Slavery and four years of war
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Title: Slavery and four years of war
a political history of slavery in the United States, together with a narrative of the campaigns and battles of the Civil War in which the author took part, 1861-1865. Vols. 1-2
Author: Joseph Warren Keifer
Release date: July 19, 2007 [eBook #22100]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22100
Credits: Produced by Ed Ferris
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SLAVERY AND FOUR YEARS OF WAR ***
Produced by Ed Ferris
Transcriber's note:
Footnotes are at the end of each chapter, except at the end of
each section in Chapter I. Duplicate notes were on adjacent pages
in the book.
Right-hand-page heads are omitted.
Names have been corrected (except possibly "Hurlburt").
LoC call number: E470.K18
SLAVERY AND
FOUR YEARS OF WAR
A POLITICAL HISTORY OF SLAVERY
IN THE UNITED STATES
TOGETHER WITH A NARRATIVE OF THE CAMPAIGNS
AND BATTLES OF THE CIVIL WAR IN WHICH
THE AUTHOR TOOK PART: 1861-1865
BY
JOSEPH WARREN KEIFER
BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL OF VOLUNTEERS; EX-SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF
REPRESENTATIVES, U. S. A.; AND MAJOR-GENERAL OF VOLUNTEERS,
SPANISH WAR.
ILLUSTRATED
VOLUME I.
1861-1863
G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York and London
The Knickerbocker Press
1900
Copyright, 1900
BY
JOSEPH WARREN KEIFER
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
To the
memory of the dead and as a tribute of esteem to the living officers
and soldiers who served immediately with and under the author in
battles and campaigns of the great American rebellion
This Book is Dedicated
PREFACE
The writer of this book was a volunteer officer in the Union army
throughout the war of the Great Rebellion, and his service was in
the field.
The book, having been written while the author was engaged in a
somewhat active professional life, lacks that literary finish which
results from much pruning and painstaking. He, however, offers no
excuse for writing it, nor for its completion; he has presumed to
nothing but the privilege of telling his own story in his own way.
He has been at no time forgetful of the fact that he was a subordinate
in a great conflict, and that other soldiers discharged their duties
as faithfully as himself; and while no special favors are asked,
he nevertheless opes that what he has written may be accepted as
the testimony of one who entertains a justifiable pride in having
been connected with large armies and a participant in important
campaigns and great battles.
He flatters himself that his summary of the political history of
slavery in the United States, and of the important political events
occurring upon the firing on Fort Sumter, and the account he has
given of the several attempts to negotiate a peace before the final
overthrow of the Confederate armies, will be of special interest
to students of American history.
Slavery bred the doctrine of State-rights, which led, inevitably,
to secession and rebellion. The story of slavery and its abolition
in the United States is the most tragic one in the world's annals.
The "Confederate States of America" is the only government ever
attempted to be formed, avowedly to perpetuate _human slavery_.
A history of the Rebellion without that of slavery is but a recital
of brave deeds without reference to the motive which prompted their
performance.
The chapter on slavery narrates its history in the United States
from the earliest times; its status prior to the war; its effect
on political parties and statesmen; its aggressions, and attempts
at universal domination if not extension over the whole Republic;
its inexorable demands on the friends of freedom, and its plan of
perpetually establishing itself through secession and the formation
of a slave nation. It includes a history of the secession of eleven
Southern States, and the formation of "The Confederate States of
America"; also what the North did to try to avert the Rebellion.
It was written to show why and how the Civil War came, what the
conquered lost, and what the victors won.
In other chapters the author has taken the liberty, for the sake
of continuity, of going beyond the conventional limits of a personal
_memoir_, but in doing this he has touched on no topic not connected
with the war.
The war campaigns cover the first one in Western Virginia, 1861;
others in Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama, 1862; in
West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, 1863; and in
Virginia, 1864; ending with the capture of Richmond and Petersburg,
the battles of Five Forks and Sailor's Creek, and the surrender of
Lee to Grant at Appomattox, 1865. A chapter on the New York riots
of 1863, also one on the "Peace Negotiations," will be found, each
in its proper place.
Personal mention and descriptions of many officers known to the
writer are given; also war incidents deemed to be of interest to
the reader.
But few generalizations are indulged in either as to events,
principles, or the character of men; instead, facts are given from
which generalizations may be formed.
The author is indebted to his friends, General George D. Ruggles
(General Meade's Assistant Adjutant-General, Army of the Potomac,
late Adjutant-General, U.S.A.), for important data furnished from
the War Department, and to his particular friends, both in peace
and war, General John Beatty and Colonel Wm. S. Furay of Columbus,
Ohio, for valuable suggestions.
J. W. K.
December, 1899.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
Slavery: Its Political History in the United States,
(I.) Introductory--(II.) Introduction of Slavery into the Colonies
--(III.) Declaration of Independence--(IV.) Continental Congress:
Articles of Confederation--(V.) Ordinance of 1787--(VI.) Constitution
of the United States--(VII.) Causes of Growth of Slavery--(VIII.)
Fugitive-Slave Law, 1793--(IX.) Slave Trade Abolished--(X.) Louisiana
Purchase--(XI.) Florida--(XII.) Missouri Compromise--(XIII.)
Nullification--(XIV.) Texas--(XV.) Mexican War, Acquisition of
California and New Mexico--(XVI.) Compromise Measures, 1850--(XVII.)
Nebraska Act--(XVIII.) Kansas Struggle for Freedom--(XIX.) Dred
Scott Case--(XX.) John Brown Raid--(XXI.) Presidential Elections,
1856-1860--(XXII.) Dissolution of the Union--(XXIII.) Secession of
States--(XXIV.) Action of Religious Denominations--(XXV.) Proposed
Concessions to Slavery--(XXVI.) Peace Conference--(XXVII.) District
of Columbia--(XXVIII.) Slavery Prohibited in Territories--(XXIX.)
Benton's Summary--(XXX.) Prophecy as to Slavery and Disunion.
CHAPTER II
Sumter Fired on--Seizure by Confederates of Arms, Arsenals, and
Forts--Disloyalty of Army and Navy Officers--Proclamation of Lincoln
for 75,000 Militia, and Preparation for War on Both Sides
CHAPTER III
Personal Mention--Occupancy of Western Virginia under McClellan
(1861)--Campaign and Battle of Rich Mountain, and Incidents
CHAPTER IV
Repulse of General Lee and Affairs of Cheat Mountain and in Tygart's
Valley (September, 1861)--Killing of John A. Washington, and
Incidents--and Formation of State of West Virginia
CHAPTER V
Union Occupancy of Kentucky--Affair at Green River--Defeat of
Humphrey Marshall--Battles of Mill Springs, Forts Henry and Donelson
--Capture of Bowling Green and Nashville, and Other Matters
CHAPTER VI
Battle of Shiloh--Capture of Island No. 10--Halleck's Advance on
Corinth, and Other Events
CHAPTER VII
Mitchel's Campaign to Northern Alabama--Andrews' Raid into Georgia,
and Capture of a Locomotive--Affair at Bridgeport--Sacking of
Athens, Alabama, and Court-Martial of Colonel Turchin--Burning of
Paint Rock by Colonel Beatty--Other Incidents and Personal Mention
--Mitchel Relieved
CHAPTER VIII
Confederate Invasion of Kentucky (1862)--Cincinnati Threatened,
and "Squirrel Hunters" Called Out--Battles of Iuka, Corinth, and
Hatchie Bridge--Movements of Confederate Armies of Bragg and Kirby
Smith--Retirement of Buell's Army to Louisville--Battle of Perryville,
with Personal and Other Incidents
CHAPTER IX
Commissioned Colonel of 110th Ohio Volunteers--Campaigns in West
Virginia under General Milroy, 1862-1863--Emancipation of Slaves
in the Shenandoah Valley, and Incidents
ILLUSTRATIONS
J. Warren Keifer
Andrew H. Reeder, first governor of Kansas Territory, Flight in
Disguise, 1855 [From a painting in Coates' House, Kansas City,
Missouri.]
Abraham Lincoln
Map of the United States, 1860 [Showing free and slave States and
Territories.]
General Ulysses S. Grant, U.S.A. [From a photograph taken 1865.]
Confederate Silver Half-Dollar
John Beatty, Brigadier-General of Volunteers [From a photograph
taken 1863.]
Rich Mountain and Cheat Mountain Country, W. Va.
General William T. Sherman, U.S.A. [From a photograph taken 1881.]
Major-General O. M. Mitchel [From a photograph taken 1862.]
Brevet Brigadier-General Wm. H. Ball [From a photograph taken 1864.]
Rev. William T. Meloy, D. D., Lieutenant 122d Ohio Volunteers [From
a photograph taken 1896.]
Major-General Robert H. Milroy [From a photograph taken 1863.]
Lieutenant James A. Fox, 110th Ohio Volunteers [From a photograph
taken 1863.]
Map of Shenandoah valley [From Major W. F. Tiemann's _History of
the 159th New York_.]
Rev. Milton J. Miller, Chaplain 110th Ohio Volunteers [From a
photograph taken 1865.]
Rev. Charles C. McCabe, D. D., Bishop M. E. Church, Chaplain 122d
Ohio Volunteers [From a photograph taken 1868.]
SLAVERY AND FOUR YEARS OF WAR
SLAVERY AND FOUR YEARS
OF WAR
CHAPTER I
SLAVERY: ITS POLITICAL HISTORY IN THE UNITED STATES
(I.) Introductory--(II.) Introduction of Slavery into the Colonies
--(III.) Declaration of Independence--(IV.) Continental Congress:
Articles of Confederation--(V.) Ordinance of 1787--(VI.) Constitution
of the United States--(VII.) Causes of Growth of Slavery--(VIII.)
Fugitive-Slave Law, 1793--(IX.) Slave Trade Abolished--(X.) Louisiana
Purchase--(XI.) Florida--(XII.) Missouri Compromise--(XIII.)
Nullification--(XIV.) Texas--(XV.) Mexican War, Acquisition of
California and New Mexico--(XVI.) Compromise Measures, 1850--(XVII.)
Nebraska Act--(XVIII.) Kansas Struggle for Freedom--(XIX.) Dred
Scott Case--(XX.) John Brown Raid--(XXI.) Presidential Elections,
1856-1860--(XXII.) Dissolution of the Union--(XXIII.) Secession of
States--(XXIV.) Action of Religious Denominations--(XXV.) Proposed
Concessions to Slavery--(XXVI.) Peace Conference--(XXVII.) District
of Columbia--(XXVIII.) Slavery Prohibited in Territories--(XXIX.)
Benton's Summary--(XXX.) Prophecy as to Slavery and Disunion.
I
INTRODUCTORY
Slavery is older than tradition--older than authentic history, and
doubtless antedates any organized form of human government. It
had its origin in barbaric times. Uncivilized man never voluntarily
performed labor even for his own comfort; he only struggled to gain
a bare subsistence. He did not till the soil, but killed wild
animals for food and to secure a scant covering for his body; and
cannibalism was common. Tribes were formed for defence, and thus
wars came, all, however, to maintain mere savage existence. Through
primitive wars captives were taken, and such as were not slain were
compelled to labor for their captors. In time these slaves were
used to domesticate useful animals and, later, were forced to
cultivate the soil and build rude structures for the comfort and
protection of their masters. Thus it was that mankind was first
forced to toil and ultimately came to enjoy labor and its incident
fruits, and thus human slavery became a first step from barbarism
towards the ultimate civilization of mankind.
White slavery existed in the English-American colonies antecedent
to black or African slavery, though at first only intended to be
conditional and not to extend to offspring. English, Scotch, and
Irish alike, regardless of ancestry or religious faith, were, for
political offenses, sold and transported to the dependent American
colonies. They were such persons as had participated in insurrections
against the Crown; many of them being prisoners taken on the battle-
field, as were the Scots taken on the field of Dunbar, the royalist
prisoners from the field of Worcester; likewise the great leaders
of the Penruddoc rebellion, and many who were taken in the insurrection
of Monmouth.
Of these, many were first sold in England to be afterwards re-sold
on shipboard to the colonies, as men sell horses, to the highest
bidder.
There was also, in some of the colonies, a conditional servitude,
under indentures, for servants, debtors, convicts, and perhaps
others. These forms of slavery made the introduction of negro and
perpetual slavery easy.
Australasia alone, of all inhabited parts of the globe, has the
honor, so far as history records, of never having a slave
population.
Egyptian history tells us of human bondage; the patriarch Abraham,
the founder of the Hebrew nation, owned and dealt in slaves. That
the law delivered to Moses from Mt. Sinai justified and tolerated
human slavery was the boast of modern slaveholders.
Moses, from "Nebo's heights," saw the "land of promise," where
flowed "milk and honey" in abundance, and where slavery existed.
The Hebrew people, but forty years themselves out of bondage,
possessed this land and maintained slavery therein.
The advocates of slavery and the slave trade exultingly quoted:
"And I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hands of
the children of Judah, and they shall sell them to the Sabeans, to
a people far off; for the Lord hath spoken it."--Joel iii, 8.
They likewise claimed that St. Paul, while he preached the gospel
to slaveholders and slaves alike in Rome, yet used his calling to
enable him to return to slavery an escaped human being--Onesimus.( 1)
The advocates of domestic slavery justified it as of scriptural
and divine origin.
From the Old Testament they quoted other texts, not only to justify
the holding of slaves in perpetual bondage, but the continuance of
the slave trade with all its cruelties.
"And he said, I am Abraham's servant."--Gen. xxiv., 34.
"And there was of the house of Saul a _servant_ whose name was
Ziba. And when they had called him unto David, the King said unto
him, Art thou Ziba? And he said, Thy servant is he. . . .
"Then the King called to Ziba, Saul's _servant_, and said unto him,
I have given unto thy master's son all that pertained to Saul, and
to all his house.
"Thou, therefore, and thy sons, and they servants shall till the
land for him, and thou shalt bring in _the fruits_, that thy master's
son may have food to eat," etc. "Now Ziba had fifteen sons and
_twenty servants_."--2 Samuel ix., 2, 9-10.
"I got me servants and maidens and had servants born in my house;
also I had great possessions of great and small cattle above all
that were in Jerusalem before me."--Eccles. ii., 7.
"And he said, Hagar, Sarai's maid, whence comest thou? and she
said, I flee from the face of my mistress Sarai.
"And the angel of the Lord said unto her, Return to thy mistress,
and submit thyself to her hands."--Gen. xvi., 8, 9.
"A servant will not be corrected by words; for though he understand,
he will not answer."--Prov. xxix., 19.
And from the New Testament they triumphantly quoted:
"Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called.
Art thou called being a servant? care not for it; but if thou mayest
be made free, use it rather."--I Cor., vii., 20-22.
"Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to
the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart,
as unto Christ," etc.
"And, ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening:
knowing that your Master also is in heaven; neither is there respect
of persons with him."--Eph., vi., 5-9.
"Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh,
not with eye service, as men pleasers; but in singleness of heart,
fearing God."--Col. iii., 22.
"Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal;
knowing that ye also have a Master in heaven."--Col. iv., 1.
"Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters
worthy of all honor, that the name of God and his doctrines be not
blasphemed," etc.--I Tim., vi., 1, 2.
"Exhort servants to be obedient unto their own masters, and to
please them well in all things; not answering again; not purloining,
but showing all good fidelity; that they may adorn the doctrine of
God our Saviour in all things."--Titus ii., 9, 10.
"Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to
the good and gentle, but also to the froward."--I. Pet. ii, 18.
The advocates of slavery maintained that Christ approved the calling
as a slaveholder as well as the faith of the Roman centurion, whose
servant, "sick of a palsy," Christ miraculously healed by saying:
"_I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel_."--Matt.
viii., 10.
They also cited Dr. Adam Clark, the great Bible commentator; Dr.
Neander's work, entitled _Planting and Training the Church_, and
Dr. Mosheim's _Church History_, as evidence that the Bible not only
sanctioned slavery but authorized its perpetuation through all
time.( 2) In other words, pro-slavery advocates in effect affirmed
that these great writers:
"Torture the hollowed pages of the Bible,
To sanction crime, and robbery, and blood,
And, in oppression's hateful service, libel
Both man and God."
While the teachings of neither the Old nor the New Testament, nor
of the _Master_, were to overthrow or to establish political
conditions as established by the temporal powers of the then age,
yet it must be admitted that large numbers of people, of much
learning and a high civilization, believed human slavery was
sanctioned by divine authority.
The deductions made from the texts quoted were unwarranted. The
principles of justice and mercy, on which the Christian religion
is founded, cannot be tortured into even a toleration (as, possibly,
could the law of Moses) of the existence of the unnatural and
barbaric institution of slavery, or the slave trade.
Slavery was wrong _per se;_ wholly unjustifiable on the plainest
principles of humanity and justice; and the consciences of all
unprejudiced, enlightened, civilized people led them in time to
believe that it had no warrant from God and ought to have no warrant
from man to exist on the face of the earth.
The friends of freedom and those who believed slavery sinful never
for a moment assented to the claim that it was sanctioned by Holy
Writ, or that it was justified by early and long-continued existence
through barbaric or semi-barbaric times. They denied that it could
thus even be sanctified into a moral right; that time ever converted
cruelty into a blessing, or a wrong into a right; that any human
law could give it legal existence, or rightfully perpetuate it
against natural justice; they maintained that a Higher Law, written
in God's immutable decrees of mercy, was paramount to all human
law or practice, however long continuing; that the lessons taught
by Christ in the Sermon on the Mount and in all his life and
teachings were a condemnation of it; and that an enlightened,
progressive civilization demanded its final overthrow.
In America: Slavery is _dead_. We return to its history.
Greece had her slaves before tradition blended into history, though,
four centuries before Christ, Alcidamas proclaimed: "_God has sent
forth all men free: Nature has made no man slave_."
Alexander, the mighty Macedonian (fourth century B.C.), sold captives
taken at Tyre and Gaza, the most accomplished people of that time,
into slavery.( 3)
Rome had her slaves; and her slave-marts were open at her principal
ports for traffic in men and women of all nationalities, especially
Christians and captives taken in war.
The German nations of the shores of the Baltic carried on the
desolating traffic. Russia recognized slavery and carried on a
slave trade through her merchantmen.
The Turks forbade the enslaving of Mussulmans, but sold Christian
and other captives into slavery. Christian and Moor, for seven
hundred years in the doubtful struggle in Western Europe, respectively,
doomed their captives to slavery.
Contemporary with the discovery of America, the Moors were driven
from Granada, their last stronghold in Spain, to the north of
Africa; there they became corsairs, privateers, and holders of
Christian slaves. Their freebooter life and cruelty furnished the
pretext, not only to enslave the people of the Moorish dominion,
but of all Africa. The oldest accounts of Africa bear testimony
to the existence of domestic slavery--of negro enslaving negro,
and of caravans of dealers in negro slaves.
Columbus, whose glory as the discoverer of this continent we
proclaim, on a return voyage (1494) carried five hundred native
Americans to Spain, a present to Queen Isabella, and American
Indians were sold into foreign bondage, as "spoils of war," for
two centuries.
The Saxon carried slavery in its most odious form into England,
where, at one time, not half the inhabitants were absolutely free,
and where the price of a man was but four times the price of an ox.
He sold his own kindred into slavery. English slaves were held in
Ireland till the reign of Henry II.
In time, however, the spirit of Christianity, pleading the cause
of humanity, stayed slavery's progress, and checked the slave
traffic by appeals to conscience.
Alexander III, Pope of Rome in the twelfth century, proclaimed
against it, by writing: "_Nature having made no slaves, all men
have an equal right to liberty_."
Efficacious as the Christian religion has been to destroy or mitigate
evil, it has failed to render the so-called Christian slaveholder
better than the pagan, or to improve the condition of the bondsmen.
It may be observed that when slavery seemed to be firmly planted
in the Republic of the United States of America, Egypt, as one of
the powers of the earth, had passed away; her slavery, too, was
gone--only her Pyramids, Sphinx, and Monoliths have been spared by
time and a just judgment. Greece, too, had perished, only her
philosophy and letters survive; Israel's people, though the chosen
of God, had, as a nation, been bodily carried into oriental
Babylonian captivity, and in due time had, in fulfillment of divine
judgment, been dispersed through all lands. God in his mighty
wrath also thundered on Babylon's iniquity, and it, too, passed
away forever, and the prophet gives as a reason for this, that
Babylon dealt in "_slaves and the souls of men_."
Rome, once the mistress of the world, cased as a nation to live;
her greatness and her glory, her slave markets and her slaves, all
gone together and forever.
