enumerates, “rather than permit one man who now stands upon the soil
of North Carolina a slave, to stand a slave upon the soil of New
Mexico.” This statement is not merely forced, but fabricated. Surely I
said no such thing. I intimated nor hinted at, nor thought of such a
thing. There may be little choice whether any one man who now “stands
a slave,” shall “stand a slave” in one place or in another, _if that
be all_. In a national point of view, and looking at the subject as
a statesman, the sentiment imputed to me is simply ridiculous. But
this wrongful imputation of such a sentiment, without substance or
semblance to justify it, is far worse than ridiculous; it becomes
unjust and ungenerous; and is none the less so for being made in a
place where he knew I could not repel it. The whole scope and stress
of my argument went against yielding any such portion of our new
acquisitions to slavery as would form either a state or a territory.
The eight or ten southern legislatures, the eight or ten governors
of southern states, the southern Senators and Representatives in
Congress, and the confederates in getting up the Nashville Convention,
have never, to my knowledge, proposed a compromise on the platform of
a “_one foot_” territory, or expressed their readiness to spare the
Union if “one man who stands a slave in North Carolina,” is permitted
to “stand a slave in New Mexico.” When such an issue is brought
forward seriously, it will be met seriously. But the real issue on
this point is, (and the senator must know it,) whether the victims of
slavery shall be indefinitely multiplied by the addition to its domain
of regions now free. That the creation of a new slave territory will
increase the victims of slavery, is a proposition too plain to be
argued. To deny this, is to assert that if slavery had been confined
to the State of Virginia, or to the settlement at Jamestown, where the
first cargo of slaves was landed, the present number of slaves in this
country would be no less than it now is; or, in other words, there
would now be three millions of slaves within the limits of Virginia,
or within the limits of Jamestown.
I have made this reply to the honorable senator from North Carolina
with great reluctance, and from no motive of personal unkindness. I
have long been accustomed to regard his character with respect, and
his opinions with deference; and I am happy in an opportunity to
express a feeling of personal gratitude for his former endeavors to
avert from the councils of the nation the subject-matter of this most
lamentable contention.
Very truly, yours, &c., HORACE MANN.
WASHINGTON, March 28, 1850.
P. S. Another point in the honorable senator’s speech, in which he
attempts to vindicate the penal slave code of North Carolina and
of the other Southern States from the taint of cupidity, may be
safely left without comment to intelligent men. Every student of the
_criminal_ legislation of the Southern States in regard to slaves,
knows that their laws are replete with proofs where the sensibilities
of a man are sacrificed to the spirit of gain.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] In February, 1847, Mr. Calhoun offered a series of resolutions in
the Senate of the United States, among which was the following:--
“_Resolved_, That it is a fundamental principle in our political creed,
that a people, in forming a constitution, have the unconditional right
to form and adopt the government which they may think best calculated
to secure their liberty, prosperity and happiness; and, in conformity
thereto, no other condition is imposed by the Federal Constitution
on a state, in order to be admitted into this Union, except that its
constitution shall be “republican;” and that the imposition of any
other by Congress would not only be in violation of the constitution,
but in direct conflict with the principle on which our political system
rests.”
In sustaining these resolutions, he said,--
“Sir, I hold it to be a fundamental principle of our political system
that the people have a right to establish what government they may
think proper for themselves; that every state ABOUT to become a member
of this Union has a right to FORM ITS OWN GOVERNMENT AS IT PLEASES;
and that, in order to be admitted, there is but one qualification, and
that is, that the government shall be republican. There is no express
provision to that effect, but it results from that important section
which guaranties to every state in this Union a republican form of
government.”
Mr. Senator Downs, of Louisiana, offered the following resolution:--
“_Resolved_, That it is competent and expedient, and not inconsistent
with the practice of the government in some cases, to admit California,
or such portion of it as Congress may deem proper, immediately into
the Union, on an equal footing with the other states; and that the
committee on ---- be instructed to report a bill for that purpose, for
that portion of California which lies west of the summit of the Sierra
Nevada mountains.”
