policy; that their great desire is peace and harmony; and they complain
bitterly that I should have disturbed the repose of the country by the
introduction of this measure! Let me ask these professed friends of
peace, and avowed enemies of agitation, how the issue could have been
avoided. They tell me that I should have let the question alone;
that is, that I should have left Nebraska unorganized, the people
unprotected, and the Indian barrier in existence, until the swelling
tide of emigration should burst through, and accomplish by violence what
it is the part of wisdom and statesmanship to direct and regulate by
law. How long could you have postponed action with safety? How long
could you maintain that Indian barrier, and restrain the onward march of
civilization, Christianity, and free government by a barbarian wall? Do
you suppose that you could keep that vast country a howling wilderness
in all time to come, roamed over by hostile savages, cutting off all
safe communication between our Atlantic and Pacific possessions? I tell
you that the time for action has come, and cannot be postponed. It is
a case in which the "let-alone" policy would precipitate a crisis which
must inevitably result in violence, anarchy, and strife.
You cannot fix bounds to the onward march of this great and growing
country. You cannot fetter the limbs of the young giant. He will burst
all your chains. He will expand, and grow, and increase, and extend
civilization, Christianity, and liberal principles. Then, sir, if you
cannot check the growth of the country in that direction, is it not the
part of wisdom to look the danger in the face, and provide for an event
which you cannot avoid? I tell you, sir, you must provide for lines of
continuous settlement from the Mississippi valley to the Pacific ocean.
And in making this provision, you must decide upon what principles the
Territories shall be organized; in other words, whether the people shall
be allowed to regulate their domestic institutions in their own way,
according to the provisions of this bill, or whether the opposite
doctrine of Congressional interference is to prevail. Postpone it,
if you will; but whenever you do act, this question must be met and
decided.
The Missouri compromise was interference; the compromise of 1850 was
non-interference, leaving the people to exercise their rights under the
Constitution. The Committee on Territories were compelled to act on this
subject. I, as their chairman, was bound to meet the question. I chose
to take the responsibility regardless of consequences personal to
myself. I should have done the same thing last year, if there had been
time; but we know, considering the late period at which the bill
then reached us from the House, that there was not sufficient time to
consider the question fully, and to prepare a report upon the subject.
I was, therefore, persuaded by my friends to allow the bill to be
reported to the Senate, in order that such action might be taken as
should be deemed wise and proper. The bill was never taken up for
action--the last night of the session having been exhausted in debate on
a motion to take up the bill. This session, the measure was introduced
by my friend from Iowa (Mr. Dodge), and referred to the Territorial
Committee during the first week of the session. We have abundance of
time to consider the subject; it is a matter of pressing necessity,
and there was no excuse for not meeting it directly and fairly. We were
compelled to take our position upon the doctrine either of intervention
or non-intervention. We chose the latter for two reasons: first, because
we believed that the principle was right; and, second, because it was
the principle adopted in 1850, to which the two great political parties
of the country were solemnly pledged.
There is another reason why I desire to see this principle recognized as
a rule of action in all time to come. It will have the effect to destroy
all sectional parties and sectional agitations. If, in the language of
the report of the committee, you withdraw the slavery question from
the halls of Congress and the political arena, and commit it to the
arbitrament of those who are immediately interested in and alone
responsible for its consequences, there is nothing left out of which
sectional parties can be organized. It never was done, and never can
be done on the bank, tariff, distribution, or any party issue which has
existed, or may exist, after this slavery question is withdrawn from
politics. On every other political question these have always supporters
and opponents in every portion of the Union--in each State, county,
village, and neighborhood--residing together in harmony and good
fellowship, and combating each other's opinions and correcting each
other's errors in a spirit of kindness and friendship. These differences
of opinion between neighbors and friends, and the discussions that grow
out of them, and the sympathy which each feels with the advocates of
his own opinions in every portion of this widespread Republic, add
an overwhelming and irresistible moral weight to the strength of
the Confederacy. Affection for the Union can never be alienated or
diminished by any other party issues than those which are joined upon
sectional or geographical lines. When the people of the North shall
all be rallied under one banner, and the whole South marshalled under
another banner, and each section excited to frenzy and madness by
hostility to the institutions of the other, then the patriot may well
tremble for the perpetuity of the Union. Withdraw the slavery question
from the political arena, and remove it to the States and Territories,
each to decide for itself, such a catastrophe can never happen. Then
you will never be able to tell, by any Senator's vote for or against any
measure, from what State or section of the Union he comes.
