Congressman Albert G. Brown’s Speech on the Delegate from New Mexico, July 19, 1850

SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JULY 19, 1850, ON THE ADMISSION OF THE DELEGATE FROM NEW MEXICO IN ADVANCE OF HER TERRITORIAL ORGANIZATION.

MR. BROWN said he had taken no part in the debates on the question of admitting the delegate from New Mexico, nor did he intend to participate in this discussion at any great length.

The honorable gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Gentry] had announced the principle which had governed his vote in favor of Mr. Smith, as a delegate from New Mexico, and had informed us that he should govern himself by the same principle in voting for Mr. Babbit, the delegate from Deseret. To the correctness of the honorable gentleman's theory, Mr. B. made no sort of objection, and if the theory was applicable to the matter in hand, he should be found voting with the gentleman from Tennessee.

The honorable gentleman says, it is a part of the early theory of our government, that, whenever you govern a people, you should grant them representation. No one could mistake the meaning of the gentleman. He meant to assimilate this case to that of our colonial forefathers, and to assume that, as they complained with justice of the British Crown for governing them without giving them representation, the people in New Mexico and Deseret may justly make the same complaint of us. The colonies were governed. The Crown sent them governors, secretaries, judges and tax-gatherers. It required the acts of their local legislatures to be sent home for approval. It governed them with most despotic sway; but do we govern New Mexico and Deseret? How, sir, in what manner have we governed these territories? We have steadily refused them all governments. The ægis of our protection has not been extended over them. We have sent them neither governors, secretaries, judges nor tax-gatherers. We have taken no cognisance of them, or of their condition. This state of things ought not so long to have existed. It was the solemn duty of Congress to have taken these people under its care to have extended over them the shield of the Constitution—to have given them laws and government. It was a reproach to Congress that all this had been neglected or refused. He (Mr. B.) took his due share of this general reproach. It had been the misfortune of himself and of others, that they could not agree on a form of government proper to be granted. It had been the misfortune of the people who were now seeking this informal admission on the floor of Congress, that these differences of opinion existed. But were we on that account to set all precedent at defiance, disregard the law, and trample the principles of the Constitution under foot? He could not agree to this. He stood ready now, as he had stood from the beginning, to vote a proper republican form of government to these territories-to fix for them proper metes and bounds; and this being done, he should vote for the admission of delegates from each.

Mr. B. said he disclaimed all sectional feelings in the votes he was giving. He had taken ground against the admission of Mr. Smith when he avowed himself a zealous pro-slavery advocate. He based his opposition then, as now, on the ground that the laws of the United States and the Constitution had not been extended over the territory; that no territorial government had been established; that nothing had been done which gave to New Mexico any legal right to have her delegate on the floor of Congress. When Mr. Smith changed his position, and to propitiate certain influences, he turned Free-Soiler, and published a vulgar tirade against the South, he (Mr. B.) had not changed his position. He voted against him, as he had originally intended to do. He should now vote against Mr. Babbit, albeit he was understood to be at least not unfriendly to the South.

He could not consent to admit every one to a seat on this floor who comes here and demands admission. If the people on Tiger Island should send us a delegate, he would vote against him. If John Ross or Peter Pitchlyn ask admission from the Choctaws and Cherokees, he would vote against them. If the hunters and trappers on the Rocky Mountains should send their delegate here, he would vote against him.

In all this proceeding he should govern himself by no sectional feeling, but by the sternest principles. Whenever delegates came here, as they had come in the earlier and better days of the republic, from Ohio and Mississippi, from Alabama and Indiana, from Arkansas and Michigan, and, indeed, from all the territories, he should vote to admit them, and ask no questions as to whether they or their constituents were for or against slavery.

He would not pursue this subject. He had risen simply to reply to a remark of his friend from Tennessee. He feared that the popular idea that government and representation should go hand in hand, when propagated by a gentleman so distinguished as the honorable member from Tennessee, and coupled with the question in hand, might mislead the public mind. He had, therefore, felt bound to point out the clear distinction between the case before us, and the one assumed by the gentleman to exist.

He concluded by repeating that, whenever delegates presented themselves from territories formed by the United States, and elected according to law, he should vote for their admission. Beyond this he would not go.

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. 192-4

Congressman Horace Mann, July 1, 1850

WASHINGTON, July 1, 1850.

Webster said there were only two parts of the Constitution which had any bearing on the subject of the trial by jury; and that the Constitution, neither in its letter nor in its spirit, required the trial by jury for a fugitive slave.

I proved in my letter that the article in the Constitution about courts did have a bearing, and a most important one, on the subject of jury trial; because, on the strength of it, Congress provided jury trials for more than nine-tenths of all the cases that ever arise in the courts. I showed, that, under this article about courts, Congress had power to make provision for juries.

On the second point, I showed that the spirit of the Constitution did clearly require, that, in legislating on the subject of fugitive slaves, Congress should provide the jury trial.

Now, some one who has written an article in the "Christian Register," which no man at once honest and sensible could write, takes the second position of Mr. Webster, and applies my first answer to it; that is, when Mr. Webster says the trial by jury is not demanded, he applies my answer to the part of Mr. Webster's positions, that there was no clause having any bearing on the subject, or conferring any power.

The Compromise Bill drags along with various prophecies about its success. How I shall hallelujah if it is defeated in the Senate!

SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, p. 305-6

John J. Crittenden on the Constitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Bill, September 18, 1850

The provisions of the bill, commonly called the fugitive slave bill, and which Congress have submitted to the President for his approval and signature, are not in conflict with the provisions of the Constitution in relation to the writ of habeas corpus.

The expressions used in the last clause of the sixth section, that the certificate therein alluded to "shall prevent all molestation" of the persons to whom granted, "by any process issued," etc., probably mean only what the act of 1793 meant by declaring a certificate under that act a sufficient warrant for the removal of a fugitive; and do not mean a suspension of the writ of habeas corpus.

There is nothing in the act inconsistent with the Constitution, nor which is not necessary to redeem the pledge which it contains, that fugitive slaves shall be delivered upon the claim of their owners.

ATTORNEY-GENERAL'S Office,

September 18, 1850.

SIR, I have had the honor to receive your note of this date, informing me that the bill, commonly called the fugitive slave bill, having passed both houses of Congress, had been submitted to you for your consideration, approval, and signature, and requesting my opinion whether the sixth section of that act, and especially the last clause of that section, conflicts with that provision of the Constitution which declares that "the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended unless when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it."

It is my clear conviction that there is nothing in the last clause, nor in any part of the sixth section, nor, indeed, in any of the provisions of the act, which suspends, or was intended to suspend, the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, or is in any manner in conflict with the Constitution.

The Constitution, in the second section of the fourth article, declares that "no person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."

It is well known and admitted, historically and judicially, that this clause of the Constitution was made for the purpose of securing to the citizens of the slaveholding States the complete ownership in their slaves, as property, in any and every State or Territory of the Union into which they might escape. (Prigg vs. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 16 Peters, 539.) It devolved on the general government, as a solemn duty, to make that security effectual. Their power was not only clear and full, but, according to the opinion of the court in the above-cited case, it was exclusive, the States, severally, being under no obligation, and having no power to make laws or regulations in respect to the delivery of fugitives. Thus the whole power, and with it the whole duty, of carrying into effect this important provision of the Constitution, was with Congress. And, accordingly, soon after the adoption of the Constitution, the act of the 12th of February, 1793, was passed, and that proving unsatisfactory and inefficient, by reason (among other causes) of some minor errors in its details, Congress are now attempting by this bill to discharge a constitutional obligation, by securing more effectually the delivery of fugitive slaves to their owners. The sixth, and most material section, in substance declares that the claimant of the fugitive slave may arrest and carry him before any one of the officers named and described in the bill; and provides that those officers, and each of them, shall have judicial power and jurisdiction to hear, examine, and decide the case in a summary manner, that if, upon such hearing, the claimant, by the requisite proof, shall establish his claim to the satisfaction of the tribunal thus constituted, the said tribunal shall give him a certificate, stating therein the substantial facts of the case, and authorizing him, with such reasonable force as may be necessary, to take and carry said fugitive back to the State or Territory whence he or she may have escaped,—and then, in conclusion, proceeds as follows: "The certificates in this and the first section mentioned, shall be conclusive of the right of the person or persons in whose favor granted to remove such fugitive to the State or Territory from which he escaped, and shall prevent all molestation of such person or persons by any process issued by any court, judge, magistrate, or other person whomsoever."

