equality of the South as joint owners was declared and maintained, as I
had often done before the people of Mississippi and in the Senate of
the United States when the subject was in controversy. The position
taken by me in 1850, in the form of an amendment offered to one of the
compromise measures of that year, was intended to assert the equal
right of all property to the protection of the United States, and to
deny to any legislative body the power to abridge that right. The
decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case has fully
sustained our position in the following passage:
“If Congress itself cannot do this, (prohibit slavery in a Territory,)
if it is beyond the powers conferred on the Federal Government—it will
be admitted, we presume, that it could not authorize a territorial
government to exercise them. _It could confer no power on any local
government established by its authority, to violate the provisions of
the Constitution._
“And if the Constitution recognizes the right of property of the master
in a slave; and makes no distinction between that description of
property and other property owned by a citizen, _no tribunal_, acting
under the authority of the United States, whether legislative,
executive, or judicial, has a right to draw such a distinction, or deny
to it the benefit of the provisions and guarantees which have been
provided for the protection of private property against the
encroachments of the government.”
At the time of the adoption of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, it certainly
was understood that the constitutional rights to take slaves into any
territory of the United States should thenceforth be regarded as a
judicial question; and therefore special provision was made to
facilitate the bringing of such questions before the Supreme Court of
the United States. After the decision to which reference has just been
made, the prominent advocate of the bill at the time of its enactment
should have been estopped from recurring to his “squatter sovereignty”
heresies, though the decision should have been different from his
anticipation or desire. And as much interest has been felt in relation
to his position, and some inquiry has been made as to my view of it, I
will here say, that I consider him as having recanted the better
opinions announced by him in 1854, and that I cannot be compelled to
choose between men, one of whom asserts the power of Congress to
deprive us of a constitutional right, and the other only denies the
power of Congress, in order to transfer it to the territorial
legislature. Neither the one nor the other has any authority to sit in
judgment on our rights under the Constitution.
Between such positions, Mississippi cannot have a preference, because
she cannot recognize anything tolerable in either of them.
Having called your attention to the speech made at Portland, to show
that other parts of it disprove the construction put upon the
paragraph, which was taken from it, and reported to be a part of the
speech delivered at Bangor, it may be as well on this occasion to state
the circumstances under which the speech was made at Portland.
Immediately preceding the State election, I was invited, by the
democracy of that city, to address them, and my attention was
especially called to a delusion practiced on the people of Maine, by
which many were led to believe that there was a purpose on the part of
the South, through the government of the United States, to force
slavery not only into the territories, but also into the
non-slaveholding States of the Union. It was represented to me that in
the last Presidential canvass that one of the Senators of Maine had
convinced many of the voters that if Mr. Buchanan should be elected,
slavery would be forced upon Maine, and that the other Senator was
arguing that the Dred Scott decision of the Supreme Court had given
authority to introduce and hold slaves in that State. To counteract
such impressions, injurious to the South and her friends, the remarks
which have been extracted were made.
On that, as on other occasions, it was deemed a duty to correct
misrepresentation and seek to vindicate our purposes from the prejudice
which ignorance and agitation had created against us. If it was in my
power in any degree to allay sectional excitement, to cultivate sounder
opinions and a more fraternal feeling, it was a task most acceptable to
me, and one for the performance of which I could not doubt your
approval. But it has been my fortune to be the object of a malice which
I have not striven to appease because I was conscious that it rested
upon no injury or injustice inflicted by me. The land swarms with
Presidential candidates, announced by their agents or their friends, or
by themselves, as the mode most available for preventing too zealous
and partial friends from putting them in nomination. To these it was
the source of unfounded apprehension, that I went to the coast of New
England, instead of returning to Mississippi. If any of them had known
the necessity which kept me from home, it is fair to suppose the
aspirant for such distinction could not have been guilty of the
meanness of suppressing that fact, and allowing misrepresentation to do
its work in my absence.
For the wretch who is doomed to go through the world bearing a personal
jealousy or a personal malignity, which renders him incapable of doing
justice, and studious of misrepresentation, I can only feel pity, and
were it possible to feel revengeful, could consign him to no worse
punishment than that of his own tormentors, the vipers nursed in his
own breast.
But long have I delayed what is my chief purpose, to speak to my
friends, the men whose good opinion is to me of importance only second
to the approval of my own conscience. So far as they have misunderstood
me, it is a pleasure to set forth the true meaning of both my words and
my deeds. To my traducers I have no explanations to offer and no
apologies for any one. If State Rights men in the excess of their zeal
have censured me, I have no reproaches for them, but cheerfully bear
the burden which may be imposed upon me by zeal in the cause to which
my political life has been devoted, and in imitation of Job, would
bless the State Rights Democracy of Mississippi, even if the object of
its vengeance: “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.”