Why, then, can we not withdraw this vexed question from politics? Why
can we not adopt the principle of this bill as a rule of action in all
new Territorial organizations? Why can we not deprive these agitators of
their vocation and render it impossible for Senators to come here upon
bargains on the slavery question? I believe that the peace, the harmony,
and perpetuity of the Union require us to go back to the doctrines of
the Revolution, to the principles of the Constitution, to the principles
of the Compromise of 1850, and leave the people, under the Constitution,
to do as they may see proper in respect to their own internal affairs.
Mr. President, I have not brought this question forward as a Northern
man or as a Southern man. I am unwilling to recognize such divisions
and distinctions. I have brought it forward as an American Senator,
representing a State which is true to this principle, and which has
approved of my action in respect to the Nebraska bill. I have brought it
forward not as an act of justice to the South more than to the North. I
have presented it especially as an act of justice to the people of those
Territories and of the States to be formed therefrom, now and in all
time to come. I have nothing to say about Northern rights or Southern
rights. I know of no such divisions or distinctions under the
Constitution. The bill does equal and exact justice to the whole Union,
and every part of it; it violates the right of no State or Territory;
but places each on a perfect equality, and leaves the people thereof to
the free enjoyment of all their rights under the Constitution.
Now, sir, I wish to say to our Southern friends that if they desire to
see this great principle carried out, now is their time to rally around
it, to cherish it, preserve it, make it the rule of action in all future
time. If they fail to do it now, and thereby allow the doctrine of
interference to prevail, upon their heads the consequences of that
interference must rest. To our Northern friends, on the other hand,
I desire to say, that from this day henceforward they must rebuke the
slander which has been uttered against the South, that they desire to
legislate slavery into the Territories. The South has vindicated her
sincerity, her honor, on that point by bringing forward a provision
negativing, in express terms, any such effect as a result of this bill.
I am rejoiced to know that while the proposition to abrogate the eighth
section of the Missouri act comes from a free State, the proposition to
negative the conclusion that slavery is thereby introduced, comes from
a slave-holding State. Thus, both sides furnish conclusive evidence that
they go for the principle, and the principle only, and desire to take no
advantage of any possible misconstruction.
Mr. President, I feel that I owe an apology to the Senate for having
occupied their attention so long, and a still greater apology for having
discussed the question in such an incoherent and desultory manner. But
I could not forbear to claim the right of closing this debate. I thought
gentlemen would recognize its propriety when they saw the manner
in which I was assailed and misrepresented in the course of this
discussion, and especially by assaults still more disreputable in some
portions of the country. These assaults have had no other effect upon me
than to give me courage and energy for a still more resolute discharge
of duty. I say frankly that, in my opinion, this measure will be as
popular at the North as at the South, when its provisions and principles
shall have been fully developed, and become well understood. The people
at the North are attached to the principles of self-government, and
you cannot convince them that that is self-government which deprives a
people of the right of legislating for themselves, and compels them to
receive laws which are forced upon them by a Legislature in which they
are not represented. We are willing to stand upon this great principle
of self-government every-where; and it is to us a proud reflection that,
in this whole discussion, no friend of the bill has urged an argument
in its favor which could not be used with the same propriety in a free
State as in a slave State, and vice versed. No enemy of the bill has
used an argument which would bear repetition one mile across Mason and
Dixon's line. Our opponents have dealt entirely in sectional appeals.
The friends of the bill have discussed a great principle of universal
application, which can be sustained by the same reasons, and the same
arguments, in every time and in every corner of the Union.