There is nothing in all this that does not seem to me to be consistent with the Constitution, and necessary, indeed, to redeem the pledge which it contains, that such fugitives "shall be delivered up on claim" of their owners.

The Supreme Court of the United States has decided that the owner, independent of any aid from State or national legislation, may, in virtue of the Constitution, and his own right of property, seize and recapture his fugitive slave in whatsoever State he may find him, and carry him back to the State or Territory from which he escaped. (Prigg vs. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 16 Peters, 539.) This bill, therefore, confers no right on the owner of the fugitive slave. It only gives him an appointed and peaceable remedy in place of the more exposed and insecure, out not less lawful mode of self-redress; and as to the fugitive slave, he has no cause to complain of this bill,—it adds no coercion to that which his owner himself might, at his own will, rightfully exercise; and all the proceedings which it institutes are but so much of orderly, judicial authority interposed between him and his owner, and consequently of protection to him, and mitigation of the exercise directly by the owner himself of his personal authority. This is the constitutional and legal view of the subject, as sanctioned by the decisions of the Supreme Court, and to that I limit myself.

The act of the 12th of February, 1793, before alluded to, so far as it respects any constitutional question that can arise out of this bill, is identical with it. It authorizes the like arrest of the fugitive slave, the like trial, the like judgment, the like certificate, with the like authority to the owner, by virtue of that certificate as his warrant, to remove him to the State or Territory from which he escaped, and the constitutionality of that act, in all those particulars, has been affirmed by the adjudications of State tribunals, and of the courts of the United States, without a single dissent, so far as I know. (Baldwin, C. C. R. 577, 579.)

I conclude, therefore, that so far as the act of the 12th of February, 1793, has been held to be constitutional, this bill must also be so regarded; and that the custody, restraint, and removal to which the fugitive slave may be subjected under the provisions of this bill, are all lawful, and that the certificate to be granted to the owner is to be regarded as the act and judgment of a judicial tribunal having competent jurisdiction.

With these remarks as to the constitutionality of the general provisions of the bill, and the consequent legality of the custody and confinement to which the fugitive slave may be subjected under it, I proceed to a brief consideration of the more particular question you have propounded in reference to the writ of habeas corpus, and of the last clause of the sixth section, above quoted, which gives rise to that question.

My opinion, as before expressed, is that there is nothing in that clause or section which conflicts with or suspends, or was intended to suspend, the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus. I think so because the bill says not one word about that writ; because, by the Constitution, Congress is expressly forbidden to suspend the privilege of this writ, "unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it;" and therefore such suspension by this act (there being neither rebellion nor invasion) would be a plain and palpable violation of the Constitution, and no intention to commit such a violation of the Constitution, of their duty and their oaths, ought to be imputed to them upon mere constructions and implications; and thirdly, because there is no incompatibility between these provisions of the bill and the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus in its utmost constitutional latitude.

Congress, in the case of fugitive slaves, as in all other cases within the scope of its constitutional authority, has the unquestionable right to ordain and prescribe for what causes, to what extent, and in what manner persons may be taken into custody, detained, or imprisoned. Without this power they could not fulfill their constitutional trust, nor perform the ordinary and necessary duties of government. It was never heard that the exercise of that legislative power was any encroachment upon or suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus. It is only by some confusion of ideas that such a conflict can be supposed to exist. It is not within the province or privilege of this great writ to loose those whom the law has bound. That would be to put a writ granted by the law in opposition to the law, to make one part of the law destructive of another. This writ follows the law and obeys the law. It is issued, upon proper complaint, to make inquiry into the causes of commitment or imprisonment, and its sole remedial power and purpose is to deliver the party from "all manner of illegal confinement." (3 Black. Com. 131.) If upon application to the court or judge for this writ, or if upon its return it shall appear that the confinement complained of was lawful, the writ, in the first instance, would be refused, and in the last the party would be remanded to his former lawful custody.

The condition of one in custody as a fugitive slave is, under this law, so far as respects the writ of habeas corpus, precisely the same as that of all other prisoners under the laws of the United States. The "privilege" of that writ remains alike to all of them, but to be judged of—granted or refused, discharged or enforced—by the proper tribunal, according to the circumstances of each case, and as the commitment and detention may appear to be legal or illegal.

The whole effect of the law may be thus briefly stated: Congress has constituted a tribunal with exclusive jurisdiction to determine summarily and without appeal who are fugitives from service or labor under the second section of the fourth article of the Constitution, and to whom such service or labor is due. The judgment of every tribunal of exclusive jurisdiction where no appeal lies, is, of necessity, conclusive upon every other tribunal; and therefore the judgment of the tribunal created by this act is conclusive upon all tribunals. Wherever this judgment is made to appear, it is conclusive of the right of the owner to retain in his custody the fugitive from his service, and to remove him back to the place or State from which he escaped. If it is shown upon the application of the fugitive for a writ of habeas corpus, it prevents the issuing of the writ; if upon the return, it discharges the writ and restores or maintains the custody.

This view of the law of this case is fully sustained by the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Tobias Watkins, where the court refused to discharge upon the ground that he was in custody under the sentence of a court of competent jurisdiction, and that that judgment was conclusive upon them. (3 Peters.)

The expressions used in the last clause of the sixth section, that the certificate therein alluded to "shall prevent all molestation" of the persons to whom granted "by any process issued," etc., probably mean only what the act of 1793 meant by declaring a certificate under that act a sufficient warrant for the removal of a fugitive, and certainly do not mean a suspension of the habeas corpus. I conclude by repeating my conviction that there is nothing in the bill in question which conflicts with the Constitution or suspends, or was intended to suspend, the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, sir,

Your obedient servant,

J. J. CRITTENDEN.

To the PRESIDENT.

SOURCE: Ann Mary Butler Crittenden Coleman, Editor, The Life of John J. Crittenden: With Selections from His Correspondence and Speeches, Vol. 1, p. 377-81

John Davis to Senator Daniel S. Dickinson, July 25, 1850

NORWICH, July 25, 1850.

MY DEAR SIR—I have just risen from the perusal of the pamphlet you sent me, giving me an account of the public dinner at Old Tammany; and you may be assured I have had a feast. "I breathe deeper and freer." That occasion opens up the dawn of better days, and in a great measure removes the forebodings of our national dissolution. I rose from the perusal with the exclamation, "The confederacy is safe." When the Empire City speaks in such tones and with such unanimity, she will be heard and her influence will be felt. And in relation to yourself, you will allow me to say, the compliment was as well deserved as it was splendid, and I cannot let the opportunity pass without congratulating you upon the occasion. In particular, sir, I wish to manifest my hearty assent to the sentiments of your speech on that occasion as to the only true ground upon which our national identity can be maintained. I have ever been anxious that our Southern brethren should be made sensible of their error at the last election, but think the reproof already administered is abundantly sufficient, and am as ready to shoulder the musket for the rights of the South as for the rights of the North; or, in other words, to maintain the constitution. Your compliment to Mr. Clay was just.

What will be the policy of the new Executive? And how can the Whig party avoid the fruits of their doings? It seems to me the question of boundary between Texas and New Mexico may be more quietly settled by commissioners than by any acts of Congress.

With sentiments of high regard, believe me

Yours truly,

JOHN DAVIS.

Hon. D. S. DICKINSON.

SOURCE: John R. Dickinson, Editor, Speeches, Correspondence, Etc., of the Late Daniel S. Dickinson of New York, Vol. 2, p. 446

Senator Daniel Webster to Professor Stuart, April 31, 1850

Boston, April 31, 1850.

MY DEAR SIR,—I cannot well say how much pleasure it gave me to see a name, so much venerated and beloved by me as yours is, on the letter recently received by me from friends in Boston and its vicinity, approving the general object and character of my speech in the Senate, of the seventh of March. I know the conscientiousness with which you act on such occasions, and therefore value your favorable sentiments the more highly.

Is it not time, my dear Sir, that the path of Christian duty, in relation to great and permanent questions of government, and to the obligations which men are under to support the constitution and the fundamental principles of the government under which they live, should be clearly pointed out? I am afraid we are falling into loose habits of thinking upon such subjects; and I could wish that your health and strength would allow you to communicate your own thoughts to the public.

