ABOLITIONISTS CLASSIFIED BY MR. CLAY ULTRAS DENOUNCED: SLAVERY
AGITATORS NORTH AND SOUTH EQUALLY DENOUNCED AS DANGEROUS TO THE
UNION.
"It is well known to the Senate, said Mr. Clay, that I have thought
that the most judicious course with abolition petitions has not been
of late pursued by Congress. I have believed that it would have been
wisest to have received and referred them, without opposition, and
to have reported against their object in a calm and dispassionate
and argumentative appeal to the good sense of the whole community.
It has been supposed, however, by a majority of Congress that it
was most expedient either not to receive the petitions at all, or,
if formally received, not to act definitively upon them. There is
no substantial difference between these opposite opinions, since
both look to an absolute rejection of the prayer of the petitioners.
But there is a great difference in the form of proceeding; and,
Mr. President, some experience in the conduct of human affairs has
taught me to believe that a neglect to observe established forms
is often attended with more mischievous consequences than the
infliction of a positive injury. We all know that, even in private
life, a violation of the existing usages and ceremonies of society
cannot take place without serious prejudice. I fear, sir, that
the abolitionists have acquired a considerable apparent force by
blending with the object which they have in view a collateral and
totally different question arising out of an alleged violation of
the right of petition. I know full well, and take great pleasure
in testifying, that nothing was remoter from the intention of the
majority of the Senate, from which I differed, than to violate the
right of petition in any case in which, according to its judgment,
that right could be constitutionally exercised, or where the object
of the petition could be safely or properly granted. Still, it must
be owned that the abolitionists have seized hold of the fact of
the treatment which their petitions have received in Congress, and
made injurious impressions upon the minds of a large portion of the
community. This, I think, might have been avoided by the course
which I should have been glad to have seen pursued.
"And I desire now, Mr. President, to advert to some of those topics
which I think might have been usefully embodied in a report by a
committee of the Senate, and which, I am persuaded, would have
checked the progress, if it had not altogether arrested the efforts
of abolition. I am sensible, sir, that this work would have been
accomplished with much greater ability, and with much happier
effect, under the auspices of a committee, than it can be by me.
But, anxious as I always am to contribute whatever is in my power
to the harmony, concord, and happiness of this great people, I
feel myself irresistibly impelled to do whatever is in my power,
incompetent as I feel myself to be, to dissuade the public from
continuing to agitate a subject fraught with the most direful
consequences.
"There are three classes of persons opposed, or apparently opposed,
to the continued existence of slavery in the United States. The
first are those who, from sentiments of philanthropy and humanity,
are conscientiously opposed to the existence of slavery, but who
are no less opposed, at the same time, to any disturbance of the
peace and tranquillity of the Union, or the infringement of the
powers of the States composing the confederacy. In this class may
be comprehended that peaceful and exemplary society of 'Friends,'
one of whose established maxims is, an abhorrence of war in all its
forms, and the cultivation of peace and good-will amongst mankind.
The next class consists of apparent abolitionists--that is, those
who, having been persuaded that the right of petition has been
violated by Congress, co-operate with the abolitionists for the sole
purpose of asserting and vindicating that right. And the third class
are the real ultra-abolitionists, who are resolved to persevere in
the pursuit of their object at all hazards, and without regard to
any consequences, however calamitous they may be. With them the
rights of property are nothing; the deficiency of the powers of the
general government is nothing; the acknowledged and incontestable
powers of the States are nothing; civil war, a dissolution of the
Union, and the overthrow of a government in which are concentrated
the fondest hopes of the civilized world, are nothing. A single
idea has taken possession of their minds, and onward they pursue
it, overlooking all barriers, reckless and regardless of all
consequences. With this class, the immediate abolition of slavery
in the District of Columbia, and in the territory of Florida, the
prohibition of the removal of slaves from State to State, and the
refusal to admit any new State, comprising within its limits the
institution of domestic slavery, are but so many means conducing
to the accomplishment of the ultimate but perilous end at which
they avowedly and boldly aim; are but so many short stages in
the long and bloody road to the distant goal at which they would
finally arrive. Their purpose is abolition, universal abolition,
peaceably if it can, forcibly if it must. Their object is no longer
concealed by the thinnest veil; it is avowed and proclaimed. Utterly
destitute of constitutional or other rightful power, living in
totally distinct communities, as alien to the communities in which
the subject on which they would operate resides, so far as concerns
political power over that subject, as if they lived in Africa or
Asia, they nevertheless promulgate to the world their purpose to be
to manumit forthwith, and without compensation, and without moral
preparation, three millions of negro slaves, under jurisdictions
altogether separated from those under which they live.
"I have said that immediate abolition of slavery in the District
of Columbia and in the territory of Florida, and the exclusion of
new States, were only means towards the attainment of a much more
important end. Unfortunately, they are not the only means. Another,
and much more lamentable one is that which this class is endeavoring
to employ, of arraying one portion against another portion of the
Union. With that view, in all their leading prints and publications,
the alleged horrors of slavery are depicted in the most glowing and
exaggerated colors, to excite the imaginations and stimulate the
rage of the people in the free States against the people in the
slave States. The slaveholder is held up and represented as the
most atrocious of human beings. Advertisements of fugitive slaves
to be sold are carefully collected and blazoned forth, to infuse a
spirit of detestation and hatred against one entire and the largest
section of the Union. And like a notorious agitator upon another
theatre (Mr. Daniel O'Connell), they would hunt down and proscribe
from the pale of civilized society the inhabitants of that entire
section. Allow me, Mr. President, to say, that whilst I recognize
in the justly wounded feelings of the Minister of the United States
at the court of St. James much to excuse the notice which he was
provoked to take of that agitator, in my humble opinion, he would
better have consulted the dignity of his station and of his country
in treating him with contemptuous silence. That agitator would
exclude us from European society--he who himself can only obtain a
contraband admission, and is received with scornful repugnance into
it! If he be no more desirous of our society than we are of his, he
may rest assured that a state of eternal non-intercourse will exist
between us. Yes, sir, I think the American Minister would have best
pursued the dictates of true dignity by regarding the language of
that member of the British House of Commons as the malignant ravings
of the plunderer of his own country, and the libeller of a foreign
and kindred people.
