concurrence of sentiment running through the whole community, and
especially entertained by the eminent men of all parts of the country.
But soon a change began, at the North and the South, and a difference
of opinion showed itself; the North growing much more warm and strong
against slavery, and the South growing much more warm and strong in its
support. Sir, there is no generation of mankind whose opinions are not
subject to be influenced by what appear to them to be their present
emergent and exigent interests. I impute to the South no particularly
selfish view in the change which has come over her. I impute to her
certainly no dishonest view. All that has happened has been natural.
It has followed those causes which always influence the human mind and
operate upon it. What, then, have been the causes which have created so
new a feeling in favor of slavery in the South, which have changed the
whole nomenclature of the South on that subject, so that, from being
thought and described in the terms I have mentioned and will not repeat,
it has now become an institution, a cherished institution, in that
quarter; no evil, no scourge, but a great religious, social, and moral
blessing, as I think I have heard it latterly spoken of? I suppose this,
sir, is owing to the rapid growth and sudden extension of the cotton
plantations of the South. So far as any motive consistent with honor,
justice, and general judgment could act, it was the cotton interest
that gave a new desire to promote slavery, to spread it, and to use its
labor.
I again say that this change was produced by causes which must always
produce like effects. The whole interest of the South became connected,
more or less, with the extension of slavery. If we look back to the
history of the commerce of this country in the early years of this
government, what were our exports? Cotton was hardly, or but to a very
limited extent, known. In 1791 the first parcel of cotton of the growth
of the United States was exported, and amounted only to 19,200 pounds.
It has gone on increasing rapidly, until the whole crop may now,
perhaps, in a season of great product and high prices, amount to a
hundred millions of dollars. In the years I have mentioned, there was
more of wax, more of indigo, more of rice, more of almost every article
of export from the South, than of cotton. When Mr. Jay negotiated the
treaty of 1794 with England, it is evident from the Twelfth Article of
the Treaty, which was suspended by the Senate, that he did not know that
cotton was exported at all from the United States.
* * * * *
Sir, there is not so remarkable a chapter in our history of political
events, political parties, and political men as is afforded by this
admission of a new slave-holding territory, so vast that a bird cannot
fly over it in a week. New England, as I have said, with some of her
own votes, supported this measure. Three-fourths of the votes of
liberty-loving Connecticut were given for it in the other house, and one
half here. There was one vote for it from Maine but, I am happy to say,
not the vote of the honorable member who addressed the Senate the day
before yesterday, and who was then a Representative from Maine in the
House of Representatives; but there was one vote from Maine, ay, and
there was one vote for it from Massachusetts, given by a gentleman then
representing, and now living in, the district in which the prevalence of
Free Soil sentiment for a couple of years or so has defeated the choice
of any member to represent it in Congress. Sir, that body of Northern
and Eastern men who gave those votes at that time are now seen taking
upon themselves, in the nomenclature of politics, the appellation of
the Northern Democracy. They undertook to wield the destinies of this
empire, if I may give that name to a Republic, and their policy was,
and they persisted in it, to bring into this country and under this
government all the territory they could. They did it, in the case of
Texas, under pledges, absolute pledges, to the slave interest, and they
afterwards lent their aid in bringing in these new conquests, to take
their chance for slavery or freedom. My honorable friend from Georgia,
in March, 1847, moved the Senate to declare that the war ought not to
be prosecuted for the conquest of territory, or for the dismemberment of
Mexico. The whole of the Northern Democracy voted against it. He did not
get a vote from them. It suited the patriotic and elevated sentiments of
the Northern Democracy to bring in a world from among the mountains and
valleys of California and New Mexico, or any other part of Mexico, and
then quarrel about it; to bring it in, and then endeavor to put upon
it the saving grace of the Wilmot Proviso. There were two eminent and
highly respectable gentlemen from the North and East, then leading
gentlemen in the Senate (I refer, and I do so with entire respect, for
I entertain for both of those gentlemen, in general, high regard, to Mr.
Dix of New York and Mr. Niles of Connecticut), who both voted for the
admission of Texas. They would not have that vote any other way than as
it stood; and they would have it as it did stand. I speak of the
vote upon the annexation of Texas. Those two gentlemen would have the
resolution of annexation just as it is, without amendment; and they
voted for it just as it is, and their eyes were all open to its true
character. The honorable member from South Carolina who addressed us
the other day was then Secretary of State. His correspondence with Mr.
Murphy, the Charge d'Affaires of the United States in Texas, had been
published. That correspondence was all before those gentlemen, and the
Secretary had the boldness and candor to avow in that correspondence,
that the great object sought by the annexation of Texas was to
strengthen the slave interest of the South. Why, sir, he said so in so
many words.
Mr. Calhoun. Will the honorable Senator permit me to interrupt him for a
moment? Mr. Webster. Certainly.
