speak, but in regard to which I have very clear notions and opinions. I
do not think them useful. I think their operations for the last twenty
years have produced nothing good or valuable. At the same time, I
believe thousands of their members to be honest and good men, perfectly
well-meaning men. They have excited feelings; they think they must do
something for the cause of liberty; and, in their sphere of action,
they do not see what else they can do than to contribute to an abolition
press, or an abolition society, or to pay an abolition lecturer. I do
not mean to impute gross motives even to the leaders of these societies,
but I am not blind to the consequences of their proceedings. I cannot
but see what mischief their interference with the South has produced.
And is it not plain to every man? Let any gentleman who entertains
doubts on this point, recur to the debates in the Virginia House of
Delegates in 1832, and he will see with what freedom a proposition made
by Mr. Jefferson Randolph, for the gradual abolition of slavery was
discussed in that body. Every one spoke of slavery as he thought; very
ignominous and disparaging names and epithets were applied to it. The
debates in the House of Delegates on that occasion, I believe were all
published. They were read by every colored man who could read, and to
those who could not read, those debates were read by others. At that
time Virginia was not unwilling or afraid to discuss this question, and
to let that part of her population know as much of the discussion as
they could learn. That was in 1832. As has been said by the honorable
member from South Carolina, these abolition societies commenced their
course of action in 1835. It is said, I do not know how true it may be,
that they sent incendiary publications into the slave States; at any
rate, they attempted to arouse, and did arouse, a very strong feeling;
in other words, they created great agitation in the North against
Southern slavery. Well, what was the result? The bonds of the slaves
were bound more firmly than before, their rivets were more strongly
fastened. Public opinion, which in Virginia had begun to be exhibited
against slavery, and was opening out for the discussion of the question,
drew back and shut itself up in its castle. I wish to know whether
anybody in Virginia can now talk openly, as Mr. Randolph, Governor
McDowel, and others talked in 1832, and sent their remarks to the press?
We all know the fact, and we all know the cause; and every thing that
these agitating people have done has been, not to enlarge, but to
restrain, not to set free, but to bind faster, the slave population of
the South. * * *
There are also complaints of the North against the South. I need not go
over them particularly. The first and gravest is, that the North adopted
the Constitution, recognizing the existence of slavery in the States,
and recognizing the right, to a certain extent, of the representation
of slaves in Congress, under a state of sentiment and expectation
which does not now exist; and that by events, by circumstances, by
the eagerness of the South to acquire territory and extend her slave
population, the North finds itself, in regard to the relative influence
of the South and the North, of the free States and the slave States,
where it never did expect to find itself when they agreed to the compact
of the Constitution. They complain, therefore, that, instead of slavery
being regarded as an evil, as it was then, an evil which all hoped
would be extinguished gradually, it is now regarded by the South as an
institution to be cherished, and preserved, and extended; an institution
which the South has already extended to the utmost of her power by the
acquisition of new territory.
Well, then, passing from that, everybody in the North reads; and
everybody reads whatsoever the newspapers contain; and the news-papers,
some of them, especially those presses to which I have alluded, are
careful to spread about among the people every reproachful sentiment
uttered by any Southern man bearing at all against the North; every
thing that is calculated to exasperate and to alienate; and there are
many such things, as everybody will admit, from the South, or from
portions of it, which are disseminated among the reading people; and
they do exasperate, and alienate, and produce a most mischievous effect
upon the public mind at the North. Sir, I would not notice things of
this sort appearing in obscure quarters; but one thing has occurred
in this debate which struck me very forcibly. An honorable member from
Louisiana addressed us the other day on this subject. I suppose there is
not a more amiable and worthy gentleman in this chamber, nor a gentleman
who would be more slow to give offence to any body, and he did not mean
in his remarks to give offence. But what did he say? Why, sir, he took
pains to run a contrast between the slaves of the South and the laboring
people of the North, giving the preference, in all points of condition,
and comfort, and happiness to the slaves of the South. The honorable
member, doubtless, did not suppose that he gave any offence, or did any
injustice. He was merely expressing his opinion. But does he know how
remarks of that sort will be received by the laboring people of the
North? Why, who are the laboring people of the North? They are the
whole North. They are the people who till their own farms with their own
hands; freeholders, educated men, independent men. Let me say, sir, that
five sixths of the whole property of the North is in the hands of the
laborers of the North; they cultivate their farms, they educate
their children, they provide the means of independence. If they are not
freeholders, they earn wages; these wages accumulate, are turned into
capital, into new freeholds, and small capitalists are created. Such
is the case, and such the course of things, among the industrious and
frugal. And what can these people think when so respectable and worthy
a gentleman as the member from Louisiana undertakes to prove that the
absolute ignorance and the abject slavery of the South are more in
conformity with the high purposes and destiny of immortal, rational,
human beings, than the educated, the independent free labor of the
North?
