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By John Logan</title> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> + + + +<style type="text/css"> + <!-- + body {background:#faebd7; margin:10%; text-align:justify} + P { + text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; } + HR { width: 33%; text-align: center; } + blockquote {font-size: 95% } + .figleft {float: left;} + .figright {float: right;} + .toc { margin-left: 15%; margin-bottom: 0em;} + CENTER { padding: 10px;} + // --> +</style> + + + +</head> +<body> + +<h2>THE GREAT CONSPIRACY, Part. 1</h2> + + +<center> +<table summary="" cellPadding=4 border=3> +<tr><td> + + <a href="p2.htm">Next Part</a> +</td><td> + <a href="7140-h.htm">Main Index</a> + +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> + + +<br><br><br><br><br><br> + + + + + + +<center><h1> +<br> + THE GREAT CONSPIRACY<br> +<br> + Its Origin and History<br> +<br> + Part 1.<br> +<br></h1> +<br><br> + +<img alt="bookcover.jpg (102K)" src="images/bookcover.jpg" height="915" width="824"> +<br><br><br><br> +<img alt="dedication.jpg (30K)" src="images/dedication.jpg" height="343" width="826"> +<br><br><br><br> +<img alt="frontspiece.jpg (101K)" src="images/frontspiece.jpg" height="934" width="665"> +<br><br><br><br> +<img alt="titlepage.jpg (65K)" src="images/titlepage.jpg" height="1134" width="692"> +<br><br><br><br> + + +<h2><br> +<br><br><br> +PREFACE. +</h2> +</center> + +<p>In the preparation of this work it has been the writer's aim to present +in it, with historical accuracy, authentic facts; to be fair and +impartial in grouping them; and to be true and just in the conclusions +necessarily drawn from them. While thus striving to be accurate, fair, +and just, he has not thought it his duty to mince words, nor to refrain +from "calling things by their right names;" neither has he sought to +curry favor, in any quarter, by fulsome adulation on the one side, nor +undue denunciation on the other, either of the living, or of the dead. +But, while tracing the history of the Great Conspiracy, from its obscure +birth in the brooding brains of a few ambitious men of the earliest days +of our Republic, through the subsequent years of its devolution, down to +the evil days of Nullification, and to the bitter and bloody period of +armed Rebellion, or contemplating it in its still more recent and, +perhaps, more sinister development, of to-day, he has conscientiously +dealt with it, throughout, in the clear and penetrating light of the +voluminous records so readily accessible at the seat of our National +Government. So far as was practicable, he has endeavored to allow the +chief characters in that Conspiracy—as well as the Union leaders, who, +whether in Executive, Legislative, or Military service, devoted their +best abilities and energies to its suppression—to speak for themselves, +and thus while securing their own proper places in history, by a process +of self-adjustment as it were, themselves to write down that history in +their own language. If then there be found within these covers aught +which may seem harsh to those directly or indirectly, nearly or +remotely, connected with that Conspiracy, he may not unfairly exclaim: +"Thou canst not say I did it." If he knows his own heart, the writer +can truly declare, with his hand upon it, that it bears neither hatred, +malice, nor uncharitableness, to those who, misled by the cunning +secrecy of the Conspirators, and without an inkling or even a suspicion +of their fell purposes, went manfully into the field, with a courage +worthy of a better cause, and for four years of bloody conflict, +believing that their cause was just, fought the armies of the Union, in +a mad effort to destroy the best government yet devised by man upon this +planet. And, perhaps, none can better understand than he, how hard, how +very hard, it must be for men of strong nature and intense feeling, +after taking a mistaken stand, and especially after carrying their +conviction to the cannon's mouth, to acknowledge their error before the +world. Hence, while he has endeavored truly to depict—or to let those +who made history at the time help him to depict—the enormity of the +offence of the armed Rebellion and of the heresies and plottings of +certain Southern leaders precipitating it, yet not one word will be +found, herein, condemnatory of those who, with manly candor, soldierly +courage, and true patriotism, acknowledged that error when the ultimate +arbitrament of the sword had decided against them. On the contrary, to +all such as accept, in good faith, the results of the war of the +Rebellion, the writer heartily holds out the hand of forgiveness for the +past, and good fellowship for the future.</p> +<br> +<p>WASHINGTON, D. C.</p> +<br> +<p>April 15, 1886.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<br> + +<center> +<table summary=""> + + +<tr><td>I. </td><td><a href="#ch1">A Preliminary Retrospect,</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>II. </td><td><a href="#ch2">Protection, and Free Trade,</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>III. </td><td><a href="#ch3">Growth of the Slavery Question,</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>IV. </td><td><a href="#ch4">Popular Sovereignty,</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td>V. </td><td><a href="#ch5">Presidential Contest of 1860,</a></td></tr> + + + + +</table> +</center> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> + <h2><a href="#ch1">CHAPTER I.</a><br> + A PRELIMINARY RETROSPECT.<br></h2> +<br> +AFRICAN SLAVERY IN AMERICA IN 1620—CONTROVERSY BETWEEN THE COLONIES AND +ENGLAND IN 1699—GEORGIAN ABHORRENCE OF SLAVERY IN 1775—JEFFERSON AND +THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE—SLAVERY A SOURCE OF WEAKNESS IN THE +REVOLUTIONARY WAR—THE SESSION BY VIRGINIA OF THE GREAT +NORTH-WEST—THEORDINANCE OF 1784 AND ITS FAILURE—THE ORDINANCE OF 1787 AND ITS +ADOPTION—THE GERM OF SLAVERY AGITATION PLANTED—THE QUESTION IN THE +CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION—SUBTERFUGES OF THE OLD CONSTITUTION—THE +BULLDOZING OF THE FATHERS—THE FIRST FEDERAL CONGRESS, 1789—CONDITIONS +OF TERRITORIAL CESSIONS FROM NORTH CAROLINA AND GEORGIA, 1789-1802—THE +"COLONY OF LOUISIANA" (MISSISSIPPI VALLEY) PURCHASE OF 1803—THE +TREATY—CONDITIONS TOUCHING SLAVERY—THE COTTON INDUSTRY REVOLUTIONIZED—RAPID +POPULATING OF THE GREAT VALLEY, BY SLAVEHOLDERS AND SLAVES—JEFFERSON'S +APPARENT INCONSISTENCY EXPLAINED—THE AFRICAN SLAVE +TRADE—MULTIPLICATION OF SLAVES—LOUISIANA ADMITTED, 1812, AS A +STATE—THE TERRITORY OF MISSOURI—THE MISSOURI STRUGGLE (1818-1820) +IN A NUTSHELL— THE "MISSOURI COMPROMISE"<br> +<br> +<br> + <h2><a href="#ch2">CHAPTER II.</a><br> + PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE.<br></h2> +<br> +CHIEF CAUSE OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION—OUR INDEPENDENCE, INDUSTRIAL AS +WELL AS POLITICAL—FAILURE OF THE CONFEDERATION DUE TO LACK OF +INDUSTRIAL PROTECTION—MADISON'S TARIFF ACT OF 1789—HAMILTON'S TARIFF +OF 1790—SOUTHERN STATESMEN AND SOUTHERN VOTES FOR EARLY +TARIFFS—WASHINGTON AND JEFFERSON ON "PROTECTION "—EMBARGO OF 1807-8—WAR OF +1812-15—CONSEQUENT INCREASE OF AMERICAN MANUFACTURES—BROUGHAM'S +PLAN—RUIN THREATENED BY GLUT OF BRITISH GOODS—TARIFF ACT OF 1816—CALHOUN'S +DEFENSE OF "PROTECTION"—NEW ENGLAND AGAINST THAT ACT—THE SOUTH SECURES +ITS PASSAGE—THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF ACTS OF 1824 AND 1828—SUBSEQUENT +PROSPERITY IN FREE STATES—THE BLIGHT OF SLAVERY—BIRTH OF THE FREE +TRADE HERESY IN THE UNITED STATES IN 1797—SIMULTANEOUS BIRTH OF THE +HERESY OF STATE RIGHTS—KENTUCKY RESOLUTIONS OF 1798—VIRGINIA +RESOLUTIONS OF 1799—JEFFERSON'S REAL PURPOSE IN FORMULATING +THEM—ACTIVITY OF THE FEW SOUTHERN FREE TRADERS—PLAUSIBLE ARGUMENTS AGAINST +"PROTECTION"—INGENIOUS METHODS OF "FIRING THE SOUTHERN HEART"—SOUTHERN +DISCONTENT WITH TARIFF OF 1824—INFLAMMATORY UTTERANCES—ARMED +RESISTANCE URGED TO TARIFF OF 1828—WALTERBOROUGH ANTI-PROTECTIVE TARIFF +ADDRESS—FREE TRADE AND NULLIFICATION ADVOCACY APPEARS IN CONGRESS—THE +HAYNE-WEBSTER DEBATE—MODIFIED PROTECTIVE TARIFF OF 1832—SOUTH +CAROLINA'S NULLIFICATION ORDINANCE—HAYNE ELECTED GOVERNOR OF SOUTH +CAROLINA—HERESY OF "PARAMOUNT ALLEGIANCE TO THE STATE"—SOUTH CAROLINA +ARMS HERSELF—PRESIDENT JACKSON STAMPS OUT SOUTHERN TREASON—CLAY'S +COMPROMISE TARIFF OF 1833—CHIEF JUSTICE MARSHALL'S SOLEMN +WARNING—JACKSON'S FORECAST<br> +<br> +<br> + <h2><a href="#ch3">CHAPTER III.</a><br> + GROWTH OF THE SLAVERY QUESTION.<br></h2> +<br> +"EMANCIPATION" IN NORTHERN AND MIDDLE STATES—VIRGINIA'S UNSUCCESSFUL +EFFORT—CESSION OF THE FLORIDAS, 1819—BALANCE OF POWER—ADMISSION OF +ARKANSAS,1836—SOUTHERN SLAVE HOLDERS' COLONIZATION OF TEXAS—TEXAN +INDEPENDENCE, 1837—CALHOUN'S SECOND AND GREAT CONSPIRACY—DETERMINATION +BEFORE 1839 TO SECEDE—PROTECTIVE TARIFF FEATURES AGAIN THE +PRETEXT—CALHOUN, IN 1841, ASKING THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT FOR AID—NORTHERN +OPPOSITION TO ACQUISITION OF TEXAS—RATIONALE OF THE LOUISIANA AND +FLORIDA ACQUISITIONS—PROPOSED EXTENSION OF SLAVERY LIMITS—WEBSTER +WARNS THE SOUTH—DISASTERS FOLLOWING COMPROMISE TARIFF OF +1833—INDUSTRIAL RUIN OF 1840—ELECTION AND DEATH OF HARRISON—PROTECTIVE +TARIFF OF 1842—POLK'S CAMPAIGN OF 1844—CLAY'S BLUNDER AND POLK'S +CRIME—SOUTHERN TREACHERY—THE NORTH HOODWINKED—POLK ELECTED BY +ABOLITION VOTE—SLAVE-HOLDING TEXAS UNDER A SHAM "COMPROMISE"—WAR WITH +MEXICO—FREE-TRADE TARIFF OF 1846—WILMOT PROVISO—TREATY OF +GUADALUPE—HIDALGO—SLAVERY CONTEST IN CONGRESS STILL GROWING—COMPROMISE +OF 1850—A LULL—FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW—NEBRASKA BILL OF 1852-3—KANSAS-NEBRASKA +BILL, 1853-4, REPORTED—PARLIAMENTARY "JUGGLERY"—THE TRIUMPH OF +SLAVERY, IN CONGRESS—BLEEDING KANSAS—TOPEKA CONSTITUTION, 1855—KANSAS +LEGISLATURE DISPERSED, 1856, BY UNITED STATES TROOPS—LECOMPTON +CONSTITUTION OF 1857—FRAUDULENT TRIUMPH OF SLAVERY CONSTITUTION—ITS +SUBSEQUENT DEFEAT—ELECTION OF BUCHANAN, 1856—KANSAS ADMITTED—MISERY +AND RUIN CAUSED BY FREE-TRADE TARIFF OF 1846—FILLMORE AND BUCHANAN +TESTIFY<br> +<br> +<br> + <h2><a href="#ch4">CHAPTER IV.</a><br> + "POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY."<br></h2> +<br> +DOUGLAS'S THEORY OF POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY—ILLINOIS LEGISLATIVE +ENDORSEMENT OF IT, 1851—DOUGLAS'S POSITION ON KANSAS—NEBRASKA BILL, +1854—DRED SCOTT DECISION—SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, REPUBLICAN CONVENTION +OF 1858—LINCOLN'S REMARKABLE SPEECH TO THE CONVENTION—PIERCE AND +BUCHANAN, TANEY AND DOUGLAS, CHARGED WITH PRO-SLAVERY +CONSPIRACY—DOUGLAS'S GREAT SPEECH (JULY 9TH, 1858) AT CHICAGO, IN REPLY—LINCOLN'S +POWERFUL REJOINDER, AT CHICAGO, (JULY 10TH)—THE ADMIXTURE OF RACES—THE +VOTING "UP OR DOWN" OF SLAVERY—THE "ARGUMENTS OF KINGS"—TRUTHS OF THE +DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE—DOUGLAS'S BLOOMINGTON SPEECH (JULY 16TH), +OF VINDICATION AND ATTACK—HISTORY OF THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA STRUGGLE—THE +UNHOLY ALLIANCE—THE TWO POINTS AT ISSUE—THE "WHITE MAN'S" +COUNTRY—DOUGLAS'S PLEDGES TO WEBSTER AND CLAY—DOUGLAS'S SPRINGFIELD SPEECH, +JULY 17TH—THE IRRECONCILABLE PRINCIPLES AT ISSUE BETWEEN LINCOLN AND +HIMSELF—LINCOLN'S GREAT SPEECH, AT SPRINGFIELD, THE SAME +EVENING—DOUGLAS'S TRIUMPHANT MARCHES AND ENTRIES—THE "OFFICES SEEN IN HIS +ROUND, JOLLY, FRUITFUL FACE"—LINCOLN'S LEAN-FACED FIGHT, FOR PRINCIPLE +ALONE—DOUGLAS'S VARIOUS SPEECHES REVIEWED—THE REAL QUESTION BETWEEN +REPUBLICANS AND DOUGLAS MEN AND THE BUCHANAN MEN—JACKSON'S VETO OF THE +NATIONAL BANK CHARTER—DEMOCRATIC REVOLT AGAINST THE SUPREME COURT +DECISION—VINDICATION OF CLAY—"NEGRO EQUALITY"—MR. LINCOLN'S CHARGE, +OF "CONSPIRACY AND DECEPTION" TO "NATIONALIZE SLAVERY," RENEWED—GREAT +JOINT DEBATE OF 1858, BETWEEN LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS, ARRANGED +<br> +<br> + <h2><a href="#ch5">CHAPTER V</a>.<br> + THE PRESIDENTIAL CONTEST OF 1860—<br> + THE CRISIS APPROACHING.<br></h2> +<br> +<br> +HOW THE GREAT JOINT DEBATE OF 1858 RESULTED—THE "LITTLE GIANT" CAPTURES +THE SENATORSHIP—THE "BIG GIANT" CAPTURES THE PEOPLE—THE RISING +DEMOCRATIC STAR OF 1860—DOUGLAS'S GRAND TRIUMPHAL "PROGRESS" THROUGH +THE LAND—A POPULAR DEMOCRATIC IDOL—FRESH AGGRESSIONS OF THE SLAVE +POWER—NEW MEXICO'S SLAVE CODE OF 1859—HELPER'S "IMPENDING +CRISIS"—JOHN BROWN AND HARPER'S FERRY—THE MEETING OF CONGRESS, +DECEMBER, 1859—FORTY-FOUR BALLOTS FOR SPEAKER—DANGEROUSLY HEATED CONGRESSIONAL DEBATES +ON SLAVERY—THE DEMOCRATIC SPLIT—JEFFERSON DAVIS'S ARROGANT +DOUBLE-EDGED PRO-SLAVERY' RESOLUTIONS—DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION, +CHARLESTON, S. C., 1860—DECLARATIONS OF THE MAJORITY AND MINORITY +REPORTS AND BUTLER'S RECOMMENDATION, WITH VOTES THEREON—ADOPTION OF THE +MINORITY (DOUGLAS) PLATFORM—SOUTHERN DELEGATES PROTEST AND "BOLT "—THE +BOLTING CONVENTION ADJOURNS TILL JUNE AT RICHMOND—THE REGULAR +CONVENTION BALLOTS AND ADJOURNS TO BALTIMORE—THE BALTIMORE +CONVENTION—"THE AFRICAN SLAVE-TRADER A TRUE MISSIONARY"—MORE BOLTING—DOUGLAS'S +NOMINATION FOR THE PRESIDENCY—THE BOLTING CONVENTION NOMINATES +BRECKINRIDGE—THE REPUBLICAN CONVENTION AND PLATFORM—NOMINATIONS OF +LINCOLN, AND BELL—COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE FOUR RIVAL PARTY +PLATFORMS—THE OCTOBER ELECTIONS—THE SOUTH PREPARING GLEEFULLY FOR +SECESSION—GOVERNOR GIST'S TREASONABLE MESSAGE TO S. C. LEGISLATURE, +NOV. 5—OTHER SIMILAR UTTERANCES<br> +<br> +<br> + + + +<br> +<br> +<br><br> + +<h2>IMAGES</h2> +<br> +<br> + +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> + +<a href="#webster">DANIEL WEBSTER,</a><br> +<a href="#douglas">STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS,</a><br> +<a href="#jefferson">THOMAS JEFFERSON,</a><br> +<a href="#lincoln">ABRAHAM LINCOLN,</a><br> + +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> + +<br><br> + + +<br> +<br><br><br> +<br><br> +<a name="webster"></a> +<center> +<img alt="p024-webster.jpg (88K)" src="images/p024-webster.jpg" height="856" width="591"> +</center> +<br><br><br> +<a name="ch1"></a> +<br><br> + +<center><h2> + PART ONE.<br><br> + CHAPTER I.<br><br> + + A PRELIMINARY RETROSPECT. +</h2></center><br> +<p> +To properly understand the condition of things preceding the great war +of the Rebellion, and the causes underlying that condition and the war +itself, we must glance backward through the history of the Country to, +and even beyond, that memorable 30th of November, 1782, when the +Independence of the United States of America was at last conceded by +Great Britain. At that time the population of the United States was +about 2,500,000 free whites and some 500,000 black slaves. We had +gained our Independence of the Mother Country, but she had left fastened +upon us the curse of Slavery. Indeed African Slavery had already in +1620 been implanted on the soil of Virginia before Plymouth Rock was +pressed by the feet of the Pilgrim Fathers, and had spread, prior to the +Revolution, with greater or less rapidity, according to the surrounding +adaptations of soil, production and climate, to every one of the +thirteen Colonies.</p> + +<p>But while it had thus spread more or less throughout all the original +Colonies, and was, as it were, recognized and acquiesced in by all, as +an existing and established institution, yet there were many, both in +the South and North, who looked upon it as an evil—an inherited +evil—and were anxious to prevent the increase of that evil. Hence it was +that even as far back as 1699, a controversy sprang up between the +Colonies and the Home Government, upon the African Slavery question—a +controversy continuing with more or less vehemence down to the +Declaration of Independence itself.</p> + +<p>It was this conviction that it was not alone an evil but a dangerous +evil, that induced Jefferson to embody in his original draft of that +Declaration a clause strongly condemnatory of the African Slave Trade—a +clause afterward omitted from it solely, he tells us, "in complaisance +to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never* attempted to restrain the +importation of slaves, and who, on the contrary, still wished to +continue it," as well as in deference to the sensitiveness of Northern +people, who, though having few slaves themselves, "had been pretty +considerable carriers of them to others" a clause of the great +indictment of King George III., which, since it was not omitted for any +other reason than that just given, shows pretty conclusively that where +the fathers in that Declaration affirmed that "all men are created +equal," they included in the term "men," black as well as white, bond as +well as free; for the clause ran thus: "Determined to keep open a market +where MEN should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for +suppressing every Legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this +execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no +fact of distinguished dye, he is now exciting those very people to rise +in arms among us, and purchase that liberty of which he has deprived +them, by murdering the people on whom he also obtruded them; thus paying +of former crimes committed against the LIBERTIES of our people with +crimes which he urges them to commit against the LIVES of another."</p> +<blockquote><blockquote><blockquote> +<p> [Prior to 1752, when Georgia surrendered her charter and became a + Royal Colony, the holding of slaves within its limits was expressly + prohibited by law; and the Darien (Ga.) resolutions of 1775 + declared not only a "disapprobation and abhorrence of the unnatural + practice of Slavery in America" as "a practice founded in injustice + and cruelty, and highly dangerous to our Liberties (as well as + lives) but a determination to use our utmost efforts for the + manumission of our slaves in this colony upon the most safe and + equitable footing for the masters and themselves."]</p> +</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote> +<p> +During the war of the Revolution following the Declaration of +Independence, the half a million of slaves, nearly all of them in the +Southern States, were found to be not only a source of weakness, but, +through the incitements of British emissaries, a standing menace of +peril to the Slaveholders. Thus it was that the South was overrun by +hostile British armies, while in the North—comparatively free of this +element of weakness—disaster after disaster met them. At last, +however, in 1782, came the recognition of our Independence, and peace, +followed by the evacuation of New York at the close of 1783.</p> + +<p>The lessons of the war, touching Slavery, had not been lost upon our +statesmen. Early in 1784 Virginia ceded to the United States her claims +of jurisdiction and otherwise over the vast territory north-west of the +Ohio; and upon its acceptance, Jefferson, as chairman of a Select +Committee appointed at his instance to consider a plan of government +therefor, reported to the ninth Continental Congress an Ordinance to +govern the territory ceded already, or to be ceded, by individual States +to the United States, extending from the 31st to the 47th degree of +north latitude, which provided as "fundamental conditions between the +thirteen original States and those newly described" as embryo States +thereafter—to be carved out of such territory ceded or to be ceded to +the United States, not only that "they shall forever remain a part of +the United States of America," but also that "after the year 1800 of the +Christian era, there shall be neither Slavery nor involuntary servitude +in any of the said States"—and that those fundamental conditions were +"unalterable but by the joint consent of the United States in Congress +assembled, and of the particular State within which such alteration +is proposed to be made."</p> + +<p>But now a signal misfortune befell. Upon a motion to strike out the +clause prohibiting Slavery, six States: New Hampshire, Massachusetts, +Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York and Pennsylvania, voted to retain +the prohibitive clause, while three States, Maryland, Virginia and South +Carolina, voted not to retain it. The vote of North Carolina was +equally divided; and while one of the Delegates from New Jersey voted to +retain it, yet as there was no other delegate present from that State, +and the Articles of Confederation required the presence of "two or more" +delegates to cast the vote of a State, the vote of New Jersey was lost; +and, as the same Articles required an affirmative vote of a majority of +all the States—and not simply of those present—the retention of the +clause prohibiting Slavery was also lost. Thus was lost the great +opportunity of restricting Slavery to the then existing Slave States, +and of settling the question peaceably for all time. Three years +afterward a similar Ordinance, since become famous as "the Ordinance of +'87," for the government of the North-west Territory (from which the +Free States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin have +since been carved and admitted to the Union) was adopted in Congress by +the unanimous vote of all the eight States present. And the sixth +article of this Ordinance, or "Articles of Compact," which it was +stipulated should "forever remain unalterable, unless by common +consent," was in these words:</p> + +<p>"Art. 6. There shall be neither Slavery nor involuntary servitude in +the said Territory, otherwise than in punishment of crimes, whereof the +party shall have been duly convicted; provided always that any person +escaping into the same from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in +any one of the original States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed, +and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor, or service, as +aforesaid."</p> + +<p>But this Ordinance of '87, adopted almost simultaneously with the +framing of our present Federal Constitution, was essentially different +from the Ordinance of three years previous, in this: that while the +latter included the territory south of the Ohio River as well as that +north-west of it, this did not; and as a direct consequence of this +failure to include in it the territory south of that river, the States +of Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi, which were taken out of it, were +subsequently admitted to the Union as Slave States, and thus greatly +augmented their political power. And at a later period it was this +increased political power that secured the admission of still other +Slave States—as Florida, Louisiana and Texas—which enabled the Slave +States to hold the balance of such power as against the original States +that had become Free, and the new Free States of the North-west.</p> + +<p>Hence, while in a measure quieting the great question of Slavery for the +time being, the Ordinance of '87 in reality laid the ground-work for the +long series of irritations and agitations touching its restrictions and +extension, which eventually culminated in the clash of arms that shook +the Union from its centre to its circumference. Meanwhile, as we have +seen—while the Ordinance of 1787 was being enacted in the last Congress +of the old Confederation at New York—the Convention to frame the +present Constitution was sitting at Philadelphia under the Presidency of +George Washington himself. The old Confederation had proved itself to +be "a rope of sand." A new and stronger form of government had become a +necessity for National existence.</p> + +<p>To create it out of the discordant elements whose harmony was essential +to success, was an herculean task, requiring the utmost forbearance, +unselfishness, and wisdom. And of all the great questions, dividing the +framers of that Constitution, perhaps none of them required a higher +degree of self abnegation and patriotism than those touching human +Slavery.</p> + +<p>The situation was one of extreme delicacy. The necessity for a closer +and stronger Union of all the States was apparently absolute, yet this +very necessity seemed to place a whip in the hands of a few States, with +which to coerce the greater number of States to do their bidding. It +seemed that the majority must yield to a small minority on even vital +questions, or lose everything.</p> + +<p>Thus it was, that instead of an immediate interdiction of the African +Slave Trade, Congress was empowered to prohibit it after the lapse of +twenty years; that instead of the basis of Congressional Representation +being the total population of each State, and that of direct taxation +the total property of each State, a middle ground was conceded, which +regarded the Slaves as both persons and property, and the basis both of +Representation and of Direct Taxation was fixed as being the total Free +population "plus three-fifths of all other persons" in each State; and +that there was inserted in the Constitution a similar clause to that +which we have seen was almost simultaneously incorporated in the +Ordinance of '87, touching the reclamation and return to their owners of +Fugitive Slaves from the Free States into which they may have escaped.</p> + +<p>The fact of the matter is, that the Convention that framed our +Constitution lacked the courage of its convictions, and was "bulldozed" +by the few extreme Southern Slave-holding States—South Carolina and +Georgia especially. It actually paltered with those convictions and +with the truth itself. Its convictions—those at least of a great +majority of its delegates—were against not only the spread, but the +very existence of Slavery; yet we have seen what they unwillingly agreed +to in spite of those convictions; and they were guilty moreover of the +subterfuge of using the terms "persons" and "service or labor" when they +really meant "Slaves" and "Slavery." "They did this latter," Mr. +Madison says, "because they did not choose to admit the right of +property in man," and yet in fixing the basis of Direct Taxation as well +as Congressional Representation at the total Free population of each +State with "three-fifths of all other persons," they did admit the right +of property in man! As was stated by Mr. Iredell to the North Carolina +Ratification Convention, when explaining the Fugitive Slave clause: +"Though the word 'Slave' is not mentioned, this is the meaning of it." +And he added: "The Northern delegates, owing to their peculiar scruples +on the subject of Slavery, did not choose the word 'Slave' to be +mentioned."</p> + +<p>In March, 1789, the first Federal Congress met at New York. It at once +enacted a law in accordance with the terms of the Ordinance +of '87—adapting it to the changed order of things under the new Federal +Constitution—prohibiting Slavery in the Territories of the North-west; +and the succeeding Congress enacted a Fugitive-Slave law.</p> + +<p>In the same year (1789) North Carolina ceded her western territory (now +Tennessee) south of the Ohio, to the United States, providing as one of +the conditions of that cession, "that no regulation made, or to be made, +by Congress, shall tend to emancipate Slaves." Georgia, also, in 1802, +ceded her superfluous territorial domain (south of the Ohio, and now +known as Alabama and Mississippi), making as a condition of its +acceptance that the Ordinance of '87 "shall, in all its parts, extend to +the territory contained in the present act of cession, the article only +excepted which forbids Slavery."