"In this aspect the relation of person predominates so far as to

render it doubtful whether the private right of property can

consistently and beneficially be continued, and it would seem

proper to acquire for the public service the entire property in

the labor of the slave, and to pay therefor due compensation,

rather than to impress his labor for short terms; and this the

more especially as the effect of the present law would vest this

entire property in all cases where the slave might be recaptured

after compensation for his loss had been paid to the private

owner. Whenever the entire property in the service of a slave is

thus acquired by the Government, the question is presented by

what tenure he should be held. Should he be retained in

servitude, or should his emancipation be held out to him as a

reward for faithful service, or should it be granted at once on

the promise of such service; and if emancipated what action

should be taken to secure for the freed man the permission of

the State from which he was drawn to reside within its limits

after the close of his public service? The permission would

doubtless be more readily accorded as a reward for past faithful

service, and a double motive for zealous discharge of duty would

thus be offered to those employed by the Government--their

freedom and the gratification of the local attachment which is

so marked a characteristic of the negro and forms so powerful an

incentive to his action. The policy of engaging to liberate the

negro on his discharge after service faithfully rendered seems

to me preferable to that of granting immediate manumission, or

that of retaining him in servitude. If this policy should

commend itself to the judgment of Congress, it is suggested

that, in addition to the duties heretofore performed by the

slave, he might be advantageously employed as a pioneer and

engineer laborer, and, in that event, that the number should be

augmented to forty thousand.

"Beyond this limit and these employments it does not seem to me

desirable under existing circumstances to go.

"A broad, moral distinction exists between the use of slaves as

soldiers in defense of their homes and the incitement of the

same persons to insurrection against their masters. The one is

justifiable, if necessary, the other is iniquitous and unworthy

of civilized people; and such is the judgment of all writers on

public law, as well as that expressed and insisted on by our

enemies in all wars prior to that now waged against us. By none

have the practices of which they are now guilty been denounced

with greater severity than by themselves in the two wars with

Great Britain, in the last and in the present century, and in

the Declaration of Independence in 1776, when an enumeration was

made of the wrongs which justified the revolt from Great

Britain. The climax of atrocity was deemed to be reached only

when the English monarch was denounced as having 'excited

domestic insurrection among us.'

"The subject is to be viewed by us, therefore, solely in the

light of policy and our social economy. When so regarded, I must

dissent from those who advise a general levy and arming of the

slaves for the duty of soldiers. Until our white population

shall prove insufficient for the armies we require and can

afford to keep in the field, to employ as a soldier the negro,

who has merely been trained to labor, and, as a laborer, the

white man accustomed from his youth to the use of arms, would

scarcely be deemed wise or advantageous by any; and this is the

question now before us. But should the alternative ever be

presented of subjugation, or of the employment of the slave as a

soldier, there seems no reason to doubt what should then be our

decision. Whether our view embraces what would, in so extreme a

case, be the sum of misery entailed by the dominion of the

enemy, or be restricted solely to the effect upon the welfare

and happiness of the negro population themselves, the result

would be the same. The appalling demoralization, suffering,

disease, and death, which have been caused by partially

substituting the invaders' system of police for the kind

relation previously subsisting between the master and slave,

have been a sufficient demonstration that external interference

with our institution of domestic slavery is productive of evil

only. If the subject involved no other consideration than the

mere right of property, the sacrifices heretofore made by our

people have been such as to permit no doubt of their readiness

to surrender every possession in order to secure independence.

But the social and political question which is exclusively under

the control of the several States has a far wider and more

enduring importance than that of pecuniary interest. In its

manifold phases it embraces the stability of our republican

institutions, resting on the actual political equality of all

its citizens, and includes the fulfillment of the task which has

been so happily begun--that of Christianizing and improving the

condition of the Africans who have by the will of Providence

been placed in our charge. Comparing the results of our own

experience with those of the experiments of others who have

borne similar relations to the African race, the people of the

several States of the Confederacy have abundant reason to be

satisfied with the past, and to use the greatest circumspection

in determining their course. These considerations, however, are

rather applicable to the improbable contingency of our need of

resorting to this element of assistance than to our present

condition. If the recommendation above, made for the training of

forty thousand negroes for the service indicated, shall meet

your approval, it is certain that even this limited number, by

their preparatory training in intermediate duties, would form a

more valuable reserve force in case of urgency than threefold

their number suddenly called from field-labor, while a fresh

levy could to a certain extent supply their places in the

special service for which they are now employed."

Subsequent events advanced my views from a prospective to a present need

for the enrollment of negroes to take their place in the ranks.

Strenuously I argued the question with members of Congress who called to

confer with me. To a member of the Senate (the House in which we most

needed a vote) I stated, as I had done to many others, the fact of

having led negroes against a lawless body of armed white men, and the

assurance which the experiment gave me that they might, under proper

conditions, be relied on in battle, and finally used to him the

expression which I believe I can repeat exactly: "If the Confederacy

falls, there should be written on its tombstone, 'Died of a theory.'"

General Lee was brought before a committee to state his opinion as to

the probable efficiency of negroes as soldiers, and disappointed the

probable expectation by his unqualified advocacy of the proposed

measure.

After much discussion in Congress, a bill authorizing the President to

ask for and accept from their owners such a number of able-bodied negro

men as he might deem expedient subsequently passed the House, but was

lost in the Senate by one vote. The Senators of Virginia opposed the

measure so strongly that only legislative instruction could secure their

support of it. Their Legislature did so instruct them, and they voted

for it. Finally, the bill passed, with an amendment providing that not

more than twenty-five per cent. of the male slaves between the ages of

eighteen and forty-five should be called out. But the passage of the act

had been so long delayed that the opportunity was lost. There did not

remain time enough to obtain any result from its provisions.

[Footnote 194: Article I, section 10, paragraph 3.]

[Footnote 195: Ibid., section 9, Part XIII.]

[Footnote 196: Ibid., section 9, paragraph 16.]

[Footnote 197: Section 8, paragraph 15.]

[Footnote 198: Ibid., paragraph 16.]

APPENDIXES.

[Transcriber's Note: There is no Appendix A.]

APPENDIX B.

THE OREGON QUESTION.

Extracts from speech of Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, in the House of

Representatives, February 6, 1846, on the resolution to terminate the

joint occupation of the Oregon Territory.

Mr. Chairman: In negotiations between governments, in attempts to modify

existing policies, the circumstances of the time most frequently decide

between success and failure.

How far the introduction of this question may affect our foreign

intercourse, the future only can determine; but I invite attention to

the present posture of affairs. Amicable relations, after a serious

interruption, have been but recently restored between the United States

and Mexico. The most delicate and difficult of questions, the adjustment

of a boundary between us, remains unsettled; and many eyes are fixed

upon our minister at Mexico, with the hope that he may negotiate a

treaty which will remove all causes of dispute, and give to us

territorial limits, the ultimate advantages of which it would be

difficult to over-estimate.

If, sir, hereafter we shall find that, by this excited discussion,

portentous of a war with England, unreasonable demands upon the part of

Mexico should be encouraged, the acquisition of California be defeated,

that key to Asiatic commerce be passed from our hands for ever--what

will we have gained to compensate so great a loss? We know the influence

which Great Britain exercises over Mexico; we should not expect her to

be passive, nor doubt that the prospect of a war between England and the

United States would serve to revive the former hopes and to renew the

recent enmity of Mexico.

Sir, I have another hope, for the fulfillment of which the signs of the

times seem most propitious. An unusually long exemption from a general

war has permitted the bonds of commerce to extend themselves around the

civilized world, and nations from remote quarters of the globe have been

drawn into that close and mutual dependence which foretold unshackled

trade and a lasting peace. In the East, there appeared a rainbow which

promised that the waters of national jealousy and proscription were

about to recede from the earth for ever, and the spirit of free trade to

move over the face thereof.

In perspective, we saw the ports of California united to the ports and

forests of Oregon, and our countrymen commanding the trade of the

Pacific. The day seemed at hand when the overcharged granaries of the

West should be emptied to the starving millions of Europe and Asia; when

the canvas-winged doves of our commerce should freely fly forth from the

ark, and return across every sea with the olive of every land. Shall

objects like these be endangered by the impatience of petty ambition,

the promptings of sectional interest, or the goadings of fanatic hate?

Shall the good of the whole be surrendered to the voracious demands of

the few? Shall class interests control the great policy of our country,

and the voice of reason be drowned in the clamor of causeless

excitement? If so, not otherwise, we may agree with him who would

reconcile us to the evils of war by the promise of "emancipation from

the manufacturers of Manchester and Birmingham"; or leave unanswered the

heresy boldly announced, though by history condemned, that war is the

purifier, blood is the aliment, of free institutions. Sir, it is true

that republics have often been cradled in war, but more often they have

met with a grave in that cradle. Peace is the interest, the policy, the

nature of a popular government. War may bring benefits to a few, but

privation and loss are the lot of the many. An appeal to arms should be

the last resort, and only by national rights or national honor can it be

justified.

To those who have treated this as a case involving the national honor, I

reply that, whenever that question shall justly be raised, I trust an

American Congress will not delay for weeks to discuss the chances, or

estimate the sacrifices, which its maintenance may cost. But, sir,

instead of rights invaded or honor violated, the question before us is,

the expediency of terminating an ancient treaty, which, if it be unwise,

it can not be dishonorable, to continue. Yet, throughout this long

discussion, the recesses and vaulted dome of this hall have reëchoed to

inflammatory appeals and violent declamations on the sanctity of

national honor; and then, as if to justify them, followed reflections

most discreditable to the conduct of our Government. The charge made

elsewhere has been repeated here, that we have trodden upon Mexico, but

cowered under England.

Sir, it has been my pride to believe that our history was unstained by

an act of injustice or of perfidy; that we stood recorded before the

world as a people haughty to the strong, generous to the weak; and

nowhere has this character been more exemplified than in our intercourse

with Mexico. We have been referred to the treaty of peace that closed

our last war with Great Britain, and told that our injuries were

unredressed, because the question of impressment was not decided. There

are other decisions than those made by commissioners, and sometimes they

outlast the letter of a treaty. On sea and land we settled the question

of impressment before negotiations were commenced at Ghent. Further, it

should be remembered that there was involved within that question a

cardinal principle of each Government. The power of expatriation, and

its sequence, naturalization, were denied by Great Britain; and hence a

right asserted to impress native-born Britons, though naturalized as

citizens of the United States. This violated a principle which lies at

the foundation of our institutions, and could never be permitted; but,

not being propagandists, we could afford to leave the political opinion

unnoticed, after having taught a lesson which would probably prevent any

future attempt to exercise it to our injury. Let the wisdom of that

policy be judged by subsequent events....

Mr. Davis then proceeded to state and argue at length the historical

questions involved, making copious citations from original authorities.

He continued:

Waiving the consideration of any sinister motive or sectional hate which

may have brought allies to the support of the resolution now before us,

I will treat it as simply aiming at the object which in common we

desire--to secure the whole of Oregon to the United States.

Thus considered, the dissolution of the Oregon convention becomes a mere

question of time. As a friend to the extension of our Union, and

therefore prone to insist upon its territorial claims, I have thought

this movement premature; that we should have put ourselves in the

strongest attitude for the enforcement of our claims before we fixed a

day on which negotiations should be terminated. That nation negotiates

to most advantage which is best prepared for war. Gentlemen have treated

the idea of preparation for war as synonymous with the raising of an

army. It is not so; indeed, that is the last measure, and should only be

resorted to when war has become inevitable; and then a very short time

will always be, I trust, sufficient. But, sir, there are preparations

which require years, and can only be made in a state of peace. Such are

the fortifications of the salient points and main entrances of our

coast. For twenty-odd years Southern men have urged the occupation of

the Tortugas. Are those who have so long opposed appropriations for that

purpose ready to grant them now in such profusion that the labor of

three years may be done in one? No, sir; the occasion, by increasing the

demand for money elsewhere, must increase the opposition. That rock,

which Nature placed like a sentinel to guard the entrance into the

Mediterranean of our continent, and which should be Argus-eyed to watch

it, will stand without an embrasure to look through.

How is the case in Oregon? Our settlements there must be protected, and

under present circumstances an army of operations in that country must

draw its food from this; but we have not a sufficient navy to keep open

a line of communication by sea around Cape Horn; and the rugged route

and the great distance forbid the idea of supplying it by transportation

across the mountains. Now, let us see what time and the measures more

pointedly recommended by the President would effect. Our jurisdiction

extended into Oregon, the route guarded by stockades and troops, a new

impulse would be given to immigration: and in two or three years the

settlement on the Willamette might grow into a colony, whose flocks and

herds and granaries would sustain an army, whenever one should be

required.

By agencies among the Indian tribes, that effective ally of Great

Britain, which formerly she has not scrupled to employ, would be

rendered friendly to our people. In the mean time, roads could be

constructed for the transportation of munitions of war. Then we should

be prepared to assert, and effectively maintain, our claims to their

ultimate limits.

