Columbus [ga.], 23d Feby., 1848.
Dear Howell,
You ask me to write you soon and fully my views of Cass's letter and
Dickinson's resolution. I have had so much to do lately that I could not
attempt an answer until now, although your letter of the 3d inst., has been on
hand for a fortnight. What you require of me involves, I think, my opinion as
to the course which ought to be pursued by the democatic party to secure the
next Presidency. On a question of such magnitude I am not prepared to speak
with confidence; and yet upon your invitation . . . I will venture a suggestion
or two.
First then, I do not object to Mr. Dickinson's resolutions.
Still I must say that they are not precisely the thing according to my
notion of what the exigency demands. The sins are chiefly sins of omission. The
resolutions do not declare what principle ought to govern in the interval between
the time of acquiring territory and the time at which the people thereof may
choose to settle those “questions of domestic policy”, which it is left to them
to settle.
Again, they very indistinctly, if at all, condemn the principle
of the Wilmot proviso. If I am not mistaken in that principle, it is that Congress
may prohibit slavery in acquired territory as long as it remains
territory. Now, Mr. D's resolutions say no more than that Congress cannot
do anything inconsistent with the right of the people of the territories to
form themselves into States equally sovereign with the old states. The W.
Proviso principle is not inconsistent with this right. That which it is
inconsistent with is the right of the people of the territories to hold slaves
therein if Congress forbids.
Once more, no general principle is announced by the
resolutions upon the question of the quantity of territory we ought to require
from Mexico in a treaty of peace. Perhaps these omissions are merits, but I
venture to think not, and more audacious still, to send you what I deem the
remedy in three resolutions, or rather two, ac companying this. The first is new, the second, one of
Mr. D's unchanged, and the third is the other of his with some additions
important but not in my opinion affecting the abstract principle on which the
resolution rests.
Why these alterations? Let us consider for a moment the
strength of the two parties in a sectional point of view. We see the Whig
majorities, both certain and expected, chiefly in the free states, the
Democratic in the slave. We see also already organized in some of the important
free states a third party having naturally more sympathy with the Whigs than
with the Democrats, and in the other free states no inconsiderable amount of
the same third party in the state of raw material. If we add together the votes
of the certain free Whig states, 51, and of those in which the abolitionists
are supposed by the Whigs to have a casting vote, viz, N. Y. 36, Pa. 26, Ind.
12, Me. 9, N. H. 6, we shall have 51 plus 84 equals 135. Now even allowing for
Wisconsin, 143 elects, so that those free states with either Ky. 12, N. C. 11,
or Mo. 8, may dictate their man. We see too in New York strong symptoms of this
abolition element becoming truly formidable, and in Pa. we distrust somewhat—a
very little—the ability of the new soldiers under the banner of free trade to
resist the temptation which the enemy will assuredly offer them in the
resurrection of the Act of 1842. Further, we behold the Whigs in their
conventions, legislatures and public meetings North already adopting the Wilmot
Proviso, and on the other hand the Democrats generally ejecting the “perilous
stuff” from their stomachs, as witness the letters and speeches of Buchanan,
Dallas, Cass, etc., Dickinson's resolutions, and the general tone of the press.
Seeing all this and much more of the same sort, are we not obliged to infer as
a thing accomplished, 1st: That the Whigs intend to bid for Abolition
bodaciously? And 2d: That they can afford to bid higher for it than can
the Democrats, supposing the latter base enough to enter the lists? And are we
not bound also to admit that true policy demands of the Democrats to endeavor
to counteract the effect of the fusion of the two factions into one? Can this
be done at all except by looking to the slave states?
If, however, we carry the slave states, we have but 117
votes. It won't do, then, to hazard the loss of much of our strength in
the free states. The problem is to gain South and not lose North. It is the aim
of the resolutions which I send you to solve it.
First then, I say that the Whigs reckon without their host
when they count upon absorbing abolition, because they will nominate either
Clay or Taylor; and the abolitionists, the honestly mad ones, will die at the
stake before they will vote for the reprobate who dares say in word or deed
that man may hold property in man— may traffic and trade in human
flesh—particularly when his opponent will be a non-slaveholder and a patriot
competent to utter any amount of innocent but "moral and religious
sentiment" against the “peculiar institution.” What says 1844? Has Mr.
Clay set his negroes free since? And Genl. Taylor, a sugar planter, on the
poisonous banks of the Mississippi; he is in a much worse predicament, beyond
the reach of any fable in Æsop,
because by his avowed innocence of all knowledge of political questions and by
his self-imposed inexorable taciturnity he will not be able even to tell the
abolitionists so much as that he believes slavery to be a great moral and
political evil.
