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

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Now, as to California and New Mexico, I hold slavery to be excluded
from these territories by a law even superior to that which admits and
sanctions it in Texas. I mean the law of nature, of physical geography,
the law of the formation of the earth. That law settles forever, with a
strength beyond all terms of human enactment, that slavery cannot exist
in California or New Mexico. Understand me, sir; I mean slavery as we
regard it; the slavery of the colored race as it exists in the southern
States. I shall not discuss the point, but leave it to the learned
gentlemen who have undertaken to discuss it; but I suppose there is
no slavery of that description in California now. I understand that
peonism, a sort of penal servitude, exists there, or rather a sort of
voluntary sale of a man and his offspring for debt, an arrangement of a
peculiar nature known to the law of Mexico. But what I mean to say
is, that it is impossible that African slavery, as we see it among us,
should find its way, or be introduced, into California and New Mexico,
as any other natural impossibility. California and New Mexico are
Asiatic in their formation and scenery. They are composed of vast ridges
of mountains of great height, with broken ridges and deep valleys.
The sides of these mountains are entirely barren; their tops capped
by perennial snow. There may be in California, now made free by its
constitution, and no doubt there are, some tracts of valuable land.
But it is not so in New Mexico. Pray, what is the evidence which every
gentleman must have obtained on this subject, from information sought by
himself or communicated by others? I have inquired and read all I could
find, in order to acquire information on this important subject. What is
there in New Mexico that could, by any possibility, induce anybody to go
there with slaves! There are some narrow strips of tillable land on the
borders of the rivers; but the rivers themselves dry up before midsummer
is gone. All that the people can do in that region is to raise some
little articles, some little wheat for their tortillas, and that by
irrigation. And who expects to see a hundred black men cultivating
tobacco, corn, cotton, rice, or any thing else, on lands in New Mexico,
made fertile by irrigation?

I look upon it, therefore, as a fixed fact, to use the current
expression of the day, that both California and New Mexico are destined
to be free, so far as they are settled at all, which I believe, in
regard to New Mexico, will be but partially, for a great length of time;
free by the arrangement of things ordained by the Power above us. I have
therefore to say, in this respect also, that this country is fixed
for freedom, to as many persons as shall ever live in it, by a less
repealable law than that which attaches to the right of holding slaves
in Texas; and I will say further, that, if a resolution or a bill were
now before us, to provide a territorial government for New Mexico,
I would not vote to put any prohibition into it whatever. Such a
prohibition would be idle, as it respects any effect it would have
upon the territory; and I would not take pains uselessly to reaffirm an
ordinance of nature, nor to re-enact the will of God. I would put in no
Wilmot proviso for the mere purpose of a taunt or a reproach. I would
put into it no evidence of the votes of superior power, exercised for no
purpose but to wound the pride, whether a just and a rational pride, or
an irrational pride, of the citizens of the southern States. I have no
such object, no such purpose. They would think it a taunt, an indignity;
they would think it to be an act taking away from them what they regard
as a proper equality of privilege. Whether they expect to realize any
benefit from it or not, they would think it at least a plain theoretic
wrong; that something more or less derogatory to their character and
their rights had taken place. I propose to inflict no such wound upon
anybody, unless something essentially important to the country, and
efficient to the preservation of liberty and freedom, is to be effected.
I repeat, therefore, sir, and, as I do not propose to address the Senate
often on this subject, I repeat it because I wish it to be distinctly
understood, that, for the reasons stated, if a proposition were now here
to establish a government for New Mexico, and it was moved to insert a
provision for a prohibition of slavery, I would not vote for it. * * *
Sir, we hear occasionally of the annexation of Canada; and if there be
any man, any of the northern Democracy, or any of the Free Soil party,
who supposes it necessary to insert a Wilmot Proviso in a territorial
government for New Mexico, that man would, of course, be of opinion that
it is necessary to protect the ever-lasting snows of Canada from the
foot of slavery by the same overspreading wing of an act of Congress.
Sir, wherever there is a substantive good to be done, wherever there is
a foot of land to be prevented from becoming slave territory, I am ready
to assert the principle of the exclusion of slavery. I am pledged to
it from the year 1837; I have been pledged to it again and again; and I
will perform these pledges; but I will not do a thing unnecessarily
that wounds the feelings of others, or that does discredit to my own
understanding. * * *