I could not depreciate my countrymen; I would not vaunt the prowess of

an enemy; but, sir, I tell those gentlemen who, in this debate, have

found it so easy to drive British troops out of Oregon, that, between

England and the United States, if hostilities occur in that remote

territory, the party must succeed which has bread within the country....

Mr. Chairman, unfortunately, the opinion has gone forth that no

politician dares to be the advocate of peace when the question of war is

mooted. That will be an evil hour--the sand of our republic will be

nearly run--when it shall be in the power of any demagogue, or fanatic,

to raise a war-clamor, and control the legislation of the country. The

evils of war must fall upon the people, and with them the war-feeling

should originate. We, their representatives, are but a mirror to reflect

the light, and never should become a torch to fire the pile. But, sir,

though gentlemen go, torch in hand, among combustible materials, they

still declare there is no danger of a fire. War-speeches and measures

threatening war are mingled with profuse assurances of peace. Sir, we

can not expect, we should not require, our adversary to submit to more

than we would bear; and I ask, after the notice has been given and the

twelve months have expired, who would allow Great Britain to exercise

exclusive jurisdiction over Oregon? If we would resist such act by force

of arms, before ourselves performing it we should prepare for war.

Some advocates of this immediate notice have urged their policy by

reference to a resolution of the Democratic Baltimore Convention, and

contended that the question was thereby closed to members of the

Democratic party. That resolution does not recommend immediate notice,

but recommends "the reannexation of Texas" and the "reoccupation of

Oregon" at the "earliest practicable period." The claim is strongly made

to the "whole of Oregon"; and the resolution seems directed more

pointedly to space than time. Texas and Oregon were united in the

resolution; and, had there been a third question involving our

territorial extension, I doubt not it would have been united with the

other two. The addition of territory to our Union is part of the

Democratic faith, and properly was placed in the declaration of our

policy at that time. To determine whether that practicable period has

arrived is now the question; and those who cordially agree upon the

principle of territorial enlargement have differed, and may continue

still to differ, on that question. Sir, though it is demonstrable that

haste may diminish but can not increase our chances to secure the whole

of Oregon, yet, because Southern men have urged the wisdom of delay, we

have had injurious comparisons instituted between our conduct on Texas

annexation and Oregon occupation. Is there such equality between the

cases that the same policy must apply to each? Texas was peopled, the

time was present when it must be acquired, or the influences active to

defeat our annexation purpose would probably succeed, and the country be

lost to us for ever. Oregon is, with a small exception, still a

wilderness; our claim to ultimate sovereignty can not be weakened during

the continuance of the Oregon convention. That ill-starred partnership

has robbed us of the advantages which an early occupation would have

given to our people in the fur-trade of the country, and we are now

rapidly advancing to a position from which we can command the entire

Territory. In Texas annexation we were prompted by other and higher

considerations than mere interest. Texas had been a member of our

family: in her infancy had been driven from the paternal roof,

surrendered to the government of harsh, inquisitorial Spain; but, true

to her lineage, preserved the faith of opposition to monarchical

oppression. She now returned, and asked to be admitted to the hearth of

the homestead. She pointed to the band of noble sons who stood around

her and said: "Here is the remnant of my family; the rest I gave a

sacrifice at the altar of our fathers' God--the God of Liberty." One,

two, three, of the elder sisters strove hard to close the door upon her;

but the generous sympathy, the justice of the family, threw it wide

open, and welcomed her return. Such was the case of Texas; is there a

parallel in Oregon?

But who are those that arraign the South, imputing to us motives of

sectional aggrandizement? Generally, the same who resisted Texas

annexation, and now most eagerly press on the immediate occupation of

the whole of Oregon. The source is worthy the suspicion. These were the

men whose constitutional scruples resisted the admission of a country

gratuitously offered to us, but who now look forward to gaining Canada

by conquest. These, the same who claim a weight to balance Texas, while

they attack others as governed by sectional considerations.

Sir, this doctrine of a political balance between different sections of

our Union is not of Southern growth. We advocated the annexation of

Texas as a "great national measure"; we saw in it the extension of the

principles intrusted to our care; and, if in the progress of the

question it assumed a sectional hue, the coloring came from the

opposition that it met--an opposition based, not upon a showing of the

injury it would bring to them, but upon the supposition that benefits

would be obtained by us.

Why is it that Texas is referred to, and treated as a Southern measure

merely, though its northern latitude is 42°? And why has the West so

often been reminded of its services upon Texas annexation? Is it to

divide the South and West? If so, let those who seek this object cease

from their travail, for their end can never be obtained. A common

agricultural interest unites us in a common policy, and the hand that

sows seeds of dissension between us will find, if they spring from the

ground, that the foot of fraternal intercourse will tread them back to

earth.

The streams that rise in the West flow on and are accumulated into the

rivers of the South; they bear the products of one to the other, and

bind the interests of the whole indissolubly together. The wishes of the

one wake the sympathies of the other. On Texas annexation the voice of

Mississippi found an echo in the West, and Mississippi reëchoes the call

of the West on the question of Oregon. Though this Government has done

nothing adequate to the defense of Mississippi, though by war she has

much to lose and nothing to gain, yet she is willing to encounter it, if

necessary to maintain our rights in Oregon. Her Legislature has recently

so resolved, and her Governor, in a late message, says, "If war comes,

to us it will bring blight and desolation, yet we are ready for the

crisis." Sir, could there be a higher obligation on the representative

of such a people than to restrain excitement--than to oppose a policy

that threatens an unnecessary war?...

Mr. Chairman, why have such repeated calls been made upon the South to

rally to the rescue? When, where, or how, has she been laggard or

deserter?

In 1776 the rights of man were violated in the outrages upon the

Northern colonies, and the South united in a war for their defense. In

1812 the flag of our Union was insulted, our sailors' rights invaded;

and, though the interests infringed were mainly Northern, war was

declared, and the opposition to its vigorous prosecution came not from

the South. We entered it for the common cause, and for the common cause

we freely met its sacrifices. If, sir, we have not been the "war party

in peace," neither have we been the "peace party in war," and I will

leave the past to answer for the future.

If we have not sought the acquisition of provinces by conquest, neither

have we desired to exclude from our Union such as, drawn by the magnet

of free institutions, have peacefully sought for admission. From sire to

son has descended our federative creed, opposed to the idea of sectional

conflict for private advantage, and favoring the wider expanse of our

union. If envy and jealousy and sectional strife are eating like rust

into the bonds our fathers expected to bind us, they come from causes

which our Southern atmosphere has never furnished. As we have shared in

the toils, so we have gloried in the triumphs, of our country. In our

hearts, as in our history, are mingled the names of Concord, and Camden,

and Saratoga, and Lexington, and Plattsburg, and Chippewa, and Erie, and

Moultrie, and New Orleans, and Yorktown, and Bunker Hill. Grouped

together, they form a record of the triumphs of our cause, a monument of

the common glory of our Union. What Southern man would wish it less by

one of the Northern names of which it is composed? Or where is he who,

gazing on the obelisk that rises from the ground made sacred by the

blood of Warren, would feel his patriot's pride suppressed by local

jealousy? Type of the men, the event, the purpose, it commemorates, that

column rises, stern, even severe in its simplicity; neither niche nor

molding for parasite or creeping thing to rest on; composed of material

that defies the waves of time, and pointing like a finger to the source

of noblest thought. Beacon of freedom, it guides the present generation

to retrace the fountain of our years and stand beside its source; to

contemplate the scene where Massachusetts and Virginia, as stronger

brothers of the family, stood foremost to defend our common rights; and

remembrance of the petty jarrings of to-day are buried in the nobler

friendship of an earlier time.

Yes, sir, and when ignorance, led by fanatic hate, and armed by all

uncharitableness, assails a domestic institution of the South, I try to

forgive, for the sake of the righteous among the wicked--our natural

allies, the Democracy of the North. Thus, sir, I leave to silent

contempt the malign predictions of the member from Ohio, who spoke in

the early stage of this discussion, while it pleases me to remember the

manly and patriotic sentiments of the gentleman who sits near me [Mr.

McDowell], and who represents another portion of that State. In him I

recognize the feelings of our Western brethren; his were the sentiments

that accord with their acts in the past, and which, with a few ignoble

exceptions, I doubt not they will emulate, if again the necessity should

exist. Yes, sir, if ever they hear that the invader's foot has been

pressed upon our soil, they will descend to the plain like an avalanche,

rushing to bury the foe.

In conclusion, I will say that, free from any forebodings of evil, above

the influence of taunts, beyond the reach of treasonable threats, and

confiding securely in the wisdom and patriotism of the Executive, I

shrink from the assertion of no right, and will consent to no

restrictions on the discretion of the treaty-making power of our

Government.

APPENDIX C.

SPEECHES, AND EXTRACTS FROM SPEECHES, OF THE AUTHOR IN THE SENATE OF THE

UNITED STATES DURING THE FIRST SESSION OF THE THIRTY-FIRST CONGRESS,

1849-1850.

Speech of Mr. Davis, of Mississippi, in the Senate of the United States,

on the resolutions of compromise proposed by Mr. Clay, January 29, 1850:

I do not rise to continue the discussion, but, as it has been made an

historical question as to what the position of the Senate was twelve

years ago, and, as with great regret I see this, the conservative branch

of the Government, tending toward that fanaticism which seems to prevail

with the majority in the United States, I wish to read from the journals

of that date the resolutions then adopted, and to show that they went

further than the honorable Senator from Kentucky has stated. I take it

for granted, from the date to which the honorable Senator has alluded,

he means the resolutions introduced by the honorable Senator from South

Carolina [Mr. Calhoun], not now in his seat, and to which the Senator

from Kentucky proposed certain amendments. Of the resolutions introduced

by the Senator from South Carolina, I will read the fifth in the series,

that to which the honorable Senator from Kentucky must have alluded. It

is in these words:

"_Resolved_, That the intermeddling of any State or States, or their

citizens, to abolish slavery in the District, or any of the Territories,

on the ground, or under the pretext, that it is immoral or sinful, or

the passage of any act or measure of Congress with that view, would be a

direct and dangerous attack on the institutions of all the slaveholding

States."

Such is the general form of the proposition. It was variously modified,

but never, in my opinion, improved. On the 27th, the fifth resolution

being again under consideration, Mr. Clay, of Kentucky, moved to amend

the amendment by striking out all after the word "resolved," and insert:

"That the interference, by the citizens of any of the States, with a

view to the abolition of slavery in this District, is endangering the

rights and security of the people of the District; and that any act or

measure of Congress designed to abolish slavery in this District would

be a violation of the faith implied in the cessions by the States of

Virginia and Maryland; a just cause of alarm to the people of the

slaveholding States, and have a direct and inevitable tendency to

disturb and endanger the Union.

"_And, resolved_, That it would be highly inexpedient to abolish slavery

within any district of country set apart for the Indian tribes, where it

now exists, or in Florida, the only Territory of the United States in

which it now exists, because of the serious alarm and just apprehensions

which would be thereby excited in the States sustaining that domestic

institution; because the people of that Territory have not asked it to

be done, and, when admitted into the Union, will be exclusively entitled

to decide that question for themselves; because it would be in violation

of the stipulations of the treaty between the United States and Spain of

the 22d of February, 1819; and, also, because it would be in violation

of a solemn compromise, made at a memorable and critical period in the

history of this country, by which, while slavery was prohibited north,

it was admitted south, of the line of thirty-six degrees and thirty

minutes north latitude."

But this resolution was not finally adopted. Upon the motion of Mr.

Buchanan to amend said amendment, by striking out the second clause

thereof, commencing with the word "resolved," it was determined in the

affirmative, and finally the resolution which here follows was

substituted in place of the second clause:

"That the interference by the citizens of any of the States, with a view

to the abolition of slavery in this District, is endangering the rights

and security of the people of the District; and that any act or measure

of Congress designed to abolish slavery in this district, would be a

violation of the faith implied in the cessions by the States of Virginia

and Maryland; a just cause of alarm to the people of the slaveholding

States, and have a direct and inevitable tendency to disturb and

endanger the Union."

This was the form in which the resolution was finally adopted, passing

by a vote of thirty-six to eight. Here, then, was fully and broadly

asserted the danger resulting from the interference in the question of

slavery in the District of Columbia, as trenching upon the rights of the

slaveholding States. Twelve years only have elapsed, yet this brief

period has swept away even the remembrance of principles then deemed

sacred and necessary to secure the safety of the Union. Now, an

honorable and distinguished Senator, to whom the country has been

induced to look for something that would heal the existing dissensions,

instead of raising new barriers against encroachment, dashes down those

heretofore erected and augments the existing danger. A representative

from one of the slaveholding States raises his voice for the first time

in disregard of this admitted right. Nor, Mr. President, did he stop

here. The boundary of a State, with which we have no more right to

interfere than with the boundary of the State of Kentucky, is encroached

upon. The United States, sir, as the agent for Texas, had a right to

settle the question of boundary between Texas and Mexico. Texas was not

annexed as a Territory, but was admitted as a State, and, at the period

of her admission, her boundaries were established by her Congress. She,

by the terms of annexation, gave to the United States the right to

define her boundary by treaty with Mexico; but the United States, in the

treaty made with Mexico subsequent to the war with that country,

received from Mexico not merely a cession of the territory that was

claimed by Texas, but much that lay beyond the asserted limits. Shall

we, then, acting simply as the cogent of Texas in the settlement of this

question of boundary, take from the principal for whom we act that

territory which belongs to her, to which we asserted her title against

Mexico, and appropriate it to ourselves? Why, sir, it would be a

violation of justice, and of a principle of law which is so plain that

it does not require one to have been bred to the profession of law to

understand it. The principle I refer to is, that an agent can not take

for his own benefit anything resulting from the matter in controversy,

after having acquired it as belonging to the principal for whom he acts.