* * * * *
The doctrine of these resolutions was fully indorsed by the Washington
_Union_, speaking, doubtless, (for it never spoke any thing else,) the
sentiments of the then administration.
“The south denies that Congress has any jurisdiction over the subject
of slavery, and contends that the _people of the territories alone_,
when they frame a constitution, preparatory to admission into the
Union, _have a right to speak and be heard on that matter_. This fact
being settled, _it really seems to us that this exciting question might
be speedily adjusted_, if calm counsels prevail. The south contends
for her honor, and for the great principles of non-intervention and
state equality. _Why, then, cannot all unite, and permit California to
come into the Union as soon as she can frame a constitution?_ Then,
according to the doctrines which prevail on both sides of Mason’s
and Dixon’s line, she may constitutionally establish her domestic
institutions on any basis consistent with republican principles. _The
south could lose nothing by adopting this course. On the contrary, she
would save all for which she contends._”
MR. BADGER’S REPLY.
TO THE EDITORS OF THE NATIONAL INTELLIGENCER;
A communication in your paper of yesterday, from the Hon. HORACE MANN,
of the House of Representatives, seems to require a brief notice from
me.
The honorable gentleman accuses me of having treated him with gross
injustice in a recent speech, in which I referred to the closing
paragraph of a speech of his, and made some comments thereupon.
Now, in what consists the injustice? I quoted that paragraph from his
speech, and he does not deny that it was quoted truly. There is not a
word or syllable attributed to him, not a word or syllable alleged or
insinuated to have been spoken by him, except that paragraph, and that
he admits was spoken and printed by him just as I quoted it. Then, in
the statement of his language, I have done him no injustice.
In my comments, I gave “in other words,”--in my own words,--what I
deemed a true interpretation of his; and, as I attributed to him no
language which he did not use; as every thing to which he objects
is, and upon the face of my remarks plainly purports to be, merely
my own commentary upon the single quotation correctly taken from
the gentleman’s speech, it is very obvious that I have “fabricated”
nothing. Whether the interpretation given to the honorable gentleman’s
language be correct or incorrect, a just carrying of it out to its
true results, or an unfair exaggeration, intelligent men will be able
to decide from the reading of my speech, which presents together both
the text and the commentary, and to them I am willing to leave it.
But the gentleman says that in his speech he “discussed the question
of extending slavery over our territories,” and that “no more slave
territories and no more slave states was the exact ground” he took.
And what has that to do with the matter of his complaint against me?
I referred not to his discussion, or the grounds taken in it. I was
not considering the course or validity of his reasoning, but the
conclusion at which he arrived. That was set down in his speech in
these words:--
“In conclusion, I have only to add, that such is my solemn and abiding
conviction of the character of slavery, that, under a full sense of my
responsibility to my country and my God, I deliberately say, better
disunion,--better a civil or a servile war,--better any thing that
God in his providence shall send, than _an extension of the bounds of
slavery_.”
Here is no reference to any particular degree, kind, or manner
of extending slavery. He speaks not of the “proposed or desired
extension,” of “extension into our territories,” or even of “_the_
extension,” but he speaks of “an extension of the bounds of slavery,”
without a reference to any thing in the speech or elsewhere by which
the generality of his language might be modified or explained. To
refer, therefore, to the speech in order to understand the import of
this general conclusion, is idle. If the reasoning in the speech be
particular, and the deduction general, there would be the logical
defect of a conclusion too large for the premises, but the _meanings_
of the conclusion would remain, and the want of reasoning to support it
would not abate aught of its unmitigated and sweeping generality.
It is evident, then, that, whether supported by any reasoning,
particular or general, the gentleman’s conclusion remains, that
disunion, civil war, servile war, with certain undefined judgments
of Heaven besides, are preferable to “an extension of the bounds of
slavery;” but the indefinite article “an” is here exactly equivalent
to “any,” and therefore whatever amounts to “any extension,” however
small,--a square mile, or acre, or foot,--is strictly within the
meaning of the language which he has thought proper deliberately to
retain in his printed speech.