</p> + +<p>Thus while the road was open and had been taken advantage of, at the +earliest moment, by the Federal Congress to prohibit Slavery in all the +territory north-west of the Ohio River by Congressional enactment, +Congress considered itself barred by the very conditions of cession from +inhibiting Slavery in the territory lying south of that river. Hence it +was that while the spread of Slavery was prevented in the one Section of +our outlying territories by Congressional legislation, it was stimulated +in the other Section by the enforced absence of such legislation. As a +necessary sequence, out of the Territories of the one Section grew more +Free States and out of the other more Slave States, and this condition +of things had a tendency to array the Free and the Slave States in +opposition to each other and to Sectionalize the flames of that Slavery +agitation which were thus continually fed.</p> + +<p>Upon the admission of Ohio to Statehood in 1803, the remainder of the +North-west territory became the Territory of Indiana. The inhabitants +of this Territory (now known as the States of Indiana, Illinois, +Michigan and Wisconsin), consisting largely of settlers from the Slave +States, but chiefly from Virginia and Kentucky, very persistently (in +1803, 1806 and 1807) petitioned Congress for permission to employ Slave +Labor, but—although their petitions were favorably reported in most +cases by the Committees to which they were referred—without avail, +Congress evidently being of opinion that a temporary suspension in this +respect of the sixth article of the Ordinance of '87 was "not +expedient." These frequent rebuffs by Congress, together with the +constantly increasing emigration from the Free States, prevented the +taking of any further steps to implant Slavery on the soil of that +Territory.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the vast territory included within the Valley of the +Mississippi and known at that day as the "Colony of Louisiana," was, in +1803, acquired to the United States by purchase from the French—to whom +it had but lately been retroceded by Spain. Both under Spanish and +French rule, Slavery had existed throughout this vast yet sparsely +populated region. When we acquired it by purchase, it was already +there, as an established "institution;" and the Treaty of acquisition +not only provided that it should be "incorporated into the Union of the +United States, and admitted as soon as possible, according to the +principles of the Federal Constitution," but that its inhabitants in the +meantime "should be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of +their liberty, property, and the religion which they professed"—and, +as "the right of property in man" had really been admitted in practice, +if not in theory, by the framers of that Constitution itself—that +institution was allowed to remain there. Indeed the sparseness of its +population at the time of purchase and the amazing fertility of its soil +and adaptability of its climate to Slave Labor, together with the then +recent invention by Eli Whitney, of Massachusetts, of that wonderful +improvement in the separation of cotton-fibre from its seed, known as +the "cotton-gin"—which with the almost simultaneous inventions of +Hargreaves, and Arkwright's cotton-spinning machines, and Watt's +application of his steam engine, etc., to them, marvelously increased +both the cotton supply and demand and completely revolutionized the +cotton industry—contributed to rapidly and thickly populate the whole +region with white Slave-holders and black Slaves, and to greatly enrich +and increase the power of the former.</p> + +<p>When Jefferson succeeded in negotiating the cession of that vast and +rich domain to the United States, it is not to be supposed that either +the allurements of territorial aggrandizement on the one hand, or the +impending danger to the continued ascendency of the political party +which had elevated him to the Presidency, threatening it from all the +irritations with republican France likely to grow out of such near +proximity to her Colony, on the other, could have blinded his eyes to +the fact that its acquisition must inevitably tend to the spread of that +very evil, the contemplation of which, at a later day, wrung from his +lips the prophetic words, "I tremble for my Country when I reflect that +God is just." It is more reasonable to suppose that, as he believed the +ascendency of the Republican party of that day essential to the +perpetuity of the Republic itself, and revolted against being driven +into an armed alliance with Monarchical England against what he termed +"our natural friend," Republican France, he reached the conclusion that +the preservation of his Republican principles was of more immediate +moment than the question of the perpetuation and increase of human +Slavery. Be that as it may, it none the less remains a curious fact +that it was to Jefferson, the far-seeing statesman and hater of African +Slavery and the author of the Ordinance of 1784—which sought to exclude +Slavery from all the Territories of the United States south of, as well +as north-west of the Ohio River—that we also owe the acquisition of the +vast territory of the Mississippi Valley burdened with Slavery in such +shape that only a War, which nearly wrecked our Republic, could get rid +of!</p> + +<p>Out of that vast and fertile, but Slave-ridden old French Colony of +"Louisiana" were developed in due time the rich and flourishing Slave +States of Louisiana, Missouri and Arkansas.</p> + +<p>It will have been observed that this acquisition of the Colony of +Louisiana and the contemporaneous inventions of the cotton-gin, improved +cotton-spinning machinery, and the application to it of steam power, had +already completely neutralized the wisdom of the Fathers in securing, as +they thought, the gradual but certain extinction of Slavery in the +United States, by that provision in the Constitution which enabled +Congress, after an interval of twenty years, to prohibit the African +Slave Trade; and which led the Congress, on March 22, 1794, to pass an +Act prohibiting it; to supplement it in 1800 with another Act in the +same direction; and on March 2, 1807, to pass another supplemental +Act—to take effect January 1, 1808—still more stringent, and covering any +such illicit traffic, whether to the United States or with other +countries. Never was the adage that, "The best laid schemes o' mice an' +men gang aft agley," more painfully apparent. Slaves increased and +multiplied within the land, and enriched their white owners to such a +degree that, as the years rolled by, instead of compunctions of +conscience on the subject of African Slavery in America, the Southern +leaders ultimately persuaded themselves to the belief that it was not +only moral, and sanctioned by Divine Law, but that to perpetuate it was +a philanthropic duty, beneficial to both races! In fact one of them +declared it to be "the highest type of civilization."</p> + +<p>In 1812, the State of Louisiana, organized from the purchased Colony of +the same name, was admitted to the Union, and the balance of the +Louisiana purchase was thereafter known as the Territory of Missouri.</p> + +<p>In 1818 commenced the heated and protracted struggle in Congress over +the admission of the State of Missouri—created from the Territory of +that name—as a Slave State, which finally culminated in 1820 in the +settlement known thereafter as the "Missouri Compromise."</p> + +<p>Briefly stated, that struggle may be said to have consisted in the +efforts of the House on the one side, to restrict Slavery in the State +of Missouri, and the efforts of the Senate on the other, to give it free +rein. The House insisted on a clause in the Act of admission providing, +"That the introduction of Slavery or involuntary servitude be +prohibited, except for the punishment of crimes whereof the party has +been duly convicted; and that all children born within the said State, +after the admission thereof into the Union, shall be declared Free at +the age of twenty-five years." The Senate resisted it—and the Bill +fell. In the meantime, however, a Bill passed both Houses forming the +Territory of Arkansas out of that portion of the Territory of Missouri +not included in the proposed State of Missouri, without any such +restriction upon Slavery. Subsequently, the House having passed a Bill +to admit the State of Maine to the Union, the Senate amended it by +tacking on a provision authorizing the people of Missouri to organize a +State Government, without restriction as to Slavery. The House +decidedly refused to accede to the Senate proposition, and the result of +the disagreement was a Committee of Conference between the two Houses, +and the celebrated "Missouri Compromise," which, in the language of +another—[Hon. John Holmes of Massachusetts, of said Committee on +Conference, March 2, 1820.]—, was: "that the Senate should give up its +combination of Missouri with Maine; that the House should abandon its +attempt to restrict Slavery in Missouri; and that both Houses should +concur in passing the Bill to admit Missouri as a State, with" a +"restriction or proviso, excluding Slavery from all territory north and +west of the new State"—that "restriction or proviso" being in these +words: "That in all that territory ceded by France to the United States +under the name of Louisiana, which lies north of thirty-six degrees, +thirty minutes north latitude, excepting only such part thereof as is +included within the limits of the State contemplated by this act, +Slavery and involuntary servitude, otherwise than in the punishment of +crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall be and is +hereby forever prohibited; Provided always, that any person escaping +into the same, from whom labor and service is lawfully claimed in any +State or Territory of the United States, such Fugitive may be lawfully +reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or +service, as aforesaid." At a subsequent session of Congress, at which +Missouri asked admission as a State with a Constitution prohibiting her +Legislature from passing emancipation laws, or such as would prevent the +immigration of Slaves, while requiring it to enact such as would +absolutely prevent the immigration of Free Negroes or Mulattoes, a +further Compromise was agreed to by Congress under the inspiration of +Mr. Clay, by which it was laid down as a condition precedent to her +admission as a State—a condition subsequently complied with—that +Missouri must pledge herself that her Legislature should pass no act "by +which any of the citizens of either of the States should be excluded +from the enjoyment of the privileges and immunities to which they are +entitled under the Constitution of the United States."</p> + +<p>This, in a nut-shell, was the memorable Missouri Struggle, and the +"Compromise" or Compromises which settled and ended it. But during that +struggle—as during the formation of the Federal Constitution and at +various times in the interval when exciting questions had arisen—the +bands of National Union were more than once rudely strained, and this +time to such a degree as even to shake the faith of some of the firmest +believers in the perpetuity of that Union. It was during this bitter +struggle that John Adams wrote to Jefferson: "I am sometimes Cassandra +enough to dream that another Hamilton, another Burr, may rend this +mighty fabric in twain, or perhaps into a leash, and a few more choice +spirits of the same stamp might produce as many Nations in North America +as there are in Europe."</p> + +<p>It is true that we had "sown the wind," but we had not yet "reaped the +whirlwind."</p> + +<br><br><br> + +<br><br> +<a name="douglas"></a> +<center> +<img alt="p052-douglas.jpg (82K)" src="images/p052-douglas.jpg" height="869" width="586"> +</center> + +<br><br><br> +<a name="ch2"></a> +<br><br> + + +<center><h2> + + CHAPTER II.<br><br> + + PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE. +</h2></center><br> +<p>We have seen that the first Federal Congress met at New York in March, +1789. It organized April 6th. None knew better than its members that +the war of the Americana Revolution chiefly grew out of the efforts of +Great Britain to cripple and destroy our Colonial industries to the +benefit of the British trader, and that the Independence conquered, was +an Industrial as well as Political Independence; and none knew better +than they, that the failure of the subsequent political Confederation of +States was due mainly to its failure to encourage and protect the +budding domestic manufactures of those States. Hence they hastened, +under the leadership of James Madison, to pass "An Act laying a duty on +goods, wares and merchandize imported into the United States," with a +preamble, declaring it to be "necessary" for the "discharge of the debt +of the United States and the encouragement and protection of +manufactures." It was approved by President Washington July 4, 1789—a +date not without its significance—and levied imports both specific and +ad valorem. It was not only our first Tariff Act, but, next to that +prescribing the oath used in organizing the Government, the first Act of +the first Federal Congress; and was passed in pursuance of the +declaration of President Washington in his first Message, that "The +safety and interest of the People" required it. Under the inspiration +of Alexander Hamilton the Tariff of 1790 was enacted at the second +session of the same Congress, confirming the previous Act and increasing +some of the protective duties thereby imposed.</p> + +<p>An analysis of the vote in the House of Representatives on this Tariff +Bill discloses the fact that of the 39 votes for it, 21 were from +Southern States, 13 from the Middle States, and 5 from New England +States; while of the 13 votes against it, 9 were from New England +States, 3 from Southern States, and 1 from Middle States. In other +words, while the Southern States were for the Bill in the proportion of +21 to 3, and the Middle States by 13 to 1, New England was against it by +9 to 5; or again, while 10 of the 13 votes against it were from the New +England and Middle States, 21 (or more than half) of the 39 votes for it +were from Southern States.</p> + +<p>It will thus be seen—singularly enough in view of subsequent +events—that we not only mainly owe our first steps in Protective Tariff +legislation to the almost solid Southern vote, but that it was thus +secured for us despite the opposition of New England. Nor did our +indebtedness to Southern statesmen and Southern votes for the +institution of the now fully established American System of Protection +cease here, as we shall presently see.</p> + +<p>That Jefferson, as well as Washington and Madison, agreed with the views +of Alexander Hamilton on Protection to our domestic manufactures as +against those of foreign Nations, is evident in his Annual Message of +December 14, 1806, wherein—discussing an anticipated surplus of Federal +revenue above the expenditures, and enumerating the purposes of +education and internal improvement to which he thinks the "whole surplus +of impost" should during times of peace be applied; by which application +of such surplus he prognosticates that "new channels of communication +will be opened between the States; the lines of separation will +disappear; their interests will be identified, and their Union cemented +by new and indissoluble ties"—he says: "Shall we suppress the impost +and give that advantage to foreign over domestic manufactures. On a few +articles of more general and necessary use, the suppression in due +season, will doubtless be right; but the great mass of the articles on +which impost is paid is foreign luxuries, purchased by those only who +are rich enough to afford themselves the use of them." But his embargo +and other retaliatory measures, put in force in 1807 and 1808, and the +War of 1812-15 with Great Britain, which closely followed, furnished +Protection in another manner, by shutting the door to foreign imports +and throwing our people upon their own resources, and contributed +greatly to the encouragement and increase of our home +manufactures—especially those of wool, cotton, and hemp.</p> + +<p>At the close of that War the traders of Great Britain determined, even +at a temporary loss to themselves, to glut our market with their goods +and thus break down forever, as they hoped, our infant manufactures. +Their purpose and object were boldly announced in the House of Commons +by Mr. Brougham, when he said: "Is it worth while to incur a loss upon +the first importation, in order by the glut to stifle in the cradle +those rising manufactures in the United States which the War had forced +into existence contrary to the natural course of things." Against this +threatened ruin, our manufacturers all over the United States—the sugar +planters of Louisiana among them—clamored for Protection, and Congress +at once responded with the Tariff Act of 1816.</p> + +<p>This law greatly extended and increased specific duties on, and +diminished the application of the ad valorem principle to, foreign +imports; and it has been well described as "the practical foundation of +the American policy of encouragement of home manufactures—the practical +establishment of the great industrial system upon which rests our +present National wealth, and the power and the prosperity and happiness +of our whole people." While Henry Clay of Kentucky, William Loundes of +South Carolina, and Henry St. George Tucker of Virginia supported the +Bill most effectively, no man labored harder and did more effective +service in securing its passage than John C. Calhoun of South Carolina. +The contention on their part was not for a mere "incidental protection" +—much less a "Tariff for revenue only"—but for "Protection" in its +broadest sense, and especially the protection of their cotton +manufactures. Indeed Calhoun's defense of Protection, from the assaults +of those from New England and elsewhere who assailed it on the narrow +ground that it was inimical to commerce and navigation, was a notable +one. He declared that:</p> + +<p>"It (the encouragement of manufactures) produced a system strictly +American, as much so as agriculture, in which it had the decided +advantage of commerce and navigation. The country will from this derive +much advantage. Again it is calculated to bind together more closely +our wide-spread Republic. It will greatly increase our mutual +dependence and intercourse, and will, as a necessary consequence, excite +an increased attention to internal improvements—a subject every way so +intimately connected with the ultimate attainment of national strength +and the perfection of our political institutions."</p> + +<p>He regarded the fact that it would make the parts adhere more closely; +that it would form a new and most powerful cement far outweighing any +political objections that might be urged against the system. In his +opinion "the liberty and the union of the country were inseparably +united; that as the destruction of the latter would most certainly +involve the former, so its maintenance will with equal certainty +preserve it;" and he closed with an impressive warning to the Nation of +a "new and terrible danger" which threatened it, to wit: "disunion." +Nobly as he stood up then—during the last term of his service in the +House of Representatives—for the great principles of, the American +System of Protection to manufactures, for the perpetuity of the Union, +and for the increase of "National strength," it seems like the very +irony of fate that a few years later should find him battling against +Protection as "unconstitutional," upholding Nullification as a "reserved +right" of his State, and championing at the risk of his neck that very +"danger" to the "liberties" and life of his Country against which his +prophetic words had already given solemn warning.</p> + +<p>Strange was it also, in view of the subsequent attitudes of the South +and New England, that this essentially Protective Tariff Act of 1816 +should have been vigorously protested and voted against by New England, +while it was ably advocated and voted for by the South—the 25 votes of +the latter which secured its passage being more than sufficient to have +secured its defeat had they been so inclined.</p> + +<p>The Tariff Acts of 1824 and 1828 followed the great American principle +of Protection laid down and supported by the South in the Act of 1816, +while widening, increasing, and strengthening it. Under their +operation—especially under that of 1828, with its high duties on wool, +hemp, iron, lead, and other staples—great prosperity smiled upon the +land, and particularly upon the Free States.</p> + +<p>In the cotton-growing belt of the South, however, where the prosperity +was relatively less, owing to the blight of Slavery, the very contrast +bred discontent; and, instead of attributing it to the real cause, the +advocates of Free Trade within that region insisted that the Protective +Tariff was responsible for the condition of things existing there.</p> + +<p>A few restless and discontented spirits in the South had indeed agitated +the subject of Free Trade as against Protected manufactures as early as +1797, and, hand in hand with it, the doctrine of States Rights. And +Jefferson himself, although, as we have already seen, attached to the +American System of Protection and believing in its Constitutionality, +unwittingly played into the hands of these Free Traders by drawing up +the famous Kentucky Resolutions of '98 touching States Rights, which +were closely followed by the Virginia Resolutions of 1799 in the same +vein by Madison, also an out-and-out Protectionist. It was mainly in +condemnation of the Alien and Sedition Laws, then so unpopular +everywhere, that these resolutions were professedly fulminated, but they +gave to the agitating Free Traders a States-Rights-Secession-weapon of +which they quickly availed themselves.</p> + +<p>Their drift may be gathered from the first of the Kentucky Resolutions +of '98, which was in these words: "Resolved, That the several States +composing the United States of America are not united on the principle +of unlimited submission to their General Government, but that, by a +compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United +States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a General Government +for special purposes—delegated to that Government certain definite +powers, reserving, each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to +their own self-government; and that whensoever the General Government +assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of +no force; that to this compact each State acceded as a State, and as an +integral party, its co-States forming, as to itself, the other party; +that the Government created by this compact was not made the exclusive +or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since +that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the +measure of its powers; but that, as in all other cases of compact among +powers having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge +for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of +redress."</p> + +<p>The Resolutions, after enumerating the Alien and Sedition and certain +other laws as in point, conclude by calling upon the other States to +join Kentucky in her opposition to such Federal usurpations of power as +thus embodied, and express confidence: "That they will concur with this +Commonwealth in considering the said Acts as so palpably against the +Constitution as to amount to an undisguised declaration that that +compact is not meant to be the measure of the powers of the General +Government, but that it will proceed in the exercise over these States, +of all powers whatsoever; that they will view this as seizing the rights +of the States, and consolidating them in the hands of the General +Government, with the power assumed to bind the States (not merely as to +the cases made federal (casus foederis) but) in all cases whatsoever, by +laws made, not with their consent, but by others against their consent; +that this would be to surrender the form of government we have chosen, +and live under one deriving its powers from its own will, and not from +our authority; and that the co-States, returning to their natural rights +in cases not made federal, will concur in declaring these Acts void and +of no force, and will each take measures of its own in providing that +neither these Acts, nor any others of the General Government, not +plainly and intentionally authorized by the Constitution, shall be +exercised within their respective territories."</p> + +<p>The doctrine of States Rights as formulated in these Resolutions, +including the assumed right of a State to nullify laws of the General +Government, naturally led up, as we shall see, not only to threats of +disunion, but ultimately to a dreadful sectional War waged in the effort +to secure it. That Jefferson, when he penned them, foresaw the terrible +results to flow from these specious and pernicious doctrines, is not to +be supposed for an instant; but that his conscience troubled him may be +fairly inferred from the fact that he withheld from the World for twenty +years afterward the knowledge that he was their author. It is probable +that in this case, as in others, he was a victim of that casuistry which +teaches that "the end justifies the means;" that he hoped and believed +that the assertion of these baleful doctrines would act solely as a +check upon any tendency to further centralization of power in the +General Government and insure that strict construction of the +Constitution.</p> + +<p>Though afterward violated by himself at the same time that he for the +moment threw aside his scruples touching African slavery, when he added +to our domain the great French Slave Colony of Louisiana—was none the +less the great aim of his commanding intellect; and that he fortuitously +believed in the "saving common sense" of his race and country as capable +of correcting an existing evil when it shall have developed into ill +effects.</p> +<blockquote><blockquote><blockquote> +<p> [Mr. Jefferson takes this very ground, in almost the same words, in + his letter, 1803, to Wilson C. Nichols in the Louisiana Colony + purchase case, when, after proving by his own strict construction + of the Constitution that there was no power in that instrument to + make such purchase, and confessing the importance in that very case + of setting "an example against broad construction," he concludes: + "If, however, our friends shall think differently, certainly I + shall acquiesce with satisfaction; confiding that the good sense of + the country will correct the evil of construction when it shall + produce ill ejects."]</p> +</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote> +<p>Be that as it may, however, the fact remains that the seeds thus sown by +the hands of Jefferson on the "sacred soil" of Virginia and Kentucky, +were dragon's teeth, destined in after years to spring up as legions of +armed men battling for the subversion of that Constitution and the +destruction of that Union which he so reverenced, and which he was so +largely instrumental in founding—and which even came back in his own +life to plague him and Madison during his embargo, and Madison's war of +1812-15, in the utterances and attitude of some of the New England +Federalists.