We have established over us a much better form of government than may ordinarily be expected in the allotments of Providence to men; and it appears to me that the consciences of all well-meaning and enlightened individuals, should rather be called upon to uphold this form of government, than to weaken and undermine it by imputing to it objections, ill considered and ill founded, dangerous to the stability of all government, and not unfrequently the offspring of overheated imaginations.

Allow me to conclude, my dear Sir, by offering you my highest respects, and my affectionate good wishes for your health and happiness.

D. WEBSTER.

SOURCE: Fletcher Webster, Editor, The Private Correspondence of Daniel Webster, Vol. 2, p. 367

Senator John C. Calhoun to Anna Maria Calhoun Clemson, October 14, 1849

Fort Hill 14th Oct 1849

MY DEAR ANNA, You and M^r Clemson must regard me as a very negligent correspondent this season, but you must attribute it, not to indifference, nor indolence, but to being overtaxed in the way of writing. My correspondence is necessarily heavy. It occupies one day and sometimes two a week; but what mainly occupies me, is the work I have on hand. I have written between three and four hundred pages of fools cap in the execution of that, since my return from Washington; and have, I think, to write about 40 or 50 more before I conclude the work. I will then have to review, to correct and finish off, which will require some time; but I hope to be able to have it all ready for the press by midsummer.

It will consist of three parts; a discourse on the elementary principles of government; a discourse on the Constitution and Government of the United States, and a collection of my speeches and other productions on constitutional subjects. It will make two moderate size Octavo volumes. I think the work is called for by the times, and that it will make an impression. I have stated my opinions on all points, just as I entertain them, without enquiring, or regarding, whether they will be popular, or not. Truth is my object, and to that I closely adhere. . . .

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. 772

Charles Sumner to William Jay, June 1, 1850

I am glad of your new appeal. Like everything from you, it is careful, logical, clear, and with a practical bearing on the times. I am inclined to believe with you that under the Constitution the duty of surrendering fugitive slaves is imposed upon the States; but there is great difficulty in assuming this point in the face of a solemn decision of the Supreme Court. If that decision were out of the way, I think it could be easily vindicated the States. Mr. Chase in his masterly speech has touched this point strongly.

You have doubtless read Webster's recent wicked letter.¹ There is a diabolism in it beyond even that of his speech. He seeks to assimilate the cases of fugitives from justice and fugitive slaves under the Constitution; and because the former cannot claim the trial by jury where they are seized, “argal” slaves cannot ! But the Constitution, by its peculiar language, settles this point. Look at the express words of the two clauses. Here ex vi termini the question whether service or labor be due must be determined, as a condition precedent, before the person can be delivered up. Of course, this must be determined in the State where he is found, and not in that to which he may be transported.

The feeling against Webster among many of his old Whig partisans continues to hold out. At present it seems as if there must be another split in the Whig party here. The systematic efforts now making to suppress all discussion of this great question, the increasing malevolence towards the friends of freedom, and the treachery and apostasy of men, small as well as great, are in themselves most disheartening. Still, I know the cause is right, and as sure as God is God must prevail.

_______________

¹ To Citizens of Newburyport, May 15, 1850.

SOURCE: Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. 3, p. 216

Congressman Frederick P. Stanton to Augustus Schell, June 14, 1850

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, June 14, 1850.

DEAR SIR—I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of the committee's letter of invitation to the dinner to be given in your city on the 17th instant, to the Hon. Daniel S. Dickinson.

It would give me great pleasure to unite with the Democrats of the city of New York in doing honor to their noble and patriotic fellow-citizen for his distinguished services in the Senate during the crisis through which our country is now passing. You have not made too high an estimate of those services; they demand the approbation of the whole country, and no applause which his immediate fellow-citizens can bestow will be dispropor ionate to their merit. If there had been "ten righteous men" of this stamp in our national councils at the commencement of the present controversy, it is not too much to say the country would have been saved; the difficulty would long since have been adjusted. I hope it is not yet too late for a consummation so devoutly to be wished—a consummation to which no man will have contributed more, by his original, uniform, and unswerving devotion to the Constitution, than the Hon. Daniel S. Dickinson.

I regret that my duties here render it impossible for me to accept the invitation to be present upon so interesting an occasion. Be pleased to express to the committee my acknowledgments, &c.

I am, with great respect, your most obedient servant,

FRED. P. STANTON.

AUG. SCHELL, Esq., 40 Wall street, New York.

SOURCE: John R. Dickinson, Editor, Speeches, Correspondence, Etc., of the Late Daniel S. Dickinson of New York, Vol. 2, p. 441

Louis McLane to George Douglas, Schuyler Livingston, and others, a Committee to Superintend the Public Dinner given to the Hon. D. S. Dickinson, June 19, 1850.

BOHEMIA, NEAR CECILTON, MARYLAND,        

June 19, 1850.

TO GEORGE DOUGLAS, SCHUYLER LIVINGSTON, and others, a Committee to Superintend the Public Dinner given to the Hon. D. S. Dickinson.

GENTLEMEN—Having been called by urgent business to Baltimore during the last week, I only received your letter of the 7th inst. on my return home last night. I have cordially approved the course of your distinguished Senator during the present session of Congress, and I fully participate in the admiration entertained by his Democratic fellow-citizens of New York, of the manly ability and unwavering patriotism with which he has assisted in tranquillizing the public mind and arresting an agitation that, if allowed to continue, would prove fatal to the harmony and preservation of our glorious Union. Under other circumstances it would have given me great pleasure to manifest my feelings by uniting with the Democrats of New York in their patriotic support of the constitutional principles involved in the pending issue.

I can at present, however, only return you my thanks for the invitation with which you have honored me, and assure you of my earnest hope that in the present crisis the support of the Democracy of New York may be as effective in maintaining the principles of the Constitution and the integrity of the Union as it has been on more than one previous occasion. I have the honor to be, gentlemen,

Very respectfully, your fellow-citizen,

LOUIS MCLANE.

SOURCE: John R. Dickinson, Editor, Speeches, Correspondence, Etc., of the Late Daniel S. Dickinson of New York, Vol. 2, p. 443

Senator John C. Calhoun to Anna Maria Calhoun Clemson,* December 31, 1849

Washington, 31st Dec^r, 1849.

MY DEAR DAUGHTER: Not long after my arrival here I wrote to Mr. Clemson and, among other things, requested him to say I would write to you shortly. I hope he received my letter.

If I have not written to you as frequently as formerly, be assured that it has not been caused by any abatement of affection towards you. It is to be attributed simply to the fact that I have been overburthened with writing—a species of labor, which you know, I have ever been especially averse to. I wrote during the recess between 400 and 500 pages of foolscap, besides carrying on an extensive correspondence, which I could not avoid. Under so heavy a pressure I left the correspondence with you almost exclusively to your Mother, Cornelia and your brothers. The two former, I know, have been very punctual and full in their communications.

Since my arrival here I have allotted most of my spare time to preparing my manuscript for the press. The discourse, or disquisition, (for I have not yet named it) on Government is finished, and is now copying. It is preliminary to the discourse on the Constitution and Government of the United States. That is much more voluminous. The rough draft is finished. I propose to devote my spare time during the session to preparing it, also, for the press, and hope to have it done and copied before Congress adjourns. I do not know whether I shall put it to press as soon as finished, or not; but I wish to have it off my hands and ready for publication whenever I shall judge it advisable to publish. I trust when published they will do me no discredit, and that they will do much to explode errors and cast light on the subjects of which they treat.

I am truly happy to learn that you are all well, and that the children are growing so finely. They must be a source of great happiness to you. I know not any employment more useful and honorable than that of a wife and a mother superintending her household and the education of her children. By education I mean something far beyond what is to be derived from books. I feel assured that you ́are discharging faithfully these duties and trust you will find your reward in the character and conduct of your two very promising children when they come to act their part in life.

Your Mother and sister have, I suppose, informed you that the portraits to which you referred in your letter to me were long since received and that they are greatly admired. I think them excellent—good likenesses and well painted. Many think Calhoun's is the best likeness; but I find it difficult to decide which is the best

I am glad to learn that the same hand that painted yours and the children's has succeeded so well in executing the likeness of myself. I understood from Mr. Henry Gourdin that he had made arrangements to get a portrait of me painted by the Artist who painted you, and that it would be in Washington this winter. I had supposed it was the likeness to which you referred, but conclude that it is another taken by the same artist.