But I accept willingly the explanation now given of his meaning, and
only regret that, when writing out his speech, he did not then give the
explanation which converts his general into a particular proposition.
By this explanation I learn that, in his conclusion, he meant to speak
not of any extension, however small, but of an extension of slavery in
our territories.
Then the gentleman’s conclusion, as modified by himself, will be thus:
“Better disunion,” [the dissolution of our government and destruction
of the Union formed by our fathers;] “better a civil or a servile war,”
[the most disastrous, ferocious, and cruel of all wars;] “better any
thing that God in his providence shall send,” [for example, pestilence
and famine;] “than an extension of the bounds of slavery” over our
territories!
I cheerfully submit to all “intelligent men,” if they are at the same
time humane and patriotic, to pass upon such a sentiment. To his own
intelligent, patriotic, and humane constituents, I submit it, with
entire confidence that it will not meet their approval; but, on the
contrary, that they will regard the honorable gentleman as having been
betrayed by the pervading excitement on the slavery question, into an
extravagant,--I will not say fanatical,--declaration, which he is not
able to defend, or willing, as yet, to retract or qualify.
I had believed that the honorable gentleman had, under the exciting
influence of discussion, unconsciously done injustice to my own state,
but a remark added to his communication would perhaps justify me, if
inclined to judge unkindly, in supposing that the wrong was wilful. But
I am not so inclined, and draw no such conclusion. I infer, rather,
that the bewildering excitement under which the speech was made has
not yet passed away, but still continues to influence unfavorably the
otherwise clear understanding and fair and upright purposes of the
honorable gentleman.
GEO. E. BADGER.
WASHINGTON, March 30, 1850.
MR. MANN’S REJOINDER.
MESSRS. EDITORS; Your paper of this morning contains a communication
from the Hon. Mr. BADGER, in reply to mine of the 29th ultimo. I ask
your indulgence while I briefly answer him.
My complaint was, that he had taken half a dozen lines from my speech,
and had attributed a meaning to them, in some respects odious, in
other respects ridiculous, and in all respects unwarrantable. By
his own admission, too, he had done this without reading the speech
itself; when, had he accorded to me the justice of hearing me before
he condemned me, he would have found that both subject-matter and
context confuted his interpretation.
His first reply is, that he did not “attribute” to me “a word” nor “a
syllable” which I did not use; and, repeating himself, he adds, that
he did not “allege” or “insinuate” a “word” nor “a syllable” that I
now deny. In view of this he asks, with an air of triumph, “In what
consists the injustice?”
I answer, as before; the injustice consists in giving a false
meaning to true “words” and “syllables,”--a meaning which both the
subject-matter and context of my speech repudiate. I do not see that
it is less unjustifiable to attach false meanings to words correctly
quoted, than to forge quotations. Surely, the honorable senator is too
good a lawyer to be ignorant of the maxim, “_qui hæret in litera_”
&c.; and too good a theologian not to have read that “the letter
killeth” if divorced from the spirit. When Beaumont and Fletcher were
closeted together to devise the plan of one of their joint plays, in
which a king was to be killed, they were severally overheard to say,
“I will kill the king,” and “I will kill the king;” whereupon they
were arrested, transported to London, and arraigned for conspiring the
death of the reigning sovereign. Suppose them to have been convicted
of treason and gibbeted; could not the perjured informer, with a
charming and childlike simplicity, have used the exact language
of Mr. BADGER, and said, I testified to the exact “_words_” and
“_syllables_.” “In what consists the injustice?”
But the honorable senator goes on to say, that he had no concern
with my _speech_, but only with my _conclusion_. His language is, “I
was not considering the course or validity of his reasoning, but the
conclusion at which he arrived.” He then repeats the quotation, and
adds, “To refer, therefore, to the speech in order to understand the
import of this conclusion, is idle.”