</p> + +<p>The few Free Traders of the South—the Giles's and John Taylor's and men +of that ilk—made up for their paucity in numbers by their unscrupulous +ingenuity and active zeal. They put forth the idea that the American +Protective Policy was a policy of fostering combinations by Federal +laws, the effect of which was to transfer a considerable portion of the +profits of slave labor from the Slave States to other parts of the Union +where it was massed in the hands of a few individuals, and thus created +a moneyed interest which avariciously influenced the General Government +to the detriment of the entire community of people, who, made restive by +the exactions of this power working through the Federal Government, were +as a consequence driven to consider a possible dissolution of the Union, +and make "estimates of resources and means of defense." As a means also +of inflaming both the poor whites and Southern slave-holders by arousing +the apprehensions of the latter concerning the "peculiar institution" of +Slavery, they craftily declared that "If the maxim advanced by the +advocates of the protecting duty system will justify Congress in +assuming, or rather in empowering a few capitalists to assume, the +direction of manufacturing labor, it also invests that body with a power +of legislating for the direction of every other species of labor and +assigning all occupations whatsoever to the care of the intelligence of +mercenary combinations"—and hence untold misery to labor.</p> + +<p>They charged as a further means of firing the Southern heart, that this +moneyed power, born of Protection, "works upon the passion of the States +it has been able to delude by computations of their physical strength +and their naval superiority; and by boasting of an ability to use the +weakening circumstance of negro slavery to coerce the defrauded and +discontented States into submission." And they declared as fundamental +truths upon which they rested that "The Federal is not a National +Government; it is a league between nations. By this league, a limited +power only over persons and property was given to the representatives of +the united nations. This power cannot be further extended, under the +pretext of national good, because the league does not create a national +government."</p> + +<p>It was the passage of the Tariff of 1824 that gave these crafty Free +Traders their first great success in spreading their doctrine of Free +Trade by coupling it with questions of slave labor, States Rights, and +nullification, as laid down in the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions. +These arguments created great excitement throughout the +South—especially in South Carolina and Georgia—which was still further +increased by the passage of the Tariff of 1828, since declared by +eminent authority to have been "the highest and most protective ever +adopted in this country."</p> +<blockquote><blockquote><blockquote> +<p> [Mr. Greeley, in his "History of the American Conflict," 1864.]</p> +</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote> +<p>Prior to the passage of this Tariff Act, excited assemblages met in some +of the Southern States, and protested against it as an outrage upon +their rights—arraying the South in seditious and treasonable attitude +against not only the North but the Union, with threats of Secession. At +one of these meetings in South Carolina, in 1827, one of their +leaders—[Dr. Thomas Cooper, President of South Carolina College.]—declared that +"a drilled and managed majority" in the House of Representatives had +determined "at all hazards to support the claims of the Northern +manufacturers, and to offer up the planting interest on the altar of +monopoly." He denounced the American system of Protection exemplified +in that Tariff measure as "a system by which the earnings of the South +are to be transferred to the North—by which the many are to be +sacrificed to the few—under which powers are usurped that were never +conceded—by which inequality of rights, inequality of burthens, +inequality of protection, unequal laws, and unequal taxes are to be +enacted and rendered permanent—that the planter and the farmer under +this system are to be considered as inferior beings to the spinner, the +bleacher, and the dyer—that we of the South hold our plantations under +this system, as the serfs and operatives of the North, subject to the +orders and laboring for the benefit of the master-minds of +Massachusetts, the lords of the spinning jenny and peers of the +power-loom, who have a right to tax our earnings for their emolument, and to +burthen our poverty and to swell their riches;" and after characterizing +Protection as "a system of fraud, robbery and usurpation," he continued +"I have said that we shall ere long be compelled to calculate the value +of our Union; and to enquire of what use to us is this most unequal +alliance, by which the South has always been the loser and the North +always the gainer. Is it worth our while to continue this union of +States, where the North demands to be our masters and we are required to +be their tributaries? who with the most insulting mockery call the yoke +they put upon our necks the 'American system!' The question, however, +is fast approaching the alternative of submission or separation."</p> + +<p>Only a few days after this inflammatory speech at Columbus, S. C., +inciting South Carolinians to resist the pending Protective Tariff even +to the lengths of Secession, during a grand banquet at Richmond, Va., +William B. Giles—another Free Trade leader—proposed, and those present +drank a toast to the "Tariff Schemer" in which was embodied a +declaration that "The Southerners will not long pay tribute." Despite +these turbulent and treasonable mutterings, however, the "Jacksonian +Congress" passed the Act—a majority of members from the Cotton and New +England States voting against, while the vote of the Middle and Western +Free States was almost solidly for, it.</p> + +<p>At a meeting held soon after the enactment of the Tariff of 1828, at +Walterborough Court House, S. C., an address was adopted and issued +which, after reciting the steps that had been taken by South Carolina +during the previous year to oppose it, by memorials and otherwise, and +stating that, despite their "remonstrances and implorations," a Tariff +Bill had passed, not indeed, such as they apprehended, but "ten-fold +worse in all its oppressive features," proceeded thus:</p> + +<p>"From the rapid step of usurpation, whether we now act or not, the day +of open opposition to the pretended powers of the Constitution cannot be +far off, and it is that it may not go down in blood that we now call +upon you to resist. We feel ourselves standing underneath its mighty +protection, and declaring forth its free and recorded spirit, when we +say we must resist. By all the great principles of liberty—by the +glorious achievements of our fathers in defending them—by their noble +blood poured forth like water in maintaining them—by their lives in +suffering, and their death in honor and in glory;—our countrymen! we +must resist. Not secretly, as timid thieves or skulking smugglers—not +in companies and associations, like money chafferers or stock +jobbers—not separately and individually, as if this was ours and not our +country's cause—but openly, fairly, fearlessly, and unitedly, as +becomes a free, sovereign and independent people. Does timidity ask +WHEN? We answer NOW!"</p> + +<p>These inflammatory utterances, in South Carolina especially, stirred the +Southern heart more or less throughout the whole cotton belt; and the +pernicious principles which they embodied found ardent advocates even in +the Halls of Congress. In the Senate, Mr. Hayne, of South Carolina, was +their chief and most vehement spokesman, and in 1830 occurred that +memorable debate between him and Daniel Webster, which forever put an +end to all reasonable justification of the doctrine of Nullification, +and which furnished the ground upon which President Jackson afterward +stood in denouncing and crushing it out with the strong arm of the +Government.</p> + +<p>In that great debate Mr. Hayne's propositions were that the Constitution +is a "compact between the States," that "in case of a plain, palpable +violation of the Constitution by the General Government, a State may +interpose; and that this interposition is constitutional"—a proposition +with which Mr. Webster took direct issue, in these words: "I say, the +right of a State to annul a law of Congress cannot be maintained, but on +the ground of the inalienable right of man to resist oppression; that is +to say, upon the ground of revolution. I admit that there is an +ultimate violent remedy, above the Constitution and in defiance of the +Constitution, which may be resorted to when a revolution is to be +justified. But I do not admit that, under the Constitution, and in +conformity with it, there is any mode in which a State Government, as a +member of the Union, can interfere and stop the progress of the general +movement by force of her own laws under any circumstances whatever." +Mr. Webster insisted that "one of two things is true: either the laws of +the Union are beyond the discretion and beyond the control of the +States, or else we have no Constitution of General Government, and are +thrust back again to the days of the Confederation;" and, in concluding +his powerful argument, he declared that "even supposing the Constitution +to be a compact between the States," Mr. Hayne's doctrine was "not +maintainable, because, first, the General Government is not a party to +the compact, but a Government established by it, and vested by it with +the powers of trying and deciding doubtful questions; and secondly, +because, if the Constitution be regarded as a compact, not one State +only, but all the States are parties to that compact, and one can have +no right to fix upon it her own peculiar construction."</p> + +<p>While the comparatively miserable condition of the cotton-growing States +of the South was attributed by most of the Southern Free Traders solely +to the Protective Tariff of 1828, yet there were some Southerners +willing to concede—as did Mr. Hayne, in the Senate (1832)—that there +were "other causes besides the Tariff" underlying that condition, and to +admit that "Slaves are too improvident, too incapable of that minute, +constant, delicate attention, and that persevering industry which are +essential to manufacturing establishments," the existence of which would +have made those States prosperous. But such admissions were unwilling +ones, and the Cotton-lords held only with the more tenacity to the view +that the Tariff was the chief cause of their condition.</p> + +<p>The Tariff Act of 1832, essentially modifying that of 1828, was passed +with a view, in part, to quiet Southern clamor. But the Southern Cotton +States refused to be mollified. On the contrary, the Free Traders of +South Carolina proceeded to extreme measures, putting in action that +which they had before but threatened. On November 19, 1832, the leading +men of South Carolina met in Convention, and a few days +thereafter—[November 24,1882]—unanimously passed an Ordinance of Nullification +which declared the Tariff Acts of 1828 and 1832 "Unauthorized by the +Constitution," and "null, void, and no law, nor binding on this State, +its officers, or citizens." The people of the State were forbidden by +it to pay, after the ensuing February 1st, the import-duties therein +imposed. Under the provisions of the Ordinance, the State Legislature +was to pass an act nullifying these Tariff laws, and any appeal to the +United States Supreme Court against the validity of such nullifying act +was prohibited. Furthermore, in the event of the Federal Government +attempting to enforce these Tariff laws, the people of South Carolina +would thenceforth consider themselves out of the Union, and will +"forthwith proceed to organize a separate Government, and do all other +acts and things which sovereign and independent States may of right do."</p> + +<p>At the subsequent meeting of the Legislature, Mr. Hayne, who had been a +member of the Convention, having resigned his seat in the United States +Senate, was elected Governor of the State. He declared in his message +that he recognized "No allegiance as paramount to that which the +citizens of South Carolina owe to the State of their birth or their +adoption"—that doctrine of "paramount allegiance to the State" which in +after-years gave so much trouble to the Union and to Union-loving +Southerners—and declared that he held himself "bound by the highest of +all obligations to carry into effect, not only the Ordinance of the +Convention, but every act of the Legislature, and every judgment of our +own Courts, the enforcement of which may devolve upon the Executive," +and "if," continued he, "the sacred soil of Carolina should be polluted +by the footsteps of an invader, or be stained with the blood of her +citizens, shed in her defense, I trust in Almighty God * * * even should +she stand alone in this great struggle for constitutional liberty, +encompassed by her enemies, that there will not be found, in the wide +limits of the State, one recreant son who will not fly to the rescue, +and be ready to lay down his life in her defense." In support of the +contemplated treason, he even went to the length of calling for an +enrolling of volunteer forces and of holding them ready for service.</p> + +<p>But while South Carolina stood in this treasonable and defiant attitude, +arming for war against the Union, there happened to be in the +Presidential chair one of her own sons—General Jackson. Foreseeing +what was coming, he had, prior to the meeting of the Convention that +framed the Nullification Ordinance, ordered General Scott to Charleston +to look after "the safety of the ports of the United States" +thereabouts, and had sent to the Collector of that port precise +instructions as to his duty to resist in all ways any and all attempts +made under such Ordinance to defeat the operation of the Tariff laws +aforesaid. Having thus quietly prepared the arm of the General +Government for the exercise of its power, he issued in December a +Proclamation declaring his unalterable resolution to treat Nullification +as Treason—and to crush it.</p> + +<p>In that famous document President Jackson said of Nullification: "If +this doctrine had been established at an earlier day, the Union would +have been dissolved in its infancy. The Excise law in Pennsylvania, the +Embargo and Non-intercourse law in the Eastern States, the Carriage-tax +in Virginia, were all deemed unconstitutional, and were more unequal in +their operation than any of the laws now complained of; but fortunately, +none of those States discovered that they had the right now claimed by +South Carolina. * * * The discovery of this important feature in our +Constitution was reserved for the present day. To the statesmen of +South Carolina belongs the invention, and upon the citizens of that +State will unfortunately fall the evils of reducing it to practice. * * +* I consider, then, the power to annul a law of the United States, +assumed by one State, incompatible with the existence of the Union, +contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized +by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which it was founded +and destructive of the great object for which it was formed. * * * To +say that any State may at pleasure secede from the Union, is to say that +the United States are not a Nation, because it would be a solecism to +contend that any part of a Nation might dissolve its connection with the +other parts, to their injury or ruin, without committing any, offense."</p> + +<p>Farther on, in his moving appeal to the South Carolinians, he bids them +beware of their leaders: "Their object is disunion; be not deceived by +names. Disunion, by armed force, is Treason." And then, reminding them +of the deeds of their fathers in the Revolution, he proceeds: "I adjure +you, as you honor their memory, as you love the cause of freedom to +which they dedicated their lives, as you prize the peace of your +country, the lives of its best citizens, and your own fair fame, to +retrace your steps. Snatch from the archives of your State the +disorganizing edict of its Convention—bid its members to reassemble and +promulgate the decided expression of your will to remain in the path +which alone can conduct you to safety, prosperity, and honor—tell them +that, compared to disunion, all other evils are light, because that +brings with it an accumulation of all—declare that you will never take +the field unless the Star-spangled banner of your country shall float +over you—that you will not be stigmatized when dead, and dishonored and +scorned while you live, as the authors of the first attack on the +Constitution of your country! Its destroyers you cannot be."</p> + +<p>After asserting his firm "determination to execute the laws—to preserve +the Union by all constitutional means"—he concludes with the prayer, +"May the great Ruler of Nations grant, that the signal blessings with +which He has favored, ours may not, by the madness of party, or personal +ambition be disregarded and lost; and may His wise providence bring +those who have produced this crisis to see the folly before they feel +the misery, of civil strife; and inspire a returning veneration for that +Union, which, if we may dare to penetrate His designs, He has chosen as +the only means of attaining the high destinies to which we may +reasonably aspire."</p> + +<p>The firm attitude of General Jackson, together with the wise +precautionary measures he had already taken, and the practical unanimity +with which his declaration to crush out the Treason was hailed in most +of the Southern as well as the Northern States, almost at once broke the +back of Nullification.</p> +<blockquote><blockquote><blockquote> +<p> + [In this connection the following letter, written at that time by + the great Chief Justice Marshall, to a cousin of his, on the + subject of State Sovereignty, is of interest, as showing how + clearly his penetrating intellect perceived the dangers to the + Union hidden in the plausible doctrine of State Rights:</p> + +<p> RICHMOND, May 7, 1833.</p> + +<p> "MY DEAR SIR:</p> + +<p> "I am much indebted to you for your pamphlet on Federal Relations, + which I have read with much satisfaction. No subject, as it seems + to me, is more misunderstood or more perverted. You have brought + into view numerous important historical facts which, in my + judgment, remove the foundation on which the Nullifiers and + Seceders have erected that superstructure which overshadows our + Union. You have, I think, shown satisfactorily that we never have + been perfectly distinct, independent societies, sovereign in the + sense in which the Nullifiers use the term. When colonies we + certainly were not. We were parts of the British empire, and + although not directly connected with each other so far as respected + government, we were connected in many respects, and were united to + the same stock. The steps we took to effect separation were, as + you have fully shown, not only revolutionary in their nature, but + they were taken conjointly. Then, as now, we acted in many + respects as one people. The representatives of each colony acted + for all. Their resolutions proceeded from a common source, and + operated on the whole mass. The army was a continental army + commanded by a continental general, and supported from a + continental treasury. The Declaration of Independence was made by + a common government, and was made for all the States.</p> + +<p> "Everything has been mixed. Treaties made by Congress have been + considered as binding all the States. Some powers have been + exercised by Congress, some by the States separately. The lines + were not strictly drawn. The inability of Congress to carry its + legitimate powers into execution has gradually annulled those + powers practically, but they always existed in theory. + Independence was declared `in the name and by the authority of the + good people of these colonies.' In fact we have always been united + in some respects, separate in others. We have acted as one people + for some purposes, as distinct societies for others. I think you + have shown this clearly, and in so doing have demonstrated the + fallacy of the principle on which either nullification or the right + of peaceful, constitutional secession is asserted.</p> + +<p> "The time is arrived when these truths must be more generally + spoken, or our Union is at an end. The idea of complete + sovereignty of the State converts our government into a league, + and, if carried into practice, dissolves the Union.</p> + +<p> "I am, dear sir,</p> + +<p> "Yours affectionately,</p> + +<p> "J. MARSHALL.</p> + +<p> "HUMPHREY MARSHALL, ESQ.,</p> + +<p> "FRANKFORT, KY."]</p> +</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote> +<p> +The Nullifiers hailed with pretended satisfaction the report from the +House Committee on Ways and Means of a Bill making great reductions and +equalizations of Tariff duties, as a measure complying with their +demands, and postponed the execution of the Ordinance of Nullification +until the adjournment of Congress; and almost immediately afterward Mr. +Clay's Compromise Tariff Act of 1833 "whereby one tenth of the excess +over twenty per cent. of each and every existing impost was to be taken +off at the close of that year; another tenth two years thereafter; so +proceeding until the 30th of June, 1842, when all duties should be +reduced to a maximum of twenty per cent."—[Says Mr. Greeley, in his +History aforesaid.]—agreed to by Calhoun and other Nullifiers, was +passed, became a law without the signature of President Jackson, and +South Carolina once more became to all appearances a contented, +law-abiding State of the Union.</p> + +<p>But after-events proved conclusively that the enactment of this +Compromise Tariff was a terrible blunder, if not a crime. Jackson had +fully intended to hang Calhoun and his nullifying coadjutors if they +persisted in their Treason. He knew that they had only seized upon the +Tariff laws as a pretext with which to justify Disunion, and prophesied +that "the next will be the Slavery or Negro question." Jackson's +forecast was correct. Free Trade, Slavery and Secession were from that +time forward sworn allies; and the ruin wrought to our industries by the +disasters of 1840, plainly traceable to that Compromise Tariff measure +of 1833, was only to be supplemented by much greater ruin and disasters +caused by the Free Trade Tariff of 1846—and to be followed by the armed +Rebellion of the Free Trade and Pro-Slavery States of the South in 1861, +in a mad attempt to destroy the Union.</p> + +<br><br><br> + +<br><br> +<a name="jefferson"></a> +<center> +<img alt="p078-jefferson.jpg (77K)" src="images/p078-jefferson.jpg" height="842" width="576"> +</center> +<br><br><br> +<a name="ch3"></a> +<br><br> + +<center><h2> + + CHAPTER III.<br><br> + + GROWTH OF THE SLAVERY QUESTION. +</h2></center><br> +<p> +It will be remembered that during the period of the Missouri Struggle, +1818-1820, the Territory of Arkansas was formed by an Act of Congress +out of that part of the Missouri Territory not included in the proposed +State of Missouri, and that the Act so creating the Territory of +Arkansas contained no provision restricting Slavery. Early in 1836, the +people of Arkansas Territory met in Convention and formed a Constitution +under which, "and by virtue of the treaty of cession by France to the +United States, of the Province of Louisiana," they asked admission to +the Union as a State. Among other provisions of that Constitution was a +section rendering the State Legislature powerless to pass laws for the +emancipation of slaves without the consent of the owners, or to prevent +emigrants to that State from bringing with them slaves. On June 15th of +the same year, Arkansas was, under that Constitution, admitted to the +Union as a Slave State, with the sole reservation, that nothing in the +Act of admission should be construed as an assent by Congress to all or +any of the propositions contained" in the said Constitution.</p> + +<p>Long ere this, all the Northern and Middle States had made provision for +the emancipation of such slaves as remained within their borders, and +only a few years previous (in 1829 and 1831-32) Virginia had made strong +but insufficient efforts toward the same end. The failure to free +Virginia of Slavery—the effort to accomplish which had been made by +some of the greatest of her statesmen—only served to rivet the chains +of human bondage more securely throughout all the Slave States, and from +that time on, no serious agitation occurred in any one of them, looking +toward even the most gradual emancipation. On the other hand, the +advocates of the extension of the Slave-Power by the expansion of +Slave-territory, were ever on the alert, they considered it of the last +importance to maintain the balance of power between the Slave States and +the Free States. Hence, while they had secured in 1819 the cession from +Spain to the United States of the Slave-holding Floridas, and the +organization of the Slave Territory of Florida in 1822—which +subsequently came in as a Slave State under the same Act (1845) that +admitted the Free State of Iowa—their greedy eyes were now cast upon +the adjoining rich territories of Mexico.</p> + +<p>Efforts had (in 1827-1829) been made to purchase from Mexico the domain +which was known as Texas. They had failed. But already a part of Texas +had been settled by adventurous Americans under Mexican grants and +otherwise; and General Sam Houston, an adherent of the Slave Power, +having become a leading spirit among them, fomented a revolution. In +March, 1836, Texas, under his guidance, proclaimed herself a Republic +independent of Mexico.</p> + +<p>The War that ensued between Texas and Mexico ended in the flight of the +Mexican Army and the capture of Santa Anna at San Jacinto, and a treaty +recognizing Texan independence. In October, 1836, General Houston was +inaugurated President of the Republic of Texas. Close upon this +followed (in August, 1837) a proposition to our Government from the +Texan envoy for the annexation of Texas to the United States. President +Van Buren declined the offer. The Northern friends of Freedom were as +much opposed to this annexation project as the advocates of Slavery were +anxious for it. Even such conservative Northern Statesmen as Daniel +Webster strongly opposed the project. In a speech delivered in New York +[1837], after showing that the chief aim of our Government in the +acquisition of the Territory of Louisiana was to gain command of the +mouths of the great rivers to the sea, and that in the acquisition of +the Floridas our policy was based on similar considerations, Mr. Webster +declared that "no such necessity, no such policy, requires the +annexation of Texas," and that we ought "for numerous and powerful +reasons to be content with our present boundaries." He recognized that +Slavery already existed under the guarantees of the Constitution and +those guarantees must be fulfilled; that "Slavery, as it exists in the +States, is beyond the power of Congress. It is a concern of the States +themselves," but "when we come to speak of admitting new States, the +subject assumes an entirely different aspect. Our rights and our duties +are then both different. The Free States, and all the States, are then +at liberty to accept or to reject;" and he added, "In my opinion the +people of the United States will not consent to bring into the Union a +new, vastly extensive and Slaveholding country, large enough for a half +a dozen or a dozen States. In my opinion, they ought not to consent to +it."</p> + +<p>Farther on, in the same speech—after alluding to the strong feeling in +the Northern States against the extension of Slavery, not only as a +question of politics, but of conscience and religious conviction as +wellhe deems him a rash man indeed "who supposes that a feeling of this +kind is to be trifled with or despised." Said he: "It will assuredly +cause itself to be respected. It may be reasoned with; it may be made +willing—I believe it is entirely willing—to fulfill all existing +engagements and all existing duties—to uphold and defend the +Constitution as it is established, with whatever regrets about some +provisions which it does actually contain. But to coerce it into +silence, to endeavor to restrain its free expression, to seek to +compress and confine it, warm as it is, and more heated as such +endeavors would inevitably render it,—should this be attempted, I know +nothing, even in the Constitution or in the Union itself, which would +not be endangered by the explosion which might follow."