There is a more tangible and irritating cause of grievance at the
North. Free blacks are constantly employed in the vessels of the North,
generally as cooks or stewards. When the vessel arrives at a southern
port, these free colored men are taken on shore, by the police or
municipal authority, imprisoned, and kept in prison till the vessel
is again ready to sail. This is not only irritating, but exceedingly
unjustifiable and oppressive. Mr. Hoar's mission, some time ago to South
Carolina, was a well-intended effort to remove this cause of complaint.
The North thinks such imprisonments illegal and unconstitutional; and as
the cases occur constantly and frequently they regard it as a grievance.
Now, sir, so far as any of these grievances have their foundation in
matters of law, they can be redressed, and ought to be redressed; and so
far as they have their foundation in matters of opinion, in sentiment,
in mutual crimination and recrimination, all that we can do is to
endeavor to allay the agitation, and cultivate a better feeling and more
fraternal sentiments between the South and the North.
Mr. President, I should much prefer to have heard from every member
on this floor declarations of opinion that this Union could never be
dissolved, than the declaration of opinion by anybody, that in any
case, under the pressure of any circumstances, such a dissolution
was possible. I hear with distress and anguish the word "secession,"
especially when it falls from the lips of those who are patriotic, and
known to the country, and known all over the world for their political
services. Secession! Peaceable secession! Sir, your eyes and mine are
never destined to see that miracle. The dismemberment of this vast
country without convulsion! The breaking up of the fountains of the
great deep without ruffling the surface! Who is so foolish--I beg
everybody's pardon--as to expect to see any such thing? Sir, he who
sees these States, now revolving in harmony around a common centre, and
expects to see them quit their places and fly off without convulsion,
may look the next hour to see the heavenly bodies rush from their
spheres, and jostle against each other in the realms of space, without
causing the wreck of the universe. There can be no such thing as a
peaceable secession. Peaceable secession is an utter impossibility. Is
the great Constitution under which we live, covering this whole country,
is it to be thawed and melted away by secession, as the snows on the
mountain melt under the influence of a vernal sun, disappear almost
unobserved, and run off? No, sir! No, sir! I will not state what might
produce the disruption of the Union; but, sir, I see as plainly as I can
see the sun in heaven what that disruption itself must produce; I see
that it must produce war, and such a war as I will not describe, in its
twofold character.
Peaceable secession! Peaceable secession! The concurrent agreement
of all the members of this great Republic to separate! A voluntary
separation, with alimony on one side and on the other. Why, what would
be the result? Where is the line to be drawn? What States are to secede?
What is to remain American? What am I to be? An American no longer? Am I
to become a sectional man, a local man, a separatist, with no country in
common with the gentlemen who sit around me here, or who fill the other
house of Congress? Heaven forbid! Where is the flag of the Republic
to remain? Where is the eagle still to tower? or is he to cower, and
shrink, and fall to the ground? Why, sir, our ancestors, our fathers
and our grandfathers, those of them that are yet living amongst us with
prolonged lives, would rebuke and reproach us; and our children and
our grandchildren would cry out shame upon us, if we of this generation
should dishonor these ensigns of the power of the Government and the
harmony of that Union which is every day felt among us with so much joy
and gratitude. What is to become of the army? What is to become of the
navy? What is to become of the public lands? How is each of the thirty
States to defend itself? I know, although the idea has not been stated
distinctly, there is to be, or it is supposed possible that there
will be, a Southern Confederacy. I do not mean, when I allude to this
statement, that any one seriously contemplates such a state of things.
I do not mean to say that it is true, but I have heard it suggested
elsewhere, that the idea has been entertained, that, after the
dissolution of this Union, a Southern Confederacy might be formed. I am
sorry, sir, that it has ever been thought of, talked of, in the wildest
flights of human imagination. But the idea, so far as it exists, must
be of a separation, assigning the slave States to one side, and the free
States to the other. Sir, I may express myself too strongly, perhaps,
but there are impossibilities in the natural as well as in the physical
world, and I hold the idea of the separation of these States, those that
are free to form one government, and those that are slave-holding to
form another, as such an impossibility. We could not separate the States
by any such line, if we were to draw it. We could not sit down here
to-day and draw a line of separation that would satisfy any five men
in the country. There are natural causes that would keep and tie us
together, and there are social and domestic relations which we could not
break if we would, and which we should not if we could.
Sir, nobody can look over the face of this country at the present
moment, nobody can see where its population is the most dense and
growing, without being ready to admit, and compelled to admit,
that erelong the strength of America will be in the Valley of the
Mississippi. Well, now, sir, I beg to inquire what the wildest
enthusiast has to say on the possibility of cutting that river in two,
and leaving free States at its source and on its branches, and slave
States down near its mouth, each forming a separate government? Pray,
sir, let me say to the people of this country, that these things are
worthy of their pondering and of their consideration. Here, sir, are
five millions of freemen in the free States north of the river Ohio.