Germany, France, Spain, and other slave nations renounced slavery
barely in time to escape the general national doom.
Russia, though her mighty Czars possessed absolute power to rule,
trembled before the mighty insurrections of peasant-serfs that
swept over the bodies of slain nobles and slave-masters from remote
regions to the very gates of Moscow. Catherine II., Alexander I.,
Nicholas I., and Alexander II. listened to the threatened doom,
and, to save their empire, put forth decrees to loosen and finally
to break the chains of twenty millions of slaves and serfs. Even
Moorish slavery in Northern Africa in large part passed away.
Mohammedan,( 4) Brahmin, and Buddhist had no sanction for human
slavery.
England heard the warning cry just in time to save the kingdom from
the impending common destiny of slave nations.
It was not, however, until 1772, that Lord Mansfield, from the
Court of the King's Bench of Great Britain, announced that no slave
could be held under the English Constitution. This decision was
of binding force in her American colonies when the Declaration of
Independence was adopted, and the "Liberty Bell" proclaimed "_Liberty
throughout all the land to all the inhabitants thereof_."
The argument that the institution of slavery was sanctified by age
ceased, long since, to be satisfying to those who learned justice
and mercy in the light of Christian love, and who could read, not
only that human slavery had existed from the earliest times, but
that it had existed without right, only by the power of might, not
sanctioned by reason and natural justice, and that in its train a
myriad of coincident evils, crimes, and immoralities had taken
birth and flourished, blasting both master and slave and the land
they inhabited, and that God's just and retributive judgment has
universally been visited on all nations and peoples continuing to
maintain and perpetuate it.
Murder has existed in the world since Cain and Abel met by the
altar of God, yet no sane person for that reason justifies it. So
slavery has stalked down the long line of centuries, cursing and
destroying millions with its damning power, but time has not
sanctioned it into a right. The longer it existed the more foul
became the blot upon history's pages, and the deeper the damnation
upon humanity it wrought.
When all the civilized nations of Europe, as well as the nations
and even tribes of Asia, had either abolished slavery and taken
steps effectually to do so, it remained for the _United States_ to
stand alone upholding it in its direst form.
The nations of the ancient world either shook off slavery in attempts
to wash away its bloody stain, or slavery wiped them from the powers
of the earth. So of the more modern nations.
Our Republic, boastful of its free institutions, of its constitutional
liberty, of its free schools and churches, of its glories in the
cause of humanity, its patriotism, resplendent history, inventive
genius, wealth, industry, civilization, and Christianity, maintained
slavery until it was only saved from its common doom of slave
nations by the atoning sacrifice of its best blood and the mercy
of an offended God.
More than two centuries (1562) before Lord Mansfield judicially
announced _freedom_ to be the universal law of England, Sir John
Hawkins acquired the infamous distinction of being the first
Englishman to embark in the slave trade, and the depravity of public
sentiment in England then approved his action. He then seized, on
the African coast, and transported a large cargo of negroes to
Hispaniola and bartered them for sugar, ginger, and pearls, at
great profit.( 5) Here commenced a traffic in human beings by
English-speaking people (scarcely yet ceased) that involved murder,
arson, theft, and all the cruelty and crimes incident to the capture,
transportation, and subjection of human beings to the lust, avarice,
and power of man.
Sir John Hawkins' success coming to the notice of the avaricious
and ambitious Queen Elizabeth, she, five years later (1567), became
the open protector of a new expedition and sharer in the nefarious
traffic, thus becoming a promoter, abettor, and participant in all
its crimes.
To the "African Company," for a long period, was granted by England
a monopoly of the slave trade, but it could not be confined to this
company. In 1698, England exacted a tariff on the slave cargoes
of her subjects engaged in the trade.
From 1680 to 1700, by convention with Spain, the English, it is
estimated, stole from Africa 300,000 negroes to supply the Spanish
West Indies with slaves. By the treaty of Utrecht (1713) Spain
granted to England, during thirty years, the absolute monopoly of
supplying slaves to the Spanish colonies. By this treaty England
agreed to take to the West Indies not less than 144,000 negroes,
or 4800 each year; and, to guard against scandal to the Roman
Catholic religion, heretical slave-traders were forbidden. This
monopoly was granted by England to the "South Sea Company."
England did not confine her trade to the West Indies. In 1750, it
was shown in the English Parliament that 46,000 negroes were annually
sold to English colonies.( 6)
As early as 1565, Sir John Hawthorne and Menendez imported negroes
as slaves into Florida, then a Spanish possession, and with Spain's
sanction many were carried into the West Indies and sold into
slavery.
( 1) Epistle to Philemon.
( 2) The references to the Bible are taken from the most learned
advocates of the divinity of slavery, in its last years. _Ought
American Slavery to be Perpetuated?_ (Brownlow and Pryne debate),
p. 78, etc. _Slavery Ordained of God_ (Ross), 146, etc., 176, etc.
Rev. Frederick A. Ross, D. D. (the author), a celebrated Presbyterian
minister, was arrested in 1862 at Huntsville, Alabama, while it
was occupied by the Union forces, for praying from the pulpit for
the success of secession.
Parson Brownlow was a Union man in 1861, was much persecuted at
his home in Knoxville, Tenn., later advocated emancipation.
( 3) It is interesting to note that more than fifteen hundred
years (twelfth century) after Alexander's conquests, Saladin, the
great Sultan, and other Mohammedan rulers, and Richard Coeur de
Lion, and other crusade leaders in Syria, respectively, doomed
their captives to slavery, regardless of nationality or color.--
_Saladin_ (Heroes of Nations, Putnams), 229-232, 338.
( 4) Slavery and the slave trade, in spite of the teachings of
the Koran, grew up in Mohammedan countries. The traffic in slaves,
however, had been frequently proclaimed against by the Ottoman
Porte.
( 5) But the first trace of negro slavery in America came in 1502,
only ten years after its discovery, through a decree of Ferdinand
and Isabella permitting negro slaves born in Spain, descendants of
natives brought from Guinea, to be transported to Hispaniola.--
_Life of Columbus_, by Irving (Putnams), p. 275.
( 6) _History for Ready Reference_, vol. iv., p. 2923.
II
INTRODUCTION OF SLAVERY INTO THE COLONIES
In August, 1619, a Dutch man-of-war sailed up the James River in
Virginia, landed and sold to the colony at Jamestown _twenty_
negroes as slaves. This event marked the beginning of negro slavery
in English-American colonies. Two centuries and a half did not
suffice to put an end the Ethiopian slavery and the evils of a
traffic begun on so small a scale.
One year later (1620) the Puritans landed at Plymouth Rock, bringing
with them stern religious convictions and severe morals which soon
ripened into written laws and were likewise woven into social,
political, and religious life, the resultant effect of which, on
human existence in America, is never to end. One year later still,
cotton was first planted in the virgin soil of America, where it
grew to perfection, and thenceforth becoming the staple production,
made slavery and slave-breeding profitable to the slaveholder.( 7)
The earliest importation of negro slaves into New England was to
Providence Isle in the shp _Desire_ (1637).
From Boston, Mass. (1645), the first American ship from the colonies
set sail to engage in the stealing of African negroes. Massachusetts
then held, under sanction of law, a few blacks and Indians in
bondage.( 8) But slavery did not flourish in New England. It was
neither profitable nor in consonance with the judgment of the people
generally. The General Court of Massachusetts, as early as 1646,
"bearing witness against the heinous crimes of man-stealing, ordered
the recently imported negroes to be restored, at the public charge,
to their native country, with a _letter_ expressing the indignation
of the General Court." Unfortunately, persons guilty of stealing
men could not be tried for crimes committed in foreign lands.
But the African slave trade, early found to be extremely profitable,
and hence popular, did not cease. England, then as now, the most
enterprising of commercial nations on the high seas, engrossed the
trade, in large part, from 1680 to 1780. In 1711, there was
established a slave depot in New York City on or near what is now
Wall Street; and about the same time a depot was established for
receiving slaves in Boston, near where the old Franklin House stood.
From New England ships, and perhaps from others, negroes were landed
and sent to these and other central slave markets.
But few of these freshly stolen negroes were sold to Northern
slaveholders. Slave labor was not even then found profitable in
the climate of the North. The bondsman went to a more southern
clime, and to the cotton, rice, and tobacco fields of the large
plantations of the South.
As late as 1804-7, negroes from the coast of Africa were brought
to Boston, Bristol, Providence, and Hartford to be sold into
slavery.
Shipowners of all the coast colonies, and later of all the coast
States of the United States, engaged in the slave trade.
But it was among the planters of Maryland, Virginia, and the
Carolinas that slaves proved to be most profitable. The people in
these sections were principally rural; plantations were large, not
subject to be broken up by frequent partition, if at all. The
crops raised were better suited to cultivation by slaves in large
numbers; and the hot climate was better adapted to the physical
nature of the African negro.
The first inhabitants of the South preferred a rural life, and on
large plantations. The Crown grants to early proprietors favored
this, especially in the Virginia and Carolina colonies. The Puritans
did not love or foster slavery as did the Cavalier of the South.
Castes or classes existed among the Southern settlers from the
beginning, which, with other favoring causes, made it easier for
slavery to take root and prosper, and ultimately fasten itself upon
and become a dominating factor in the whole social and political
fabric of the South. Slavery there soon came to be considered of
paramount importance in securing a high social status or a high,
so-called, civilization.
But we have, by this brief _résumé_, sufficiently shown that the
responsibility for the introduction and maintenance of slavery and
the slave trade does not rest exclusively on any of our early
colonies, North or South, nor on any one race or nationality of
the world; it remains now to show, in a summary way, how slavery
and the slave trade were treated and regarded by the different
sections of the United States after allegiance to England was thrown
off.
While slavery died out from local and natural causes, if not wholly
for moral, social, and religious reasons, in the States north of
Maryland, it flourished and ripened into strength and importance
in States south, casting a controlling influence and power over
the whole of the United States socially, and for the most part
dominating the country politically. The greatest statesmen and
brightest intellects of the North, though convinced of the evils
of slavery and of its fatal tendencies, were generally too cowardly
to attack it politically, although but about one fifth of the whole
white population of the slave states in 1860, or perhaps at any
time, was, through family relationship, or otherwise, directly or
indirectly interested in slaves or slave labor.
Old political parties were in time disrupted, and new ones were
formed on slavery issues.
The slavery question rent in twain the Methodist Episcopal and
Presbyterian churches. The followers of Wesley and Calvin divided
on slavery. It was always essentially an aristocratic institution,
and hence calculated to benefit only a few of the great mass of
freemen.
In 1860, there was in the fifteen slave States a white population
of 8,039,000 and a slave population of 3,953,696. Of the white
population only 384,884 were slaveholders, and, including their
families, only about 1,600,000 were directly or indirectly interested
in slaves or their labor. About 6,400,000 (80 per cent.) of the
whites in these States had, therefore, no interest in the institution,
and yet they were wholly subordinated to the few who were interested
in it.
Curiously enough, slavery continued to exist, until a comparatively
recent period, in many of the States that had early declared it
abolished. The States formed out of the territory "Northwest of
the River Ohio" cannot be said to have ever been slave States.
The sixth section of the Ordinance of 1787 prohibited slavery
forever therein. The slaves reported in such States were only
there by tolerance. They were free of right. The Constitution of
Illinois, as we shall presently see, did not at first abolish
slavery; only prohibited the introduction of slaves.
The rebellion of the thirteen colonies in 1776 and the war for
independence did not grow out of slavery; that war was waged neither
to perpetuate nor to abolish it. The Puritan and Cavalier, the
opponents and the advocates of slavery and the slave trade, alike,
fought for independence, and, when successful, united in the purpose
to foster and build up an American Republic, based on the sovereignty
of individual citizenship, but ignoring the natural rights of the
enslaved negro.
The following table, compiled from the United States Census Reports,
may be of interest.
It shows the number of slaves reported in each State and Territory
of the United States at each Federal census.( 9)
_North_
1790 1800 1810 1820 1830 1840 1850 1860
Cal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Conn. . . . 2,759 951 310 97 25 17 . . . . . .
Ills. . . . . . . . . . 168 917 747 331 . . . . . .
Ind. . . . . . . 135 237 190 3 3 . . . . . .
Iowa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 . . . . . .
Kansas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Maine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 . . . . . . . . .
Mass. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 . . . . . . . . .
Mich. . . . . . . . . . 24 . . . 32 . . . . . . . . .
Minn. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Neb. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
N. H. . . . 158 8 . . . . . . 3 1 . . . . . .
N. J. . . . 11,423 12,422 10,851 7,557 2,254 674 236 18
N. Y. . . . 21,324 20,343 15,017 10,088 75 4 . . . . . .
Ohio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 3 . . . . . .
Oregon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Penn. . . . 3,737 1,706 796 211 403 64 . . . . . .
R. I. . . . 952 381 108 48 17 5 . . . . . .
Utah . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 29
Vermont . . 17 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Wis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 . . . . . .
------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------
Totals . 40,370 35,646 27,510 19,108 3,568 1,129 262 64
/South/
1790 1800 1810 1820 1830 1840 1850 1860
D. C. . . . . . . . . . 3,244 5,395 6,377 6,119 4,694 3,687 3,185
Ala. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41,879 117,549 253,532 342,844 435,080
Ark. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,617 5,476 19,935 47,100 111,115
Del. . . . . . . 8,887 6,153 4,177 4,509 3,292 2,605 2,290 1,798
Florida . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16,501 25,717 39,310 61,745
Ga. . . . . . . 29,264 59,404 105,218 149,654 217,531 280,944 381,682 462,198
Ky. . . . . . . 11,830 40,434 80,561 126,732 165,213 182,258 210,981 225,483
La. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34,660 69,064 109,588 168,452 244,809 331,726
Md. . . . . . . 103,036 105,635 111,502 107,397 102,994 89,737 90,368 87,189
Miss. . . . . . . . . . 3,489 17,088 32,814 65,659 195,211 309,878 436,631
Mo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,011 10,222 25,091 58,240 87,422 114,931
N. C. . . . . . 100,572 133,296 168,824 205,017 245,601 245,817 288,548 331,059
S. C. . . . . . 107,094 146,151 196,365 258,475 315,401 327,088 384,984 402,406
Tenn. . . . . . 3,417 13,584 44,535 80,107 141,603 183,059 239,459 275,719
Tex. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58,161 182,566
Va. . . . . . . 293,427 345,796 392,518 425,153 469,757 449,087 472,528 490,865
------- ------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
Totals . . . . 657,527 857,095 1,163,854 1,519,017 2,005,475 2,486,326 3,204,051 3,953,696
------- ------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
Grand totals . 697,897 892,741 1,191,364 1,538,125 2,009,043 2,487,455 3,204,313 3,953,760
( 7) It is curious to note that 1621 dates the first bringing into
Virginia and America bee-hives for the production of honey.
( 8) The following letter of Cotton Mather will show the Puritan's
intolerance of Wm. Penn and his Society of Friends, and the prevailing
opinion in his time on slavery and the slave trade.
"Boston, Massachusetts, September, 3, 1681.
"To ye Aged and Beloved John Higginson: There be now at sea a
skipper (for our friend Esaias Holderoft of London did advise me
by the last packet that it would sail sometime in August) called
ye _Welcome_ (R. Green was master), which has aboard a hundred or
more of ye heretics and malignants called Quakers, with W. Penn,
who is ye scamp at ye head of them.
"Ye General court has accordingly given secret orders to master
Malachi Huxtell of ye brig _Porpoise_ to waylaye ye said _Welcome_
as near ye coast of Codd as may be, and make captives of ye Penn
and his ungodly crew, so that ye Lord may be glorified, and not
mocked on ye soil of this new country with ye heathen worshippe of
these people. Much spoil can be made by selling ye whole lot to
Barbadoes, where slaves fetch good prices in rumme and sugar. We
shall not only do ye Lord great service by punishing the Wicked,
but shall make gayne for his ministers and people. Yours in the
bowels of Christ,
"Cotton Mather."
( 9) Slavery was abolished in the District of Columbia by law of
Congress, passed April 16, 1862.
President Lincoln's proclamation of January 1, 1863, emancipated
all slaves in the seceded States (save in Tennessee and in parts
of Louisiana and Virginia excepted therefrom) to the number of
3,063,395; those remaining were freed by the thirteenth amendment
to the Constitution, December 18, 1865.
III
DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
The Declaration of Independence, though accepted at once and to be
regarded through all time by the liberty-loving world as the best
and boldest declaration in favor of human rights, and the most
pronounced protest against oppression of the human race, is totally
silent as to the rights of the slaves in the colonies. It is true
that Jefferson in his draft of this instrument, in the articles of
indictment against King George III., used this language:
"He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its
most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of distant
people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into
slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in the
transportation thither, . . . determined to keep open a market
where white men should be bought and sold; he has prostituted his
negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or
restrain this execrable commerce."
To conciliate Georgia and South Carolina, this part of the indictment
was struck out. These colonies had never sought to restrain, but
had always fostered the slave trade. Jefferson, in his _Autobiography_
(vol. i, p. 19), suggests that other sections sympathized with
Georgia and South Carolina in this matter.
"Our Northern brethren . . . felt a little tender under these
censures: for though their people had very few slaves themselves,
yet they had been considerable carriers of them to others."
Jefferson said King George preferred the advantage:
"of a few British corsairs to the lasting interests of the American
States and to the rights of human nature, deeply wounded by this
infamous practice."(10)
While it is not true, as has often been claimed, that England is
solely responsible for the introduction of slavery into her American
colonies, it is true that her King and Parliament opposed almost
every attempt to prohibit it or to restrict the importation of
slaves. Colonial legislative enactments of Virginia and other
colonies directed against slavery were vetoed by the King or by
his command by his royal governors. Such governors were early
forbidden to give their assent to any measure restricting slavery
in the American colonies, and this policy was pursued until the
colonies became independent.(11)
The treaty of peace between Great Britain and the United States,
signed at Paris, September 3, 1783, contained a stipulation that
Great Britain should withdraw her armies from the United States
"with all convenient speed, and without causing any destruction,
or _carrying_ away any _negroes or other property_ of the American
inhabitants." Both governments thus openly recognized, not only
the existence of slavery in the United States, but that slaves were
merely _property_.
While slavery was deeply seated in the colonies and had many
advocates, including noted divines, who preached the "divinity of
slavery," there were, in 1776, and earlier, many great men, South
as well as North, who looked confidently to an early emancipation
of slaves, and who were then active in suppressing the African
slave trade, among whom were Jefferson, Washington, Franklin, and
the two Adamses.
Washington presided at a "Fairfax County Convention," before the
Revolution. It resolved that "no slaves ought to be imported into
any of the British colonies"; and Washington himself expressed "the
most earnest wish to see an entire stop forever put to such a
wicked, cruel, and unnatural trade."(12)
John Wesley, when fully acquainted with American slavery and the
slave trade, pronounced the latter as "_the execrable sum of all
villanies_," and he inveighed against the former as the wickedest
of human practices.
The Continental Congress of 1776 resolved, "that no slaves be
imported into any of the thirteen United Colonies."
There had then been imported by the cruel traffic above 300,000
blacks, bought or stolen from the African shore; and the blacks
then constituted twenty per cent. of the total population, a greater
per centum than at any time since.
During the century previous to 1776, English and colonial slavers
had carried into the West Indies and to English colonies nearly
3,000,000 negroes; and it is estimated that a quarter of a million
more died of cruel treatment on shipboard, and their bodies were
cast into the sea.
The words of the Declaration: "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,_" were not accepted
in fact as a charter of freedom for the enslaved African, but it
remained for a Chief-Justice of the United States (Taney) more than
eighty years later (March 5, 1857), in the Dred Scott decision,
that did so much (as we will hereafter show) to disrupt the Union,
to say:
"The language used in the Declaration of Independence shows that
neither the class of persons who had been imported as slaves, nor
their descendants, whether they had become free or not, were then
acknowledged as a part of the people, nor intended to be included
in the general words used."
And the Chief-Justice said further:
"They [the negroes] had for more than a century before been regarded
as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate
with the white race, either in social or political relations; and
so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was
bound to respect, and that the negro might justly and lawfully be
reduced to slavery for his benefit."
Quoting the Declaration, "_that all men are created equal_," he
continued:
"The general words above quoted would seem to embrace the whole
human family, and if they were used in a similar instrument at this
day would be so understood. But it is too clear for dispute that
the enslaved African race were not intended to be included, and
formed no part of the people who framed and adopted this
Declaration."