</p> + +<p>In 1840, General Harrison, the Whig candidate, was elected to the +Presidency, but died within a few weeks after his inauguration in 1841, +and was succeeded by John Tyler. The latter favored the Slave Power; +and on April 12th, 1844, John C. Calhoun, his Secretary of State, +concluded with Texas a treaty of annexation—which was, however, +rejected by the Senate. Meanwhile the public mind was greatly agitated +over the annexation and other, questions.</p> +<blockquote><blockquote><blockquote> +<p> [In the London Index, a journal established there by Jefferson + Davis's agents to support the cause of the rebellious States, a + communication appeared during the early part of the war, Dec. 4, + 1861, supposed to have been written by Mr. Mason, of Virginia, in + which he said: "To tell the Norths, the Butes, the Wedderburns of + the present day, that previous to the year 1839 the sovereign + States of the South had unalterably resolved on the specific ground + of the violation of the Federal Constitution by the tariff of + spoliation which the New England States had imposed upon them—to + secede from the Union; to tell them that in that year the leader of + the South, Calhoun, urged an English gentleman, to whom he had + fully explained the position of the South, and the intolerable + tyranny which the North inflicted upon it, to be the bearer of + credentials from the chief persons of the South, in order to invite + the attention of the British Government to the coming event; that + on his death-bed (Washington, March 31, 1850), he called around him + his political friends—one of whom is now in England—warned them + that in no event could the Union survive the Presidential election + of 1860, though it might possibly break up before that urged them + to be prepared; leaving with his dying words the sacred cause of + Southern secession a solemn legacy in their hands—to have told + this to the Norths and Dartmouths of the present day, with more and + even stronger evidence of the coming events of November, 1860, + would have been like speaking to the stones of the street. In + November, 1860, they were thoroughly ignorant of all the momentous + antecedents of secession—of their nature, their character, their + bearing, import, and consequences."</p> + +<p> In the same correspondence the distinguished Rebel emissary + substantially let out the fact that Calhoun was indirectly, through + himself (Mason), in secret communication with the British + Government as far back as 1841, with a view to securing its + powerful aid in his aforesaid unalterable resolve to Secede from + the Union; and then Mr. Mason pleads—but pleads in vain—for the + armed intervention of England at this later day. Said he:</p> + +<p> "In the year 1841 the late Sir William Napier sent in two plans for + subduing the Union, to the War Office, in the first of which the + South was to be treated as an enemy, in the second as a friend and + ally. I was much consulted by him as to the second plan and was + referred to by name in it, as he showed by the acknowledgment of + this in Lord Fitzroy Somerset's letter of reply. This plan fully + provided for the contingency of an invasion of Canada, and its + application would, in eighteen or twenty months, have reduced the + North to a much more impotent condition than it exhibits at + present. At this very moment the most difficult portion of that + plan has been perfectly accomplished by the South itself; and the + North, in accordance with Sir William Napier's expectations, now + lies helpless before England, and at our absolute mercy. Nor is + there any doubt of this, and if Lord Palmerston is not aware of it + Mr. Seward certainly is. We have nothing remaining to do but to + stretch out our arm in the way Sir William Napier proposed, and the + Northern power—power as we ignorantly call it—must come to an + end. Sir William knew and well estimated the elements of which + that quasi power consisted; and he knew how to apply the + substantive power of England to dissolve it. In the best interest + of humanity, I venture to say that it is the duty of England to + apply this power without further delay—its duty to itself, to its + starving operatives, to France, to Europe, and to humanity. And in + the discharge of this great duty to the world at large there will + not even be the dignity of sacrifice or danger."]</p> +</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote> +<p>Threats and counter-threats of Disunion were made on either hand by the +opponents and advocates of Slavery-extension through annexation; nor was +it less agitated on the subject of a Protective Tariff.</p> + +<p>The Compromise Tariff of 1833, together with President Jackson's +upheaval of our financial system, produced, as has already been hinted, +terrible commercial disasters. "In 1840," says competent authority, "all +prices had ruinously fallen; production had greatly diminished, and in +many departments of industry had practically ceased; thousands of +working men were idle, with no hope of employment, and their families +suffering from want. Our farmers were without markets, their products +rotted in their barns, and their lands, teeming with rich harvests, were +sold by the sheriff for debts and taxes. The Tariff, which robbed our +industries of Protection failed to supply Government with its necessary +revenues. The National Treasury in consequence was bankrupt, and the +credit of the Nation had sunk very low."</p> + +<p>Mr. Clay himself stated "the average depression in the value of property +under that state of things which existed before the Tariff of 1842 came +to the rescue of the country, at fifty per cent." And hence it was that +Protection was made the chief issue of the Presidential campaign of +1840, which eventuated in the election of Harrison and Tyler, and in the +Tariff Act of August 30, 1842, which revived our trade and industries, +and brought back to the land a full measure of prosperity. With those +disasters fresh in the minds of the people, Protection continued to be a +leading issue in the succeeding Presidential campaign of 1844—but +coupled with the Texas-annexation issue. In that campaign Henry Clay +was the candidate of the Whig party and James K. Polk of the Democratic +party. Polk was an ardent believer in the annexation policy and stood +upon a platform declaring for the "re-occupation of Oregon and the +re-annexation of Texas at the earliest practicable moment"—as if the +prefix "re" legitimatized the claim in either case; Clay, on the other +hand, held that we had "fairly alienated our title to Texas by solemn +National compacts, to the fulfilment of which we stand bound by good +faith and National honor;" that "Annexation and War with Mexico are +identical," and that he was "not willing to involve this country in a +foreign War for the object of acquiring Texas."</p> +<blockquote><blockquote><blockquote> +<p> [In his letter of April 17, 1844, published in the National + Intelligencer.]</p> +</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote> +<p>As to the Tariff issue also, Clay was the acknowledged champion of the +American system of Protection, while Polk was opposed to it, and was +supported by the entire Free-trade sentiment, whether North or South.</p> + +<p>As the campaign progressed, it became evident that Clay would be +elected. Then occurred some of those fatalities which have more than +once, in the history of Presidential campaigns, overturned the most +reasonable expectations and defeated the popular will. Mr. Clay +committed a blunder and Mr. Polk an equivocation—to use the mildest +possible term. Mr. Clay was induced by Southern friends to write a +letter—[Published in the North Alabamian, Aug. 16, 1844.]—in which, +after stating that "far from having any personal objection to the +annexation of Texas, I should be glad to see it—without dishonor, +without War, with the common consent of the Union, and upon just and +fair terms," he added: "I do not think that the subject of Slavery ought +to affect the question, one way or the other." Mr. Polk, on the other +hand, wrote a letter in which he declared it to be "the duty of the +Government to extend, as far as it may be practicable to do so, by its +revenue laws and all other means within its power, fair and just +Protection to all the great interests of the whole Union, embracing +Agriculture, Manufactures, the Mechanic Arts, Commerce and Navigation." +This was supplemented by a letter (August 8, 1844) from Judge Wilson +McCandless of Pennsylvania, strongly upholding the Protective principle, +claiming that Clay in his Compromise Tariff Bill had abandoned it, and +that Polk and Dallas had "at heart the true interests of Pennsylvania." +Clay, thus betrayed by the treachery of Southern friends, was greatly +weakened, while Polk, by his beguiling letter, backed by the false +interpretation put upon it by powerful friends in the North, made the +North believe him a better Protectionist than Clay.</p> + +<p>Polk was elected, and rewarded the misplaced confidence by making Robert +J. Walker his Secretary of the Treasury, and, largely through that +great Free Trader's exertions, secured a repeal by Congress of the +Protective Tariff of 1842 and the enactment of the ruinous Free Trade +Tariff of 1846. Had Clay carried New York, his election was secure. As +it happened, Polk had a plurality in New York of but 5,106 in an immense +vote, and that slim plurality was given to him by the Abolitionists +throwing away some 15,000 on Birney. And thus also it curiously +happened that it was the Abolition vote which secured the election of +the candidate who favored immediate annexation and the extension of the +Slave Power!</p> + +<p>Emboldened and apparently sustained by the result of the election, the +Slave Power could not await the inauguration of Mr. Polk, but proceeded +at once, under whip and spur, to drive the Texas annexation scheme +through Congress; and two days before the 4th of March, 1845, an Act +consenting to the admission of the Republic of Texas as a State of the +Union was approved by President Tyler.</p> + +<p>In that Act it was provided that "New States of convenient size, not +exceeding four in number, in addition to the said State of Texas, and +having sufficient population, may hereafter, by the consent of said +State, be formed out of the territory thereof, which shall be entitled +to admission under the provisions of the Federal Constitution; and such +States as may be formed out of that portion of said territory lying +south of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes north latitude, commonly +known as the Missouri Compromise line, shall be admitted into the Union +with or without Slavery, as the people of each State asking admission +may desire. And in such State or States as shall be formed out of said +territory north of said Missouri Compromise line, Slavery or involuntary +servitude (except for crime) shall be prohibited." As has been lucidly +stated by another,—[Greeley's History]—"while seeming to curtail and +circumscribe Slavery north of the above parallel (that of 36 30' north +latitude), this measure really extended it northward to that parallel, +which it had not yet approached, under the flag of Texas, within +hundreds of miles. But the chief end of this sham Compromise was the +involving of Congress in an indirect indorsement of the claim of Texas +to the entire left bank of the Rio Grande, from its mouth to its source; +and this was effected."</p> + +<p>Texas quickly consented to the Act of annexation, and in December, 1845, +a Joint Resolution formally admitting her as a State of the Union, +reported by Stephen A. Douglas, was duly passed.</p> + +<p>In May, 1846, the American forces under General Taylor, which had been +dispatched to protect Texas from threatened assault, were attacked by +the Mexican army, which at Palo Alto was badly defeated and at Resaca de +la Palma driven back across the Rio Grande.</p> + +<p>Congress immediately declared that by this invasion a state of War +existed between Mexico and the United States. Thus commenced the War +with Mexico—destined to end in the triumph of the American Army, and +the acquisition of large areas of territory to the United States. In +anticipation of such triumph, President Polk lost little time in asking +an appropriation of over two million dollars by Congress to facilitate +negotiations for peace with, and territorial cession from, Mexico. And +a Bill making such appropriation was quickly passed by the House of +Representatives—but with the following significant proviso attached, +which had been offered by Mr. Wilmot: "Provided. That as an express and +fundamental condition to the acquisition of any territory from the +Republic of Mexico by the United States, by virtue of any treaty that +may be negotiated between them, and to the use by the Executive of the +moneys herein appropriated, neither Slavery nor involuntary servitude +shall ever exist in any part of said territory, except for crime, +whereof the party shall first be duly convicted."</p> + +<p>The debate in the Senate upon the Wilmot proviso, which immediately +ensued, was cut short by the expiration of the Session of Congress—and +the Bill accordingly failed of passage.</p> + +<p>In February, 1848, the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was made between +Mexico and the United States, and Peace reigned once more. About the +same time a Bill was passed by the Senate providing Territorial +Governments for Oregon, California and New Mexico, which provided for +the reference of all questions touching Slavery in such Territories to +the United States Supreme Court, for arbitration. The Bill, however, +failed in the House. The ensuing Presidential campaign resulted in the +election of General Taylor, the Whig candidate, who was succeeded upon +his death, July 10, 1850, by Fillmore. Meanwhile, on the Oregon +Territory Bill, in 1848, a strong effort had been made by Mr. Douglas +and others to incorporate a provision extending to the Pacific Ocean the +Missouri Compromise line of 36 30' of north latitude and extending to +all future organizations of Territories of the United States the +principles of said Compromise. This provision was adopted by the +Senate, but the House struck it from the Bill; the Senate receded, and +Oregon was admitted as a Free Territory. But the conflict in Congress +between those who would extend and those who would restrict Slavery +still continued, and indeed gathered vehemence with time. In 1850, +California was clamoring for admission as a Free State to the Union, and +New Mexico and Utah sought to be organized under Territorial +Governments.</p> + +<p>In the heated discussions upon questions growing out of bills for these +purposes, and to rectify the boundaries of Texas, it was no easy matter +to reach an agreement of any sort. Finally, however, the Compromise of +1850, offered by Mr. Clay, was practically agreed to and carried out, +and under it: California was admitted as a Free State; New Mexico and +Utah were admitted to Territorial organization without a word pro or con +on the subject of Slavery; the State of Texas was awarded a pecuniary +compensation for the rectification of her boundaries; the Slave Trade in +the District of Columbia was abolished; and a more effectual Fugitive +Slave Act passed.</p> + +<p>By both North and South, this Compromise of 1850, and the measures +growing out of it, were very generally acquiesced in, and for a while it +seemed as though a permanent settlement of the Slavery question had been +reached. But in the Fugitive Slave law, thus hastily enacted, lay +embedded the seed for further differences and excitements, speedily to +germinate. In its operation it proved not only unnecessarily cruel and +harsh, in the manner of the return to bondage of escaped slaves, but +also afforded a shield and support to the kidnapping of Free Negroes +from Northern States. The frequency of arrests in the Northern States, +and the accompanying circumstances of cruelty and brutality in the +execution of the law, soon made it especially odious throughout the +North, and created an active feeling of commiseration for the unhappy +victims of the Slave Power, which greatly intensified and increased the +growing Anti-Slavery sentiment in the Free States.</p> + +<p>In 1852-53, an attempt was made in Congress to organize into the +Territory of Nebraska, the region of country lying west of Iowa and +Missouri. Owing to the opposition of the South the Bill was defeated. +In 1853-4 a similar Bill was reported to the Senate by Mr. Douglas, but +afterward at his own instance recommitted to the Committee on +Territories, and reported back by him again in such shape as to create, +instead of one, two Territories, that portion directly west of Missouri +to be called Kansas, and the balance to be known as Nebraska—one of the +sections of the Bill enacting:</p> + +<p>"That in order to avoid all misconstruction it is hereby declared to be +the true intent and meaning of this Act, so far as the question of +Slavery is concerned, to carry into practical operation the following +propositions and principles, established by the Compromise measures of +1850, to wit:</p> + +<p>"First, That all questions pertaining to Slavery in the Territories, and +the new States to be formed therefrom, are to be left to the decision of +the people residing therein through their appropriate representatives.</p> + +<p>"Second, That 'all cases involving title to slaves,' and 'questions of +personal freedom,' are referred to the adjudication of the local +tribunals with the right of appeal to the Supreme Court of the United +States.</p> + +<p>"Third, That the provisions of the Constitution and laws of the United +States, in respect to fugitives from service, are to be carried into +faithful execution in all the `organized Territories,' the same as in +the States."</p> + +<p>The sections authorizing Kansas and Nebraska to elect and send delegates +to Congress also prescribed:</p> + +<p>"That the Constitution, and all laws of the United States which are not +locally inapplicable, shall have the same force and effect within the +said Territory, as elsewhere in the United States, except the section of +the Act preparatory to the admission of Missouri into the Union, +approved March 6th, 1820, which was superseded by the principles of the +Legislation of 1850, commonly called the Compromise Measures, and is +declared inoperative."</p> + +<p>And when "explaining this Kansas-Nebraska Bill" Mr. Douglas announced +that, in reporting it, "The object of the Committee was neither to +legislate Slavery in or out of the Territories; neither to introduce nor +exclude it; but to remove whatever obstacle Congress had put there, and +apply the doctrine of Congressional Non-intervention in accordance with +the principles of the Compromise Measures of 1850, and allow the people +to do as they pleased upon this as well as all other matters affecting +their interests."</p> + +<p>A vigorous and able debate ensued. A motion by Mr. Chase to strike out +the words "which was superseded by the principles of the legislation of +1850, commonly called the Compromise Measures," was defeated decisively. +Subsequently Mr. Douglas moved to strike out the same words and insert +in place of them, these: "which being inconsistent with the principles +of Non-intervention by Congress with Slavery in the States and +Territories, as recognized by the legislation of 1850 (commonly called +the Compromise Measures), is hereby declared inoperative and void; it +being the true intent and meaning of this Act not to legislate Slavery +into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave +the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic +institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the +United States"—and the motion was agreed to by a vote of 35 yeas to 10 +nays. Mr. Chase immediately moved to add to the amendment just adopted +these words: "Under which, the people of the Territory, through their +appropriate representatives, may, if they see fit, prohibit the +existence of Slavery therein;" but this motion was voted down by 36 nays +to 10 yeas. This developed the rat in the meal-tub. The people were to +be "perfectly free" to act either way on the subject of Slavery, so long +as they did not prohibit Slavery! In this shape the Bill passed the +Senate.</p> + +<p>Public sentiment in the North was greatly stirred by this direct attempt +to repeal the Missouri Compromise. But by the superior parliamentary +tactics of Southern Representatives in the House, whereby the radical +friends of Freedom were shut out from the opportunity of amendment, a +House Bill essentially the same as the Senate Bill was subsequently +passed by the House, under the previous question, and afterward rapidly +passed the Senate, and was approved by the President. At once commenced +that long and terrible struggle between the friends of Free-Soil and the +friends of Slavery, for the possession of Kansas, which convulsed the +whole Country for years, and moistened the soil of that Territory with +streams of blood, shed in numerous "border-ruffian" conflicts.</p> + +<p>The Territorial Government of Kansas was organized late in 1854, and an +"election" for Delegate held, at which the Pro-Slavery candidate +(Whitfield) was fraudulently elected. On March 30, 1855, a Territorial +Legislature was similarly chosen by Pro-Slavery voters "colonized" from +Missouri. That Legislature, upon its meeting, proceeded at once to +enact most outrageous Pro-Slavery laws, which being vetoed by the +Free-Soil Governor (Reeder), were passed over the veto, and the Free-Soil +Governor had to give place to one who favored Slavery in Kansas. But +the Free-Soil settlers of Kansas, in Mass Convention at Big Springs, +utterly repudiated the bogus Legislature and all its acts, to which they +refused submission.</p> + +<p>In consequence of these radical differences, two separate elections for +Delegate in Congress were held by the opposing factions, at one of which +was elected the Pro-Slavery Whitfield, and at the other the Free-Soiler +Reeder. Furthermore, under a call issued by the Big Springs Convention, +a Free-State Constitutional Convention was held in October, 1855, at +Topeka, which framed a Free-State Constitution, and asked admission +under it to the Union.</p> + +<p>In 1856, the House of Representatives—which, after a protracted +struggle, had elected N. P. Banks Speaker—passed a Bill, by a bare +majority, admitting Kansas under her Topeka Constitution; but the Senate +defeated it. July 4, 1856, by order of President Pierce, the Free-State +Legislature, chosen under the Topeka Constitution to meet at Topeka, was +dispersed by United States Troops. Yet, despite all oppositions, +discouragements, and outrages, the Free-State population of +Kansas continued to increase from immigration.</p> + +<p>In 1857, the Pro-Slavery Legislature elected by the Pro-Slavery voters +at their own special election—the Free-State voters declining to +participate—called a Constitutional Convention at Lecompton, which +formed a Pro-Slavery Constitution. This was submitted to the people in +such dexterous manner that they could only vote "For the Constitution +with Slavery" or "For the Constitution without Slavery"—and, as the +Constitution prescribed that "the rights of property in Slaves now in +the Territory, shall in no manner be interfered with," to vote "for the +Constitution Without Slavery" was an absurdity only paralleled by the +course of the United States Senate in refusing to permit the people of +Kansas "to prohibit Slavery" while at the same time declaring them +"perfectly free to act" as they chose in the matter.</p> + +<p>The Constitution, with Slavery, was thus adopted by a vote of over +6,000. But in the meanwhile, at another general election held for the +purpose, and despite all the frauds perpetrated by the Pro-Slavery men, +a Free-State Legislature, and Free-State Delegate to Congress had been +elected; and this Legislature submitted the Lecompton Pro-Slavery +Constitution to the people, January 4, 1858, so that they could vote: +"For the Lecompton Constitution with Slavery," "For the Lecompton +Constitution without Slavery," or "Against the Lecompton Constitution." +The consequence was that the Lecompton Constitution was defeated by a +majority of over 10,000 votes—the Missouri Pro-Slavery colonists +declining to recognize the validity of any further election on the +subject.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, in part upon the issues growing out of this Kansas conflict, +the political parties of the Nation had passed through another +Presidential campaign (1856), in which the Democratic candidate Buchanan +had been elected over Fremont the "Republican," and Fillmore the +"American," candidates. Both Houses of Congress being now Democratic, +Mr. Buchanan recommended them to accept and ratify the Lecompton +Pro-Slavery Constitution.</p> + +<p>In March, 1858, the Senate passed a Bill—against the efforts of Stephen +A. Douglas—accepting it. In the House, however, a substitute offered +by Mr. Montgomery (Douglas Democrat) known as the Crittenden-Montgomery +Compromise, was adopted. The Senate refused to concur, and the report +of a Committee of Conference—providing for submitting to the Kansas +people a proposition placing limitations upon certain public land +advantages stipulated for in the Lecompton Constitution, and in case +they rejected the proposition that another Constitutional Convention +should be held—was adopted by both Houses; and the proposition being +rejected by the people of Kansas, the Pro-Slavery Lecompton Constitution +fell with it.</p> + +<p>In 1859 a Convention, called by the Territorial Legislature for the +purpose, met at Wyandot, and framed a Free State Constitution which was +adopted by the people in October of that year, and at the ensuing State +election in December the State went Republican. In April, 1860, the +House of Representatives passed a Bill admitting Kansas as a State under +that Constitution, but the Democratic Senate adjourned without action on +the Bill; and it was not until early in 1861 that Kansas was at last +admitted.</p> + +<p>In the meantime, the Free Trade Tariff of 1846 had produced the train of +business and financial disasters that its opponents predicted. Instead +of prosperity everywhere in the land, there was misery and ruin. Even +the discovery and working of the rich placer mines of California and the +consequent flow, in enormous volume, of her golden treasure into the +Eastern States, could not stay the wide-spread flood of disaster. +President Fillmore, who had succeeded General Taylor on the latter's +death, frequently called the attention of Congress to the evils produced +by this Free Trade, and to the necessity of protecting our manufactures +"from ruinous competition from abroad." So also with his successor, +President Buchanan, who, in his Message of 1857, declared that "In the +midst of unsurpassed plenty in all the productions and in all the +elements of national wealth, we find our manufactures suspended, our +public works retarded, our private enterprises of different kinds +abandoned, and thousands of useful laborers thrown out of employment and +reduced to want." Further than this, the financial credit of the Nation +was at zero. It was financially bankrupt before the close of Buchanan's +Presidential term.