Mr. Calhoun. I am very reluctant to interrupt the honorable gentleman;
but, upon a point of so much importance, I deem it right to put myself
_rectus in curia_. I did not put it upon the ground assumed by the
Senator. I put it upon this ground; that Great Britain had announced to
this country, in so many words, that her object was to abolish slavery
in Texas, and, through Texas, to accomplish the abolition of slavery
in the United States and the world. The ground I put it on was, that it
would make an exposed frontier, and, if Great Britain succeeded in
her object, it would be impossible that that frontier could be secured
against the aggressions of the Abolitionists; and that this Government
was bound, under the guaranties of the Constitution, to protect us
against such a state of things.
Mr. Webster. That comes, I suppose, Sir, to exactly the same thing. It
was, that Texas must be obtained for the security of the slave interest
of the South.
Mr. Calhoun. Another view is very distinctly given.
Mr. Webster. That was the object set forth in the correspondence of a
worthy gentleman not now living, who preceded the honorable member from
South Carolina in the Department of State. There repose on the files
of the Department, as I have occasion to know, strong letters from Mr.
Upshur to the United States Minister in England, and I believe there are
some to the same Minister from the honorable Senator himself, asserting
to this effect the sentiments of this government; namely, that Great
Britain was expected not to interfere to take Texas out of the hands
of its then existing government and make it a free country. But my
argument, my suggestion, is this: that those gentlemen who composed the
Northern Democracy when Texas was brought into the Union saw clearly
that it was brought in as a slave country, and brought in for the
purpose of being maintained as slave territory, to the Greek Kalends.
I rather think the honorable gentleman who was then Secretary of State
might, in some of his correspondence with Mr. Murphy, have suggested
that it was not expedient to say too much about this object, lest it
should create some alarm. At any rate, Mr. Murphy wrote to him that
England was anxious to get rid of the constitution of Texas, because it
was a constitution establishing slavery; and that what the United
States had to do was to aid the people of Texas in upholding their
constitution; but that nothing should be said which should offend the
fanatical men of the North. But, Sir, the honorable member did avow this
object himself, openly, boldly, and manfully; he did not disguise his
conduct or his motives.
Mr. Calhoun. Never, never.
Mr. Webster. What he means he is very apt to say.
Mr. Calhoun. Always, always.
Mr. Webster. And I honor him for it.
This admission of Texas was in 1845. Then in 1847, _flagrante bello_
between the United States and Mexico, the proposition I have mentioned
was brought forward by my friend from Georgia, and the Northern
Democracy voted steadily against it. Their remedy was to apply to
the acquisitions, after they should come in, the Wilmot Proviso. What
follows? These two gentlemen, worthy and honorable and influential men
(and if they had not been they could not have carried the measure),
these two gentlemen, members of this body, brought in Texas, and by
their votes they also pre-vented the passage of the resolution of the
honorable member from Georgia, and then they went home and took the lead
in the Free Soil party. And there they stand, Sir! They leave us here,
bound in honor and conscience by the resolutions of annexation; they
leave us here, to take the odium of fulfilling the obligations in
favor of slavery which they voted us into, or else the greater odium of
violating those obligations, while they are at home making capital and
rousing speeches for free soil and no slavery. And therefore I say, Sir,
that there is not a chapter in our history, respecting public measures
and public men, more full of what would create surprise, and more full
of what does create, in my mind, extreme mortification, than that of the
conduct of the Northern Democracy on this subject.
Mr. President, sometimes when a man is found in a new relation to things
around him and to other men, he says the world has changed, and that he
is not changed. I believe, sir, that our self-respect leads us often
to make this declaration in regard to ourselves when it is not exactly
true. An individual is more apt to change, perhaps, than all the
world around him. But under the present circumstances, and under the
responsibility which I know I incur by what I am now stating here, I
feel at liberty to recur to the various expressions and statements,
made at various times, of my own opinions and resolutions respecting the
admission of Texas, and all that has followed.
* * * On other occasions, in debate here, I have expressed my
determination to vote for no acquisition, or cession, or annexation,
North or South, East or West. My opinion has been, that we have
territory enough, and that we should follow the Spartan maxim: "Improve,
adorn what you have,"--seek no further. I think that it was in some
observations that I made on the three million loan bill that I avowed
this sentiment. In short, sir, it has been avowed quite as often in as
many places, and before as many assemblies, as any humble opinions of
mine ought to be avowed.
