American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) by Various

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Sir, I hear there is to be a convention held at Nashville. I am bound to
believe that if worthy gentlemen meet at Nashville in convention, their
object will be to adopt conciliatory counsels; to advise the South to
forbearance and moderation, and to advise the North to forbearance and
moderation; and to inculcate principles of brotherly love and affection,
and attachment to the Constitution of the country as it now is. I
believe, if the convention meet at all, it will be for this purpose; for
certainly, if they meet for any purpose hostile to the Union, they have
been singularly inappropriate in their selection of a place. I remember,
sir, that, when the treaty of Amiens was concluded between France and
England, a sturdy Englishman and a distinguished orator, who regarded
the conditions of the peace as ignominious to England, said in the House
of Commons, that if King William could know the terms of that treaty, he
would turn in his coffin! Let me commend this saying to Mr. Windham, in
all its emphasis and in all its force, to any persons who shall meet at
Nashville for the purpose of concerting measures for the overthrow of
this Union over the bones of Andrew Jackson. * * *

And now, Mr. President, instead of speaking of the possibility or
utility of secession, instead of dwelling in those caverns of darkness,
instead of groping with those ideas so full of all that is horrid and
horrible, let us come out into the light of the day; let us enjoy the
fresh air of Liberty and Union; let us cherish those hopes which belong
to us; let us devote ourselves to those great objects that are fit for
our consideration and our action; let us raise our conceptions to the
magnitude and the importance of the duties that devolve upon us; let
our comprehension be as broad as the country for which we act, our
aspirations as high as its certain destiny; let us not be pigmies in a
case that calls for men. Never did there devolve on any generation of
men higher trusts than now devolve upon us, for the preservation of this
Constitution and the harmony and peace of all who are destined to live
under it. Let us make our generation one of the strongest and brightest
links in that golden chain which is destined, I fondly believe, to
grapple the people of all the States to this Constitution for ages to
come. We have a great, popular, Constitutional Government, guarded
by law and by judicature, and defended by the affections of the whole
people. No monarchical throne presses these States together, no iron
chain of military power encircles them; they live and stand under a
Government popular in its form, representative in its character, founded
upon principles of equality, and so constructed, we hope, as to last
forever. In all its history it has been beneficent; it has trodden down
no man's liberty; it has crushed no State. Its daily respiration is
liberty and patriotism; its yet youthful veins are full of enterprise,
courage, and honorable love of glory and renown. Large before, the
country has now, by recent events, become vastly larger. This Republic
now extends, with a vast breadth across the whole continent. The two
great seas of the world wash the one and the other shore. We realize,
on a mighty scale, the beautiful description of the ornamental border of
the buckler of Achilles:

"Now, the broad shield complete, the artist crowned
With his last hand, and poured the ocean round;
In living silver seemed the waves to roll,
And beat the buckler's verge, and bound the whole."

[Illustration: Henry Clay]

HENRY CLAY,

OF KENTUCKY, (BORN 1777, DIED 1852.)

ON THE COMPROMISE OF 1850; UNITED STATES SENATE, JULY 22, 1850.

MR. PRESIDENT:

In the progress of this debate it has been again and again argued that
perfect tranquillity reigns throughout the country, and that there is
no disturbance threatening its peace, endangering its safety, but that
which was produced by busy, restless politicians. It has been maintained
that the surface of the public mind is perfectly smooth and undisturbed
by a single billow. I most heartily wish I could concur in this picture
of general tranquillity that has been drawn upon both sides of the
Senate. I am no alarmist; nor, I thank God, at the advanced age at which
His providence has been pleased to allow me to reach, am I very easily
alarmed by any human event; but I totally misread the signs of the
times, if there be that state of profound peace and quiet, that absence
of all just cause of apprehension of future danger to this confederacy,
which appears to be entertained by some other senators. Mr. President,
all the tendencies of the times, I lament to say, are toward
disquietude, if not more fatal consequences. When before, in the midst
of profound peace with all the nations of the earth, have we seen a
convention, representing a considerable portion of one great part of
the Republic, meet to deliberate about measures of future safety in
connection with great interests of that quarter of the country? When
before have we seen, not one, but more--some half a dozen legislative
bodies solemnly resolving that if any one of these measures--the
admission of California, the adoption of the Wilmot proviso, the
abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia--should be adopted by
Congress, measures of an extreme character, for the safety of the great
interests to which I refer, in a particular section of the country,
would be resorted to? For years, this subject of the abolition of
slavery, even within this District of Columbia, small as is the number
of slaves here, has been a source of constant irritation and disquiet.
So of the subject of the recovery of fugitive slaves who have escaped
from their lawful owners: not a mere border contest, as has been
supposed--although there, undoubtedly, it has given rise to more
irritation than in other portions of the Union--but everywhere
through-out the slave-holding country it has been felt as a great evil,
a great wrong which required the intervention of congressional power.
But these two subjects, unpleasant as has been the agitation to which
they have given rise, are nothing in comparison to those which have
sprung out of the acquisitions recently made from the Republic of
Mexico. These are not only great and leading causes of just apprehension
as respects the future, but all the minor circumstances of the day
intimate danger ahead, whatever may be its final issue and consequence.
* * *

Mr. President, I will not dwell upon other concomitant causes, all
having the same tendency, and all well calculated to awaken, to arouse
us--if, as I hope the fact is, we are all of us sincerely desirous
of preserving this Union--to rouse us to dangers which really exist,
without underrating them upon the one hand, or magnifying them upon the
other. * * *

It has been objected against this measure that it is a compromise. It
has been said that it is a compromise of principle, or of a
principle. Mr. President, what is a compromise? It is a work of mutual
concession--an agreement in which there are reciprocal stipulations--a
work in which, for the sake of peace and concord, one party abates his
extreme demands in consideration of an abatement of extreme demands
by the other party: it is a measure of mutual concession--a measure of
mutual sacrifice. Undoubtedly, Mr. President, in all such measures
of compromise, one party would be very glad to get what he wants, and
reject what he does not desire, but which the other party wants. But
when he comes to reflect that, from the nature of the Government and its
operations, and from those with whom he is dealing, it is necessary upon
his part, in order to secure what he wants, to grant something to the
other side, he should be reconciled to the concession which he has made,
in consequence of the concession which he is to receive, if there is no
great principle involved, such as a violation of the Constitution of the
United States. I admit that such a compromise as that ought never to be
sanctioned or adopted. But I now call upon any senator in his place to
point out from the beginning to the end, from California to New Mexico,
a solitary provision in this bill which is violative of the Constitution
of the United States.

Sir, adjustments in the shape of compromise may be made without
producing any such consequences as have been apprehended. There may be
a mutual forbearance. You forbear on your side to insist upon the
application of the restriction denominated the Wilmot proviso. Is
there any violation of principle there? The most that can be said, even
assuming the power to pass the Wilmot proviso, which is denied, is that
there is a forbearance to exercise, not a violation of, the power to
pass the proviso. So, upon the other hand, if there was a power in
the Constitution of the United States authorizing the establishment
of slavery in any of the Territories--a power, however, which is
controverted by a large portion of this Senate--if there was a power
under the Constitution to establish slavery, the forbearance to exercise
that power is no violation of the Constitution, any more than the
Constitution is violated by a forbearance to exercise numerous powers,
that might be specified, that are granted in the Constitution, and that
remain dormant until they come to be exercised by the proper
legislative authorities. It is said that the bill presents the state of
coercion--that members are coerced, in order to get what they want, to
vote for that which they disapprove. Why, sir, what coercion is there?
* * * Can it be said upon the part of our Northern friends, because they
have not got the Wilmot proviso incorporated in the territorial part
of the bill, that they are coerced--wanting California, as they do, so
much--to vote for the bill, if they do vote for it? Sir, they might
have imitated the noble example of my friend (Senator Cooper, of
Pennsylvania), from that State upon whose devotion to this Union I place
one of my greatest reliances for its preservation. What was the course
of my friend upon this subject of the Wilmot proviso? He voted for it;
and he could go back to his constituents and say, as all of you could go
back and say to your constituents, if you chose to do so--"We wanted the
Wilmot proviso in the bill; we tried to get it in; but the majority of
the Senate was against it." The question then came up whether we should
lose California, which has got an interdiction in her constitution,
which, in point of value and duration, is worth a thousand Wilmot
provisos; we were induced, as my honorable friend would say, to take the
bill and the whole of it together, although we were disappointed in our
votes with respect to the Wilmot proviso--to take it, whatever omissions
may have been made, on account of the superior amount of good it
contains. * * *

