States mean to change our policy--I tell you, frankly, just how we
feel and just what we propose to do. We mean to withdraw from
these halls that class of public men who have betrayed us and
deceived you; men who have misrepresented us, and not dealt
frankly with you. And we intend to send men into these halls who
will truly represent us and deal justly with you. We mean, sir, to
place in the councils of the nation men who, in the words of
Jefferson, 'have sworn on the altar of God eternal hostility to
every kind of oppression of the mind and body of man.' Yes, sir,
we mean to place in the national councils men who cannot be
seduced by the blandishments, or deterred by the threats of power;
men who will fearlessly maintain our principles. I assure senators
from the South that the people of the North entertain for them and
their people no feelings of hostility; but they will no longer
consent to be misrepresented by their own representatives, nor
proscribed for their fidelity to freedom. This determination of
the people of the North has manifested itself during the past few
months in acts not to be misread by the country. The stern rebuke
administered to faithless northern representatives, and the
annihilation of old and powerful political organizations, should
teach senators that the days of waning power are upon them. This
action of the people teaches the lesson, which I hope will be
heeded, that political combinations can no longer be successfully
made to suppress the sentiments of the people. We believe we have
the power to abolish slavery in all the territories of the Union;
that, if slavery exists there, it exists by the permission and
sanction of the Federal Government, and we are responsible for it.
We are in favor of its abolition wherever we are morally or
legally responsible for its existence.
"I believe conscientiously, that if slavery should be abolished by
the National Government in the District of Columbia, and in the
territories, the fugitive slave act repealed, the Federal
Government relieved from all connection with, or responsibility
for the existence of slavery, these angry debates banished from
the halls of Congress, and slavery left to the people of the
States, that the men of the South who are opposed to the existence
of that institution, would get rid of it in their own States at no
distant day. I believe that if slavery is ever peacefully
abolished in this country--and I certainly believe it will be--it
must be abolished in this way.
"The senator from Indiana [Mr. Pettit] has made a long argument
to-night to prove the inferiority of the African race. Well, sir,
I have no contest with the senator upon that question. I do not
claim for that race intellectual equality; but I say to the
senator from Indiana that I know men of that race who are quite
equal in mental power to either the senator from Indiana or
myself--men who are scarcely inferior, in that respect, to any
senators upon this floor. But, sir, suppose the senator from
Indiana succeeds in establishing the inferiority of that despised
race, is mental inferiority a valid reason for the perpetual
oppression of a race? Is the mental, moral, or physical
inferiority of a man a just cause of oppression in republican and
Christian America? Sir, is this Democracy? Is it Christianity?
Democracy cares for the poor, the lowly, the humble. Democracy
demands that the panoply of just and equal laws shall shield and
protect the weakest of the sons of men. Sir, these are strange
doctrines to hear uttered in the Senate of republican America,
whose political institutions are based upon the fundamental idea
that 'all men are created equal.' If the African race is inferior,
this proud race of ours should educate and elevate it, and not
deny to those who belong to it the rights of our common humanity.
"The senator from Indiana boasts that his State imposes a fine
upon the white man that gives employment to the free black man. I
am not surprised at the degradation of the colored people of
Indiana, who are compelled to live under such inhuman laws, and
oppressed by the public sentiment that enacts and sustains them. I
thank God, sir, Massachusetts is not dishonored by such laws! In
Massachusetts we have about seven thousand colored people. They
have the same rights that we have; they go to our free schools,
they enter all the business and professional relations of life,
they vote in our elections, and in intelligence and character are
scarcely inferior to the citizens of this proud and peerless race
whose superiority we have heard so vauntingly proclaimed to-night
by the senators from Tennessee and Indiana."
