MR. CALHOUN'S SLAVERY RESOLUTIONS, AND DENIAL OF THE RIGHT OF
CONGRESS TO PROHIBIT SLAVERY IN A TERRITORY.
On Friday, the 19th of February, Mr. Calhoun introduced into the
Senate his new slavery resolutions, prefaced by an elaborate speech,
and requiring an immediate vote upon them. They were in these words:
"_Resolved_, That the territories of the United States belong to
the several States composing this Union, and are held by them as
their joint and common property.
"_Resolved_, That Congress, as the joint agent and
representative of the States of this Union, has no right to make
any law, or do any act whatever, that shall directly, or by its
effects, make any discrimination between the States of this
Union, by which any of them shall be deprived of its full and
equal right in any territory of the United States acquired or to
be acquired.
"_Resolved_, That the enactment of any law which should
directly, or by its effects, deprive the citizens of any of
the States of this Union from emigrating, with their property,
into any of the territories of the United States, will make
such discrimination, and would, therefore, be a violation of
the constitution, and the rights of the States from which such
citizens emigrated, and in derogation of that perfect equality
which belongs to them as members of this Union, and would tend
directly to subvert the Union itself.
"_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 that, 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."
These resolutions, although the sense is involved in circumlocutory
phrases, are intelligible to the point, that Congress has no power
to prohibit slavery in a territory, and that the exercise of such
a power would be a breach of the constitution, and leading to the
subversion of the Union. Ostensibly the complaint was, that the
emigrant from the slave State was not allowed to carry his slave
with him: in reality it was that he was not allowed to carry the
State law along with him to protect his slave. Placed in that
light, which is the true one, the complaint is absurd: presented as
applying to a piece of property instead of the law of the State,
it becomes specious--has deluded whole communities; and has led to
rage and resentment, and hatred of the Union. In support of these
resolutions the mover made a speech in which he showed a readiness
to carry out in action, to their extreme results, the doctrines
they contained, and to appeal to the slave-holding States for their
action, in the event that the Senate should not sustain them. This
was the concluding part of his speech:
"Well, sir, what if the decision of this body shall deny to
us this high constitutional right, not the less clear because
deduced from the whole body of the instrument and the nature of
the subject to which it relates? What, then, is the question?
I will not undertake to decide. It is a question for our
constituents--the slave-holding States. A solemn and a great
question. If the decision should be adverse, I trust and do
believe that they will take under solemn consideration what
they ought to do. I give no advice. It would be hazardous and
dangerous for me to do so. But I may speak as an individual
member of that section of the Union. There I drew my first
breath. There are all my hopes. There is my family and
connections. I am a planter--a cotton planter. I am a Southern
man, and a slave-holder; a kind and a merciful one, I trust--and
none the worse for being a slave-holder. I say, for one, I would
rather meet any extremity upon earth than give up one inch of
our equality--one inch of what belongs to us as members of this
great republic. What, acknowledge inferiority! The surrender of
life is nothing to sinking down into acknowledged inferiority.
"I have examined this subject largely--widely. I think I see the
future if we do not stand up as we ought. In my humble opinion,
in that case, the condition of Ireland is prosperous and
happy--the condition of Hindostan is prosperous and happy--the
condition of Jamaica is prosperous and happy, to what the
Southern States will be if they should not now stand up manfully
in defence of their rights".
When these resolutions were read, Mr. Benton rose in his place,
and called them "firebrand." Mr. Calhoun said he had expected the
support of Mr. Benton "as the representative of a slave-holding
State." Mr. Benton answered that it was impossible that he could
have expected such a thing. Then, said Mr. Calhoun, I shall know
where to find the gentleman. To which Mr. Benton: "I shall be found
in the right place--on the side of my country and the Union." This
answer, given on that day, and on the spot, is one of the incidents
of his life which Mr. Benton will wish posterity to remember.
Mr. Calhoun demanded the prompt consideration of his resolutions,
giving notice that he would call them up the next day, and press
them to a speedy and final vote. He did call them up, but never
called for the vote, nor was any ever had: nor would a vote have any
practical consequence, one way or the other. The resolutions were
abstractions, without application. They asserted a constitutional
principle, which could not be decided, one way or the other, by
the separate action of the Senate; not even in a bill, much less
in a single and barren set of resolves. No vote was had upon them.
The condition had not happened on which they were to be taken up
by the slave States; but they were sent out to all such States,
and adopted by some of them; and there commenced the great slavery
agitation, founded upon the dogma of "_no power in Congress to
legislate upon slavery in the territories_," which has led to the
abrogation of the Missouri compromise line--which has filled the
Union with distraction--and which is threatening to bring all
federal legislation, and all federal elections, to a mere sectional
struggle, in which, one-half of the States is to be arrayed against
the other. The resolves were evidently introduced for the mere
purpose of carrying a question to the slave States on which they
could be formed into a unit against the free States; and they
answered that purpose as well on rejection by the Senate as with it;
and were accordingly used in conformity to their design without any
such rejection, which--it cannot be repeated too often--could in no
way have decided the constitutional question which they presented.
These were new resolutions--the first of their kind in the (almost)
sixty years' existence of the federal government--contrary to
its practice during that time--contrary to Mr. Calhoun's slavery
resolutions of 1838--contrary to his early and long support of the
Missouri compromise--and contrary to the re-enactment of that line
by the authors of the Texas annexation law. That re-enactment had
taken place only two years before, and was in the very words of
the anti-slavery ordinance of '87, and of the Missouri compromise
prohibition of 1820; and was voted for by the whole body of the
annexationists, and was not only conceived and supported by Mr.
Calhoun, then Secretary of State, but carried into effect by him
in the despatch of that messenger to Texas in the expiring moments
of his power. The words of the re-enactment were: "_And in such
State, or States as shall be formed out of said territory north
of the said Missouri compromise line, slavery or involuntary
servitude (except for crime) shall be prohibited._" This clause
re-established that compromise line in all that long extent of it
which was ceded to Spain by the treaty of 1819, which became Texian
by her separation from Mexico, and which became slave soil under
her laws and constitution. So that, up to the third day of March,
in the year 1845--not quite two years before the date of these
resolutions--Mr. Calhoun by authentic acts, and the two Houses of
Congress by recorded votes, and President Tyler by his approving
signature, acknowledged the power of Congress to prohibit slavery in
a territory! and not only acknowledged the power, but exerted it!
and actually prohibited slavery in a long slip of country, enough
to make a "State or States," where it then legally existed. This
fact was formally brought out in the chapter of this volume which
treats of the legislative annexation of Texas; and those who wish to
see the proceeding in detail may find it in the journals of the two
Houses of Congress, and in the congressional history of the time.
These resolutions of 1847, called fire-brand at the time, were
further characterized as nullification a few days afterwards, when
Mr. Benton said of them, that, "_as Sylla saw in the young Cæsar
many Mariuses, so did he see in them many nullifications_."