Not the reception of the treaty of peace negotiated at Ghent, nor any
other event which has occurred during my progress in public life, ever
gave such unbounded and universal satisfaction as the settlement of the
Missouri compromise. We may argue from like causes like effects. Then,
indeed, there was great excitement. Then, indeed, all the legislatures
of the North called out for the exclusion of Missouri, and all the
legislatures of the South called out for her admission as a State.
Then, as now, the country was agitated like the ocean in the midst of
a turbulent storm. But now, more than then, has this agitation been
increased. Now, more than then, are the dangers which exist, if the
controversy remains unsettled, more aggravated and more to be dreaded.
The idea of disunion was then scarcely a low whisper. Now, it has become
a familiar language in certain portions of the country. The public mind
and the public heart are becoming familiarized with that most dangerous
and fatal of all events--the disunion of the States. People begin to
contend that this is not so bad a thing as they had supposed. Like the
progress in all human affairs, as we approach danger it disappears, it
diminishes in our conception, and we no longer regard it with that awful
apprehension of consequences that we did before we came into contact
with it. Everywhere now there is a state of things, a degree of alarm
and apprehension, and determination to fight, as they regard it, against
the aggressions of the North. That did not so demonstrate itself at the
period of the Missouri compromise. It was followed, in consequence of
the adoption of the measure which settled the difficulty of Missouri,
by peace, harmony, and tranquillity. So, now, I infer, from the greater
amount of agitation, from the greater amount of danger, that, if you
adopt the measures under consideration, they, too, will be followed by
the same amount of contentment, satisfaction, peace, and tranquillity,
which ensued after the Missouri compromise. * * *

The responsibility of this great measure passes from the hands of the
committee, and from my hands. They know, and I know, that it is an awful
and tremendous responsibility. I hope that you will meet it with a just
conception and a true appreciation of its magnitude, and the magnitude
of the consequences that may ensue from your decision one way or, the
other. The alternatives, I fear, which the measure presents, are concord
and increased discord; a servile civil war, originating in its causes
on the lower Rio Grande, and terminating possibly in its consequences
on the upper Rio Grande in the Santa Fe country, or the restoration of
harmony and fraternal kindness. I believe from the bottom of my soul,
that the measure is the reunion of this Union. I believe it is the dove
of peace, which, taking its aerial flight from the dome of the Capitol,
carries the glad tidings of assured peace and restored harmony to all
the remotest extremities of this distracted land. I believe that it will
be attended with all these beneficent effects. And now let us discard
all resentment, all passions, all petty jealousies, all personal
desires, all love of place, all hankerings after the gilded crumbs which
fall from the table of power. Let us forget popular fears, from
whatever quarter they may spring. Let us go to the limpid fountain of
unadulterated patriotism, and, performing a solemn lustration, return
divested of all selfish, sinister, and sordid impurities, and think
alone of our God, our country, our consciences, and our glorious
Union--that Union without which we shall be torn into hostile fragments,
and sooner or later become the victims of military despotism, or foreign
domination.

Mr. President, what is an individual man? An atom, almost invisible
without a magnifying glass--a mere speck upon the surface of the
immense universe; not a second in time, compared to immeasurable,
never-beginning, and never-ending eternity; a drop of water in the great
deep, which evaporates and is borne off by the winds; a grain of sand,
which is soon gathered to the dust from which it sprung. Shall a being
so small, so petty, so fleeting, so evanescent, oppose itself to the
onward march of a great nation, which is to subsist for ages and ages to
come; oppose itself to that long line of posterity which, issuing from
our loins, will endure during the existence of the world? Forbid it,
God. Let us look to our country and our cause, elevate ourselves to the
dignity of pure and disinterested patriots, and save our country from
all impending dangers. What if, in the march of this nation to greatness
and power, we should be buried beneath the wheels that propel it onward!
What are we--what is any man--worth who is not ready and willing to
sacrifice himself for the benefit of his country when it is necessary? *
* *

