Congress, and which have led to what military men would call the
“demoralization” of many of the rank and file of its members. Some
recent movements have brought vividly to mind certain historical
recollections in regard to the African slave trade, now execrated by
all civilized nations. When the immortal Wilberforce exposed to public
gaze the secrets of that horrid traffic, his biographer says, “The
first burst of generous indignation promised nothing less than the
instant abolition of the trade, but _mercantile_ jealousy had taken
the alarm, and the defenders of the West India system found themselves
strengthened by the independent alliance of _commercial_ men.”--_Life
of Wilberforce_, vol. i. p. 291.
Again; opposition to Wilberforce’s motion “arose amongst the Guinea
_merchants_,”--“reënforced, however, before long by the great body of
West India planters.”--_Ibid._
The corporation of Liverpool spent, first and last, upwards of £10,000
in defence of a traffic which even the gravity and calmness of judicial
decisions have since pronounced “infernal.”
“Besides printing works in defence of the slave trade and remunerating
their authors; paying the expenses of delegates to attend in London
and watch Mr. Wilberforce’s proceedings, they pensioned the widows of
Norris and Green, and voted plate to Mr. Penny, for their exertions in
this cause.”--_Ibid._ p. 345.
It is said, that the corporation of Liverpool, at this time, “believed
firmly that the very existence of the city depended upon the
continuance of the traffic.” Look at Liverpool now, and reflect what
greater rewards, even of a temporal nature, God reserves for men that
abjure dishonesty and crime.
All collateral motives were brought to bear upon the subject, just
as they are at the present time. The Guinea trade was defended “as a
nursery for seamen.”--_Ibid._ p. 293.
Even as late as 1816, the same class of men, in the same country,
opposed the abolition of “white slavery” in Algiers, from the same
base motives of interest. It was thought that the danger of navigating
the Mediterranean, caused by the Barbary corsairs, was advantageous
to British commerce; because it might deter the merchant ships of
other nations from visiting it. After Lord Exmouth had compelled the
Algerines to liberate their European slaves, he proceeded against Tunis
and Tripoli. In giving an account of what he had done, he defends his
conduct “upon general principles,” but adds, “as applying to our own
country, [Great Britain,] it may not be borne out, _the old mercantile
interest being against it_.”--_Osler’s Life of Exmouth_, p. 303.
So after Admiral Blake, in the time of Cromwell, had attacked Tunis,
he says, in his despatch to Secretary Thurloe, “And now seeing it hath
pleased God soe signally to justify us herein, I hope his highness will
not be offended at it, nor any who regard duly the honor of the nation,
_although I expect to have the clamors of_ INTERESTED MEN.”--_Thurloe’s
State Papers_, vol. ii. p. 390.
And is commerce, the daughter of freedom, thus forever to lift her
parricidal hand against the parent that bore her? Are rich men
forever to use their “thirty pieces of silver,” or their “ten thousand
pounds sterling,” or their hundreds of thousands of dollars, to
reward the Judases for betraying their Savior? Viewed by the light
of our increased knowledge, and by our more elevated standard of
duty, the extension of slavery into California or New Mexico, at the
present time, or even the sufferance of it there, is a vastly greater
crime than was the African slave trade itself, in the last century;
and I would rather meet the doom of posterity, or of heaven, for
being engaged in the traffic then, than for being accessory to its
propagation now.
Let those who aid, abet, or connive at slavery extension now, as they
read the damning sentence which history has awarded against the actors,
abettors, and connivers of the African trade, _but change the names_,
and they will be reading of themselves. Should our new territories be
hereafter filled with groaning bondmen, should they become an American
Egypt, tyrannized over by ten thousand Pharaohs, it will be no defence
for those who permitted it, to say, “We hoped, we supposed, we trusted,
that slavery could not go there;” Nemesis, as she plies her scorpion
lash, will reply, “_You might have made it certain_.”