</p> + +<br><br><br> + +<br><br> +<a name="lincoln"></a> +<center> +<img alt="p098-lincoln.jpg (86K)" src="images/p098-lincoln.jpg" height="874" width="590"> +</center> +<br><br><br> +<a name="ch4"></a> +<br><br> + + +<center><h2> + + CHAPTER IV.<br><br> + + POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY. +</h2></center><br> +<p>But now occurred the great Presidential struggle of 1860—which +involved not alone the principles of Protection, but those of human +Freedom, and the preservation of the Union itself—between Abraham +Lincoln of Illinois, the candidate of the Republican party, as against +Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, the National or Douglas—Democratic +candidate, John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, the Administration or +Breckinridge—Democratic candidate, and John Bell of Tennessee, the +candidate of the Bell-Union party. The great preliminary struggle which +largely influenced the determination of the Presidential political +conflict of 1860, had, however, taken place in the State of Illinois, +two years previously. To that preliminary political contest of 1858, +therefore, we will now turn our eyes—and, in order to fully understand +it, it may be well to glance back over a few years. In 1851 the +Legislature of Illinois had adopted—[The vote in the House being 65 +yeas to 4 nays.]—the following resolution: "Resolved, That our Liberty +and Independence are based upon the right of the people to form for +themselves such a government as they may choose; that this great +principle, the birthright of freemen, the gift of Heaven, secured to us +by the blood of our ancestors, ought to be secured to future +generations, and no limitation ought to be applied to this power in the +organization of any Territory of the United States, of either +Territorial Government or State Constitution, provided the government so +established shall be Republican and in conformity with the Constitution +of the United States." This resolution was a practical endorsement of +the course of Stephen A. Douglas in supporting the Compromise measures +of 1850, which he had defended as being "all founded upon the great +principle that every people ought to possess the right to form and +regulate their own domestic institutions in their own way," and that +"the same principle" should be "extended to all of the Territories of +the United States."</p> + +<p>In accordance with his views and the resolution aforesaid, Mr. Douglas +in 1854, as we have already seen, incorporated in the Kansas-Nebraska +Bill a clause declaring it to be "the true intent and meaning of the Act +not to legislate Slavery into any State or Territory, or to exclude it +therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and +regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to +the Constitution of the United States."</p> + +<p>His position, as stated by himself, was, substantially that the +Lecompton Pro-Slavery Constitution was a fraud upon the people of +Kansas, in that it did not embody the will of that people; and he denied +the right of Congress to force a Constitution upon an unwilling +people—without regard, on his part, to whether that Constitution allowed or +prohibited Slavery or any other thing, whether good or bad. He held +that the people themselves were the sole judges of whether it is good or +bad, and whether desirable or not.</p> + +<p>The Supreme Court of the United States had in the meantime made a +decision in a case afterward known as the "Dred Scott case," which was +held back until after the Presidential election of 1856 had taken place, +and added fuel to the political fire already raging. Dred Scott was a +Negro Slave. His owner voluntarily took him first into a Free State, +and afterward into a Territory which came within the Congressional +prohibitive legislation aforesaid. That decision in brief was +substantially that no Negro Slave imported from Africa, nor his +descendant, can be a citizen of any State within the meaning of the +Constitution; that neither the Congress nor any Territorial Legislature +has under the Constitution of the United States, the power to exclude +Slavery from any Territory of the United States; and that it is for the +State Courts of the Slave State, into which the negro has been conveyed +by his master, and not for the United States Courts, to decide whether +that Negro, having been held to actual Slavery in a Free State, has, by +virtue of residence in such State, himself become Free.</p> + +<p>Now it was, that the meaning of the words, "subject only to the +Constitution," as used in the Kansas-Nebraska Act, began to be +discerned. For if the people of a Territory were to be "perfectly +free," to deal with Slavery as they chose, "subject only to the +Constitution" they were by this Judicial interpretation of that +instrument "perfectly free" to deal with Slavery in any way so long as +they did not attempt "to exclude" it! The thing was all one-sided. Mr. +Douglas's attitude in inventing the peculiar phraseology in the +Kansas-Nebraska Act—which to some seemed as if expressly "made to order" for +the Dred Scott decision—was criticized with asperity; the popularity, +however, of his courageous stand against President Buchanan on the +Lecompton fraud, seemed to make it certain that, his term in the United +States Senate being about to expire, he would be overwhelmingly +re-elected to that body.</p> + +<p>But at this juncture occurred something, which for a long time held the +result in doubt, and drew the excited attention of the whole Nation to +Illinois as the great battle-ground. In 1858 a Republican State +Convention was held at Springfield, Ill., which nominated Abraham +Lincoln as the Republican candidate for United States Senator to succeed +Senator Douglas in the National Legislature. On June 16th—after such +nomination—Mr. Lincoln made to the Convention a speech—in which, with +great and incisive power, he assailed Mr. Douglas's position as well as +that of the whole Democratic Pro-Slavery Party, and announced in compact +and cogent phrase, from his own point of view, the attitude, upon the +Slavery question, of the Republican Party.</p> + +<p>In that remarkable speech—which at once attracted the attention of the +Country—Mr. Lincoln said: "We are now far into the fifth year, since a +policy was initiated with the avowed object, and confident promise, of +putting an end to Slavery agitation. Under the operation of that +policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly +augmented. In my opinion it will not cease, until a crisis shall have +been reached and passed. 'A House divided against itself cannot stand.' +I believe this Government cannot endure permanently half Slave and half +Free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved—I do not expect the +House to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will +become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of Slavery +will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind +shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate +extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become +alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as +South."</p> +<blockquote><blockquote><blockquote> +<p> [Governor Seward's announcement of an "irrepressible conflict" was + made four months later.]</p> +</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote> +<p>He then proceeded to lay bare and closely analyze the history of all +that had been done, during the four years preceding, to produce the +prevailing condition of things touching human Slavery; describing it as +resulting from that, "now almost complete legal combination-piece of +machinery, so to speak—compounded of the Nebraska doctrine and the Dred +Scott decision." After stating the several points of that decision, and +that the doctrine of the "Sacred right of self-government" had been +perverted by the Nebraska "Squatter Sovereignty," argument to mean that, +"if any one man chose to enslave another, no third man shall be allowed +to object," he proceeded to show the grounds upon which he charged +"pre-concert" among the builders of that machinery. Said he: "The people +were to be left perfectly free, 'subject only to the Constitution.' +What the Constitution had to do with it, outsiders could not see. +Plainly enough now, it was an exactly fitted niche for the Dred Scott +decision to afterward come in and declare the perfect freedom of the +people to be just no freedom at all. Why was the amendment, expressly +declaring the right of the people, voted down? Plainly enough now, the +adoption of it would have spoiled the niche for the Dred Scott decision. +Why was the Court decision held up? Why even a Senator's individual +opinion withheld, till after the Presidential election? Plainly enough +now: the speaking out then would have damaged the 'perfectly free' +argument upon which the election was to be carried. Why the outgoing +President's felicitation on the indorsement? Why the delay of a +re-argument? Why the incoming President's advance exhortation in favor of +the decision? These things look like the cautious patting and petting +of a spirited horse, preparatory to mounting him, when it is dreaded +that he may give the rider a fall. And why the hasty after-indorsement +of the decision, by the President and others? We cannot absolutely know +that all these exact adaptations are the result of pre-concert. But +when we see a lot of framed timbers, different portions of which we know +have been gotten out at different times and places and by different +workmen—Stephen, Franklin, Roger, and James—[Douglas, Pierce, Taney +and Buchanan.]—for instance—and when we see these timbers joined +together, and see they exactly make the frame of a house or a mill, all +the tenons and mortices exactly fitting, and all the lengths and +proportions of the different pieces exactly adapted to their respective +places, and not a piece too many or too few—not omitting even the +scaffolding, or, if a single piece be lacking, we see the place in the +frame exactly fitted and prepared yet to bring such piece in—in such a +case, we find it impossible not to believe that Stephen and Franklin and +Roger and James all understood one another from the beginning, and all +worked upon a common plan or draft drawn up before the first blow was +struck."</p> + +<p>He drew attention also to the fact that by the Nebraska Bill the people +of a State, as well as a Territory, were to be left "perfectly free," +"subject only to the Constitution," and that the object of lugging a +"State" into this merely Territorial law was to enable the United States +Supreme Court in some subsequent decision to declare, when the public +mind had been sufficiently imbued with Judge Douglas's notion of not +caring "whether Slavery be voted up or voted down," that "the +Constitution of the United States does not permit a State to exclude +Slavery from its limits"—which would make Slavery "alike lawful in all +the States." That, he declared to be Judge Douglas's present +mission:—"His avowed mission is impressing the 'public heart' to care nothing +about it." Hence Mr. Lincoln urged Republicans to stand by their cause, +which must be placed in the hands of its friends, "Whose hands are free, +whose hearts are in the work—who do care for the result;" for he held +that "a living dog is better than a dead lion."</p> + +<p>On the evening of July 9, 1858, at Chicago, Mr. Douglas (Mr. Lincoln +being present) spoke to an enthusiastic assemblage, which he fitly +described as a "vast sea of human faces," and, after stating that he +regarded "the Lecompton battle as having been fought and the victory +won, because the arrogant demand for the admission of Kansas under the +Lecompton Constitution unconditionally, whether her people wanted it or +not, has been abandoned, and the principle which recognizes the right of +the people to decide for themselves has been submitted in its place," he +proceeded to vindicate his position throughout; declared that he opposed +"the Lecompton monstrosity solely on the ground than it was a violation +of the fundamental principles of free government; on the ground that it +was not the act and deed of the people of Kansas; that it did not embody +their will; that they were averse to it;" and hence he "denied the right +of Congress to force it upon them, either as a Free State or a Slave +State."</p> + +<p>Said he: "I deny the right of Congress to force a Slaveholding State +upon an unwilling people. I deny their right to force a Free State upon +an unwilling people. I deny their right to force a good thing upon a +people who are unwilling to receive it. The great principle is the +right of every community to judge and decide for itself, whether a thing +is right or wrong, whether it would be good or evil for them to adopt +it; and the right of free action, the right of free thought, the right +of free judgment upon the question is dearer to every true American than +any other under a free Government. * * * It is no answer to this +argument to say that Slavery is an evil, and hence should not be +tolerated. You must allow the people to decide for themselves whether +it is good or evil." He then adverted to the arraignment of himself by +Mr. Lincoln, and took direct issue with that gentleman on his +proposition that, as to Freedom and Slavery, "the Union will become all +one thing or all the other;" and maintained on the contrary, that "it is +neither desirable nor possible that there should be uniformity in the +local institutions and domestic regulations of the different States of +this Union."</p> + +<p>Upon the further proposition of Mr. Lincoln, which Mr. Douglas described +as "a crusade against the Supreme Court of the United States on account +of the Dred Scott decision," and as "an appeal from the decision" of +that Court "upon this high Constitutional question to a Republican +caucus sitting in the country," he also took "direct and distinct issue +with him." To "the reason assigned by Mr. Lincoln for resisting the +decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case * * * because it +deprives the Negro of the privileges, immunities and rights of +citizenship which pertain, according to that decision, only to the White +man," Mr. Douglas also took exception thus: "I am free to say to you +that in my opinion this Government of ours is founded on the White +basis. It was made by the White man for the benefit of the White man, +to be administered by White men, in such manner as they should +determine. It is also true that a Negro, an Indian, or any other man of +inferior race to a White man, should be permitted to enjoy, and humanity +requires that he should have, all the rights, privileges, and immunities +which he is capable of exercising consistent with the safety of society. +* * * But you may ask me what are these rights and these privileges? +My answer is, that each State must decide for itself the nature and +extent of these rights. * * * Without indorsing the wisdom of that +decision, I assert that Virginia has the same power by virtue of her +sovereignty to protect Slavery within her limits, as Illinois has to +banish it forever from our own borders. I assert the right of each +State to decide for itself on all these questions, and I do not +subscribe to the doctrine of my friend, Mr. Lincoln, that uniformity is +either desirable or possible. I do not acknowledge that the States must +all be Free or must all be Slave. I do not acknowledge that the Negro +must have civil and political rights everywhere or nowhere. * * * I do +not acknowledge any of these doctrines of uniformity in the local and +domestic regulations in the different States. * * * Mr. Lincoln goes +for a warfare upon the Supreme Court of the United States because of +their judicial decision in the Dred Scott case. I yield obedience to +the decisions in that Court—to the final determination of the highest +judicial tribunal known to our Constitution. He objects to the Dred +Scott decision because it does not put the Negro in the possession of +the rights of citizenship on an equality with the White man. I am +opposed to Negro equality. * * * I would extend to the Negro, and the +Indian, and to all dependent races every right, every privilege, and +every immunity consistent with the safety and welfare of the White +races; but equality they never should have, either political or social, +or in any other respect whatever. * * * My friends, you see that the +issues are distinctly drawn."</p> + +<p>On the following evening (July 10th) at Chicago, Mr. Lincoln addressed +another enthusiastic assemblage, in reply to Mr. Douglas; and, after +protesting against a charge that had been made the previous night by the +latter, of an "unnatural and unholy" alliance between Administration +Democrats and Republicans to defeat him, as being beyond his own +knowledge and belief, proceeded: "Popular Sovereignty! Everlasting +Popular Sovereignty! Let us for a moment inquire into this vast matter +of Popular Sovereignty. What is Popular Sovereignty? We recollect at +an early period in the history of this struggle there was another name +for the same thing—Squatter Sovereignty. It was not exactly Popular +Sovereignty, but Squatter Sovereignty. What do those terms mean? What +do those terms mean when used now? And vast credit is taken by our +friend, the Judge, in regard to his support of it, when he declares the +last years of his life have been, and all the future years of his life +shall be, devoted to this matter of Popular Sovereignty. What is it? +Why it is the Sovereignty of the People! What was Squatter Sovereignty? +I suppose if it had any significance at all, it was the right of the +people to govern themselves, to be sovereign in their own affairs while +they were squatted down in a country not their own—while they had +squatted on a territory that did not belong to them in the sense that a +State belongs to the people who inhabit it—when it belonged to the +Nation—such right to govern themselves was called 'Squatter +Sovereignty.'</p> + +<p>"Now I wish you to mark. What has become of that Squatter Sovereignty? +What has become of it? Can you get anybody to tell you now that the +people of a Territory have any authority to govern themselves, in regard +to this mooted question of Slavery, before they form a State +Constitution? No such thing at all, although there is a general running +fire and although there has been a hurrah made in every speech on that +side, assuming that that policy had given the people of a Territory the +right to govern themselves upon this question; yet the point is dodged. +To-day it has been decided—no more than a year ago it was decided by +the Supreme Court of the United States, and is insisted upon to-day, +that the people of a Territory have no right to exclude Slavery from a +Territory, that if any one man chooses to take Slaves into a Territory, +all the rest of the people have no right to keep them out. This being +so, and this decision being made one of the points that the Judge +(Douglas) approved, * * * he says he is in favor of it, and sticks to +it, and expects to win his battle on that decision, which says there is +no such thing as Squatter Sovereignty; but that any man may take Slaves +into a Territory and all the other men in the Territory may be opposed +to it, and yet by reason of the Constitution they cannot prohibit it; +when that is so, how much is left of this vast matter of Squatter +Sovereignty, I should like to know? Again, when we get to the question +of the right of the people to form a State Constitution as they please, +to form it with Slavery or without Slavery—if that is anything new, I +confess I don't know it * * *.</p> + +<p>"We do not remember that, in that old Declaration of Independence, it is +said that 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are +created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain +inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit +of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted +among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.' +There, is the origin of Popular Sovereignty. Who, then, shall come in +at this day and claim that he invented it? The Lecompton Constitution +connects itself with this question, for it is in this matter of the +Lecompton Constitution that our friend, Judge Douglas, claims such vast +credit. I agree that in opposing the Lecompton Constitution, so far as +I can perceive, he was right. * * * All the Republicans in the Nation +opposed it, and they would have opposed it just as much without Judge +Douglas's aid as with it. They had all taken ground against it long +before he did. Why, the reason that he urges against that Constitution, +I urged against him a year before. I have the printed speech in my hand +now. The argument that he makes, why that Constitution should not be +adopted, that the people were not fairly represented nor allowed to +vote, I pointed out in a speech a year ago which I hold in my hand now, +that no fair chance was to be given to the people. * * * The Lecompton +Constitution, as the Judge tells us, was defeated. The defeat of it was +a good thing or it was not. He thinks the defeat of it was a good +thing, and so do I, and we agree in that. Who defeated it? +[A voice—'Judge Douglas.'] Yes, he furnished himself, and if you suppose he +controlled the other Democrats that went with him, he furnished three +votes, while the Republicans furnished twenty. That is what he did to +defeat it. In the House of Representatives he and his friends furnished +some twenty votes, and the Republicans furnished ninety odd. Now, who +was it that did the work? * * * Ground was taken against it by the +Republicans long before Douglas did it. The proportion of opposition to +that measure is about five to one."</p> + +<p>Mr. Lincoln then proceeded to take up the issues which Mr. Douglas had +joined with him the previous evening. He denied that he had said, or +that it could be fairly inferred from what he had said, in his +Springfield speech, that he was in favor of making War by the North upon +the South for the extinction of Slavery, "or, in favor of inviting the +South to a War upon the North, for the purpose of nationalizing +Slavery." Said he: "I did not even say that I desired that Slavery +should be put in course of ultimate extinction. I do say so now, +however; so there need be no longer any difficulty about that. * * * I +am tolerably well acquainted with the history of the Country and I know +that it has endured eighty-two years half Slave and half Free. I +believe—and that is what I meant to allude to there—I believe it has +endured, because during all that time, until the introduction of the +Nebraska Bill, the public mind did rest all the, time in the belief that +Slavery was in course of ultimate extinction. That was what gave us the +rest that we had through that period of eighty-two years; at least, so I +believe.</p> + +<p>"I have always hated Slavery, I think, as much as any Abolitionist—I +have been an Old Line Whig—I have always hated it, but I have always +been quiet about it until this new era of the introduction of the +Nebraska Bill began. I always believed that everybody was against it, +and that it was in course of ultimate extinction. * * * The great mass +of the Nation have rested in the belief that Slavery was in course of +ultimate extinction. They had reason so to believe. The adoption of +the Constitution and its attendant history led the People to believe so, +and that such was the belief of the framers of the Constitution itself. +Why did those old men about the time of the adoption of the Constitution +decree that Slavery should not go into the new territory, where it had +not already gone? Why declare that within twenty years the African +Slave Trade, by which Slaves are supplied, might be cut off by Congress? +Why were all these acts? I might enumerate more of these acts—but +enough. What were they but a clear indication that the framers of the +Constitution intended and expected the ultimate extinction of that +institution?</p> + +<p>"And now, when I say, as I said in my speech that Judge Douglas has +quoted from, when I say that I think the opponents of Slavery will +resist the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind +shall rest with the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction, +I only mean to say, that they will place it where the founders of this +Government originally placed it. I have said a hundred times, and I +have now no inclination to take it back, that I believe there is no +right, and ought to be no inclination in the people of the Free States, +to enter into the Slave States, and interfere with the question of +Slavery at all. I have said that always; Judge Douglas has heard me say +it—if not quite a hundred times, at least as good as a hundred times; +and when it is said that I am in favor of interfering with Slavery where +it exists, I know that it is unwarranted by anything I have ever +intended, and as I believe, by anything I have ever said. If, by any +means, I have ever used language which could fairly be so construe (as, +however, I believe I never have) I now correct it. So much, then, for +the inference that Judge Douglas draws, that I am in favor of setting +the Sections at War with one another.</p> + +<p>"Now in relation to his inference that I am in favor of a general +consolidation of all the local institutions of the various States * * * +I have said, very many times in Judge Douglas's hearing, that no man +believed more than I in the principle of self-government from beginning +to end. I have denied that his use of that term applies properly. But +for the thing itself, I deny that any man has ever gone ahead of me in +his devotion to the principle, whatever he may have done in efficiency +in advocating it. I think that I have said it in your hearing—that I +believe each individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with +himself and the fruit of his labor, so far as it in no wise interferes +with any other man's rights—that each community, as a State, has a +right to do exactly as it pleases with all the concerns within that +State that interfere with the rights of no other State, and that the +General Government, upon principle, has no right to interfere with +anything other than that general class of things that does concern the +whole. I have said that at all times.</p> + +<p>"I have said, as illustrations, that I do not believe in the right of +Illinois to interfere with the cranberry laws of Indiana, the oyster +laws of Virginia, or the liquor laws of Maine. I have said these things +over and over again, and I repeat them here as my sentiments. * * * +What can authorize him to draw any such inference? I suppose there +might be one thing that at least enabled him to draw such an inference +that would not be true with me or many others, that is, because he looks +upon all this matter of Slavery as an exceedingly little thing—this +matter of keeping one-sixth of the population of the whole Nation in a +state of oppression and tyranny unequaled in the World.</p> + +<p>"He looks upon it as being an exceedingly little thing only equal to the +cranberry laws of Indiana—as something having no moral question in +it—as something on a par with the question of whether a man shall pasture +his land with cattle, or plant it with tobacco—so little and so small a +thing, that he concludes, if I could desire that anything should be done +to bring about the ultimate extinction of that little thing, I must be +in favor of bringing about an amalgamation of all the other little +things in the Union.