CHARLES SUMNER,
OF MASSACHUSETTS.' (BORN 1811, DIED 1874.)
ON THE CRIME AGAINST KANSAS;
SENATE, MAY 19-20, 1856.
MR. PRESIDENT:
You are now called to redress a great transgression. Seldom in the
history of nations has such a question been presented. Tariffs, Army
bills, Navy bills, Land bills, are important, and justly occupy your
care; but these all belong to the course of ordinary legislation. As
means and instruments only, they are necessarily subordinate to the
conservation of government itself. Grant them or deny them, in greater
or less degree, and you will inflict no shock. The machinery of
government will continue to move. The State will not cease to exist. Far
otherwise is it with the eminent question now before you, involving, as
it does, Liberty in a broad territory, and also involving the peace of
the whole country, with our good name in history forever more.
Take down your map, sir, and you will find that the Territory of Kansas,
more than any other region, occupies the middle spot of North America,
equally distant from the Atlantic on the east, and the Pacific on the
west; from the frozen waters of Hudson's Bay on the north, and the tepid
Gulf Stream on the south, constituting the precise territorial centre of
the whole vast continent. To such advantages of situation, on the very
highway between two oceans, are added a soil of unsurpassed richness,
and a fascinating, undulating beauty of surface, with a health-giving
climate, calculated to nurture a powerful and generous people, worthy
to be a central pivot of American institutions. A few short months only
have passed since this spacious and mediterranean country was open only
to the savage who ran wild in its woods and prairies; and now it has
already drawn to its bosom a population of freemen larger than Athens
crowded within her historic gates, when her sons, under Miltiades,
won liberty for man-kind on the field of Marathon; more than Sparta
contained when she ruled Greece, and sent forth her devoted children,
quickened by a mother's benediction, to return with their shields, or on
them; more than Rome gathered on her seven hills, when, under her kings,
she commenced that sovereign sway, which afterward embraced the
whole earth; more than London held, when, on the fields of Crecy
and Agincourt, the English banner was carried victoriously over the
chivalrous hosts of France.
Against this Territory, thus fortunate in position and population, a
crime has been committed, which is without example in the records of
the past. Not in plundered provinces or in the cruelties of selfish
governors will you find its parallel; and yet there is an ancient
instance, which may show at least the path of justice. In the terrible
impeachment by which the great Roman orator has blasted through all
time the name of Verres, amidst charges of robbery and sacrilege, the
enormity which most aroused the indignant voice of his accuser, and
which still stands forth with strongest distinctness, arresting the
sympathetic indignation of all who read the story, is, that away in
Sicily he had scourged a citizen of Rome--that the cry, "I am a Roman
citizen," had been interposed in vain against the lash of the tyrant
governor. Other charges were, that he had carried away productions of
art, and that he had violated the sacred shrines. It was in the presence
of the Roman Senate that this arraignment proceeded; in a temple of
the Forum; amidst crowds--such as no orator had ever before drawn
together--thronging the porticos and colonnades, even clinging to
the house-tops and neighboring slopes--and under the anxious gaze of
witnesses summoned from the scene of crime. But an audience grander
far--of higher dignity--of more various people, and of wider
intelligence--the countless multitude of succeeding generations, in
every land, where eloquence has been studied, or where the Roman name
has been recognized,--has listened to the accusation, and throbbed with
condemnation of the criminal. Sir, speaking in an age of light, and a
land of constitutional liberty, where the safeguards of elections are
justly placed among the highest triumphs of civilization, I fearlessly
assert that the wrongs of much-abused Sicily, thus memorable in history,
were small by the side of the wrongs of Kansas, where the very shrines
of popular institutions, more sacred than any heathen altar, have been
desecrated; where the ballot-box, more precious than any work, in ivory
or marble, from the cunning hand of art, has been plundered; and where
the cry, "I am an American citizen," has been interposed in vain against
outrage of every kind, even upon life itself. Are you against sacrilege?