Notwithstanding this interpretation of the Declaration, free negroes
fought for American independence at Bunker Hill; and although later
it was decided that colored men should not be accepted as enlisted
soldiers, General Washington did accept them, and thereafter they
served in his army to the end of the war,(13) notably in large
numbers at Yorktown.
The Royal Governor of Virginia in vain tried to induce slaves to
revolt against their masters by promising them their freedom.
During Lord Howe's march through Pennsylvania it is said the slaves
prayed for his success, believing he would set them free.
The British Parliament discussed a measure to set the slaves in
the colonies free with a view to weaken their masters' ardor for
freedom. In Rhode Island slaves were, by law, set free on condition
that they enlisted in the army for the war.
(10) Parton's _Life of Jefferson_, p. 138.
(11) _History Ready Reference_, etc., vol. iv., p. 2923.
(12) Sparks's _Life of Washington_, vol. ii., p. 494.
(13) Bancroft, _History of the United States_, vol. iv., 223,322.
IV
CONTINENTAL CONGRESS--ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION 1774-1789
The Continental Congress, which assembled for the first time,
September 5, 1774, at Carpenters' Hall, Philadelphia, assumed few
powers, and its proceedings were, until the adoption by it of the
Declaration of Independence, little more than protests against
British oppression. Nor was any central government formed on the
adoption of the Declaration. That Congress continued, by common
agreement, to direct affairs, though, in the beginning, possessing
no delegated political or governmental powers.
Slavery existed in the colonies or States prior to the Declaration
by the connivance of British colonial authorities without the
sanction of and against English law; and after the Declaration, by
mere toleration as an existing domestic institution, not even by
virtue of express colonial or State authority.
In 1772 Lord Mansfield, from the Court of the King's Bench, announced
that slavery could not exist under the English Constitution.
The Articles of Confederation did nothing more than formulate, in
a weak way, a government for the United States, solely through a
Congress to which was delegated little political power. This
Congress continued to govern (if government it could be called)
until the Constitution went into effect, March 4, 1789.
The "_Articles of Confederation_," adopted (July 9, 1778) by the
Continental Congress of the thirteen original States in the midst
of the Revolution, were substantially silent on slavery. They
constituted in all respects a weak and impotent instrument. But
they recognized the existence of slavery by speaking of _free_
citizens (Art. 4).
They provided for a "Confederation and perpetual Union" between
the thirteen States, but provided no power to raise revenue, levy
taxes, or enforce law, save with the consent of nine of the States.
The government created had power to contract debts, but no power
to pay them; it could levy war, raise armies and navies, but it
could not raise revenue to sustain them; it could make treaties,
but could not compel their observance by the States; it could make
laws, but could not enforce them.
Washington said of it:
"The Confederation appears to be little more than a shadow without
the substance, and Congress a nugatory body."
Chief-Justice Story said:
"There was an utter want of all coercive authority to carry into
effect its own constitutional measures."
The Articles were, professedly, not in the interest of the whole
people.
They provided only for a "_league_" of states, guaranteeing to each
state-rights in all things.
Art. IV. runs thus:
"The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse
among the people of the different States of this Union, the _free_
inhabitants of each of these States, _paupers, vagabonds, and
fugitives from justice excepted_, shall be entitled to all the
privileges and immunities of _free_ citizens in the several States,"
etc.
What a classification of persons for exception from the privileges
of government!
_Free_ negroes were not of the excepted class. Nor were criminals,
unless they became fugitives from justice.
For ten years the new Republic existed under these Articles by the
tolerance of a people bound together by the spirit of liberty and
the cohesion of patriotism.
The Articles created no status for slavery, nor did they interfere
with it in the States. They made no provision for a fugitive-slave
law, if, indeed, such a law was dreamed of until after the Constitution
went into effect.
The Articles of Confederation provided no executive head, no supreme
judiciary, and they provided for no perfect legislative body,
organized on the principle of checks and restraints, possessed of
true republican representation. Congress--the sole governing power
--was composed of one body, each State sending not less than two
or more than seven representatives. The voting in this body was
done by States, each State having one vote.
It therefore soon became necessary to frame and adopt a new organic
act, supplementing the many deficiencies of these Articles.
V
ORDINANCE OF 1787
The memorable Congress of 1776 was willing to do much to the end
that slavery might be restricted, hence, as we have seen, it resolved
"_that no slaves be imported into any of the thirteen United
Colonies_."
Had it been possible thus early to stop effectually the slave trade,
and to prevent the extension of slavery to new territory, slavery
would have died out. Jefferson sought, shortly after the treaty
of peace, to prohibit slavery extension, and to this end he prepared
and reported an Ordinance (1784) prohibiting slavery _after the
year 1800_ in all the territory then belonging to the United States
above the parallel of 31° North latitude, which included what became
the principal parts of the slave States of Alabama and Mississippi,
all of Tennessee and Kentucky, as well as the whole Northwest
Territory. In 1784 the United States owned no territory south of
31° North latitude.
This Ordinance of freedom was lost by a single vote. Had that one
vote been reversed, what a "hell of agony" would have been closed,
and what a sea of blood would have been saved! Slavery would have
died in the hands of its friends and the new Republic would have
soon been free in _fact_ as well as name.
Jefferson, though himself a slaveholder, was desperately in earnest
in advocacy of this Ordinance, and, speaking of its prohibitory
slave-clause two years later, he wrote:
"The voice of a single individual would have prevented that abominable
crime. Heaven will not always be silent; the friends to the rights
of human nature will in the end prevail."(14)
The most important victory for freedom in the civil history of the
United States (until the Rebellion of 1861) was the Ordinance of
1787, reported by Nathan Dane,(15) of Massachusetts, as a substitute
for the defeated one just referred to, but differing from it in
two important respects:
(1) It applied only to the territory northwest of the River Ohio
recently (March 1, 1784) ceded to the United States by Virginia;
(2) It prohibited slavery at once and forever therein. Its sixth
section is in these words:
"There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the
said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof
the party shall have been duly convicted."
But it has been, with much force, claimed by those who denied the
binding character of this Ordinance, that as it was an act of the
old Congress under the Articles of Confederation, and established
a territorial form of government, not in all respects in conformity
with the Constitution, it was necessarily superseded by it.
This view was general on the meeting of the First Congress (1789)
under the Constitution, but the Ordinance, so dear to the hearts
of Jefferson and other lovers of liberty, was early attended to.
On August 7, 1789, the eighth act of the First Congress, embodying
a long explanatory and declaratory preamble, was passed, and approved
by President Washington. This act in effect re-enacted the Ordinance
of 1787, adapting and applying it, however, to the Constitution by
requiring the Governor of the Northwest Territory to report and
become responsible to the President of the United States, instead
of to Congress as originally provided.(16)
The territory which the ordinance governed was in area 260,000
square miles, and included what is now the great states of Ohio,
Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, with, in 1890, 13,471,840
inhabitants.
The Ordinance is a model of perfection. It was the only great act
of legislation under the Articles of Confederation. There is
evidence that, as some members of the Congress that enacted the
Ordinance were at the same time members of the Convention that
framed the Constitution,(17) there was much intercommunication of
views between the members of the two bodies, especially on the
slavery clause of the Ordinance. It is probable that the clause
of the Constitution respecting the rendition of slaves, as well as
other provisions, was copied from the Ordinance.(18)
Upon the surpassing excellence of this Ordinance, no language of
panegyric would be extravagant.
It is a matchless specimen of sagacious forecast. It provides for
the descent of property, for the appointment of territorial officers,
and for extending the fundamental principles of civil and religious
liberty by securing religious freedom in the inhabitants. It
prohibits legislative interference with private contracts, secures
the benefit of the writ of _habeas corpus_, trial by jury, and of
the common law in judicial proceedings: it forbids the infliction
of cruel or unusual punishments, and enjoins the encouragement of
schools and the means of education.
The Ordinance has not only stood, unaltered, as the charter of
government for the Northwest Territory, but its clause respecting
slavery was incorporated into most of the acts passed prior to the
Rebellion providing for territorial governments.
Historically, it will stand as the great _Magna Charta_, which, by
the prescient wisdom of our fathers, dedicated in advance of the
coming civilization the fertile and beautiful Northwest, with all
its possibilities, for all time, to freedom, education, and liberty
of conscience.
Frequent efforts to rescind or suspend the clause restricting
slavery were made, especially after Indiana Territory was formed
in 1800.
At the adoption of the Ordinance some slaves were held in what is
now Indiana and Illinois by immigrants from Southern States.
Slavery also existed at the Vincennes, Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and
other French settlements, where it had been planted under the
authority of the King of France while the territory was a part of
the French possessions. The Government of Great Britain authorized
the continuance of slavery when the territory was under its
jurisdiction. Indians as well as black men were held as slaves in
the French settlements.(19)
Immigrants and old inhabitants favorable to slavery united in
memorials to Congress asking a suspension of the article prohibiting
slavery. The first of these was reported on adversely by a committee
of Congress, May 12, 1796. Governor William Henry Harrison,
December, 1802, presided, at Vincennes, over a meeting of citizens
of the Indiana Territory, at which it was resolved to make an
effort to secure a suspension of this article. A memorial was
drawn up, which Governor Harrison, with a letter of his own favoring
it, forwarded to Congress. They were referred to a special committee,
of which John Randolph, of Virginia, was chairman.
He, March 2, 1803, reported:
"That it is inexpedient to suspend, even for a limited time, the
operation of the sixth article of the compact between the original
States and the people and States west of the river Ohio."
Adding, by way of reason, that:
"The rapid population of the State of Ohio sufficiently evinces,
in the opinion of your committee, that the labor of slaves is not
necessary to promote the growth and settlement of the colonies in
that region."
This did not end the effort to secure slavery in the Indiana
Territory. In March, 1804, a special committee of Congress reported
in favor of the suspension of the inhibition for ten years; a
similar report was made in 1806 by Mr. Garnett, of Virginia; and
in 1807 Mr. Parker, delegate from Indiana, reported favorably on
a memorial of Governor Harrison and the Territorial Legislature,
praying for a suspension of that part of the Ordinance relating to
slavery. These reports were not acted on in the House. Subsequently,
Governor Harrison and his Legislature appealed to the Senate and
a special committee to suspend the article, but when the committee
reported adversely, all efforts to break down the legal barrier to
slavery in the Northwest Territory ceased.(20)
But notwithstanding the mandatory terms of the Ordinance, and the
repeated failures in Congress to suspend the provision relating to
slavery, it existed in the Northwest throughout its territorial
existence and in the State of Illinois until 1844.(21) The early
slaveholding inhabitants well understood the Ordinance to mean the
absolute emancipation of their slaves, and hence manumitted them
or commenced to remove them to the Spanish territory beyond the
Mississippi. Some few of the inhabitants complained to Governor
St. Clair that the inhibition against slavery retarded the growth
of the Territory. He volunteered the opinion that the Ordinance
was not retroactive; that it did not apply to existing conditions;
that it was "a declaration of a principle which was to govern the
Legislature in all acts respecting that matter (slavery) and the
courts of justice in their decisions in cases arising after the
date of the Ordinance"; and that if Congress had intended the
immediate emancipation of slaves, compensation would have been
provided for to their owners. But he admitted Congress "had the
right to determine that _property_ of that kind afterwards acquired
should not be protected in future, and that slaves imported into
the Territory after that declaration might reclaim their freedom."(22)
This unfortunate opinion operated to continue slavery in the
Territory, and fostered the idea that the sixth article might be
annulled and slavery be made perpetual in the Territory. Governor
St. Clair was President of the Congress when the Ordinance was
passed, and his opinion in relation to it was therefore given much
weight.
By Act of Congress, passed May 7, 1800, what is now the State of
Ohio became the Territory of Ohio, and that part of the Northwest
Territory lying west and north of Ohio was erected into the Territory
of Indiana; by like Acts, January 11, 1805, the Territory of Michigan
was formed, and February 3, 1809, all that part lying west of
Indiana and Lake Michigan became the Territory of Illinois. Prior,
however, to the last Act, the Legislature of Indiana Territory
(September 17, 1807) passed an act "to encourage emigration," making
it lawful to bring negroes and mulattoes into the Territory, "owing
service or labor as slaves."
The act provided that these people and their children should be
held for a term of years, and if they refused to serve as slaves
they might be removed, "within sixty days thereafter," to any place
where they could be lawfully held. This statute was substantially
re-enacted by the Legislature of the Territory of Illinois in 1812.
The first Constitution (1818) of Illinois did not prohibit slavery.
The first section of Article VI, declared that: "Neither slavery
nor involuntary servitude _shall hereafter be introduced_ into this
State, otherwise than for the punishment of crimes." Slavery
existed in Illinois after it became a State. The French and Canadian
inhabitants or their descendants continued to hold colored and
Indian slaves, and others were held under the Territorial Acts of
1807 and 1812. The old slaves and their descendants, held at the
time of the cession by Virginia to the United States, were sold
from hand to hand in the State, and transported to and sold in
other slave States.(23)
The Constitution of Indiana (1816) prohibited slavery, but slaves
were held therein until its Supreme Court in 1820, in a _habeas
corpus_ case, held the Constitution freed all persons hitherto held
in bondage, including the old French slaves, regardless of the
Ordinance of 1787, of the deed of cession of Virginia, or of any
treaty stipulations.(24)
After the separation (1805) of Michigan from Indiana, the former's
Territorial Chief Justice held slavery existed in Michigan by virtue
of the Jay treaty (1796) with Great Britain (not otherwise)
notwithstanding the Ordinance of 1787,(25) but Michigan's Constitution
(1837) put an end to slavery in the State, as did also the Constitution
(1802) of Ohio, likewise the Constitution (1848) of Wisconsin.
Slaves shown by census reports in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and
Wisconsin after they became States, were there by tolerance, not
by legal right.
Whatever contrariety of views obtained, and regardless of the
conflicting opinions of the courts or judges as to the effect of
the great Ordinance on the condition of the slaves in the Northwestern
Territory, certain it is that the Ordinance operated to prevent,
after its date, the legal importation of slaves into the Territory,
and hence resulted in each of the States formed therefrom becoming
free States. In the light of history it seems certain that at
least Indiana and Illinois would have become slave States but for
the Ordinance.(26)
This Ordinance contained a clause requiring the rendition of
fugitives from "service or labor," and being applicable to only a
part of the Territory of the United States, partook of the nature
of a compromise on the slavery question,(27) and was the first of
a series of compromises, some of which are found in the Federal
Constitution, others in the Act of 1820 admitting Missouri as a
State, and also the Compromise Measures of 1850, in which Clay,
Webster, Calhoun, Seward, and others of the great statesmen of the
Union participated, all of which were, however, ruthlessly overthrown
by the Nebraska Act (1854), of which Douglas, of Illinois, was the
author.
The slavery-restriction section of the Ordinance was copied into
and became a part of the Act of 1848 organizing the Territory of
Oregon, the champions of slavery, then in Congress, voting therefor;
and three years after the enactment of the Compromise Measures of
1850, this provision of the Ordinance was again extended over the
newly organized Territory of Washington by the concurrent votes of
substantially the same persons who voted, a year later, that all
such legislation was unconstitutional.
But neither origin, age, nor precedent then sanctified anything in
the interest of freedom,--slavery only could appeal to such things
for justification. The propagators of human slavery were on the
track of this Ordinance; they overtook and overthrew it by
Congressional legislation in 1854; then by the Dred Scott decision
of 1857, as we shall soon see. But it reappeared in principle, in
1862, as we shall also see, and spread its wings of universal
liberty (as was its great author's purpose in 1784) over all the
territory belonging to the United States, to remain irrepealable
through time, immortalized by the approval of President Lincoln,
and endorsed by the just judgment of enlightened mankind.
Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia each held territory not
subject to the Ordinance of 1787.
North Carolina (December, 1789), in ceding her territory west of
her present limits, provided that:
"No regulations made or to be made by Congress shall tend to
emancipate slaves."
Thus Tennessee became a slave State.
A year later (1790) Virginia consented to relinquish her remaining
territory; as Kentucky it was (June 1, 1792) admitted into the
Union and became a slave State, without ever having a separate
territorial organization.
Georgia, in 1802, ceded the territory on her west to the United
States, and provided that the Ordinance of 1787 should extend to
the ceded territory, "the article only excepted which forbids
slavery." Thus, later, Alabama and Mississippi each became a slave
State.(28)
(14) Jefferson's _Works_, vol. ix., 276.
(15) The authorship of the admirably-drawn Ordinance has been much
in dispute. Thomas H. Benton, Gov. Edward Coles, and others
attribute the authorship to Jefferson; Daniel Webster and others
to Nathan Dane, while a son of Rufus King claimed him to be the
author of the article prohibiting slavery. Wm. Frederick Poole,
in a contribution to the _North American Review_, gives much of
the credit of authorship to Mr. Dane, but the chief credit for the
formation and the entire credit for the passage of the Ordinance
to Dr. Manasseh Cutler, _St. Clair Papers_, vol. i, p. 122.
(16) On the continuing binding force of the Ordinance on States
formed out of the Northwest Territory there has been some contrariety
of opinion. In Ohio it was early held the Ordinance was more
obligatory than the State Constitution, which might be amended by
the people of the State, whereas the Ordinance could not. (5
_Ohio_, 410, 416.) But see: 10 Howard (_U. S._), 82, and 3 Howard,
589.
(17) Madison of Virginia, Rufus King of New York, Johnson of
Connecticut, Blount and Charles Pinckney of South Carolina, and
Few of Georgia were members of both bodies.--_Historical Ex._,
etc., Dred Scott Case (Benton), p. 37 _n_.
The Ordinance was adopted July 13, 1787; the Constitution was
adopted by the Convention September 17, 1787.
(18) _St. Clair Papers_, vol. i, p. 134.
(19) Dunn's _Indiana_, p. 126.
(20) _St. Clair Papers_, vol. i, pp 120-1, note. _Historical
Ex_., etc., Dred Scott Case, pp. 32-47, etc. _Political Text Book_,
1860 (McPherson), pp. 53-4.
(21) Not until 1844 did the highest court of Illinois decide (four
to three) that a colored man, held as a slave by a descendant of
an old French family, was free. Jarrot case (2 Gillman), 7 _Ill._, 1.
(22) _St. Clair Papers_, vol. i., pp. 120, 206, and vol. ii, pp.
117-119, 318, 331.
(23) Much valuable information in relation to the legal history
of slavery in the Northwest has been obtained from the manuscript
of "An Unwritten Chapter of Illinois," by ex-U. S. Judge Blodgett,
of Chicago.
(24) State _vs_. Lasselle, 1 _Blatchford_, 60.
(25) Cooley's _Michigan_, pp. 136-7.
(26) For an exhaustive legal history of the slavery restriction
clause of the Ordinance and its effect on slavery in the Northwest
Territory, see Dunn's _Indiana_, pp. 219-260.
(27) _St. Clair Papers_, vol. i., p. 122, note.
(28) _Political Text-Book_, 1860 (McPherson), p. 53.
VI
CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES
The Convention to frame the Constitution met in Philadelphia (1787).
George Washington was its President; it was composed of the leading
statesmen of the new nation, sitting in a delegate capacity, but
in voting on measures the rule of the then Congress was observed,
which was to vote by States.
The majority of the thirteen States were then slave States, and
all, save Massachusetts, still held slaves; and all the coast States
indulged in the African slave trade.
Massachusetts provided for the abolition of slavery in 1780 by
constitutional provision declaring that:
"All men are born _free and equal_, and have certain natural,
essential, and unalienable rights," etc., by which declaration its
highest judicial tribunal struck the shackles at once from every
slave in the Commonwealth.
Connecticut provided in 1784 for freeing her slaves.
New Hampshire did not prohibit slavery by express law, but all
persons born after her Constitution of 1776 were free; and slave
importation was thereafter prohibited.
Pennsylvania, in 1780, by law provided for the gradual emancipation
of slaves within her territory. To her German population and the
Society of Friends the credit is mainly due for this act of justice.
This Society had theretofore (1774) disowned, in its "yearly
Meeting," all its members who trafficked in slaves; and later (1776)
it resolved:
"That the owners of slaves, who refused to execute proper instruments
for giving them their freedom, were to be disowned likewise."
New York adopted gradual emancipation in 1799, but final emancipation
did not come until 1827.
Rhode Island, in the first year of the First Continental Congress
(1774), enacted:
"That for the future no negro or mulatto slave shall be brought
into the colony . . . and that all previously enslaved persons on
becoming residents of Rhode Island should obtain their freedom."