But suppose this eccentric faction shedding from its humid
hair pestilence upon the nations shall, contrary to the best founded
expectations, flying from its orb, sink into the sun of Whiggery. Console
yourself because you could not by any possibility prevent it, and
because all will not be lost. Democracy will have over-balancing accessions
from other sources. The last four years have been fruitful in the product of
every good thing, including voters, both indigenous and naturalized. It is not
extravagant, I think, for our party to reckon upon two thirds of the former and
nine tenths of the latter. Why there are but three modes, or rather two and a
half, suggested for conducting the war — to fight, to tax, and to take — which
is one; to back clean out of a conquered country, telling the cutthroats that
we were unrighteously, unconstitutionally, and damnably there from the first,
which is two — to back partly out to an unnamed line, going we only know from
ocean to ocean, across the continent where it is all desert and mountain, and
there to fight to the very death, provided always that any enemy should dare
come up and knock a chip off of Jonathan's head — which is half a one. Now,
will any but the old fools (of all fools the worst you know) take up with the
second or third of these plans? The young have no more sense than to believe
that war is war—blood, chains, gold, territory, and no more “sentiment” than to
smite, to rivet, to sieze, and to annex. They feel that woe to the vanquished
is weal to the victor. We may call these young fellows ours. How many are
there? The New York Herald says 800,000 — two thirds of that number are
530,000, half of which 260.000 would be the excess in our favor. Of them 160 or
170 thousand are in the free states. Then the naturalized vote must be quite
large. Again, how Democratic the Army is becoming, even the regulars. Every
letter from it will be a personal appeal to father, brother, friends, to put
down those who give aid and comfort to the enemy. Above all, our annexation
policy must bring recruits from all classes and quarters. All this being so,
are we not able to despise the nauseous compound?
How, then, are we to “gain South”? I say by the principle
contained in the last clause of the third of the resolutions, declaring that
citizens of the slave states may settle with their slaves in the acquired territory
until such time as the people thereof see fit to forbid it by
legislation. The adoption of this will not carry a single slave into such
territory, not one, but it will carry many a vote into the ballot box. Mere
barren option, never to be availed of tho' it is, still the candidate who
refused it could not at the South in a contest with one who conceded it
stand a fire of blank cartridges. What Hotspur felt is nature:
I'd give thrice as
much land to any well deserving friend.
But in the way of Bargain
I'd cavil on the ninth part of a hair.
But won't its adoption do us more harm at the North than
even so much good as this at the South can outweigh? It is not possible.
Remember how far Dickinson's untouched resolutions go. These say “it is best”
(mind you only expediency) to leave questions of domestic policy, that is
whether there shall or shall not be slavery, to the people of the territory. So
then it is best to let the people there make it a slave territory if
they will. Going thus far will not damage us, it is agreed. Why? Because
the good sense of the people North sees that such a permission is a mere
vanity. Like laying duties upon cotton — or coal at Newcastle. Now how much
further does my amendment go? It only affirms that it is best (expediency too)
on many momentous accounts to permit the citizens of all the states to
have an equal right of removal into the acquired territory and of holding there
as property whatever they held as such where they came from. It does not affirm
that such “citizens” have a right to do this or that Congress has not
the right to forbid it. The constitutional question, so difficult, such
a tool of death in the hands of madmen whether at the North or the South, is
honorably and fairly got rid of, as indeed it is in Dickinson's original
resolution to the extent to which it goes. For the most that can be made out of
the expression “by leaving”, “by permitting” is that it is doubtful whether
Congress has power on this subject “to bind and to loose” and therefore that it
ought not to interfere to do either. Now, if the reasons assigned by Buchanan,
Cass, etc., are sufficient to prove the harmlessness of leaving the question of
slavery to the people of the territory, they are equally sufficient to prove
the harmlessness of permitting all citizens to remove into the territory with
their slaves and there to hold them in bondage. Those reasons amount to this,
that the interest of slaveholders will prevent them from wishing to
cross the Rio Bravo with their slaves, and so of course the people to pass the
laws on the subject to slavery, being all non-slaveholders, will prohibit it.
Why is it the interest of the slaveholder to keep away? On account of
incompatibility of soil, climate, productions, danger of loss by facilities for
escape, and on account of the region being now by the laws of Mexico free.
Every one of these reasons will still affect the interest of the slaveholder to
the same extent if my amendment should be adopted. It may be said that one of
those reasons, viz: that drawn from the fact that the territory is now by law
free and a slave going there would become free on touching the soil, would not
apply if slave owners were “permitted” to take their slaves and hold
them as such in the territory. Practically it is all the same. I submit that a
prudent slaveholder will be as shy of putting himself and his slaves in the
power of Mexican laws to be made, as of those already made. Very well.
The good sense of Northern Democracy can as easily see this as the other. and
the prospect of carrying Ky., N. C., and Md., with the principle, and of
losing S. C. and all that she can influence, without it, will make the scales
fall from their eyes in a trice. One thing is never to be forgotten, that
committed as the party is, it cannot in its wildest dreams hope for the vote of
an abolitionist, and further, that the action of the abolitionists as a party
as to keeping embodied or subsiding into Whiggery will depend upon what the
Whigs do and not upon anything that we can do, unless we undo all that
we have done. In such a case ought we not to follow the dictates of ordinary
prudence?
