Mr. President, and Gentlemen of the Convention: If we could first know
where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to
do, and how to do it. We are now far into the fifth year since a
policy was initiated with the avowed object and confident promise of
putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that
policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly
augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease, until a crisis shall have
been reached and passed. "A house divided against itself cannot
stand." I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave
and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved--I do not
expect the house to fall--but I do expect it will cease to be divided.
It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of
slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the
public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of
ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it
shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new,--North
as well as South.
Have we no tendency to the latter condition?
Let any one who doubts carefully contemplate that now almost complete
legal combination---piece of machinery, so to speak--compounded of the
Nebraska doctrine and the Dred Scott decision. Let him consider not
only what work the machinery is adapted to do, and how well adapted;
but also let him study the history of its construction, and trace, if
he can, or rather fail, if he can, to trace the evidences of design and
concert of action among its chief architects, from the beginning.
The new year of 1854 found slavery excluded from more than half the
States by State constitutions, and from most of the national territory
by Congressional prohibition. Four days later commenced the struggle
which ended in repealing that Congressional prohibition. This opened
all the national territory to slavery, and was the first point gained.
But, so far, Congress only had acted, and an indorsement by the people,
real or apparent, was indispensable, to save the point already gained,
and give chance for more.
This necessity had not been overlooked, but had been provided for, as
well as might be, in the notable argument of "squatter sovereignty,"
otherwise called "sacred right of self-government," which latter
phrase, though expressive of the only rightful basis of any government,
was so perverted in this attempted use of it as to amount to just this:
That if any _one_ man choose to enslave _another_, no _third_ man shall
be allowed to object. That argument was incorporated into the Nebraska
bill itself, in the language which follows: "It being the true intent
and meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into any Territory or
State, nor to exclude it therefrom; but to leave the people thereof
perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in
their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States."
Then opened the roar of loose declamation in favor of "Squatter
Sovereignty" and "sacred right of self-government." "But," said
opposition members, "let us amend the bill so as to expressly declare
that the people of the Territory may exclude slavery." "Not we," said
the friends of the measure; and down they voted the amendment.
While the Nebraska bill was passing through Congress, a _law case_
involving the question of a negro's freedom, by reason of his owner
having voluntarily taken him first into a free State and then into a
Territory covered by the Congressional prohibition, and held him as a
slave for a long time in each, was passing through the United States
Circuit Court for the District of Missouri; and both Nebraska bill and
lawsuit were brought to a decision in the same month of May, 1854. The
negro's name was "Dred Scott," which name now designates the decision
finally made in the case. Before the then next presidential election,
the law case came to and was argued in the Supreme Court of the United
States; but the decision of it was deferred until after the election.
Still, before the election, Senator Trumbull, on the floor of the
Senate, requested the leading advocate of the Nebraska bill to state
_his opinion_ whether the people of a Territory can constitutionally
exclude slavery from their limits; and the latter answers: "That is a
question for the Supreme Court."
The election came. Mr. Buchanan was elected, and the indorsement, such
as it was, secured. That was the second point gained. The
indorsement, however, fell short of a clear popular majority by nearly
four hundred thousand votes, and so, perhaps, was not overwhelmingly
reliable and satisfactory. The out-going President, in his last annual
message, as impressively as possible echoed back upon the people the
weight and authority of the indorsement. The Supreme Court met again;
did not announce their decision, but ordered a reargument. The
presidential inauguration came, and still no decision of the court; but
the incoming President in his inaugural address fervently exhorted the
people to abide by the forthcoming decision, whatever it might be.
Then, in a few days, came the decision.
The reputed author of the Nebraska bill finds an early occasion to make
a speech at this capital indorseing the Dred Scott decision, and
vehemently denouncing all opposition to it. The new President, too,
seizes the early occasion of the Silliman letter to indorse and
strongly construe that decision, and to express his astonishment that
any different view had ever been entertained!
At length a squabble springs up between the President and the author of
the Nebraska bill, on the mere question of _fact_, whether the
Lecompton Constitution was or was not, in any just sense, made by the
people of Kansas; and in that quarrel the latter declares that all he
wants is a fair vote for the people, and that he cares not whether
slavery be voted _down_ or voted _up_. I do not understand his
declaration that he cares not whether slavery be voted down or voted up
to be intended by him other than as an apt definition of the policy he
would impress upon the public mind--the principle for which he declares
he has suffered so much, and is ready to suffer to the end. And well
may he cling to that principle. If he has any parental feeling, well
may he cling to it. That principle is the only shred left of his
original Nebraska doctrine. Under the Dred Scott decision "squatter
sovereignty" squatted out of existence, tumbled down like temporary
scaffolding--like the mould at the foundry served through one blast and
fell back into loose sand,--helped to carry an election, and then was
kicked to the winds. His late joint struggle with the Republicans
against the Lecompton Constitution involves nothing of the original
Nebraska doctrine. That struggle was made on a point--the right of a
people to make their own constitution--upon which he and the
Republicans have never differed.