With all deference to the senator,--and mine is unfeignedly great,--I
submit that this is false logic and worse ethics. As well may one
declare the judgment of a court to be legal or illegal, merciful or
tyrannous, without looking back to the allegations and proofs on which
it is founded. As well may one affirm or deny the “Q. E. D.” of the
geometer, without reference to the problem or demonstration to which
it is subjoined. When a discussion exists respecting “_an extension
of the bounds of slavery_,” (and these were my words,) and I say that
I would prefer certain enumerated evils rather than the extension in
controversy, it surely becomes all-important to know whether that
extension is to embrace the whole earth and to extend through all
time, or whether it is only the addition of one atom or granule to
existing slave territory, or of one respiration, or one heart-beat
of an existing slave, on territory now free. I affirm, then, that a
knowledge of the premises _is_ indispensable to a judgment on the
conclusion.
But he accepts my explanation, and then appeals from me to what he
is pleased to call, (and I thank him for the justice that prompted
the well-deserved compliment,) my “intelligent, patriotic, and
humane constituents,”--“with entire confidence that it will not meet
their approval.” I gladly join in this appeal. As “_intelligent_”
men, my constituents foresee that the extension of slavery over our
territories will not only be an unspeakable crime in itself, but will
be converted into the means of future unspeakable crimes in further
extensions. As “_patriotic_” men, they prefer to bear any calamity
that may come upon themselves, rather than to devolve accumulated
calamities, growing out of their own dereliction from duty, upon
their posterity. As “_humane_” men, they would deprecate and forefend
that greatest of inhumanities, the dooming of increased thousands and
millions of their fellow-men to the dreadful inheritance of bondage.
And as religious men,--as men who “tremble when they reflect that
God is just, and that his justice will not sleep forever,”--they
mean to use all constitutional means to arrest the slave-creating
and slave-extending policy of this government, let the two or three
hundred thousand slaveholders among our twenty millions of people do
what they will.
That the bearings of the subject may be rightly understood, it should
be remembered that my speech was made on the 15th of February,
after ten weeks of threatened disunion on certain specified and
not improbable contingencies. “My conclusion,” therefore, was not
_aggressive_, but _submissive_. I only declared which branch of their
proffered alternative I should prefer.
The closing paragraph of the respected senator’s communication alludes
to the _motives_ of those wide and painful differences which are
made between the whites and the slaves in the _criminal_ legislation
of the Southern States. Nothing could be more edifying, as to the
demoralizing nature of slavery and its effects upon men, who, like
the senator, are otherwise honorable and generous, than a comparison
of the two codes of law and the two systems of jurisprudence which
the rulers have respectively established for themselves and for their
bondmen. The laws or customs known to civilized men and to barbarians
are not more diverse. It would be rash and reckless in me to encounter
the distinguished senator on any other subject; but on this I would
say, as was said by a knight in an old tournament, that he had such
confidence in the justness of his cause that he would give his
adversary the advantage of sun and wind.
HORACE MANN.
WASHINGTON, April 1, 1850.
LETTERS
ON THE EXTENSION OF SLAVERY INTO CALIFORNIA AND NEW MEXICO; AND ON THE
DUTY OF CONGRESS TO PROVIDE THE TRIAL BY JURY FOR ALLEGED FUGITIVE
SLAVES.
HON. HORACE MANN;
Dear Sir,--Having learned that you are spending a few days at home,
and approving the course you have pursued in Congress, in maintaining
so ably the sentiments and convictions which we maintain and cherish
on the great national questions of the day, we respectfully request
you, before returning to Washington, to give your constituents an
opportunity of hearing somewhat more at length than the hour rule would
allow, your views and opinions upon the question of the immediate
admission of California, and other questions now before Congress,
arising out of the acquisition of territory by the treaty with Mexico.
Should you comply with our request, please name some day which will be
convenient for you, that we may give seasonable notice through your
district.
_Dedham._
JAMES RICHARDSON,
I. CLEVELAND,
JOHN GARDNER.