On this great question of freedom or slavery, I have observed with
grief, nay, with anguish, that we, at the north, break up into hostile
parties, hurl criminations and recriminations to and fro, and expend
that strength for the ruin of each other, which should be directed
against the enemies of liberty; while, at the south, whenever slavery
is in jeopardy, all party lines are obliterated, dissensions are
healed, enemies become friends, and all are found in a solid column,
with an unbroken front. Are the children of darkness to be forever
_so much_ wiser than the children of light? In the recent choice of
delegates for the Nashville convention, I have not seen a single
instance where Whig and Democrat have not been chosen as though they
were Siamese twins, and must go together. But here it often happens,
that as soon as one party is known to be in favor of one man, this
preference alone is deemed a sufficient reason why another party should
oppose him. Why can we not combine for the sacred cause of freedom,
as they combine for slavery? No thought or desire is further from my
mind than that of interfering with any man’s right of suffrage; but if,
(which is by no means impossible, nor perhaps improbable,) the fate of
New Mexico should be decided by one vote, and my vote should have been
the cause of a vacancy in any Congressional district that might have
sent a friend to freedom, I should say, with Cain, “My punishment is
greater than I can bear.”
On the subject of the present alienation and discord between the
north and the south, I wish to say that I have as strong a desire for
reconciliation and amity as any one can have. There is no _pecuniary_
sacrifice within the limits of the constitution, which I would not
willingly make for so desirable an object. Public revenues I would
appropriate, private taxation I would endure, to relieve this otherwise
thrice-glorious republic from the calamity and the wrong of slavery. I
would not only resist the devil, but if he will flee from me, I will
build a bridge of gold to facilitate his escape. I mention this to
prove that it is not the value, _in money_, of territorial freedom,
for which I contend, but its value _in character_, _in justice_, _in
human happiness_. While I utterly deny the claim set up by the south,
yet I would gladly consent that my southern fellow-citizens should go
to the territories and carry there every kind of property which I can
carry; I would then give to the Southern States their full share of all
the income ever to be derived from the sales of the public lands, or
the leasing of the public mines; and whatever, after this deduction,
was left in the public treasury, should be appropriated for the whole
nation, as has been the practice heretofore. That is, in consideration
of excluding slavery from the territories, I would give the south a
double share, or even a three-fold share, of all the income that may
ever be derived from them. Pecuniary surrenders I would gladly make for
the sake of peace, but not for peace itself would I surrender liberty.
It would be to suppose our merchants and manufacturers void of common
foresight, could they believe that concession now will bring security
hereafter. By yielding the moral question, they jeopard their pecuniary
interests. Should the south succeed in their present attempt upon the
territories, they will impatiently await the retirement of General
Taylor from the executive chair, to add the “State of Cuba,” with its
500,000 slaves, its ignorance and its demoralization, to their roll of
triumph. California will be a free-trade state, by the most certain of
all biases. They will have nothing to sell but gold; they will have
every thing to buy,--cradles and coffins, and all between. If New
Mexico is slave, it will also be free trade; and Cuba as certainly as
either,--though in that island facilities for smuggling will reduce
the difference between tariff and free trade to nothing. A surrender,
therefore, by our northern business men, will be most disastrous to
the very business that tempts them to surrender. Will they take no
warning from the fact that their apathy in regard to Texas repealed the
tariff of 1842? This is a low motive, I admit; but it may be set as a
back-fire to the motive by which some of them appear to be influenced.
There was no need, not a shadow of need, of perilling any principle,
nor any interest. Had the north stood firm, had they been true to the
great principles they have so often and so solemnly proclaimed, the
waves of southern violence would have struck harmless at their feet.
He is not learned in the weather who does not know that storms from
the south, though violent, are short. We are assailed now because we
have yielded before. The compromise of 1820 begat the nullification of
1832; the compromise of 1832 inspired the mad exploit of compassing
Texas, which our greater madness made sane. The moral paralysis which
failed to oppose the Mexican war, has given us the territories. If the
territories are now surrendered, we shall have Cuba, and an indefinite
career of conquest and of slavery will be opened on our south-western
border. Every new concession transfers strength from our side to the
side of our opponents; and if we cannot arrest our own course when we
are just entering the rapids, how can we arrest it when we come near
the verge of the cataract? The south may rule the Union, but they
cannot divide it. Their whole Atlantic seaboard is open to attack,
and powerless for defence; and the Mississippi River may as easily be
divided physically as politically into independent portions. With these
advantages, let us never aggress upon their rights, but let us maintain
our own.