The several points of the Dred Scott decision, in connection with
Senator Douglas's "care not" policy, constitute the piece of machinery
in its present state of advancement. This was the third point gained.
The working points of that machinery are:
(1) That no negro slave, imported as such from Africa, and no
descendant of such slave, can ever be a citizen of any State, in the
sense of that term as used in the Constitution of the United States.
This point is made in order to deprive the negro, in every possible
event, of the benefit of that provision of the United States
Constitution which declares that "the citizens of each State shall be
entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the
several States."
(2) That, "subject to the Constitution of the United States," neither
Congress nor a Territorial Legislature can exclude slavery from any
United States Territory. This point is made in order that individual
men may fill up the Territories with slaves, without danger of losing
them as property, and thus to enhance the chances of permanency to the
institution through all the future.
(3) That whether the holding a negro in actual slavery in a free State
makes him free as against the holder, the United States courts will not
decide, but will leave to be decided by the courts of any slave State
the negro may be forced into by the master. This point is made, not to
be pressed immediately; but, if acquiesced in for a while, and
apparently indorsed by the people at an election, then to sustain the
logical conclusion that what Dred Scott's master might lawfully do with
Dred Scott, in the free State of Illinois, every other master may
lawfully do with any other one, or one thousand slaves, in Illinois, or
in any other free State.
Auxiliary to all this, and working hand in hand with it, the Nebraska
doctrine, or what is left of it, is to educate and mould public
opinion, at least Northern public opinion, not to care whether slavery
is voted down or voted up. This shows exactly where we now are; and
partially, also, whither we are tending.
It will throw additional light on the latter, to go back and run the
mind over the string of historical facts already stated. Several
things will now appear less dark and mysterious than they did when they
were transpiring. The people were to be left "perfectly free,"
"subject only to the Constitution." What the Constitution had to do
with it outsiders could not then see. Plainly enough now, it was an
exactly fitted niche for the Dred Scott decision to afterward come in,
and declare the perfect freedom of the people to be just no freedom at
all. Why was the amendment, expressly declaring the right of the
people, voted down? Plainly enough now, the adoption of it would have
spoiled the niche for the Dred Scott decision. Why was the court
decision held up? Why even a Senator's individual opinion withheld
till after the presidential election? Plainly enough now, the speaking
out then would have damaged the perfectly free argument upon which the
election was to be carried. Why the outgoing President's felicitation
on the indorsement? Why the delay of a reargument? Why the incoming
President's advance exhortation in favor of the decision? These things
look like the cautious patting and petting of a spirited horse
preparatory to mounting him, when it is dreaded that he may give the
rider a fall. And why the hasty after-indorsement of the decision by
the President and others?
We cannot absolutely know that all these exact adaptations are the
result of preconcert. But when we see a lot of framed timbers,
different portions of which we know have been gotten out at different
times and places and by different workmen,--Stephen, Franklin, Roger,
and James, for instance--and we see these timbers joined together, and
see they exactly make the frame of a house or a mill, all the tenons
and mortices exactly fitting, and all the lengths and proportions of
the different pieces exactly adapted to their respective places, and
not a piece too many or too few, not omitting even scaffolding--or, if
a single piece be lacking, we see the place in the frame exactly fitted
and prepared yet to bring such piece in--in such a case we find it
impossible not to believe that Stephen and Franklin and Roger and James
all understood one another from the beginning, and all worked upon a
common plan or draft drawn up before the first blow was struck.
It should not be overlooked that, by the Nebraska bill, the people of a
_State_ as well as Territory were to be left "perfectly free," "subject
only to the Constitution." Why mention a State? They were legislating
for Territories, and not for or about States. Certainly the people of
a State are and ought to be subject to the Constitution of the United
States; but why is mention of this lugged into this merely Territorial
law? Why are the people of a Territory and the people of a State
therein lumped together, and their relation to the Constitution therein
treated as being precisely the same? While the opinion of the court,
by Chief Justice Taney, in the Dred Scott case, and the separate
opinions of all the concurring judges, expressly declare that the
Constitution of the United States neither permits Congress nor a
Territorial Legislature to exclude slavery from any United States
Territory, they all omit to declare whether or not the same
Constitution permits a State, or the people of a State, to exclude it.