If the war continues we ought to proclaim some such
principle as that embodied in the first resolution. If we elect our man with
that as one of bur battle cries, be sure Mexico won't waste minutes before she
will come with a decent proposition for peace. And I think the sooner the thing
is done the better. Let it have time [to] feel its way into grace and favor and
for the Whigs to commit themselves against it. However, as to “grace and favor”,
there is no fear that it will need friends. True, we shall continue to hear the
dog-in-the-manger growl of the Charleston Mercury. He has been so long only
showing his teeth that we have come to believe that is all they were made for.
All North it will out run the Cholera, as Prince John said to Jesse.1
Bye the bye, I have just seen the N. Y. Herald's account of the Utica
convention. The address is able, not so well written as that of the Albany
convention. There is one good thing in it, the declaration that they don't make
W. Provisoism a test, a sine qua non. This being so, it has
occurred to me that our Baltimore convention could not by any possibility have
evidence enough presented to it to decide which to admit, Hunkers or
Barnburners, nor the heart to risk making martyrs of the innocent, to
the triumph of the guilty, and that therefore it would be obliged as a matter
of sheer conscience not to be at home to New York but still to do a good part
by her all the same as if she were admitted inside. That is, nominate some man
staunch, staunch as Chimborazo, on all the test questions, the sine
qua nons, so that both divisions of the democracy may be gratified. Howell,
I am death for Equity. Now, equality is equity. By presenting such a candidate
the two wings will “spread” themselves in rivalry to speed the common body.
What do you think of this. Bright, ain't it.
Well, this is the hand which I want to deal you at
Baltimore. I am bound to say that there are some good cards in it. And anybody
can play it. Genl. Cass is a good old man, Dallas is a gentleman, Buchanan is
touched with the tariff, a man of vigor, tho’, very great, sufficient doubtless
to bear letting that drop out of his veins. I care not so much for the player
as the cards.
Yes, the grand thing for success is harmony, unanimity in
the principles and measures to be sent before the country in the address and
resolutions respecting the war question and the territory question, chiefly the
last. You Democrats in the House have nothing to do, being a minority, except
to ascertain this common ground, compare notes, yield a little, and it will be
yielded unto you. Keep the slavery question out of the way of any public
discussion in the convention. What the convention does ought to be done without
delay, without fuss, with perfect unity and perfect unanimity. Let its work
instantly spring forth complete in every part, like Minerva from the head of
Jupiter. If there is a will there is a way. There are Democrats in Congress
from nearly every State, and what they can all agree upon be sure they can get
their several state delegations to Baltimore to agree upon. And then, out of
abundance of caution, let one member of Congress, if possible, from each state
go down to Baltimore as a lobby member, an organ of assimilation. You know we
shall all be strangers to one another. Why can't we organize victory. I see I
have written reams. It shows at least that I take interest in the cause and
that I am disposed to accomplish the object of your letter, that is (ain't it?)
to enable you fellows at Washington to find out which way the wind blows. Write
to me again. Speak out. Condemn what I have proposed if it ought to be done, tell
me what's better — above all tell me the probable “platform” as well as the
man. Dix and Shunk I forgot about. Either will do well, so far as I am at
present advised.
P. S. — Tell Iverson I will answer his in a day or two, and
show him this. I don't care who sees it.
Send me the address and resolutions of our last convention
at Baltimore, if you can do it easily.
[Resolutions enclosed with the foregoing.]
Resolved: That the United States have the
intelligence and the virtue and the power to administer with safety, with
justice and with equity any quantity of territory which they may honorably
acquire from any foreign nation.
Resolved: That true policy requires the government of
the United States to strengthen its political and commercial relations upon
this continent by the annexation of such continuous territory as may conduce to
that end and can be justly obtained, and that neither in such acquisition nor
in the territorial organization thereof can any conditions be constitutionally
Imposed or institutions be provided for or established inconsistent with the
right of the people thereof to form a free sovereign state with the powers and
privileges of the original members of the confederacy.
Resolved: That in organizing a territorial government
for territory acquired by common blood and common treasure, and conferring in
its achievement common glory, the principles of self government will be best
promoted, the spirit and meaning of the Constitution best observed, the
sentiments of justice of equality and of magnanimity best consulted, the self
sacrificing love for the Union best maintained and strengthened, and the
shining examples of mutual forbearance and compromise set us by our fathers in
every dark day of our past career best emulated, by leaving all questions which
concern the Domestic policy of such territory to the unrestrained Legislation
of the people thereof, and until such legislation forbid, by permitting the
citizens of every state to settle therein and to hold as property there
whatever they may have held as property in the states from which they came.
_______________
* A lawyer of Columbus, Ga., previously a college chum of
Howell Cobb's, and always a keen student of public affairs; associate-justice
of the supreme court of Georgia, 18531861; brigadier-general in the Confederate
army.
1”Prince John” Van Buren, to Jesse Hoyt.
SOURCE: Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, Editor, The Annual
Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1911, Volume 2: The
Correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens, and Howell Cobb, p.
97-103