Fellow-citizens, I would gladly relieve the darkness of this picture by
some gleams of light. There are two hopes which, as yet, are not wholly
extinguished in my mind. Beyond all question, a compromise bill will be
reported by the committee of thirteen, in which free California will be
made to carry as great a burden of slavery as she can bear. It is still
_possible_ that the House will treat, as it deserves, this adulterous
union. A single vote may turn the scale, and Massachusetts may give
that vote. Not improbably, too, the fate of the bill may depend upon
the earnestness and decision with which northern constituencies make
their sentiments known to their representatives, whether by petitions,
by private letters, or by public resolutions. Let every lover of
freedom do his best and his most.
Should the north fail, I have still one hope more. It is, that New
Mexico will do for herself what we shall have basely failed to do
for her. If both these hopes fail, our country is doomed to run its
unobstructed career of conquest, of despotism, and of infamy.
I have now, my fellow-citizens, given you my “Views and Opinions”
on the present crisis in our public affairs. Had I regarded my own
feelings, I should have spoken less at length; but the subject has
commanded me. I trust I have spoken respectfully towards those from
whom I dissent, while speaking my own sentiments justly and truly. I
have used no asperity; for all my emotions have been of grief, and not
of anger. My words have been cool as the telegraphic wires, while my
feelings have been like the lightning that runs through them. The idea
that Massachusetts should contribute or consent to the extension of
human slavery!--is it not enough, not merely to arouse the living from
their torpor, but the dead from their graves! Were I to help this, nay,
did I not oppose it with all the powers and faculties which God has
given me, I should see myriads of agonized faces glaring out upon me
from the future, more terrible than Duncan’s at Macbeth; and I would
rather feel an assassin’s poniard in my breast than forever hereafter
to see “the air-drawn dagger” of a guilty memory. In Massachusetts, the
great drama of the revolution began. Some of its heroes yet survive
amongst us. At Lexington, at Concord, and on Bunker Hill, the grass
still grows greener where the soil was fattened with the blood of our
fathers. If, in the providence of God, we must be vanquished in this
contest, let it be by force of the overmastering and inscrutable powers
above us, and not by our own base desertion.
I am, gentlemen, your much honored, obliged, and obedient servant,
HORACE MANN.
LETTER II.
TO THE EDITORS OF THE BOSTON ATLAS;
GENTLEMEN; Your semi-weekly of the 1st instant contains a letter of
the Hon. Daniel Webster, to certain citizens of Newburyport, in which
he has been pleased to refer to me, and particularly to a passage in
the letter which I addressed to a portion of my constituents, on the
3d of May last, [the preceding Letter.] His reference to me is of so
extraordinary a character, both as to manner and matter, that I wish
to reply. To prevent all chance of mistake, I quote the following
passages:--
“But, at the same time, nothing is more false than that such jury
trial is demanded in cases of this kind by the constitution, either
in its letter or in its spirit. The constitution declares that in all
criminal prosecutions there shall be a trial by jury. The claiming of
a fugitive slave is not a criminal prosecution.
“The constitution also declares that in suits at common law the trial
by jury shall be preserved; the reclaiming of a fugitive slave is not
a suit at the common law; and there is no other clause or sentence in
the constitution having the least bearing on the subject.
“I have seen a publication by Mr. Horace Mann, a member of Congress
from Massachusetts, in which I find this sentence. Speaking of the
bill before the Senate, he says: ‘This bill derides the trial by jury
secured by the constitution. A man may not lose his horse without a
right to this trial, but he may lose his freedom. Mr. Webster speaks
for the south and for slavery, not for the north and for freedom, when
he abandons this right.’ This personal vituperation does not annoy
me, but I lament to see a public man of Massachusetts so crude and
confused in his legal apprehensions, and so little acquainted with the
constitution of his country, as these opinions evince Mr. Mann to be.