The agent can not appropriate to himself rights acquired for his client.

The right of Texas, therefore, to that boundary was made complete by the

treaty of peace, which silenced the only rival claim to the territory.

It was distinctly defined by the acts of her Congress, before the time

of annexation; and I have only to refer to those acts to show that the

boundary of Texas was the Rio Bravo del Norte, from its mouth to its

source. What justice, or even decent regard for fairness, can there be,

now that Texas has acceded to annexation upon certain terms, to propose

a change of boundary, in violation of those terms, and by the power we

hold over her as a part of the Union? Can this power extend so far as to

take from her a portion of her territory, or to assert that there is a

portion to which she is not entitled?

These constitute with me two great objections to the propositions of the

honorable Senator from Kentucky; but, without stating all the objections

that I have, and they are very many, I will merely point out a few of

the prominent points to which I object in the argument of the Senator.

He assumes as facts things which are mere matters of opinion, and, I

think, of erroneous and injurious opinion. But, deferring the discussion

to another occasion, I desire at present merely to notice the assertion

of the honorable Senator, that slavery would never under any

circumstances be established in California. This, though stated as a

fact, is but a mere opinion--an opinion with which I do not accord. It

was to work the gold-mines on this continent that the Spaniards first

brought Africans to the country. The European races now engaged in

working the mines of California sink under the burning heat and sudden

changes of the climate to which the African race are altogether better

adapted. The production of rice, sugar, and cotton, is no better adapted

to slave-labor than the digging, washing, and quarrying of the

gold-mines.

We, sir, have not asked that slavery should be established in

California. We have only asked that there should be no restriction; that

climate and soil should be left free to establish the institution or

not, as experience should determine. Sir, after the agitation of the

subject within these halls and elsewhere has prevented the introduction

of slavery--by preventing the emigration of slaveholders with their

property--are we now to be told that the question is settled? More than

that: when we have acquired territory over which the Constitution of the

United States is thereby extended, and which the citizens of the United

States have a right to occupy, and to establish therein what laws they

please, in accordance with the principles of the Constitution--in which

they have a right to establish what institutions they please--it is now

claimed that the municipal regulations which previously existed shall

still govern the people, and that a portion of the citizens of the

United States shall thus be precluded from going there with their

property. This rule has, however, in discussion here, only been applied

to the property of slaveholders; as though slaves were the only property

under the laws of Mexico prohibited from entering California. It is to

be remembered that the late Secretary of the Treasury, in a report to

Congress, stated that the Mexican law prohibited the entrance of some

sixty articles of commerce; this was prohibition by law of Congress, and

slavery has never been so prohibited. It never has been prohibited by

the Mexican Congress in California; and the only prohibition ever issued

was that contained in the edict of a usurper, under the specious pretext

that it was necessary, in order to oppose the invasion of the country by

Spain. This decree was recognized by a subsequent Congress, so far as to

pass a law authorizing payment for slaves so liberated. It was the

emancipation of all the slaves in Mexico; an act, if you please, of

abolition, not of prohibition; not, whatever construction may be placed

upon it, done in the forms of law and requirements of their

Constitution. But we have not proposed to inquire into the legality of

the abolition, neither has any Southern man asked that that decree

should be repealed, or that those liberated under its provisions should

be returned to slavery. We only claim that there shall be an equality of

immunities and privileges among citizens of all parts of the United

States; that Mexican law shall not be applied so as to create inequality

between citizens, by preventing the immigration of any.

But, sir, we are called on to receive this as a measure of compromise!

Is a measure in which we of the minority are to receive nothing a

compromise? I look upon it as but a modest mode of taking that, the

claim to which has been more boldly asserted by others; and, that I may

be understood upon this question, and that my position may go forth to

the country in the same columns that convey the sentiments of the

Senator from Kentucky, I here assert that never will I take less than

the Missouri compromise line extended to the Pacific Ocean, with the

specific recognition of the right to hold slaves in the territory below

that line; and that, before such Territories are admitted into the Union

as States, slaves may be taken there from any of the United States at

the option of their owners. I can never consent to give additional power

to a majority to commit further aggressions upon the minority in this

Union; and will never consent to any proposition which will have such a

tendency, without a full guarantee or counteracting measure is connected

with it. I forbear commenting at any further length upon the

propositions embraced in the resolutions at this time.

Remarks of Mr. Davis, of Mississippi, in the Senate of the United

States, on the question of the reception of a memorial from inhabitants

of Pennsylvania and Delaware, presented by Mr. Hale, of New Hampshire,

praying that Congress would adopt measures for an immediate and peaceful

dissolution of the Union. February 8, 1850.

Mr. President: I rise merely to make a few remarks upon the right of

petition, and to notice the error which I think has pervaded the

comparisons that have been instituted between certain resolutions which

were presented by the Senator from North Carolina and the petition which

it is now proposed shall be received. The resolutions which were

presented from North Carolina were published in yesterday's paper, and,

after reading them, I think they refer to a state of case which the

people of North Carolina might properly present as their grievance. They

were resolutions for preserving the Union, calling upon Congress to take

all measures in its power for that purpose. This was all legitimate.

They had a right to petition Congress for a redress of grievances; and,

if it were in our power to redress those grievances, if it were within

the legitimate functions of our legislation, we were bound to receive

the petition and respectfully consider it. This case is exactly the

reverse. Here is no grievance, unless the Union is a grievance to those

who petition. And they call upon Congress to do that which every one

must admit Congress has no power to do--to dissolve peaceably the union

of the States. Then, sir, in the first place, there is no grievance; in

the next place, there is no power; and, beyond all that, it is offensive

to the Senate. It is offensive to recommend legislation for the

dissolution of the Union--offensive to the Senate and to the whole

country. If this Union is ever to be dissolved, it must be by the action

of the States and their people. Whatever power Congress holds, it bolds

under the Constitution, and that power is but a part of the Union.

Congress has no power to legislate upon that which will be the

destruction of the whole foundation upon which its authority rests.

I recollect, a good many years ago, that the Senator from Massachusetts

[Mr. John Davis], who addressed the Senate this morning, very pointedly

described the right of petition as a very humble right--as the mere

right to beg. This is my own view. The right peaceably to assemble, I

hold as the right which it was intended to grant to the people; that was

the only right which had ever been denied in our colonial condition. The

right of petition had never been denied by Parliament. It was intended

only to secure to the people, I say, the right peaceably to assemble,

whenever they choose to do so, with intent to petition for a redress of

grievances.

But, sir, the right of petition, though but a poor right--the mere right

to beg--may yet be carried to such an extent that we are bound to abate

it as a nuisance. If the avenues to the Capitol were to be obstructed,

so that members would find themselves unable to reach the halls of

legislation, because hordes of beggars presented themselves in the way

calling for relief, it would be a nuisance that would require to be

abated, and Congress, in self-defense, would be compelled to remove

them. But such a collection of beggars would not be half so great an

evil as the petitions presented here on the subject of slavery. They

disturb the peace of the country; they impede and pervert legislation by

the excitement they create; they do more to prevent rational

investigation and proper action in this body than any, if not all, other

causes. Good, if ever designed, has never resulted, and it would be

difficult to suppose that good is expected ever to flow from them. Why,

then, should we be bound to receive such petitions to the detriment of

the public business; or, rather, why are they presented? I am not of

those who believe we should be turned from the path of duty by

out-of-door clamor, or that the evil can be removed by partial

concession. To receive is to give cause for further demands, and our

direct and safe course is rejection.

Yes, sir, their reception would serve only to embarrass Congress, to

disturb the tranquillity of the country, and to peril the Union of the

States. By every obligation, therefore, that rests upon us under the

Constitution, upon every great principle upon which the Constitution is

founded, we are bound to abate this as a great and growing evil. This

petition, sir, was well described by the Senator from Pennsylvania as

being spurious; and I have been assured of the fact, from other sources

of information, that petitions are sent round in reference to other

subjects--of temperance, generally--and, after a long list of names has

been obtained, the caption is cut off, and the list of signatures

attached to an abolition caption and sent here to excite one section of

the Union against the other, to disturb the country, and distract the

legislation of Congress, to execute which we have our seats in this

Chamber. For the reasons first stated, I voted to receive the

resolutions that were presented by the Senator from North Carolina, and

for the reasons I have just given shall vote to reject this petition.

Conclusion of speech of Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, in the Senate

of the United States, on the resolutions of Mr. Clay, relative to

slavery in the Territories, etc., February 13 and 14, 1850.

... Sir, it has been asked on several occasions during the present

session, What ground of complaint has the South? Is this agitation in

the two halls of Congress, in relation to the domestic institutions of

the South, no subject for complaint? Is the denunciation heaped upon us

by the press of the North, and the attempts to degrade us in the eyes of

Christendom--to arraign the character of our people and the character of

our fathers, from whom our institutions are derived--no subject for

complaint? Is this sectional organization, for the purpose of hostility

to our portion of the Union, no subject for complaint? Would it not,

between foreign nations--nations not bound together and restrained as we

are by compact--would it not, I say, be just cause for war? What

difference is there between organizations for circulating incendiary

documents and promoting the escape of fugitives from a neighboring State

and the organization of an armed force for the purpose of invasion? Sir,

a State relying securely on its own strength would rather court the open

invasion than the insidious attack. And for what end, sir, is all this

aggression? They see that the slaves in their present condition in the

South are comfortable and happy; they see them advancing in

intelligence; they see the kindest relations existing between them and

their masters; they see them provided for in age and sickness, in

infancy and in disability; they see them in useful employment,

restrained from the vicious indulgences to which their inferior nature

inclines them; they see our penitentiaries never filled, and our

poor-houses usually empty. Let them turn to the other hand, and they see

the same race in a state of freedom at the North; but, instead of the

comfort and kindness they receive at the South, instead of being happy

and useful, they are, with few exceptions, miserable, degraded, filling

the penitentiaries and poor-houses, objects of scorn, excluded in some

places from the schools, and deprived of many other privileges and

benefits which attach to the white men among whom they live. And yet

they insist that elsewhere an institution which has proved beneficial to

this race shall be abolished, that it may be substituted by a state of

things which is fraught with so many evils to the race which they claim

to be the object of their solicitude! Do they find in the history of St.

Domingo, and in the present condition of Jamaica, under the recent

experiments which have been made upon the institution of slavery in the

liberation of the blacks, before God, in his wisdom, designed it should

be done--do they there find anything to stimulate them to future

exertion in the cause of abolition? Or should they not find there

satisfactory evidence that their past course was founded in error? And

is it not the part of integrity and wisdom, as soon as they can, to

retrace their steps? Should they not immediately cease from a course

mischievous in every stage, and finally tending to the greatest

catastrophe? We may dispute about measures, but, as long as parties have

nationality, as long as it is a difference of opinion between

individuals passing into every section of the country, it threatens no

danger to the Union. If the conflicts of party were the only cause of

apprehension, this Government might last for ever--the last page of

human history might contain a discussion in the American Congress upon

the meaning of some phrase, the extent of the power conferred by some

grant of the Constitution. It is, sir, these sectional divisions which

weaken the bonds of union and threaten their final rupture. It is not

differences of opinion--it is geographical lines, rivers and

mountains--which divide State from State, and make different nations of

mankind.

Are these no subjects of complaint for us? And do they furnish no cause

for repentance to you? Have we not a right to appeal to you as brethren

of this Union? Have we not a right to appeal to you, as brethren bound

by the compact of our fathers, that you should, with due regard to your

own rights and interests and constitutional obligations, do all that is

necessary to preserve our peace and promote our prosperity?

If, sir, the seeds of disunion have been sown broadcast over this land,

I ask by whose hand they have been scattered? If, sir, we are now

reduced to a condition when the powers of this Government are held

subservient to faction; if we can not and dare not legislate for the

organization of territorial governments--I ask, sir, who is responsible

for it? And I can with proud reliance say, it is not the South--it is

not the South! Sir, every charge of disunion which is made on that part

of the South which I in part represent, and whose sentiments I well

understand, I here pronounce to be grossly calumnious. The conduct of

the State of Mississippi in calling a convention has already been

introduced before the Senate; and on that occasion I stated, and now

repeat, that it was the result of patriotism, and a high resolve to

preserve, if possible, our constitutional Union; that all its

proceedings were conducted with deliberation, and it was composed of the

first men of the State.

