The son of one President of the United States and the grand-son of
another, Charles Francis Adams won for himself in his own right a
position of prominence in the history of his times. He studied law
in the office of Daniel Webster, and after beginning practice was
drawn into public life by his election to the Massachusetts
legislature in which he served from 1831 to 1838. A Whig in politics
until the slavery issue became prominent, he was nominated for
Vice-President on the Free Soil ticket with Van Buren in 1848. The
Republican party which grew out of the Free Soil movement elected
him to Congress as a representative of the third Massachusetts
district in 1858 and re-elected him in 1860. In 1861 President
Lincoln appointed him minister to England, and he filled with credit
that place which had been filled by his father and grandfather
before him. He died November 21st, 1886, leaving besides his own
speeches and essays an edition of the works of John and John Quincy
Adams in twenty-two volumes octavo.
THE STATES AND THE UNION
(Delivered in the House of Representatives, January 31st, 1861)
I confess, Mr. Speaker, that I should be very jealous, as a citizen
of Massachusetts, of any attempt on the part of Virginia, for
example, to propose an amendment to the Constitution designed to
rescind or abolish the bill of rights prefixed to our own form of
government. Yet I cannot see why such a proposition would be more
unjustifiable than any counter proposition to abolish slavery in
Virginia, as coming from Massachusetts. If I have in any way
succeeded in mastering the primary elements of our forms of
government, the first and fundamental idea is, the reservation to
the people of the respective States of every power of regulating
their own affairs not specifically surrendered in the Constitution.
The security of the State governments depends upon the fidelity
with which this principle is observed.
Even the intimation of any such interference as I have mentioned by
way of example could not be made in earnest without at once shaking
the entire foundation of the whole confederated Union. No man shall
exceed me in jealousy of affection for the State rights of Massachusetts.
So far as I remember, nothing of this kind was ever thought of
heretofore; and I see no reason to apprehend that what has not
happened thus far will be more likely to happen hereafter. But if
the time ever come when it does occur, I shall believe the
dissolution of the system to be much more certain than I do at this
moment.
For these reasons, I cannot imagine that there is the smallest
foundation for uneasiness about the intentions of any considerable
number of men in the free States to interfere in any manner whatever
with slavery in the States, much less by the hopeless mode of
amending the Constitution. To me it looks like panic, pure panic.
How, then, is it to be treated? Is it to be neglected or ridiculed?
Not at all. If a child in the nursery be frightened by the idea of a
spectre, common humanity would prompt an effort by kindness to
assuage the alarm. But in cases where the same feeling pervades the
bosoms of multitudes of men, this imaginary evil grows up at once
into a gigantic reality, and must be dealt with as such. It is at
all times difficult to legislate against a possibility. The
committee have reported a proposition intended to meet this case.
It is a form of amendment of the Constitution which, in substance,
takes away no rights whatever which the free States ever should
attempt to use, whilst it vests exclusively in the slave States the
right to use them or not, as they shall think proper, the whole
treatment of the subject to which they relate being conceded to be a
matter of common interest to them, exclusively within their
jurisdiction, and subject to their control. A time may arrive, in
the course of years, when they will themselves desire some act of
interference in a friendly and beneficent spirit. If so, they have
the power reserved to them of initiating the very form in which it
would be most welcome. If not, they have a security, so long as this
government shall endure, that no sister State shall dictate any
change against their will.
I have now considered all the alleged grievances which have thus far
been brought to our attention, 1. The personal liberty laws, which
never freed a slave. 2. Exclusion from a Territory which
slaveholders will never desire to occupy. 3. Apprehension of an
event which will never take place. For the sake of these three
causes of complaint, all of them utterly without practical result,
the slaveholding States, unquestionably the weakest section of this
great Confederacy, are voluntarily and precipitately surrendering
the realities of solid power woven into the very texture of a
government that now keeps nineteen million freemen, willing to
tolerate, and, in one sense, to shelter, institutions which, but for
that, would meet with no more sympathy among them than they now do
in the remainder of the civilized world.
For my own part, I must declare that, even supposing these alleged
grievances to be more real than I represent them, I think the
measures of the committee dispose of them effectually and
forever. They contribute directly all that can be legitimately done
by Congress, and they recommend it to the legislatures of the States
to accomplish the remainder. Why, then, is it that harmony is not
restored? The answer is, that you are not satisfied with this
settlement, however complete. You must have more guarantees in the
Constitution. You must make the protection and extension of slavery
in the Territories now existing, and hereafter to be acquired, a
cardinal doctrine of our great charter. Without that, you are
determined to dissolve the Union. How stands the case, then? We
offer to settle the question finally in all of the present territory
that you claim, by giving you every chance of establishing slavery
that you have any right to require of us. You decline to take the
offer, because you fear it will do you no good. Slavery will not go
there. But, if that be true, what is the use of asking for the
protection anyhow, much less in the Constitution? Why require
protection where you will have nothing to protect? All you appear to
desire it for is New Mexico. Nothing else is left. Yet, you will not
accept New Mexico at once, because ten years of experience have
proved to you that protection has been of no use thus far. But, if
so, how can you expect that it will be of so much more use hereafter
as to make it worth dissolving the Union?
But, if we pass to the other condition, is it any more reasonable?