Mr. President, in the excited times in which we live, there is found
to exist a state of crimination and recrimination between the North
and South. There are lists of grievances produced by each; and those
grievances, real or supposed, alienate the minds of one portion of the
country from the other, exasperate the feelings, and subdue the sense of
fraternal affection, patriotic love, and mutual regard. I shall bestow a
little attention, sir, upon these various grievances existing on the one
side and on the other. I begin with complaints of the South. I will not
answer, further than I have, the general statements of the honorable
Senator from South Carolina, that the North has prospered at the
expense of the South in consequence of the manner of administering this
Government, in the collection of its revenues, and so forth. These are
disputed topics, and I have no inclination to enter into them. But I
will allude to other complaints of the South, and especially to one
which has in my opinion, just foundation; and that is, that there has
been found at the North, among individuals and among legislators, a
disinclination to perform fully their constitutional duties in regard
to the return of persons bound to service who have escaped into the free
States. In that respect, the South, in my judgment, is right, and the
North is wrong. Every member of every Northern legislature is bound
by oath, like every other officer in the country, to support the
Constitution of the United States; and the article of the Constitution
which says to these States that they shall deliver up fugitives from
service, is as binding in honor and conscience as any other article.
No man fulfils his duty in any legislature who sets himself to find
excuses, evasions, escapes from this constitutional obligation. I
have always thought that the Constitution addressed itself to the
legislatures of the States or to the States themselves. It says that
those persons escaping to other States "shall be delivered up," and I
confess I have always been of the opinion that it was an injunction
upon the States themselves. When it is said that a person escaping into
another State, and coming therefore within the jurisdiction of that
State, shall be delivered up, it seems to me the import of the clause
is, that the State itself, in obedience to the Constitution, shall cause
him to be delivered up. That is my judgment. I have always entertained
that opinion, and I entertain it now. But when the subject, some years
ago, was before the Supreme Court of the United States, the majority
of the judges held that the power to cause fugitives from service to
be delivered up was a power to be exercised under the authority of this
Government. I do not know, on the whole, that it may not have been
a fortunate decision. My habit is to respect the result of judicial
deliberations and the solemnity of judicial decisions. As it now stands,
the business of seeing that these fugitives are delivered up resides in
the power of Congress and the national judicature, and my friend at the
head of the Judiciary Committee has a bill on the subject now before the
Senate, which, with some amendments to it, I propose to support, with
all its provisions, to the fullest extent. And I desire to call the
attention of all sober-minded men at the North, of all conscientious
men, of all men who are not carried away by some fanatical idea or some
false impression, to their constitutional obligations. I put it to all
the sober and sound minds at the North as a question of morals and
a question of conscience. What right have they, in their legislative
capacity, or any other capacity, to endeavor to get round this
Constitution, or to embarrass the free exercise of the rights secured by
the Constitution, to the person whose slaves escape from them? None at
all; none at all. Neither in the forum of conscience, nor before the
face of the Constitution, are they, in my opinion, justified in such
an attempt. Of course it is a matter for their consideration. They
probably, in the excitement of the times, have not stopped to consider
this. They have followed what seemed to be the current of thought and of
motives, as the occasion arose, and they have neglected to investigate
fully the real question, and to consider their constitutional
obligations; which, I am sure, if they did consider, they would fulfil
with alacrity. I repeat, therefore, sir, that here is a well-founded
ground of complaint against the North, which ought to be removed, which
is now in the power of the different departments of this government to
remove; which calls for the enactment of proper laws authorizing the
judicature of this Government, in the several States, to do all that is
necessary for the recapture of fugitive slaves and for their restoration
to those who claim them. Wherever I go, and whenever I speak on the
subject, and when I speak here I desire to speak to the whole North, I
say that the South has been injured in this respect, and has a right
to complain; and the North has been too careless of what I think the
Constitution peremptorily and emphatically enjoins upon her as a duty.