But now that, under certain conditions, Texas is in the Union, with all
her territory, as a slave State, with a solemn pledge also that, if she
shall be divided into many States, those States may come in as slave
States south of 36° 30', how are we to deal with this subject? I know no
way of honest legislation, when the proper time comes for the enactment,
but to carry into effect all that we have stipulated to do. * * *
That is the meaning of the contract which our friends, the northern
Democracy, have left us to fulfil; and I, for one, mean to fulfil it,
because I will not violate the faith of the Government. What I mean
to say is, that the time for the admission of new States formed out of
Texas, the number of such States, their boundaries, the requisite amount
of population, and all other things connected with the admission, are
in the free discretion of Congress, except this: to wit, that when new
States formed out of Texas are to be admitted, they have a right, by
legal stipulation and contract, to come in as slave States.
Now, as to California and New Mexico, I hold slavery to be excluded
from these territories by a law even superior to that which admits and
sanctions it in Texas. I mean the law of nature, of physical geography,
the law of the formation of the earth. That law settles forever, with a
strength beyond all terms of human enactment, that slavery cannot exist
in California or New Mexico. Understand me, sir; I mean slavery as we
regard it; the slavery of the colored race as it exists in the southern
States. I shall not discuss the point, but leave it to the learned
gentlemen who have undertaken to discuss it; but I suppose there is
no slavery of that description in California now. I understand that
peonism, a sort of penal servitude, exists there, or rather a sort of
voluntary sale of a man and his offspring for debt, an arrangement of a
peculiar nature known to the law of Mexico. But what I mean to say
is, that it is impossible that African slavery, as we see it among us,
should find its way, or be introduced, into California and New Mexico,
as any other natural impossibility. California and New Mexico are
Asiatic in their formation and scenery. They are composed of vast ridges
of mountains of great height, with broken ridges and deep valleys.
The sides of these mountains are entirely barren; their tops capped
by perennial snow. There may be in California, now made free by its
constitution, and no doubt there are, some tracts of valuable land.
But it is not so in New Mexico. Pray, what is the evidence which every
gentleman must have obtained on this subject, from information sought by
himself or communicated by others? I have inquired and read all I could
find, in order to acquire information on this important subject. What is
there in New Mexico that could, by any possibility, induce anybody to go
there with slaves! There are some narrow strips of tillable land on the
borders of the rivers; but the rivers themselves dry up before midsummer
is gone. All that the people can do in that region is to raise some
little articles, some little wheat for their tortillas, and that by
irrigation. And who expects to see a hundred black men cultivating
tobacco, corn, cotton, rice, or any thing else, on lands in New Mexico,
made fertile by irrigation?
I look upon it, therefore, as a fixed fact, to use the current
expression of the day, that both California and New Mexico are destined
to be free, so far as they are settled at all, which I believe, in
regard to New Mexico, will be but partially, for a great length of time;
free by the arrangement of things ordained by the Power above us. I have
therefore to say, in this respect also, that this country is fixed
for freedom, to as many persons as shall ever live in it, by a less
repealable law than that which attaches to the right of holding slaves
in Texas; and I will say further, that, if a resolution or a bill were
now before us, to provide a territorial government for New Mexico,
I would not vote to put any prohibition into it whatever. Such a
prohibition would be idle, as it respects any effect it would have
upon the territory; and I would not take pains uselessly to reaffirm an
ordinance of nature, nor to re-enact the will of God. I would put in no
Wilmot proviso for the mere purpose of a taunt or a reproach. I would
put into it no evidence of the votes of superior power, exercised for no
purpose but to wound the pride, whether a just and a rational pride, or
an irrational pride, of the citizens of the southern States. I have no
such object, no such purpose. They would think it a taunt, an indignity;
they would think it to be an act taking away from them what they regard
as a proper equality of privilege. Whether they expect to realize any
benefit from it or not, they would think it at least a plain theoretic
wrong; that something more or less derogatory to their character and
their rights had taken place. I propose to inflict no such wound upon
anybody, unless something essentially important to the country, and
efficient to the preservation of liberty and freedom, is to be effected.
I repeat, therefore, sir, and, as I do not propose to address the Senate
often on this subject, I repeat it because I wish it to be distinctly
understood, that, for the reasons stated, if a proposition were now here
to establish a government for New Mexico, and it was moved to insert a
provision for a prohibition of slavery, I would not vote for it. * * *
Sir, we hear occasionally of the annexation of Canada; and if there be
any man, any of the northern Democracy, or any of the Free Soil party,
who supposes it necessary to insert a Wilmot Proviso in a territorial
government for New Mexico, that man would, of course, be of opinion that
it is necessary to protect the ever-lasting snows of Canada from the
foot of slavery by the same overspreading wing of an act of Congress.