The question between North and South is daily becoming more and more menacing. It is difficult to say where it is to end. The South is more roused and united than I ever knew it to be; and I trust that we shall persist in our resistance until the restoration of all our rights, or disunion, one or the other, is the consequence. We have borne the wrongs and the insults of the North long enough. It is time they should cease.

My health continues as good as I could expect at my time of life. All were well when I last heard from home. Give my love to Mr. Clemson and the children.

_______________

* The text of this letter is derived from a copy kindly furnished by Mr. Hugh Calhoun Middleton, of Augusta.

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. 776-8

John Tyler to Governor John Letcher, January 31, 1861

To the Governor of the State of Virginia:

DEAR SIR,

SHERWOOD FOREST,

January 31, 1861.

I received your communication notifying me of my appointment by the concurrent vote of the two houses of the General Assembly, as a commissioner to the President of the United States, with instructions respectfully to request the President to abstain, pending the proceedings contemplated by the action of the General Assembly, from any and all acts calculated to produce a collision of arms between the States which have seceded or shall secede, and the government of the United States, on the afternoon of Monday, the 21st instant, by the mail of that day, and in disregard of a severe state of indisposition under which I had labored for some time previous, I resolved at all hazards to myself personally to carry out, so far as I could, the patriotic wishes of the Legislature. By the earliest conveyance, I reached Richmond on the evening of the succeeding day (Tuesday, 22d), and having had an interview with your excellency and my co-commissioner, proceeded by the morning train of cars the next day (Wednesday, 23d) for the city of Washington, which I reached on the afternoon of the same day. I am thus particular in giving precise dates, so that the Legislature may perceive that with all possible promptitude and dispatch I obeyed their wishes; and also to show that I was duly sensible of the importance of time in the whole proceeding. Immediately after reaching Washington, I addressed a note (marked No. 1) to the President of the United States, informing him of my arrival and asking an early hour to be designated by him, to enable me to place him in possession of the wishes and feelings of the Legislature of Virginia, and the instructions which, in the form of her legislative resolves, all having direct reference to the disturbed and painful condition of public affairs, I was desirous of laying before him. He responded promptly by note, and left it optional with myself to select 8 o'clock of that evening, or an early hour the next morning, for the time of the proposed conference. My note (No. 2), for reasons therein set forth, informed him that I would wait upon him in the morning of the ensuing day. My note announcing my arrival, if the objects which had brought me to Washington had any consideration in the mind of the President would, I did not doubt, suspend any hostile movement against any seceding State in the interval of time between its date and the hour at which I should wait upon him the next morning, and supersede the necessity of a night visit.

On the next morning, at the hour of ten, I repaired to the President's mansion, and met from him a warm and cordial reception. I lost no time in handing to him your letter of appointment, attested by the seal of the State, and legislative resolutions. He said that they were the first full copies of the resolutions which he had seen, and after reading them he remarked, that he considered them very important, and was good enough to add, that being borne by myself, he should feel it his duty to make them the subject of a special message to Congress. Either I suggested or he voluntarily remarked, most probably the latter, that he should accompany them with a strong recommendation to Congress, with whom, he said, rested the entire power over the subject of war or peace, to abstain from all action of a hostile character, until Virginia should have had a fair opportunity to exert all her efforts to preserve the public peace and restore harmony to the Union. I said to him, that my mission was to him; that he was commander-in-chief of the army and navy—could regulate the movement of soldiers and ships in peace and war, and that everything that Virginia desired was that the statu quo should be observed. I represented to him that the people of Virginia were almost universally inclined to peace and reconciliation. That I need not inform him of the sacrifices the State had made for the Union in its initiation, or of her instrumentality in the creation of the Constitution. That her efforts to reconstruct or preserve depended for their success on her being permitted to conduct them undisturbed by outside collision. He replied, that he had in no measure changed his views as presented in his annual message; that he could give no pledges; that it was his duty to enforce the laws, and the whole power rested with Congress. He complained that the South had not treated him properly; that they had made unnecessary demonstration by seizing unprotected arsenals and forts, and thus perpetrating acts of useless bravado, which had quite as well been let alone. I suggested to him, that while these things were, I admitted, calculated to fret and irritate the northern mind, that he would see in them only the necessary results of popular excitement, which, after all, worked no mischief in the end, if harmony between the States was once more restored; that the States wherein the seizures had been made, would account for all the public property; and that in the mean time the agency for its preservation was only changed. He repeated his sense of the obligations which rested upon him; could give no pledges but those contained in his public acts, and recurred again to the proceedings of the Legislature and his intention to send them to Congress in a special message, accompanied with a strong recommendation to avoid the passage of any hostile legislation. I asked if I might be permitted to see the sketch of the message, to which he unhesitatingly replied that he would take pleasure in showing it to me next morning. Much more occurred in the course of our interview, which lasted for an hour and a half; all, however, relating exclusively to the above topics, and I left him entirely satisfied with the results of my interview. The President was frank and entirely confiding in his language and whole manner. A moment's reflection satisfied me that if the message contained the recommendation to Congress to abstain from hostile legislation, I was at liberty to infer a similar determination on his part of a state of quietude.

Friday, 25.—I waited on him again the following morning, and he lost no time in reading me so much of the sketch of the proposed message as related to the recommendation to Congress. I suggested no change or alteration, believing it to be amply sufficient, and I became only anxious for its presentation to Congress. He said he should have it all prepared to be submitted to his Cabinet on that day, and would send it in the next day. On the afternoon of the same day—Friday, 25—I was waited upon by the Secretary of State and the Attorney General, who stated that they had called upon me at the request of the President, to express his regret that in consequence of the adjournment over to Monday, he would not be able to send in his message until Monday. While in conversation with those gentlemen, which chiefly turned on the condition of public affairs, I was startled by the receipt of a telegraphic despatch from Judge Robertson, my co-commissioner, dated at Charleston, South Carolina, enquiring into the foundation of a rumor which had reached that place, that the steamship Brooklyn, with troops, had sailed for the South from Norfolk. I immediately handed over the despatch to the gentlemen, with the suitable enquiries. The Attorney General said, in substance: "You know, sir, that I am attached to the law department, and not in the way of knowing anything about it." The Secretary of State said that he had heard and believed that the Brooklyn had sailed with some troops, but he did not know either when she sailed or to what point she was destined. I then said, "I hope that she has not received her orders since my arrival in Washington." On this point the gentlemen could give me no information, but expressed no doubt but that the President would give me the information if requested. I excused myself to them, and immediately withdrawing to the adjoining room, I addressed to the President note No. 3, which Mr. Staunton, the Attorney General, kindly volunteered to bear in person, and without loss of time, to the President. In a short time afterwards, Mr. Staunton returned, to inform me that he had carried the note to the President's house, but for a reason not necessary here to state, he could not see the President, but had placed it in the hands of his servant, to be delivered at the earliest opportunity. The reply of the President, No. 2, reached me at half after eleven o'clock that night. In the interim, I had despatched by telegraph, to Judge Robertson, the information I had collected, and upon the opening of the telegraph office the next morning (Saturday), the material parts of the President's reply relating to the sailing of the Brooklyn, viz: that she had gone on an errand "of mercy and relief," and that she was not destined to South Carolina. The orders for the sailing of the ship, as will be seen, were issued before I reached Washington. After receiving the letter, and willingly adopting the most favorable construction of its expressions, I resolved to remain in Washington until after Monday, when the message would go to the two houses. I listened to its reading in the Senate with pleasure, and can only refer to the newspapers for its contents, as no copies were printed and obtainable by me, before I left Washington, on Tuesday morning, the 29th instant. On Monday afternoon I bade my adieu to the President in the accompanying letters, marked No. 4, to which I received his reply, marked No. 3.

The morning newspapers contained the rumor that the proceeding had been adopted of mounting guns on the land side of Fortress Monroe, and in my letter I deemed it no way inappropriate to call the attention of the President to those rumors.

Thus has terminated my mission to the President under the legislative resolutions. I trust that the result of the Brooklyn's cruise may terminate peacably. No intimation was given me of her having sailed in either of my interviews with the President, and all connected with her destination remains to me a State secret. I had no right to require to be admitted into the inner vestibule of the Cabinet, however much I might complain should the results prove the errand of the ship from the first to have been belligerent and warlike.

I am, dear sir,

Respectfully and truly yours,

JOHN TYLER.

Governor LETCHER.

