Showing posts with label The South. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The South. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 7, 2024

Congressman Horace Mann, September 25, 1850

Poor, dear Miss Dix! Her bill has failed this morning in the House; or, at least, it has been referred to the Committee of the Whole on the State of the Union, from which it cannot be returned should the session continue for a year. I went to carry her the news; but she has not come up to the library to-day.

Yesterday, when her bill came up, men were starting up on all sides with their objections; but to-day the point under discussion is, to pay an additional sum to the soldiers in the Mexican war for expenses of coming home, and almost all are in favor of it. It is amazing how war-mad all the South and South-west are. Conquest and numbers constitute their idea of glory. Christianity is nineteen hundred years distant from them.

I have not yet had time to read S——’s letter; but her letters have a charm for me always. I wonder how so much poetry as she has ever kept itself from flowing into rhyme. I am sure she might make her everlasting worldly fortune by writing songs for children, reasoning like a fairy on all the realities and moralities of life. Hasn't she the word-faculty? or what is the reason she doesn't do it?

I am glad Mr. Pierce has arrived.* How deep the feeling with which we look back upon perils escaped and the object of our labors secured! It must be a little more than a year since we had the fĂȘte that "welcomed" him away. I rather envied you your visit to him. I should really like to hail him again. Why could not the old soul transmigrate into another body? However, he has done his work, a great work; one that can never be undone. What he has done is not the erection of a structure that will not increase, and will decay, but it is the planting and early culture of a seed which will grow, and cannot but grow, and must protect other trees of the same healthful influences in their growth. "Lame, cold, and numb” as he is, there are few young men that could equal him in the race.

It is very cool here," autumnal," as you say; and to-day it is beginning to storm. I am always glad to hear of you "gardening;" and, when you are out, the children are out too.

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* Cyrus Pierce, of the West Newton Normal School.

SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, p. 334-5

Sunday, April 14, 2024

They Mean not only War but Subjugation

Months ago, when we and others urged that Lincoln’s inaugural meant war, we were told by those who have since been “awakened,” that the President did not mean to coerce, and that we should save the Union, or separate peaceably. So it seems—in a horn. The N. Y. World of May 1st, says:

“We don’t suppose that a sterner, more inflexible purpose ever existed in the human breast, than now possesses the northern people to subdue the South into a return to its duty. The purpose is as fixed as fate—as fixed as your purpose to subdue the man who is scuttling the ship on which you float, or is putting the torch to the house in which you live. It is as restless as the impulse of self-preservation; and the South cannot too soon understand its exact nature. The enemy to our existence may call it subjugation if he likes; he may put on the incredible impudence of pretending that it is tyrannical to over master him, but the compulsion will none the less come. Since reason has not availed to make him abandon his destructive work, the strong hand shall. The North has found it hard to believe that it would come to this. It has forborne to the last probability. It will now try force—sheer brute force, since the South will have it so. We know that we are the strongest, and we intend to use our strength in the very way in which it can be made most effective—active aggressive war. Short of that there is no obedience on the one part, nor safety on the other.”

The Tribune of the same date in the same strain tells us the same thing. Here that old devil, Greeley:

“Therefore shall we imitate the South no more in war than in peace. But, nevertheless, we mean to conquer them—not merely to SUBJUGATE them—and we shall do this the most mercifully, the more speedily we do it. But when the rebellious traitors are overwhelmed in the field, and scattered like leaves before an angry wind, it must not be to return to peaceful and contented homes. They must find poverty at their firesides, and see privation in the anxious eyes of mothers and the rags of children.”

These are the leading organs of the administration in New York City and no doubt speak the views and purposes of the administration. So they mean to subjugate us if they can; so we implore the people of the South to take Lincoln at his word this time and make every possible preparation to meet his advancing slaves.

SOURCE: “They Mean not only War but Subjugation,” Newbern Weekly Progress, Newbern, North Carolina, Tuesday Morning, May 7, 1861, p. 3

Saturday, March 16, 2024

Congressman Horace Mann, September 14, 1850

Sept. 14. . . . I do not think Mr. Webster has any chance for the Presidency. The South, having used him, will fling him away. But that he neither does nor will see. My own opinion is, that, notwithstanding all this billing and cooing of the heads of the hostile parties, there will be a deadly fight between them ere long. They have united to settle this question satisfactorily to the South, so that they might challenge Southern votes. It has been a competition for political power, stimulated, in regard to some of them, by the venality growing out of the Texas ten millions.

SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, p. 330

Congressman Horace Mann, September 15, 1850

Sept. 15. There has been a very sharp debate in the Senate, in which the Southern men have rode and overrode Mr. Winthrop, and hunted up all the ugly things they could say about Massachusetts, and pitched them at him. I do not think Mr. Winthrop has sustained himself very well. He ought to have carried the war into Africa, or at least to have repelled the intruders from his own territory. When we speak of the South as they are, the first thing they do is to ransack our old history; and whatever they can find either against the law of toleration as we now consider it, or the duties of humanity as a higher civilization exemplifies and expounds them, they bring forward. They have never yet been properly answered. If some such man as Sumner was in the seat, he would turn the tables upon them.

The South are more rampant than ever. They feel their triumph. Two or three times within the last week, the "Union," the Southern Democratic organ here, has declared, that, if such or such a thing is done, the Union will totter to its centre. Her interminable cry will now be, if she cannot have her own way, that the Union is tumbling to pieces. We are to have this idea of dissolution as the supplement for all argument, and the arsenal of all weapons. There is a momentary lull; but the presidency-seekers will soon open a deadly fire upon each other.

SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, p. 330

Saturday, March 9, 2024

Daniel Webster to Mr. F. S. Lathrop & Others, November 14, 1850

Boston, November 14, 1850.

GENTLEMEN,—I am under great obligations for the letter received from you, expressing your approbation of the sentiments contained in my letter to the Union meeting at Castle Garden.

The longer I live, the more warmly am I attached to the happy form of government under which we live. It is certain that, at the present time, there is a spirit abroad which seeks industriously to undermine that government. This, of course, will be denied, and denied by those whose constant effort is to inspire the North with haterd towards the South, and the South with hatred toward the North; and it is time for all true patriots to make a united effort, in which I shall most cordially join, not only to resist open schemes of disunion, but to eradicate its spirit from the public mind.

I have the honor to be, gentlemen, with great regard, your obliged fellow-citizen and humble servant,

DAN'L WEBSTER.

TO MESSRS. F. S. LATHROP, CHAS. G. CARLETON, PETER S. DUNEE, GENARD HALLOCK, Committee, New York.

SOURCE: Fletcher Webster, Editor, The Private Correspondence of Daniel Webster, Vol. 2, p. 404

Thursday, March 7, 2024

Senator John C. Calhoun to Anna Maria Calhoun Clemson, January 24, 1849

Washington 24th Jan 1849

MY DEAR ANNA, I was happy to learn by your letter, that you were all spending your time so agreeably, at the Cane Brake. I feared, that you, with all your philosophy, would find the change between Brussels and so retired a place, too great to be agreeable; especially with all the vexation of house keeping, where supplies are so limited and little diversified.

I gave in my letters, written a few days since to your Mother and Mr Clemson, an account of the state of my health. Since then it has been improving, and I now feel fully as well as usual. The day is fine and I will take my seat again in the Senate. The slight attack of faintness, which passed off in less than a minute, was caused by several acts of imprudence, and among others, by doing what has not been usual with me, sponging my body all over as soon as I got up. The morning was cold and my system did not react, as I hoped it would. I must be more careful hereafter and not tax my mind as heavily as I have been accustomed to do.

I had a letter from John a few days since. He is under the operation of the water cure, and says that he already feels much benefitted. He writes that Mr McDuffie has been so far restored as to be free of the dyspeptick and nervous symptoms, but that the paralized limbs remain unremedied.

The meeting of the Southern members took place again last Monday night. My address was adopted by a decided majority.1 You will see a brief account of the proceedings in the Union, which goes with this. It is a decided triumph under [the] circumstances. The administration threw all its weight against us, and added it to the most rabid of the Whigs. Virginia has passed admirable resolutions, by an overwhelming vote. The South is more roused than I ever saw it on the subject. I shall postpone the reflections, which your statement of the conversation of Co1 Pickens gave rise to, until I shall see you, with a single exception. He has constantly endeavoured to hold me in the wrong by attempting to make the impression, that I have been influenced in my course towards him by the artful management of persons hostile to him. There is not the least foundation for it. No attempt of the kind has ever been made; and no man knows better than himself, how far I am above being influenced by such attempts; for no one has ever done as much to endeavour to influence me that way, as himself, and as he knows without success. I have never regarded the course, which has led to the present relation between us with any other feeling but that of profound regret, on his account.

My love to all.

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1 “Address of the Southern Delegates in Congress to their Constituents,” relating to the opposition to the Wilmot Proviso. See Calhoun's Works, VI, 285–312.

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. 761-2

Thursday, February 15, 2024

Senator John C. Calhoun to John H. Means,* April 13, 1849

Fort Hill 13th April 1849.

MY DEAR SIR, I am glad to learn by your letter and from other Sources, that a meeting is to be held next month in Columbia, to be composed of delegates from the different Commitees of correspondence. I regard it as a step of much importance and responsibility.

You ask my opinion as to the course the Meeting should take. Before I give it, I deem it due to candour and the occasion to State, that I am of the impression that the time is near at hand when the South will have to chose between disunion, and submission. I think so, because I see little prospect of arresting the aggression of the North. If anything can do it, it would be for the South to present with an unbroken front to the North the alternative of dissolving the partnership or of ceasing on their part to violate our rights and to disregard the stipulations of the Constitution in our favour; and that too without delay. I say without delay; for it may be well doubted whether the alienation between the two sections has not already gone too far to save the Union; but, if it has not, there can be none that it soon will, if not prevented by some prompt and decisive measure. It has been long on the increase and is now more rapidly increasing than ever. The prospect is as things now stand, that before four years have elapsed, the Union will be divided into two great hostile sectional parties.

But it will be impossible to present such a front, except by means of a Convention of the Southern States. That, and that only could speak for the whole, and present authoritatively to the North the alternative, which to choose. If such a presentation should fail to save the Union, by arresting the aggression of the North and causing our rights and the stipulations of the Constitution in our favour to be respected, it would afford proof conclusive that it could not be saved, and that nothing was left us, but to save ourselves. Having done all we could to save the Union, we would then stand justified before God and man to dissolve a partnership which had proved inconsistent with our safety, and, of course, distructive of the object which mainly induced us to enter into it. Viewed in this light, a Convention of the South is an indispensible means to discharge a great duty we owe to our partners in the Union; that is, to warn them in the most solemn manner that if they do not desist from aggression, and cease to disregard our rights and the stipulations of the Constitution, the duty we owe to ourselves and our posterity would compel us to dissolve forever the partnership with them. But should its warning voice fail to save the Union, it would in that case prove the most efficient of all means for saving ourselves. It would give us the great advantage of enjoying the conscious feeling of having done all we could to save it and thereby free us from all responsibility in reference to it, while it would afford the most efficient means of United and prompt action, and thereby of meeting the momentous occasion without confusion or disorder, and with certainty of success.

