SLAVERY AT LAST IMPELLED INTO A DEFENSIVE AGGRESSIVE
Until the crisis of 1850, slavery had never changed from purely defensive
tactics. This year made it seem that the north had fully resolved that
slavery should never be allowed another inch of new territory; and also
was very near, and was rapidly coming nearer to, the point of practically
preventing the enforcement of the fugitive slave law. We have explained
how slave property could not live unless it found new virgin soil in the
Territories; and we have also explained what a deadly blow it would
receive, in the refusal to restore fugitives. This refusal would be really
indirect abolition. Read the masterly sketch by Calhoun, in his speech
March 4, 1850, of the conquering advance of the anti-slavery party, until
now--to use his language--"the equilibrium between the two sections ...
had been destroyed;" and he demonstrates that the actual exercise of the
entire national political power must soon be in the hands of the
free-labor section. The south instinctively felt that the time for her old
tactics was over, and that she must do more than merely fend off the blows
of abolition. And, as we will tell in the next chapter, she found her new
leader in Toombs. Nullification as advocated by Calhoun was the extreme
energy of the pure defensive of the south. His proposed dual executive
amendment was merely that nullification be made a right granted to the
federal government instead of remaining one reserved to the States.
Toombs had grown up in the school of William H. Crawford. George R.
Gilmer, a follower of Crawford, tells of the latter: "He was violently
opposed to the nullification movement, considering it but an ebullition
excited by Mr. Calhoun's overleaping, ambition."[96]
Toombs scouted nullification. Under his lead his State, in 1850, adopted
the Georgia Platform quoted above. This platform was considerate and
resolute preparation for the southern offensive.
Next the south assumes initiative. Extension of slave-territory is so
great an economical _sine qua non_ that she attacks its barriers. Using
her control of the then dominant democratic party she got the Missouri
compromise repealed. Her main purpose in this was to wrench from the
anti-slavery men the weapon of congressional restriction, then deemed by
them the most powerful of all in their armory. She also contemplated
extorting a concession of all lands in the Territories which could be
profitably cultivated by slaves from the north, alarmed into apprehending
that otherwise slavery might be carried above 36.30'.
This repeal did more than anything else--more even than "Uncle Tom's
Cabin"--to arouse the north into mortal combat with slavery. The historian
cannot understand why the south procured it, if he ignores that energy of
southern nationalization which we have done our utmost to explain. This
nationalization had got into what we may call the last rapids, and was
bound to go over the precipice into the gulf of secession.
The bootless struggle by the south against overwhelming odds of northern
settlers to make Kansas a slave State was the sequel to the repeal of the
Missouri compromise. When the South understood that Kansas was really
gone, she advanced her forlorn hope in her endeavor to secure slavery in
the union. The essence of the compromise measures of 1850 was that the
demand of congressional non-interference with slavery in the States and
Territories, made by the south, was declared adopted as future policy. As
the forlorn hope just mentioned she now made the demand that the owner's
property in his slaves, if he should carry them into a Territory, should
be protected by congress until its people had made the constitution under
which the Territory would be admitted into the union. Her adherence to
this demand split the democratic party; and the election of Lincoln
ensued. This election meant that slavery--the property supporting more
than nine-tenths of the southern people, and which was virtually their
entire economic system--was put under a ban. There was nothing for it but
depreciation in the near future; soon more and more depreciation; until
after prolonged stagnation and paralysis the value of all her property
would collapse as did that of the continental currency. That was the way
it looked to her. We believe that the facts show that her conviction was
right. She felt with her whole soul that the time had come to invoke State
sovereignty. So she seceded, with intent to save the property of her
people and maintain their domestic peace. Of course she purposed an
equitable apportionment of the public domain between herself and the north
under which she would get the small part that suited slave agriculture.
The circumstances constrained the south throughout every part and parcel
of her offensive as powerfully as exhaustion of his supplies constrains
the commander of a garrison to a sortie upon what he has reason to believe
is the weakest point of the circumvallation. She was hypnotized by the
powers. They made her believe that she was always doing the right thing
to protect slavery when they were having her to do that only which assured
its destruction. She was all the while as conscientious as the mother who,
afraid of drafts, keeps the needed fresh air from her consumptive child
and thereby kills him.
We recognize the resistless play of the cosmic forces upon the sun, moon,
and stars; upon our earth; in the yearly round of the seasons; in the
ocean tides; in storms and heated terms; in vegetation; and in things
innumerable taken note of by the senses. But this is not all of their
empire. They sway individuals, communities, peoples, nations, making the
latter even believe that they are having their own way when in fact they
are most servilely doing the will of the powers.