The Chief-Justice--a man well known for his high integrity, for his

powerful intellect, for his great legal attainments, and his ability in

questions of constitutional law-presided over that Convention. After

calm and mature deliberation, resolutions were adopted, not in the

spirit of disunion, but announcing, in the first resolution of the

series, their attachment to the Union. They call on their brethren of

the South to unite with them in their holy purpose of preserving the

Constitution, which is its only bond and reliable hope. This was their

object; and for this and for no other purpose do they propose to meet in

general convention at Nashville. As I stated on a former occasion, this

was not a party movement in Mississippi. The presiding officer belongs

to the political minority in the State; the two parties in the State

were equally represented in the numbers of the Convention, and its

deliberations assumed no partisan or political character whatever. It

was the result of primary meetings in the counties; an assemblage of men

known throughout the State, having first met and intimated to those

counties a time when the State Convention should, if deemed proper, be

held. Every movement was taken with deliberation, and every movement

then taken was wholly independent of the action of anybody else; unless

it be intended, by the remarks made here, to refer its action to the

great principles of those who have gone before us, and who have left us

the rich legacy of the free institutions under which we live. If it be

attempted to assign the movement to the nullification tenets of South

Carolina, as my friend near me seemed to understand, then I say you must

go further back, and impute it to the State rights and strict-

construction doctrines of Madison and Jefferson. You must refer these in

their turn to the principles in which originated the Revolution and

separation of these then colonies from England. You must not stop there,

but go back still further, to the bold spirit of the ancient barons of

England. That spirit has come down to us, and in that spirit has all the

action since been taken. We will not permit aggressions. We will defend

our rights; and, if it be necessary, we will claim from this Government,

as the barons of England claimed from John, the grant of another _Magna

Charta_ for our protection.

Sir, I can but consider it as a tribute of respect to the character for

candor and sincerity which the South maintains, that every movement

which occurs in the Southern States is closely scrutinized, and the

assertion of a determination to maintain their constitutional rights is

denounced as a movement of disunion; while violent denunciations against

the Union are now made, and for years have been made, at the North by

associations, by presses and conventions, yet are allowed to pass

unnoticed as the idle wind--I suppose for the simple reason that nobody

believed there was any danger in them. It is, then, I say, a tribute

paid to the sincerity of the South, that every movement of hers is

watched with such jealousy; but what shall we think of the love for the

Union of those in whom this brings us corresponding change of conduct,

who continue the wanton aggravations which have produced and justify the

action they deprecate? Is it well, is it wise, is it safe, to disregard

these manifestations of public displeasure, though it be the displeasure

of a minority? Is it proper, or prudent, or respectful, when a

representative, in accordance with the known will of his constituents,

addresses you the language of solemn warning, in conformity to his duty

to the Constitution, the Union, and to his own conscience, that his

course should be arraigned as the declaration of ultra and dangerous

opinions? If these warnings were received in the spirit in which they

are given, it would augur better for the country. It would give hopes

which are now denied us, if the press of the country, that great lever

of public opinion, would enforce these warnings, and bear them to every

cottage, instead of heaping abuse upon those whose love of ease would

prompt them to silence--whose speech, therefore, is evidence of

sincerity. Lightly and loosely, representatives of Southern people have

been denounced as disunionists by that portion of the Northern press

which most disturbs the harmony and endangers the perpetuity of the

Union. Such, even, has been my own case, though the man does not breathe

at whose door the charge of disunion might not as well be laid as at

mine. The son of a Revolutionary soldier, attachment to this Union was

among the first lessons of my childhood; bred to the service of my

country, from boyhood to mature age, I wore its uniform. Through the

brightest portion of my life I was accustomed to see our flag, historic

emblem of the Union, rise with the rising and fall with the setting sun.

I look upon it now with the affection of early love, and seek to

preserve it by a strict adherence to the Constitution, from which it had

its birth, and by the nurture of which its stars have come so much to

outnumber its original stripes. Shall that flag, which has gathered

fresh glory in every war, and become more radiant still by the conquest

of peace--shall that flag now be torn by domestic faction, and trodden

in the dust by sectional rivalry? Shall we of the South, who have shared

equally with you all your toils, all your dangers, all your adversities,

and who equally rejoice in your prosperity and your fame--shall we be

denied those benefits guaranteed by our compact, or gathered as the

common fruits of a common country? If so, self-respect requires that we

should assert them; and, as best we may, maintain that which we could

not surrender without losing your respect as well as our own.

If, sir, this spirit of sectional aggrandizement--or, if gentlemen

prefer, this love they bear the African race--shall cause the disunion

of these States, the last chapter of our history will be a sad

commentary upon the justice and the wisdom of our people. That this

Union, replete with blessings to its own citizens, and diffusive of hope

to the rest of mankind, should fall a victim to a selfish aggrandizement

and a pseudo-philanthropy, prompting one portion of the Union to war

upon the domestic rights and peace of another, would be a deep

reflection on the good sense and patriotism of our day and generation.

But, sir, if this last chapter in our history shall ever be written, the

reflective reader will ask, Whence proceeded this hostility of the North

against the South? He will find it there recorded that the South, in

opposition to her own immediate interests, engaged with the North in the

unequal struggle of the Revolution. He will find again, that, when

Northern seamen were impressed, their brethren of the South considered

it cause for war, and entered warmly into the contest with the haughty

power then claiming to be mistress of the seas. He will find that the

South, afar off, unseen and unheard, toiling in the pursuits of

agriculture, had filled the shipping and supplied the staple for

manufactures, which enriched the North. He will find that she was the

great consumer of Northern fabrics--that she not only paid for these

their fair value in the markets of the world, but that she also paid

their increased value, derived from the imposition of revenue duties.

And, if, still further, he seeks for the cause of this hostility, it at

last is to be found in the fact that the South held the African race in

bondage, being the descendants of those who were mainly purchased from

the people of the North. And this was the great cause. For this the

North claimed that the South should be restricted from future

growth--that around her should be drawn, as it were, a sanitary cordon

to prevent the extension of a "moral leprosy"; and, if for that it shall

be written that the South resisted, it would be but in keeping with

every page she has added to the history of our country.

It depends on those in the majority to say whether this last chapter in

our history shall be written or not. It depends on them now to decide

whether the strife between the different sections shall be arrested

before it has become impossible, or whether it shall proceed to a final

catastrophe. I, sir--and I only speak for myself--am willing to meet any

fair proposition--to settle upon anything which promises security for

the future; anything which assures me of permanent peace, and I am

willing to make whatever sacrifice I may properly be called on to render

for that purpose. Nor, sir, is it a light responsibility. If I strictly

measured my conduct by the late message of the Governor, and the recent

expressions of opinion in my State, I should have no power to accept any

terms save the unqualified admission of the equal rights of the citizens

of the South to go into any of the Territories of the United States with

any and every species of property held among us. I am willing, however,

to take my share of the responsibility which the crisis of our country

demands. I am willing to rely on the known love of the people I

represent for the whole country, and the abiding respect which I know

they entertain for the Union of these States. If, sir, I distrusted

their attachment to our Government, and if I believed that they had that

restless spirit of disunion which has been ascribed to the South, I

should know full well that I had no such foundation as this to rely

upon--no such great reserve in the heart of the people to fall back upon

in the hour of accountability.

Mr. President, is there such incompatibility of interest between the two

sections of this country that they can not profitably live together?

Does the agriculture of the South injure the manufactures of the North?

On the other hand, are they not their life-blood? And think you, if one

portion of the Union, however great it might be in commerce and

manufactures, was separated from all the agricultural districts, that it

would long maintain its supremacy? If any one so believes, let him turn

to the written history of commercial states: let him look upon the

moldering palaces of Venice; let him ask for the faded purple of Tyre,

and visit the ruins of Carthage; there he will see written the fate of

every country which rests its prosperity on commerce and manufactures

alone. United we have grown to our present dignity and power--united we

may go on to a destiny which the human mind cannot measure. Separated, I

feel that it requires no prophetic eye to see that the portion of the

country which is now scattering the seeds of disunion to which I have

referred will be that which will suffer most. Grass will grow on the

pavements now worn by the constant tread of the human throng which waits

on commerce, and the shipping will abandon your ports for those which

now furnish the staples of trade. And we who produce the great staples

upon which your commerce and manufactures rest, we will produce those

staples still; shipping will fill our harbors; and why may we not found

the Tyre of modern commerce within our own limits? Why may we not bring

the manufacturers to the side of agriculture, and commerce, too, the

ready servant of both?

But, sir, I have no disposition to follow this subject. I certainly can

derive no pleasure from the contemplation of anything which can impair

the prosperity of any portion of this Union; and I only refer to it that

those who suppose we are tied by interest or fear should look the

question in the face and understand that it is mainly a feeling of

attachment to the Union which has long bound, and now binds, the South.

But, Mr. President, I ask Senators to consider how long affection can be

proof against such trial, and injury, and provocation, as the South is

continually receiving.

The case in which this discrimination against the South is attempted,

the circumstances under which it was introduced, render it especially

offensive. It will not be difficult to imagine the feeling with which a

Southern soldier during the Mexican war received the announcement that

the House of Representatives had passed that odious measure, the Wilmot

Proviso; and that he, although then periling his life, abandoning all

the comforts of home, and sacrificing his interests, was, by the

Legislature of his country, marked as coming from a portion of the Union

which was not entitled to the equal benefits of whatever might result

from the service to which he was contributing whatever power he

possessed. Nor will it be difficult to conceive, of the many sons of the

South whose blood has stained those battle-fields, whose ashes now

mingle with Mexican earth, that some, when they last looked on the flag

of their country, may have felt their dying moments embittered by the

recollection that that flag cast not an equal shadow of protection over

the land of their birth, the graves of their parents, and the homes of

their children, so soon to be orphans. Sir, I ask Northern Senators to

make the case their own--to carry to their own firesides the idea of

such intrusion and offensive discrimination as is offered to us--realize

these irritations, so galling to the humble, so intolerable to the

haughty, and wake, before it is too late, from the dream that the South

will tamely submit. Measure the consequences to us of your assumption,

and ask yourselves whether, as a free, honorable, and brave people, you

would submit to it?

It is essentially the characteristic of the chivalrous that they never

speculate upon the fears of any man, and I trust that no such

speculations will be made upon the idea that may be entertained in any

quarter that the South, from fear of her slaves, is necessarily opposed

to a dissolution of the Union. She has no such fear; her slaves would be

to her now, as they were in the Revolution, an element of military

strength. I trust that no speculations will be made upon either the

condition or the supposed weakness of the South. They will bring sad

disappointments to those who indulge them. Rely upon her devotion to the

Union, rely upon the feeling of fraternity she inherited and has never

failed to manifest; rely upon the nationality and freedom from sedition

which have in all ages characterized an agricultural people; give her

justice, sheer justice, and the reliance will never fail you.

Then, Mr. President, I ask that some substantial proposition may be made

by the majority in regard to this question. It is for those who have the

power to pass it to propose one. It is for those who are threatening us

with the loss of that which we are entitled to enjoy, to state, if there

be any compromise, what that compromise is. We are unable to pass any

measure, if we propose it; therefore I have none to suggest. We are

unable to bend you to any terms which we may offer; we are under the ban

of your purpose: therefore from you, if from anywhere, the proposition

must come. I trust that we shall meet it, and bear the responsibility as

becomes us; that we shall not seek to escape from it; that we shall not

seek to transfer to other places, or other times, or other persons, that

responsibility which devolves upon us; and I hope the earnestness which

the occasion justifies will not be mistaken for the ebullition of

passion, nor the language of warning be construed as a threat. We

cannot, without the most humiliating confession of the supremacy of

faction, evade our constitutional obligations, and our obligations under

the treaty with Mexico to organize governments in the Territories of

California and New Mexico. I trust that we will not seek to escape from

the responsibility, and leave the country unprovided for, unless by an

irregular admission of new States; that we will act upon the good

example of Washington in the case of Tennessee, and of Jefferson in the

case of Louisiana; that we will not, if we abandon those high standards,

do more than come down to modern examples; that we will not go further

than to permit those who have the forms of government, under the

Constitution, to assume sovereignty over territory of the United States;

that we may at least, I say, assert the right to know who they are, how

many they are--where they voted, how they voted--and whose certificate

is presented to us of the fact, before it is conceded to them to

determine the fundamental law of the country, and to prescribe the

conditions on which other citizens of the United States may enter it. To

reach all this knowledge, we must go through the intermediate stage of

territorial government.

How will you determine what is the seal, and who are the officers, of a

community unknown as an organized body to the Congress of the United

States? Can the right be admitted in that community to usurp the

sovereignty over territory which belongs to the States of the Union? All

these questions must be answered before I can consent to any such

irregular proceeding as that which is now presented in the case of

California.