Sir, wherever there is a substantive good to be done, wherever there is
a foot of land to be prevented from becoming slave territory, I am ready
to assert the principle of the exclusion of slavery. I am pledged to
it from the year 1837; I have been pledged to it again and again; and I
will perform these pledges; but I will not do a thing unnecessarily
that wounds the feelings of others, or that does discredit to my own
understanding. * * *
Mr. President, in the excited times in which we live, there is found
to exist a state of crimination and recrimination between the North
and South. There are lists of grievances produced by each; and those
grievances, real or supposed, alienate the minds of one portion of the
country from the other, exasperate the feelings, and subdue the sense of
fraternal affection, patriotic love, and mutual regard. I shall bestow a
little attention, sir, upon these various grievances existing on the one
side and on the other. I begin with complaints of the South. I will not
answer, further than I have, the general statements of the honorable
Senator from South Carolina, that the North has prospered at the
expense of the South in consequence of the manner of administering this
Government, in the collection of its revenues, and so forth. These are
disputed topics, and I have no inclination to enter into them. But I
will allude to other complaints of the South, and especially to one
which has in my opinion, just foundation; and that is, that there has
been found at the North, among individuals and among legislators, a
disinclination to perform fully their constitutional duties in regard
to the return of persons bound to service who have escaped into the free
States. In that respect, the South, in my judgment, is right, and the
North is wrong. Every member of every Northern legislature is bound
by oath, like every other officer in the country, to support the
Constitution of the United States; and the article of the Constitution
which says to these States that they shall deliver up fugitives from
service, is as binding in honor and conscience as any other article.
No man fulfils his duty in any legislature who sets himself to find
excuses, evasions, escapes from this constitutional obligation. I
have always thought that the Constitution addressed itself to the
legislatures of the States or to the States themselves. It says that
those persons escaping to other States "shall be delivered up," and I
confess I have always been of the opinion that it was an injunction
upon the States themselves. When it is said that a person escaping into
another State, and coming therefore within the jurisdiction of that
State, shall be delivered up, it seems to me the import of the clause
is, that the State itself, in obedience to the Constitution, shall cause
him to be delivered up. That is my judgment. I have always entertained
that opinion, and I entertain it now. But when the subject, some years
ago, was before the Supreme Court of the United States, the majority
of the judges held that the power to cause fugitives from service to
be delivered up was a power to be exercised under the authority of this
Government. I do not know, on the whole, that it may not have been
a fortunate decision. My habit is to respect the result of judicial
deliberations and the solemnity of judicial decisions. As it now stands,
the business of seeing that these fugitives are delivered up resides in
the power of Congress and the national judicature, and my friend at the
head of the Judiciary Committee has a bill on the subject now before the
Senate, which, with some amendments to it, I propose to support, with
all its provisions, to the fullest extent. And I desire to call the
attention of all sober-minded men at the North, of all conscientious
men, of all men who are not carried away by some fanatical idea or some
false impression, to their constitutional obligations. I put it to all
the sober and sound minds at the North as a question of morals and
a question of conscience. What right have they, in their legislative
capacity, or any other capacity, to endeavor to get round this
Constitution, or to embarrass the free exercise of the rights secured by
the Constitution, to the person whose slaves escape from them? None at
all; none at all. Neither in the forum of conscience, nor before the
face of the Constitution, are they, in my opinion, justified in such
an attempt. Of course it is a matter for their consideration. They
probably, in the excitement of the times, have not stopped to consider
this. They have followed what seemed to be the current of thought and of
motives, as the occasion arose, and they have neglected to investigate
fully the real question, and to consider their constitutional
obligations; which, I am sure, if they did consider, they would fulfil
with alacrity. I repeat, therefore, sir, that here is a well-founded
ground of complaint against the North, which ought to be removed, which
is now in the power of the different departments of this government to
remove; which calls for the enactment of proper laws authorizing the
judicature of this Government, in the several States, to do all that is
necessary for the recapture of fugitive slaves and for their restoration
to those who claim them. Wherever I go, and whenever I speak on the
subject, and when I speak here I desire to speak to the whole North, I
say that the South has been injured in this respect, and has a right
to complain; and the North has been too careless of what I think the
Constitution peremptorily and emphatically enjoins upon her as a duty.
Complaint has been made against certain resolutions that emanate from
legislatures at the North, and are sent here to us, not only on the
subject of slavery in this District, but sometimes recommending Congress
to consider the means of abolishing slavery in the States. I should be
sorry to be called upon to present any resolutions here which could not
be referable to any committee or any power in Congress; and therefore I
should be unwilling to receive from the legislature of Massachusetts any
instructions to present resolutions expressive of any opinion whatever
on the subject of slavery, as it exists at the present moment in the
States, for two reasons: because I do not consider that I, as her
representative here, have any thing to do with it. It has become, in my
opinion, quite too common; and if the legislatures of the States do not
like that opinion, they have a great deal more power to put it down than
I have to uphold it; it has become, in my opinion, quite too common a
practice for the State legislatures to present resolutions here on all
subjects and to instruct us on all subjects. There is no public man that
requires instruction more than I do, or who requires information more
than I do, or desires it more heartily; but I do not like to have it in
too imperative a shape. * * *