SOURCES: Journal of the Senate of the Commonwealth of Virginia Begun and Held at the Capitol in the City 0f Richmond, on Monday, the Seventh Day of January, in the Year One Thousand Eight Hundred and Sixty-One—Being The Eighty-Fifth Year Of The Commonwealth. Extra Session, Doc. No. 13, p. 5-7; Lyon Gardiner Tyler, The Letters and Times of the Tylers, Volume 2, p. 587-90

John Tyler to the Editor of the Richmond Daily Whig, published January 16, 1861

Views of Ex-President Tyler on the National Crisis.

To the Editor of the Whig:

I have been often urged to give my views to the public on the present great crisis of American affairs. I have abstained from doing so for reasons entirely satisfactory to myself—one of the most controlling of which was, that I could not regard with becoming composure the dissolution of that Confederacy in the service of which so great a portion of my life had been passed, and which I had been accustomed to contemplate in a spirit of the truest devotion. Nor did I believe that any thing that I could say would produce the slightest effect upon the public mind. My public life had long since terminated, and the shadow which, sooner or later, falls on all men, and shuts them out from sight had settled upon me. To the younger Athlete, who were in charge of the public trusts and enjoyed its confidence, I was well inclined to leave the task of adjusting existing difficulties, in the hope and trust that a Union so full of glories and so copious in blessings, would survive the trials which threaten it. In the meantime the high toned and gallant State of South Carolina, one of the Old Thirteen, has seen cause to withdraw from the Union, and it is said that her example is to be followed unless sectional differences are adjusted by the cotton States first, and sooner or later by all the slaveholding States. In view of this state of things, and seeing also that all efforts at adjustment have so far failed, I no longer withhold the expression of my opinions on the leading topics of the day.

The enquiry which presents itself, in advance of all others, is as to the effects which follow upon the withdrawal of so many states from the Union as those constituting an entire section of the country. In what condition does that withdrawal leave the remaining States and even the government itself? This enquiry is of the greatest interest and should therefore be made with all possible deliberation. It can do no less than resolve itself into the question as to the nature and character of the government itself. If it be a consolidated government, and the States merely its provinces, then those provinces or States or by whatever other name thy may be called, can make no resistance to its authority, however despotic, which would not be considered rebellious and treasonable. The States would occupy the same position, and none other, to the government of the United States, that each county or town occupies to the government of a state. The uprising of a county against the State would be unqualified rebellion and all concerned in it would be guilty of high treason. These are the inevitable results which arise out of a consolidated government. No matter what the magnitude of the evil complained of, no redress is left but out and out rebellion, and each and all engaged in such rebellion have entered into it with halters round their necks, to be used, unless the rebellion prove successful, by the consolidated government at its will and pleasure. It is idle, in this view of the question, to attempt to draw a distinction between a State in rebellion and any portion of the people of that State. The reasoning applies quite as forcibly to the whole community as to a part of it. No organized condition of the community can justify or excuse the revolt, and war may be made on all alike. Nor will it do to attempt a distinction between a Government like ours, where powers are granted and powers reserved, and an absolute despotism.—The same supreme domination would exist in the enforcement of the granted powers, as where nothing had been reserved and all given.—Whatever the obstruction interposed the authority would be given to remove it—if by individuals, they might be put to the sword—if by a State, it might be crushed. Is there no softening down the asperity of these conclusions? I am asked. I see no mode of doing so. Again, I may be asked, does not the constitution provide within itself some mode by which grievances, when too heavy to be borne, may be redressed? The Constitution professes to do so; but what chance is there of the remedies being available against an immovable sectional majority? Even now, an appeal to that mode of redress has been made in vain.—Every expedient has been resorted to, to obtain constitutional amendment in redress of grievances, through the action of Congress; but there stands that sectional majority, immovable or fixed, or only moving to make matters worse by suggestion the mere pretence of amendments which pass away in the moment of utterance.

No, if the Government be consolidated to the extent of the powers, it is supreme, and resistance to its mandates is treason. But, it is asked, cannot the Supreme Court, the sworn interpreter of the Constitution, give redress for violated rights? That august tribunal should ever be entitled to all respect; but in a sectional conflict, such as that which exists, its decisions, however solemnly delivered, carry no force along with them. Who, of the Northern sectional party, acknowledges the binding force of its decision recently pronounced in the Dred Scott case?—The venerable men who compose that Court, are of advanced age—as they drop off the state of actions. Mr. Lincoln will take care to supply their place, with men who would stand ready to reverse their decisions, and mock at them as of no binding authority. No, if the Government be a consolidated one, if its edicts, uttered by a sectional majority, are to be regarded as supreme, then those edicts are the decrees of fate, and submission of States and people is all that is left. From being considered the proudest and noblest structure of human liberty, it degenerates into the vilest instrument of tyranny and oppression. As indispensably necessary to arrive at the above conclusions as to the nature of the government, its advocates contend that it arose out of the popular will, and not from separate State action. It is only necessary to say that that position was entirely over-ruled, as long ago as 1800, by the decided voice of the American people, and only momentarily revived by Gen. Jackson’s proclamation, (a paper which contradicted all the expressed opinions of his previous and subsequent life,) avowedly written by one who still lingered among the ruins and fragments of antiquated ideas. It is contradicted by the name given the Government in baptism. The Federal Government it was called then, and as the Federal Government it is known to the world; and any dictionary will tell us that the name pertains only to a league—to a compact or political partnership among States. The Federal Legislature is known as a Congress, a term only used to indicate an assemblage of sovereigns; and that Federal Legislature is composed, especially in the Senate, of the representatives of the States equal in rights, and equal in power. There, the smallest State has a voice as potential as the largest. When the articles of confederation ceased to exist, they were succeeded by the present confederation—an improvement, as it was thought, upon the old one. But I abstain from going any further into this subject. I find the whole argument already perfected in the preamble to the resolutions recently adopted by thepeople of Botetourt, drawn by as clear a judicial intellect as is to be found either in the State of Virginia or out of it. In that preamble Judge Allen presents a synopsis of the history of the origin of our institutions, so briefly, yet so lucidly, as to have concluded the argument. It challenges an answer from any quarter. I wish it could be printed, and circulated until it was to be found in the hands of every man in the country.

The facts of history cannot be overcome, and those facts all bespeak the Confederative Republic, founded in a compact to which States were parties. No State thought, that in adopting it, it was imposing fetters upon its limbs, which, however galling, could never be broken. Some States, Virginia one of them, more cautions than the rest, accompanied their ratification with a declaration of the right to resume the powers granted for the peace of all and happiness of all, upon their being abused; and the pregnant fact that General Washington, the President of the General Convention, in his valedictory to the people, admonished them to avoid sectional divisions as the bane of the Union, bespeaks on his part a serious apprehension that the Union would fall asunder, not by any treasonable conduct on the part of his contrymen, surely, but the withdrawal of the States, legitimately and properly. Nor is there sufficient force to countervail the inductions drawn by Judge Allen in the Botetourt preamble, from the too great facility which would exist in overthrowing the Government. The right to secede should rather be regarded as a means of giving it perpetuity; as the acknowledged existence of such right would operate to restrain the conduct of majorities and officials. Secession would never be resorted to for the slight and insufficient causes, nor until after a long course of forbearance. Nothing is more difficult that to bring about a revolution or change of government. Take, in illustration, the calamity which is now impending over us. For thirty years some of the evils complained of by the South, have been existing, and have been increasing in magnitude, until they have culminated from abuse of the most rancorous kind, in Congress and out of Congress, in the pulpit and out of the pulpit, in short, everywhere, and in every conceivable shape, into a systematic sectional form and overruling organization. In the meantime, the Southern people have reasoned, expostulated and protested. So did they in the days preceding the revolution, but their expostulations had quite as well not have been uttered. So, in these latter days. In 1836, I remember to have received, through the Governor of the States of Virginia, a series of resolutions, which had been adopted by the Legislature, addressed to the Northern States, complaining of wrongs perpetrated towards her and her sisters of the South, by people of those States. I presented them, in due time, to the Senate; but, although those resolutions emanated from a State that had never inflicted intentional wrong on any co State, and which had laid down an empire as a rich offering on the alter of Union, they were wholly disregarded. So far from arresting the evils complained of, those evils have been continually increasing, until she and her sister States of the South are not only denounced in the most opprobrious terms, but participation in the benefits of the common territories are denied her and them, and the now-to-be-regarded as authoritative declarations is thundered in their ears, that an “irrepressible conflict” exists between the free and the slave States, which can only be quieted by “making all free, or all slave.” Can the bonds of that Union be so easily broken which have stood such assaults for so many years? Oh! no, there is no danger that any State will too promptly assert its rights and liberties, and privileges. The danger is the other way—the failure promptly to vindicate them may lead to their loss forever. In short, which is most to be desired, a government liable to no peaceful change, under the control of an arbitrary and despotic sectional majority, which proposes to accomplish, by an act of Congress, what others accomplish by sword, or one held in check by an efficient popular veto? The lover of justice and liberty can have no difficulty in deciding. Nor is there the least force in the arguments drawn from the case of the secession of a State recently acquired, either by purchase of conquest. If Texas, for example, seeks admission into the union, she does so to enjoy the blessings of its liberty in security, upon an equal footing with the original States. A few years only elapse, and, instead of equality, she finds herself, by a sectional majority, trampled upon, and in place of enjoying the equal privileges which lead her to desire annexation, she is put under ban along with the entire section to which she belongs. If she seceded singly, the Government might possible insist upon an enumeration for outlays and expenditures; but in justice, that would be all that should be done. Let the Southern States be treated as they were for the first half century of the existence of the Union, and, my life upon it, there would be no secession or talk of secession; nay, let the majority section furnish now sufficient guarantees—guarantees rendered more urgently necessary by reason of the out-spoken words of the leaders, and the danger which threatens our institutions will pass away, and a brighter and more propitious sun than we have yet seen will shine above the horizon. To deny such guarantees may serve very well to advance the wickedly ambitions purposes of political libertines, but augur to all others of us naught by the deepest woe. What then are the consequences resulting from the act of secession—first, to the seceding States—secondly, to the remaining States and Government?