Thus thinking, my opinion is that the great object to be aimed at by the Meeting is to adopt measures to prepare the way for a Convention of the Southern States. What they should be the Meeting can best decide. It seems to me, however, that the organization of our own and the other Southern States is an indispensible step and for that and other purposes there ought to be an able Committee appointed having its center in Charleston, or Columbia, and vested with power to take such steps as may be deemed necessary to carry into effect that and the other measures which may be adopted by the Meeting.

I agree with you as to a non intercourse with the North in commerce and trade. Passing over the objection that it would be below the dignity of the occasion, it would be neither prudent nor efficient, most certainly as preceeding the meeting of a Southern Convention.
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* From a draft in Calhoun's handwriting. John H. Means was an active secessionist, was chosen governor of South Carolina the next year, and was killed, a Confederate colonel, at the second battle of Bull Run.

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. 764-6

Thursday, January 25, 2024

Congressman Horace Mann, August 15, 1850

Aug. 15. The House is engaged in an earnest debate on the subject of the President's message about Texas; the North generally defending and upholding it, while the South is declaiming against it con furore. The South is becoming, to appearance, more desperate; and the men talk treason as they take their daily meals. We are to have warm times here before we leave. Calling the yeas and nays, and practising all manner of delays, will be resorted to, no doubt; and we shall have one or two night sessions. But it is thought we are strong enough to divide, and work by relays; that is, one half of us stay by for twelve hours, and the other half for the next twelve.

SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, p. 312

Thursday, December 7, 2023

General William T. Sherman to Senator John Sherman, July 8, 1871

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE UNITED STATES,        
WASHINGTON, D.C., July 8, 1871.
Dear Brother:

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

I saw General Grant when he was here some days ago, and we talked about . . . and my published declination of a nomination by either party. I told him plainly that the South would go against him en masse, though he counts on South Carolina, Louisiana, and Arkansas; but I repeated my conviction, that all that was vital at the South was against him, and that negroes were generally quiescent and could not be relied on as voters when local questions become mixed up with political matters. I think, however, he will be renominated and re-elected, unless by personally doing small things, to alienate his party adherence of the North. . . .

My office has been by law stript of all the influence and prestige it possessed under Grant, and even in matters of discipline and army control I am neglected, overlooked, or snubbed. I have called General Grant's attention to the fact several times, but got no satisfactory redress.

The old regulations of 1853, made by Jeff Davis in hostility to General Scott, are now strictly construed and enforced; and in these regulations the War Department is everything, and the name of General, Lieutenant-General, or Commander-in-Chief even, does not appear in the book. Consequently, orders go to parts of the army supposed to be under my command, of which I know nothing till I read them in the newspapers; and when I call the attention of the Secretary to it, he simply refers to some paragraph of the Army Regulations. Some five years ago there was a law to revise these Regulations, and to make them conform to the new order of things, and to utilize the experiences of the war. A Board was appointed here in Washington, composed of Sherman, Sheridan, and Auger, that did so revise them, and they were submitted to Congress with the approval of General Grant; but no action was taken. But now a new Board is ordered to prepare another set, and this Board is composed of a set of officers hardly qualified to revise the judgment of the former Board. I propose patiently to await the action of this Board, though now that war is remote, there is little chance of Congress giving the army a thought at all; and if these new regulations were framed, as I suppose, to cripple the power of the General, and to foster the heads of staff departments, I will simply notify the President that I cannot undertake to command an army with all its staff independent of the Commander-in-Chief, and ask him. to allow me quietly to remove to St. Louis, to do such special matters as may be committed to me by the President, and leave the Army to be governed and commanded as now, by the Secretary of War, in person. This cannot occur for twelve months. . . .

I have said nothing of this to anybody, and will not do anything hasty or rash; but I do think that because some newspapers berate Grant about his military surroundings, he feels disposed to go to the other extreme. . . .

Affectionately,
W. T. SHERMAN.

SOURCE: Rachel Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The Sherman Letters: Correspondence Between General and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891, p. 331-2

Friday, October 13, 2023

A Southerner to Senator Robert M. T. Hunter, June 14, 1852

(Private.)
RICHMOND, [Va.], June 14th [1852].

DEAR SIR: I beg to call your attention, to that portion of Judge Conrad's speech in the Anti-Fillmore Convention of New York, which is enclosed. (You will find the whole speech in N. Y. Herald of 13th.)

I write to you as a true friend of the South, to know what is the South to do. Are her statesmen looking ahead and preparing for contingencies? As this letter is anonymous, you are not bound, I admit, to treat it with any consideration. I ask only to free my own mind of thoughts which press painfully upon it, and to leave them with those who can best judge whether they are of any value or practicable. The question is this—Cannot the South form an alliance, either with England, or some foreign country, which will protect her from the threatened aggression of the North? Look ahead, and do you not see a storm coming from the North which must dissolve the Union? Ought we not then to look ahead, ought not the Southern leaders to meet together and confer, and sound the governments of England, or other foreign powers, to see what can be done in such a contingency? You are one of the few men, I believe, not eaten up with selfish ambition. Strike a blow, then, I entreat you for the safety of the South. Would to Heaven that the South would stop talking and go to acting. Imitate the forecast, the practical character, and (as it has become necessary to fight the devil with fire) the subtlety of our sectional enemies. It strikes me, that it would be a good stroke of policy, and a most holy and righteous retribution, if we could form a treaty with England, giving her certain privileges in the cotton trade and vast navigation, in return for which, she could stand by the South, and crush the Free Soilers between Canada and the South States.