If I had been asked what interpretation might possibly be put upon the
published sketch of the remarks made by me at sea on the Fourth of July
last, speculation would have been exhausted before it would have
occurred to me that my State Rights friends would consider themselves
described under the head of “trifling politicians,” who could not
believe that the country would remain united to repel insult to our
flag as it had recently been on the occasion of the attempt to exercise
visit and search in the Gulf of Mexico, under the pretext of checking
the African slave trade. The publisher of that sketch has already
announced that it was not a report, and that for its language I could
not justly be considered responsible. To this it is needless that I
should add any thing. But I have treated it, and will treat it in the
view necessarily taken by those who construed it before such denial was
made.
During the period of greatest adversity, in the hour of gloom and
defeat, the State Rights Democracy had no cause to complain of my
fealty. We struggled together, fell together, rose together, and to
them I am indebted for whatever of consideration or position I possess.
Endeared to me by our common suffering; grateful to them for the
steadfast support with which they have honored me, accustomed to refer
with pride to my identity with them, it would have been strange indeed,
if when separated from them under circumstances which turned any eyes,
with more than ordinary anxiety towards my home, I should then have
sought an occasion to heap reproachful language upon them.
Often it has been my duty to repel the accusations of others who sought
to attribute to the State Rights Democracy opinions not their own, and
to impute to them the purpose to agitate for the destruction of the
government we inherited. As one of the State Rights party, I deny that
the language published is a picture of me or my class, and I have as
little disposition now, as at any former time, to separate myself from
the body of the party, with which I have so long acted, which I rejoice
to see in power at home, and daily more and more respected in the other
States.
I have thus defined who were not meant, and will now tell who were
meant. Firsts they were the noisy agitators who were constantly
disturbing the public peace and proclaiming that slavery is so great an
evil, that the preservation of the Union is subordinate to the purpose
of abolishing it. They who object to any protection, on the high seas
or elsewhere, being given to slave property by the government of the
United States; who would rejoice in any insult offered to the national
flag if borne by a vessel sailing from a Southern port; and who have
been for some time back circulating petitions for a dissolution of the
Union on the ground of the incompatibility of the sections. And to
these may be added the few, the very few of Southern men who fancying
that they would have advantages out of the Union which they cannot
possess within it, however fully the compact should be observed and
State Equality maintained, desire its dissolution, and taking counsel
of their passions, decry the labors of all who seek to preserve the
government as our fathers formed it, and to develop the great purposes
for which it was ordained and established.
The other phrase which has been the subject of comment was, “and this
great country will remain united.” How “united” is set forth in the
language to which this clause was a conclusion, “united to protect our
national flag whenever a foreign power, presuming on our domestic
dissention, should dare to insult it.” The unanimity with which men of
all parties in the two houses of Congress rallied to support the
executive in maintaining the rights of our flag, had been the subject
of my commendation. Upon that fact the idea expressed rested. At worst
it could but have evinced too much credulity, and I trust I may die
believing that whenever the honor of our flag shall demand it, every
mountain and valley and plain, will pour forth their hardy sons, and
that shoulder to shoulder they will march against any foreign foe which
shall invade the rights of any portion of the United States.
And here permit me as a duty to you, and an obligation upon myself, to
pay the tribute which I believe to be due the Northern Democracy.
Having formed my opinion of them upon insufficient data, I have had
occasion, after much intercourse with them, to modify it. I believe
that a great reaction has commenced; how far it will progress I do not
pretend to say, but am hopeful that agitation will soon become
unprofitable to political traders in New England, and this hope rests
upon the high position taken by the Northern Democracy, and upon the
increased vote which in some of the States, under the more distinct
avowal of sound principles, their candidates have received. You may now
often hear among them not only the unqualified defence of your
constitutional rights, but the vindication of your institutions in the
abstract, and in the concrete.
In the town of Portland, just preceding the election, a Democrat of
large means and extensively engaged in commercial transactions and city
improvements addressed the Democracy, arguing that their prosperity
depended upon their connection with countries, the products of which
were dependent upon slave labor; and the future growth and prosperity
of their city depended upon the extension of slave labor into all
countries where it could be profitably employed. He showed by a
statistical statement the paralysing effect which would be produced
upon their interest by the abolition of slavery. The Black Republican
papers of course abused him, and compared him to Davis and Toombs, but
his sound views were approved by the Democracy, and so far as I could
judge, he gained consideration by their manly utterance.