If this Union shall become separated, new unions, new confederacies will
arise. And with respect to this, if there be any--I hope there is no one
in the Senate--before whose imagination is flitting the idea of a great
Southern Confederacy to take possession of the Balize and the mouth
of the Mississippi, I say in my place never! never! NEVER! will we who
occupy the broad waters of the Mississippi and its upper tributaries
consent that any foreign flag shall float at the Balize or upon the
turrets of the Crescent City--NEVER! NEVER! I call upon all the South.
Sir, we have had hard words, bitter words, bitter thoughts, unpleasant
feelings toward each other in the progress of this great measure. Let us
forget them. Let us sacrifice these feelings. Let us go to the altar of
our country and swear, as the oath was taken of old, that we will stand
by her; that we will support her; that we will uphold her Constitution;
that we will preserve her Union; and that we will pass this great,
comprehensive, and healing system of measures, which will hush all the
jarring elements, and bring peace and tranquillity to our homes.

Let me, Mr. President, in conclusion, say that the most disastrous
consequences would occur, in my opinion, were we to go home, doing
nothing to satisfy and tranquillize the country upon these great
questions. What will be the judgment of mankind, what the judgment of
that portion of mankind who are looking upon the progress of this scheme
of self-government as being that which holds the highest hopes and
expectations of ameliorating the condition of mankind--what will their
judgment be? Will not all the monarchs of the Old World pronounce our
glorious Republic a disgraceful failure? What will be the judgment of
our constituents, when we return to them and they ask us: "How have
you left your country? Is all quiet--all happy? Are all the seeds of
distraction or division crushed and dissipated?" And, sir, when you
come into the bosom of your family, when you come to converse with the
partner of your fortunes, of your happiness, and of your sorrows, and
when in the midst of the common offspring of both of you, she asks you:
"Is there any danger of civil war? Is there any danger of the torch
being applied to any portion of the country? Have you settled the
questions which you have been so long discussing and deliberating
upon at Washington? Is all peace and all quiet?" what response, Mr.
President, can you make to that wife of your choice and those children
with whom you have been blessed by God? Will you go home and leave all
in disorder and confusion--all unsettled--all open? The contentions and
agitations of the past will be increased and augmented by the agitations
resulting from our neglect to decide them. Sir, we shall stand condemned
by all human judgment below, and of that above it is not for me to
speak. We shall stand condemned in our own consciences, by our own
constituents, and by our own country. The measure may be defeated.
I have been aware that its passage for many days was not absolutely
certain. From the first to the last, I hoped and believed it would pass,
because from the first to the last I believed it was founded on the
principles of just and righteous concession of mutual conciliation. I
believe that it deals unjustly by no part of the Republic; that it saves
their honor, and, as far as it is dependent upon Congress, saves the
interests of all quarters of the country. But, sir, I have known that
the decision of its fate depended upon four or five votes in the Senate
of the United States, whose ultimate judgment we could not count upon
the one side or the other with absolute certainty. Its fate is now
committed to the Senate, and to those five or six votes to which I have
referred. It may be defeated. It is possible that, for the chastisement
of our sins and transgressions, the rod of Providence may be still
applied to us, may be still suspended over us. But, if defeated, it
will be a triumph of ultraism and impracticability--a triumph of a most
extraordinary conjunction of extremes; a victory won by abolitionism; a
victory achieved by freesoilism; a victory of discord and agitation over
peace and tranquillity; and I pray to Almighty God that it may not, in
consequence of the inauspicious result, lead to the most unhappy and
disastrous consequences to our beloved country.