New Jersey in 1778, through Governor Livingstone, made an attempt
at emancipation which failed; it was not until 1804 that she
prohibited slavery in what proved a qualified way, and it seems
she held slaves at each census, including that of 1860, and possibly
in some form human slavery was abolished there by the Thirteenth
Amendment to the Constitution.
The census of 1790 showed slaves in all the original States save
Massachusetts alone; Vermont was admitted into the Union in 1790;
her Constitution prohibited slavery, but she returned at that census
seventeen slaves.
The first census under the Constitution, however, showed, in the
Northern States, 40,370 slaves, and in the Southern States, 657,572;
there being in Virginia alone 293,427, nearly one half of all.
The Convention closed its work September 17, 1787, and on the same
date George Washington, its President, by letter submitted the
"Constitution to the consideration of the United States in Congress
assembled," saying:
"It is obviously impracticable in the Federal Government of these
States to secure all rights of independent sovereignty to each and
yet provide for the interest and safety of all. . . . In all our
deliberations on this subject we kept steadily in our view that
which appears to us the greatest interest of every true American,
_the consolidation of our Union_, in which is involved our prosperity,
felicity, safety; perhaps our national existence."
This Constitution by its preamble showed it was, in many things,
to supersede and become paramount to State authority. It was to
become a _charter of freedom_ for the people collectively, and in
some sense individually. Its preamble runs thus:
"We, the _people_ of the United States, in order to form a _more_
perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity,
provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and
secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do
ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of
America."
Nine States were, by its seventh article, necessary to ratify it
before it went into effect.
The ratification of the Constitution, on various grounds, was
fiercely opposed by many patriotic men, Patrick Henry among the
number. Some thought it did not contain sufficient guarantees for
individual freedom, others that private rights of property were
not adequately secured, and still others that States were curtailed
or abridged of their governmental authority and too much power was
taken from the people and centered in the Federal Government.
Mason, of Virginia, a member of the Convention that framed it, led
a party who opposed it on the ground, among others, that it authorized
Congress to levy duties on imports and to thus encourage home
industries and manufactories, promotive of free labor, inimical
and dangerous to human slavery. The best efforts and influence of
Washington and other friends of the Constitution would not have
been sufficient to secure its ratification had they not placated
many of its enemies by promising to adopt, promptly on its going
into effect, the amendments numbered one to ten inclusive. (The
First Congress, September 25, 1789, submitted those ten amendments
according to the agreement, and they were shortly thereafter ratified
and became a part of the Constitution.)
By a resolution of the Old Congress, of September 13, 1788, March
4, 1789, was fixed as the time for commencing proceedings under
the Constitution. At the date of this resolution eleven of the
thirteen States had ratified it. North Carolina ratified it November
21, 1789, and Rhode Island, the last, on May 29, 1790.
Vermont, not of the original thirteen States, ratified the Constitution
January 10, 1791, over a month prior to her admission into the
Union. This latter event occurred February 18, 1791.
Thus fourteen States became, almost at the same time, members of
the Union under the Constitution, and each and all of which then
held or had theretofore held slaves.
Notwithstanding all this, there were many of the framers of the
Constitution and its warmest friends who sincerely desired to
provide for the early abolition of slavery, some by gradual
emancipation, others by heroic measures; and there were many from
the South who favored emancipation, while by no means all the
leading and influential citizens of the Northern States desired it.
It may, however, be assumed, in the light of authentic history,
that the majority of the framers of the Constitution, and a majority
of its friends in the States, hoped and believed that slavery would
not be permanent under it. In this belief it was framed. Slavery
was not affirmatively recognized in it, though there was much
discussion as to it in the Constitutional Convention. There was
no attempt to abolish it; such an attempt would have failed in the
Convention, and the Constitution, so necessary to the new nation,
had it even provided for gradual emancipation, would not have been
ratified by the States.
It can hardly be said that the Constitution was framed on the line
of compromise as to the preservation of human slavery, though it
was necessary, in some occult ways, to recognize its existence.
This was in the nature, however, of a concession to it; the word
_slave_ or _slavery_ was not used in it.
The Supreme Court of the United States, however, early interpreted
the third clause of Section IV., Article 2, as providing for the
return from one State to another of fugitive slaves. This
interpretation has been, on high authority, and with much reason,
in the light of history, stoutly denied. The clause reads:
"No person _held to service or labor_ in one State, under the laws
thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law
or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor,
but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service
or labor is due."
The "service or labor" here referred to, it is claimed, was that
owing by persons who were under indentures of some kind, growing
out of contracts for transportation into the colonies of persons
from the Old World, and possibly growing out of other contract
obligations wherein they had agreed, for a long or short term, to
perform "service or labor." Many such obligations then existed.
Slaves were not then nor since regarded by their owners as "_persons_"
merely "held to service or labor," but they were held as personal
chattels, owing no duty to their masters distinguishable from that
owing by an ox, a horse, or an ass.
But the supreme judiciary and the executive and legislative
departments of the government came soon to treat this as a fugitive-
slave clause. It is only now interesting to examine its peculiar
phraseology and the history and surrounding circumstances under
which it became a part of the Constitution, to demonstrate the
great care and desire of the eminent and liberty-loving framers of
the Constitution to avoid the direct recognition of African slavery.
The only other clause in which the adherents of slavery claimed it
was recognized is paragraph 3, Section 2, Article I., which provided
that:
"Representation and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the
several States . . . according to their respective numbers, which
shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons,
including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding
Indians not taxed, _three fifths of all other persons_."
The "other persons" referred to here, if only slaves, are very
delicately described. But this clause, too, came to be recognized
by all the departments of the government as referring to slaves.
It is quite sure that if the good and plain men of the Revolutionary
period had been dealing with a subject not shocking to their
consciences, sense of justice, and humanity, they would have dealt
with it in plain words, of direct and not doubtful import.
The clause of the Constitution giving representation in the House
of Representative of Congress and in the Electoral College in the
choice of President and Vice-President, came soon to be regarded
as unjust to the free States. Three fifths of all slaves were
counted to give representation to free persons of the South; that
is, three fifths of all _slave property_ was counted numerically,
and thus, in many Congressional districts, the vote of one slaveholder
was more than equal to two votes in a free State. For example, in
1850, the number of free inhabitants in the slave States was
6,412,605, and in the free States, 13,434,686, more than double.
The representation in Congress from the slave States was 90 members,
from the free States 144. Three fifths of the slaves were 1,920,182,
giving the South 20 (a fraction more) members, the ratio of
representation then being 93,420. If the 234 representatives had
been apportioned equally, according to free inhabitants, the North
would have had 159 and the South 75, a gain of fifteen to the free
and a loss of that number to the slave States, a gain of 30 to the
North.
The same injustice was shown in levying direct taxes. (All this,
however, has been changed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the
Constitution.)
The same discriminating language is used (Sec. 9, Art. I.) when
obviously referring to the African slave trade. A strong sentiment
existed in favor of putting an end at once to the traffic in human
being; the Christian consciences of our forefathers revolted at
its wickedness, and there was then beginning a general movement
throughout the civilized world against it. Some European countries
had denounced it as piracy.
It was, however, profitable, and much capital was invested in it,
and there was even then an increased demand for slaves in the
cotton, rice, and tobacco States.
It was feared so radical a measure as the immediate stoppage of
this trade would endanger the Constitution, and as to this, also,
it was deemed wise to compromise; so Congress was prohibited from
legislating to prevent it prior to the year 1808. This trade was
not only then carried on by our own people, but, through ships of
other countries, slaves were imported into the United States. Each
State was left free to prohibit the importation of slaves within
its limits.
We have now referred to all the clauses of the Constitution as
originally adopted relating, by construction or possibility, to
slavery or slave labor.
The Republic, under this _great charter_, set out upon the career
of a nation, properly aspiring to become of the first among the
powers of the earth, and succeeding in the higher sense in this
ambition, it yet remains to be told how near our Republic came, in
time, to the brink of that engulfing chasm which in past ages has
swallowed up other nations for their wicked oppression and enslavement
of man.
Slavery, thus delicately treated in our Constitution, brought that
Republic, in less than three quarters of a century, to the throes
of death, as we shall see.
VII
CAUSES OF GROWTH OF SLAVERY
It may be well here, before speaking of slavery in its legislative
history under the Constitution, to refer briefly to some of the
more important causes of its growth and extension, other than
political.
First in importance was cotton. It required cheap labor to cultivate
it with profit, and even then, at first, it was not profitable.
The invention by Whitney of the cotton-gin, in 1793, was the most
important single invention up to that time in agriculture, if not
the most important of any time, and especially is this true as
affecting cotton planters.
Cotton was indigenous to America; the soil and climate of the South
were well adapted to its growth. Its culture from the seed was
there very easy, but the separation of the seed from the fibre was
so slow that it required an average hand one day to secure one
pound.
Whitney's cotton-gin, however, at once increased the amount from
one to fifty pounds.
This invention came at a most opportune time for slavery in the
United States, as the cheapness of rice, indigo, and other staples
of the South were such as to prevent their large and profitable
production even with the labor of slaves. Cotton was not, in 1794,
the date of Jay's treaty with Great Britain, known to him as an
article of export. Soon, by the use of the cotton-gin, cotton
became the principal article of export from the United States;
cotton plantations rapidly increased in size and number, and their
owners multiplied their slaves and grew rich. Cotton production
increased from 1793 to 1860 one thousand fold.
It is highly probably that Eli Whitney's cotton-gin operated to
prevent the much-hoped-for early emancipation of slaves in America,
and that thus the inventive genius of man was instrumental in
forging the fetters of man.
Other products, such as rice and sugar, were successfully produced
in the South, but the demand for them was limited by competition
in other countries, in some of which slave labor was employed.
The ease of producing cotton stimulated its common use throughout
the world, and it soon became a necessary commodity in all civilized
countries. "Cotton is king" was the cry of the slaveholder and
the exporter. Southern aristocracy rested on it. In the more
northern of the slave States, where cotton, on account of the
climate, could not be successfully grown, the breeding of slaves
with which to supply the cotton planters with the requisite number
of hands became a source of great profit; and the slave trade was
revived to aid in supplying the same great demand.
Tobacco and some of the cereals were also produced by slave labor,
but they could be produced by free labor North as well as South.
Of the above 3,000,000 slaves in the United States in 1850, it has
been estimated that 1,800,000 were employed in the growth and
preservation of cotton alone, and its value that year was $105,600,000,
while the sugar product was valued, the same year, at only $12,400,000,
and rice at $3,000,000. The total domestic exports for the year
ending 1850 were $137,000,000, of which cotton reached $72,000,000,
and all breadstuffs and provisions only $26,000,000.(29)
(29) DeBow's _Resource_, etc., vol. iii., p. 388.
VIII
FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW--1793
Contemporaneous with the cotton-gin came, in 1793, the first fugitive-
slave law.
The Constitution was not self-executing, if it really contained,
as we have seen, a clause requiring escaped slaves to be surrendered
from one State to their masters in another.
The Governor of the State of Virginia refused the rendition of
three kidnappers of a free negro, on the requisition of the Governor
of Pennsylvania, from which State he had been kidnapped, on the
sole ground that no law required the surrender of fugitive slaves
from Virginia. The controversy thus arising was called to the
attention of President Washington and by him to Congress, and it
ended by the passage of the first fugitive-slave act. It was for
a time tolerably satisfactory to the different sections of the
country, though in itself the most flagrant attempt to violate
state-rights, judged from the more modern secession, state-rights
standpoint, ever attempted by Federal authority.
It required _state magistrates_, who owed their offices solely to
state law, to sit in judgment in fugitive-slave cases, and to aid
in returning to slavery negroes claimed as slaves by masters from
foreign States. The act provided for the return of fugitive
apprentices as well as fugitive slaves.
In time the Northern States became free, and the public conscience
in them became so changed that the magistrates were deterred or
unwilling to act in execution of the law. Massachusetts and
Pennsylvania each passed a law making it penal for any of their
officers to perform any duties or to take cognizance of any case
under the fugitive-slave law. Other States, through their judiciary,
pronounced it unconstitutional, even some of the Federal judges
doubted its consonance with the Constitution, but, such as it was,
it lasted until 1850. It did not provide for a jury trial. The
scenes enacted in its execution shocked the moral sense of mankind,
and even the slaveholder often shrank from attempting its execution.
But it was not until about the time of the excitement of the fugitive-
slave law of 1850 that the highest excitement prevailed in the
North over its enforcement, and of this we shall speak hereafter.
IX
SLAVE TRADE: ABOLISHED BY LAW
In the English Parliament, in 1776, the year of the Declaration of
Independence, the first motion was made towards the abolition of
the slave trade, long theretofore fostered by English kings and
queens, but not until 1807 did the British moral sense rise high
enough to pass, at Lord Granville's instance, the famous act for
"the Abolition of the Slave Trade." As early as 1794 the United
States prohibited their subjects from trading in slaves to foreign
countries; and in 1807, they prohibited the importation of slaves
into any of the States, to take effect at the beginning of 1808,
the earliest time possible, as we have seen, under the Constitution.
But it was not until 1820 that slave-traders were declared pirates,
punishable as such.
The prohibition of the slave trade by law did not effectually end
it, nor was the law declaring it piracy wholly effectual, though
the latter did much, through the co-operation of other nations, to
restrict it.
There were active movements in 1852 and 1858, in the South, to
revive the African slave trade, and especially was there fierce
opposition to the "piracy act." Jefferson Davis, at a convention
in Mississippi, July, 1858, advocated the repeal of the latter act,
but doubted the practicability then of abrogating the law prohibiting
slave traffic.(30)
It is worthy of mention here that April 20th, eight days after
Sumter was fired upon, Commander Alfred Taylor, commanding the
United States naval ship _Saratoga_, in the port of Kabenda, Africa,
captured the _Nightingale of Boston_, flying American colors, with
a cargo of 961 recently captured, stolen, or purchased African
negroes, destined to be carried to some American part and there
sold into slavery. This human cargo was sent to the humane Rev.
John Seys, at Monrovia, Liberia, to be provided for. One hundred
and sixty died on a fourteen-days' sea-voyage, from ship-fever and
confinement, though the utmost care was taken by Lieutenant Guthrie
and the crew of the slaver for their comfort.(31)
The laws abolishing the foreign slave trade and prohibiting the
introduction of African slaves (after 1807) into the United States
even helped to rivet slavery more firmly therein. They more than
doubled the value of a slave, and, therefore, incited slave-breeding
to supply the increasing demand in the cotton States, and in time
this proved so profitable that the South sought new territory whence
slavery could be extended, and out of which slave States could be
formed.
The "_Declaration against the Slave Trade_" of the world, signed
by the representatives of the "Powers" at the Congress of Vienna,
in 1815, and repeated at the Congress of Paris at the end of the
Napoleonic wars, was potential enough to abate but not to end this
most inhuman and sinful trade.(32)
Even as late as 1816, English merchants, supported by the corporations
of London and Liverpool, through mercantile jealousy, and pretending
to believe that the very existence of commerce on the seas and
their own existence depended on the continuance of the slave trade,
not only opposed the abolition of the black slave traffic, but they
opposed the abolition of _white slavery_ in Algiers.(33)
This nefarious traffic did not cease in the United States, although
at the Treaty of Ghent (1815) it was declared that: "Whereas the
traffic in slaves is irreconcilable with the principles of humanity
and justice," and the two countries (Great Britain and the United
States) therein stipulated to use their best endeavors to abolish it.
The revival of the slave trade was openly advocated by leading
Southern politicians, and the illicit traffic greatly increased
immediately after the admission into the Union of Texas as a State
and the aggressions on Mexico for more slave territory, and especially
just after the discussions over the Compromise measures of 1850
and the Nebraska Act of 1854, followed by the Dred Scott decision
in 1857. It was principally carried on under the United States
flag, the ships carrying it denying the right of search to foreign
vessels engaged in suppressing the trade. British officials claimed
in June, 1850, "that at least one half of the successful part of
the slave trade was carried on under the American flag." The
fitting out of slavers centred at New York city; Boston and New
Orleans being good seconds. Twenty-one of twenty-two slavers taken
by British cruisers in 1857-58 were from New York, Boston, and New
Orleans.
"During eighteen months of the years 1859-60 eighty-five slavers
are reported to have fitted out in New York harbor, and these alone
transported from 30,000 to 60,000 slaves annually to America."(34)
The greed of man for gain has smothered and will ever smother the
human conscience. The slave trade, under the denunciation of
piracy, still exists, and will exist until African slavery ceases
throughout the world. So long as there is a demand, at good prices,
this wicked traffic will go on, and in the jungles of Africa there
will be found stealers of human beings.
(30) Rhode's _Hist. United States_, vol. ii., p. 372.
(31) Official Records, etc., _Navies of the War of the Rebellion_,
vol. i., p. 11.
(32) It stands to the eternal credit of Napoleon that on his return
from Elba to Paris (1815) he decreed for France the total abolition
of the slave-trade. This decree was confirmed by the Bourbon
dynasty in 1818. _Suppression of African Slave Trade U. S._
(DuBois), p. 247.
(33) Osler's _Life of Exmouth_, p. 303; _Slavery, Letters_, etc.,
Horace Mann, p. 276.
(34) _Sup. of African Slave Trade_ (DuBois) pp. 135, 178-9.
X
LOUISIANA PURCHASE
In 1803, Napoleon, fearing that he could not hold his distant
American possession, known as the Louisiana Province, acquired from
Spain, and which by treaty was to be re-ceded to Spain and not
disposed of to any other nation, put aside all scruples and good
faith, and for 60,000,000 francs, on April 30th signed a treaty of
cession of the vast territory, then mostly uninhabited, to the
United States. This was in Jefferson's administration.
The United States bought this domain and its people just as they
might buy unoccupied lands with animals on it.
It was early claimed as slave territory. There were only a few
slaves within its limits when purchased, though slavery was recognized
there. This purchase was a most important one, although at the
time it was not so regarded.
The Louisiana Purchase was much greater, territorially speaking,
than all the States then in the Union, with all its other
possessions.(35)
It comprised what are now the States of Louisiana, Arkansas,
Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, nearly all
of Kansas, Minnesota, Montana, Wyoming, large parts of Colorado
and the Indian Territory, and a portion of Idaho. These States
and Territories in 1890 contained 11,804,101 inhabitants.
At the time of this great acquisition a conviction prevailed that
slavery was rapidly diminishing. Adams and Jefferson, each, while
President, entertained the belief that slavery would, ere long,
come to a peaceful end. It might then have been possible, by law
of Congress, to devote this new region to freedom, but, as slavery
existed at and around New Orleans in 1812 when the State of Louisiana
was admitted into the Union, it became a slave State. This fate
was largely due to the claim of its original inhabitants that they
were secured the right to hold slaves by the treaty of cession from
France.
Later on, the provision of this treaty, under which it was claimed
slavery was perpetuated, was a subject of much discussion, and on
it was founded the most absurd arguments on behalf of the slave
power.
Its third article was the sole one referred to as fastening forever
the institution of slavery on the inhabitants of this vast empire.
There are those yet living who deny that, even under the present
Constitution of the United States or the constitutions of the States
since erected therein, slavery is _lawfully_ excluded therefrom.
This article reads:
"The inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incorporated in
the Union of the United States, and admitted as soon as possible,
according to the principles of the Federal Constitution, to the
enjoyment of all the rights, advantages, and immunities of citizens
of the United States; and in the meantime they shall be maintained
and protected in the enjoyment of their liberty, _property_, and
the religion they profess."
Justice Catron, of the United States Supreme Court, speaking in
the Dred Scott case, for the majority of the court and of this
article, says:
"Louisiana was a province where slavery was not only lawful, but
where property in slaves was the most valuable of all personal
property. The province was ceded as a _unit_, with an equal right
pertaining to all its inhabitants, in every part thereof, to own
slaves."
He and others of the concurring justices held that the inhabitants
at the time of the purchase, also all immigrants after the cession,
were protected in the right to hold slaves in the entire purchase.
Near the close of his opinion, still speaking of this article and
the acquired territory, he says:
"The right of the United States in or over it depends on the contract
of cession, which operates to incorporate as well the Territory as
its inhabitants into the Union.
"My opinion is that the third article of the treaty of 1803, ceding
Louisiana to the United States, stands protected by the Constitution,
and cannot be repealed by Congress."
This view was heroically combatted by a minority of the court,
especially by Justices McLean and Curtis. The latter, in his
opinion, said
"That a treaty with a foreign nation cannot deprive Congress of
any part of its legislative power conferred by the people, so that
it no longer can legislate as it is empowered by the Constitution."