Complaint has been made against certain resolutions that emanate from
legislatures at the North, and are sent here to us, not only on the
subject of slavery in this District, but sometimes recommending Congress
to consider the means of abolishing slavery in the States. I should be
sorry to be called upon to present any resolutions here which could not
be referable to any committee or any power in Congress; and therefore I
should be unwilling to receive from the legislature of Massachusetts any
instructions to present resolutions expressive of any opinion whatever
on the subject of slavery, as it exists at the present moment in the
States, for two reasons: because I do not consider that I, as her
representative here, have any thing to do with it. It has become, in my
opinion, quite too common; and if the legislatures of the States do not
like that opinion, they have a great deal more power to put it down than
I have to uphold it; it has become, in my opinion, quite too common a
practice for the State legislatures to present resolutions here on all
subjects and to instruct us on all subjects. There is no public man that
requires instruction more than I do, or who requires information more
than I do, or desires it more heartily; but I do not like to have it in
too imperative a shape. * * *

Then, sir, there are the Abolition societies, of which I am unwilling to
speak, but in regard to which I have very clear notions and opinions. I
do not think them useful. I think their operations for the last twenty
years have produced nothing good or valuable. At the same time, I
believe thousands of their members to be honest and good men, perfectly
well-meaning men. They have excited feelings; they think they must do
something for the cause of liberty; and, in their sphere of action,
they do not see what else they can do than to contribute to an abolition
press, or an abolition society, or to pay an abolition lecturer. I do
not mean to impute gross motives even to the leaders of these societies,
but I am not blind to the consequences of their proceedings. I cannot
but see what mischief their interference with the South has produced.
And is it not plain to every man? Let any gentleman who entertains
doubts on this point, recur to the debates in the Virginia House of
Delegates in 1832, and he will see with what freedom a proposition made
by Mr. Jefferson Randolph, for the gradual abolition of slavery was
discussed in that body. Every one spoke of slavery as he thought; very
ignominous and disparaging names and epithets were applied to it. The
debates in the House of Delegates on that occasion, I believe were all
published. They were read by every colored man who could read, and to
those who could not read, those debates were read by others. At that
time Virginia was not unwilling or afraid to discuss this question, and
to let that part of her population know as much of the discussion as
they could learn. That was in 1832. As has been said by the honorable
member from South Carolina, these abolition societies commenced their
course of action in 1835. It is said, I do not know how true it may be,
that they sent incendiary publications into the slave States; at any
rate, they attempted to arouse, and did arouse, a very strong feeling;
in other words, they created great agitation in the North against
Southern slavery. Well, what was the result? The bonds of the slaves
were bound more firmly than before, their rivets were more strongly
fastened. Public opinion, which in Virginia had begun to be exhibited
against slavery, and was opening out for the discussion of the question,
drew back and shut itself up in its castle. I wish to know whether
anybody in Virginia can now talk openly, as Mr. Randolph, Governor
McDowel, and others talked in 1832, and sent their remarks to the press?
We all know the fact, and we all know the cause; and every thing that
these agitating people have done has been, not to enlarge, but to
restrain, not to set free, but to bind faster, the slave population of
the South. * * *

There are also complaints of the North against the South. I need not go
over them particularly. The first and gravest is, that the North adopted
the Constitution, recognizing the existence of slavery in the States,
and recognizing the right, to a certain extent, of the representation
of slaves in Congress, under a state of sentiment and expectation
which does not now exist; and that by events, by circumstances, by
the eagerness of the South to acquire territory and extend her slave
population, the North finds itself, in regard to the relative influence
of the South and the North, of the free States and the slave States,
where it never did expect to find itself when they agreed to the compact
of the Constitution. They complain, therefore, that, instead of slavery
being regarded as an evil, as it was then, an evil which all hoped
would be extinguished gradually, it is now regarded by the South as an
institution to be cherished, and preserved, and extended; an institution
which the South has already extended to the utmost of her power by the
acquisition of new territory.