SOURCE: Charles Henry Ambler, Editor, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1916, in Two Volumes, Vol. II, Correspondence of Robert M. T. Hunter (1826-1876), p. 145

Thursday, October 12, 2023

Senator John C. Calhoun to Andrew Pickens Calhoun, July 24, 1849

Fort Hill 24th July 1849

MY DEAR ANDREW, I sent you a Messenger, containing a copy of my communication in reference to Benton's Speech. I hope you have received it; and trust it will be extensively circulated in the South West. It will be published in all our papers.

It is high time the South should begin to prepare. I see no hope of bringing the North to a sense of justice, but by our united action, and for that purpose, a Convention of the South is indispensable. To that point our efforts should be directed. The first step towards it is to put an end to the old party divisions, which might be effected by an understanding between a few prominent leaders on both sides, and short and well written Articles through the leading presses of both parties, showing the folly and danger of continuing our party warfare when our existence is at Stake. The next step is an organization of all the Southern States as has been done in this State. The Convention ought to be held before the meeting of Congress, but that, I take it, is impracticable. It ought to be called before the Year ends, to meet next summer. The call ought to be addressed to the people of the South, who are desirous of saving the Union and themselves, if the former be possible; but who at the same time are prepared, should [the] alternative be forced on us, to resist rather than submit. Such a call could not fail to secure a large delegation from every Southern State, and what is important, a harmonious one, on the essential point. The call might be made by the members of the Legislatures of one or more Southern States, or by the members of Congress from the South, when they meet in Washington. The call itself would have a powerful effect on Congress. Could not Alabama be induced to make the call? Atlanta would be a good point for the meeting.

I am making good progress in the work I have on hand. I have finished the Discourse on the elementary principles of Govt. and have made considerable advance in the Discourse on our system of Govt. The work will hit the lines both here and in Europe; and, I think, cannot fail to make a deep impression. I hope to have it completed before I leave home; and intend to take it with me to put to press in New York, early next year. I would be glad to show it to you and have your opinion on it before I publish.

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. 769

 

Thursday, September 21, 2023

Congressman Horace Mann, March 13, 1850

MARCH 13, 1850.

The hallucination that seizes the South on the subject of slavery, is, indeed, enough to excite our compassion; but an excuse of their conduct to themselves on this ground, would, perhaps, enrage them more than any thing else. I would be willing to offer them any pecuniary indemnity which they might desire. Indeed, I had thought of bringing forward some such idea in my speech; but I feared they would only scout it.

I do not think Mr. Webster can be honest in the views expressed in his speech. I would struggle against a belief in his treachery to the last minute; but this speech is in flagrant violation of all that he has ever said before.

You are in an error in supposing that the exclusion of slavery from the Territories will affect the growth of cotton or rice unfavorably. Slaves are in great demand now for the cotton and rice fields. No production of the Territories would come in competition with their great staples. It is a fear of losing the balance of power, as they call it; and no doubt, in some cases, a fear that this is only a beginning of a war upon slavery in the States themselves. On this latter point, they will not be pacified by any declarations made by the North. Then, again, on this subject they are not a reasoning people.

To recur to Mr. Webster again. He has said some things it was quite unnecessary to say, and some things not true. Look at his interpretation of the admission of Texas! The act was, as he has quoted in his speech, that four new States—no more might be formed from Texas: those south of 36° 30′ might be slave States, and those north must be free States. Now, he says we are bound to admit four slave States. But we are bound to admit only four in the whole. Why, then, admit all these four as slave States, and then others, that is, if we get the consent of Texas, as free States? No: we are to admit but four in the whole; and, as one or two of these are to be free, there must not be four slave. He therefore not only proposes to execute that ungodly bargain, but to give one or two slave States to the South as a gratuity.

So his offer to take the proceeds of the public lands to deport free blacks is of the greatest service to slavery. It is just what the South wants, to get rid of its free blacks. It would enhance the value and the security of the slave property so called. Had he proposed to give the proceeds of the lands to deport manumitted slaves, that would encourage manumission, and be of real service to humanity. Indeed, the more I think of the speech, the worse I think of it.

SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, p. 295-6

Tuesday, July 25, 2023

Congressman Horace Mann, February 6, 1850

FEB 6.

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

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

Congressman Horace Mann, February 7, 1850

FEB. 7.

Yesterday, Mr. Clay concluded his speech upon his Compromise resolutions. Its close was pathetic. There is hardly another slaveholder in all the South who would have perilled his popularity to such an extent. It will be defeated: but, if we from the North are still, it will be defeated by Southern votes and declamation; and it is better for the cause that they should defeat it than that we should.

You were right in saying that I would not have asked Mr. Winthrop about putting me on a committee; for I would not have answered such a question, had I been in his place, and had it been asked me.

Still, I think I should have held an important place on an antislavery committee; and, what is more, should have had a majority of colleagues who would act with me. Now every thing is in jeopardy.

I never said whom I would vote for, nor whom I would not. It would have been a bitter pill to be obliged to choose between the three candidates; but, if I had been so obliged, I should have voted for the least evil.

SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, p. 288-9

Congressman Horace Mann, February 18, 1850

FEB. 18.