Also, that if the treaty expressly prohibited (as it did not) the
exclusion of slavery from the ceded territory the "court could not
declare that an act of Congress excluding it was void by force of
the treaty. . . . A refusal to execute such a stipulation would
not be a judicial, but a political and legislative question. . . .
It would belong to diplomacy and legislation, and not to the
administration of existing laws."(36)
Plainly no part of the treaty of cession fastened slavery, or any
other institution of France, on the territory ceded to the United
States. If its provisions were violated by the United States,
France, internationally, or the inhabitants at the date of the
treaty, might have complained and had redress. Obviously the treaty
had no bearing on the question of slavery in the United States,
but its provisions were seized upon, as was every possible pretext,
by the votaries of slavery to maintain and extend it.
It was also, by a majority of the court, held in this memorable
case (hereafter to be mentioned) that under the third article of
the cession slaves could be taken from any State into any part of
the Louisiana Purchase during its territorial state, and there
held, and hence that the Missouri Compromise, of 1820, forbidding
slavery in the territory north of 36° 30´, was in violation of the
treaty and was unconstitutional, as were all other acts of Congress
excluding slavery from United States territory. This was in the
heyday (1857) of the slave power, and when it aspired, practically,
to make slavery national.
This aggressive policy, as we shall see when we come to consider
the Nebraska Act of 1854 relating to a principal part of the
Louisiana Purchase, led to a great uprising of the friends of
freedom, the political overthrow of the advocates of slavery in
most branches of the Union; then to secession; then to war, whence
came, with peace, universal freedom, and slavery in the Republic
forever dead.
(35) For map showing territory acquired by the U. S., by each
treaty, etc., see _History Ready Ref._, vol. v., p. 3286, and
_Louisiana Purchase_ (Hermann, Com. Gen. Land Office). The original
thirteen States and Territories comprised 8,927,844 sq. mi. The
Louisiana Purchase, 1,171,931, sq. mi.
(36) Dred Scott Case, 19 Howard, 393, etc.
XI
FLORIDA
Florida did not become a slave colony even on being taken possession
of by the English in 1763, nor on its re-conquest by Spain in 1781.
By the treaty of peace at the end of the war of the Revolution
(1783) Great Britain recognized as part of the southern boundary
of the United States a line due east from the Mississippi at 31°
of latitude; and at the same time, by a separate treaty, she ceded
to Spain the then two Floridas. Florida became a refuge for fugitive
slaves from Georgia and South Carolina.
"Georgians could never forget that the _fugitive_ slaves were
roaming about the Everglades of Florida."(37)
The Seminole Indians welcomed to their wild freedom the escaped
negro from the lash of the overseer, and consequently the long and
bloody Florida Indian wars were literally a slave hunt. The wild
tribes of Indians knew no fugitive-slave law.
In the War of 1812, Spain permitted the English to occupy, for
their purposes, some points in Florida. When the war ended they
abandoned a fort on the Appalachicola, about fifteen miles above
its mouth, with a large amount of arms and ammunition. This fort
the fugitive negroes seized and held for about _three years_ as a
refuge for escaped slaves, and, consequently, as a menace to slavery.
It was during this time called "Negro Fort." At the instigation
of slave owners, it was attacked by General Gaines of the United
States Army.
"A hot shot penetrated one of the magazines, and the whole fort
was blown to pieces, July 27, 1816. There were 300 negro men,
women, and children, and 20 Choctaws in the fort; 270 were killed.
Only three came out unhurt, and these were killed by the allied
Indians."
Thus slavery established and maintained itself, through individual
and national crime and blood, until the day when God's retributive
justice should come. And we shall see how thoroughly His justice
was meted out; how "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,"
measure of blood for measure of blood, anguish for anguish, came
to the dominating white race!
It was not until February, 1821, that notice of the ratification
of a treaty, made two years before, was received, by which Spain
ceded Florida to the United States in consideration of their paying
$5,000,000 in satisfaction of American claims against Spain.
This was not all the Republic paid for Florida. A second Seminole
war (1835-43) ensued, the bloodiest and most costly of all our
Indian wars, in which the Indians were assisted by fugitive slaves
and their descendants, in whom the negro blood was admixed, often
with the white blood of former masters, and again with the
Indian.(38)
At the end of eight years, after many valuable lives had been lost,
and $30,000,000 had been expended, but not until after the great
Seminole leader (Osceola (39)) had been, by deliberate treachery
and bad faith, captured, and the Indians had been worn out rather
than conquered, Florida became an American province, and two years
thereafter (1845) a slave State in the Union.
The extinction of the brave Seminole Indians left no _race_-friend
of the poor enslaved negro. Untutored as they were, they knew what
freedom was, and, until 1861, they were the only people on the
American continent to furnish an asylum and to shed their blood
for the wronged African.
Florida, as a slave State, was a factor in establishing a balance
of power, politically, between the North and South.
As the war between the United States and Great Britain (1812-15)
did not grow out of slavery, nor was it waged to acquire more slave
territory, nor did it directly tend to perpetuate slavery where
established, we pass it over.
(37) W. G. Summer's _Andrew Jackson_, ch. iii.
(38) In 1821 at Indian Springs, Florida, a forced treaty was
negotiated with the Creek Indians for part of their lands by which
the United States agreed to apply $109,000 of the purchase price
as compensation to Georgia claimants for escaped slaves, and $141,000
for "_the offsprings which the females would have borne to their
masters had they remained in bondage_."--_Rise and Fall of Slavery_
(Wilson), vol. i, 132,454.
(39) _Osceola_, or _As-Se-He-Ho-Lar_ (black drink), was the son
of Wm. Powell, an English Indian-trader, born in Georgia, 1804, of
a daughter of a Seminole chief. His mother took him early to
Florida. He rose rapidly to be head war-chief, and married a
daughter of a fugitive slave who was treacherously stolen from him,
as a slave, while he was on a visit to Fort King. When he demanded
of General Thompson, the Indian agent, her release, he was put in
irons, but released after six days. A little later, December,
1835, he avenged himself by killing Thompson and four others outside
of the fort, thus inaugurating the second Seminole war. He hated
the white race, and his ambition was to furnish a safe asylum for
fugitive slaves.
Surprises and massacres ensued for two years, Osceola showing great
bravery and skill, and _not_ excelling his white adversaries in
treachery. He fought Generals Clinch, Gaines, Taylor and Jesup,
of the U. S. A. Jesup induced him (Oct. 21, 1837) under a flag of
truce to hold a parley near St. Augustine, where Jesup treacherously
caused him to be seized, and the U. S. authorities (treating him
as England treated Napoleon) immured him in captivity for life,
hopelessly, at Fort Moultrie. His free spirit could not endure
this, and he died of a broken heart three months later (January
30, 1838), at thirty-four years of age. His body lies buried on
Sullivan's Island, afterwards the scene of a larger struggle for
human freedom.
The remains of the _civilized_ statesman-champion of perpetual
_human_ slavery, Calhoun, and the remains of the savage, untutored
Seminole _Chief_, Oscoeola, the champion of _human liberty_, lie
buried near Charleston, S. C. Let the ages judge each--kindly!
XII
MISSOURI COMPROMISE--1820
In pursuance of the policy of trying to balance, politically,
freedom and slavery, and to deal tenderly with the latter, and not
offend its champions, new States were admitted into the Union in
pairs, one free and one slave.
Thus Vermont and Kentucky, Tennessee and Ohio, Louisiana and Indiana,
Mississippi and Illinois were coupled, preserving in the Senate an
exact balance of power.(40)
When Missouri had framed a Constitution (1819) and applied for
admission into the Union, Alabama was on the point of admission as
a slave State, and was admitted the same year, and thus the usage
required the admission of Missouri as a free State. In 1790 the
two sections were nearly equal in population, but in 1820 the North
had nearly 700,000 more inhabitants than the South.
Missouri was a part of the Louisiana Purchase, and she had in 1820
above 10,000 slaves.
The usual form of a bill was prepared admitting her, with slavery,
on an equal footing with other States. It came up for consideration
in the House during the session of 1818-1819, and Mr. Tallmadge,
of New York, precipitated a controversy, which was participated in
by all the great statesmen, North and South, who were then on the
political stage.
He offered to amend the bill so as to prohibit the further introduction
of slaves into Missouri, and providing that all children born in
the State after its admission should be free at twenty-five years
of age.
This amendment was a signal for the fiercest opposition. Clay and
Webster, Wm. Pinckney of Maryland, and Rufus King of New York, John
Randolph of Roanoke, Fisher Ames, and others, who were in the early
prime of their manhood, were heard in the fray. In it the first
real threats of disunion, if slavery were interfered with, were
heard. It is more than possible those threats pierced the ears of
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, who still survived,(41) and caused
them to despair of the Republic.
It is worthy of note that none of the great statesmen engaged in
this first memorable combat in which the Union was threatened in
slavery's cause, lived to confront disunion in fact, face to face.
Clay, then Speaker of the House, and possessed of great influence,
spoke first in opposition to the amendment. Though his speech,
like others of that time, was not reported, we know he denied the
power of Congress to impose conditions upon a new State after its
admission to the Union. He maintained the sovereign right of each
State to be slave or free. He did not profess to be an advocate
of slavery. He, however, vehemently asserted that a restriction
of slavery was cruel to the slaves already held. While their
numbers would be the same, it would so crowd them in narrow limits
as to expose them "in the old, exhausted States to destitution,
and even to lean and haggard starvation, instead of allowing them
to share the fat plenty of the new West."(42) (What an argument
in favor of perpetuating an immoral thing! So spread it over the
world as to make it thin, yet fatten it!)
Clay's arguments were the most specious and weighty of those made
against the amendment. And they did not fail to claim the amendment
was in violation of the third article of the cession of Louisiana,
already, in another connection, referred to.
The Missouri delegate denounced the amendment as a shameful
discrimination against Missouri and slavery, which would endanger
the Union; in this latter cry a member from Georgia joined.
The friends of the amendment fearlessly answered Clay's speech and
the speeches of others. The House was reminded that the great
Ordinance of 1787, passed contemporaneous with the adoption of the
Constitution, and approved and enforced by its framers (some of
whom were also then members of the Continental Congress) imposed
an absolute inhibition on slavery forever, precedent to the admission
of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and the other States to be formed from
the Northwest Territory; they showed the treaty with France did
not profess to perpetuate slavery in the ceded Territory; they
denounced slavery as an evil, unnatural, cruel, opposed to the
principles of the Declaration of Independence, and that it had only
been tolerated, not approved, by the Constitution; and Mr. Talmadge
closed the debate by characterizing slavery as a "scourge of the
human race," certain to bring on "dire calamities to the human
race"; ending by boldly defying those who threatened, if slavery
were restricted, to dissolve the Union of the States. This amendment
passed the House, 87 to 76, but was beaten, the same session, in
the Senate, 22 to 16; one Senator from Massachusetts, one from
Pennsylvania, and two from Illinois voted with the South. Again
the too often easily frightened Northern statesmen struck their
colors just when the battle was won.
In January (1820) of the succeeding Congress the measure was again
under consideration in the Senate, then composed of only forty-four
members. It was then that Rufus King and Wm. Pinckney, the former
for, the latter against, the slavery restriction amendment, displayed
their eloquence. Pinckney, a lawyer of much general learning,
paraphrased a passage of Burke to the effect that "the spirit of
liberty was more high and haughty in the slaveholding colonies than
in those to the northward." He also planted himself, with others
from the South, on state-sovereignty, afterwards more commonly
called "state-rights," and in time tortured into a doctrine which
led to nullification--Secession--_War_.
All these speeches were answered in both Houses by able opponents
of slavery extension, but meantime a matter arose which did much
to favor the admission of Missouri as a slave State.
Maine, but recently separated from Massachusetts, applied for
statehood, and could not be refused.
A Senator from Illinois (Mr. Thomas) introduced a proviso which
prohibited slavery north of 36° 30´ in the Louisiana acquisition,
except in Missouri.
Here, again, at the expense of freedom, was an opportunity for
_compromise_. It was promptly seized upon. It was agreed that
Maine, where by no possibility slavery would or could go, should
come into the Union as a free State; Missouri as a slave State,
and the proviso limiting slavery in the remaining territory south
of 36° 30´ should be adopted. This compromise was adopted in the
Senate, and later, after close votes on amendments, the House also
agreed to it. John Randolph and thirty-seven Southern members
voted against it, and, but for weak-kneed Northern members, it
would have failed. This compromise Randolph said was a "_dirty
bargain_," and the Northern members who supported it he denounced
as "doughfaces,"--a coined phrase still known to our political
vocabulary.
Missouri, however, did not become a State until August, 1821.
Thus, for the time only was this question settled.
Of it Jefferson wrote, as if in prophecy:
"This momentous question, like a fire bell in the night, awakened
and filled me with terror. I considered it the knell of the
Union."(43)
Clay wrote of the height to which the heated debate arose:
"The words civil war and disunion are uttered almost without
emotion."(44)
(40) Later, Arkansas and Michigan (1836-7), Florida and Iowa (March
3, 1845) and Maine and Missouri were, in pairs--slave and free--
admitted as States.
(41) Both died July 4, 1826.
(42) Hildreth, vol. vi., p. 664.
(43) Jefferson's _Works_, vol. vii., p. 159.
(44) Clay's _Priv. Cor._, p. 61.
XIII
NULLIFICATION--1832-3 (1835)
A debate arose in the United States Senate over a resolution of
Senator Foote of Connecticut proposing to limit the sale of the
public lands, which took a wide range. Hayne of South Carolina
elaborately set forth the doctrine of nullification, claiming it
inhered in each State under the Constitution. He boldly announced
that the Union formed was only a _league_ or a _compact_. This
called forth from Webster his celebrated "Reply to Hayne," of
January 26, 1830, in which he assailed and apparently overthrew
the then new doctrine of nullification. He denounced its exercise
as incompatible with a loyal adherence to the Constitution, and
showed historically that the government formed under it was not a
mere "compact" or "_league_" between sovereign or independent States
terminable at will. He then asserted that any attempt of any State
to act on the theory of nullification would inevitably entail civil
war or a dissolution of the Union.
The first real attempt, however, at nullification, or the first
attempt of a State to declare laws of Congress nugatory and of no
binding force when not approved by the State, was made in South
Carolina in 1832, under the leadership of John C. Calhoun, then
Vice-President of the United States, and hitherto a statesman of
so much just renown, and esteemed so moderate and patriotic in his
views on all national questions as to have been looked upon, with
the special approval of the North, as eminently qualified for the
Presidency. He hopefully aspired to it until he quarrelled with
President Jackson; he had been in favor of a protective tariff.
Cotton was, as we have seen, the principal article of export, and
the slaveholding cotton planters conceived the idea that to secure
a market for it there must be no duties on imports, and that home
manufactures of needed articles for consumption would restrict the
foreign demand for the raw material. Besides, the South with its
slave labor could not indulge in manufacturing. A tariff on imports
meant protection to home industries and to free white labor, both
inimical to slavery. Some leading Southern statesmen, adherents
of slavery, had vehemently opposed the ratification of the Constitution
of 1787, on the ground that as it empowered Congress to levy import
duties, it would encourage and build up home industries, with free
labor; and they prophesied that with them slavery would eventually
become unprofitable and therefore unpopular, hence would die. This
idea never left the Southern mind, so, when the Confederacy of 1861
was formed, its Constitution (framed at Montgomery, Alabama)
prohibited such duties for the express reason that no branch of
industry was to be promoted in the new slave government, using this
language:
"Nor shall any duties or taxes on importations from foreign nations
be laid to promote or foster any branch of industry."(45)
This was then supposed to be the highest bulwark of slavery. Its
votaries understood its strength and weakness. Independent, well-
paid free labor and industries (46) would ennoble the men of toil,
bring wealth and power, build up populous towns and cities, and
consequently overwhelm, politically and otherwise, the institution
of slavery, or draw into successful social competition with plantation
life wealthy inhabitants who knew not slavery and its demoralizing
influences.
Already, in 1832, the effects of protection on the prosperity of
our country were manifest, especially since the Tariff Act of 1828,
which levied a duty equivalent to 45 per cent. ad valorem. The
Act of 1832 made a small reduction in the duties, but because it
was claimed it did not distribute them equally, nullification was
determined on as the remedy.
It was agreed by the strict constructionists of that day that a
State Legislature could not declare a law of the United States
void, but to do this the _people_ must speak through a convention.
Such a convention met in South Carolina, in November, 1832, and
passed a Nullification Ordinance, declaring the tariff acts "null
and void," not binding on the State, and that under them no duties
should be paid in the State after February 1, 1833.
Immediately thereafter medals were struck, inscribed "_John C.
Calhoun, first President of the Southern Confederacy_." Nullification,
thus proclaimed, was the legitimate forerunner of secession.
President Jackson, with his heroic love of the Union, regarded the
movement as only _treason;_ he called it that in his proclamations;
he prepared to collect the duties in Charleston or to confiscate
the cargoes; he warned the nullifiers by the presence of General
Scott there that he would be promptly used to coerce the State into
loyalty; and he seemed eager to find an excuse for arresting,
condemning for treason, and hanging Calhoun, who then went to
Washington as a Senator, resigning the Vice-Presidency.(47)
Jackson tersely said:
"To say that any State may, at pleasure, secede from the Union, is
to say that the United States are not a nation."
The situation was too imminent for Calhoun's nerves. To confront
an indignant nation, led by a fearless, never doubting President,
was a different thing then from what it was in 1860-61 with Buchanan
as President, surrounded as he was by traitors in his Cabinet.
Calhoun and his State backed down, and import duties continued to
be collected in South Carolina, although a gradual reduction of
them was made an excuse for Calhoun and his friends in Congress,
in 1833, to vote for a protective tariff act, so recently before
by them declared unconstitutional.(48)
On a "Force Bill" and a new tariff act being passed (March 15,
1833) the Nullification Ordinance was repealed in South Carolina.
The next Ordinance of Secession of this State (1860) was based on
the principles of the first one and the doctrines of Calhoun,
slavery being the direct, as it had been the indirect, cause of
their first enunciation. We must not anticipate here.
In the debate, in 1833, between Webster and Calhoun, the former,
as in his great reply to Hayne,(49) expounded the Constitution as
a "Charter of Union for all the States."
"The Constitution does not provide for events that must be preceded
by its own destruction.
"That the Constitution is not a league, confederacy, or compact
between the people of the several States in their sovereign capacity,
but a government proper, founded on the adoption of the people,
and creating direct relations between itself and individuals. That
no State authority has power to dissolve these relations. That as
to certain purposes the people of the United States are one people."
Nullification, attempted first on account of a protective tariff
to foster home and young industries and for needed revenue to carry
on the Federal government, was in two years, by its author, Calhoun,
transferred, for a new cause on which to attempt to justify it--
from the tariff to domestic slavery. Calhoun soon discovered and
admitted that the South could not be united against the North and
for _disunion_ on opposition to a protective tariff. He therefore
promptly sought an opportunity to bring forward in Congress the
slavery question, and to attack the "_agitators_" and opponents of
slavery extension in the North, and to threaten disunion if the
institution of slavery was not permitted to dictate the political
policy of the Republic.
The exact method of reviving in Congress the whole subject of
slavery so soon after nullification had been so signally suppressed
by Jackson is worth briefly stating.
President Jackson, in his Annual Message, December, 1835, called
attention to attempts to use the mails to circulate matter calculated
to excite slaves to insurrection, but he did not recommend any
legislation to prevent it. Mr. Calhoun moved in the Senate that
so much of the message relating to mail transportation of incendiary
publications be referred to a select committee of five.
He was made chairman of this committee, and, on his request, three
others from the South, with but one from the North, were put on
the committee, and he promptly made an elaborate and carefully-
prepared report, going into the whole doctrine of states-rights
and nullification.
In it he said:
"That the States which form our Federal Union are sovereign and
independent communities, bound together by a constitutional _compact_,
and are possessed of all the powers belonging to distinct and
separate States, etc.
"The Compact itself expressly provides that all powers not delegated
are reserved to the States and the people. . . . On returning to
the Constitution, it will be seen that, while the power of defending
the country against _external_ danger is found among the enumerated,
the instrument is wholly silent as to the power of defending the
_internal_ peace and security of the States: and of course reserves
to the States this important power, etc.
"It belongs to slave-holding States, whose institutions are in
danger, and not to _Congress_, as is supposed by the message, to
determine what papers are incendiary and intended to excite
insurrection among the slaves, etc.