</p> + +<p>"Now it so happens—and there, I presume, is the foundation of this +mistake—that the Judge thinks thus; and it so happens that there is a +vast portion of the American People that do not look upon that matter as +being this very little thing. They look upon it as a vast moral evil; +they can prove it as such by the writings of those who gave us the +blessings of Liberty which we enjoy, and that they so looked upon it, +and not as an evil merely confining itself to the States where it is +situated; while we agree that, by the Constitution we assented to, in +the States where it exists we have no right to interfere with it, +because it is in the Constitution; and we are by both duty and +inclination to stick by that Constitution in all its letter and spirit, +from beginning to end. * * * The Judge can have no issue with me on a +question of establishing uniformity in the domestic regulations of the +States. * * *</p> + +<p>"Another of the issues he says that is to be made with me, is upon his +devotion to the Dred Scott decision, and my opposition to it. I have +expressed heretofore, and I now repeat, my opposition to the Dred Scott +decision; but I should be allowed to state the nature of that +opposition. * * * What is fairly implied by the term Judge Douglas has +used, 'resistance to the decision?' I do not resist it. If I wanted to +take Dred Scott from his master, I would be interfering with property +and that terrible difficulty that Judge Douglas speaks of, of +interfering with property, would arise. But I am doing no such thing as +that, but all that I am doing is refusing to obey it, as a political +rule. If I were in Congress, and a vote should come up on a question +whether Slavery should be prohibited in a new Territory, in spite of the +Dred Scott decision, I would vote that it should. That is what I would +do.</p> + +<p>"Judge Douglas said last night, that before the decision he might +advance his opinion, and it might be contrary to the decision when it +was made; but after it was made, he would abide by it until it was +reversed. Just so! We let this property abide by the decision, but we +will try to reverse that decision. We will try to put it where Judge +Douglas would not object, for he says he will obey it until it is +reversed. Somebody has to reverse that decision, since it is made, and +we mean to reverse it, and we mean to do it peaceably.</p> + +<p>"What are the uses of decisions of Courts? They have two uses. As +rules of property they have two uses. First, they decide upon the +question before the Court. They decide in this case that Dred Scott is +a Slave. Nobody resists that. Not only that, but they say to everybody +else, that persons standing just as Dred Scott stands, are as he is. +That is, they say that when a question comes up upon another person, it +will be so decided again, unless the Court decides in another +way—unless the Court overrules its decision.—Well, we mean to do what we +can to have the Court decide the other way. That is one thing we mean +to try to do.</p> + +<p>"The sacredness that Judge Douglas throws around this decision is a +degree of sacredness that has never before been thrown around any other +decision. I have never heard of such a thing. Why, decisions +apparently contrary to that decision, or that good lawyers thought were +contrary to that decision, have been made by that very Court before. It +is the first of its kind; it is an astonisher in legal history. It is a +new wonder of the world. It is based upon falsehood in the main as to +the facts—allegations of facts upon which it stands are not facts at +all in many instances; and no decision made on any question—the first +instance of a decision made under so many unfavorable +circumstances—thus placed, has ever been held by the profession as law, and it has +always needed confirmation before the lawyers regarded it as settled +law. But Judge Douglas will have it that all hands must take this +extraordinary decision, made under these extraordinary circumstances, +and give their vote in Congress in accordance with it, yield to it and +obey it in every possible sense.</p> + +<p>"Circumstances alter cases. Do not gentlemen remember the case of that +same Supreme Court, some twenty-five or thirty years ago, deciding that +a National Bank was Constitutional? * * * The Bank charter ran out, +and a recharter was granted by Congress. That re-charter was laid +before General Jackson. It was urged upon him, when he denied the +Constitutionality of the Bank, that the Supreme Court had decided that +it was Constitutional; and General Jackson then said that the Supreme +Court had no right to lay down a rule to govern a co-ordinate branch of +the Government, the members of which had sworn to support the +Constitution—that each member had sworn to support that Constitution as +he understood it. I will venture here to say, that I have heard Judge +Douglas say that he approved of General Jackson for that act. What has +now become of all his tirade about 'resistance to the Supreme Court?'"</p> + +<p>After adverting to Judge Douglas's warfare on "the leaders" of the +Republican party, and his desire to have "it understood that the mass of +the Republican party are really his friends," Mr. Lincoln said: "If you +indorse him, you tell him you do not care whether Slavery be voted up or +down, and he will close, or try to close, your mouths with his +declaration repeated by the day, the week, the month, and the year. Is +that what you mean? * * * Now I could ask the Republican party, after +all the hard names that Judge Douglas has called them by, all his +repeated charges of their inclination to marry with and hug negroes—all +his declarations of Black Republicanism—by the way, we are improving, +the black has got rubbed off—but with all that, if he be indorsed by +Republican votes, where do you stand? Plainly, you stand ready saddled, +bridled, and harnessed, and waiting to be driven over to the +Slavery-extension camp of the Nation—just ready to be driven over, tied +together in a lot—to be driven over, every man with a rope around his +neck, that halter being held by Judge Douglas. That is the question. +If Republican men have been in earnest in what they have done, I think +that they has better not do it. * * *</p> + +<p>"We were often—more than once at least—in the course of Judge +Douglas's speech last night, reminded that this Government was made for +White men—that he believed it was made for White men. Well, that is +putting it in a shape in which no one wants to deny it; but the Judge +then goes into his passion for drawing inferences that are not +warranted. I protest, now and forever, against that counterfeit logic +which presumes that because I do not want a Negro woman for a Slave I do +necessarily want her for a wife. My understanding is that I need not +have her for either; but, as God has made us separate, we can leave one +another alone, and do one another much good thereby. There are White +men enough to marry all the White women, and enough Black men to marry +all the Black women, and in God's name let them be so married. The +Judge regales us with the terrible enormities that take place by the +mixture of races; that the inferior race bears the superior down. Why, +Judge, if we do not let them get together in the Territories, they won't +mix there.</p> + +<p>" * * * Those arguments that are made, that the inferior race are to be +treated with as much allowance as they are capable of enjoying; that as +much is to be done for them as their condition will allow—what are +these arguments? They are the arguments that Kings have made for +enslaving the People in all ages of the World. You will find that all +the arguments in favor of king-craft were of this class; they always +bestrode the necks of the People, not that they wanted to do it, but +because the People were better off for being ridden! That is their +argument, and this argument of the Judge is the same old Serpent that +says: you work, and I eat; you toil, and I will enjoy the fruits of it.</p> + +<p>"Turn it whatever way you will—whether it come from the mouth of a +King, an excuse for enslaving the People of his Country, or from the +mouth of men of one race as a reason for enslaving the men of another +race, it is all the same old Serpent; and I hold, if that course of +argumentation that is made for the purpose of convincing the public mind +that we should not care about this, should be granted, it does not stop +with the Negro.</p> + +<p>"I should like to know, taking this old Declaration of Independence, +which declares that all men are equal upon principle, and making +exceptions to it, where will it stop? If one man says it does not mean +a Negro, why not say it does not mean some other man? If that +Declaration is not the truth, let us get the Statute Book, in which we +find it, and tear it out! Who is so bold as to do it? If it is not +true, let us tear it out!" [Cries of "No, no."] "Let us stick to it +then; let us stand firmly by it, then. * * *</p> + +<p>" * * * The Saviour, I suppose, did not expect that any human creature +could be perfect as the Father in Heaven; but He said, 'As your Father +in Heaven is perfect, be ye also perfect.' He set that up as a +standard, and he who did most toward reaching that standard, attained +the highest degree of moral perfection. So I say, in relation to the +principle that all men are created equal—let it be as nearly reached as +we can. If we cannot give Freedom to every creature, let us do nothing +that will impose Slavery upon any other creature. Let us then turn this +Government back into the channel in which the framers of the +Constitution originally placed it. Let us stand firmly by each other. +* * * Let us discard all this quibbling * * * and unite as one People +throughout this Land, until we shall once more stand up declaring that +all men are created equal."</p> + +<p>At Bloomington, July 16th (Mr. Lincoln being present), Judge Douglas +made another great speech of vindication and attack. After sketching +the history of the Kansas-Nebraska struggle, from the introduction by +himself of the Nebraska Bill in the United States Senate, in 1854, down +to the passage of the "English" Bill—which prescribed substantially +that if the people of Kansas would come in as a Slave-holding State, +they should be admitted with but 35,000 inhabitants; but if they would +come in as a Free State, they must have 93,420 inhabitants; which unfair +restriction was opposed by Judge Douglas, but to which after it became +law he "bowed in deference," because whatever decision the people of +Kansas might make on the coming third of August would be "final and +conclusive of the whole question"—he proceeded to compliment the +Republicans in Congress, for supporting the Crittenden-Montgomery +Bill—for coming "to the Douglas platform, abandoning their own, believing (in +the language of the New York Tribune), that under the peculiar +circumstances they would in that mode best subserve the interests of the +Country;" and then again attacked Mr. Lincoln for his "unholy and +unnatural alliance" with the Lecompton-Democrats to defeat him, because +of which, said he: "You will find he does not say a word against the +Lecompton Constitution or its supporters. He is as silent as the grave +upon that subject. Behold Mr. Lincoln courting Lecompton votes, in +order that he may go to the Senate as the representative of Republican +principles! You know that the alliance exists. I think you will find +that it will ooze out before the contest is over." Then with many +handsome compliments to the personal character of Mr. Lincoln, and +declaring that the question for decision was "whether his principles are +more in accordance with the genius of our free institutions, the peace +and harmony of the Republic" than those advocated by himself, Judge +Douglas proceeded to discuss what he described as "the two points at +issue between Mr. Lincoln and myself."</p> + +<p>Said he: "Although the Republic has existed from 1789 to this day, +divided into Free States and Slave States, yet we are told that in the +future it cannot endure unless they shall become all Free or all Slave. +* * * He wishes to go to the Senate of the United States in order to +carry out that line of public policy which will compel all the States in +the South to become Free. How is he going to do it? Has Congress any +power over the subject of Slavery in Kentucky or Virginia or any other +State of this Union? How, then, is Mr. Lincoln going to carry out that +principle which he says is essential to the existence of this Union, to +wit: That Slavery must be abolished in all the States of the Union or +must be established in them all? You convince the South that they must +either establish Slavery in Illinois and in every other Free State, or +submit to its abolition in every Southern State and you invite them to +make a warfare upon the Northern States in order to establish Slavery +for the sake of perpetuating it at home. Thus, Mr. Lincoln invites, by +his proposition, a War of Sections, a War between Illinois and Kentucky, +a War between the Free States and the Slave States, a War between the +North and South, for the purpose of either exterminating Slavery in +every Southern State or planting it in every Northern State. He tells +you that the safety of the Republic, that the existence of this Union, +depends upon that warfare being carried on until one Section or the +other shall be entirely subdued. The States must all be Free or Slave, +for a house divided against itself cannot stand. That is Mr. Lincoln's +argument upon that question. My friends, is it possible to preserve +Peace between the North and the South if such a doctrine shall prevail +in either Section of the Union?</p> + +<p>"Will you ever submit to a warfare waged by the Southern States to +establish Slavery in Illinois? What man in Illinois would not lose the +last drop of his heart's blood before lie would submit to the +institution of Slavery being forced upon us by the other States against +our will? And if that be true of us, what Southern man would not shed +the last drop of his heart's blood to prevent Illinois, or any other +Northern State, from interfering to abolish Slavery in his State? Each +of these States is sovereign under the Constitution; and if we wish to +preserve our liberties, the reserved rights and sovereignty of each and +every State must be maintained. * * * The difference between Mr. +Lincoln and myself upon this point is, that he goes for a combination of +the Northern States, or the organization of a sectional political party +in the Free States, to make War on the domestic institutions of the +Southern States, and to prosecute that War until they all shall be +subdued, and made to conform to such rules as the North shall dictate to +them.</p> + +<p>"I am aware that Mr. Lincoln, on Saturday night last, made a speech at +Chicago for the purpose, as he said, of explaining his position on this +question. * * * His answer to this point which I have been arguing, +is, that he never did mean, and that I ought to know that he never +intended to convey the idea, that he wished the people of +the Free States to enter into the Southern States and interfere with +Slavery. Well, I never did suppose that he ever dreamed of entering +into Kentucky, to make War upon her institutions, nor will any +Abolitionist ever enter into Kentucky to wage such War. Their mode of +making War is not to enter into those States where Slavery exists, and +there interfere, and render themselves responsible for the consequences. +Oh, no! They stand on this side of the Ohio River and shoot across. +They stand in Bloomington and shake their fists at the people of +Lexington; they threaten South Carolina from Chicago. And they call +that bravery! But they are very particular, as Mr. Lincoln says, not to +enter into those States for the purpose of interfering with the +institution of Slavery there. I am not only opposed to entering into +the Slave States, for the purpose of interfering with their +institutions, but I am opposed to a sectional agitation to control the +institutions of other States. I am opposed to organizing a sectional +party, which appeals to Northern pride, and Northern passion and +prejudice, against Southern institutions, thus stirring up ill feeling +and hot blood between brethren of the same Republic. I am opposed to +that whole system of sectional agitation, which can produce nothing but +strife, but discord, but hostility, and finally disunion. * * *</p> + +<p>"I ask Mr. Lincoln how it is that he purposes ultimately to bring about +this uniformity in each and all the States of the Union? There is but +one possible mode which I can see, and perhaps Mr. Lincoln intends to +pursue it; that is, to introduce a proposition into the Senate to change +the Constitution of the United States in order that all the State +Legislatures may be abolished, State Sovereignty blotted out, and the +power conferred upon Congress to make local laws and establish the +domestic institutions and police regulations uniformly throughout the +United States.</p> + +<p>"Are you prepared for such a change in the institutions of your country? +Whenever you shall have blotted out the State Sovereignties, abolished +the State Legislatures, and consolidated all the power in the Federal +Government, you will have established a Consolidated Empire as +destructive to the Liberties of the People and the Rights of the Citizen +as that of Austria, or Russia, or any other despotism that rests upon +the neck of the People. * * * There is but one possible way in which +Slavery can be abolished, and that is by leaving a State, according to +the principle of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, perfectly free to form and +regulate its institutions in its own way. That was the principle upon +which this Republic was founded, and it is under the operation of that +principle that we have been able to preserve the Union thus far under +its operation. Slavery disappeared from New Hampshire, from Rhode +Island, from Connecticut, from New York, from New Jersey, from +Pennsylvania, from six of the twelve original Slave-holding States; and +this gradual system of emancipation went on quietly, peacefully, and +steadily, so long as we in the Free States minded our own business, and +left our neighbors alone.</p> + +<p>"But the moment the Abolition Societies were organized throughout the +North, preaching a violent crusade against Slavery in the Southern +States, this combination necessarily caused a counter-combination in the +South, and a sectional line was drawn which was a barrier to any further +emancipation. Bear in mind that emancipation has not taken place in any +one State since the Free Soil Party was organized as a political party +in this country. Emancipation went on gradually, in State after State, +so long as the Free States were content with managing their own affairs +and leaving the South perfectly free to do as they pleased; but the +moment the North said we are powerful enough to control you of the +South, the moment the North proclaimed itself the determined master of +the South, that moment the South combined to resist the attack, and thus +sectional parties were formed and gradual emancipation ceased in all the +Slave-holding States.</p> + +<p>"And yet Mr. Lincoln, in view of these historical facts, proposes to +keep up this sectional agitation, band all the Northern States together +in one political Party, elect a President by Northern votes alone, and +then, of course, make a Cabinet composed of Northern men, and administer +the Government by Northern men only, denying all the Southern States of +this Union any participation in the administration of affairs +whatsoever. I submit to you, my fellow-citizens, whether such a line of +policy is consistent with the peace and harmony of the Country? Can the +Union endure under such a system of policy? He has taken his position +in favor of sectional agitation and sectional warfare. I have taken +mine in favor of securing peace, harmony, and good-will among all the +States, by permitting each to mind its own business, and +discountenancing any attempt at interference on the part of one State +with the domestic concerns of the others. * * *</p> + +<p>"Mr. Lincoln tells you that he is opposed to the decision of the Supreme +Court in the Dred Scott case. Well, suppose he is; what is he going to +do about it? * * * Why, he says he is going to appeal to Congress. Let +us see how he will appeal to Congress. He tells us that on the 8th of +March, 1820, Congress passed a law called the Missouri Compromise, +prohibiting Slavery forever in all the territory west of the Mississippi +and north of the Missouri line of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes; +that Dred Scott, a slave in Missouri, was taken by his master to Fort +Snelling, in the present State of Minnesota, situated on the west branch +of the Mississippi River, and consequently in the Territory where +Slavery was prohibited by the Act of 1820; and that when Dred Scott +appealed for his Freedom in consequence of having been taken into that +Territory, the Supreme Court of the United States decided that Dred +Scott did not become Free by being taken into that Territory, but that +having been carried back to Missouri, was yet a Slave.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Lincoln is going to appeal from that decision and reverse it. He +does not intend to reverse it as to Dred Scott. Oh, no! But he will +reverse it so that it shall not stand as a rule in the future. How will +he do it? He says that if he is elected to the Senate he will introduce +and pass a law just like the Missouri Compromise, prohibiting Slavery +again in all the Territories. Suppose he does re-enact the same law +which the Court has pronounced unconstitutional, will that make it +Constitutional? * * * Will it be any more valid? Will he be able to +convince the Court that the second Act is valid, when the first is +invalid and void? What good does it do to pass a second Act? Why, it +will have the effect to arraign the Supreme Court before the People, and +to bring them into all the political discussions of the Country. Will +that do any good? * * *</p> + +<p>"The functions of Congress are to enact the Statutes, the province of +the Court is to pronounce upon their validity, and the duty of the +Executive is to carry the decision into effect when rendered by the +Court. And yet, notwithstanding the Constitution makes the decision of +the Court final in regard to the validity of an Act of Congress, Mr. +Lincoln is going to reverse that decision by passing another Act of +Congress. When he has become convinced of the Folly of the proposition, +perhaps he will resort to the same subterfuge that I have found others +of his Party resort to, which is to agitate and agitate until he can +change the Supreme Court and put other men in the places of the present +incumbents."</p> + +<p>After ridiculing this proposition at some length, he proceeded:</p> + +<p>"Mr. Lincoln is alarmed for fear that, under the Dred Scott decision, +Slavery will go into all the Territories of the United States. All I +have to say is that, with or without this decision, Slavery will go just +where the People want it, and not an inch further. * * * Hence, if the +People of a Territory want Slavery, they will encourage it by passing +affirmatory laws, and the necessary police regulations, patrol laws and +Slave Code; if they do not want it, they will withhold that legislation, +and, by withholding it, Slavery is as dead as if it was prohibited by a +Constitutional prohibition, especially if, in addition, their +legislation is unfriendly, as it would be if they were opposed to it."</p> + +<p>Then, taking up what he said was "Mr. Lincoln's main objection to the +Dred Scott decision," to wit: "that that decision deprives the Negro of +the benefits of that clause of the Constitution of the United States +which entitles the citizens of each State to all the privileges and +immunities of citizens of the several States," and admitting that such +would be its effect, Mr. Douglas contended at some length that this +Government was "founded on the White basis" for the benefit of the +Whites and their posterity. He did "not believe that it was the design +or intention of the signers of the Declaration of Independence or the +frames of the Constitution to include Negroes, Indians, or other +inferior races, with White men as citizens;" nor that the former "had +any reference to Negroes, when they used the expression that all men +were created equal," nor to "any other inferior race." He held that, +"They were speaking only of the White race, and never dreamed that their +language would be construed to apply to the Negro;" and after ridiculing +the contrary view, insisted that, "The history of the Country shows that +neither the signers of the Declaration, nor the Framers of the +Constitution, ever supposed it possible that their language would be +used in an attempt to make this Nation a mixed Nation of Indians, +Negroes, Whites, and Mongrels."</p> + +<p>The "Fathers proceeded on the White basis, making the White people the +governing race, but conceding to the Indian and Negro, and all inferior +races, all the rights and all the privileges they could enjoy consistent +with the safety of the society in which they lived. That," said he, "is +my opinion now. I told you that humanity, philanthropy, justice, and +sound policy required that we should give the Negro every right, every +privilege, every immunity consistent with the safety and welfare of the +State. The question, then, naturally arises, what are those rights and +privileges, and what is the nature and extent of them? My answer is, +that that is a question which each State and each Territory must decide +for itself. * * * I am content with that position. My friend Lincoln +is not. * * * He thinks that the Almighty made the Negro his equal and +his brother. For my part I do not consider the Negro any kin to me, nor +to any other White man; but I would still carry my humanity and my +philanthropy to the extent of giving him every privilege and every +immunity that he could enjoy, consistent with our own good."</p> + +<p>After again referring to the principles connected with non-interference +in the domestic institutions of the States and Territories, and to the +devotion of all his energies to them "since 1850, when," said he, "I +acted side by side with the immortal Clay and the god-like Webster, in +that memorable struggle in which Whigs and Democrats united upon a +common platform of patriotism and the Constitution, throwing aside +partisan feelings in order to restore peace and harmony to a distracted +Country"—he alluded to the death-bed of Clay, and the pledges made by +himself to both Clay and Webster to devote his own life to the +vindication of the principles of that Compromise of 1850 as a means of +preserving the Union; and concluded with this appeal: "This Union can +only be preserved by maintaining the fraternal feeling between the North +and the South, the East and the West. If that good feeling can be +preserved, the Union will be as perpetual as the fame of its great +founders. It can be maintained by preserving the sovereignty of the +States, the right of each State and each Territory to settle its +domestic concerns for itself, and the duty of each to refrain from +interfering with the other in any of its local or domestic institutions. +Let that be done, and the Union will be perpetual; let that be done, and +this Republic, which began with thirteen States and which now numbers +thirty-two, which when it began, only extended from the Atlantic to the +Mississippi, but now reaches to the Pacific, may yet expand, North and +South, until it covers the whole Continent, and becomes one vast +ocean-bound Confederacy. Then, my friends, the path of duty, of honor, of +patriotism, is plain. There are a few simple principles to be +preserved. Bear in mind the dividing line between State rights and +Federal authority; let us maintain the great principles of Popular +Sovereignty, of State rights and of the Federal Union as the +Constitution has made it, and this Republic will endure forever."