In the House, this morning, a resolution was offered to direct the Committee on Territories to bring in a bill for the admission of California. The Southern men were foolish enough to commence an opposition, not merely to the measure, but to every thing; that is, to attempt to stop the wheels of Government, to prevent us from doing any thing, by a perpetual call for the yeas and nays; thus taking up all time, and suspending all business. It is a resolution on the part of the South to prevent the Government from doing any thing at all, if it attempts to do what they object to. It is a revolutionary proceeding,—revolution without force; but it may come to force elsewhere.

It shows what an excited state of feeling the South is in; and it furnishes us with an opportunity, which I trust we shall improve, to show our firmness. It was the worst possible issue for them to make, and one on which I do not believe they can defend themselves, even at home. Do not be alarmed for me. I shall take care of myself, and sleep and eat as usual.

SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, p. 291

Congressman Horace Mann, February 20, 1850

FEB. 20.

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

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

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

Sunday, July 16, 2023

Senator John C. Calhoun to Congressman Armistead Burt,* November 5, 1849

Fort Hill 5th Nov 1849

MY DEAR SIR, I am very desirous, on every account, to be in the same mess with Martha and yourself. I would prefer the Hill on three accounts; in consequence of a regard to my health, its contiguity to the Capitol; the bleakness of the walk up Capitol Hill in windy weather, and the liability of getting heated in walking up it with the heavy clothing necessary to guard against a Washington winter, and cooling off too suddenly on throwing off the overcoat, or cloak on reaching the Senate Chamber. In all other respects I would greatly prefer the location you suggest. I think, taking it altogether, it is the most protected and best in Washington.

If a satisfactory arrangement could be made on the Hill, and it should not put Martha to too much inconvenience, I would prefer it; but if not, I will join you in the location you suggest, or any other contiguous, rather than seperate from you and Martha.

My arrangement is to be in Charleston on the 25 or 26th and to take the Baltimore boat, which I understand will sail on the 28th, and hope to meet you there and go together. When we arrive at Washington, we can finally decide on our arrangement.

I concur in your suggestion, as to the caucus, with a modification; not to go into it with the free soilers; meaning all who will vote for the Wilmot proviso; that is, the whole, or nearly the whole of the Northern democrats. To take the ground you suggest, not to go in with those who refused to sign the address, would I fear tend too strongly to divide the South, and throw from us the Kentucky, Missouri and Tennessee delegations with two or three exceptions. All join their love to you and Martha.
_______________

* Original lent by Mr. J. Towne Robertson, Jr., of Abbeville.

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. 773-4

Senator John C. Calhoun to Thomas G. Clemson, December 8, 1849

Washington 8th Dec 1849

MY DEAR SIR, . . . Congress has been in Session now for four days without being able to elect a speaker. It is uncertain when one can be elected. The free Soil party holds the balance between the two parties, and appears resolved not to give away.

There is every indication, that we shall have a stormy session. There is no telling what will be the end. The South is more united, than I ever knew it to be, and more bold and decided. The North must give away, or there will be a rupture.

I regard the administration, as prostrated. It has proved itself feeble every way. . . .

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. 776

Thursday, July 13, 2023

Speech of Congressman Jefferson Davis, February 6, 1846

Speech of Jefferson Davis delivered in the House Feb. 6, 1846, on the Oregon question.

Mr. JEFFERSON DAVIS addressed the committee during the hour. He knew not (he said) whether he more regretted the time at which this discussion has been introduced, or the manner in which it has been conducted. We were engaged in delicate and highly important negotiations with Mexico, the end of which we had hoped would be an adjustment of our boundary on terms the vast advantage of which it would be difficult to estimate. If, sir, (said Mr. D.,) by this exciting discussion we shall hereafter find that we have lost the key to the commerce of the Pacific, none who hears me will live long enough to cease from his regrets for the injury our country has sustained. Again, sir; a long peace has served to extend the bonds of commerce throughout the civilized world, drawing nations from remote quarters of the globe into friendly alliance and that mutual dependence which promised a lasting peace and unshackled commerce. In the East, there appeared a rainbow which promised that the waters of national jealousy and proscription were about to recede from the face of the earth, and the spirit of free trade to move over the face thereof. But this, sir, is a hope not so universally cherished in this House as I could desire. We have even been told that one of the advantages to result from war will be emancipation from the manufacturers of Manchester and Birmingham.

I hope, sir, the day is far distant when measures of peace or war will be prompted by sectional or class interests. War, sir, is a dread alternative, and should be the last resort; but when demanded for the maintenance of the honor of the country, or for the security and protection of our citizens against outrage by other Governments, I trust we shall not sit here for weeks to discuss the propriety, to dwell upon the losses, or paint the horrors of war.

Mr. Chairman, it has been asserted that the people demand action, and we must advance. Whilst, sir, I admit the propriety of looking to and reflecting public opinion, especially upon a question which is viewed as deciding between peace or war, I cannot respond to the opinion, nor consent to govern my conduct by the idea, that the public man who attempts to stem the current of a war excitement must be borne down, sacrificed on the altar of public indignation. Sir, may the day never come when there will be so little of public virtue and patriotic devotion among the representatives of the people, that any demagogue who chooses to make violent and unfounded appeals to raise a war clamor in the country will be allowed, unopposed, to mislead the people as to the true questions at issue, and to rule their representatives through their love of place and political timidity.