Mr. President, thanking the Senate for the patience they have shown

toward me, I again express the hope that those who have the power to

settle this distracting question--those who have the ability to restore

peace, concord, and lasting harmony to the United States--will give us

some substantial proposition, such as magnanimity can offer, and such as

we can honorably accept. I, being one of the minority in the Senate and

the Union, have nothing to offer, except an assurance of coöperation in

anything which my principles will allow me to adopt, and which promises

permanent, substantial security.

APPENDIX D.

Speech of Mr. Davis, of Mississippi, in the Senate of the United States

(chiefly in answer to Mr. Fessenden, of Maine, on the message of the

President of the United States transmitting to Congress the "Lecompton

Constitution" of Kansas), February 8, 1858:

I wish to express not only my concurrence with the message of the

President, but my hearty approbation of the high motive which actuated

him when he wrote it. In that paper breathes the sentiment of a patriot,

and it stands out in bold contrast with the miserable slang by which he

was pursued this morning. It may serve the purposes of a man who little

regards the Union to perpetrate a joke on the hazard of its dissolution.

It may serve the purpose of a man who never looks to his own heart to

find there any impulses of honor, to arraign everybody, the President

and the Supreme Court, and to have them impeached and vilified on his

mere suspicion. It ill becomes such a man to point to Southern

institutions as to him a moral leprosy, which he is to pursue to the end

of extermination, and, perverting everything, ancient and modern, to

bring it tributary to his own malignant purposes. Not even could that

clause of the Constitution which refers to the importation or migration

of persons be held up to public consideration by the Senator [Mr.

Fessenden] in a studied argument, save as a permission for the

slave-trade. Then, everything that is most prominent in relation to the

protection of property in that instrument he holds to have been swept

away by a statute which prohibited the further importation of Africans.

The language of that clause of the Constitution is far broader than the

importation of Africans. It is not confined or limited at all to that

subject. It says:

"The migration or importation of such persons as any of the States now

existing shall think proper to admit shall not be prohibited by the

Congress prior to the year 1808, but a tax or duty may be imposed on

such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person."

That was a power given to Congress far broader than the slave-trade; and

yet the Senator gravely argues that, when that prohibition against the

further importation of Africans took place by act of Congress,

thenceforward the constitutional shield, which had been thrown over

slave property, fell. Sir, it is the only private property in the United

States which is specifically recognized in the Constitution and

protected by it.

There was a time when there was a higher and holier sentiment among the

men who represented the people of this country. As far back as the time

of the Confederation, when no narrow, miserable prejudice between

Northern and Southern men governed those who ruled the States, a

committee of three, two of whom were Northern men, reporting upon what

they considered the bad faith of Spain in Florida, in relation to

fugitive slaves, proposed that negotiations should be instituted to

require Spain to surrender, as the States did then surrender, all

fugitives escaped into their limits. Hamilton and Sedgwick from the

North, and Madison from the South, made that report--men, the loftiness

of whose purpose and genius might put to shame the puny efforts now made

to disturb that which lies at the very foundation of the Government

under which we live.

A man not knowing into what presence he was introduced, coming into this

Chamber, might, for a large part of this session, have supposed that

here stood the representatives of belligerent States, and that, instead

of men assembled here to confer together for the common welfare, for the

general good, he saw here ministers from States preparing to make war

upon each other; and then he would have felt that vain, indeed, was the

vaunting of the prowess of one to destroy another. Or if, sir, he had

known more--if he had recognized the representatives of the States of

the Union--still he would have traced through this same eternal, petty

agitation about sectional success, that limit which can not fail,

however the Senator from New York (Mr. Seward) may regret it, to bring

about a result which every man should, from his own sense of honor,

feel, when he takes his seat in this Chamber, that he is morally bound

to avoid as long as he retains possession of his seat.

To express myself more distinctly: I hold that a Senator, while he sits

here as the representative of a State in the Federal Government, is in

the relation of a minister to a friendly court, and that the moment he

sees this Government in hostility to his own, the day he resolves to

make war on this Government, his honor and the honor of his State compel

him to vacate the seat he holds.

It is a poor evasion for any man to say: "I make war on the rights of

one whole section; I make war on the principles of the Constitution; and

yet, I uphold the Union, and I desire to see it protected." Undermine

the foundation, and still pretend that he desires the fabric to stand!

Common sense rejects it. No one will believe the man who makes the

assertion, unless he believes him under the charitable supposition that

he knows not what he is doing.

Sir, we are arraigned, day after day, as the aggressive power. What

Southern Senator, during this whole session, has attacked any portion,

or any interest, of the North? In what have we now, or ever, back to the

earliest period of our history, sought to deprive the North of any

advantage it possessed? The whole charge is, and has been, that we seek

to extend our own institutions into the common territory of the United

States. Well and wisely has the President of the United States pointed

to that common territory as the joint possession of the country. Jointly

we held it, jointly we enjoyed it in the earlier period of our country;

but when, in the progress of years, it became apparent that it could not

longer be enjoyed in peace, the men of that day took upon themselves,

wisely or unwisely, a power which the Constitution did not confer, and,

by a geographical line, determined to divide the Territories, so that

the common field, which brothers could not cultivate in peace, should be

held severally for the benefit of each. Wisely or unwisely, that law

was denied extension to the Pacific Ocean.

I was struck, in the course of these debates, to which I have not

been in the habit of replying, to hear the Senator from New Hampshire

[Mr. Hale], who so very ardently opposed the extension of that line

to the Pacific Ocean, who held it to be a political stain upon the

history of our country, and who would not even allow the southern

boundary of Utah to be the parallel of 36° 30', because of the

political implication which was contained in it (the historical

character of the line), plead, as he did a few days ago, for the

constitutionality and legality and for the sacred character of that

so-called Missouri Compromise.

I, for one, never believed Congress had the power to pass that law;

yet, as one who was willing to lay down much then, as I am now, to

the peace, the harmony, and the welfare of our common country, I

desired to see that line extended to the Pacific Ocean, and that

strife which now agitates the country never renewed; but with a

distinct declaration: "Go ye to the right, and we will go to the

left; and we go in peace and good-will toward each other." Those

who refused then to allow the extension of that line, those who

declared then that it was a violation of principle, and insisted

on what they termed non-intervention, must have stood with very

poor grace in the same Chamber when, at a subsequent period, the

Senator from Illinois [Mr. Docoias], bound by his honor on account

of his previous course, moved the repeal of that line to throw open

Kansas; they must have stood with very bad grace, in this presence,

to argue that that line was now sacred, and must be kept for ever.

The Senator from Illinois stood foremost as one who was willing, at

an early period, to sacrifice his own prejudices and his own interests

(if, in deed, his interests be girt and bounded by the limits of a

State) by proposing to extend that line of pacification to the

Pacific Ocean; and, failing in that, then became foremost in the

advocacy of the doctrine of non-intervention; and upon that, I say,

he was in honor bound to wipe out that line and throw Kansas open,

like any other Territory. But, sir, was it then understood by the

Senator from Illinois, or anybody else, that throwing open the

Territory of Kansas to free emigration was to be the signal for the

marching of cohorts from one section or another to fight on that

battle field for mastery? Or, did he not rather think that

emigration was to be allowed to take its course, and soil and

climate be permitted to decide the great question? We were willing

to abide by it. We were willing to leave natural causes to decide

the question. Though I differed from the

Senator from New York [Mr. Seward], though I did not believe

that natural causes, if permitted to flow in their own channel, would

have produced any other result than the introduction of slave property

into the Territory of Kansas, I am free to admit that I have not yet

reached the conclusion that that property would have permanently

remained there. That is a question which interest decides. Vermont would

not keep African slaves, because they were not valuable to her; neither

will any population, whose density is so great as to trade rapidly on

the supply of bread, be willing to keep and maintain an improvident

population, to feed them in infancy, to care for them in sickness, to

protect them in age. And thus it will be found in the history of

nations, that, whenever population has reached that density in the

temperate zones, serfdom, villenage, or slavery, whatever it has been

called, has disappeared.

Ours presents a new problem, one not stated by those who wrote on it in

the earlier period of our history. It is the problem of a semi-tropical

climate, the problem of malarial districts, of staple products. This

produces a result different from that which would be found in the

farming districts and cooler climates. A race suited to our labor exists

there. Why should we care whether they go into other Territories or not?

Simply because of the war which is made against our institutions; simply

because of the want of security which results from the action of our

opponents in the Northern States. Had you made no political war upon us,

had you observed the principles of our confederacy as States, that the

people of each State were to take care of their domestic affairs, or, in

the language of the Kansas bill, to be left perfectly free to form and

regulate their institutions in their own way, then, I say, within the

limits of each State the population there would have gone on to attend

to their own affairs, and would have had little regard to whether this

species of property, or any other, was held in any other portion of the

Union. You have made it a political war. We are on the defensive. How

far are you to push us?

The Senator from Alabama [Mr. Clay] has been compelled to notice the

resolutions of his State; nor does that State stand alone. To what issue

are you now pressing us? To the conclusion that, because within the

limits of a Territory slaves are held as property, a State is to be

excluded from the Union. I am not in the habit of paying lip-service to

the Union. The Union is strong enough to confer favors; it is strong

enough to command service. Under these circumstances, the man deserves

but little credit who sings pæans to its glory. If, through a life, now

not a short one, a large portion of which has been spent in the public

service, I have given no better proof of my affection for this Union

than by declarations, I have lived to little purpose, indeed. I think I

have given evidence, in every form in which patriotism is ever subjected

to a test, and I trust, whatever evil may be in store for us by those

who wage war on the Constitution and our rights under it, that I shall

be able to turn at least to the past and say, "Up to that period when I

was declining into the grave, I served a Government I loved, and served

it with my whole heart." Nor will I stop to compare services with those

gentlemen who have fair phrases, while they undermine the very

foundation of the temple our fathers built. If, however, there be those

here who do really love the Union, and the Constitution, which is the

life-blood of the Union, the time has come when we should look calmly,

though steadily, the danger which besets us in the face.

Violent speeches, denunciatory of people in any particular section of

the Union, the arraignment of institutions which they inherited and

intend to transmit, as leprous spots on the body-politic, are not the

means by which fraternity is to be preserved, or this Union rendered

perpetual. These were not the arguments which our fathers made when,

through the struggles of the Revolutionary War, they laid the foundation

of the Union. These are not the principles on which our Constitution, a

bundle of compromises, was made. Then the navigating and the

agricultural States did not war to see which could most injure the

other; but each conceded something from that which it believed to be its

own interest to promote the welfare of the other. Those debates, while

they brought up all that straggle which belongs to opposite interests

and opposite localities, show none of that bitterness which, so

unfortunately, characterizes every debate in which this body is

involved.

The meanest thing--I do not mean otherwise than the smallest

thing--which can arise among us, incidentally, runs into this sectional

agitation, as though it were an epidemic and gave its type to every

disease. Not even could the committees of this body, when we first

assembled, before any one had the excuse of excitement to plead, be

organized without sectional agitation springing up. Forcibly, I suppose

gravely and sincerely, it was contended here that a great wrong was done

because New York, the great commercial State, and the emporium of

commerce within her limits, was not represented upon the Committee of

Commerce. This will go forth to remote corners, and descend, perhaps, to

after-times, as an instance in which the Democratic party of the Senate

behaved with unfairness toward its opponents; for with it will not

descend the fact that the Democratic party only arranged for itself its

own portion of the committees, taking the control of them, and left

blanks on the committees to be filled by the Opposition; that the

Opposition did fill the blanks; that the Opposition had both the

Senators from New York, but did not choose to put either of them on that

committee, though it afterward formed the basis and staple of their

complaint.

Mr. President, I concur with my friend from Virginia [Mr. Hunter], and

when I rose I did not intend to consume anything like so much time as I

have occupied. I think there are points, which have been sprung upon the

Senate to-day and heretofore, that require to be answered and to be met.

Like my friend from Virginia, I shall feel that it devolves on me, as a

representative in part of that constituency which is peculiarly

assailed, on another occasion to meet, and, if I am able, to answer, the

allegations and accusations which have been heaped, as well on the

section in which I live as upon every man who has performed his duty by

extending over them the protection for which our Constitution and

Government were formed.

APPENDIX E.

In the summer of 1858, Mr. Davis being in Portland, Maine, a vast

concourse of its citizens assembled in front of his hotel to offer him a

welcome to their city, whereupon he made to them an address, from which

the following extracts are given:

Fellow-Citizens: Accept my sincere thanks for this manifestation of your

kindness. Vanity does not lead me so far to misconceive your purpose as

to appropriate the demonstration to myself; but it is not the less

gratifying to me to be made the medium through which Maine tenders an

expression of regard to her sister, Mississippi. It is, moreover, with

feelings of profound gratification that I witness this indication of

that national sentiment and fraternity which made us, and which alone

can keep us, one people. At a period but as yesterday, when compared

with the life of nations, these States were separate, and in some

respects opposing colonies; their only relation to each other was that

of a common allegiance to the Government of Great Britain. So separate,

indeed almost hostile, was their attitude, that when General Stark, of

Bennington memory, was captured by savages on the head-waters of the

Kennebec, he was subsequently taken by them to Albany, where they went

to sell furs, and again led away a captive, without interference on the

part of the inhabitants of that neighboring colony to demand or obtain

his release. United as we now are, were a citizen of the United States,

as an act of hostility to our country, imprisoned or slain in any

quarter of the world, whether on land or sea, the people of each and

every State of the Union, with one heart and with one voice, would

demand redress, and woe be to him against whom a brother's blood cried

to as from the ground! Such is the fruit of the wisdom and the justice

with which our fathers bound contending colonies into confederation, and

blended different habits and rival interests into an harmonious whole,

so that, shoulder to shoulder, they entered on the trial of the

Revolution, and step with step trod its thorny paths until they reached

the height of national independence, and founded the constitutional

representative liberty which is our birthright....