Well, then, passing from that, everybody in the North reads; and
everybody reads whatsoever the newspapers contain; and the news-papers,
some of them, especially those presses to which I have alluded, are
careful to spread about among the people every reproachful sentiment
uttered by any Southern man bearing at all against the North; every
thing that is calculated to exasperate and to alienate; and there are
many such things, as everybody will admit, from the South, or from
portions of it, which are disseminated among the reading people; and
they do exasperate, and alienate, and produce a most mischievous effect
upon the public mind at the North. Sir, I would not notice things of
this sort appearing in obscure quarters; but one thing has occurred
in this debate which struck me very forcibly. An honorable member from
Louisiana addressed us the other day on this subject. I suppose there is
not a more amiable and worthy gentleman in this chamber, nor a gentleman
who would be more slow to give offence to any body, and he did not mean
in his remarks to give offence. But what did he say? Why, sir, he took
pains to run a contrast between the slaves of the South and the laboring
people of the North, giving the preference, in all points of condition,
and comfort, and happiness to the slaves of the South. The honorable
member, doubtless, did not suppose that he gave any offence, or did any
injustice. He was merely expressing his opinion. But does he know how
remarks of that sort will be received by the laboring people of the
North? Why, who are the laboring people of the North? They are the
whole North. They are the people who till their own farms with their own
hands; freeholders, educated men, independent men. Let me say, sir, that
five sixths of the whole property of the North is in the hands of the
laborers of the North; they cultivate their farms, they educate
their children, they provide the means of independence. If they are not
freeholders, they earn wages; these wages accumulate, are turned into
capital, into new freeholds, and small capitalists are created. Such
is the case, and such the course of things, among the industrious and
frugal. And what can these people think when so respectable and worthy
a gentleman as the member from Louisiana undertakes to prove that the
absolute ignorance and the abject slavery of the South are more in
conformity with the high purposes and destiny of immortal, rational,
human beings, than the educated, the independent free labor of the
North?

There is a more tangible and irritating cause of grievance at the
North. Free blacks are constantly employed in the vessels of the North,
generally as cooks or stewards. When the vessel arrives at a southern
port, these free colored men are taken on shore, by the police or
municipal authority, imprisoned, and kept in prison till the vessel
is again ready to sail. This is not only irritating, but exceedingly
unjustifiable and oppressive. Mr. Hoar's mission, some time ago to South
Carolina, was a well-intended effort to remove this cause of complaint.
The North thinks such imprisonments illegal and unconstitutional; and as
the cases occur constantly and frequently they regard it as a grievance.

Now, sir, so far as any of these grievances have their foundation in
matters of law, they can be redressed, and ought to be redressed; and so
far as they have their foundation in matters of opinion, in sentiment,
in mutual crimination and recrimination, all that we can do is to
endeavor to allay the agitation, and cultivate a better feeling and more
fraternal sentiments between the South and the North.

Mr. President, I should much prefer to have heard from every member
on this floor declarations of opinion that this Union could never be
dissolved, than the declaration of opinion by anybody, that in any
case, under the pressure of any circumstances, such a dissolution
was possible. I hear with distress and anguish the word "secession,"
especially when it falls from the lips of those who are patriotic, and
known to the country, and known all over the world for their political
services. Secession! Peaceable secession! Sir, your eyes and mine are
never destined to see that miracle. The dismemberment of this vast
country without convulsion! The breaking up of the fountains of the
great deep without ruffling the surface! Who is so foolish--I beg
everybody's pardon--as to expect to see any such thing? Sir, he who
sees these States, now revolving in harmony around a common centre, and
expects to see them quit their places and fly off without convulsion,
may look the next hour to see the heavenly bodies rush from their
spheres, and jostle against each other in the realms of space, without
causing the wreck of the universe. There can be no such thing as a
peaceable secession. Peaceable secession is an utter impossibility. Is
the great Constitution under which we live, covering this whole country,
is it to be thawed and melted away by secession, as the snows on the
mountain melt under the influence of a vernal sun, disappear almost
unobserved, and run off? No, sir! No, sir! I will not state what might
produce the disruption of the Union; but, sir, I see as plainly as I can
see the sun in heaven what that disruption itself must produce; I see
that it must produce war, and such a war as I will not describe, in its
twofold character.