</p> + +<p>On the next evening, July 17th, at Springfield, both Douglas and Lincoln +addressed separate meetings.</p> + +<p>After covering much the same ground with regard to the history of the +Kansas-Nebraska struggle and his own attitude upon it, as he did in his +previous speech, Mr. Douglas declined to comment upon Mr. Lincoln's +intimation of a Conspiracy between Douglas, Pierce, Buchanan, and Taney +for the passage of the Nebraska Bill, the rendition of the Dred Scott +decision, and the extension of Slavery, but proceeded to dilate on the +"uniformity" issue between himself and Mr. Lincoln, in much the same +strain as before, tersely summing up with the statement that "there is a +distinct issue of principles—principles irreconcilable—between Mr. +Lincoln and myself. He goes for consolidation and uniformity in our +Government. I go for maintaining the Confederation of the Sovereign +States under the Constitution, as our fathers made it, leaving each +State at liberty to manage its own affairs and own internal +institutions."</p> + +<p>He then ridiculed, at considerable length, Mr. Lincoln's proposed +methods of securing a reversal by the United States Supreme Court of the +Dred Scott decision—especially that of an "appeal to the People to +elect a President who will appoint judges who will reverse the Dred +Scott decision," which he characterized as "a proposition to make that +Court the corrupt, unscrupulous tool of a political party," and asked, +"when we refuse to abide by Judicial decisions, what protection is there +left for life and property? To whom shall you appeal? To mob law, to +partisan caucuses, to town meetings, to revolution? Where is the remedy +when you refuse obedience to the constituted authorities?" In other +respects the speech was largely a repetition of his Bloomington speech.</p> + +<p>Mr. Lincoln in his speech, the same night, at Springfield, opened by +contrasting the disadvantages under which, by reason of an unfair +apportionment of State Legislative representation and otherwise, the +Republicans of Illinois labored in this fight. Among other +disadvantages—whereby he said the Republicans were forced "to fight +this battle upon principle and upon principle alone"—were those which +he said arose "out of the relative positions of the two persons who +stand before the State as candidates for the Senate."</p> + +<p>Said he: "Senator Douglas is of world-wide renown. All the anxious +politicians of his Party, or who have been of his Party for years past, +have been looking upon him as certainly, at no distant day, to be the +President of the United States. They have seen in his round, jolly, +fruitful face, Post-offices, Land-offices, Marshalships, and Cabinet +appointments, Chargeships and Foreign Missions, bursting and sprouting +out in wonderful exuberance, ready to be laid hold of by their greedy +hands. And as they have been gazing upon this attractive picture so +long, they cannot, in the little distraction that has taken place in the +party, bring themselves to give up the charming hope; but with greedier +anxiety they rush about him, sustain him, and give him marches, +triumphal entries, and receptions, beyond what even in the days of his +highest prosperity they could have brought about in his favor. On the +contrary, nobody has ever expected me to be President. In my poor, +lean, lank face, nobody has ever seen that any cabbages were sprouting +out."</p> + +<p>Then he described the main points of Senator Douglas's plan of campaign +as being not very numerous. "The first," he said, "is Popular +Sovereignty. The second and third are attacks upon my speech made on +the 16th of June. Out of these three points—drawing within the range of +Popular Sovereignty the question of the Lecompton Constitution—he makes +his principal assault. Upon these his successive speeches are +substantially one and the same." Touching the first point, "Popular +Sovereignty"—"the great staple" of Mr. Douglas's campaign—Mr. Lincoln +affirmed that it was "the most arrant Quixotism that was ever enacted +before a community."</p> + +<p>He said that everybody understood that "we have not been in a +controversy about the right of a People to govern themselves in the +ordinary matters of domestic concern in the States and Territories;" +that, "in this controversy, whatever has been said has had reference to +the question of Negro Slavery;" and "hence," said he, "when hereafter I +speak of Popular Sovereignty, I wish to be understood as applying what I +say to the question of Slavery only; not to other minor domestic matters +of a Territory or a State."</p> + +<p>Having cleared away the cobwebs, Mr. Lincoln proceeded:</p> + +<p>"Does Judge Douglas, when he says that several of the past years of his +life have been devoted to the question of 'Popular Sovereignty' * * * +mean to say that he has been devoting his life to securing the People of +the Territories the right to exclude Slavery from the Territories? If +he means so to say, he means to deceive; because he and every one knows +that the decision of the Supreme Court, which he approves, and makes +special ground of attack upon me for disapproving, forbids the People of +a Territory to exclude Slavery.</p> + +<p>"This covers the whole ground from the settlement of a Territory till it +reaches the degree of maturity entitling it to form a State +Constitution. * * * This being so, the period of time from the first +settlement of a Territory till it reaches the point of forming a State +Constitution, is not the thing that the Judge has fought for, or is +fighting for; but, on the contrary, he has fought for, and is fighting +for, the thing that annihilates and crushes out that same Popular +Sovereignty. Well, so much being disposed of, what is left? Why, he is +contending for the right of the People, when they come to make a State +Constitution, to make it for themselves, and precisely as best suits +themselves. I say again, that is Quixotic. I defy contradiction when I +declare that the Judge can find no one to oppose him on that +proposition. I repeat, there is nobody opposing that proposition on +principle. * * * Nobody is opposing, or has opposed, the right of the +People when they form a State Constitution, to form it for themselves. +Mr. Buchanan and his friends have not done it; they, too, as well as the +Republicans and the Anti-Lecompton Democrats, have not done it; but on +the contrary, they together have insisted on the right of the People to +form a Constitution for themselves. The difference between the Buchanan +men, on the one hand, and the Douglas men and the Republicans, on the +other, has not been on a question of principle, but on a question of +fact * * * whether the Lecompton Constitution had been fairly formed by +the People or not. * * * As to the principle, all were agreed.</p> + +<p>"Judge Douglas voted with the Republicans upon that matter of fact. He +and they, by their voices and votes, denied that it was a fair emanation +of the People. The Administration affirmed that it was. * * * This +being so, what is Judge Douglas going to spend his life for? Is he +going to spend his life in maintaining a principle that no body on earth +opposes? Does he expect to stand up in majestic dignity and go through +his apotheosis and become a god, in the maintaining of a principle which +neither man nor mouse in all God's creation is opposing?"</p> + +<p>After ridiculing the assumption that Judge Douglas was entitled to all +the credit for the defeat of the Lecompton Constitution in the House of +Representatives—when the defeating vote numbered 120, of which 6 were +Americans, 20 Douglas (or Anti-Lecompton) Democrats, and 94 Republicans +—and hinting that perhaps he placed "his superior claim to credit, on +the ground that he performed a good act which was never expected of +him," or "upon the ground of the parable of the lost sheep," of which it +had been said, "that there was more rejoicing over the one sheep that +was lost and had been found, than over the ninety and nine in the +fold—" he added: "The application is made by the Saviour in this parable, +thus: 'Verily, I say unto you, there is more rejoicing in Heaven over +one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety and nine just persons that +need no repentance.' And now if the Judge claims the benefit of this +parable, let him repent. Let him not come up here and say: 'I am the +only just person; and you are the ninety-nine sinners!' Repentance +before forgiveness is a provision of the Christian system, and on that +condition alone will the Republicans grant his forgiveness."</p> + +<p>After complaining that Judge Douglas misrepresented his attitude as +indicated in his 16th of June speech at Springfield, in charging that he +invited "a War of Sections;"—that he proposed that "all the local +institutions of the different States shall become consolidated and +uniform," Mr. Lincoln denied that that speech could fairly bear such +construction.</p> + +<p>In that speech he (Mr. L.) had simply expressed an expectation that +"either the opponents of Slavery will arrest the further spread of it, +and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is +in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it +forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well +as new, North as well as South." Since then, at Chicago, he had also +expressed a "wish to see the spread of Slavery arrested, and to see it +placed where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the +course of ultimate extinction"—and, said he: "I said that, because I +supposed, when the public mind shall rest in that belief, we shall have +Peace on the Slavery question. I have believed—and now believe—the +public mind did rest on that belief up to the introduction of the +Nebraska Bill. Although I have ever been opposed to Slavery, so far I +rested in the hope and belief that it was in the course of ultimate +extinction. For that reason, it had been a minor question with me. I +might have been mistaken; but I had believed, and now believe, that the +whole public mind, that is, the mind of the great majority, had rested +in that belief up to the Repeal of the Missouri Compromise. But upon +that event, I became convinced that either I had been resting in a +delusion, or the institution was being placed on a new basis—a basis +for making it Perpetual, National, and Universal. Subsequent events +have greatly confirmed me in that belief.</p> + +<p>"I believe that Bill to be the beginning of a Conspiracy for that +purpose. So believing, I have since then considered that question a +paramount one. So believing, I thought the public mind would never rest +till the power of Congress to restrict the spread of it shall again be +acknowledged and exercised on the one hand, or, on the other, all +resistance be entirely crushed out. I have expressed that opinion and I +entertain it to-night."</p> + +<p>Having given some pieces of evidence in proof of the "tendency," he had +discovered, to the Nationalization of Slavery in these States, Mr. +Lincoln continued: "And now, as to the Judge's inference, that because I +wish to see Slavery placed in the course of ultimate extinction—placed +where our fathers originally placed it—I wish to annihilate the State +Legislatures—to force cotton to grow upon the tops of the Green +Mountains—to freeze ice in Florida—to cut lumber on the broad Illinois +prairies—that I am in favor of all these ridiculous and impossible +things! It seems to me it is a complete answer to all this, to ask if, +when Congress did have the fashion of restricting Slavery from Free +Territory; when Courts did have the fashion of deciding that taking a +Slave into a Free, Country made him Free—I say it is a sufficient +answer to ask, if any of this ridiculous nonsense, about consolidation +and uniformity, did actually follow? Who heard of any such thing, +because of the Ordinance of '87? because of the Missouri Restriction +because of the numerous Court decisions of that character?</p> + +<p>"Now, as to the Dred Scott decision; for upon that he makes his last +point at me. He boldly takes ground in favor of that decision. This is +one-half the onslaught and one-third of the entire plan of the campaign. +I am opposed to that decision in a certain sense, but not in the sense +which he puts on it. I say that in so far as it decided in favor of +Dred Scott's master, and against Dred Scott and his family, I do not +propose to disturb or resist the decision. I never have proposed to do +any such thing. I think, that in respect for judicial authority, my +humble history would not suffer in comparison with that of Judge +Douglas. He would have the citizen conform his vote to that decision; +the member of Congress, his; the President, his use of the veto power. +He would make it a rule of political action for the People and all the +departments of the Government. I would not. By resisting it as a +political rule, I disturb no right of property, create no disorder, +excite no mobs."</p> + +<p>After quoting from a letter of Mr. Jefferson (vol. vii., p. 177, of his +Correspondence,) in which he held that "to consider the judges as the +ultimate arbiters of all Constitutional questions," is "a very dangerous +doctrine indeed; and one which would place us under the despotism of an +Oligarchy," Mr. Lincoln continued: "Let us go a little further. You +remember we once had a National Bank. Some one owed the Bank a debt; he +was sued, and sought to avoid payment on the ground that the Bank was +unconstitutional. The case went to the Supreme Court, and therein it +was decided that the Bank was Constitutional. The whole Democratic +party revolted against that decision. General Jackson himself asserted +that he, as President, would not be bound to hold a National Bank to be +Constitutional, even though the Court had decided it to be so. He fell +in, precisely, with the view of Mr. Jefferson, and acted upon it under +his official oath, in vetoing a charter for a National Bank.</p> + +<p>"The declaration that Congress does not possess this Constitutional +power to charter a Bank, has gone into the Democratic platform, at their +National Conventions, and was brought forward and reaffirmed in their +last Convention at Cincinnati. They have contended for that +declaration, in the very teeth of the Supreme Court, for more than a +quarter of a century. In fact, they have reduced the decision to an +absolute nullity. That decision, I repeat, is repudiated in the +Cincinnati platform; and still, as if to show that effrontery can go no +further, Judge Douglas vaunts in the very speeches in which he denounces +me for opposing the Dred Scott decision, that he stands on the +Cincinnati platform.</p> + +<p>"Now, I wish to know what the Judge can charge upon me, with respect to +decisions of the Supreme Court, which does not lie in all its length, +breadth, and proportions, at his own door? The plain truth is simply +this: Judge Douglas is for Supreme Court decisions when he likes, and +against them when he does not like them. He is for the Dred Scott +decision because it tends to Nationalize Slavery—because it is a part +of the original combination for that object. It so happens, singularly +enough, that I never stood opposed to a decision of the Supreme Court +till this. On the contrary, I have no recollection that he was ever +particularly in favor of one till this. He never was in favor of any, +nor (I) opposed to any, till the present one, which helps to Nationalize +Slavery. Free men of Sangamon—Free men of Illinois, Free men +everywhere—judge ye between him and me, upon this issue!</p> + +<p>"He says this Dred Scott case is a very small matter at +most—that it has no practical effect; that at best, or rather I suppose +at worst, it is but an abstraction. * * * How has the planting of +Slavery in new countries always been effected? It has now been decided +that Slavery cannot be kept out of our new Territories by any legal +means. In what do our new Territories now differ in this respect from +the old Colonies when Slavery was first planted within them?</p> + +<p>"It was planted, as Mr. Clay once declared, and as history proves true, +by individual men in spite of the wishes of the people; the +Mother-Government refusing to prohibit it, and withholding from the People of +the Colonies the authority to prohibit it for themselves. Mr. Clay says +this was one of the great and just causes of complaint against Great +Britain by the Colonies, and the best apology we can now make for having +the institution amongst us. In that precise condition our Nebraska +politicians have at last succeeded in placing our own new Territories; +the Government will not prohibit Slavery within them, nor allow the +People to prohibit it."</p> + +<p>Alluding to that part of Mr. Douglas's speech the previous night +touching the death-bed scene of Mr. Clay, with Mr. Douglas's promise to +devote the remainder of his life to "Popular Sovereignty"—and to his +relations with Mr. Webster—Mr. Lincoln said: "It would be amusing, if +it were not disgusting, to see how quick these Compromise breakers +administer on the political effects of their dead adversaries. If I +should be found dead to-morrow morning, nothing but my insignificance +could prevent a speech being made on my authority, before the end of +next week. It so happens that in that 'Popular Sovereignty' with which +Mr. Clay was identified, the Missouri Compromise was expressly reserved; +and it was a little singular if Mr. Clay cast his mantle upon Judge +Douglas on purpose to have that Compromise repealed. Again, the Judge +did not keep faith with Mr. Clay when he first brought in the Nebraska +Bill. He left the Missouri Compromise unrepealed, and in his report +accompanying the Bill, he told the World he did it on purpose. The +manes of Mr. Clay must have been in great agony, till thirty days later, +when 'Popular Sovereignty' stood forth in all its glory."</p> + +<p>Touching Mr. Douglas's allegations of Mr. Lincoln's disposition to make +Negroes equal with the Whites, socially and politically, the latter +said: "My declarations upon this subject of Negro Slavery may be +misrepresented, but cannot be misunderstood. I have said that I do not +understand the Declaration (of Independence) to mean that all men were +created equal in all respects. They are not equal in color; but I +suppose that it does mean to declare that all men are equal in some +respects; they are equal in their right to 'Life, Liberty, and the +pursuit of Happiness.' Certainly the Negro is not our equal in +color—perhaps not in many other respects; still, in the right to put into his +mouth the bread that his own hands have earned, he is the equal of every +other man, White or Black. In pointing out that more has been given +you, you cannot be justified in taking away the little which has been +given him. All I ask for the Negro is that if you do not like him, let +him alone. If God gave him but little, that little let him enjoy.</p> + +<p>"The framers of the Constitution," continued Mr. Lincoln, "found the +institution of Slavery amongst their other institutions at the time. +They found that by an effort to eradicate it, they might lose much of +what they had already gained. They were obliged to bow to the +necessity. They gave Congress power to abolish the Slave Trade at the +end of twenty years. They also prohibited it in the Territories where +it did not exist. They did what they could, and yielded to the +necessity for the rest. I also yield to all which follows from that +necessity. What I would most desire would be the separation of the +White and Black races."</p> + +<p>Mr. Lincoln closed his speech by referring to the "New Departure" of +the Democracy—to the charge he had made, in his 16th of June speech, +touching "the existence of a Conspiracy to Perpetuate and Nationalize +Slavery"—which Mr. Douglas had not contradicted—and, said he, "on his +own tacit admission I renew that charge. I charge him with having been +a party to that Conspiracy, and to that deception, for the sole purpose +of Nationalizing Slavery."</p> + +<p>This closed the series of preliminary speeches in the canvass. But they +only served to whet the moral and intellectual and political appetite of +the public for more. It was generally conceded that, at last, in the +person of Mr. Lincoln, the "Little Giant" had met his match.</p> + +<p>On July 24, Mr. Lincoln opened a correspondence with Mr. Douglas, which +eventuated in an agreement between them, July 31st, for +joint-discussions, to take place at Ottawa, Freeport, Jonesboro, Charleston, +Galesburgh, Quincy, and Alton, on fixed dates in August, September and +October—at Ottawa, Mr. Douglas to open and speak one hour, Mr. Lincoln +to have an hour and a half in reply, and Mr. Douglas to close in a half +hour's speech; at Freeport, Mr. Lincoln to open and speak for one hour, +Mr. Douglas to take the next hour and a half in reply, and Mr. Lincoln +to have the next half hour to close; and so on, alternating at each +successive place, making twenty-one hours of joint political debate.</p> + +<p>To these absorbingly interesting discussions, vast assemblages listened +with breathless attention; and to the credit of all parties be it said, +with unparalleled decorum. The People evidently felt that the greatest +of all political principles—that of Human Liberty—was hanging on the +issue of this great political contest between intellectual giants, thus +openly waged before the World—and they accordingly rose to the dignity +and solemnity of the occasion, vindicating by their very example the +sacredness with which the Right of Free Speech should be regarded at all +times and everywhere.</p> + +<br><br><br><br><br> +<center> +<img alt="p098-lincoln.jpg (86K)" src="images/p098-lincoln.jpg" height="874" width="590"> +</center> +<br><br><br> + +<a name="ch5"></a> +<br><br> +<center><h2> + + CHAPTER V.<br><br> + + THE PRESIDENTIAL CONTEST OF 1860—<br> + THE CRISIS APPROACHING. +</h2></center><br> +<p>The immediate outcome of the remarkable joint-debate between the two +intellectual giants of Illinois was, that while the popular vote stood +124,698 for Lincoln, to 121,130 for Douglas—showing a victory for +Lincoln among the People—yet, enough Douglas-Democrats were elected to +the Legislature, when added to those of his friends in the Illinois +Senate, who had been elected two years before, and "held over," to give +him, in all, 54 members of both branches of the Legislature on joint +ballot, against 46 for Mr. Lincoln. Lincoln had carried the people, but +Douglas had secured the Senatorial prize for which they had striven—and +by that Legislative vote was elected to succeed himself in the United +States Senate. This result was trumpeted throughout the Union as a +great Douglas victory.</p> + +<p>During the canvass of Illinois, Douglas's friends had seen to it that +nothing on their part should be wanting to secure success. What with +special car trains, and weighty deputations, and imposing processions, +and flag raisings, the inspiration of music, the booming of cannon, and +the eager shouts of an enthusiastic populace, his political journey +through Illinois had been more like a Royal Progress than anything the +Country had yet seen; and now that his reelection was accomplished, they +proposed to make the most of it—to extend, as it were, the sphere of +his triumph, or vindication, so that it would include not the State +alone, but the Nation—and thus so accentuate and enhance his +availability as a candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination +of 1860, as to make his nomination and election to the Presidency of the +United States an almost foregone conclusion.</p> + +<p>The programme was to raise so great a popular tidal-wave in his +interest, as would bear him irresistibly upon its crest to the White +House. Accordingly, as the idol of the Democratic popular heart, +Douglas, upon his return to the National Capital, was triumphantly +received by the chief cities of the Mississippi and the Atlantic +sea-board. Hailed as victor in the great political contest in Illinois—upon +the extended newspaper reports of which, the absorbed eyes of the entire +nation, for months, had greedily fed—Douglas was received with much +ostentation and immense enthusiasm at St. Louis, Memphis, New Orleans, +New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington. Like the "Triumphs" +decreed by Rome, in her grandest days, to the greatest of her victorious +heroes, Douglas's return was a series of magnificent popular ovations,</p> + +<p>In a speech made two years before this period, Mr. Lincoln, while +contrasting his own political career with that of Douglas, and modestly +describing his own as "a flat failure" had said: "With him it has been +one of splendid success. His name fills the Nation, and is not unknown +even in foreign lands. I affect no contempt for the high eminence he +has reached. So reached, that the oppressed of my species might have +shared with me in the elevation, I would rather stand on that eminence +than wear the richest crown that ever pressed a monarch's brow." And +now the star of Douglas had reached a higher altitude, nearing its +meridian splendor. He had become the popular idol of the day.</p> + +<p>But Douglas's partial victory—if such it was—so far from settling the +public mind and public conscience, had the contrary effect. It added to +the ferment which the Pro-Slavery Oligarchists of the South—and +especially those of South Carolina—were intent upon increasing, until +so grave and serious a crisis should arrive as would, in their opinion, +furnish a justifiable pretext in the eyes of the World for the +contemplated Secession of the Slave States from the Union.</p> + +<p>Under the inspiration of the Slave Power, and in the direct line of the +Dred Scott decision, and of the "victorious" doctrine of Senator +Douglas, which he held not inconsistent therewith, that the people of +any Territory of the United States could do as they pleased as to the +institution of Slavery within their own limits, and if they desired the +institution, they had the right by local legislation to "protect and +encourage it," the Legislature of the Territory of New Mexico at once +(1859) proceeded to enact a law "for the protection of property in +Slaves," and other measures similar to the prevailing Slave Codes in the +Southern States.</p> + +<p>The aggressive attitude of the South—as thus evidenced anew—naturally +stirred, to their very core, the Abolition elements of the North; on the +other hand, the publication of Hinton Rowan Helper's "Impending Crisis," +which handled the Slavery question without gloves, and supported its +views with statistics which startled the Northern mind, together with +its alleged indorsement by the leading Republicans of the North, +exasperated the fiery Southrons to an intense degree. Nor was the +capture, in October, 1859, of Harper's Ferry, Virginia, by John Brown +and his handful of Northern Abolitionist followers, and his subsequent +execution in Virginia, calculated to allay the rapidly intensifying +feeling between the Freedom-loving North and the Slaveholding South. +When, therefore, the Congress met, in December, 1859, the sectional +wrath of the Country was reflected in the proceedings of both branches +of that body, and these again reacted upon the People of both the +Northern and Southern States, until the fires of Slavery Agitation were +stirred to a white heat.