A generation had been educated in error, and the South had done nothing
in defence of the abstract right of slavery. Within a few years essays
have been written, books have been published, by northern as well as by
southern men, and with the increase of information, there has been a
subsidence of prejudice, and a preparation of the mind to receive
truth. Our friends are still in a minority. It would be vain to
speculate as to the period when their position will be reversed.
Whether sooner or later, or never, they are still entitled to our
regard and respect. A few years ago those who maintained our
constitutional right, and to secure it voted for the Kansas and
Nebraska bill, went home to meet reproach and expulsions from public
employment.
Even their social position was affected by that political act. The few
years, however, which have elapsed, have produced a great change. They
have recovered all except their political position. That bill which was
considered when it was enacted, a Southern measure, for which Northern
men bravely sacrificed their political prospects, has of late been
denounced at the South as a cheat and a humbug. A poor return
certainly, to those who conscientiously maintaining our rights,
surrendered their popularity to secure what the men for whom they made
the sacrifice now pronounce to have been a cheat. It is true that bill
has recently received in some quarters a construction which its friends
did not place upon it when it was enacted. But it should be judged by
its terms and by contemporaneous construction.
When I visited the people of Mississippi last year, the question of
greatest public excitement, was connected with the action of the
Executive in relation to the admission of Kansas as a State of the
Union. You had been led to suppose that the President would attempt to
control the action of the convention, and if the constitution was not
submitted to a popular vote, would oppose by all the means within his
power, the admission of the State within the Union. You were also
excited at a dogma which had been put forth, to the effect that no more
slave States should be admitted. I agreed with you then, that if the
President took such position he would violate the obligations of his
office, and be faithless to the trust which you had reposed in him. I
agreed with you then, that the exclusion of a State, because it was
slaveholding, would be such an offence against your equality as would
demand at your hands the vindication of your rights. What has been the
result? The convention framed the constitution, submitted only the
clause relating to slavery to a popular vote, and applied for
admission. The President in his annual message referred in favorable
terms to the application, then not formally made, and when the
Constitution reached him transmitted it to Congress with a special
message, in which he fully and emphatically maintained the right of
admission.
After the convention had adjourned, Mr. Stanton, acting Governor of the
Territory, called and extra session of the Freesoil Legislature, which
has been elected, and it passed an act to submit the whole constitution
to a popular vote. The President removed him from office,—a further
evidence of the sincerity with which he was fulfiling your expectations
in relation to Kansas. And it gives me pleasure here to say of him,
what I am assured I can now say with confidence, that he will not
shrink a hair’s breadth from the position he has taken, but will move
another step in advance, and fall, if fall he must, manfully upholding
the rights and defying the insolence of ill-gotten power.
When the bill was presented to the Senate for the admission of the
State of Kansas, after a long discussion, it was adopted, with a
provision which required the State after admission to relinquish its
claim to all the land asked for in its ordinance, except 5,000,000
acres, that being the largest amount which had been ever granted to a
State at the period of its admission. There was also a provision
declaratory of the right of the people to change their constitution at
any time; though the instrument itself had restricted them for a term
of years. I considered both those provisions objectionable; the first,
because it was directory of legislation to be enacted by a State; and
the second, because it was inviting to a disregard of the fundamental
law, and had too much the seeming of a concession to the anti-slavery
feeling which was impatient for a change of the constitution. That bill
failed in the House, and was succeeded by a bill of the Opposition
which recognized the right of Kansas to be admitted with a pro-slavery
constitution, provided it should be adopted by a popular vote. This
also failed, and in the division between the two Houses, a com- {sic}
As there has been much diversity of opinion in relation to that law,
and I think much misapprehension as to its character, I will be
pardoned for speaking of it somewhat minutely.
When it was known that the Conference Committee had prepared a bill, I
mittee of conference was appointed, which framed the bill that became a
law. being at the time confined to my house by disease, invited my
colleague and the Representatives from the State to visit me, that we
might confer together and decide upon the course which we would pursue.
Before the evening of our meeting, a distinguished member of the House
of Representatives, a member of the Committee, called and read to me
the bill which they had prepared. It contained some features which I
considered objectionable. He concurred with me, and promised to use his
efforts to have them stricken out. When the Mississippi delegation
assembled, our conference was full, and marked by the desire, first to
protect the rights of our State, and secondly, to secure unanimity of
action by its delegation. The objections which were urged, referred, as
my memory serves me, entirely to the features which I had reason to
hope would be stricken out. One of the delegation announced an
unwillingness to support the proposed modification of the Senate
proposition, lest it should be considered as yielding the point on
which we had insisted that Congress could not require the Constitution
to be submitted to a popular vote. I refer to the lamented Quitman,
whose sincere devotion to Southern interests, no one, who knew him,
could question. I regretted that he deemed it necessary to vote,
finally, against the measure, but I honor the motive which governed his
course.