Returning home at the close of the session, he warned his personal
friends and political associates that the American organization, which
had acted with the anti-Nebraska men in the North, was to be seduced
by the South, and betrayed by men in the North, who assumed to control
its actions. On the 8th of May, he delivered an address before a
large assemblage in the Metropolitan Theatre in New York, upon the
development of the anti-slavery sentiment in America for twenty years,
from 1835 to 1855. On this occasion he declared that:
"He owed it to truth to speak what he knew--that the anti-slavery
cause was in extreme peril--that a demand was made upon us of the
North to ignore the slavery question, to keep quiet, and go into
power in 1856. If there were men in the free States who hoped to
triumph in 1856 by ignoring the slavery issues now forced upon the
nation by the slave propagandists, he would say to them, that the
anti-slavery men cannot be reduced or driven into the organization
of a party that ignores the question of slavery in Christian and
Republican America. Let such men read and ponder the history of
the Republic; let them contrast anti-slavery in 1835 and
anti-slavery in 1855. Those periods are the grand epochs in the
anti-slavery movement, and the contrast between them cannot fail
to give us some faint conception of the mighty changes that twenty
years of anti-slavery agitation have wrought in America.
Anti-slavery in 1835 was in the nadir of its weakness;
anti-slavery in 1855 is in the zenith of its power. Then, a few
unknown, nameless men were its apostles and leaders; now, the most
profound and accomplished intellects of America are its chiefs and
champions. Then, a few proscribed and humble followers rallied
around its banner; now, it has laid its grasp upon the conscience
of the people, and hundreds of thousands rally under the folds of
its flag. Then, not a single statesman in all America accepted its
doctrines or defended its measures; now, it has a decisive
majority in the national House of Representatives, and is rapidly
changing the complexion of the American Senate. Then, every State
in the Union was arrayed against it; now, it controls fifteen
sovereign States by more than 300,000 popular majority. Then, the
public press covered it with ridicule and contempt; now, the most
powerful journals in America are its instruments. Then, the
benevolent, religious and literary institutions of the land
repulsed its advances, rebuked its doctrines and persecuted its
advocates; now, it shapes, molds and fashions them at its
pleasure, compelling the most powerful benevolent organizations of
the western world, upon whose mission stations the sun never sets,
to execute its decrees, and the oldest literary institution in
America to cast from its bosom a professor who had surrendered a
man to the slave hunters. Then, the political organizations
trampled disdainfully upon it; now, it looks down with the pride
of conscious power upon the wrecked political fragments that float
at its feet. Then, it was impotent and powerless; now it holds
every political organization in the hollow of its right hand.
Then, the public voice sneered at and defied it; now it is the
master of America and has only to be true to itself to grasp the
helm and guide the ship of State hereafter in her course."
"This brief contrast," he said, "would show the men who hoped to win
power by ignoring the transcendent issue of our age in America, how
impotent would be the efforts of any class of men to withdraw the
mighty questions involved in the existence and expansion of slavery on
this continent, from the consideration of the people." To the idea of
going into power by sacrificing the anti-slavery cause, he replied:
"Now, gentlemen, I say to you frankly, I am the last man to object
to going into power [laughter], and especially to going into power
over the present dynasty that is fastened upon the country. But I
am the last man that will consent to go into power by ignoring or
sacrificing the slavery question. [Applause.] If my voice could be
heard by the whole country to-night--by the anti-slavery men of
the country to-night of all parties, I would say to them, resolve
it--write it over your door-posts--engrave it on the lids of your
Bibles--proclaim it at the rising of the sun and the going down
of the sun, and in the broad light of noon, that any party in
America, be that party Whig, Democratic, or American, that lifts
its finger to arrest the anti-slavery movement, to repress the
anti-slavery sentiment, or proscribe the anti-slavery men, it
surely shall begin to die--[loud applause]--it would deserve to
die; it will die; and by the blessing of God I shall do what
little I can to make it die."
This address was repeated in Boston, Worcester, Springfield, Lowell,
Dorchester, and other places in Massachusetts, and General Wilson
was branded as an agitator, traitor, and disorganizer, by men who had
been for six months secretly and darkly intriguing to betray the
liberty-loving men who had given the American organization power
in the free States. This feeling of hostility was heightened by
the publication of his speech, delivered on the 16th of May, at
Brattleborough, Vt., "On the position and duty of the American
party." In this speech he said that
"The time has come for the advocates of the American movement
distinctly to define their principles and their policy.