"It has already been stated that the States which comprise our
Federal Union are sovereign and independent communities, united by
a constitutional compact. Among its members the laws of nations
are in full force and obligation, except as altered or modified by
the compact, etc.
"Within their limits, the rights of the slave-holding States are
as full to demand of the States within whose limits and jurisdiction
their peace is assailed, to adopt the measures necessary to prevent
the same, and, if refused or neglected, _to resort to means to
protect themselves_, as if they were separate and independent
communities."
Here, perhaps, was the clearest statement yet made, not only of
the independence of States from Federal interference and of their
right, on their own whim, to break the "_compact_," but of the
right of the slaveholding States to dictate to the other States
legislation on the subject of slavery.
It was at once a declaration of independence for the Southern
States, and a declaration of their right to hold all the Northern
States so far subject to them as to be obliged, on demand, to pass
and enforce any prescribed law in the interest of slavery. The
South was to be the sole judge of what law on this subject was
requisite for slavery's purposes.
No duty was demanded on this question of the Federal Government;
and Southern States, according to Calhoun, owed it none where
slavery was concerned.
Calhoun and his committee could discover no power in the Southern
States to enforce their demands save to act as separate and
independent communities--that is, by setting up for themselves.
This led logically to disunion, the result intended.
There was much in this report setting forth and professing to
believe that it was the purpose of the North to emancipate the
slaves, and through the agencies of organized anti-slavery societies
bring about slave insurrections. The fanaticism of the North was
descanted on, and the character of slavery and its wisdom as a
social institution upheld.
He further said:
"He who regards slavery in those States simply under the relation
of master and slave, as important as that relation is, viewed merely
as a question of property to the slave-holding section of the Union,
has a very imperfect conception of the institution, and the
impossibility of abolishing it without disasters unexampled in the
history of the world. To understand its nature and importance
fully, it must be borne in mind that slavery, as it exists in the
Southern States, involves _not only the relation of master and
slave, but also the social and political relation of the two races_,
of nearly equal numbers, from different quarters of the globe, and
the most opposite of all others in every particular that distinguishes
one race of men from another."
The whole report was replete with accusations against the North,
and full of warning as to what the South would do should its demands
not be complied with. The bill brought in by the committee was
more remarkable than the report itself, and wholly inconsistent
with its doctrine.
The bill provided high penalties for any postmaster who should
knowingly receive and put into the mail any publication or picture
_touching the subject of slavery_, to go into any State or Territory
in which its circulation _was forbidden by state law_.
The report concluded:
"Should such be your decision, by refusing to pass this bill, I
shall say to the people of the South, look to yourselves.
"But I must tell the Senate, be your decision what it may, the
South will never abandon the principles of this bill. . . . We have
a remedy in our own hands."
Clay, Webster, Benton, and others ably and effectually combated
both the report and the bill, and the latter failed (25 to 19) in
the Senate.
Besides denying the doctrine of the report, they showed the evil
was not in mailing, but in taking from the mails and circulating
by their own citizens the supposed objectionable publications.
Benton, himself a slaveholder, then and in subsequent years assailed
and pronounced the doctrine of this report as the "_birth of
disunion_." He has also shown that Calhoun delighted over the
agitation of slavery more than he deprecated it; that he profoundly
hoped that on the slavery question the South would be united and
a Slave-Confederacy formed.(50)
In support of this Mr. Benton quotes from a letter of Mr. Calhoun
to a gentleman in Alabama (1847) in which he says:
"I am much gratified with the tone and views of your letter, and
concur entirely in the opinion you express, that instead of shunning,
we ought to court the issue with the North on the slavery question.
I would even go one step further and add that it is our duty _to
force the issue_ on the North. We are now stronger relatively than
we shall be hereafter, politically and morally. Unless we bring
on the issue, delay to us will be dangerous indeed. . . . Something
of the kind was indispensable to the South. On the contrary, if
we should not meet it as we ought, I fear, greatly fear, our _doom_
will be fixed."(51)
Comment is unnecessary, but the letter, almost exultantly, mentions
as fortunate that the Wilmot Proviso was offered, as it gave an
opportunity to unite the South.
It proceeds:
"With this impression, I would regard any compromise or adjustment
of the proviso, _or even its defeat_, without meeting the danger
in its whole length and breadth, as very unfortunate for us.
"This brings up the question, how can it be so met, without resorting
to the dissolution of the Union.
"There is and can be but one remedy short of disunion, and that is
to retaliate on our part by refusing to fulfill the stipulations
in their (other States) favor, or such as we may select, as the
most efficient."
The letter, still proceeding to discuss modes of dissolution or
retaliation against Northern States, declares a convention of
Southern States indispensable, and their co-operation absolutely
essential to success, and says:
"Let that be called, and let it adopt measures to bring about the
co-operation, and I would underwrite for the rest. The non-
slaveholding States would be compelled to observe the stipulations
of the Constitution _in our favor_, or abandon their trade with
us, _or to take measures to coerce us_, which would throw on them
the responsibility of dissolving the Union. Their unbounded avarice
would in the end control them."(52)
It is certain that President Jackson's heroic proclamation of
December, 1832, aborted the project of nullification under the
South Carolina Ordinance, and certain it is, also, that the
disappointed leaders of it turned from a protective tariff as a
ground for it, to what they regarded as a better excuse, to wit:
A slavery agitation, generated out of false alarms in the slave
States.
After the tariff compromise of 1833, in which Calhoun sullenly
acquiesced, he returned home and immediately announced that the
South would never unite against the North on the tariff question,
--"That the sugar interest of Louisiana would keep her out,--and
consequently the basis of Southern union must be shifted to the
slave question," which was then accordingly done.(53)
Jackson, discussing nullification, is reported to have said:
"It was the _tariff_ this time; next time it will be the _negro_."
This new and dangerous departure was not overlooked. The report
and bill of 1835 relating to the use of the mails was only a chapter
in execution of the new plan.
The observing friends of the Union did not overlook or misunderstand
the movement. They at once took alarm. Mr. Clay, in May, 1833,
wrote a letter to Mr. Madison expressing his apprehensions of the
new danger, which brought from him a prompt response.
Mr. Madison in his letter said:
"It is painful to see the unceasing efforts to alarm the South by
imputations against the North of unconstitutional designs on the
subject of the slaves. You are right. I have no doubt that no
such intermeddling disposition exists in the body of our Northern
brethren. Their good faith is sufficiently guaranteed by the interest
they have as merchants, ship-owners, and as manufacturers, in
preserving a union with the slave-holding states. On the other
hand, what madness in the South to look for greater safety in
_disunion_."(54)
What Clay and Madison saw in 1833 as the real starting-point for
ultimate secession proved true to history. From that time dates
the machinations which led, through the steps that successively
followed, to actual dissolution of the Union in 1860-61; then to
coercion--War; then to the eradication of slavery. It was Southern
madness that hastened the destruction of American slavery. "Whom
the gods would destroy, they first make mad."
The excuse for even this much significance given to "nullification"
is, that in less than thirty years, under a new name--"state-rights"
--it worked secession--disunion, and lit up the whole country with
the flames and frenzy of internal war that did not die down for
four years more; and then only when slavery was consumed.
The great abolition movement commenced in earnest, January 1, 1831.
Wm. Lloyd Garrison published, at Boston, the _Liberator_, with the
motto--"_Our countrymen are all mankind_." Benjamin Lundy, and
perhaps others, had preceded Garrison, but not until after the
Webster-Hayne debate did the abolition movement spread. Thenceforth
it took deeper root in the human conscience, and it had advocates
of determined spirit throughout the North, led on fearlessly, not
alone by Garrison, but by Rev. Dr. Channing, Rev. James Freeman
Clarke, and, later, by Rev. Samuel May (Syracuse, N. Y.), Gerritt
Smith, the poet Whittier, Wendell Phillips, Theodore Parker, Horace
Mann, Charles Sumner, Joshua R. Giddings, Owen Lovejoy, and others,
who spoke from pulpit, rostrum, and some in the halls of legislation;
others in the courts and through the press. The enforcement of
the fugitive-slave law was often violent, and always added new fuel
to the fierce and constantly growing opposition to slavery.
The Anti-Slavery party was not one wholly built on abstract sentiment
of philanthropists, but it involved physical resistance: Violence
to violence.
The American Anti-Slavery Society was founded at a National Anti-
Slavery Convention held in Philadelphia, in December, 1831.
Hard upon the establishment of the _Liberator_ came the Nat Turner
insurrection in Southampton County, Virginia (August, 1831). This
gave to the South a fresh ground to complain of the North. Turner's
insurrection was held to be the legitimate fruit of abolition
agitation. Turner was an African of natural capacity, who quoted
the Bible fluently, prayed vehemently, and preached to his fellow
slaves.
He told them, as did Joan of Arc, of "_Voices_" and "_Visions_,"
and of his communion with the Holy Spirit. An eclipse of the sun
was the signal to strike their enemies and for freedom. The massacre
lasted forty-eight hours, and sixty-one whites, women and children
not spared, were victims. On the other hand, negroes were shot,
tortured, hanged, and burned at the stake on whom the slightest
suspicion of complicity fell.
The Nat Turner negro slave insurrection is the only one known to
slavery in the United States. Others may possibly have been
contemplated. The John Brown raid was not a negro insurrection.
Even in the midst of the war (1861-65), believed by most slaves to
be a war for their freedom, insurrections were unknown.(55)
The African race, the most wronged through the centuries, has been
the most docile and the least revengeful of the races of the world.
(45) Confederate Con., Art. 1, Sec. 8, par. 1.
(46) The South in the days of slavery had, practically, no
manufactories.
(47) Benton, _Thirty Years' View_, vol. i., p. 343.
(48) Rhodes, _Hist. U. S._, vol. i., pp. 49-50.
(49) January 26, 1830.
(50) For this report and history see Benton's _Thirty Years' View_,
vol. i, pp. 580, etc.
(51) _Thirty Years' View_, vol. ii., chap. clxxxix.; Historical,
etc. Examination, _Dred Scott Case_ (Benton), p. 139.
(52) Historical, etc., Examination, _Dred Scott Case_ (Benton),
p. 141-4.
(53) _Ibid_., p. 181.
(54) Historical, etc., Ex., _Dred Scott Case_, pp. 181-2.
(55) There were some small insurrections and some threatened ones
in the colonies as early as 1660, the guilty negroes or Indians
being then punished by crucifixion, burning, and by starvation;
other insurrections took place in the Carolinas and Georgia in
1734, and the Cato insurrection occurred at Stono, S. C., in 1740.
There was a wide spread "Negro Plot" in New York in 1712. These
attempts alarmed the colonies and caused some of them to take steps
to abolish slavery.--_Sup. of African Slave-Trade U. S._, pp. 6,
10, 22, 206.
XIV
TEXAS--ADMISSION INTO THE UNION (1845)
Texas was a province of Mexico when the latter seceded from Spain
through a "Proclamation of Independence" by Iturbide (February 24,
1821) with a view to establishing a constitutional monarchy. At
the end of about two years of Iturbide's reign, this form of
government was overthrown, and he was compelled (March 19, 1823)
to resign his crown. Through the efforts, principally of General
Santa Anna, a Republic was established under a Constitution,
modelled, in large part, on that of the United States, which went
into full effect October 4, 1824. Spain did not formally recognize
the independence of Mexico until 1836. The Mexican Republic was
opposed to slavery, and after some of her provinces had decreed
freedom to slaves its President (Guerro), September 15, 1829,
decreed its total abolition, but as Texas, on account of slave-
holding settlers from the United States, demurred to the decree,
another one followed, April 5, 1837, by the Mexican Congress, also
abolishing slavery, without exception, in Texas. Despite these
decrees the American settlers carried slaves into Texas, which
became part of the State of Coahuila, whose Constitution also
forbade the importation of slaves.
Thus was slavery extension to the southwest cut off by a power not
likely ever to be in sympathy with it. It is worthy of note that
neither the independent Spanish blood (notwithstanding Spain's deep
guilt in the conduct of the slave trade), nor that blood as intermixed
with the Indian, nor the Mexican Indians themselves, ever willingly
maintained human slavery in America. Mexico's established religion
under the Constitution, being Roman Catholic, did not permit its
perpetuation. The Pope of Rome, in the nineteenth century and
earlier, had denounced it as inhuman and contrary to the divine
justice.
The maintenance of slavery in Texas was regarded as of paramount
importance to the South, and as slavery could not exist in Texas
under Mexican authority, efforts were put forth to secure her
independence, then to annex her to the United States as a State
wherein slavery should exist. Even Clay, as Secretary of State,
under Adams, in 1827, proposed to purchase Texas. President Jackson,
in 1830, offered $5,000,000 for Texas. The Mexican Government,
foreseeing the coming danger, by law prohibited American immigration
into Texas, but this was unavailing, as the ever-unscrupulous hand
of slavery was reaching out for more room and more territory to
perpetuate itself. Americans, like their natural kinsmen the
Englishmen, then regarded not the rights of others, the weak
especially, when the slave power was involved.
Sam Houston, of Tennessee, a capable man who had fought under
Jackson in the Indian wars, inspired by his pro-slavery proclivities
in 1835, went to Texas avowedly to wrest Texas from free Mexico,
and, it is said, of his real intentions President Jackson was not
ignorant.
The unfortunate internal political contentions in Mexico gave the
intruding Americans pretexts for disputes which soon led to the
desired conflicts with the Mexican authorities.
Santa Anna, who had, through a revolution, put himself at the head
of the new Mexican Republic, attempted to coerce the invading
settlers to observance of the laws, but in this was only partially
successful. On March 2, 1836, a Texas _Declaration of Independence_
was issued, signed by about _sixty_ men, _two_ of whom only were
Texas-Mexicans, and this was followed by a Constitution for the
Republic of Texas, chief among its objects being the establishment
of human slavery. Santa Anna, with the natural fierceness of the
Spanish-Indian, waged a ferocious war on the revolutionists. A
garrison of 250 men at "The Alamo," a small mission church near
San Antonio, was taken by him after heroic resistance, and massacred
to a man.
"Thermopylae had her messenger of defeat, but The Alamo had none."
David Crockett, an uneducated, eccentric Tennessean, who was a
celebrated hunter, Indian fighter, story teller, wit, and member
of Congress three terms (where he opposed President Jackson, and
refused to obey any party commanding him "to-go-wo-haw-gee," just
at his pleasure) here lost his life. On the 27th of the same month
500 more Americans at Goliad were also massacred. These atrocities
were used successfully to produce sympathy and create excitement
in the United States. On April 21, 1836, a decisive battle was
fought at San Jacinto between Santa Anna's army of 1500 men and a
body of 800 men under General Sam Houston, in which the former was
defeated, and Santa Anna, the President of Mexico, captured. While
a prisoner, to save his life he immediately concluded an armistice
with Houston, agreeing to evacuate Texas and procure the recognition
by Mexico of its independence. This the Mexican Congress afterwards
refused. But in October, 1836, with a Constitution modelled on
that of the United States, the Republic of Texas (recognizing
slavery) was organized, with Houston as President, and forthwith
the United States recognized its independence.
In a few months application was made to the United States to receive
it into the Union, but on account of a purpose to divide Texas into
a number of slave States to secure the preponderance of the slave
political power in the Union, which for want of sufficient population
was not immediately possible, her admission was delayed, and Sam
Houston's Republic of Texas existed for above eight years. President
Van Buren, who succeeded Jackson as President, was opposed to its
annexation, and it was left to the apostate Tyler to take up the
business.
He, too, would have failed but Mr. Upshur, his Secretary of State,
being killed in 1844 by the accidental explosion of a cannon, John
C. Calhoun became his successor. The latter at once arranged a
treaty of annexation, but this the Senate rejected. Both Van Buren
and Clay, leading candidates of their respective parties for the
Presidency in 1844, were opposed to the annexation; the former was
defeated for nomination, and the latter at the election, because,
during the canvass, to please the slaveholding Whigs he sought to
shift his position, thus losing his anti-slavery friends, "whose
votes would have elected him"; and Polk became President. Annexation,
however, did not wait for his administration.
In the House of Representatives, in December, 1844, an attempt was
made to admit Texas, half to be free and half slave, making two
States.
By resolutions of Congress, dated March 1, 1845, consent was given
to erect Texas into a State with a view to annexation; and in order
that she might be admitted into the Union such resolutions provided
that thereafter four other States, with her consent, might be formed
out of its territory. In August succeeding, a Constitution was
framed prohibiting emancipation of slaves (56) and authorizing
their importation into Texas, which was thereafter adopted by the
people of the Republic of Texas, under which Congress, by resolution
(December 29, 1845) formally admitted Texas into the Union--the
last slave State admitted.
As a sop to Northern "dough-faces," and to induce them to vote for
the resolutions of March 1st, it recited that the new States lying
south of latitude 36° 30´ should be admitted with or without slavery
as their inhabitants might decide, those north of the line without
slavery. In the subsequent adjustment of the north boundary line
of Texas, it was found _no part of it_ was within two hundred miles
of 36° 30´; so all of Texas (in territory an empire, in area 240,000
square miles, six times greater than Ohio) was thus dedicated
forever, by law, to human slavery, in the professed interest of
the nineteenth century civilization. The intrigue, the bad faith,
the perfidy by which this great political and moral wrong was
consummated were laid up against the "day of wrath."
(56) How different is Texas' Constitution of 1876, the first
paragraph of which runs: "Texas is a free and independent State."
XV
MEXICAN WAR--ACQUISITION OF CALIFORNIA AND NEW MEXICO 1846-8
With Texas came naturally a desire for more slave territory. Wrong
is never satiated; it hungers as it feeds on its prey.
Pretence for quarrel arose over the boundary between Texas and
Mexico. The United States unjustly claimed that the Rio Grande
was the southwestern boundary of Texas instead of the Nueces, as
Mexico maintained. Mexico was invaded, her cities, including her
ancient capital, were taken, and her badly-organized armies
overthrown. Congress, by an Act of May 13, 1846, declared that
"by the act of the Republic of Mexico a state of war existed between
that government and the United States," and it virtually ended in
September, 1847, though the final treaty of peace at Guadalupe
Hidalgo was not signed until February 2, 1848. While the annexation
of Texas was regarded by Mexico as a cause of war, yet she did not
declare war on that ground.
The principle of "manifest destiny" was proclaimed for the United
States. In the prosecution of the war, with shameless effrontery
it was justified on the necessity that "_we want room_" for the
two hundred millions of inhabitants soon to be under our flag.
Answering this cry, put up by Senator Cass of Michigan, Senator
Thomas Corwin, in a spirit of prophecy, said:
"But you still say you want _room_ for your people. This has been
the plea of every robber-chief from Nimrod to the present hour.
I dare say, when Tamerlane descended from his throne, built of
seventy thousand human skulls, and marched his ferocious battalions
to further slaughter,--I dare say he said, 'I want room.' Alexander,
too, the mighty 'Macedonian Madman,' when he wandered with his
Greeks to the plains of India, and fought a bloody battle on the
very ground where recently England and the Sikhs engaged in a strife
for 'room' . . . Sir, he made quite as much of that sort of history
as you ever will. Mr. President, do you remember the last chapter
in that history? It is soon read. Oh! I wish we could understand
its moral. Ammon's son (so was Alexander named), after all his
victories, died drunk in Babylon. The vast empire he conquered to
'get room' became the prey of the generals he trained; it was
desparted, torn to pieces, and so ended. Sir, there is a very
significant appendix; it is this: The descendants of the Greeks--
of Alexander's Greeks--are now governed by a descendant of Attilla."
Through the greed of the slave power Texas was acquired, and they
still longed for more slave territory, and weak Mexico alone could
be depleted to obtain it.
Southern California and New Mexico had a sufficiently warm climate
for slavery to flourish in.
The war was far from popular, though the pride of national patriotism
supported it. Clay and Webster each opposed it, and each gave a
son to it.(57)
Abraham Lincoln, then for a single term in Congress, spoke against
it, but, like most other members holding similar views, voted men,
money, and supplies to carry it on.
Senator Benton of Missouri, a party friend to the administration
of Polk and favoring the war, said:
"The truth was, an intrigue was laid for peace before the war was
declared! And this intrigue was even part of the scheme for making
war. It is impossible to conceive of an administration less warlike,
or more intriguing, than that of Mr. Polk. They were men of peace,
with objects to be accomplished by means of war. . . . They wanted
a small war, just large enough to require a treaty of peace, and
not large enough to make military reputations dangerous for the
Presidency."(58)
It was predicted the war would not last to exceed "90 to 120 days."