Mr. Chairman, I have been struck with surprise, only exceeded by mortification, at the freedom with which disgrace and dishonor have been mingled with the name of our country. Upon one side, to give notice, and involve the country in a war, is disgrace; upon the other side, not to give notice, to rest in our present position, is dishonor. And my colleague [MR. THOMPSON] says "notice" is the only way to avoid war; that to extend our laws over our people in Oregon is war—a war of disgrace. Sir, whence comes this decision, this new light upon the Oregon question? The leaders in the Oregon movement, in other times, held different views. And, sir, the discussions upon Oregon, at former periods, would certainly not suffer by a comparison with ours; nor, sir, did the commissioners who negotiated the convention of joint occupancy, either English or American, so understand it.

Mr. Gallatin has recently called public attention to the fact, that in 1827, our plenipotentiary refused to agree to any express provision that, in extending the convention of 1818, neither party should exercise any exclusive sovereignty over the territory. The probability that it might become necessary for the United States to establish a territorial or some sort of government over their own citizens was explicitly avowed. Sir, by discovery, exploration, and possession, we claimed exclusive sovereignty over the valley of the Columbia, and our exclusive possession as against England was admitted by the restoration of our posts in Oregon—the formal, actual surrender of Astoria. The convention for joint right to trade in Oregon did not destroy our exclusive possession of a part, nor limit the rights or powers we might exercise within their former bounds; and that this is the British construction, is sufficiently apparent by the assertion of rights as derived from the Nootka convention over the same territory.

Nothing can be more demonstrable than the unfitness of joint-occupation rights to an agricultural people. It was not designed so to operate, but was designed for a country in the hands of hunters, trappers, and Indian traders.

The Hudson Bay Company, so often represented as colonizing Oregon, has interests directly opposed to agricultural settlements. The fur-trappers have been (if my information is correct) aided in establishing themselves on the south side of Oregon. Fur-trading companies usually require their discharged hands to leave the country, and resist, instead of promoting, colonization of necessity destructive to their trade. The Puget Sound Company is agricultural, and its settlements are in violation of our convention with England; and the notice required is to forbid such infraction of the treaty. That no right to plant colonies can be deduced from the conventions of 1818 and 1827 is too plain to admit of argument. The claim, if any, must be drawn from the convention between England and Spain, called the Nootka convention. If that convention be still in force, it must be because it was the declaration of rights, not the grant of advantages; and thus, for the sake of argument, I will consider it.

That Spain had the exclusive right of occupation on the northwest coast of America, as far as her discoveries extended, was not denied; but the question was, Had she, without having occupied the country, an exclusive sovereignty over it? Denying this pretension of Spain, Great Britain demanded indemnification for the seizure of British vessels at Nootka sound by the Spanish authorities. This led to the agreement upon which Great Britain has built her claim to territory in the Oregon country. Before entering upon the consideration of the terms of the convention itself, I will refer to the events that led to it.

Long before the voyage of Meares, the port of Nootka sound was known to the Spanish navigators. It was the usual resort of the trading vessels in the north Pacific. Meares, in 1788, visited it, and built a vessel there. For the use of his men, he erected a hut on the shore, by permission of the Indian king, and threw some defences around it, enclosing (according to Vancouver) about an acre of land. Meares, in return for the kindness of the Indian, (Maquinna,) gave him a pair of pistols. In his narrative, he gives a detailed account of the transaction, but does not call it a purchase; that was an after-thought, and first figured in his memorial. Sir, if there had been nothing beyond the narrative of Meares, the temporary character of his location would be fully established. There it appears that when about to sail, leaving a part of his men behind him, he bribed the Indian king, by offering him the reversion of the hut and chattels on shore, to permit his men to remain in peace, and complete the building of the vessel they had commenced.

To show the character of Meares, the purpose of his voyages in the north Pacific, and the country along which Great Britain claimed the right to trade, I will refer to the work of an Englishman, contemporary with Meares, and one of the most enterprising of the navigators of the north Pacific. It is "Dixon's Voyage around the World." Thus it appears that Meares was a furtrader, and of poor character for his calling; and more important still, it appears that the coast, from Cook's river to King George's sound, was the extent of the region in which British cruisers traded. This, taken in connexion with the 5th article of the Nootka convention, serves to fix the latitude in which joint settlement would be permitted.

The message of the King of Great Britain, communicating the transaction at Nootka, refers only to the seizure of vessels; not a word about lands of which British subjects had been dispossessed.

And when the proposition to vote an address of thanks to his Majesty for the conduct and successful termination of the negotiation, neither in the House of Lords or Commons did any one claim an acquisition of territory; and to the bitter irony and severe assaults of Mr. Fox upon the position in which the territorial pretensions of England had been left, his great rival, Mr. Pitt, then minister, made no reply, but pressed the commercial advantages gained by England.

The only link remaining to be supplied, and which completes the claim of construction, is the examination and final action of Quadra and Vancouver, when sent as commissioners to carry out the first article of the convention.

If, then, no tracts of land could be found which had been purchased by Meares; if no buildings of which he had been dispossessed, and the Spanish flag was never struck to that of Great Britain, Spain still maintaining her settlement at Nootka; the parallel north of which the joint right of settlement exists must be drawn through the northern extremity of Quadra and Vancouver's island; the established rule of nations being, that settlement on an island is held to extend to the whole of the island.

Oregon territory, then, is divided into a portion where we have possession above the treaty, and over which we can exercise all the rights not inconsistent with the trade permitted to England; another portion, in which, admitting the Nootka convention to be still in force, we have, with England, a joint right of trade and settlement; this being limited to the south by a line down through the head of the Quadra and Vancouver island. Between these portions, if there be any territory, it is in the condition of a joint right in England and the United States to occupy for fur trade, and the agricultural settlements are in violation of the spirit of the treaty.