"If the American party is to achieve anything for good, it must
adopt a wise and humane policy consistent with our Democratic
ideas--a policy which will reform existing abuses and guard
against future ones--which shall combine in one harmonious
organization moderate and patriotic men who love freedom and hate
oppression. Upon the grand and overshadowing question of American
slavery, the American party must take its position. If it wishes a
speedy death and a dishonored grave, let it adopt the policy of
neutrality upon that question or the policy of ignoring that
question. If that party wishes to live, to impress its policy upon
the nation, it must repudiate the sectional policy of slavery and
stand boldly upon the broad and national basis of freedom. It must
accept the position that 'Freedom is national and slavery is
sectional.' It must stand upon the national idea embodied in the
Declaration of Independence--that 'all men are created equal, and
have an inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness.' It must accept these words as embracing the great
central national idea of America, fidelity to which is national in
New England and in South Carolina. It must recognize the doctrine
that the Constitution of the United States was made 'to secure the
blessing of liberty,'--that Congress has no right to make a slave
or allow slavery to exist outside of the slave States, and that
the Federal Government must be relieved from all connection with,
and responsibility for slavery.
"In their own good time the Americans of Massachusetts have spoken
for themselves. They have placed that old Commonwealth face to
face to the slave oligarchy and its allies. Upon their banner they
have written in letters of living light the words, 'No exclusion
from the public schools on account of race or color.'--'No slave
commissioners on the judicial bench.'--'No slave States to be
carved out of Kansas and Nebraska.'--'The repeal of the
unconstitutional fugitive slave act of 1850.'--'An act to protect
personal liberty.' The men who have inscribed these glowing words
upon their banner will go into the conflicts of the future like
the Zouaves at Inkermann, 'with the light of battle on their
faces,'--and if defeat comes, they will fall with their 'backs to
the field, and their feet to the foe.'"
Early in June, 1855, the American National Council assembled at
Philadelphia. General Wilson was a delegate, and his position in the
Senate, and his avowed sentiments, opinions and policy, brought him at
once into conflict with the men in and out of the council, who were
intriguing to make the American organization an instrument of the
slave power. An attempt was made to keep him out of the council, on
account of the sentiments he had expressed, and to draw off the
Massachusetts delegation from him; but they stood by him, and thus
baffled the designs of the plotters. On taking his seat in the
council, he was at once recognized by friends and foes as the leader
of the North--the representative of the anti-slavery men of the free
States. The National Council sat for more than one week, and during
that time it was the scene of stormy, exciting and angry discussion
upon the slavery question. Early in the debate, a delegate from
Virginia made a fierce personal attack upon him, quoting from his
speeches, and denouncing him as the leader of the anti-slavery men of
the North, who had come into the council to rule or to destroy.
General Wilson promptly replied to this assault, and defiantly told
the delegate from Virginia and his compeers, that "his threats had no
terrors for free men--that he was then and there ready to meet
argument with argument--scorn with scorn--and if need, be, blow with
blow, for God had given him an arm ready and able to protect his head!
It was time the champions of slavery in the South should realize the
fact, that the past was theirs--the future ours." The debate went on,
and on the 12th of June, General Wilson made an elaborate speech in
reply to the assaults made upon the North and upon the anti-slavery
men, by both southern and northern delegates. To the assaults made
upon Massachusetts by some of the delegates from New York, he said:
"When Massachusetts pleads to any arraignment before the nation, she
will demand that her accusers are competent to draw the bill." To the
men of the South who had denounced the action of Massachusetts, he
replied:
"But gentlemen of talents and of character have undertaken here to
arraign Massachusetts. To those gentlemen I have to say, that
Massachusetts means to go to the very verge of her constitutional
powers, to protect the personal rights of her people! She means
to exercise her constitutional rights, for the security of
the liberties of her people, against what she deems to be
unconstitutional, inhuman and unchristian legislation; and I tell
you frankly, if any constitutional powers are in doubt, she will
construe them in favor of liberty; not in favor of slavery. In the
future, if she errs at all, in the interpretation of her reserved
rights, as a sovereign State, I trust she will go a little beyond
the limits of State sovereignty, rather than fall short of
marching up to those limits. The personal liberties of her people
demand that she should do so.