Can anybody suppose that this population can be severed, by a line that
divides them from the territory of a foreign and alien government,
down somewhere, the Lord knows where, upon the lower banks of
the Mississippi? What would become of Missouri? Will she join the
arrondissement of the slave States? Shall the man from the Yellowstone
and the Platte be connected, in the new republic, with the man who lives
on the southern extremity of the Cape of Florida? Sir, I am ashamed to
pursue this line of remark. I dislike it, I have an utter disgust for
it. I would rather hear of natural blasts and mildews, war, pestilence,
and famine, than to hear gentlemen talk of secession. To break up this
great Government! to dismember this glorious country! to astonish Europe
with an act of folly such as Europe for two centuries has never beheld
in any government or any people! No, sir! no, sir! There will be no
secession! Gentlemen are not serious when they talk of secession.
Sir, I hear there is to be a convention held at Nashville. I am bound to
believe that if worthy gentlemen meet at Nashville in convention, their
object will be to adopt conciliatory counsels; to advise the South to
forbearance and moderation, and to advise the North to forbearance and
moderation; and to inculcate principles of brotherly love and affection,
and attachment to the Constitution of the country as it now is. I
believe, if the convention meet at all, it will be for this purpose; for
certainly, if they meet for any purpose hostile to the Union, they have
been singularly inappropriate in their selection of a place. I remember,
sir, that, when the treaty of Amiens was concluded between France and
England, a sturdy Englishman and a distinguished orator, who regarded
the conditions of the peace as ignominious to England, said in the House
of Commons, that if King William could know the terms of that treaty, he
would turn in his coffin! Let me commend this saying to Mr. Windham, in
all its emphasis and in all its force, to any persons who shall meet at
Nashville for the purpose of concerting measures for the overthrow of
this Union over the bones of Andrew Jackson. * * *
And now, Mr. President, instead of speaking of the possibility or
utility of secession, instead of dwelling in those caverns of darkness,
instead of groping with those ideas so full of all that is horrid and
horrible, let us come out into the light of the day; let us enjoy the
fresh air of Liberty and Union; let us cherish those hopes which belong
to us; let us devote ourselves to those great objects that are fit for
our consideration and our action; let us raise our conceptions to the
magnitude and the importance of the duties that devolve upon us; let
our comprehension be as broad as the country for which we act, our
aspirations as high as its certain destiny; let us not be pigmies in a
case that calls for men. Never did there devolve on any generation of
men higher trusts than now devolve upon us, for the preservation of this
Constitution and the harmony and peace of all who are destined to live
under it. Let us make our generation one of the strongest and brightest
links in that golden chain which is destined, I fondly believe, to
grapple the people of all the States to this Constitution for ages to
come. We have a great, popular, Constitutional Government, guarded
by law and by judicature, and defended by the affections of the whole
people. No monarchical throne presses these States together, no iron
chain of military power encircles them; they live and stand under a
Government popular in its form, representative in its character, founded
upon principles of equality, and so constructed, we hope, as to last
forever. In all its history it has been beneficent; it has trodden down
no man's liberty; it has crushed no State. Its daily respiration is
liberty and patriotism; its yet youthful veins are full of enterprise,
courage, and honorable love of glory and renown. Large before, the
country has now, by recent events, become vastly larger. This Republic
now extends, with a vast breadth across the whole continent. The two
great seas of the world wash the one and the other shore. We realize,
on a mighty scale, the beautiful description of the ornamental border of
the buckler of Achilles:
"Now, the broad shield complete, the artist crowned
With his last hand, and poured the ocean round;
In living silver seemed the waves to roll,
And beat the buckler's verge, and bound the whole."
[Illustration: Henry Clay]
HENRY CLAY,
OF KENTUCKY, (BORN 1777, DIED 1852.)
ON THE COMPROMISE OF 1850; UNITED STATES SENATE, JULY 22, 1850.
MR. PRESIDENT:
In the progress of this debate it has been again and again argued that
perfect tranquillity reigns throughout the country, and that there is
no disturbance threatening its peace, endangering its safety, but that
which was produced by busy, restless politicians. It has been maintained
that the surface of the public mind is perfectly smooth and undisturbed
by a single billow. I most heartily wish I could concur in this picture
of general tranquillity that has been drawn upon both sides of the
Senate. I am no alarmist; nor, I thank God, at the advanced age at which
His providence has been pleased to allow me to reach, am I very easily
alarmed by any human event; but I totally misread the signs of the
times, if there be that state of profound peace and quiet, that absence
of all just cause of apprehension of future danger to this confederacy,
which appears to be entertained by some other senators. Mr. President,
all the tendencies of the times, I lament to say, are toward
disquietude, if not more fatal consequences. When before, in the midst
of profound peace with all the nations of the earth, have we seen a
convention, representing a considerable portion of one great part of
the Republic, meet to deliberate about measures of future safety in
connection with great interests of that quarter of the country? When
before have we seen, not one, but more--some half a dozen legislative
bodies solemnly resolving that if any one of these measures--the
admission of California, the adoption of the Wilmot proviso, the
abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia--should be adopted by
Congress, measures of an extreme character, for the safety of the great
interests to which I refer, in a particular section of the country,
would be resorted to? For years, this subject of the abolition of
slavery, even within this District of Columbia, small as is the number
of slaves here, has been a source of constant irritation and disquiet.
