slavery in the states, and when that comes, then “let the Union slide" (according to Governor Banks).

As long as Seward is the acknowledged leader of the Republicans, has not the South reason to fear that the abolition of slavery in the Territories is but the entering wedge to overthrow it in the States? I think, and hope, that your brother will yet openly renounce Seward's “irrepressible conflict” doctrine. But I must say, I like to read Seward's speeches. I have learned more politics of him lately than from all the rest of the politicians put together. However false his position, he talks more like a philosopher than any of them. There is nothing of the humbug about him; he is honest in his views, and for that very reason, he is the more dangerous enemy, first to the South, and finally to the whole Union.

However unpleasant it is to be separated so much from your family, I think you have acted wisely in not bringing them down to Louisiana. If you could see the Pinewoods now, after they have been burnt so bare that there is hardly a sprig of vegetation to be seen, you could not help exclaiming, What a picture of starvation! And it is reported that some poor devils are actually starving in Natchitoches; but I suppose they are of the “rosin heel” tribe, and are really too lazy to live.

Bell will certainly carry Louisiana. Poor Breck! I am afraid he will only carry S. S. Prentiss's “Harry Percy of the Union,” South Carolina, and, maybe, he is not ultra enough for the Fire-eaters. . .

SOURCES: Walter L. Fleming, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 286-8