The proposed conquest of Mexico was so inlaid with treachery that
this prediction was justified. The Administration conspired with
the then exiled Santa Anna "not to obstruct his return to Mexico."
"It was the arrangement with Santa Anna! We to put him back in
Mexico, and he to make peace with us: of course an _agreeable peace_
. . . not without receiving a consideration: and in this case some
millions of dollars were required--not for himself, of course, but
to enable him to promote the peace at home."(59)
Accordingly, in August, 1846, before Buena Vista and other signal
successes in the war, the President asked an appropriation of
$2,000,000 to be used in promoting a peace.
But already jealousy and envy toward the generals in the field had
arisen, which culminated in President Polk offering to confer on
Senator Thomas H. Benton (of his own party) the rank of Lieutenant-
General, with full command, thus superseding the Whig Generals,
Winfield Scott and Zachary Taylor, then possible Presidential
candidates.(60)
The acquisition of more territory from Mexico being no secret, a
bill for the desired appropriation precipitated, unexpectedly, a
most violent discussion of the slavery question, never again allayed
until slavery was eliminated from the Union.
A Democratic Representative from Pennsylvania, David Wilmot, who
favored the acquisition of California and New Mexico, for the
purpose of "_preserving the equilibrium of States_," and as an
offset to the already acquired slave State of Texas, which was then
expected to be soon erected into five slave States, moved, August,
1846, the following proviso to the "two million bill":
"That no part of the territory to be acquired should be open to
the introduction of slavery."
This famous "Wilmot Proviso" never became a part of any law; its
sole importance was in its frequent presentation and the violent
discussions over it.
Thus far the national wrong against Mexico had for its manifest
object the spread of slavery.
The proposition to seize Mexican territory and dedicate it to
freedom threw the advocates of slavery and the war into a frenzy,
and consternation in high circles prevailed.
The proviso was adopted in the House, but failed in the Senate.
It was, in February, 1847, again, by the House, tacked on the "three
million bill," but being struck out in the Senate, the bill passed
the House without it. But the proviso had done its work; the whole
North was alive to its importance, and Presidential and Congressional
_timber_ blossomed or withered accordingly as it did or did not
fly a banner inscribed "_Wilmot Proviso_."
Calhoun, professing great alarm and great concern for the Constitution,
on February 19, 1847, introduced into the Senate his celebrated
resolution declaring, among other things, that the Territories
belonged to the "several States . . . as their joint and common
property." "That the enactment of any law which should . . .
deprive the citizens of any of the States . . . from emigrating
with their property [slaves] into any of the Territories . . .
would be a violation of the Constitution and the rights of the
States, . . . and would tend directly to subvert the Union itself."
Here was the doctrine of state-rights born into full life, with
the old doctrine of nullification embodied. Benton, speaking of
the dangerous character of Calhoun's resolution, said of them:
"As Sylla saw in the young Caesar many Mariuses, so did he see in
them many nullifications."
Benton, quite familiar with the whole history of slavery before,
during, and after the Mexican War, himself a Senator from a slave
State, says the Wilmot proviso "was secretly cherished as a means
of keeping up discord, and forcing the issue between the North and
the South," by Calhoun and his friends, citing Mr. Calhoun's Alabama
letter of 1847, already quoted, in proof of his statement.
By the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (February, 1848) for $15,000,000
(above $3,000,000 more than was paid Napoleon for the Louisiana
Purchase), New Mexico and Upper California were ceded by Mexico to
the United States, and the Rio Grande from El Paso to its mouth
became the boundary between the two countries. Upper California
is now the State of California, and the New Mexico thus acquired
included much of the present New Mexico, nearly all of Arizona,
substantially all of Utah and Nevada, and the western portion of
Colorado, in area 545,000 square miles, which, together with the
Gadsden Purchase, by further treaty with Mexico (December 30, 1853)
for $10,000,000 more, completed the despoiling of the sister
Republic. The territory acquired by the last treaty now constitutes
the southern part of Arizona and the southwest corner of New Mexico.
Almost contemporaneous with the invasion of Mexico, and as part of
the plan for the acquisition of her territory, Buchanan, then
Secretary of State, dispatched Lieutenant Gillespie, of the United
States Army, _via_ Vera Cruz, the City of Mexico, and Mazatlan, to
Monterey, Upper California, ostensibly with dispatches to a consul,
but really for the purpose of presenting a mere _letter of
introduction_ and a verbal request to Captain John C. Fremont,
U.S.A., then on an exploring expedition to the Pacific Coast. The
Lieutenant found Fremont at the north end of the Great Klamath
Lake, Oregon, in the midst of hostile Indians. The _letter_ being
presented, Gillespie verbally communicated from the Secretary a
request for him to counteract any foreign scheme on California,
and to cultivate the good-will of the inhabitants towards the United
States.
On this information Fremont returned, in May, 1846 (the month the
war opened on the Rio Grande), to the valley of the Sacramento.
His arrival there was timely, as already the ever-grasping hand of
the British was at work. There had been inaugurated (1) the massacre
of American settlers, (2) the subjection of California to British
protection, and (3) the transfer of its public domain to British
subjects. Fremont did not even know war had broken out between
the United States and Mexico, yet he organized at first a defensive
war in the Sacramento Valley for the protection of American settlers,
and blood was shed; then he resolved to overturn the Mexican
authority, and establish "California Independence." The celerity
with which all this was accomplished was romantic. In thirty days
all Northern California was freed from Mexican rule--the flag of
independence raised; American settlers were saved, and the British
party overthrown.
Since its discovery by Sir Francis Drake--two hundred years--England
had sought to possess the splendid Bay of California, with its
great seaport and the tributary country. The war between the United
States and Mexico seemed her opportune time for the acquisition,
but her efforts, both by sea and land, were thwarted by her only
less voracious daughter.(61)
Often in human affairs events concur to control or turn aside the
most carefully guarded plans. California and the other Mexican
acquisitions were by the war party--the slave propagandists--fore-
ordained to be slave territory. The free State men had done little
to favor its theft and purchase, and it was therefore claimed that
they of right should have little interest in its disposition.
Just nine days (January 24, 1848) before the treaty of peace
(Guadalupe Hidalgo), John A. Sutter, a Swiss by parentage, German
by birth (Baden), American by residence and naturalization (Missouri),
Mexican in turn, by residence and naturalization, together with
James A. Marshall, a Jerseyman wheelwright in Sutter's employ,
while the latter was walking in a newly-constructed and recently
flooded saw-mill tail-race, in the small valley of Coloma, about
forty-five miles from Sacramento (then Sutter's Fort), in the foot-
hills of the Sierras, picked up some small, shining yellow particles,
which proved to be free _gold_.(62)
"_The accursed thirst for gold_" was now soon to outrun the _accursed
greed_ for more slave territory. The race was unequal. The whole
world joined in the race for gold. The hunger for wealth seized
all alike, the common laborer, the small farmer, the merchant, the
mechanic, the politician, the lawyer and the clergyman, the soldier
and the sailor from the army and navy; from all countries and climes
came the gold seeker; only the slaveholder with his slaves alone
were left behind. There was no place for the latter with freemen
who themselves swung the pick and rocked the cradle in search of
the precious metal.
California, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona still give
up their gold and their silver to the free miner; and the financial
condition and prosperity of the civilized countries of the world
have been favorably affected by these productions, but of this we
are not here to speak. Slavery is our text, and we must not stray
too far from it.
Turning back to the negotiations for the first treaty with Mexico,
we find, to her everlasting credit, though compelled to part with
her possessions, she still desired they should continue to be free.
Slavery, as has already been shown, did not exist in Mexico by law;
and California and New Mexico held no slaves, so, during the
negotiations, the Mexican representatives begged for the incorporation
of an article providing that slavery should be prohibited in all
the territory to be ceded. N. P. Trist, the American Commissioner,
promptly and fiercely resented the bare mention of the subject.
He replied that if the territory to be acquired were tenfold more
valuable, and covered _a foot thick_ with pure gold, on the single
condition that slavery was to be excluded therefrom, the proposition
would not be for a moment entertained, nor even communicated to
the President.(63)
Though the invocation was in behalf of humanity, the "invincible
Anglo-Saxon race" (so cried Senator Preston in 1836) "could not
listen to the prayer of superstitious Catholicism, goaded on by a
miserable priesthood."
Now that California and New Mexico were United States territory,
how was it to be devoted to slavery to reward the friends of its
acquisition?
As slavery was prohibited under Mexican law, this territory must
by the law of nations remain free until slavery was, by positive
enactment, authorized therein. This ancient and universal law,
however, was soon to be disregarded or denied by the advocates of
the doctrine that the Constitution of the United States spread
itself over territories, and, by force of it, legalized human
slavery therein, and guaranteed to citizens of a State the right
to carry their property--human slaves included--into United States
territory and there hold it, by force of and protected by the
Constitution, in defiance of unfriendly territorial or Congressional
legislation. This novel claim also sprung from the brain of Calhoun,
and was met with the true view of slavery, to wit: That it was a
creature solely of law; that it existed nowhere of natural right;
that whenever a slave was taken from a jurisdiction where slaves
could be held by law, to one where no law made him a slave, his
shackles fell off and he became a free man. The soundness of the
rule that a citizen of a State could carry his personal property
from his State to a Territory was admitted, but it was claimed he
could not hold it there if it were not such as the laws of the
Territory recognized as property. In other words, he might transfer
his property from a State to a Territory, but he could not take
with him the law of his State authorizing him to hold it as property.
The law of the _situs_ is of universal application governing
property.
It remains to briefly note the effort to extend and interpret the
Constitution, with the sole view to establish and perpetuate human
slavery.
Near the close of the session of Congress (1848-49), Mr. Walker of
Wisconsin, at the instigation of Calhoun moved, as a rider on an
appropriation bill, a section providing a temporary government for
such Territories, including a provision to "_extend the Constitution
of the United States to the Territories_." This astounding
proposition was defended by Calhoun, and, with his characteristic
straightforwardness, he avowed the true object of the amendment
was to override the anti-slavery laws of the Territories, and plant
the institution of slavery therein, beyond the reach of Congressional
or territorial law.
Mr. Webster expounded the Constitution and combated the newly
brought forward slave-extension doctrine, but a majority of the
Senate voted for the amendment.
The House, however, voted down the rider, and between the two
branches of Congress it failed. For a time appropriations of
necessary supplies for the government were made to depend on the
success of the measure.(64)
Thus again the newly acquired domain escaped the doom of perpetual
slavery.
But we have done with the Mexican War and the acquisition of Mexican
territory. It remains to be told how this vast domain was disposed
of. No part of it ever became slave.
There was not time in Polk's administration to dispose of it.
General Zachary Taylor, the hero of Palo Alto, Resaca, Monterey,
and Buena Vista, became President, March 4, 1849. He was wholly
without political experience and had never even voted at an election.
He was purely a professional soldier, and a Southerner by birth
and training; was a patriot, possessed of great common sense, and
knew nothing of intrigue, and was endowed with a high sense of
justice, and believed in the rights of the majority. He belonged
to no cabal to promote, extend, or perpetuate slavery, and, probably,
in his conscience was opposed to it. His Southern friends could
not use him, and when they demanded his aid, as President, to plant
slavery in California, he not only declined to serve them, but
openly declared that California should be free. In different words,
but words of like import, he responded to them, as he did to General
Wool, at a critical moment in the battle of Buena Vista. Wool
remarked: "_General, we are whipped_." Taylor responded: "_That
is for me to determine_."(65)
(57) Lt.-Col. Henry Clay, Jr., fell at Buena Vista February 23,
1847, and Maj. Edward Webster died at San Angel, Mexico, January
23, 1848.
(58) _Thirty Years' View_, vol. ii., p. 680.
(59) _Ibid_., p. 681.
(60) Taylor became President March, 1849, succeeding Polk, and
died in office July 9, 1850. Scott was nominated by his party
(Whig) in 1852, and defeated; Franklin Pierce, a subordinate General
of the war, was elected by his party (Democrat) President in 1852.
(61) _Thirty Years' View_, vol. ii., pp. 688-692.
(62) _Hist. Ready Ref._, vol. i, p. 350.
(63) Trist's letter to Buchanan, Secretary of State, Von Holst,
vol. iii., p. 334.
(64) Historical Ex., etc., _Dred Scott Case_, pp. 151-9. This is
the first Congress where its sessions were continued after twelve
o'clock midnight, of March 3d, in the odd years. _Ibid_., pp. 136-9.
(65) _Hist. of Mexican War_ (Wilcox), p. 223.
XVI
COMPROMISE MEASURES--1850
The slavery agitation first began in 1832 on a false tariff issue,
and precipitated upon the country in 1835, on the lines of
nullification and disunion, and was again revived at the close of
the Mexican War, and continued violently through 1849 and 1850.
The year 1850 will be ever memorable in the history of the United
States as a year wherein all the baleful seeds of disunion were
sown, which grew, to ripen, a little more than ten years later,
into _disunion_ in fact. Prophetically, a leading South Carolina
paper in its New Year-Day edition, said:
"When the future historian shall address himself to the task of
portraying the rise, progress, and decline of the American union,
the year _1850_ will arrest his attention, as denoting and presenting
the first marshalling and arraying of those hostile forces and
opposing elements which resulted in dissolution."
At the close of Polk's administration an inflammatory address,
drawn and signed by Calhoun and forty-one other members of Congress
from the slave States, was issued, filled with unfounded charges
against the North, professing to be a warning to the South that a
purpose existed to abolish slavery and bring on a conflict between
the white and black races, and to San Domingoize the South, which
could only be avoided, the address states:
"By fleeing the homes of ourselves and ancestors, and by abandoning
our country to our slaves, to become the permanent abode of disorder,
anarchy, poverty, misery, and wretchedness."
This manifesto did not go quite to the extent of declaring for a
dissolution of the Union, but it appealed to the South to become
united, saying, if the North did not yield to its demands, the
South would be the assailed, and
"Would stand justified by all laws, human and divine, in repelling
a blow so dangerous, without looking to consequences, and to resort
to all means necessary for that purpose."(66)
The _Southern Press_ was set up in Washington to inculcate the
advantages of disunion, and to inflame the South against the North.
It portrayed the advantages which would result from Southern
independence; and assumed to tell how Southern cities would recover
colonial superiority; how ships of all nations would crowd Southern
ports and carry off the rich staples, bringing back ample returns,
and how Great Britain would be the ally of the new "United States
South." In brief, it asserted that a Southern convention should
meet and decree a separation unless the North surrendered to Southern
demands for the extension of slavery, for its protection in the
States, and for the certain return of fugitive slaves; it urged
also that military preparation be made to maintain what the convention
might decree.
A disunion convention actually met at Nashville, near the home of
Jackson, but the old hero was then in his grave.(67) It assumed
to represent seven States. It invited the assembling of a "Southern
Congress." South Carolina and Mississippi alone responded to this
call. In the Legislature of South Carolina secession and disunion
speeches were delivered, and throughout the South public addresses
were made, and the press advocated and threatened dissolution of
the Union unless the North yielded all.(68)
All this and more to immediately effect the introduction of slavery
into California and New Mexico. The South saw clearly that the
free people of the Republic were resolved that there should be no
more slave States, but believed that the mercantile, trading people,
and small farmers of the North would not fight for their rights,
and hence intimidation seemed to them to promise success.
It had its effect on many, and, unfortunately, on some of America's
greatest statesmen.
By a singular coincidence the Thirty-first Congress, which met
December, 1849, embraced among its members Webster, Clay, Calhoun,
Benton, Cass, Corwin, Seward, Salmon P. Chase, John P. Hale, Hamlin
of Maine, James M. Mason, Douglas of Illinois, Foote and Davis of
Mississippi, of the Senate; and Joshua R. Giddings, Horace Mann,
Wilmot of Pennsylvania, Robert C. Schenck, Robert C. Winthrop,
Alexander H. Stephens, and Thaddeus Stevens, of the House.
To avert the impending storm of slavery agitation then threatening
disunion, Clay, by a set of resolutions, with a view to a "_lasting
compromise_," on January 29, 1850, proposed in the Senate a general
plan of compromise and a committee of thirteen to report a bill or
bills in accordance therewith.
His plan was:
1. The admission of California with her free Constitution.
2. Territorial governments for the other territory acquired from
Mexico, without any restriction as to slavery.
3. The disputed boundary between Texas and New Mexico to be
determined.
4. The _bona fide_ public debt of Texas, contracted prior to
annexation, to be paid from duties on foreign imports, upon condition
that Texas relinquish her claim to any part of New Mexico.
5. The declaration that it was inexpedient to abolish slavery in
the District of Columbia, without the consent of Maryland and the
people of the District, and without compensation to owners of
slaves.
6. The prohibition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia.
7. A more effectual provision for the rendition of fugitive slaves.
8. A declaration that Congress has no power to interfere with the
slave trade between States.
These resolutions and the plan embodied led to a most noteworthy
discussion, chiefly participated in by Clay, Webster, Calhoun,
Benton, Seward, and Foote. The debate was opened by Clay. He
favored the admission of California with her already formed free
State Constitution, but he exclaimed:
"I shall go with the Senator from the South who goes farthest in
making penal laws and imposing the heaviest sanctions for the
recovery of fugitive slaves and the restoration of them by their
owners."
He, however, tried to hold the olive branch to both the North and
the South, and pleaded for the Union. He pathetically pleaded for
mutual concessions, and deprecated, what he then apprehended, _war_
between the sections, exclaiming:
"War and dissolution of the Union are identical."
After prophesying that if a war came it would be more ferocious,
bloody, implacable, and exterminating than were the wars of Greece,
the Commoners of England, or the Revolutions of France, Senator
Clay predicted that it would be "not of two or three years' duration,
but a war of interminable duration, during which some Philip or
Alexander, some Caesar or Napoleon, would arise and cut the Gordian
knot and solve the problem of the capacity of man for self-government,
and crush the liberties of both the several portions of this common
empire."
Happily, events have falsified most of these prophecies.
Then came the dying Calhoun, with a last speech in behalf of slavery
and on the imaginary wrongs of the South. His last appearance in
public life was pathetic. Broken with age and disease, enveloped
in flannels, he was carried into the Capitol, where he tottered to
the old Senate Hall and to a seat. He found himself too weak to
even read his last warning to the North and appeal for his beloved
institution. The speech was written, and was read in his presence
by Senator Mason of Virginia. He referred to the disparity of
numbers between the North and the South by which the "equilibrium
between the two sections had been destroyed." He did not recognize
the fact that slavery alone was the cause of this disparity. He
professed to believe the final object of the North was "the abolition
of slavery in the States." He contended that one of the "cords"
of the Union embraced "plans for disseminating the Bible," and "for
the support of doctrines and creeds."
He said:
"The first of these _cords_ which snapped under its explosive force
was that of the powerful Methodist Episcopal Church. The next
_cord_ that snapped was that of the Baptists, one of the largest
and most respectable of the denominations. That of the Presbyterian
is not entirely snapped, but some of its strands have given way.
That of the Episcopal Church is the only one of the four great
Protestant denominations which remains unbroken and entire."
He referred to the strong ties which held together the two great
parties, and said:
"This powerful _cord_ has fared no better than the spiritual. To
this extent the union has already been destroyed by agitation."
He laid at the door of the North all the blame for the slavery
agitation.
The admission of California as a free State was the immediate,
exciting cause for Calhoun's speech.
Already, on October 13, 1849, after a session of forty days, a
Convention in California had, with much unanimity, framed a
Constitution which, one month later, was, with like unanimity,
adopted by her free, gold-mining people. It prohibited slavery.
It had been laid before Congress by President Taylor, who recommended
the immediate admission under it of California as a State.
President Taylor had not overlooked the disunion movements. In
his first and only message to Congress he expressed his affection
for the Union, and warningly said:
"In my judgment its dissolution would be the greatest of calamities,
and to avert that should be the study of every American. Upon its
preservation must depend our own happiness, and that of countless
generations to come. Whatever dangers may threaten it, I shall
stand by it and maintain it in its integrity, to the full extent
of the obligations imposed and the power conferred on me by the
Constitution."
Recommending specially that territorial governments for New Mexico
and Utah should be formed, leaving them to settle the question of
slavery for themselves, President Taylor, in his Message, said
further:
"I repeat the solemn warning of the first and most illustrious of
my predecessors against furnishing any ground for characterizing
parties by geographical discriminations."