By such men, thus trained and ennobled, our Constitution was framed. It

stands a monument of principle, of forecast, and, above all, of that

liberality which made each willing to sacrifice local interest,

individual prejudice, or temporary good to the general welfare and the

perpetuity of the republican institutions which they had passed through

fire and blood to secure. The grants were as broad as were necessary for

the functions of the general agent, and the mutual concessions were

twice blessed, blessing him who gave and him who received. Whatever was

necessary for domestic government--requisite in the social organization

of each community--was retained by the States and the people thereof;

and these it was made the duty of all to defend and maintain. Such, in

very general terms, is the rich political legacy our fathers bequeathed

to us. Shall we preserve and transmit it to posterity? Yes, yes, the

heart responds; and the judgment answers, the task is easily performed.

It but requires that each should attend to that which most concerns him,

and on which alone he has rightful power to decide and to act; that each

should adhere to the terms of a written compact, and that all should

coöperate for that which interest, duty, and honor demand.

For the general affairs of our country, both foreign and domestic, we

have a national Executive and a national Legislature. Representatives

and Senators are chosen by districts and by States, but their acts

affect the whole country, and their obligations are to the whole people.

He, who, holding either seat, would confine his investigations to the

mere interests of his immediate constituents, would be derelict to his

plain duty; and he who would legislate in hostility to any section would

be morally unfit for the station, and surely an unsafe depositary, if

not a treacherous guardian, of the inheritance with which we are

blessed. No one more than myself recognizes the binding force of the

allegiance which the citizen owes to the State of his citizenship, but,

that State being a party to our compact, a member of the Union, fealty

to the Federal Constitution is not in opposition to, but flows from the

allegiance due to, one of the United States. Washington was not less a

Virginian when he commanded at Boston, nor did Gates or Greene weaken

the bonds which bound them to their several States by their campaigns in

the South. In proportion as a citizen loves his own State will he strive

to honor her by preserving her name and her fame, free from the tarnish

of having failed to observe her obligations and to fulfill her duties to

her sister States. Each page of our history is illustrated by the names

and deeds of those who have well understood and discharged the

obligation. Have we so degenerated that we can no longer emulate their

virtues? Have the purposes for which our Union was formed lost their

value? Has patriotism ceased to be a virtue, and is narrow sectionalism

no longer to be counted a crime? Shall the North not rejoice that the

progress of agriculture in the South has given to her great staple the

controlling influence of the commerce of the world, and put

manufacturing nations under bond to keep the peace with the United

States?

Shall the South not exult in the fact that the industry and persevering

intelligence of the North have placed her mechanical skill in the front

ranks of the civilized world; that our mother-country, whose haughty

minister, some eighty-odd years ago, declared that not a hobnail should

be made in the colonies which are now the United States, was brought,

some four years ago, to recognize our preëminence by sending a

commission to examine our workshops and our machinery, to perfect their

own manufacture of the arms requisite for their defense? Do not our

whole people, interior and seaboard, North, South, East, and West, alike

feel proud of the hardihood, the enterprise, the skill, and the courage

of the Yankee sailor, who has borne our flag far as the ocean bears its

foam, and caused the name and character of the United States to be known

and respected wherever there is wealth enough to woo commerce, and

intelligence to honor merit? So long as we preserve and appreciate the

achievements of Jefferson and Adams, of Franklin and Madison, of

Hamilton, of Hancock, and of Rutledge, men who labored for the whole

country, and lived for mankind, we can not sink to the petty strife

which would sap the foundations and destroy the political fabric our

fathers erected and bequeathed as an inheritance to our posterity for

ever.

Since the formation of the Constitution, a vast extension of territory

and the varied relations arising therefrom have presented problems which

could not have been foreseen. It is just cause for admiration, even

wonder, that the provisions of the fundamental law should have been so

fully adequate to all the wants of a government, new in its

organization, and new in many of the principles on which it was founded.

Whatever fears may have once existed as to the consequences of

territorial expansion must give way before the evidence which the past

affords. The General Government, strictly confined to its delegated

functions, and the State left in the undisturbed exercise of all else,

we have a theory and practice which fit our Government for immeasurable

domain, and might, under a millennium of nations, embrace mankind.

From the slope of the Atlantic our population, with ceaseless tide, has

poured into the wide and fertile valley of the Mississippi, with eddying

whirl has passed to the coast of the Pacific; from the West and the East

the tides are rushing toward each other, and the mind is carried to the

day when all the cultivable land will be inhabited, and the American

people will sigh for more wilderness to conquer. But there is here a

physico-political problem presented for our solution. Were it purely

physical, your past triumphs would leave but little doubt of your

capacity to solve it. A community which, when less than twenty thousand,

conceived the grand project of crossing the White Mountains, and

unaided, save by the stimulus which jeers and prophecies of failure

gave, successfully executed the herculean work, might well be impatient

if it were suggested that a physical problem was before us too difficult

for mastery. The history of man teaches that high mountains and wide

deserts have resisted the permanent extension of empire, and have formed

the immutable boundaries of states. From time to time, under some able

leader, have the hordes of the upper plains of Asia swept over the

adjacent country, and rolled their conquering columns over Southern

Europe. Yet, after the lapse of a few generations, the physical law to

which I have referred has asserted its supremacy, and the boundaries of

those states differ little now from those which were obtained three

thousand years ago.

Rome flew her conquering eagles over the then known world, and has now

subsided into the little territory on which the great city was

originally built. The Alps and the Pyrenees have been unable to restrain

imperial France; but her expansion was a feverish action, her advance

and her retreat were tracked with blood, and those mountain-ridges are

the reëstablished limits of her empire. Shall the Rocky Mountains prove

a dividing barrier to us? Were ours a central, consolidated Government,

instead of a Union of sovereign States, our fate might be learned from

the history of other nations. Thanks to the wisdom and independent

spirit of our forefathers, this is not the case. Each State having sole

charge of its local interests and domestic affairs, the problem, which

to others has been insoluble, to us is made easy. Rapid, safe, and easy

communication between the Atlantic and the Pacific will give

cointelligence, unity of interest, and coöperation among all parts of

our continent-wide republic. The network of railroads which bind the

North and the South, the slope of the Atlantic and the valley of the

Mississippi, together, testifies that our people have the power to

perform, in that regard, whatever it is their will to achieve.

We require a railroad to the States of the Pacific for present uses; the

time no doubt will come when we shall have need of two or three, it may

be more. Because of the desert character of the interior country, the

work will be difficult and expensive. It will require the efforts of a

united people. The bickerings of little politicians, the jealousies of

sections, must give way to dignity of purpose and zeal for the common

good. If the object be obstructed by contention and division as to

whether the route shall be Northern, Southern, or central, the

handwriting is on the wall, and it requires little skill to see that

failure is the interpretation of the inscription. You are practical

people, and may ask, How is that contest to be avoided? By taking the

question out of the hands of politicians altogether. Let the Government

give such aid as it is proper for it to render to the company which

shall propose the most feasible plan; then leave to capitalists, with

judgments sharpened by interest, the selection of the route, and the

difficulties will diminish, as did those which you overcame when you

connected your harbor with the Canadian provinces.

It would be to trespass on your kindness, and to violate the proprieties

of the occasion, were I to detain the vast concourse which stands before

me, by entering on the discussion of controverted topics, or by further

indulging in the expression of such reflections as circumstances

suggest. I came to your city in quest of health and repose. From the

moment I entered it you have showered upon me kindness and hospitality.

Though my experience has taught me to anticipate good rather than evil

from my fellow-man, it had not prepared me to expect such unremitting

attentions as have here been bestowed. I have been jocularly asked in

relation to my coming here, whether I had secured a guarantee for my

safety, and lo! I have found it. I stand in the midst of thousands of my

fellow-citizens. But, my friends, I came neither distrusting nor

apprehensive....

In the autumn of 1858 Mr. Davis visited Boston, and was invited to

address a public meeting at Faneuil Hall. He was introduced by the Hon.

Caleb Cushing, with whom he had been four years associated in the

Cabinet of President Pierce. Mr. Cushing's speech, on account of its

great merit, is inserted here, except some complimentary portions of it.

Mr. President--Fellow Citizens: I present myself before you at the

instance of your chairman, not so much in order to occupy your time with

observations of my own, as to prepare you for that higher gratification

which you are to receive from the remarks of the eminent man here

present to address you in the course of the evening. I will briefly and

only suggest to you such reflections as are appropriate to that duty.

We are assembled here, my friends, at the call of the Democratic ward

and county committee of Suffolk, for the purpose of ratifying the

nominations made at the late Democratic State Convention--the nomination

of our distinguished and honored fellow-citizen [Hon. Erasmus D. Beach]

who has already addressed to you the words of wisdom and of patriotism;

as also the nomination of others of our fellow-citizens, whom--if we

may--we ought, whom the welfare and the honor of our Commonwealth demand

of us, to place in power in the stead of the existing authorities of the

Commonwealth. I would to God it were in our power to say with confidence

that shall be done! ["It can be done."] We do say that it shall not

depend upon us that it shall not be done. We do say that in so far as

depends upon us it shall be done; and whatsoever devoted love of our

country and our Commonwealth; whatsoever of our noble and holy

principles; whatsoever desire to vindicate our Commonwealth from the

stain that has so long rested upon the name may prompt us to do, that we

will do, leaving the result to the good providence of God.

I say we are invited here by the ward and county committee to ratify

these nominations, and we do ratify them with our whole heart. And we

pledge our most earnest efforts at the polls to give success to these

nominations. That call is comprehensive; it is addressed not only to

Democrats, but to all national men, and so it should be. We know full

well that there are multitudes of men in this Commonwealth who oppose

the Democratic party, but who are yet impelled toward us by sympathy for

the principles we profess, and by the repulsion they have toward the

opinions and purposes of the leaders of the Republican party. They

sympathize with our principles, and we invite them to coöperate with us

in the maintenance of the principles of the Constitution and in the

vindication of the Commonwealth--all national men, whatsoever may have

been their past party affinities. But, while we do so, we declare that

it is our belief that the Democratic party is now recognized as that

only existing national party in the United States--the only

constitutional party--the only party which by its present principles is

competent to govern these United States, whose principles are based upon

the Constitution--the only party with a platform coextensive with this

great Union--this is the great Democratic party. I have heard again and

again, remonstrances have been addressed to me more than once, because

of the condemnation which Democratic speakers so continually utter about

the unnationality as well as the unconstitutionality of the Republican

party.

Let us reflect a moment; let us recall to mind that the honor of the

existing organization of this Federal Administration was by the votes of

the people of these United States sustained when James Buchanan was

nominated for the Presidency, and that he is a worthy representative of

the Democratic party. Let us reflect also that John C. Fremont was

nominated as the candidate of the Republican party. I pray you,

gentlemen, to reflect upon the different methods by which these

nominations were presented to the people of the United States. On the

one hand, there assembled at the Democratic Convention, at Cincinnati,

the delegates of every one of the States in the Union. That Convention

was national in its constitution, national in its character, national in

its purpose, and cordially presented to the suffrages of the people of

the United States a national candidate, a candidate of the whole United

States; and that candidate was elected not by the votes of one section

of the Union alone, or another section of the Union alone, but by the

concurrent votes of the South and the North.

How was it on the other side? On the other side there assembled a

convention which, by the very tenor of its call, was confined to sixteen

of the thirty-one States of the Union, which, by the very tenor of its

call, excluded from its councils fifteen of the thirty-one States of the

Union, a convention in which appeared the representatives of only

sixteen of the States of the Union--nay, I mistake--as to the remaining

fifteen States of the Union, in their name, pretendedly in their name

and their behalf, there appeared one man--one man only--and he a

self-appointed delegate by pretension from the State of Maryland. That

was the Convention which presented John C. Fremont to the people of the

United States. I say that was a sectional Convention, a sectional

nomination, a sectional party; and no reasoning, no remonstrances, no

protestations, can discharge the Republican party from the ineffaceable

stigma of that sectional Convention, that sectional nomination, and that

sectional candidate for the suffrages of the United States. That party

itself has placed upon its back that shirt of Nessus which clings to it

and stings it to death. I repeat, then, and I say it in confidence and

vindication, in so far as regards my own belief, I say it in all good

spirit toward multitudes of men in this Commonwealth of the Whig and

American parties in their heretofore organization; I say it to

multitudes of men who have been betrayed by the passions of the hour

into joining the sectional combinations of the Republican party; I say

that in the Democratic party and in that alone is the tower of strength

for the liberties, the position, and the honor of the United States. But

why need I indulge in these reflections in proof of my proposition?