"Massachusetts has the right, if she chooses, to remove from her
judicial bench, any officers who shall consent to perform the
duties imposed upon United States commissioners. She denies your
right, gentlemen, to arraign her here or elsewhere for the
exercise of her own constitutional powers. By the decision of the
Supreme Court of the United States, Massachusetts has a right to
forbid the use of her prisons--she has a right to forbid her
officers from engaging in the extradition of fugitives from labor.
She believes that every human being within her limits, has a right
to the benefits of the writ of _habeas corpus_, and to a jury
trial. She proposes to test the question by the judicial
authorities. Her 'offence hath that extent, no more.'
Massachusetts stands upon the State rights doctrines of Virginia
and Kentucky, of 1798 and 1799. She raises no standard of
nullification or rebellion--she will submit to the decisions of
those tribunals authorized to expound the judicial powers of the
Government.
"The gentleman from Alabama (Judge Hopkins), has hinted to us that
the Southern States may find it necessary to protect themselves
against this action of Massachusetts, by legislation that shall
touch her material interests. Threats of that kind, sir, have no
terrors for Massachusetts. Her people will laugh to scorn all such
idle threats, by whomsoever made. Massachusetts, with one million
of intelligent people, with free schools, free churches, free
labor, is competent to take care of her own material interests.
'Her goods are for sale--not her principles.' If gentlemen from
the South expect to intimidate Massachusetts by such threats, I
tell them here and now, that we scorn, spurn and defy your
threats."
Of the proposed national platform he said:
"The adoption of this platform commits the American party
unconditionally to the policy of slavery--to the iron dominion of
the Black Power. I tell you, sir, I tell this convention, that we
cannot stand upon this platform in a single free State of the
North. The people of the North will repudiate it, spurn it, spit
upon it. For myself, sir, I here and now tell you to your faces,
that I will trample with disdain on your platform. I will not
support it. I will support no man who stands upon it. Adopt that
platform, and you array against you everything that is pure and
holy--everything that has the elements of permanency in it--the
noblest pulsations of the human heart--the holiest convictions of
the human soul--the profoundest ideas of the human intellect and
the attributes of Almighty God! Your party will be withered and
consumed by the blasting breath of the people's wrath! There is an
old Spanish proverb, which says that 'the feet of the avenging
deities are shod with wool.' Softly and silently these avenging
deities are advancing upon you. You will find that 'the mills of
God grind slowly, but they grind to powder.'
"When I united with the American organization in March, 1854, in
its hour of weakness--I told the men with whom I acted that my
anti-slavery opinions were the matured convictions of years, and
that I would not modify or qualify my opinions or suppress my
sentiments for any consideration on earth. From that hour to this,
in public and in private, I have freely uttered my anti-slavery
sentiments, and labored to promote the anti-slavery cause, and I
tell you now, that I will continue to do so. You shall not
proscribe anti-slavery principles, measures or men, without
receiving from me the most determined and unrelenting hostility.
It is a painful thing to differ from our associates and
friends--but when duty, a stern sense of duty, demands it, I shall
do so. Reject this majority platform--adopt the proposition to
restore freedom to Kansas and Nebraska, and to protect the actual
settlers from violence and outrage--simplify your rules--make an
open organization--banish all bigotry and intolerance from your
ranks--place your movement in harmony with the humane progressive
spirit of the age, and you may win and retain power, and elevate
and improve the political character of the country. Adopt this
majority platform--commit the American movement to the slave
perpetualists and the slave propagandists, and you will go down
before the burning indignation and withering scorn of American
freemen."