His citation of a supposed case, as in point, if it have any analogy
to the matter, would prove that, if Mr. Mann’s horse stray into his
neighbor’s field, _he cannot lead him back without a previous trial
by jury to ascertain the right_. Truly, if what Mr. Mann says of the
provisions of the constitution in this publication be a test of his
accuracy in the understanding of that instrument, he would do well
not to seek to protect his peculiar notions under its sanction, but
to appeal at once, as others do, to that higher authority which sits
enthroned above the constitution and above the law.”
I must deny this charge of “personal vituperation;” nothing was further
from my thoughts; and I regret that Mr. Webster, while disclaiming
“annoyance” at what I said, should betray it. I believe every part
of my “Letter” to be within the bounds of courteous and respectful
discussion. There is nothing in it which might not pass between
gentlemen, without interrupting relations of civility or friendship.
Though full of regret at his novel position, and of dissent from his
unwonted doctrines, yet it abounds in proofs of deference to himself.
I must now, however, be permitted to add that the highest eminence
becomes unenviable when it breeds intolerance of dissent, or bars out
the humblest man from a free expression of opinion.
Mr. Webster “laments to see a public man of Massachusetts so crude and
confused in his legal apprehensions, and so little acquainted with the
constitution of his country, as these opinions evince Mr. Mann to be.”
Yet he points out no error of opinion. He specifies nothing as unsound.
Judgment and condemnation alone appear. He seems to have taken it for
granted that he had only to say I was guilty, and then proceed to
punish. I protest against and impugn this method of proceeding, by any
man, however high, against any man, however humble.
When Mr. Webster penned his “lamentations” over my crudeness,
confusion, and ignorance, he doubtless meant to deal me a mortal blow.
The blow was certainly heavy: but the question still remains, _whether
it hit_. Polyphemus struck hard blows, but his blindness left the
objects of his passions unharmed.
But wherein do those erroneous “opinions” consist, which Mr. Webster
does not deign to specify, but assumes to condemn? Fortunately, in
writing the sentence which he quotes for animadversion, I followed
the precise meaning of Judge Story, as laid down in his Commentaries;
and in regard to the only point which is open to a question, _I took
the exact words_ of that great jurist. He speaks of “the right of a
trial by jury, in civil cases,” as an existing right _before_ the
seventh article of amendment to the constitution, which _preserves this
right_ “in suits at common law,” had been adopted. (3 Comm., 628.)
Instead of transcribing Judge Story’s words, “in civil cases,” which
present no distinct image to common minds, I supposed the every-day
case of litigation respecting a horse, which is a “civil case;” and
this difference of form is the only difference between my language
and that of the learned judge. I can wish Mr. Webster no more fitting
retribution, after reposing from this ill-tempered attack upon me, than
to awake and find that it was Judge Story whom he had been maligning.
Does not the authority of Judge Blackstone also support my position? He
says,--
“Recapture or reprisal is another species of remedy, by the mere
act of the party injured.... But as the public peace is a superior
consideration to any one man’s private property; and as, if
individuals were once allowed to use private force as a remedy for
private injuries, all social justice must cease, the strong would give
law to the weak, and every man would revert to a state of nature; for
these reasons, it is provided that this natural right of recaption
shall never be exerted, where such exertion must occasion strife
and bodily contention, or endanger the peace of society. If, for
instance, my horse is taken away, and I find him in a common, a fair,
or a public inn, I may lawfully seize him to my own use; but I cannot
justify breaking open a private stable, _or entering on the grounds of
a third person, to take him_, should he be feloniously stolen; _but
must have recourse to an action at law_.”--_Comm._ 4, 5.
But the opinion expressed by me on this point does not need the
authority of any name to support it; and the illustration which I gave
is not only intelligible to every sensible man, but is also apposite.
I said “a man may not lose his horse, [i. e. his property in a horse,]
without a right to this trial.” Mr. Webster’s comment is, that this
case, “if it have any analogy to the matter,” means, that if a man’s
horse “_stray_ into his neighbor’s field, _he cannot lead him back
without a previous trial by jury to ascertain the right_.” Was ever the
plain meaning of a sentence more exactly changed about, end for end?