The ordinance which was attached to the Constitution, was not a part of
it, but a condition annexed to the application for admission. If
Congress had stricken the ordinance out, the effect, I believe, would
have been that of admitting the State without any reservation of the
public land; would have transferred as an attribute of sovereignty the
useful as well as the eminent domain. The Southern Senators who
received the soubriquet of Southern ultras, held that position in 1850,
in relation to the public lands of California, and it constituted one
of their objections to the admission of that State at the time it was
effected. To modify the ordinance, that is to change the condition on
which the inhabitants of Kansas proposed to enter into the Union was
necessarily to give them the right to withdraw their proposition.
It remained then for Congress if they reduced the amount of land asked
for in the ordinance, either to provide the mode in which the
inhabitants should accept or reject the modification or leave them to
do it in such manner as they might adopt. The convention was defunct,
the legislature was black republican and thought to be entitled to
little confidence, and it seemed to be better that Congress should
itself provide the mode of ascertaining the public will than leave that
duty to the territorial legislature, such as it was believed and proven
to be. It was a mere question of expediency, and I think the best
course was pursued.
To have admitted the State without modification of the ordinance, would
have been to grant five times as much of the public land as had ever
been given to a State at the period of admission.
There was nothing to justify such a discrimination, and otherwise the
State could not be admitted without referring the question or violating
the principle of State sovereignty.
As a condition precedent, the general government may require the
recognition of its right to control the primary disposal of the land,
but can have no right to impose a condition with the mandate that it
shall be subsequently fulfiled and no power to enforce the mandate if
the State admitted should refuse to comply. Not for all the land in
Kansas, not for all the land between the Missouri and the Pacific
ocean, not for all the land of the continent of North America, would I
agree that the federal government should have the power to coerce a
State.
The necessity for having all conditions agreed upon before the
admission of a State was demonstrated by Mr. Soule, in 1850, in the
discussion of the bill for the admission of California. Mr. Webster
replied to him but did not answer his argument, and the course of
events seems likely to verify all that Senator Soule foretold.
Of the three methods which were supposable, I think Congress adopted
the best; it was the only one which was attainable and secured all
which was of value to the South. It was the admission by Congress of a
State with a pro-slavery Constitution; it was the triumph of the
principle that forbade Congress to interfere either as to the matter of
the Constitution or the manner in which it should be formed and
adopted.
The refusal of the inhabitants to accept the reduced endowment offered
to them, and their decision to remain in a territorial condition, was,
in my opinion, wise on their part and fortunate on ours. The late
Governor, Denver, has forcibly pointed out to them their want of means
to support a State government, and the propriety of giving their first
attention to the establishment of order and the development of their
internal resources. There were many reasons to doubt the fitness of the
inhabitants of Kansas to be admitted as a State.
The condition of the country and the previous legislation of Congress
made the case exceptional, and, in my judgment, justified the course
adopted. I have, therefore, no apology or regret to offer in the case.
The Northern opponents of the measure have, among other denunciatory
epithets, applied to it those of “bribery” and “coercion.” “Bribery” to
give less by twenty millions of acres of land than was claimed, and
“coercion” to leave them to the option of receiving the usual
endowment, or waiting until they had an amount of population which
would give some assurance of their ability to maintain a State
government. Though such is the requirement of the law, and designed to
secure exemption from the mischievous agitation which has for several
years disturbed the country and benefitted only the demagogues who make
a trade of politics, we may scarcely hope to escape from a renewal of
the agitation which has been found so profitable. The next phase of the
question will probably be in the form of what is termed an “enabling
act,”—a favorite measure with the advocates of “squatter sovereignty,”
who, claiming for the inhabitants of a Territory all the power of the
people of a State, nevertheless consider it necessary that Congress
should confer the power to form a Constitution and apply as a State.
Congress has given authority for admission in some cases, but I think
it better to avoid than to follow the precedent. Not that I am
concerned for the doctrine of “squatter sovereignty,” but that I would
guard against the mischievous error of considering the federal
government as the parent of States, and would restrict it to the
function of admitting new States into the Union, barring all pretension
to the power of creating them.