Alluding to these passages, Calhoun, in his last speech, said:
"It (the Union) cannot, then, be saved by eulogies on it, however
splendid or numerous. The cry of 'Union, Union, the glorious
Union,' can no more prevent _disunion_ than the cry of 'Health,
Health, glorious Health,' on the part of the physician can save
a patient from dying that is lying dangerously ill."
To the allusion of the President to Washington, Calhoun sneeringly
said:
"There was nothing in _his_ history to deter us from seceding from
the Union should it fail to fulfil the objects for which it was
instituted."
The prime objects for which the Union was formed, were, as he
contended, the preservation, perpetuation, and extension of the
institution of human slavery. In the antithesis of this speech he
asked and answered:
"How can the Union be saved?
"To provide for the insertion of a provision in the Constitution,
by an amendment which will restore to the South in substance the
power she possessed of protecting herself before the equilibrium
between the sections was destroyed by the action of this
government."
The speech did not state what, exactly, this amendment was to be,
but it transpired that it was to provide for the election of _two_
Presidents, one from the free and one from the slave States, each
to approve all acts of Congress before they became laws.
Of this device, Senator Benton said:
"No such double-headed government could work through even one
session of Congress, any more than two animals could work together
in the plough with their heads yoked in opposite directions."(69)
In the same month (March 31, 1850) the great political gladiator
and pro-slavery agitator and originator and disseminator of disunion
doctrines was dead;(70) but there were others to uphold and carry
forward his work to its fatal ending.
Calhoun was early accounted a sincere and honest man, a patriot of
moderate views, and at one time was much esteemed North as well as
South. It is believed than an unfortunate quarrel with President
Jackson dashed his hopes of reaching the Presidency, and so embittered
him that he became the champion, first of nullification, then of
disunion.
There is not room here to speak in detail of the other champions
of the great debate on the Clay resolutions.
On the 18th of April these resolutions, and others of like import,
were referred to a committee of thirteen, with Clay as its chairman.
This was Clay's last triumph, and he accepted it with the greatest
joy, though then in ill health and fast approaching the grave.(71)
Of his joy, Benton, in a speech at the time, said:
"We all remember that night. He seemed to ache with pleasure. It
was too great for continence. It burst forth. In the fullness of
his joy and the overflow of his heart he entered upon the series
of congratulations."(72)
The sincere old hero was doomed to much disappointment; he did not
live, however, to see his views on slavery contained in the Compromise
measures (1) overthrown by an act of Congress four years later,
(2) by a decision of the Supreme Court seven years later, and then
(3) made an issue on which the South seceded from the Union and
precipitated a war, in which for ferocity, duration, and bloodshed,
his prophecies fell far short. On the 8th of May this memorable
committee reported its recommendations somewhat different from his
resolutions.
Its report favored:
1. The postponement of the subject of the admission of new States
formed out of Texas until they present themselves, when Congress
should faithfully execute the compact with Texas by admitting them.
2. The admission forthwith of California with the boundaries she
claimed.
3. The establishment of territorial government, without the Wilmot
Proviso, for New Mexico and Utah; embracing all territory acquired
from Mexico not included in California.
4. The last two measures to be combined in one bill.
5. The establishment of the boundary of Texas by the exclusion of
all New Mexico, with the grant of a pecuniary equivalent to Texas;
also to be a part of a bill including the last two measures.
6. A more effectual fugitive-slave law.
7. To prohibit the slave trade, not slavery, in the District of
Columbia.
Bills to carry out these recommendations were also reported.
A discussion ensued in both branches of Congress, which continued
for five months; and daily Clay met and presided in caucus over
what he called the Union men of the Senate, including Whigs and
Democrats.
These measures were supported by Clay, Webster, Cass, Douglas, and
Foote; opposed by Seward, Chase, Hale, Davis of Massachusetts, and
Dayton, anti-slavery men; also by Benton, an independent Democrat,
a slaveholder in Missouri and the District of Columbia,(73) and by
Jefferson Davis, and others of the Calhoun Southern type.
President Taylor opposed the Clay plan. He denominated the blending
on incongruous subjects as an "Omnibus Bill." He favored dealing
with each subject on its own merits. He regarded the Texas and
New Mexico boundary dispute as a question between the United States
and New Mexico, not between Texas and New Mexico.(74) He favored
the admission of California with her free State Constitution. Even
earlier, he announced that he would approve a bill containing the
Wilmot Proviso. He indignantly responded to Stephens' and Toombs'
demands in the interests of slavery, coupled with threatened
disunion, by giving them to understand he would, if necessary, take
the field himself to enforce the laws, and if the gentlemen were
taken in rebellion he would hang them as he had deserters and spies
in Mexico.(75)
Taylor died (July 8, 1850) pending the great discussion, chagrined
and mortified over the unsettled condition of his country. His
last words were: "_I have always done my duty; I am ready to die.
My only regret is for the friends I leave behind me_."
He was a great soldier and patriot, and his character hardly
justified the whole of the common appellation, "Rough and Ready."
He was perhaps always ready, but not rough; on the contrary, he
was a man of peace and order. On his election to the Presidency
he desired some plan to be adopted for California by which "to
substitute the rule of law and order there for the bowie knife and
revolver."(76)
In August, 1850, the great debate ceased, and voting in the Senate
commenced. The plan of the "thirteen" underwent changes, their
bills being segregated, substitutes were offered for them, and many
amendments were made to the several bills. Davis of Mississippi
insisted upon the extension of the Missouri Compromise line--36°
30´--to the Pacific Ocean. This brought out Mr. Clay's best
sentiments. He said:
"Coming as I do from a slave State, it is my solemn, deliberate,
and well matured determination that no power, no earthly power,
shall compel me to vote for the positive introduction of slavery,
either south or north of that line. Sir, while you reproach, and
justly, too, our British ancestors for the introduction of this
institution upon the continent of America, I am, for one, unwilling
that the posterity of the present inhabitants of California and
New Mexico shall reproach us for doing just what we reproach Great
Britain for doing for us."
The Wilmot Proviso made its appearance for the last time when Seward
offered it as an amendment. It failed in the Senate by a vote of
23 to 33.
Finally, when the bill for the admission of California was ready
for a vote, Turney of Tennessee moved to limit the southern boundary
of the State to 36° 30´, so as to allow slavery in all territory
south of that line. This failed, 24 to 32, the South voting almost
unitedly for the amendment.
Mr. Benton was a prominent exception. To him the friends of freedom
owed much for support, by speech and vote. While he opposed Clay's
plan, he voted with the free State party on all questions of slavery,
save on the Wilmot Proviso, which he deemed unnecessary to the
exclusion of slavery from territory where the laws of Mexico, still
in force, excluded it.
The California bill passed, August 13th, 34 to 18. Clay is not
recorded as voting. He may have been absent or paired. Webster
had become Secretary of State, and Winthrop succeeded him in the
Senate. To emphasize the opposition, ten Senators immediately had
read at the Secretary's desk a protest, with a view to its being
spread on the Journal. This was refused, after a most spirited
debate, as being against precedent.(77) The protest was a long
complaint against making the Territory of California a State without
its being first organized, territorially, and an opportunity given
to the South to make it a slave State, and for admitting it as a
free State, thus destroying the equilibrium of the States; the
protestors declaring that if such course were persisted in, it
would lead to a dissolution of the Union. A bill establishing New
Mexico with its present boundaries, also Utah, was passed in August,
leaving both to become States with or without slavery. A fugitive-
slave act was likewise passed at the same time in the Senate. The
whole of the bills covered by the compromise having in some form
passed the Senate, went to the House, where, after some animated
discussion, they all passed, in September following, and were
approved by President Fillmore.
It remains to speak briefly of the Fugitive-Slave Act. It was
odious to the North in the extreme. United States Commissioners
were provided for to act instead of state magistrates, on whom
jurisdiction was attempted to be conferred by the Act of 1793.
_Ex-parte_ testimony was made sufficient to determine the identity
of the negro claimed, and the affidavit of an agent or attorney
was made sufficient. The alleged fugitive was not permitted, under
any circumstances, to testify. He was denied the right to trial
by jury. The cases were to be heard in a summary manner. The
claimant was authorized to use all necessary force to remove the
fugitive adjudged a slave. All process of any court or judge was
forbidden to molest the claimant, his agent or attorney, in carrying
away the adjudged slave. United States marshals and their deputies
were authorized to summon bystanders as a _posse comitatus_; and
all good citizens were commanded, by the act, to aid and assist in
the prompt and efficient execution of the law; all under heavy
penalty for failing to do so. The officers were liable, in a civil
suit, for the value of the negro if he escaped. Heavy fine or
imprisonment was to be imposed for hindering or preventing the
arrest, or for rescuing or attempting to rescue, or for harboring
or concealing the fugitive, and, if any person was found guilty of
causing his escape, a further fine of $1000 by way of civil damages
to the owner. In case the commissioner adjudged the negro was the
claimant's slave, his fee was fixed at $10, and if he discharged
the negro, it was only $5. The claimant had a right, in case of
apprehended danger, to require the officer arresting the fugitive
to remove him to the State from whence he fled, with authority to
employ as many persons to aid him as he might deem necessary, the
expense to be paid out of the United States Treasury. This act
became a law September 18, 1850. The law contained so many odious
provisions against all principles of natural justice and judicial
precedents that it could not be executed in many places in the
North. The consciences of civilized men revolted against it, and
the Abolitionists did not fail to magnify its injustice; on the
other hand, the pro-slavery agitators saw in its imperfect execution
new and additional grounds for complaint against the North.
What, then, was intended to be a settlement of the slavery agitation
proved to be really a most violent reopening of it.
Webster, like Clay, did not survive to witness the next great
discussion in Congress on the slavery question, which resulted in
overturning much that was supposed to have been settled; nor did
they live to hear thundered from the supreme judicial tribunal of
the Union the appalling doctrines of the Dred Scott decision.
Webster died October 24, 1852. Benton lived to condemn the great
tribunal for this decision in most vehement terms. He died April
10, 1858. But few of the leading participants of the 1850 debates
lived to witness the final overthrow of slavery. Lewis Cass,
however, who, though a Democrat, generally followed and supported
Clay in his plan of compromise, not only lived to witness the birth
of the new doctrine of "Squatter Sovereignty" (and to support it),
but to hear that slavery was, according to our Supreme Court, almost
national; then to see disunion in the _live tree;_ then war; then
slaves proclaimed free as a war measure; then disunion overthrown
on the battle-field; then restoration of a more perfect Union,
wherein slavery and involuntary servitude was forbidden by the
Constitution.(78)
In the succeeding Presidential election (1852) the two great parties
endorsed the late action of Congress in relation to the Territories
and slavery.
The Whig platform declared the acquiescence of the party in all
its acts: "The act known as the Fugitive Slave Law included. . . .
as a settlement in principle and substance of the dangerous and
exciting questions which they embrace. . . . We will maintain them
and insist on their strict enforcement."
On this platform General Winfield Scott was nominated for the
Presidency.
The Democratic platform of the same year, having first denied that
Congress had power under the Constitution to interfere with slavery
in the States, declared also that the party would "abide by and
adhere to a faithful execution of the acts known as the Compromise
measures settled by the last Congress,--the act for reclaiming
fugitives from service or labor included."
Franklin Pierce, of New Hampshire, a subordinate officer (Brigadier-
General) under Scott in Mexico, of no special renown, but a polite
and respectable gentleman, was nominated and elected on this platform
by a decided vote; Scott carrying only Massachusetts, Vermont,
Kentucky, and Tennessee. The "Free-Soil" party nominated John P.
Hale of New Hampshire on a platform repudiating the Compromise
measures, declaring against the aggressions of the slave power and
for:
"No more slave States, no slave territory, no nationalized slavery,
and no national legislation for the extradition of slaves. That
slavery is a sin against God, and a crime against man, which no
human enactment or usage can make right; and that Christianity,
humanity, and patriotism alike demand its abolition.
"That the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 is repugnant to the Constitution,
to the principles of the common law," etc.
The Whig party, with this election, disappeared; its great leaders
were dead, and it could not vie with the Democratic party in pro-
slavery principles. There was no longer room for two such parties.
The American people were already divided and dividing on the living
issue of freedom or slavery. Slavery, like all wrong, was ever
aggressive, and demanded new constitutional expositions in its
interest by Congress and the courts, and it tolerated no more
temporizing or compromises. Its advocates tried for a time to
unite in the Democratic party.
(66) _Thirty Years' View_, vol. ii., pp. 733-6.
(67) Jackson died June 8, 1845, past seventy-eight years of age.
(68) _Thirty Years' View_, ii., p. 782.
(69) _Thirty Years' View_, vol. ii., p. 747.
(70) His remains were entombed in St. Philip's churchyard,
Charleston, S. C. In 1865, on that city's occupancy by the Union
forces, friends seized and secreted them from fancied desecration
by the conquerors.--Draper's _Civil War in Am._, vol. i., p. 565.
(71) Born April 12, 1777, died June 29, 1852.
(72) _Thirty Years' View_, vol. ii., p. 764.
(73) _Thirty Years' View_, vol. ii., p. 759.
(74) _Ibid_., p. 765.
(75) _Hist. of the U. S._ (Rhodes), vol. i., pp. 134 (190).
(76) _Hist. Pac. States_, H. H. Bancroft, vol. xviii., p. 262.
(77) _Thirty Years' View_, vol. ii., p. 770.
(78) Cass died March 17, 1866, eighty-two years of age.
XVII
NEBRASKA ACT--1854
Over the disposition of the Territory of Nebraska it remained to
have the last Congressional struggle for the extension of slavery.
This Territory in 1854 comprised what are now the States of Kansas,
Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana, and parts of
Colorado and Wyoming. It was a large part of the Louisiana Purchase,
in area 485,000 square miles, twelve times as large as Ohio, about
ten times the size of New York, 140,000 square miles larger than
the original thirteen States,(79) and more than four times the area
of Great Britain and Ireland. It was what was left of the purchase
after Louisiana, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, and Indian
Territory were carved out. It then had only about one thousand
white inhabitants.
The desire to still placate the threatening South and to win its
political favor, led some great and patriotic men of the North to
attempt measures in the interest of slavery.
On January 4, 1854, Stephen A. Douglas, Chairman of the Senate
Committee on Territories, made a report embodying constitutional
theories not hitherto promulgated, and questioning or repudiating
others long supposed to have been settled.
The report announced the discovery of a new principle of the Compromise
measures of 1850.
It declared:
"They were intended to have a far more comprehensive and enduring
effect than the mere adjustment of difficulties arising out of the
recent acquisition of Mexican territory. They were designed to
establish certain great principles, which would not only furnish
adequate remedies for existing evils, but in all time to come avoid
the perils of similar agitation by withdrawing the question of
_slavery_ from the halls of Congress and the political arena,
committing it to the arbitration of those who are immediately
interested in and alone responsible for its consequences. . . . A
question has arisen in regard to the right to hold slaves in the
Territory of Nebraska. . . . It is a disputed point whether slavery
is prohibited in the Nebraska country by _valid_ enactment. In
the opinion of eminent statesmen. . . . the eighth section of the
act preparatory to the admission of Missouri is null and void."
The eighth section prohibited slavery in the Louisiana Territory
north of 36° 30´, hence from the Nebraska Territory. The report
reiterated the absurd doctrine:
"That the Constitution. . . . secures to every citizen an inalienable
right to move into any of the Territories with his property, of
whatever kind and description, and to hold and enjoy the same under
the sanction of law."
(What law? The law of the place whence it came, or the law of the
place to which it was taken? Not even an ox or an ass can be held
as property save under the law of the place where it is; nor is
the title to the soil valid except under the law of the place where
it is located. As well as might a person claim the right to move
to a Territory and there own the land by virtue of the Constitution
and the laws of the State of his former residence as to claim under
them the right to own and sell his slave in a Territory. The
difficulty is, while the emigrant might take with him his human
chattel, he could not take with him the law permitting him to hold
it.)
The report did not, however, as presented, propose to repeal the
Missouri Compromise line that had stood thirty-four years with the
approval of the first statesmen of all parties in the Union.
It assumed simply to interpret for the dead Clay and Webster their
only four-year-old work, and ran thus:
"The Compromise Measures of 1850 affirm and rest upon the following
propositions:
"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.
"Second--That 'all cases involving the title to slaves' and 'questions
of personal freedom' are to be referred to the jurisdiction of the
local tribunals, with the right to appeal to the Supreme Court of
the United States.
"Third--That the provisions of the Constitution, in respect to
fugitives from service, are to be carried into faithful execution
in all 'the organized Territories,' the same as in the States."
The first of these propositions, in another form, announced the
new doctrine of popular sovereignty, soon thereafter popularly
called "Squatter Sovereignty," in derision of the rights thus to
be vested in the territorial _squatter_, however temporary his stay
might be. It was opposed to the principle of Congressional right
(expressly granted by the Constitution (80)) to provide rules (laws)
and regulations for United States territory until it became clothed
with statehood.
The second proposition announced nothing new, as cases involving
titles to slaves, or questions of personal freedom, must necessarily
go for final determination to the courts, with a right of appeal.
The third proposition, like the second, was a mere platitude.
The bill accompanying the report, as first presented, required that
any part of Nebraska Territory admitted as a state (as provided in
the New Mexico and Utah Acts of 1850) "shall be received into the
Union with or without slavery, as its Constitution may prescribe
at the time of admission." This, too, was not new in any sense,
as new States had ever been thus received. The anti-slavery press
and societies, and all people opposed to further slavery aggression
and extension, at once took alarm and violently assailed the new
doctrines of the report; the South, too, at first viewed them with
surprise, denominating them "a snare set for the South," yet later
regarded them as favorable to the extension of slavery. Southern
statesmen, however, determined to force Douglas to amend them so
as to accomplish the ends of the South. Accordingly, Senator Dixon
of Kentucky, on January 16th, offered an amendment to the Nebraska
Bill providing for the absolute repeal of the Missouri Compromise
line. This amendment Douglas, apparently with reluctance,(81)
accepted, after a consultation with Jefferson Davis, then Secretary
of War, and President Pierce, both of whom promised it their
support.(82)
January 23, 1854, Douglas presented a substitute for his original
bill, wherein it was provided that the restriction of the Missouri
Compromise "was superseded by the principles of the legislation of
1850, and is hereby declared inoperative."
The new bill divided the Territory in two parts; the southern,
called Kansas, lay between 37° and 40° of latitude, extending west
to the Rocky Mountains, and the northern was still called Nebraska.
As early as 1853 a movement in Missouri was started, avowedly to
make Nebraska slave Territory, and this was well known to Douglas
and the supporters of his newly announced doctrines. Kansas, lying
farthest south, was climatically better suited for slavery than
the new Nebraska. Before the bill passed, plans were made to invade
Kansas from Missouri and Arkansas by slaveholders with their slaves.
January 24, 1854, the _Appeal of the Independent Democrats in
Congress to the People of the United States_ was published.
Chase and Giddings of Ohio were its authors; some verbal additions,
however, were made to it by Sumner and Gerritt Smith.(83)
This _Appeal_ was signed by S. P. Chase, Charles Sumner, Joshua R.
Giddings, Edward Wade, Gerritt Smith, and Alexander De Witt; three
at least of whom were then, or soon became first among the great
statesmen opposed to human slavery. The _Appeal_ declared the new
Nebraska Bill would "open all the unorganized Territories of the
Union to the ingress of slavery." A plot to convert them "into a
dreary region of despotism, inhabited by masters and slaves," to
the exclusion of immigrants from the Old World and free laborers
from our own States. It reviewed the history of Congressional
legislation on slavery in the Territories, reciting, among other
things, that President Monroe approved the Missouri Compromise
after his Cabinet had given him a written opinion that the section
restricting slavery was constitutional.
John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State, John C. Calhoun, Secretary
of War, Wm. H. Crawford, Secretary of the Treasury, and Wm. Wirt,
Attorney-General--three from slave States--then constituted Monroe's
Cabinet.
The _Appeal_ warningly proceeded:
"The dearest interests of freedom and the Union are in imminent
peril. Demagogues may tell you that the Union can be maintained
only by submitting to the demands of slavery. We tell you that
the Union can only be maintained by the full recognition of the
just claims of freedom and man. When it fails to accomplish these
ends it will be worthless, and when it becomes worthless it cannot
long endure. . . . Whatever apologies may be offered for the
toleration of slavery in the States, none can be offered for its
extension into the Territories where it does not exist, and where
that extension involves the repeal of ancient law and the violation
of solemn compact.
"For ourselves, we shall resist it by speech and vote, and with
all the abilities which God has given us. Even if overcome in the
impending struggle, we shall not submit. We shall go home to our
cons
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