"But the means to which I have already adverted are not the only
ones which this third class of ultra-Abolitionists are employing to
effect their ultimate end. They began their operations by professing
to employ only persuasive means in appealing to the humanity, and
enlightening the understandings, of the slaveholding portion of
the Union. If there were some kindness in this avowed motive, it
must be acknowledged that there was rather a presumptuous display
also of an assumed superiority in intelligence and knowledge. For
some time they continued to make these appeals to our duty and our
interest; but impatient with the slow influence of their logic upon
our stupid minds, they recently resolved to change their system
of action. To the agency of their powers of persuasion, they now
propose to substitute the powers of the ballot box; and he must be
blind to what is passing before us, who does not perceive that the
inevitable tendency of their proceedings is, if these should be
found insufficient, to invoke, finally, the more potent powers of
the bayonet.
"Mr. President, it is at this alarming stage of the proceedings
of the ultra-Abolitionists that I would seriously invite every
considerate man in the country solemnly to pause, and deliberately
to reflect, not merely on our existing posture, but upon that
dreadful precipice down which they would hurry us. It is because
these ultra-Abolitionists have ceased to employ the instruments of
reason and persuasion, have made their cause political, and have
appealed to the ballot box, that I am induced, upon this occasion,
to address you.
"There have been three epochs in the history of our country at
which the spirit of abolition displayed itself. The first was
immediately after the formation of the present federal government.
When the constitution was about going into operation, its powers
were not well understood by the community at large, and remained
to be accurately interpreted and defined. At that period numerous
abolition societies were formed, comprising not merely the Society
of Friends, but many other good men. Petitions were presented to
Congress, praying for the abolition of slavery. They were received
without serious opposition, referred, and reported upon by a
committee. The report stated that the general government had no
power to abolish slavery as it existed in the several States, and
that these States themselves had exclusive jurisdiction over the
subject. The report was generally acquiesced in, and satisfaction
and tranquillity ensued; the abolition societies thereafter limiting
their exertions, in respect to the black population, to offices of
humanity within the scope of existing laws.
"The next period when the subject of slavery and abolition,
incidentally, was brought into notice and discussion, was on the
memorable occasion of the admission of the State of Missouri into
the Union. The struggle was long, strenuous, and fearful. It is too
recent to make it necessary to do more than merely advert to it, and
to say, that it was finally composed by one of those compromises
characteristic of our institutions, and of which the constitution
itself is the most signal instance.
"The third is that in which we now find ourselves, and to which
various causes have contributed. The principal one, perhaps, is
British emancipation in the islands adjacent to our continent.
Confounding the totally different cases of the powers of the British
Parliament and those of our Congress, and the totally different
conditions of the slaves in the British West India Islands and the
slaves in the sovereign and independent States of this confederacy,
superficial men have inferred from the undecided British experiment
the practicability of the abolition of slavery in these States.
All these are different. The powers of the British Parliament are
unlimited, and often described to be omnipotent. The powers of the
American Congress, on the contrary, are few, cautiously limited,
scrupulously excluding all that are not granted, and above all,
carefully and absolutely excluding all power over the existence
or continuance of slavery in the several States. The slaves, too,
upon which British legislation operated, were not in the bosom of
the kingdom, but in remote and feeble colonies, having no voice in
Parliament. The West India slaveholder was neither representative,
or represented in that Parliament. And while I most fervently
wish complete success to the British experiment of the West India
emancipation, I confess that I have fearful forebodings of a
disastrous termination. Whatever it may be, I think it must be
admitted that, if the British Parliament treated the West India
slaves as freemen, it also treated the West India freemen as slaves.
If instead of these slaves being separated by a wide ocean from
the parent country, three or four millions of African negro slaves
had been dispersed over England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, and
their owners had been members of the British Parliament--a case
which would have presented some analogy to our own country--does any
one believe that it would have been expedient or practical to have
emancipated them, leaving them to remain, with all their embittered
feelings, in the United kingdom, boundless as the powers of the
British government are?
"Other causes have conspired with the British example to produce the
existing excitement from abolition. I say it with profound regret,
and with no intention to occasion irritation here or elsewhere,
that there are persons in both parts of the Union who have sought
to mingle abolition with politics, and to array one portion of the
Union against the other. It is the misfortune of free countries
that, in high party times, a disposition too often prevails to seize
hold of every thing which can strengthen the one side or weaken
the other. Prior to the late election of the present President of
the United States, he was charged with being an abolitionist, and
abolition designs were imputed to many of his supporters. Much as
I was opposed to his election, and am to his administration, I
neither shared in making or believing the truth of the charge. He
was scarcely installed in office before the same charge was directed
against those who opposed his election.
"It is not true--I rejoice that it is not true--that either of
the two great parties in this country has any design or aim at
abolition. I should deeply lament if it were true. I should
consider, if it were true, that the danger to the stability of our
system would be infinitely greater than any which does, I hope,
actually exist. Whilst neither party can be, I think, justly accused
of any abolition tendency or purpose, both have profited, and
both been injured, in particular localities, by the accession or
abstraction of abolition support. If the account were fairly stated,
I believe the party to which I am opposed has profited much more,
and been injured much less, than that to which I belong. But I am
far, for that reason, from being disposed to accuse our adversaries
of abolitionism."