_Roxbury._
DAVID A. SIMMONS,
G. R. RUSSELL,
JOSEPH H. BILLINGS,
L. M. SARGENT,
JOHN J. CLARKE,
JOS. N. BREWER,
WM. A. CRAFTS,
WM. CAPEN,
FRANCIS HILLIARD,
DANIEL JACKSON,
J. B. KETTELL.
_Brookline._
CHARLES WILD,
MARSHALL STEARNS,
WM. DEARBORN,
G. GRIGGS,
DAVID WILDER, Jr.,
G. F. HOMER.
_Dorchester._
E. SHARPE,
N. F. SAFFORD,
J. G. NAZRO.
_Brighton_, J. BRECK.
_Foxboro’_, A. HODGES.
_Walpole_, A. BIGELOW.
_Randolph_, J. WALES.
_Quincy_, L. RICHARDS.
_Franklin_, L. HARDING.
_Stoughton_, J. SMITH.
_Milton_, J. REED.
_Cohasset_, GEO. BEAL.
_Newton._
E. C. DYER,
R. E. PATTERSON,
W. S. WHITWELL.
_Hingham._
C. W. CUSHING.
April 23d, 1850.
LETTER I.
WEST NEWTON, May 3, 1850.
To the Hon. James Richardson, I. Cleveland, and John Gardner, of
Dedham; Hon. D. A. Simmons, John J. Clarke, Francis Hilliard, and
George R. Russell, of Roxbury, &c., &c.
GENTLEMEN;
Having been called home on account of sickness in my family, I have
just received, at this place, your kind invitation to meet and address
my constituents of the 8th Congressional District, and to give them my
“_views and opinions upon the question of the immediate admission of
California, and other questions now before Congress, arising out of the
acquisition of territory by the treaty with Mexico_.”
A request from so high a source has almost the force of a command. Yet
I dare not promise to comply. I am liable at any moment to be recalled,
and, instead of speaking here, to vote there, upon the questions to
which you refer. I might be summoned to return on the day appointed for
us to meet. The only alternative, therefore, which is left me, is to
address you by letter. This I will do, if I can find time. I shall thus
comply with your request, in substance, if not in form.
On many accounts, I have the extremest reluctance to appear before the
public on the present occasion. My views, on some vital questions,
differ most materially from those of gentlemen for whom I have
felt the profoundest respect; and for some of whom I cherish the
strongest personal attachment. But I feel, on the other hand, that
my constituents, having intrusted to me some of their most precious
interests, are entitled to know my “views and opinions” respecting the
hopes and the dangers that encompass them. I shall not, therefore, take
the responsibility of declining.
I will premise further, that my relations to political parties, for
many years past, have left me as free from all partisan bias “as
the lot of humanity will admit.” For twelve years I held an office
whose duties required me to abstain from all active coöperation in
political conflicts; and that duty was so religiously fulfilled, that,
to my knowledge, I was never charged with its violation. During the
Presidential contest of 1848, those obligations of neutrality still
rested upon me. For a year afterwards, I was not called upon to do
any official act displeasing to any party amongst us. This interval
I employed in forming the best opinion I could of public men and
measures, and their influence upon the moral and industrial interests
of the country. I had long entertained most decided convictions in
favor of protecting American labor, in favor of cheap postage, and of
security to the lives and property of our fellow-citizens engaged in
commerce. But a new question had arisen,--the great question of freedom
or slavery in our recently acquired territories,--and this question I
deemed, for the time being, to be, though not exclusive of others, yet
paramount to them. Or rather, I saw that nothing could be so favorable
to all the last-named interests, as the proper adjustment of the first.
He who would provide for the welfare of mankind, must first provide for
their liberty.
Sympathizing, then, on different points with different parties, but
exclusively bound to none, I stood, in reference to the great question
of territorial freedom or slavery, in the position of the _true_ mother
in the litigation before Solomon, preferring that the object of my love
should be spared in the hands of any one, rather than perish in my own.