</p> + +<p>The bitterness of feeling in the House at this time, was shown, in part, +by the fact that not until the 1st of February, 1860, was it able, upon +a forty-fourth ballot, to organize by the election of a Speaker, and +that from the day of its meeting on the 5th of December, 1859, up to +such organization, it was involved in an incessant and stormy wrangle +upon the Slavery question.</p> + +<p>So also in the Democratic Senate, the split in the Democratic Party, +between the Lecompton and Anti-Lecompton Democracy, was widened, at the +same time that the Republicans of the North were further irritated, by +the significantly decisive passage of a series of resolutions proposed +by Jefferson Davis, which, on the one hand, purposely and deliberately +knifed Douglas's "Popular Sovereignty" doctrine and read out of the +Party all who believed in it, by declaring "That neither Congress nor a +Territorial Legislature, whether by direct legislation, or legislation +of an indirect and unfriendly character, possesses power to annul or +impair the Constitutional right of any citizen of the United States to +take his Slave-property into the common Territories, and there hold and +enjoy the same while the Territorial condition remains," and, on the +other, purposely and deliberately slapped in the face the Republicans of +the North, by declaring—among other things "That in the adoption of the +Federal Constitution, the States adopting the same, acted severally as +Free and Independent sovereignties, delegating a portion of their powers +to be exercised by the Federal Government for the increased security of +each against dangers, domestic as well as foreign; and that any +intermeddling by any one or more States or by a combination of their +citizens, with the domestic institutions of the others, on any pretext +whatever, political, moral, or religious, with a view to their +disturbance or subversion, is in violation of the Constitution, +insulting to the States so interfered with, endangers their domestic +peace and tranquillity—objects for which the Constitution was +formed—and, by necessary consequence, tends to weaken and destroy the Union +itself."</p> + +<p>Another of these resolutions declared Negro Slavery to be recognized in +the Constitution, and that all "open or covert attacks thereon with a +view to its overthrow," made either by the Non-Slave-holding States or +their citizens, violated the pledges of the Constitution, "are a +manifest breach of faith, and a violation of the most solemn +obligations."</p> + +<p>This last was intended as a blow at the Freedom of Speech and of the +Press in the North; and only served, as was doubtless intended, to still +more inflame Northern public feeling, while at the same time endeavoring +to place the arrogant and aggressive Slave Power in an attitude of +injured innocence. In short, the time of both Houses of Congress was +almost entirely consumed during the Session of 1859-60 in the heated, +and sometimes even furious, discussion of the Slavery question; and +everywhere, North and South, the public mind was not alone deeply +agitated, but apprehensive that the Union was founded not upon a rock, +but upon the crater of a volcano, whose long-smouldering energies might +at any moment burst their confines, and reduce it to ruin and +desolation.</p> + +<p>On the 23rd of April, 1860, the Democratic National Convention met at +Charleston, South Carolina. It was several days after the permanent +organization of the Convention before the Committee on Resolutions +reported to the main body, and not until the 30th of April did it reach +a vote upon the various reports, which had in the meantime been +modified. The propositions voted upon were three:</p> + +<p>First, The Majority Report of the Committee, which reaffirmed the +Cincinnati platform of 1856—with certain "explanatory" resolutions +added, which boldly proclaimed: "That the Government of a Territory +organized by an Act of Congress, is provisional and temporary; and, +during its existence, all citizens of the United States have an equal +right to settle with their property in the Territory, without their +rights, either of person or property, being destroyed or impaired by +Congressional or Territorial Legislation;" that "it is the duty of the +Federal Government, in all its departments, to protect, when necessary, +the rights of persons and property in the Territories, and wherever else +its Constitutional authority extends;" that "when the settlers in a +Territory, having an adequate population, form a State Constitution, the +right of Sovereignty commences, and, being consummated by admission into +the Union, they stand on an equal footing with the people of other +States, and the State thus organized ought to be admitted into the +Federal Union, whether its Constitution prohibits or recognizes the +institution of Slavery;" and that "the enactments of State Legislatures +to defeat the faithful execution of the Fugitive Slave Law, are hostile +in character, subversive of the Constitution, and revolutionary in +effect." The resolutions also included a declaration in favor of the +acquisition of Cuba, and other comparatively minor matters.</p> + +<p>Second, The Minority Report of the Committee, which, after re-affirming +the Cincinnati platform, declared that "Inasmuch as differences of +opinion exist in the Democratic party as to the nature and extent of the +powers of a Territorial Legislature, and as to the powers and duties of +Congress, under the Constitution of the United States, over the +institution of Slavery within the Territories * * * the Democratic Party +will abide by the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States on +the questions of Constitutional law."</p> + +<p>Third, The recommendation of Benjamin F. Butler, that the platform +should consist simply of a re-affirmation of the Cincinnati platform, +and not another word.</p> + +<p>The last proposition was first voted on, and lost, by 105 yeas to 198 +nays. The Minority platform was then adopted by 165 yeas to 138 nays.</p> + +<p>The aggressive Slave-holders (Majority) platform, and the Butler +Compromise do-nothing proposition, being both defeated, and the Douglas +(Minority) platform adopted, the Alabama delegation, under instructions +from their State Convention to withdraw in case the National Convention +refused to adopt radical Territorial Pro-Slavery resolutions, at once +presented a written protest and withdrew from the Convention, and were +followed, in rapid succession, by; the delegates from Mississippi, +Louisiana (all but two), South Carolina, Florida, Texas, Arkansas (in +part), Delaware (mostly), and Georgia (mostly)—the seceding delegates +afterwards organizing in another Hall, adopting the above Majority +platform, and after a four days' sitting, adjourning to meet at +Richmond, Virginia, on the 11th of June.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, the Regular Democratic National Convention had proceeded to +ballot for President—after adopting the two-thirds rule. Thirty-seven +ballots having been cast, that for Stephen A. Douglas being, on the +thirty-seventh, 151, the Convention, on the 3d of May, adjourned to meet +again at Baltimore, June 18th.</p> + +<p>After re-assembling, and settling contested election cases, the +delegates (in whole or in part) from Virginia, North Carolina, +Tennessee, California, Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland and Massachusetts, +withdrew from the Convention, the latter upon the ground mainly that +there had been "a withdrawal, in part, of a majority of the States," +while Butler, who had voted steadily for Jefferson Davis throughout all +the balloting at Charleston, gave as an additional ground personal to +himself, that "I will not sit in a convention where the African Slave +Trade—which is piracy by the laws of my Country—is approvingly +advocated"—referring thereby to a speech, that had been much applauded +by the Convention at Charleston, made by a Georgia delegate (Gaulden), +in which that delegate had said: "I would ask my friends of the South to +come up in a proper spirit; ask our Northern friends to give us all our +rights, and take off the ruthless restrictions which cut off the supply +of Slaves from foreign lands. * * * I tell you, fellow Democrats, that +the African Slave Trader is the true Union man (cheers and laughter). I +tell you that the Slave Trading of Virginia is more immoral, more +unchristian in every possible point of view, than that African Slave +Trade which goes to Africa and brings a heathen and worthless man here, +makes him a useful man, Christianizes him, and sends him and his +posterity down the stream of Time, to enjoy the blessings of +civilization. (Cheers and laughter.) * * * I come from the first +Congressional District of Georgia. I represent the African Slave Trade +interest of that Section. (Applause.) I am proud of the position I +occupy in that respect. I believe that the African Slave Trader is a +true missionary, and a true Christian. (Applause.) * * * Are you +prepared to go back to first principles, and take off your +unconstitutional restrictions, and leave this question to be settled by +each State? Now, do this, fellow citizens, and you will have Peace in +the Country. * * * I advocate the repeal of the laws prohibiting the +African Slave Trade, because I believe it to be the true Union movement. +* * * I believe that by re-opening this Trade and giving us Negroes to +populate the Territories, the equilibrium of the two Sections will be +maintained."</p> + +<p>After the withdrawal of the bolting delegates at Baltimore, the +Convention proceeded to ballot for President, and at the end of the +second ballot, Mr. Douglas having received "two-thirds of all votes +given in the Convention" (183) was declared the "regular nominee of the +Democratic Party, for the office of President of the United States."</p> + +<p>An additional resolution was subsequently adopted as a part of the +platform, declaring that "it is in accordance with the true +interpretation of the Cincinnati platform, that, during the existence of +the Territorial Governments, the measure of restriction, whatever it may +be, imposed by the Federal Constitution on the power of the Territorial +Legislatures over the subject of the domestic relations, as the same has +been, or shall hereafter be, finally determined by the Supreme Court of +the United States, should be respected by all good citizens, and +enforced with promptness and fidelity by every branch of the General +Government."</p> + +<p>On the 11th of June, pursuant to adjournment, the Democratic Bolters' +Convention met at Richmond, and, after adjourning to meet at Baltimore, +finally met there on the 28th of that month—twenty-one States being, in +whole or in part, represented. This Convention unanimously readopted +the Southern-wing platform it had previously adopted at Charleston, and, +upon the first ballot, chose, without dissent, John C. Breckinridge of +Kentucky, as its candidate for the Presidential office.</p> + +<p>In the meantime, however, the National Conventions of other Parties had +been held, viz.: that of the Republican Party at Chicago, which, with a +session of three days, May 16-18, had nominated Abraham Lincoln of +Illinois and Hannibal Hamlin of Maine, for President and Vice-President +respectively; and that of the "Constitutional Union" (or Native +American) Party which had severally nominated (May 19) for such +positions, John Bell of Tennessee, and Edward Everett of Massachusetts.</p> + +<p>The material portion of the Republican National platform, adopted with +entire unanimity by their Convention, was, so far as the Slavery and +Disunion questions were concerned, comprised in these declarations:</p> + +<p>First, That the history of the nation, during the last four years, has +fully established the propriety and necessity of the organization and +perpetuation of the Republican Party; and that the causes which called +it into existence are permanent in their nature, and now, more than ever +before, demand its peaceful and Constitutional triumph.</p> + +<p>Second, That the maintenance of the principle, promulgated in the +Declaration of Independence, and embodied in the Federal Constitution, +"that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator +with certain inalienable rights; that among these are Life, Liberty and +the pursuit of Happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are +instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the +governed," is essential to the preservation of our Republican +institutions; and that the Federal Constitution, the Rights of the +States, and the Union of the States must and shall be preserved.</p> + +<p>Third, That to the Union of the States, this Nation owes its +unprecedented increase in population, its surprising development of +material resources, its rapid augmentation of wealth, its happiness at +home, and its honor abroad; and we hold in abhorrence all schemes for +Disunion, come from whatever source they may: And we congratulate the +Country that no Republican member of Congress has uttered or +countenanced the threats of Disunion, so often made by Democratic +members, without rebuke, and with applause, from their political +associates; and we denounce those threats of Disunion, in case of a +popular overthrow of their ascendancy, as denying the vital principles +of a free Government, and as an avowal of contemplated Treason, which it +is the imperative duty of an indignant People, sternly to rebuke and +forever silence.</p> + +<p>Fourth, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and +especially the right of each State, to order and control its own +domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is +essential to that balance of powers on which the perfection and +endurance of our political fabric depend; and we denounce the lawless +invasion, by armed force, of any State or Territory, no matter under +what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes.</p> + +<p>Fifth, That the present Democratic Administration has far exceeded our +worst apprehensions, in its measureless subserviency to the exactions of +a Sectional interest, as especially evinced in its desperate exertions +to force the infamous Lecompton Constitution upon the protesting people +of Kansas; in construing the personal relation between master and +servant to involve an unqualified property in persons; in its attempted +enforcement, everywhere, on land and sea, through the intervention of +Congress and of the Federal Courts, of the extreme pretensions of a +purely local interest; and in its general and unvarying abuse of the +power intrusted to it by a confiding People.</p> + +<p>* * * * * * *</p> + +<p>Seventh, That the new dogma that the Constitution, of its own force, +carries Slavery into any or all of the Territories of the United States, +is a dangerous political heresy, at variance with the explicit +provisions of that instrument itself, with contemporaneous exposition, +and with legislation and judicial precedent; is revolutionary in its +tendency and subversive of the peace and harmony of the Country.</p> + +<p>Eighth, That the normal condition of all the territory of the United +States is that of Freedom; that as our Republican fathers, when they had +abolished Slavery in all our National Territory, ordained that "No +person should be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due +process of law," it becomes our duty, by legislation, whenever such +legislation is necessary, to maintain this provision of the Constitution +against all attempts to violate it; and we deny the authority of +Congress, of a Territorial Legislature, or of any individuals, to give +legal existence to Slavery in any Territory of the United States.</p> + +<p>Ninth, That we brand the recent re-opening of the African Slave-trade +under the cover of our National flag, aided by perversions of judicial +power, as a crime against humanity and a burning shame to our Country +and Age; and we call upon Congress to take prompt and efficient measures +for the total and final suppression of that execrable traffic.</p> + +<p>Tenth, That in the recent vetoes, by their Federal Governors, of the +acts of the Legislatures of Kansas and Nebraska, prohibiting Slavery in +those Territories, we find a practical illustration of the boasted +Democratic principle of Non-Intervention and Popular Sovereignty +embodied in the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, and a demonstration of the +deception and fraud involved therein.</p> + +<p>Eleventh, That Kansas should, of right, be immediately admitted as a +State, under the Constitution recently formed and adopted by the House +of Representatives.</p> + +<p> * * * * * * * * * *</p> + +<p>The National platform of the "Constitutional Union" Party, was adopted, +unanimously, in these words:</p> + +<p>"Whereas, experience has demonstrated that platforms adopted by the +partisan Conventions of the Country have had the effect to mislead and +deceive the People, and at the same time to widen the political +divisions of the Country, by the creation and encouragement of +geographical and Sectional parties; therefore,</p> + +<p>"Resolved, That it is both the part of patriotism and of +duty to recognize no political principle other than the Constitution of +the Country, the Union of the States, and the Enforcement of the Laws, +and that, as representatives of the Constitutional Union men of the +Country, in National Convention assembled, we hereby pledge ourselves to +maintain, protect, and defend, separately and unitedly, these great +principles of public liberty and national safety, against all enemies, +at home and abroad; believing that thereby peace may once more be +restored to the Country, the rights of the people and of the States +re-established, and the Government again placed in that condition of +justice, fraternity, and equality which, under the example and +Constitution of our fathers, has solemnly bound every citizen of the +United States to maintain a more perfect Union, establish justice, +insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote +the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves +and our posterity."</p> + +<p>Thus, by the last of June, 1860, the four National Parties with their +platforms and candidates were all in the political field prepared for +the onset.</p> + +<p>Briefly, the attitude of the standard-bearers representing the +platform-principles of their several Parties, was this:</p> + +<p>Lincoln, representing the Republicans, held that Slavery is a wrong, to +be tolerated in the States where it exists, but which must be excluded +from the Territories, which are all normally Free and must be kept Free +by Congressional legislation, if necessary; and that neither Congress, +nor the Territorial Legislature, nor any individual, has power to give +to it legal existence in such Territories.</p> + +<p>Breckinridge, representing the Pro-Slavery wing of the Democracy, held +that Slavery is a right, which, when transplanted from the Slave-States +into the Territories, neither Congressional nor Territorial legislation +can destroy or impair, but which, on the contrary, must, when necessary, +be protected everywhere by Congress and all other departments of the +Government.</p> + +<p>Douglas, representing the Anti-Lecompton wing of Democracy, held that +whether Slavery be right or wrong, the white inhabitants of the +Territories have the sole right to determine whether it shall or shall +not exist within their respective limits, subject to the Constitution +and Supreme Court decisions thereon; and that neither Congress nor any +State, nor any outside persons, must interfere with that right.</p> + +<p>Bell, representing the remaining political elements, held that it was +all wrong to have any principles at all, except "the Constitution of the +Country, the Union of the States, and the Enforcement of the Laws"—a +platform which Horace Greeley well described as "meaning anything in +general, and nothing in particular."</p> + +<p>The canvass that ensued was terribly exciting—Douglas alone, of all the +Presidential candidates, bravely taking the field, both North and South, +in person, in the hope that the magnetism of his personal presence and +powerful intellect might win what, from the start—owing to the adverse +machinations, in the Northern States, of the Administration or +Breckinridge-Democratic wing—seemed an almost hopeless fight. In the +South, the Democracy was almost a unit in opposition to Douglas, +holding, as they did, that "Douglas Free-Soilism" was "far more +dangerous to the South than the election of Lincoln; because it seeks to +create a Free-Soil Party there; while, if Lincoln triumphs, the result +cannot fail to be a South united in her own defense;" while the old Whig +element of the South was as unitedly for Bell. In the North, the +Democracy were split in twain, three-fourths of them upholding Douglas, +and the balance, powerful beyond their numbers in the possession of +Federal Offices, bitterly hostile to him, and anxious to beat him, even +at the expense of securing the election of Lincoln.</p> + +<p>Douglas's fight was that the candidacy and platform of Bell were +meaningless, those of both Lincoln and Breckinridge, Sectional, and that +he alone bore aloft the standard of the entire Union; while, on the +other hand, the supporters of Lincoln, his chief antagonist, claimed +that—as the burden of the song from the lips of Douglas men, Bell men, +and Breckinridge men alike, was the expression of a "fear that," in the +language of Mr. Seward, "if the people elected Mr. Lincoln to the +Presidency, they would wake up and find that they had no Country for him +to preside over"—"therefore, all three of the parties opposing Mr. +Lincoln were in the same boat, and hence the only true Union party, was +the party which made no threats of Disunion, to wit, the Republican +party."</p> + +<p>The October elections of 1860 made it plain that Mr. Lincoln would be +elected. South Carolina began to "feel good" over the almost certainty +that the pretext for Secession for which her leaders had been hoping in +vain for thirty years, was at hand. On the 25th of October, at Augusta, +South Carolina, the Governor, the Congressional delegation, and other +leading South Carolinians, met, and decided that in the event of Mr. +Lincoln's election, that State would secede. Similar meetings, to the +same end, were also held about the same time, in others of the Southern +States. On the 5th of November—the day before the Presidential +election—the Legislature of South Carolina met at the special call of +Governor Gist, and, having organized, received a Message from the +Governor, in which, after stating that he had convened that Body in +order that they might on the morrow "appoint the number of electors of +President and Vice-President to which this State is entitled," he +proceeded to suggest "that the Legislature remain in session, and take +such action as will prepare the State for any emergency that may arise." +He went on to "earnestly recommend that, in the event of Abraham +Lincoln's election to the Presidency, a Convention of the people of this +State be immediately called, to consider and determine for themselves +the mode and measure of redress," and, he continued: "I am constrained +to say that the only alternative left, in my judgment, is the Secession +of South Carolina from the Federal Union. The indications from many of +the Southern States justify the conclusion that the Secession of South +Carolina will be immediately followed, if not adopted simultaneously, by +them, and ultimately by the entire South. The long-desired cooperation +of the other States having similar institutions, for which so many of +our citizens have been waiting, seems to be near at hand; and, if we are +true to ourselves, will soon be realized. The State has, with great +unanimity declared that she has the right peaceably to Secede, and no +power on earth can rightfully prevent it."</p> +<blockquote><blockquote><blockquote> +<p> [Referring to the Ordinance of Nullification adopted by the people + of South Carolina, November 24, 1832, growing out of the Tariff Act + of 1832—wherein it was declared that, in the event of the Federal + Government undertaking to enforce the provisions of that Act: "The + people of this State will thenceforth hold themselves absolved from + all further obligation to maintain or preserve their political + connection with the people of the other States, and will forthwith + proceed to organize a separate government, and do all other acts + and things which Sovereign and independent States may of right + do."]</p> +</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote> +<p>He proceeded to say that "If, in the exercise of arbitrary power, and +forgetful of the lessons of history, the Government of the United States +should attempt coercion, it will become our solemn duty to meet force by +force"—and promised that the decision of the aforesaid Convention +"representing the Sovereignty of the State, and amenable to no earthly +tribunal," should be, by him, "carried out to the letter." He +recommended the thorough reorganization of the Militia; the arming of +every man in the State between the ages of eighteen and forty-five; and +the immediate enrollment of ten thousand volunteers officered by +themselves; and concluded with a confident "appeal to the Disposer of +all human events," in whose keeping the "Cause" was to be entrusted.</p> + +<p>That same evening (November 5), being the eve of the election, at +Augusta, South Carolina, in response to a serenade, United States +Senator Chestnut made a speech of like import, in which, after +predicting the election of Mr. Lincoln, he said: "Would the South submit +to a Black Republican President, and a Black Republican Congress, which +will claim the right to construe the Constitution of the Country, and +administer the Government in their own hands, not by the law of the +instrument itself, nor by that of the fathers of the Country, nor by the +practices of those who administered seventy years ago, but by rules +drawn from their own blind consciences and crazy brains? * * * The +People now must choose whether they would be governed by enemies, or +govern themselves."</p> + +<p>He declared that the Secession of South Carolina was an "undoubted +right," a "duty," and their "only safety" and as to himself, he would +"unfurl the Palmetto flag, fling it to the breeze, and, with the spirit +of a brave man, live and die as became" his "glorious ancestors, and +ring the clarion notes of defiance in the ears of an insolent foe!"</p> + +<p>So also, in Columbia, South Carolina, Representative Boyce of that +State, and other prominent politicians, harangued an enthusiastic crowd +that night—Mr. Boyce declaring: "I think the only policy for us is to +arm, as soon as we receive authentic intelligence of the election of +Lincoln. It is for South Carolina, in the quickest manner, and by the +most direct means, to withdraw from the Union. Then we will not submit, +whether the other Southern States will act with us or with our enemies. +They cannot take sides with our enemies; they must take sides with us. +When an ancient philosopher wished to inaugurate a great revolution, his +motto was to dare! to dare!"</p> + +<br><br> + + +<center> +<table summary="" cellPadding=4 border=3> +<tr><td> + + <a href="p2.htm">Next Part</a> +</td><td> + <a href="7140-h.htm">Main Index</a> + +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> + + + +</body> +</html> + |