Are we going to fight because we cannot agree upon the mode of
disposing of our neighbor's lands? Are we to break up the Union of
these States, cemented by so many years of common sufferings, and
resplendent with so many years of common glory, because it is
insisted that we should incorporate into what we regard as the
charter of our freedom a proclamation to the civilized world that we
intend to grasp the territory of other nations whenever we can do
it, for the purpose of putting into it certain institutions which
some of us disapprove, and that, too, whether the people inhabiting
that territory themselves approve of it or not?
I am almost inclined to believe that they who first contrived this
demand must have done so for the sake of presenting a condition
which they knew beforehand must be rejected, or which, if accepted,
must humiliate us in the dust forever. In point of fact, this
proposal covers no question of immediate moment which may not be
settled by another and less obnoxious one. Why is it, then,
persevered in, and the other rejected? The answer is obvious. You
want the Union dissolved. You want to make it impossible for
honorable men to become reconciled. If it be, indeed, so, then on
you, and you alone, shall rest the responsibility of what may
follow. If the Union be broken up, the reason why it happened shall
remain on record forever. It was because you rejected one form of
settling a question which might be offered and accepted with honor,
in order to insist upon another which you knew we could not accept
without disgrace. I answer for myself only when I say that, if the
alternative to the salvation of the Union be only that the people of
the United States shall, before the Christian nations of the earth,
print in broad letters upon the front of their charter of republican
government the dogma of slave propagandism over the remainder of the
countries of the world, I will not consent to brand myself with what
I deem such disgrace, let the consequences be what they may.
But it is said that this answer closes the door of reconciliation.
The slaveholding States will secede, and what then?
This brings me to the last point which I desire to touch today, the
proper course for the government to pursue in the face of these
difficulties. Some of the friends with whom I act have not hesitated
to express themselves in favor of coercion; and they have drawn very
gloomy pictures of the fatal consequences to the prosperity and
security of the whole Union that must ensue. For my own sake, I am
glad that I do not partake so largely in these fears. I see no
obstacle to the regular continuance of the government in not less
than twenty States, and perhaps more, the inhabitants of which have
not in a moment been deprived of that peculiar practical wisdom in
the management of their affairs which is the secret of their past
success. Several new States will, before long, be ready to take
their places with us and make good, in part, the loss of the old
ones. The mission of furnishing a great example of free government
to the nations of the earth will still be in our hands, impaired, I
admit, but not destroyed; and I doubt not our power to accomplish it
yet in spite of the temporary drawback. Even the problem of coercion
will go on to solve itself without our aid. For if the sentiment of
disunion become so far universal and permanent in the dissatisfied
States as to show no prospect of good from resistance, and there be
no acts of aggression attempted on their part, I will not say that I
may not favor the idea of some arrangement of a peaceful character,
though I do not now see the authority under which it can be originated.
The new Confederacy can scarcely be other than a secondary Power. It
can never be a maritime State. It will begin with the necessity of
keeping eight millions of its population to watch four millions, and
with the duty of guarding, against the egress of the latter, several
thousand miles of an exposed border, beyond which there will be no
right of reclamation. Of the ultimate result of a similar experiment,
I cannot, in my own mind, have a moment's doubt. At the last session
I ventured to place on record, in this House, a prediction by which
I must abide, let the effect of the future on my sagacity be what it
may. I have not yet seen any reason to doubt its accuracy. I now
repeat it. The experiment will ignominiously fail.
But there are exceptions to the adoption of this peaceful policy
which it will not be wise to overlook. If there be violent and
wanton attacks upon the persons or the property of the citizens of
the United States or of their government, I see not how demands for
immediate redress can be avoided. If any interruptions should be
attempted of the regular channels of trade on the great
water-courses or on the ocean, they cannot long be permitted. And if
any considerable minorities of citizens should be persecuted or
proscribed on account of their attachment to the Union, and should
call for protection, I cannot deny the obligation of this government
to afford it. There are persons in many of the States whose
patriotic declarations and honorable pledges of support of the Union
may bring down upon them more than the ill-will of their infatuated
fellow-citizens. It would be impossible for the people of the United
States to look upon any proscription of them with indifference.
These are times which should bring together all men, by whatever
party name they may have been heretofore distinguished, upon common
ground.
When I heard the gentlemen from Virginia the other day so bravely
and so forcibly urging their manly arguments in support of the
Union, the Constitution, and the enforcement of the laws, my heart
involuntarily bounded towards them as brethren sacredly engaged in a
common cause. Let them, said I to myself, accept the offered
settlement of the differences that remain between us, on some fair
basis like that proposed by the committee, and then, what is to
prevent us all, who yet believe that the Union must be preserved,
from joining heart and hand our common forces to effect it? When the
cry goes out that the ship is in danger of sinking, the first duty
of every man on board, no matter what his particular vocation, is to
lend all the strength he has to the work of keeping her afloat.
What! shall it be said that we waver in the view of those
who begin by trying to expunge the sacred memory of the fourth of
July? Shall we help them to obliterate the associations that cluster
around the glorious struggle for independence, or stultify the
labors of the patriots who erected this magnificent political
edifice upon the adamantine base of human liberty? Shall we
surrender the fame of Washington and Laurens, of Gadsden and the
Lees, of Jefferson and Madison, and of the myriads of heroes whose
names are imperishably connected with the memory of a united people?
Never, never!