So of the subject of the recovery of fugitive slaves who have escaped
from their lawful owners: not a mere border contest, as has been
supposed--although there, undoubtedly, it has given rise to more
irritation than in other portions of the Union--but everywhere
through-out the slave-holding country it has been felt as a great evil,
a great wrong which required the intervention of congressional power.
But these two subjects, unpleasant as has been the agitation to which
they have given rise, are nothing in comparison to those which have
sprung out of the acquisitions recently made from the Republic of
Mexico. These are not only great and leading causes of just apprehension
as respects the future, but all the minor circumstances of the day
intimate danger ahead, whatever may be its final issue and consequence.
* * *
Mr. President, I will not dwell upon other concomitant causes, all
having the same tendency, and all well calculated to awaken, to arouse
us--if, as I hope the fact is, we are all of us sincerely desirous
of preserving this Union--to rouse us to dangers which really exist,
without underrating them upon the one hand, or magnifying them upon the
other. * * *
It has been objected against this measure that it is a compromise. It
has been said that it is a compromise of principle, or of a
principle. Mr. President, what is a compromise? It is a work of mutual
concession--an agreement in which there are reciprocal stipulations--a
work in which, for the sake of peace and concord, one party abates his
extreme demands in consideration of an abatement of extreme demands
by the other party: it is a measure of mutual concession--a measure of
mutual sacrifice. Undoubtedly, Mr. President, in all such measures
of compromise, one party would be very glad to get what he wants, and
reject what he does not desire, but which the other party wants. But
when he comes to reflect that, from the nature of the Government and its
operations, and from those with whom he is dealing, it is necessary upon
his part, in order to secure what he wants, to grant something to the
other side, he should be reconciled to the concession which he has made,
in consequence of the concession which he is to receive, if there is no
great principle involved, such as a violation of the Constitution of the
United States. I admit that such a compromise as that ought never to be
sanctioned or adopted. But I now call upon any senator in his place to
point out from the beginning to the end, from California to New Mexico,
a solitary provision in this bill which is violative of the Constitution
of the United States.
Sir, adjustments in the shape of compromise may be made without
producing any such consequences as have been apprehended. There may be
a mutual forbearance. You forbear on your side to insist upon the
application of the restriction denominated the Wilmot proviso. Is
there any violation of principle there? The most that can be said, even
assuming the power to pass the Wilmot proviso, which is denied, is that
there is a forbearance to exercise, not a violation of, the power to
pass the proviso. So, upon the other hand, if there was a power in
the Constitution of the United States authorizing the establishment
of slavery in any of the Territories--a power, however, which is
controverted by a large portion of this Senate--if there was a power
under the Constitution to establish slavery, the forbearance to exercise
that power is no violation of the Constitution, any more than the
Constitution is violated by a forbearance to exercise numerous powers,
that might be specified, that are granted in the Constitution, and that
remain dormant until they come to be exercised by the proper
legislative authorities. It is said that the bill presents the state of
coercion--that members are coerced, in order to get what they want, to
vote for that which they disapprove. Why, sir, what coercion is there?
* * * Can it be said upon the part of our Northern friends, because they
have not got the Wilmot proviso incorporated in the territorial part
of the bill, that they are coerced--wanting California, as they do, so
much--to vote for the bill, if they do vote for it? Sir, they might
have imitated the noble example of my friend (Senator Cooper, of
Pennsylvania), from that State upon whose devotion to this Union I place
one of my greatest reliances for its preservation. What was the course
of my friend upon this subject of the Wilmot proviso? He voted for it;
and he could go back to his constituents and say, as all of you could go
back and say to your constituents, if you chose to do so--"We wanted the
Wilmot proviso in the bill; we tried to get it in; but the majority of
the Senate was against it." The question then came up whether we should
lose California, which has got an interdiction in her constitution,
which, in point of value and duration, is worth a thousand Wilmot
provisos; we were induced, as my honorable friend would say, to take the
bill and the whole of it together, although we were disappointed in our
votes with respect to the Wilmot proviso--to take it, whatever omissions
may have been made, on account of the superior amount of good it
contains. * * *