1. Most assuredly it would be better that the full adjustment of the responsibilities to which each member of the political partnership is liable, as well as all the rights and interests of each resulting therefrom,  should be adjusted, prior to the act of separation. No State can justly avoid the assumption of its portion of the public debt, or of its fair share of all the responsibilities which have been contracted by the Government during its continuance in the Union; while, on the other hand, its title to its fair share in the public property, in whatever it may consist, would be equally clear. But as this cannot be done in the present state of Public opinion, the State can do no more that express its readiness fairly and honestly to act upon all its obligations. The act of withdrawal re-invests it with all the powers which it conferred on the agent. Government restores to it all the grants of land made by itself for public purposes; in a word, clothes it with all the powers and attributes and rights of sovereignty which can attach to a sovereign and independent power. Its trade and commerce are under its exclusive control, and revenues collected in its ports are subject to its own orders.

How would the remaining members and the Government itself be affected? If the union of States under a political compact may be likened to that of a mercantile partnership, the question would readily enough be answered. The withdrawal of a single member would break up the concern, and call for a settlement of all its affairs. If the remaining members chose to continue the business, it would be as a new firm, although they might still preserve the original name. The dissolution of the old firm would be quite as complete, although its re-establishment would not be so difficult, by the withdrawal of one member, as if dissolved by united consent. If it undertook to contract in the name of the old partnership, its efforts would be of no avail; if it drew a check on any bank, the check would not be honored. In a word, the functions of the association would have entirely—except so far as would be necessary to wind up the concern—ceased to exist. By a parity of reasoning, similar results would transpire in regard to the compact of Union. Sound policy would dictate to the remaining States an immediate re-construction of the Government. This might be done by tacit consent, or by more formal action, and only a moment of time might elapse between the dissolution of the old, and the re-establishment of the new, advancing from the secession of one member to that of all members of an entire section and still advancing to the secession or withdrawal of an additional number, until only one or two remained attached to the old order of things in a legal point of view. The case finds its illustration, not inaptly, in the establishment of the Constitution under which, thus far, we of the States that have not yet seceded, by tacit consent, since the withdrawal of South Carolina agree still to live. In that case this Constitution was adopted by eleven States, while North Carolina and Rhode Island rejected it, and clung to the old articles of confederation which has been declared perpetual, in plain and unmistakable characters upon its face.

No one doubts but that North Carolina and Rhode Island might have continued the perpetual Union established, or more properly proclaimed, by that first compact; and that they had just cause to complain of the co States for having dissolved it without their consent. But we are enquiring into legal rights and responsibilities of seceding and non seceding members. What if North Carolina and Rhode Island had set up a claim to the Government and all its appendages? What if they had gone on with Congress, established the Treasury board, called upon the eleven seceding States to pay up their installments as required under the perpetual articles of Confederation, which were not to be altered but by unanimous consent; and if disobeyed, had issued their orders to the army, and navy to seize upon the forts and attack those towns and cities of the rebellious seceders—what would the anti-secessionists of this day have said of it?—Would the soldiers have manned the forts?—Would the officers of the navy have laid in ashes the cities? If the non secession of two States could not preserve the Government of the first Constitution, what number is necessary to preserve that Constitution which was engrafted on it? Will a majority do so?—and why? Less than a majority would scarcely attempt it; and why not as well as a majority, in point of right? The secession of one State paralyses the finances—what will that of eight do? What of fifteen, with the sure prospect of other changes threatened and in embryo?—What capitalists will make venture of the earnings of a life-time in so rickety a concern? A re-constructed Confederation, based on ample guarantees, would, on the contrary, command public confidence after being one in motion.—The best way is for these who have the power to act like rational men, and to resolve that the Constitution shall be carried out in good faith; that the emissaries from Exeter Hall, and their confreres in the United States shall be silenced and justice be done to all, and equality be measured out to all. No American citizen but should feel indignant at this insolent interference of Englishmen in our affairs.—If the scheme of Southern emancipation is to be concocted, if a new constitution is to be formed for the South it must be drawn upon foreign soil. If a raid takes place in Virginia, under a lunatic leader, an Englishman, in some way or other must have his hand in it. I submit to the people of the North, whether they have so far parted with all their Americanism, as to tolerate such interference with their unoffending brethren? But I return to the train of my reflections.

It is to be regretted that there should exist so great an instability of public opinion, in regard to the origin and character of the government. If, for example, Massachusetts as in the time of non-intercourse and embargo, or at a still later period, when Texas annexation was the leading topic of the day—take umbrage at the proceeding—no state evinces more fiery zeal in favor of the idea of a Federal league.—She hesitates not to take the strongest position in regard to her own sovereignty. In the case of Texas she set the example of action secession—not by proclamation, it is true, issued by a convention of her people; but by legislative resolution, which announced, as a fact accomplished, her withdrawal from the Union. In the event of the consummation of that measure. Now she is so full of indignation at the withdrawal of South Carolina, if the newspapers speak truly, that she is overflowing with passion, and promises to contribute from 7,000 to 100,000 men to punish South Carolina, for having follower her own example. It is high time that Judge Allen’s preamble should be in the hands of the people. Today it is your bull that gores my ox—to-morrow the thing is reversed. Conquer the south! Suppose such as thing accomplished, and the Northern States invested with supreme rule. What great good will they have achieved for themselves? Instead of looking with delight on fields under industrious culture—on a country teaming with abundance—on ships freighted with the rich productions which regulated the exchanges of the world, and pour into the Northern lap almost fabulous wealth—they would gaze only on burning embers and smoking columns—and the wreaths which would encircle their brows would not be the evergreens that patriot heroes wear, but parched and withered leaves which would burn into their brains. All this, too, would have had its origin in a busy-bodiness—an interference with those people’s affairs which, in private or public life, never fails to produce disturbance and ill-will. If Virginia undertook to control and regulate the domestic affairs of Massachusetts, a day would not pass before the thunders, as in the days of yore, would begin to roll and the lightnings to flash from Faneuil Hall. Can Massachusetts expect anything less from Virginia? Let the states adopt the truly wise rule of attending to their own business and letting their neighbors alone—of fulfilling all their political obligations, and of doing equal justice to all their compeers—and future generations will rise up and call them blessed. Did it ever enter into the head of any man who voted for the adoption of the Constitution that one section of the country would assume the task of supervisors over the laws and morals of another? and, its domestic institutions being precisely the same as when the compact of Union was entered into, that a later day the dominant section would make them the pretext for excluding the minority of section from an equal participation in the Territories which might at any time be acquired? Pretty business, truly, that the men of this day shall esteem themselves more moral than their father; that Seward should be set up as a purer and better man than George Washington, and that Mr. Lincoln would be regarded as the only truly immaculate President of the U. States.