Possibly, this is a mere omission; but who can be quite sure, if McLean
or Curtis had sought to get into the opinion a declaration of unlimited
power in the people of a State to exclude slavery from their limits,
just as Chase and Mace sought to get such declaration, in behalf of the
people of a Territory, into the Nebraska bill--I ask, who can be quite
sure that it would not have been voted down in the one case as it had
been in the other? The nearest approach to the point of declaring the
power of a State over slavery is made by Judge Nelson. He approaches
it more than once, using the precise idea, and almost the language too,
of the Nebraska act. On one occasion his exact language is: "except in
cases where the power is restrained by the Constitution of the United
States, the law of the State is supreme over the subject of slavery
within its jurisdiction." In what cases the power of the States is so
restrained by the United States Constitution is left an open question,
precisely as the same question as to the restraint on the power of the
Territories was left open in the Nebraska act. Put this and that
together, and we have another nice little niche, which we may, ere
long, see filled with another Supreme Court decision declaring that the
Constitution of the United States does not permit a _State_ to exclude
slavery from its limits. And this may especially be expected if the
doctrine of "care not whether slavery be voted down or voted up" shall
gain upon the public mind sufficiently to give promise that such a
decision can be maintained when made.
Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks of being alike lawful in
all the States. Welcome, or unwelcome, such decision is probably
coming, and will soon be upon us, unless the power of the present
political dynasty shall be met and overthrown. We shall lie down
pleasantly dreaming that the people of Missouri are on the verge of
making their State free, and we shall awake to the reality instead that
the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave State. To meet and
overthrow the power of that dynasty is the work now before all those
who would prevent that consummation. That is what we have to do. How
can we best do it?
There are those who denounce us openly to their own friends, and yet
whisper us softly that Senator Douglas is the aptest instrument there
is with which to effect that object. They wish us to _infer_ all from
the fact that he now has a little quarrel with the present head of the
dynasty; and that he has regularly voted with us on a single point,
upon which he and we have never differed. They remind us that he is a
great man, and that the largest of us are very small ones. Let this be
granted. But "a living dog is better than a dead lion." Judge
Douglas, if not a dead lion for this work, is at least a caged and
toothless one. How can he oppose the advances of slavery? He don't
care anything about it. His avowed mission is impressing the "public
heart" _to care nothing about it_. A leading Douglas Democratic
newspaper thinks Douglas's superior talent will be needed to resist the
revival of the African slave-trade. Does Douglas believe an effort to
revive that trade is approaching? He has not said so. Does he really
think so? But if it is, how can he resist it? For years he has
labored to prove it a sacred right of white men to take negro slaves
into the new Territories. Can he possibly show that it is less a
sacred right to buy them where they can be bought cheapest? And
unquestionably they can be bought cheaper in Africa than in Virginia.
He has done all in his power to reduce the whole question of slavery to
one of a mere right of property; and, as such, how can he oppose the
foreign slave-trade--how can he refuse that trade in that "property"
shall be "perfectly free"--unless he does it as a protection to the
home production? And as the home producers will probably not ask the
protection, he will be wholly without a ground of opposition.
Senator Douglas holds, we know, that a man may rightfully be wiser
to-day than he was yesterday--that he may rightfully change when he
finds himself wrong. But can we, for that reason, run ahead, and infer
that he will make any particular change, of which he himself has given
no intimation? Can we safely base our action upon any such vague
inference? Now, as ever, I wish not to misrepresent Judge Douglas's
position, question his motives, or do aught that can be personally
offensive to him. Whenever, if ever, he and we can come together on
principle so that our great cause may have assistance from his great
ability, I hope to have interposed no adventitious obstacle. But
clearly he is not now with us--he does not pretend to be--he does not
promise ever to be.
Our cause, then, must be intrusted to, and conducted by, its own
undoubted friends--those whose hands are free, whose hearts are in the
work, who do care for the result. Two years ago the Republicans of the
nation mustered over thirteen hundred thousand strong. We did this
under the single impulse of resistance to a common danger, with every
external circumstance against us. Of strange, discordant, and even
hostile elements, we gathered from the four winds, and formed and
fought the battle through, under the constant hot fire of a
disciplined, proud, and pampered enemy. Did we brave all then to
falter now?--now, when that same enemy is wavering, dissevered, and
belligerent? The result is not doubtful. We shall not fail--if we
stand firm, we _shall not fail_. Wise counsels may accelerate or
mistakes delay it, but, sooner or later, the victory is sure to come.