Gentlemen, we have here this evening the living proof, the visible,

tangible, audible, incontestable, immortal proof, that the position of

the Democratic party, in the existing organization of parties, is the

national, constitutional party of the United States. Gentlemen, I ask

you to challenge your memories, and look upon the history of the past

four years of the United States, and can you point me to a Republican

assembly here, in the city of Boston, or anywhere else; can you point me

in the last four years of our history to any occasion on which Faneuil

Hall has been crowded to its utmost capability with a Republican

assembly in which appeared any one of those preëminent statesmen of the

Southern States to honor not merely their States, but these United

States? When, sir, did that ever happen? When, sir, was that a possible

fact, morally speaking, that any eminent Southern statesman appeared in

a Republican assembly in any one of the States of this Union? There

never was a Republican assembly--an assembly of the Republican party in

fifteen of these States--and I again ask, when, in the remaining sixteen

States, was there ever convened an assembly of the Republican party

which, by reason of bigotry, proscriptive bigotry, of unnational hatred

of the South, and of determined insult of all Southern statesmen, did

not render it an impossible fact that any Southern statesman should thus

make his appearance as a member in such Republican Convention? You know

it is so, gentlemen; and yet, have we not a common country? Did those

thirteen colonies which, commencing with that combat at Concord, and

following it with that battle at Bunker's Hill, and pursuing it in every

battlefield of this continent, did those thirteen colonies form one

country or thirteen countries? Nay, did they form two countries, or one

country? I would imagine when I listen to a Republican speech here in

the State of Massachusetts, when I read a Republican address in

Massachusetts, I would imagine fifteen States of this Union--our

fellow-citizens or fellow-sufferers, our fellow-heroes of the

Revolution--I would imagine not that they are our countrymen endeared to

us by ties of consanguinity, but that they are from some foreign

country, that they belong to some French or British or Mexican enemies.

There never was a day in which the forces of war were marshaled against

the most flagrant abuses toward these United States; there never was a

war in which these United States have been engaged, never even in the

death-struggle of the Revolution, never in our war for maritime

independence, never in our war with France and Mexico, never was there a

time when any party in these United States expressed, avowed,

proclaimed, ostentatiously proclaimed more intense hostility to the

British, French, Mexican enemy, than I have heard uttered or proclaimed

concerning our fellow-citizens--brothers in the fifteen States of this

Union. It is the glory of the Democratic party that we can assume the

burden of our nationality for the Union; that we can make all due

sacrifices in order to show our reprobation of sectionalism, that we of

the North can sacrifice to the South, from dear attachment to our

fellow-citizens of the South, and they in the South in like manner meet

with us upon that ground, in order to show their love for the Federal

Union, and at the risk of encountering local prejudices. In the

Democratic party alone, as parties are now organized, is this catholic,

generous, universal spirit to be found. I say, then, the Democratic

party has such a character of constitutionality and of nationality.

And now, gentlemen, I have allowed myself unthinkingly to be carried

beyond my original purpose. I return to it to remind you that here among

us is a citizen of one of the Southern States, eloquent among the most

eloquent in debate, wise among the wisest in council, and brave among

the bravest in the battle-field. A citizen of a Southern State who knows

that he can associate with you, the representatives of the Democracy and

the nationality of Massachusetts, that he can associate with you on

equal footing with the fellow-citizens and common members of these

United States.

My friends, there are those here present, and in fact there is no one

here present of whom it can not be said that, in memory and admiration

at least, and if not in the actual fact, yet in proud and bounding

memory, they have been able to tread the glorious tracks of the

victorious achievements of Jefferson Davis on the fields of Monterey and

Buena Vista, and all have heard or have read the accents of eloquence

addressed by him to the Senate of the United States; and there is one at

least who, from his own personal observation, can bear witness to the

fact of the surpassing wisdom of Jefferson Davis in the administration

of the Government of the United States. Such a man, fellow-citizens, you

are this evening to hear, and to hear as a beautiful illustration of the

working of our republican institutions of these United States; of the

republican institutions which in our own country, our own republic, as

in the old republics of Athens and of Rome, exhibit the same

combinations of the highest military and civic qualities in the same

person. It must naturally be so, for in a republic every citizen is a

soldier, and every soldier a citizen. Not in these United States on the

occurrence of foreign war is that spectacle exhibited which we have so

recently seen in our mother-country, of the administration of the

country going abroad begging and stealing soldiers throughout Europe and

America. No! And while I ask you, my friends, to ponder this fact in

relation to that disastrous struggle of giants which so recently

occurred in our day--the Crimean War--I ask you whether any English

gentleman, any member of the British House of Commons, any member of the

British House of Peers, abandoned the ease of home, abandoned his easy

hours at home, and went into the country among his friends, tenants, and

fellow-countrymen, volunteering there to raise troops for the service of

England in that hour of her peril; did any such fact occur? No! But here

in these United States we had examples, and illustrious ones, of the

fact that men, eminent in their place in Congress, abandoned their

stations and their honors to go among fellow-citizens of their own

States, and there raise troops with which to vindicate the honor and the

flag of their country. Of such men was Jefferson Davis.

There is now living one military man of prominent distinction in the

public eye of England and the United States--I mean Sir Colin Campbell,

now Lord Clyde of Clydesdale. He deserves the distinction he enjoys, for

he has redeemed the British flag on the ensanguined, burning plains of

India. He has restored the glory of the British name in Asia. I honor

him. Scotland, England, Wales, and Ireland are open, for their counties,

as well as their countries, and their poets, orators, and statesmen, and

their generals, belong to our history as well as theirs. I will never

disavow Henry V on the plains of Agincourt; never Oliver Cromwell on the

fields of Marston Moor and Naseby; never Sarsfield on the banks of the

Boyne. The glories and honors of Sir Colin Campbell are the glories of

the British race, and the races of Great Britain and Ireland, from whom

we are descended.

But what gained Sir Colin Campbell the opportunity to achieve those

glorious results in India? Remember that, and let us see what it was. On

one of those bloody battles fought by the British before the fortress of

Sebastopol, in the midst of the perils, the most perilous of all the

battle-fields England ever encountered in Europe, in one of the bloody

charges of the Russian cavalry, there was an officer--a man who felt and

who possessed sufficient confidence in the troops he commanded, and in

the authority of his own voice and example--received that charge not in

the ordinary, commonplace, and accustomed manner, by forming his troops

into a hollow square, and thus arresting the charge, but by forming into

two diverging lines, and thus receiving upon the rifles of his

Highlandmen the charge of the Russian cavalry and repelling it. How all

England rang with the glory of that achievement! How the general voice

of England placed upon the brows of Sir Colin Campbell the laurels of

the future mastership of victory for the arms of England! And well they

might do so. But who originated that movement; who set the example of

that gallant operation--who but Colonel Jefferson Davis, of the First

Mississippi Regiment, on the field of Buena Vista? He was justly

entitled to the applause of the restorer of victory to the arms of the

Union. Gentlemen, in our country, in this day, such a man, such a master

of the art of war, so daring in the field, such a man may not only

aspire to the highest places in the executive government of the Union,

but such a man may acquire what nowhere else, since the days of Cimon

and Miltiades, of the Cincinnati and the Cornelii of Athens and of Rome,

has been done by the human race, the combination of eminent powers, of

intellectual cultivation, and of eloquence with the practical, qualities

of a statesman and general.

But, gentlemen, I am again betrayed beyond my purpose. Sir [addressing

General Davis], we welcome you to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. You

may not find here the ardent skies of your own sunny South, but you will

find as ardent hearts, as warm and generous hands to welcome you to our

Commonwealth. We welcome you to the city of Boston, and you have already

experienced how open-hearted, how generous, how free from all possible

taint of sectional thought are the hospitality and cordiality of the

city of Boston. We welcome you to Faneuil Hall. Many an eloquent voice

has in all times resounded from the walls of Faneuil Hall. It is said

that no voice is uttered by man in this air we breathe but enters into

that air. It continues there immortal as the portion of the universe

into which it has passed. If it be so, how instinct is Faneuil Hall with

the voice of the great, good, and glorious of past generations, and of

our own, whose voices have echoed through its walls, whose eloquent

words have thrilled the hearts of hearers, as if a pointed sword were

passing them through and through. Here Adams aroused his countrymen in

the War of Independence, and Webster invoked them almost with the dying

breath of his body--invoked with that voice of majesty and power which

he alone possessed--invoked them to a union between the North and South.

Ay, sir, and who, if he were here present, who from those blest abodes

on high from which he looks down upon us would congratulate us for this

scene. First, and above all, because his large heart would have

appreciated the spectacle of a statesman eminent among the most eminent

of the Southern States here addressing an assembly of the people in the

city of Boston. Because, in the second place, he would have remembered

that, though divided from you by party relations, in one of the critical

hours of his fame and his honor, your voice was not wanting for his

vindication in the Congress of the United States. Sir, again, I say we

welcome you to Faneuil Hall.

And now, my fellow-citizens, I will withdraw myself and present to you

the Hon. Jefferson Davis.

Address of Jefferson Davis, at Faneuil Hall, Boston, October 12, 1858.

Countrymen, Brethren, Democrats: Most happy am I to meet you, and to

have received here renewed assurance--of that which I have so long

believed--that the pulsation of the Democratic heart is the same in

every parallel of latitude, on every meridian of longitude, throughout

the United States. It required not this to confirm me in a belief I have

so long and so happily enjoyed. Your own great statesman [the Hon. Caleb

Cushing], who has introduced me to this assembly, has been too long

associated with me, too nearly connected, we have labored too many

hours, until one day ran into another, in the cause of our country, for

me to fail to understand that a Massachusetts Democrat has a heart as

wide as the Union, and that its pulsations always beat for the liberty

and happiness of his country. Neither could I be unaware that such was

the sentiment of the Democracy of New England. For it was my fortune

lately to serve under a President drawn from the neighboring State of

New Hampshire, and I know that he spoke the language of his heart, for I

learned it in four years of intimate relations with him, when he said he

knew "no North, no South, no East, no West, but sacred maintenance of

the common bond and true devotion to the common brotherhood." Never,

sir, in the past history of our country, never, I add, in its future

destiny, however bright it may be, did or will a man of higher and purer

patriotism, a man more devoted to the common weal of his country, hold

the helm of our great ship of state, than Franklin Pierce.

I have heard the resolutions read and approved by this meeting; I have

heard the address of your candidate for Governor; and these, added to

the address of my old and intimate friend, General Cushing, bear to me

fresh testimony, which I shall be happy to carry away with me, that the

Democracy, in the language of your own glorious Webster, "still lives";

lives, not as his great spirit did, when it hung 'twixt life and death,

like a star upon the horizon's verge, but lives like the germ that is

shooting upward; like the sapling that is growing to a mighty tree, and

I trust it may redeem Massachusetts to her glorious place in the Union,

when she led the van of the defenders of State rights.

When I see Faneuil Hall thus thronged it reminds me of another meeting,

when it was found too small to contain the assembly that met here, on

the call of the people, to know what should be done in relation to the

tea-tax, and when, Faneuil Hall being too small, they went to the old

South Church, which still stands a monument of your early day. I hope

the time will soon come when many Democratic meetings in Boston will be

too large for Faneuil Hall. I am welcomed to this hall, so venerable for

all the associations of our early history; to this hall of which you are

so justly proud, and the memories of which are part of the inheritance

of every American citizen; and I felt, as I looked upon it, and

remembered how many voices of patriotic fervor have filled it--how here

the first movement originated from which the Revolution sprang; how here

began the system of town meetings and free discussion--that, though my

theme was more humble than theirs, as befitted my humbler powers, I had

enough to warn me that I was assuming much to speak in this sacred

chamber. But, when I heard your distinguished orator say that words

uttered here could never die, that they lived and became a part of the

circumambient air, I feel a hesitation which increases upon me with the

remembrance of his expressions. But, if those voices which breathed the

first impulse into the colonies--now the United States--to proclaim

independence, and to unite for resistance against the power of the

mother-country--if those voices live here still, how must they fare who

come here to preach treason to the Constitution and to assail the union

of these States? It would seem that their criminal hearts would fear

that those voices, so long slumbering, would break silence, that those

forms which hang upon these walls behind me might come forth, and that

the sabers so long sheathed would leap from their scabbards to drive

from this sacred temple those who desecrate it as did the money-changers

who sold doves in the temple of the living God.