It would, indeed, be a retrograde movement if any State should be constrained by force to remain in a Union which it abhorred. In this matter, one might take a lesson from what is passing in the world. Italy, after the enthrallment of ages, is admitted to the ballot box, and her States claim and exercise the privilege of selecting the condition of their own future. And, while this is passing and that, too, with the approbation of all Europe, we are to take a step backward into the dark ages, and carry into practice the exploded doctrine of absolutism in Government. If we cannot live together, let us part in peace. By doing so we shall at least save something of the old feeling. It is true, the South will be under the necessity of adopting a rigid system of passports and police, which may prevent the perfect freedom of intercourse which, except in notorious cases now exists. But that is no more than other countries have to do, and is entirely protective in its character without being hostile. If necessary, a treaty, offensive and defensive, may be received, and much that now exists may be preserved. Pursue a different course, and all may be lost. Strange, indeed that odious discriminations should be drawn between equals in a common concern. Such was my opinion in 1820, in the discussion on the Missouri question, and such will it ever remain. The talented editors of the “National Intelligencer,” gave me an enviable position in certain able articles, written by them in the Summer of Fall of 1859. They speak of me as being the only member of Congress, at that day, who in debate, denied to Congress the right to prohibit slavery in the Territories. I stood there then, and I stand there now, not as in my early life alone in debate—but now in my age, sustained as I believe, by the concurrent opinions of a majority of the people of the United States, and leaning on the decision of the Supreme Court as on a staff which no rage of faction can weaken, no convulsion, however serious, can break. Could the able editors have deciphered the thoughts of my inmost heart, they would have found me opposed to congressional interference in this behalf with the Territories, for other reasons. Even passing over the impolicy of such interference, it was in its best view useless, God’s own law of climate had regulated the matter; and let the children of earthly wisdom act as they may. It will still continue to do it. The man who would talk of cultivating the rice and cotton fields, and sugar plantations of the South with free labor, denies to himself the light of observation and experience. Look to the West India Islands—no part of the Globe makes a louder outcry for labor, or offers higher wages than they do, and yet the tide of immigration from Europe sweeps by them in a vast current, which is arrested in its course only by a more Northern and healthy clime. Asia and Africa have to be resorted to for laborers, while the Caucasian of Europe flees as from a pestilence, the rays of a burning sun, and becomes the cultivator of the cereals, or turns to herdsman amid the snows of the North. There is but one element that can change, and that but to a limited degree, this law of climate, and that is the price of labor. I need not, therefore draw the picture of what would be the condition of the slave States, looking to the regular increase of the black population in forty years, under the edict formally announced by the leaders of the Northern dominant party of “no more slave States!” It cannot be contemplated by any Southern man with absolute composure.

I will not despair of the good sense of my countrymen. The hope will linger with me to the last that there is enough wisdom and patriotism among us to adjust these difficulties, although I frankly confess my doubts and fears. The minority States can do but little more than suggest—the majority States hold in their hands the fate of the Union. I would by no means, have Virginia to linger by the wayside. On the Contrary, I would have her prompt and decisive in her action—she cannot be too prompt or decisive. Before her Convention can meet full developments of one sort or the other will have been made. She should place herself in position—her destiny, for good or for ill, is with the South. She was the flagship of the Revolution; and borrowing an expression from a recent production of one of her most gifted sons, she should have “Springs upon her cables and her broad-side to.”

If I may be permitted to make a suggestion, it would be, that the Legislature, without delay, and without the interference with its call of convention, might inaugurate a meeting of the border States of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri, slave states; and New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Iowa, free States, through two Commissioners from each, to arrange, if possible, a programme of adjustment, to be submitted to the other States as conclusive of the whole matter.

Should they agree, I think their recommendation would be followed by the other States, and incorporated into the Constitution and placed on the footing of an unalterable compact. Surely no States can be more deeply interested in the work of restoring the country to quiet and harmony. If they cannot agree, then it may safely be concluded that the restoration of peace and concord has become impossible. I would have an early day appointed for the meeting of the commissioners; so that Virginia, when she holds her convention, may be in full possession of the result.

Even if a failure to agree should occur, I would still have the Southern States, as a dernier resort, upon assembling in Convention, and after having incorporated in the present Constitution, guarantees going not one iota beyond that strict justice and the security of the South requires, adopt the Constitution of the United States as it now is, and give a broad invitation to the other States to enter our Union with the old flag flying over one and all. When this is done, I would say, in conclusion, to all my countrymen, rally back to the Constitution, thus invigorated and strengthened; and let there, for all time to come, be written on every heart, as a motto—that under all circumstances, and every condition of things, there is but one post of safety, and that is to stand by the Constitution.

JOHN TYLER.

SOURCES: “Views of Ex-President Tyler on the National Crisis,” Richmond Daily Whig, Richmond,  Virginia, Wednesday Morning, January 16, 1861, p. 1. This letter was also published under the title “Letter From Ex-President Tyler,” Richmond Enquirer, Richmond, Virginia, Friday, January 18, 1861, p. 1

Charles Sumner to William Jay, March 18, 1850

In this moment of discomfiture I turn to you. I am sick at heart as I think of the treason of our public men. Freedom is forgotten in the miserable competition of party and in the schemes of an ignorant ambition. Webster has placed himself in the dark list of apostates. He reminds me very much of Strafford, or of the archangel ruined. In other moods, I might call him Judas Iscariot, or Benedict Arnold. John Quincy Adams, as he lay in his bed in Boston after he was struck with that paralysis which closed his days at Washington, expressed to me a longing to make one more speech in Congress in order to give his final opinions on slavery, and particularly (I now give his own words) “to expose the great fallacy of Mr. Daniel Webster, who is perpetually talking about the Constitution, while he is indifferent to freedom and those great interests which the Constitution was established to preserve.” Alas! that speech was never made. But the work ought to be done. Blow seems to follow blow. There was Clay's barbarous effort, then Winthrop's malignant attack,¹ and now comes Webster's elaborate treason. What shall we do? But I have unbounded faith in God and in the future. I know we shall succeed. But what shall we do?

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¹ Speech in the House, Feb. 21, 1850.

SOURCE: Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. 3, p. 213

George M. Dallas to Senator Daniel S. Dickinson, March 1, 1850

MY DEAR SIR—The Union of yesterday, which I received this morning, contains a letter addressed to yourself and me, dated as of the 15th ult. It is signed "John Hampden," a name over which I have heretofore seen several good articles, but by whom it is employed I can form no conjecture.

I am quite sure that as the actual and admirable senator of a great commonwealth, you have already fronted the crisis as became you, and that you will retain the ground you have occupied. But I am at a loss to conceive in what manner it is supposed possible for the late Vice-President usefully to emerge from his privacy, affect to advise Congress, or officiously intermeddle with business already in deputed and able hands. Would not such intervention expose me to plausible and unpleasant imputations, and so affect injuriously the very cause I should desire to aid?

Certainly I have nothing to conceal. Content with the measure of domestic happiness which God permits me to possess, and quite willing to work to the last at the law, I do not care to hide my opinions on public questions. They were frequently uttered in the hearing of thousands while position as a national executive agent made it excusable, if not becoming to do so. The extraordinary circumstances of the times have slightly modified these opinions, and the irrepressible bias of my head and heart, toward preserving the Federal Union, as moulded and embodied (if that word be admissible) by the Constitution, carries me further just now, than mere logic carried me heretofore. But I must confess to you that however much I may naturally fondle my own views and sentiments, I shrink from openly claiming to divert attention from the really wise and virtuous men in the capital, toward a mere Q in the corner.

I have written this under a strong impulse of curiosity to know whether the letter in the Union is but an ordinary flight of anonymous vivacity, or is designed as a serious and sober hint to us from any quarter. Pray let me have your idea: and excuse this hasty intrusion on your time.

I am always, very sincerely and respectfully, your friend and servant,

G. M. DALLAS.

March 1, 1850.

SOURCE: John R. Dickinson, Editor, Speeches, Correspondence, Etc., of the Late Daniel S. Dickinson of New York, Vol. 2, p. 424

Judge Greene C. Bronson to Senator Daniel S. Dickinson, March 1, 1850

ALBANY, March 4, 1850.

DEAR SIR—I thank you for a pamphlet copy of your speech upon the resolutions of Mr. Clemens. I had read it with great satisfaction in the newspaper, and am glad to have it in a form which will permit of its preservation among my bound pamphlets.