Whenever the joint right by convention ceases, we must at once assert our exclusive right, or thenceforward possession matures into right on the part of Great Britain. During the continuance of the convention the title remains unimpaired; we are in possession; can establish over the undisputed part of the territory whatever regulations may be necessary to promote good order, and encourage emigration of agriculturists. Between England and the United States, the party having bread in Oregon must triumph.

No army can be sustained there for any considerable time by either country if the food must be transported from abroad to support it.

Never had man better right to cry "save me from my friends" than the President of the United States on this occasion. His positive recommendation has been made subordinate to his suggestion. He has urged to extend protection to our citizens in Oregon, but advised that notice be given to terminate the treaty of joint occupancy for reasons given. All this has been reversed, and the positive, unqualified declaration of a perfect title to the whole of Oregon up to 54° 40' comes strangely from those who claim to support an Administration that has offered nearly the same compromise line which had been time and again proposed by his predecessors. Sir, for the honor of my country, I hope that we have not been for thirty years negotiating when there was no conflicting claim; and for past as for the present Executive, I utterly deny that they have ever proposed to cede away a part of the territory, when our title was complete, to appease the voracious demands of England. It was a difficult and doubtful question; it was the adjustment of an undefined boundary. If the President should find himself compelled to close this question in twelve months, without any appropriation, without any preparation, he will be constrained to choose between compromise or war measures with the country unprepared. This will be the result of our action; and if he should effect a treaty by such a boundary as will not compromise the honor of the country, I for one-much, sir, as I wish to retain the whole territory—will give my full support as heretofore, and prepare for my share of whatever responsibility attaches. Sir, why has the South been assailed in this discussion? Has it been with the hope of sowing dissension between us and our western friends? Thus far, I think it has failed. Why the frequent reference to the conduct of the South on the Texas question? Sir, those who have made reflections on the South, as having sustained Texas annexation from sectional views, have been of those who opposed that great measure, and are most eager for this. The suspicion is but natural in them. But, sir, let me tell them that this doctrine of the political balance between different portions of the Union is no southern doctrine. We, sir, advocated the annexation of Texas from high national considerations; it was not a mere southern question; it lay coterminous to the Western States, and extended as far north as 42d degree of latitude; nor, sir, do we wish to divide the territory of Oregon; we would preserve it all for the extension of our Union. We would not arrest the onward progress of our pioneers. We would not, as has been done in this debate, ask why our citizens have left the repose of civil government and gone to Oregon? We find in it but that energy which has heretofore been characteristic of our people, and which has developed much that has illustrated our history. It is the onward progress of our people towards the Pacific, which alone can arrest their westward march; and on the banks of which, to use the idea of our lamented Linn, the pioneer will sit down to weep that there are no more forests to subdue. Sir, the gentleman from Missouri has, in claiming credit to different States for services in time past, wandered round Mississippi, and passed over it unnoticed. I wish not to eulogize my State, but, thus drawn to my notice, let me tell him that at Pensacola, at Bowyer, in the Creek campaigns, and on the field to which he specially alluded, (New Orleans,) the people of Mississippi have performed services that give earnest for the future, and relieve her sons of the necessity of offering pledges for her. It was Mississippi dragoons, led by her gallant Hinds, that received from the commanding general the high commendation of having been the admiration of one army and the wonder of the other.

It is as the representative of a high-spirited and patriotic people that I am called on to resist this war clamor. My constituents need no such excitements to prepare their hearts for all that patriotism demands. Whenever the honor of the country demands redress, whenever its territory is invaded, if then it shall be sought to intimidate by the fiery cross of St. George—if then we are threatened with the unfolding of English banners, if we resent or resist—from the gulf shore to the banks of that great river—throughout the length and breadth, Mississippi will come. And whether the question be one of northern or southern, of eastern or western aggression, we will not stop to count the cost, but act as becomes the descendants of those who, in the war of the Revolution, engaged in unequal strife to aid our brethren of the North in redressing their injuries.

Sir, we are the exposed portion of the Union, and nothing has been done by this Government adequate to our protection. Yet, sir, in the language of our patriotic Governor on a recent occasion, if "war comes, though it bring blight and desolation, yet we are ready for the crisis." We despise malign predictions, such as the member from Ohio who spoke early in these debates, made, and turn to such sentiments as those of another member from that State, the gentleman near me. In these was recognised the feelings of our western brethren, who, we doubt not, whenever the demand shall exist, will give proof of such valor as on former occasions they have shown; and if our plains should be invaded, they will come down to the foe like a stream from the rock.

Sir, when ignorance and fanatic hatred assail our domestic institutions, we try to forgive them for the sake of the righteous among the wicked—our natural allies, the Democracy of the North. We turn from present hostility to former friendship from recent defection, to the time when Massachusetts and Virginia, the stronger brothers of our family, stood foremost and united to defend our common rights. From sire to son has descended the love of our Union in our hearts, as in our history are mingled the names of Concord and Camden, of Yorktown and Saratoga, of Moultrie and Plattsburg, of Chippewa and Erie, of Bowyer and Guilford, and New Orleans and Bunker Hill. Grouped together, they form a monument to the common glory of our common country. And where is the southern man who would wish that monument were less by one of the northern names that constitute the mass? Who, standing on the ground made sacred by the blood of Warren, could allow sectional feeling to curb his enthusiasm as he looked upon that obelisk which rises a monument to freedom's and his country's triumph, and stands a type of the time, the men, and the event that it commemorates, built of material that mocks the waves of time, without niche or moulding for parasite or creeping thing to rest on, and pointing like a finger to the sky to raise man's thought to philanthropic and noble deeds.