I present it for your execration. Are you against;robbery? I hold it up
to your scorn. Are you for the protection of American citizens? I show
you how their dearest rights have been cloven down, while a Tyrannical
Usurpation has sought to install itself on their very necks!
But the wickedness which I now begin to expose is immeasurably
aggravated by the motive which prompted it. Not in any common lust for
power did this uncommon tragedy have its origin. It is the rape of a
virgin Territory, compelling it to the hateful embrace of Slavery; and
it may be clearly traced to a depraved longing for a new slave State,
the hideous off-spring of such a crime, in the hope of adding to the
power of slavery in the National Government. Yes, sir, when the whole
world, alike Christian and Turk, is rising up to condemn this wrong, and
to make it a hissing to the nations, here in our Republic, force--ay,
sir, FORCE--has been openly employed in compelling Kansas to this
pollution, and all for the sake of political power. There is the simple
fact, which you will in vain attempt to deny, but which in itself
presents an essential wickedness that makes other public crimes seem
like public virtues.
But this enormity, vast beyond comparison, swells to dimensions of
wickedness which the imagination toils in vain to grasp, when it is
understood that for this purpose are hazarded the horrors of intestine
feud not only in this distant Territory, but everywhere throughout the
country. Already the muster has begun. The strife is no longer local,
but national. Even now, while I speak, portents hang on all the arches
of the horizon threatening to darken the broad land, which already
yawns with the mutterings of civil war. The fury of the propagandists of
Slavery, and the calm determination of their opponents, are now diffused
from the distant Territory over widespread communities, and the
whole country, in all its extent--marshalling hostile divisions, and
foreshadowing a strife which, unless happily averted by the triumph
of Freedom, will become war--fratricidal, parricidal war--with an
accumulated wickedness beyond the wickedness of any war in human annals;
justly provoking the avenging judgment of Providence and the avenging
pen of history, and constituting a strife, in the language of the
ancient writer, more than foreign, more than social, more than civil;
but something compounded of all these strifes, and in itself more than
war; _sal potius commune quoddam ex omnibus, et plus quam bellum_.
Such is the crime which you are to judge. But the criminal also must be
dragged into day, that you may see and measure the power by which all
this wrong is sustained. From no common source could it proceed. In
its perpetration was needed a spirit of vaulting ambition which would
hesitate at nothing; a hardihood of purpose which was insensible to the
judgment of mankind; a madness for Slavery which would disregard the
Constitution, the laws, and all the great examples of our history;
also a consciousness of power such as comes from the habit of power;
a combination of energies found only in a hundred arms directed by
a hundred eyes; a control of public opinion through venal pens and a
prostituted press; an ability to subsidize crowds in every vocation
of life--the politician with his local importance, the lawyer with his
subtle tongue, and even the authority of the judge on the bench; and
a familiar use of men in places high and low, so that none, from the
President to the lowest border postmaster, should decline to be its
tool; all these things and more were needed, and they were found in
the slave power of our Republic. There, sir, stands the criminal,
all unmasked before you--heartless, grasping, and tyrannical--with an
audacity beyond that of Verres, a subtlety beyond that of Machiavel, a
meanness beyond that of Bacon, and an ability beyond that of Hastings.
Justice to Kansas can be secured only by the prostration of this
influence; for this the power behind--greater than any President--which
succors and sustains the crime. Nay, the proceedings I now arraign
derive their fearful consequences only from this connection.