MR. BARNWELL:--It is not my intention to reply to the argument of the
Senator from Kentucky, but there were expressions used by him not a
little disrespectful to a friend whom I hold very dear. * * * It is true
that his political opinions differ very widely from those of the Senator
from Kentucky. It may be true, that he, with many great statesmen, may
believe that the Wilmot proviso is a grievance to be resisted "to the
utmost extremity" by those whose rights it destroys and whose honor it
degrades. It is true that he may believe * * * that the admission of
California will be the passing of the Wilmot proviso, when we here in
Congress give vitality to an act otherwise totally dead, and by our
legislation exclude slaveholders from that whole broad territory on the
Pacific; and, entertaining this opinion, he may have declared that the
contingency will then have occurred which will, in the judgment of most
of the slave-holding States, as expressed by their resolutions, justify
resistance as to an intolerable aggression. If he does entertain and
has expressed such sentiments, he is not to be held up as peculiarly a
disunionist. Allow me to say, in reference to this matter, I regret that
you have brought it about, but it is true that this epithet "disunionist"
is likely soon to have very little terror in it in the South. Words do
not make things. "Rebel" was designed as a very odious term when applied
by those who would have trampled on the rights of our ancestors, but I
believe that the expression became not an ungrateful one to the ears
of those who resisted them. It was not the lowest term of abuse to call
those who were conscious that they were struggling against oppression;
and let me assure gentlemen that the term disunionist is rapidly
assuming at the South the meaning which rebel took when it was baptized
in the blood of Warren at Bunker Hill, and illustrated by the gallantry
of Jasper at Fort Moultrie. * * *

MR. CLAY:--Mr. President, I said nothing with respect to the character
of Mr. Rhett, for I might as well name him. I know him personally,
and have some respect for him. But, if he pronounced the sentiment
attributed to him--of raising the standard of disunion and of resistance
to the common government, whatever he has been, if he follows up that
declaration by corresponding overt acts, he will be a traitor, and I
hope he will meet the fate of a traitor.

THE PRESIDENT:--The Chair will be under the necessity of ordering the
gallery to be cleared if there is again the slightest interruption. He
has once already given warning that he is under the necessity of keeping
order. The Senate chamber is not a theatre.

MR. CLAY:--Mr. President, I have heard with pain and regret a
confirmation of the remark I made, that the sentiment of disunion is
becoming familiar. I hope it is confined to South Carolina. I do not
regard as my duty what the honorable Senator seems to regard as his. If
Kentucky to-morrow unfurls the banner of resistance unjustly, I never
will fight under that banner. I owe a paramount allegiance to the whole
Union--a subordinate one to my own State. When my State is right--when
it has a cause for resistance--when tyranny, and wrong, and oppression
insufferable arise, I will then share her fortunes; but if she summons
me to the battle-field, or to support her in any cause which is unjust,
against the Union, never, never will I engage with her in such cause.

WENDELL PHILLIPS,

OF MASSACIUSETTS. (BORN 1811, DIED 1884.)

ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE ABOLITION MOVEMENT, BEFORE THE MASSACHUSETTS
ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, AT BOSTON, JANUARY 27, 1853.

Mr. CHAIRMAN:

I have to present, from the business committee, the following
resolution:

Resolved; That the object of this society is now, as it has always been,
to convince our countrymen, by arguments addressed to their hearts and
consciences, that slave-holding is a heinous crime, and that the duty,
safety, and interest of all concerned demand its immediate abolition
without expatriation.

I wish, Mr, Chairman, to notice some objections that have been made to
our course ever since Mr. Garrison began his career, and which have been
lately urged again, with considerable force and emphasis, in the
columns of the London Leader, the able organ of a very respectable and
influential class in England. * * * The charges to which I refer are
these: That, in dealing with slave-holders and their apologists, we
indulge in fierce denunciations, instead of appealing to their reason
and common sense by plain statements and fair argument; that we might
have won the sympathies and support of the nation, if we would have
submitted to argue this question with a manly patience; but, instead of
this, we have outraged the feelings of the community by attacks, unjust
and unnecessarily severe, on its most valued institutions, and gratified
our spleen by indiscriminate abuse of leading men, who were often honest
in their intentions, however mistaken in their views; that we have
utterly neglected the ample means that lay around us to convert the
nation, submitted to no discipline, formed no plan, been guided by no
foresight, but hurried on in childish, reckless, blind, and hot-headed
zeal,--bigots in the narrowness of our views, and fanatics in our blind
fury of invective and malignant judgment of other men's motives.

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