Although my place and pursuits have separated me in a great degree from the political conflicts of the day, I had occasion long ago to say, that the Wilmot Proviso could do no good, and might do harm. That opinion remains unchanged; and notwithstanding all the noise made by politicians, newspapers and legislative Resolves, it will soon be, if it is not now, the sentiment of the mass of the people. They will stand by the Union, and by the Constitution.

I am, yours truly,

GREENE C. BRONSON.

SOURCE: John R. Dickinson, Editor, Speeches, Correspondence, Etc., of the Late Daniel S. Dickinson of New York, Vol. 2, p. 425

Richard K. Crallé to Senator Robert M. T. Hunter, March 23, 1850

March 23, 1850.

MY DEAR SIR: Since we parted I have run the subject of our conversation through my mind, with some anxiety to reach a just conclusion. I said, perhaps the word should be, prophesied when you first took your seat in the Legislature, and before I knew you personally, that you were destined to become the most influential man in the State. This, I have repeated a thousand times since in public; and no man likes to be proved a false Prophet. So that, as the matter concerns me particularly, you will excuse my freedom of speech.

As to the general line of your proposed argument I feel no difficulty. The constitution, the just rights, and the honor of Virginia mark this deeply and broadly. We cannot surrender an inch South of 36 degrees. It would amount to absolute submission.

The rank and file of neither of the two great Parties in the State are prepared for this; and if they were, no high-minded man can concur with them. Next to this, we must hold the States responsible for the delivery of our fugitive slaves. The compact was made with them, Congress is only their joint agent. For this we must hold them bound in the first place, and for two reasons. Such is the compact, and substitute of Congress must be unavailing, without their concurrence. No act, whatever be its provisions, can be carried into execution against the popular consent; and the effort will but "film the ulcerous sore." This contest must be between the States themselves; and it ought to be waged with zeal and determination. I care not to rule in the aid of Congress, it must be ineffectual, and can only serve to postpone the issues which must finally come to be tried between the States themselves. What power has Congress to enforce the execution of its acts in this respect? None whatever.

Next, we have a right to demand that this agitation shall cease in the Common Halls of Legislation. This is the cancer that is eating into our vitals. We are daily paying for abolition appeals out of the common treasury. Take strong grounds against this. The right of petition, has nothing to do with the subject; and they who urge it know it well.

These are the main points. I have urged them years ago, and time only confirms me in the belief that we cannot safely yield an inch on them. I have spoken to no man on the subject. They are the oft printed conclusions of my own judgment.

As to the general tone of your argument, it cannot well be too high, so that it be announced in moderate but firm language. The present is a peculiar juncture; and its certain results will be to make or mar many fortunes. A truly great mind cannot fail to make itself to be felt. The issue is clearly submission or a stern maintenance of right, and in this instance right involves security. All temporary expedients must fail, and their failure will involve the ruin of many. My well considered opinion is, that, on the points mentioned we cannot yield any ground, no, not an inch. As to Mr. C[alhoun]'s view in respect to an amendment of the Constitution, that might be passed over. It goes rather to the philosophy of our system, than to its present practical operation which has thrown up the present issues. These last are the urgent issues; and we must deal with them as they are, and by themselves.

As to the matters, which may be regarded as extraneous, yet bearing strongly on the issues themselves, it is, in my view of the highest importance to sustain the Southern Convention, as a means of preserving the Union. In this view it has not been sufficiently pressed. Such only can be its legitimate purpose, and in that view no Southern man ought to object to it. As a deliberative, a consultation body, its expediency is called for by the highest consideration.

In respect to the matter we discussed in the Committee room on yesterday, would it not be advisable for you or Mr. D. casually to speak to the gentleman we referred to? Something useful might come out of it, while no evil can so far as I see. Keep the name of the gentleman South entirely to yourself.

It is after midnight, and I will tire your patience no further. I write in great haste, and conclude with this admonition, "Stand up for old Virginia at all hazards, whose cause is just, and leave the consequences to God."

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. 106-8

William O. Goode* to Senator Robert M. T. Hunter, March 29, 1850

BOYDTON, [VA.], March 29, 1850.

DEAR HUNTER: I write to impose a little labour upon you, or rather I should say, trouble, but not more, than under a change of circumstances, I would cheerfully encounter for you. You know, I file and preserve in the form of a Book, Speeches, which well discuss, great political topics before Congress. I have procured a pamphlet copy of your very fine speech on the Austrian question. I thank you for delivering that speech. I wish you would send me, pamphlet copies of the speeches of Mr. Berrien and Mr. Webster, on the Slavery Question. And I should like to have a copy of Sewards Speech, if you think you can send it, without violating the Law against the circulation of incendiary publications; and even if you dread to encounter such a penalty, I promise not to inform against you, as I really want the speech, to enable me to contemplate the whole extent of this fearful subject.

If I were in Washington at this time, I would do what I never have done. I would call on Daniel Webster to pay him my respects. I know very well, he would regard it as a matter of the utmost insignificance even if he thought of it at all, but I would do so for my own gratification. I feel for him now, a higher respect than I ever did before, and more than I thought I could cherish for the greatest, the ablest, the most dangerous advocate, of the broadest construction of our Federative Compact—the Con[stitution] of U[nited] S[tates]—a Compact, which he calls Government, Government, invested with the highest attributes of Sovereignty, and for which, he challenges my highest allegiance. But it appears to me that this Slavery Speech, has established a claim to my gratitude. It could only have originated in a patriotic heart. It could only have been expressed by a generous mind. If we except, every thing which refers to California, and the allusion to the appropriation of Federal Money, to the deportation of Free Blacks (which he designed as a liberal concession) I should be happy to have carried out, the eloquent suggestions, of his eloquent discourse.

I sincerely hope, there may be speedily evinced at the North, a determined purpose of adopting and acting out these suggestions. Such a manifestation would be hailed with general joy at the South. So far as I have been able to observe and to form a conjecture of public sentiment, there is an obvious reluctance to take the initiative, but yet a firm, determined fixed purpose, to defend and maintain our social rights, and our political equality. It would be a fatal error on the part of the North, to mistake prudence and caution, for doubt and timidity. They may rely upon it, the subject has been painfully considered, and the decision unalterably made. If the North shall fail to exhibit a spirit of Moderation and pacification, before the Nashville Convention shall be holden, no human sagacity can foresee the consequences. That body will consist of men, for the most part anxious to preserve the Union, but firmly resolved to save the South. The safety of the South is the leading, the prevailing object, and the predominant idea. In the examination of their perils, and the consideration of their wrongs, the most temperate debate will glow with animation, and moderation itself, will kindle into rage. Who shall control their conclusions, or give law to their acts? Whatever their action may be, unless marked by tameness, it will be sustained by the Southern mind. In the beginning, there may be some diversity, but it will soon come to pass, that, contending Parties will vie with each other, and contest the supremacy of acrimony against the North. We will turn from the contemplation of this melancholy condition of things. With a heart all Southern, and a mind, painfully impressed, by the cruel wrong already suffered, and the flagilous outrage held in reserve; with a resolution immutably fixed, I yet pray the Genius of Webster may prevail, to save the Union, and give peace and harmony to the Land.

I must rely on your generosity to protect me against the charge of presumption, in venturing to allude to such a topic.

Present me affectionately to Mason. I thank him for the many public documents which he has sent me. Tell him, I claim as a matter of right, a copy of every speech, made by you or himself, in the Senate, and which shall reach the pamphlet edition.

I pray you to offer to Mr. Calhoun, assurances of my highest respect and kindest regard. I devoured his late Speech and thank him for the copy he sent me. I called a few days since on an old friend, a cankered Hunker, who, in dispite of the kindest relations between us, has perversely persecuted me through life, as a Nullifier Disunionist and Worshiper of John C. Calhoun. He met me with the exclamation "I acknowledge Mr. Calhoun is the greatest man now living. He has made it all as plain as day, why did we not see it before?"

This cankered Hunker is prepared to rush to any extreme. What is the madness of the North. I beg your pardon, Hunter. I know you rarely read more than one paragraph in a letter. You note that a bore if it contain three lines. You will read the last of this as it mentions our illustrious friend.

[P. S.] Can you spare time to write me, what you all wish us all to do. Snow 5 Inches on 28 March.

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* A State rights Democrat and a Representative from Virginia in Congress, 1841-1843, 1853-1859.

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. 108-10