Here you have, to remind you, and to remind all who enter this hall, the

portraits of those men who are dear to every lover of liberty, and part

and parcel of the memory of every American citizen; and highest among

them all I see you have placed Samuel Adams and John Hancock. You have

placed them the highest, and properly; for they were two, the only two,

excepted from the proclamation of mercy, when Governor Gage issued his

anathema against them and against their fellow-patriots. These men, thus

excepted from the saving grace of the crown, now occupy the highest

places in Faneuil Hall, and thus seem to be the highest in the reverence

of the people of Boston. This is one of the instances in which we find

tradition so much more reliable than history; for tradition has borne

the name of Samuel Adams to the remotest of the colonies, and the new

States formed out of what was territory of the old colonies; and there

it is a name as sacred among us as it is among you.

We all remember how early he saw the necessity of community

independence. How, through the dim mists of the future, and in advance

of his day, he looked forward to the proclamation of the independence of

Massachusetts; how he steadily strove, through good report and evil

report, with a great, unwavering heart, whether in the midst of his

fellow-citizens, cheered by their voices, or communing with his own

heart, when driven from his home, his eyes were still fixed upon his

first, last hope, the community independence of Massachusetts! Always a

commanding figure, we see him, at a later period, the leader in the

correspondence which waked the feelings of the other colonies to united

fraternal association--the people of Massachusetts with the people of

the other colonies--there we see his letters acknowledging the receipt

of rice of South Carolina, and the money of New York and

Pennsylvania--all these poured in to relieve Boston of the sufferings

inflicted upon her when the port was closed by the despotism of the

British crown--we see the beginning of that which insured the

coöperation of the colonies throughout the desperate struggle of the

Revolution. And we there see that which, if the present generation be

true to the memory of their sires, to the memory of the noble men from

whom they descended, will perpetuate for them that spirit of fraternity

in which the Union began. But it is not here alone, nor in reminiscences

connected with the objects which present themselves within this hall,

that the people of Boston have much to excite their patriotism and carry

them back to the great principles of the Revolutionary struggle. Where

will you go and not meet some monument to inspire such sentiments? Go to

Lexington and Concord, where sixty brave countrymen came with their

fowling-pieces to oppose six hundred veterans--where they forced those

veterans back, pursuing them on the road, fighting from every barn, and

bush, and stock, and stone, till they drove them, retreating, to the

ships from which they went forth! And there stand those monuments of

your early patriotism, Breed's and Bunker's Hills, whose soil drank the

martyr-blood of men who lived for their country and died for mankind!

Can it be that any of you should tread that soil and forget the great

purposes for which those men died? While, on the other side, rise the

heights of Dorchester, where once stood the encampment of the Virginian,

the man who came here, and did not ask, Is this a town of Virginia? but,

Is this a town of my brethren? The steady courage and cautious wisdom of

Washington availed to drive the British troops out from the city which

they had so confidently held. Here, too, you find where once the old

Liberty Tree, connected with so many of your memories, grew. You ask

your legend, and learn that it was cut down for firewood by British

soldiers, as some of your meeting-houses were destroyed; they burned the

old tree, and it warmed the soldiers long enough to leave town, and, had

they burned it a little longer, its light would have shown Washington

and his followers where their enemies were.

But they are gone, and never again shall a hostile foot set its imprint

upon your soil. Your harbor is being fortified, to prevent an unexpected

attack on your city by a hostile fleet. But woe to the enemy whose fleet

shall bear him to your shores to set his footprint upon your soil; he

goes to a prison or to a grave! American fortifications are not built

from any fear of invasion, they are intended to guard points where

marine attacks can be made; and, for the rest, the hearts of Americans

are our ramparts.

But, my friends, it is not merely in these associations, so connected

with the honorable pride of Massachusetts, that one who visits Boston

finds much for gratification, hope, and instruction. If I were selecting

a place where the advocate of strict construction, the extreme expounder

of democratic State-rights doctrine should go for his texts, I would

send him into the collections of your historical associations. Instead

of going to Boston as a place where only consolidation would be found,

he would find written, in letters of living light, that sacred creed of

State rights which has been miscalled the ultra opinions of the South;

he could find among your early records that this Faneuil Hall, the

property of the town at the time when Massachusetts was under a colonial

government, administered by a man appointed by the British crown,

guarded by British soldiers, was refused to a British Governor in which

to hold a British festival, because he was going to bring with him the

agents for collecting, and naval officers sent here to enforce, an

oppressive tax upon your Commonwealth. Such was the proud spirit of

independence manifested even in your colonial history. Such is the great

foundation-stone on which may be erected an eternal monument of State

rights. And so, in an early period of our country, you find

Massachusetts leading the movements, prominent of all the States, in the

assertion of that doctrine which has been recently so much belied.

Having achieved your independence, having passed through the

Confederation, you assented to the formation of our present

constitutional Union. You did not surrender your sovereignty. Your

fathers had sacrificed too much to claim, as a reward of their toil,

merely that they should have a change of masters; and a change of

masters it would have been had Massachusetts surrendered her State

sovereignty to the central Government, and consented that that central

Government should have the power to coerce a State. But, if this power

does not exist, if this sovereignty has not been surrendered, then, who

can deny the words of soberness and truth spoken by your candidate this

evening, when he has pleaded to you the cause of State independence, and

the right of every community to be judge of its own domestic affairs?

This is all we have ever asked--we of the South, I mean--for I stand

before you as one of those who have always been called the ultra men of

the South, and I speak, therefore, for that class; and I tell you that

your candidate for Governor has uttered to-night everything which we

have claimed as a principle for our protection. And I have found the

same condition of things in the neighboring State of Maine. I have found

that the Democrats there asserted the same broad constitutional

principle for which we have been contending, by which we are willing to

live, for which we are willing to die!

In this state of the case, my friends, why is the country agitated? The

old controversies have passed away, or they have subsided, and have been

covered up by one dark pall of somber hue, which increases with every

passing year. Why is it, then, I say, that you are thus agitated in

relation to the domestic affairs of other communities? Why is it that

the peace of the country is disturbed in order that one people may judge

of what another people may do? Is there any political power to authorize

such interference? If so, where is it? You did not surrender your

sovereignty. You gave to the Federal Government certain functions. It

was your agent, created for specified purposes. It can do nothing save

that which you have given it power to perform. Where is the grant? Has

it a right to determine what shall be property? Surely not; that belongs

to every community to decide for itself; you judge in your case--every

other State must judge in its case. The Federal Government has no power

to destroy property. Do you pay taxes, then, to an agent, that he may

destroy your property? Do you support him for that purpose? It is an

absurdity on the face of it. To ask the question is to answer it. The

Government is instituted to protect, not to destroy, property. And, in

abundance of caution, your fathers provided that the Federal Government

should not take private property for its own use unless by making due

compensation therefor. It is prohibited from attempting to destroy

property. One of its great purposes was protection to the States.

Whenever that power is made a source of danger, we destroy the purpose

for which the Government was formed.

Why, then, have you agitators? With Pharisaical pretension it is

sometimes said it is a moral obligation to agitate, and I suppose they

are going through a sort of vicarious repentance for other men's sins.

With all due allowance for their zeal, we ask, how do they decide that

it is a sin? By what standard do they measure it? Not the Constitution;

the Constitution recognizes the property in slaves in many forms, and

imposes obligations in connection with that recognition. Not the Bible;

that justifies it. Not the good of society; for, if they go where it

exists, they find that society recognizes it as good. What, then, is

their standard? The good of mankind? Is that seen in the diminished

resources of the country? Is that seen in the diminished comfort of the

world? Or is not the reverse exhibited? Is there, in the cause of

Christianity, a motive for the prohibition of the system which is the

only agency through which Christianity has reached that inferior race,

the only means by which they have been civilized and elevated? Or is

their piety manifested in denunciation of their brethren, who are

deterred from answering their denunciation only by the contempt which

they feel for a mere brawler, who intends to end his brawling only in

empty words?

What, my friends, must be the consequences? Good or evil? They have been

evil, and evil they must be only to the end. Not one particle of good

has been done to any man, of any color, by this agitation. It has been

insidiously working the purpose of sedition, for the destruction of that

Union on which our hopes of future greatness depend.

On the one side, then, you see agitation tending slowly and steadily to

that separation of States, which, if you have any hope connected with

the liberty of mankind; if you have any national pride connected with

making your country the greatest on the face of the earth; if you have

any sacred regard for the obligations which the deeds and the blood of

your fathers entailed upon you, that hope should prompt you to reject

anything that would tend to destroy the result of that experiment which

they left it to you to conclude and perpetuate. On the other hand, if

each community, in accordance with the principles of our Government,

should regard its domestic interests as a part of the common whole, and

struggle for the benefit of all, this would steadily lead us to

fraternity, to unity, to coöperation, to the increase of our happiness

and the extension of the benefits of our useful example over mankind.

The flag of the Union, whose stars have already more than doubled their

original number, with its ample folds may wave, the recognized flag of

every State or the recognized protector of every State upon the

Continent of America.

In connection with the view which I have presented of the early idea of

community independence, I will add the very striking fact that one of

the colonies, about the time they had resolved to unite for the purpose

of achieving their independence, addressed the Colonial Congress to know

in what condition it would be in the interval between its separation

from the Government of Great Britain and the establishment of a

government on this continent. The answer of the Colonial Congress was

exactly what might have been expected--exactly what State-rights

Democracy would answer to-day to such an inquiry--that they "had nothing

to do with it." If such sentiment had continued, if it had governed in

every State, if representatives had been chosen upon it, then your halls

of Federal legislation would not have been disturbed about the question

of the domestic institutions of the different States. The peace of the

country would not be hazarded by the arraignment of the family relations

of people over whom the Government has no control. If in harmony working

together, with co-intelligence for the conservation of the interests of

the country--if protection to the States and the other great ends for

which the Government was established, had been the aim and united effort

of all--what effects would not have been produced? As our Government

increases in expansion it would increase in its beneficent effect upon

the people; we should, as we grow in power and prosperity, also grow in

fraternity, and it would be no longer a wonder to see a man coming from

a Southern State to address a Democratic audience in Boston.

But I have referred to the fact that Massachusetts stood preëminently

forward among those who asserted community independence: and this

reminds me of another incident. President Washington visited Boston when

John Hancock was Governor, and Hancock refused to call upon the

President, because he contended that any man who came within the limits

of Massachusetts must yield rank and precedence to the Governor of the

State. He eventually only surrendered the point on account of his

personal regard and respect for the character of George Washington. I

honor him for this, and value it as one of the early testimonies in

favor of State rights. I wish all our Governors had the same regard for

the dignity of the State as had the great and glorious John Hancock.

In the beginning the founders of this Government were true democratic

State-rights men. Democracy was State rights, and State rights was

democracy, and it is so to-day. Your resolutions breathe it. The

Declaration of Independence embodied the sentiments which had lived in

the hearts of the country for many years before its formal assertion.

Our fathers asserted the great principle--the right of the people to

choose their own government--and that government rested upon the consent

of the governed. In every form of expression it uttered the same idea,

community independence and the dependence of the Union upon the

communities of which it consisted. It was an American declaration of the

unalienable right of man; it was a general truth, and I wish it were

accepted by all men. But I have said that this State sovereignty--this

community independence--has never been surrendered, and that there is no

power in the Federal Government to coerce a State. Will any one ask me,

then, how a State is to be held to the fulfillment of its obligations?

My answer is, by its honor. The obligation is the more sacred to observe

every feature of the compact, because there is no power to enforce it.

The great error of the Confederation was, that it attempted to act upon

the States. It was found impracticable, and our present form of

government was adopted, which acts upon individuals, and is not designed

to act upon States. The question of State coercion was raised in the

Convention which framed the Constitution, and, after discussion, the

proposition to give power to the General Government to enforce against

any State obedience to the laws was rejected. It is upon the ground that

a State can not be coerced that observance of the compact is a sacred

obligation. It was upon this principle that our fathers depended for the

perpetuity of a fraternal Union, and for the security of the rights that

the Constitution was designed to preserve. The fugitive slave compact in

the Constitution of the United States implied that the States should

fulfill it voluntarily. They expected the States to legislate so as to

secure the rendition of fugitives; and in 1778 it was a matter of

complaint that the Spanish colony of Florida did not restore fugitive

negroes from the United States who escaped into that colony, and a

committee, composed of Hamilton, of New York, Sedgwick, of

Massachusetts, and Mason, of Virginia, reported resolutions in the

Congress, instructing the Secretary of Foreign Affairs to address the

_chargé d'affaires_ at Madrid to apply to his Majesty of Spain to issue

orders to his governor to compel them to secure the rendition of

fugitive negroes. This was the sentiment of the committee, and they

added, also, that the States would return any slaves from Florida who

might escape into their limits.

When the constitutional obligation was imposed, who could have doubted

that every State, faithful to its obligations, would comply with the

requirements of the Constitution, and waive all questions as to whether

the institution should or should not exist in another community over

which they had no control? Congress was at last forced to legislate on

the subject, and they have continued, up to a recent period, to

legislate, and this has been one of the causes by which you have been

disturbed. You have been called upon to make war against a law which

need never to have been enacted, if each State had done the duty which

she was called upon by the Constitution to perform.