SOURCE: Dunbar Rowland, Editor, Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist: His Letters, Papers and Speeches, Volume 1, p. 29-35

Monday, May 29, 2023

Amos Tuck to Rev. James C. Boswell and Samuel A. Haley, November 20, 1846

EXETER, Nov. 20, 1846.

TO REV. JAMES C. BOSWELL, President, and SAMUEL A. HALEY, ESQ., Secretary, &c.

Gentlemen:—I have received your letter of October 24th, in reference to the proceedings at the Convention of Independent Democrats and Liberty men of the First Congressional District, and I embrace the earliest opportunity which my engagements have allowed to send you an answer.

I believe it to be the object of those assembled at the above named convention, to re-affirm the fundamental principles of republican liberty, and to act out with fearless devotion the doctrines of human equality and universal justice. Entertaining these views, I rejoice in their free expression, and am content to stand or fall with the others in their defense.

Two causes have contributed more than all others to effect the late change in the political balance of parties. The first has been the despotism of party power, by which generous impulses have been repressed and discouraged, the exercise of private judgment made dangerous, and all individuality of character sought to be extinguished, by compelling men to believe, or to profess, those sentiments only which were suggested by a selfish and ever-shifting policy and sanctioned by self-constituted party leaders. No tyranny is more galling than that which would quench the free thoughts of free men; no tyrants are more despicable than those who, "dressed in a little brief authority," would attempt in a democracy to exercise the power and the prerogatives hereditary despots; no engine of influence is more dangerous or more execrable than a hireling press, speaking no words for truth or justice, but devoting all its energies to the perpetration of human servitude. To free New Hampshire from such influences, and to expose in their deformity those who had wielded them too long, was one object in our organization, and this object, I rejoice in believing, has been in a good degree accomplished.

The second and chief cause of the late change has been the existence and progressing power of the institution of slavery. The encroachments of the slave-holding interests, and the subserviency of public men to its numerous exactions, have been so exorbitant and so notorious as to have become just cause of alarm to every friend of humanity and the country. The people, irrespective of party, have at length turned their attention to the subject, and by unequivocal manifestations are teaching their public servants that hereafter other things will be expected of them than a base and servile homage to the dark spirit of slavery; that some efforts will be demanded at their hands, more efficient than a “masterly inactivity," or a halting opposition to an abstract idea; that it is time for them to stand up like men, and, echoing the strong voice of a free people, to say to the sweeping tide of oppression, "thus far and no farther." The inquiry now is, what can be done, what can Congress do to free the master and the slave and the nation from the sin and the retributions of slavery? Of cowardly discussion about the extent of our powers we have had enough. The exigency of the country as well as the spirit of the age require now the performance of those acts whose constitutionality and propriety are beyond reasonable doubt. They require that the shadow of slavery shall no longer darken the District of Columbia, and that the trader in human beings shall no longer be permitted to shelter himself from the scorn of the Christian world beneath the wings of the national capitol. They require that no new slave state, with a constitution recognizing slavery, shall hereafter be admitted to the Union, and that no existing state, whether Texas or Florida, shall be dismembered to subserve the slave holding interest. They require that the domestic, inter-state slave trade, a traffic in no respect less infamous than that foreign slave trade which has been branded by the civilized world as piracy, shall, under the clause in the Constitution which gives power to Congress, "to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states," be utterly and forever prohibited. They require that the labor and interest of the free states should be respected, and that slavery be no longer permitted to give character to our legislation.

Let the people of the free states come now to the rescue of freedom and the Constitution, and something may be done to perpetuate the Union,—let them be found wanting in this trial of their integrity, and let the South for a few years more continue unchecked her schemes in behalf of slavery, and no human power can prevent a dissolution. For the sake then of the Union, let the people of the free states be careful to discern and perform on this subject the duties of patriotism and humanity.

One other subject claims attention. The present war with Mexico cannot be lost sight of in any discussion of the public interest. Originating in the unauthorized and iniquitous scheme of the annexation of Texas, it is now prosecuted without that public necessity which can justify us on the page of impartial history, and with no prospect of “conquering a peace," or effecting an honorable reconciliation. It has become a war of conquest, and as such is in violation of every principle of a popular government, as well as of every precept of Christianity. It is adding immense territory to the southern portion of the country, and is thus threatening to destroy the balance of the states, and to consign the nation more hopelessly to the control of slaveholders. It is waged against a neighboring nation, a younger republic, which for years, in weakness and distraction, endeavored to follow the example of our prospering nation; and as such, the war is disgraceful and mean. It is carried on at the expense of the blood of brave men, whose valor is worthy of a better cause, and has already exhausted the treasury of the country, and involved the nation in a heavy debt. Under these circumstances there can be no doubt that the honor and best interests of the country demand a speedy end of the contest, and that all matters in dispute be settled by arbitration or negotiation.

I have thus spoken briefly of some of the topics suggested by your resolutions. It remains for me simply to acknowledge my deep sense of the honor which your nomination has conferred upon me. If it is thought that my acceptance of this nomination can subserve the interests of the cause in which we are engaged, I shall not feel at liberty to shrink from the position in which you have placed me; but shall remain,

Your obedient servant,
AMOS TUCK.

SOURCE: Charles R. Corning, Amos Tuck, p. 21-4