Peaceable secession! Peaceable secession! The concurrent agreement
of all the members of this great Republic to separate! A voluntary
separation, with alimony on one side and on the other. Why, what would
be the result? Where is the line to be drawn? What States are to secede?
What is to remain American? What am I to be? An American no longer? Am I
to become a sectional man, a local man, a separatist, with no country in
common with the gentlemen who sit around me here, or who fill the other
house of Congress? Heaven forbid! Where is the flag of the Republic
to remain? Where is the eagle still to tower? or is he to cower, and
shrink, and fall to the ground? Why, sir, our ancestors, our fathers
and our grandfathers, those of them that are yet living amongst us with
prolonged lives, would rebuke and reproach us; and our children and
our grandchildren would cry out shame upon us, if we of this generation
should dishonor these ensigns of the power of the Government and the
harmony of that Union which is every day felt among us with so much joy
and gratitude. What is to become of the army? What is to become of the
navy? What is to become of the public lands? How is each of the thirty
States to defend itself? I know, although the idea has not been stated
distinctly, there is to be, or it is supposed possible that there
will be, a Southern Confederacy. I do not mean, when I allude to this
statement, that any one seriously contemplates such a state of things.
I do not mean to say that it is true, but I have heard it suggested
elsewhere, that the idea has been entertained, that, after the
dissolution of this Union, a Southern Confederacy might be formed. I am
sorry, sir, that it has ever been thought of, talked of, in the wildest
flights of human imagination. But the idea, so far as it exists, must
be of a separation, assigning the slave States to one side, and the free
States to the other. Sir, I may express myself too strongly, perhaps,
but there are impossibilities in the natural as well as in the physical
world, and I hold the idea of the separation of these States, those that
are free to form one government, and those that are slave-holding to
form another, as such an impossibility. We could not separate the States
by any such line, if we were to draw it. We could not sit down here
to-day and draw a line of separation that would satisfy any five men
in the country. There are natural causes that would keep and tie us
together, and there are social and domestic relations which we could not
break if we would, and which we should not if we could.

Sir, nobody can look over the face of this country at the present
moment, nobody can see where its population is the most dense and
growing, without being ready to admit, and compelled to admit,
that erelong the strength of America will be in the Valley of the
Mississippi. Well, now, sir, I beg to inquire what the wildest
enthusiast has to say on the possibility of cutting that river in two,
and leaving free States at its source and on its branches, and slave
States down near its mouth, each forming a separate government? Pray,
sir, let me say to the people of this country, that these things are
worthy of their pondering and of their consideration. Here, sir, are
five millions of freemen in the free States north of the river Ohio.
Can anybody suppose that this population can be severed, by a line that
divides them from the territory of a foreign and alien government,
down somewhere, the Lord knows where, upon the lower banks of
the Mississippi? What would become of Missouri? Will she join the
arrondissement of the slave States? Shall the man from the Yellowstone
and the Platte be connected, in the new republic, with the man who lives
on the southern extremity of the Cape of Florida? Sir, I am ashamed to
pursue this line of remark. I dislike it, I have an utter disgust for
it. I would rather hear of natural blasts and mildews, war, pestilence,
and famine, than to hear gentlemen talk of secession. To break up this
great Government! to dismember this glorious country! to astonish Europe
with an act of folly such as Europe for two centuries has never beheld
in any government or any people! No, sir! no, sir! There will be no
secession! Gentlemen are not serious when they talk of secession.

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