But the pro-slavery platform was adopted, and most of the delegates
from the North retired from the National Council. A meeting was at
once held, over which General Wilson presided. This meeting adopted a
protest against the action of the council, and announced their final
separation from the national organization. The American organization
was shivered to atoms, and no man contributed more to that result than
General Wilson; and in doing it he but redeemed the words he had
uttered while his election to the Senate was pending. The New York
"Tribune," referring to the action of the council, said:
"The antecedents of Mr. Wilson naturally made him the particular
object of hostility to the slave-drivers in the convention; and
one of the earliest displays after the body was organized, was a
grossly personal attack upon him by a delegate from Virginia. But
the assailants had now met an antagonist who was not to be cowed
or silenced, and the response they received was of a character to
induce them not to repeat their experiment. We have the unanimous
testimony of many northern members of the convention to the signal
gallantry and effect of Mr. Wilson's bearing, and to the bold,
virile and telling eloquence of his speeches. While all have done
so well in bringing about results so gratifying, it may be
invidious to particularize; but a few names among the northern
members, who were devoted from the start to the work of creating a
unity and a strength of _northern back-bone_, should justly be
exposed to the public appreciation and honor that they deserve.
First stands Henry Wilson of Massachusetts, preeminent as the
leader in the whole movement. He was handsomely sustained by all
his associates, and the numerous insidious efforts of the enemy to
separate them from him, only attached them the more closely to his
side. He has the highest honor in this contest, exhibited the
greatest political ability, and broke down many strong prejudices
against him, both among Massachusetts men who were witnesses to
his conduct, and among the delegates of the other States, North
and South. No man went into that council with more elements of
distrust and opposition combined against him; no one goes out of
it with such an enviable fame, or such an aggregation to his
honor. He is worthy of Massachusetts, and worthy to lead the new
movement of the people of that State, which the result here so
fitly inaugurates."
General Wilson, during the summer and autumn of 1855, visited thirteen
States, travelled more than twenty thousand miles, consulted with
leading men of all parties, and addressed tens of thousands of people
in favor of the fusion of men of all parties for freedom. In the State
council of the Americans of Massachusetts, at Springfield, on the 7th
of August, he made an elaborate speech on the "necessity of the fusion
of parties," in which he invoked the members to sustain the resolution
announcing the readiness of the Americans "to unite and cooperate
with" men of other parties, in forming a great party of freedom. On
that occasion he said:
"The gathering hosts of northern freemen, of every party and
creed, are banding together to resist the aggressive policy of the
Black Power. Freedom, patriotism, and humanity demand the union of
the freemen of the Republic, for the sake of liberty now perilled.
Religion sanctions and blesses it.
"How and where stands Massachusetts? Shall she range herself in
line, front to the Black Power, with her sister States? or shall
she maintain the fatal position of isolation? Here and now, we,
the chosen representatives of the American party of this
Commonwealth, are to meet that issue, to solve that problem.
"The American party of Massachusetts, dashing other organizations
into powerless fragments, had grasped the reins of power, placed
an unbroken delegation in Congress pledged to the policy of
freedom, ranged this ancient Commonwealth front to front with the
slave power, and written, with the iron pen of history, upon her
statutes, declarations of principles and pledges of acts hostile
to the aggressive policy of the slaveholding power. When the Black
Power of the imperious South, aided by the servile power of the
faltering North, imposed upon the national American organization
its principles, measures and policy, the representatives of the
American party of this Commonwealth, spurned the unhallowed
decrees, turned their backs, forever, upon that prostituted
organization, and their action received the approving sanction of
this State council by a vote approaching unanimity. The American
party, as a national organization, is broken and shivered to
atoms. By its own act the American party of Massachusetts has
severed itself from all connection with that product of southern
domination and northern submission.
"The American party of Massachusetts has, during its brief
existence, uttered true words and performed noble deeds for
freedom. The past at least is secure. Whatever may have been its
errors of omission or commission, the slave and the slave's
friends will never reproach it. Holding, as it does, the reins of
power, it has now a glorious opportunity to give to the country
the magnanimous example of a great and dominant party, in the full
possession of consummated power, freely yielding up that power,
for the holy cause of freedom, to the equal possession of other
parties, who are willing to cooperate with it upon a common
platform. Here and now, we, its representatives, are to show by
our acts whether we can rise above the demands of partisan policy,
to the full comprehension of the condition of public affairs--to
the full realization of the obligations which fidelity to freedom
now imposes upon us.