Mr. Webster may pitch somersets with his own doctrines, but he has no
right to pitch them with mine. I said a man may not _lose_ his horse,
or his property in a horse, without a right to the trial by jury. He
says I said, a man cannot _find_ or _retake_ a lost horse, without a
previous trial! _Dulce est desipere in loco._ Or, it is pleasant to see
a grave senator play upon words;--though there should be some wit to
redeem it from puerility.
But the childishness of this criticism is not its worst feature. What
is the great _truth_ which Mr. Webster and his apologists attempt here
to ridicule? It is this: While every man amongst us, in regard to any
piece of property worth more than twenty dollars, of which violence or
fraud may attempt to despoil him, has a right to a trial by jury; yet a
man’s freedom, and that of his posterity forever, may be wrested from
him, as our law now stands, without such a trial. Does not this hold a
man’s freedom to be of less value than twenty dollars? If two adverse
claimants contest title to an alleged slave, whose market value is more
than this sum, each is entitled to a jury to try the fact of ownership.
But if the alleged slave declares, here, in Massachusetts, that he owns
himself, he is debarred from this right. And this truth, or a common
illustration of it, Mr. Webster and his apologists think a suitable
topic for sneers or pleasantry! A French proverb says, that for a
man to kill his mother _is not in good taste_. I trust the moral and
religious people of Massachusetts have too much _good taste_ to relish
jokes on such a theme.
Again; I said that Mr. Butler’s bill “derides” the trial by jury.
By that bill every commissioner and clerk of a United States court,
every marshal and collector of the customs, and the seventeen
thousand postmasters of the United States, are severally invested
with jurisdiction and authority in all parts of the United States, to
deliver any man, woman, or child in the United States, into custody,
as a slave, on the strength of an _ex parte_ affidavit, made any where
in the United States. This affidavit may have been made a thousand
miles off, by no one knows whom, and certified to by a person who
never saw or heard of the individual named in it. A forged affidavit,
or a fictitious affidavit, would often answer the purpose as well;
for how difficult, and in many cases, how impossible, to prove its
spuriousness. Did oppression ever before conceive such a tribunal, so
countless in numbers, so ample in jurisdiction, so terrible in power?
Had a bill similar to this been proposed in the British Parliament,
from 1763 to 1776, what would our fathers have said of it? Yet this
bill, with some kindred amendments, heightening its features of
atrocity, Mr. Webster promised “to support, with all its provisions,
to the fullest extent.”
What aggravates the wrong, is, that the cruelties of the measure will
fall upon the poor, the helpless, the ignorant, the unfriended. The
bill would have been far less disgraceful, had its provisions borne
upon the men who should pass it; because, in such case, there would
have been a touch of equality. Now, if this bill does not “_deride_”
all guaranties for the protection of human liberty, it is only because
my word of reprobation is too weak. It is only because one needs “to
tear a leaf from the curse-book of Pandemonium” in order to describe it
by fitting epithets.
Another remarkable feature of Mr. Butler’s bill is, that it provides no
penalty whatever for any one who shall abuse, or fraudulently use, the
dangerous authority which it gives. It furnishes endless temptations
and facilities for committing wrong; it imposes no restraints; it warns
by no threats of retribution.
Mr. Webster calls me to account for some unspecified erroneous
“opinion,” expressed in relation to this bill. Can any opinion be so
false to the constitution, as this bill to humanity? I deprecate error
of all sorts; but hold it to be more venial to err in judgment than in
heart.
I said that in promising to support Mr. Butler’s bill, “with all its
provisions, to the fullest extent,” Mr. Webster “abandoned” the right
to a trial by jury. I spoke of him as a senator, as one who, with his
co-legislators, was bound, in fulfilment of his constitutional duty,
to secure this form of trial to the alleged slave, or to a known
freeman seized as a slave. Mr. Seward’s bill, providing for the trial
by jury, in such cases, was before him. He took no notice of it. He
passed by “on the other side,” while he bestowed his best encomium
on Mr. Butler’s bill, by promising to support it. Was not this an
“abandonment,” under any of the synonyms given in the dictionary?