In now opening this great matter, I am not insensible to the austere
demands of the occasion; but the dependence of the crime against Kansas
upon the slave power is so peculiar and important, that I trust to be
pardoned while I impress it with an illustration, which to some may
seem trivial. It is related in Northern mythology that the god of Force,
visiting an enchanted region, was challenged by his royal entertainer to
what seemed an humble feat of strength--merely, sir, to lift a cat from
the ground. The god smiled at the challenge, and, calmly placing his
hand under the belly of the animal, with superhuman strength strove,
while the back of the feline monster arched far up-ward, even beyond
reach, and one paw actually forsook the earth, until at last the
discomfited divinity desisted; but he was little surprised at his
defeat when he learned that this creature, which seemed to be a cat, and
nothing more, was not merely a cat, but that it belonged to and was a
part of the great Terrestrial Serpent, which, in its innumerable folds,
encircled the whole globe. Even so the creature, whose paws are now
fastened upon Kansas, whatever it may seem to be, constitutes in reality
a part of the slave power, which, in its loathsome folds, is now
coiled about the whole land. Thus do I expose the extent of the present
contest, where we encounter not merely local resistance, but also the
unconquered sustaining arm behind. But out of the vastness of the crime
attempted, with all its woe and shame, I derive a well-founded assurance
of a commensurate vastness of effort against it by the aroused masses of
the country, determined not only to vindicate Right against Wrong,
but to redeem the Republic from the thraldom of that Oligarchy which
prompts, directs, and concentrates the distant wrong.
Such is the crime, and such the criminal, which it is my duty in this
debate to expose, and, by the blessing of God, this duty shall be done
completely to the end. * * *'
But, before entering upon the argument, I must say something of a
general character, particularly in response to what has fallen from
Senators who have raised themselves to eminence on this floor in
championship of human wrongs. I mean the Senator from South Carolina
(Mr. Butler), and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Douglas), who, though
unlike as Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, yet, like this couple, sally
forth together in the same adventure. I regret much to miss the elder
Senator from his seat; but the cause, against which he has run a
tilt, with such activity of animosity, demands that the opportunity of
exposing him should not be lost; and it is for the cause that I speak.
The Senator from South Carolina has read many books of chivalry, and
believes himself a chivalrous knight, with sentiments of honor and
courage. Of course he has chosen a mistress to whom he has made his
vows, and who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him; though
polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight--I mean the
harlot, Slavery. For her, his tongue is always profuse in words. Let her
be impeached in character, or any proposition made to shut her out
from the extension of her wantonness, and no extravagance of manner or
hardihood of assertion is then too great for this Senator. The frenzy
of Don Quixote, in behalf of his wench, Dulcinea del Toboso, is all
surpassed. The asserted rights of Slavery, which shock equality of all
kinds, are cloaked by a fantastic claim of equality. If the slave States
cannot enjoy what, in mockery of the great fathers of the Republic, he
misnames equality under the Constitution--in other words, the full power
in the National Territories to compel fellow-men to unpaid toil, to
separate husband and wife, and to sell little children at the auction
block--then, sir, the chivalric Senator will conduct the State of South
Carolina out of the Union! Heroic knight! Exalted Senator! A second
Moses come for a second exodus!!
But not content with this poor menace, which we have been twice told was
"measured," the Senator in the unrestrained chivalry of his nature, has
undertaken to apply opprobrious words to those who differ from him on
this floor. He calls them "sectional and fanatical;" and opposition to
the usurpation in Kansas he denounces as "an uncalculating fanaticism."
To be sure these charges lack all grace of originality, and all
sentiment of truth; but the adventurous Senator does not hesitate. He
is the uncompromising, unblushing representative on this floor of a
flagrant sectionalism, which now domineers over the Republic, and yet
with a ludicrous ignorance of his own position--unable to see himself
as others see him--or with an effrontery which even his white head ought
not to protect from rebuke, he applies to those here who resist his
sectionalism the very epithet which designates himself. The men who
strive to bring back the Government to its original policy, when Freedom
and not Slavery was sectional, he arraigns as sectional. This will not
do. It involves too great a perversion of terms. I tell that Senator
that it is to himself, and to the "organization" of which he is the
"committed advocate," that this epithet belongs. I now fasten it upon
them. For myself, I care little for names; but since the question has
been raised here, I affirm that the Republican party of the Union is in
no just sense sectional, but, more than any other party, national;
and that it now goes forth to dislodge from the high places of the
Government the tyrannical sectionalism of which the Senator from South
Carolina is one of the maddest zealots. * * *