1857-1858.
INAUGURATION AS PRESIDENT—SELECTION OF A CABINET—THE DISTURBANCES IN
KANSAS—MR. BUCHANAN’S CONSTRUCTION OF THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT,
AND OF THE “PLATFORM” ON WHICH HE WAS ELECTED—FINAL ADMISSION OF
KANSAS INTO THE UNION.
From the communication which has been furnished to me by Mr. James
Buchanan Henry, I select the following account of the period
preceding the inauguration of his uncle as President, on the 4th of
March, 1857:
Soon after Mr. Buchanan’s election to the Presidency, he sent for
me—I was in Philadelphia, where I had begun the practice of the
law—to come to Wheatland. He then told me that he had selected me
to be his private secretary, and spoke to me gravely of the
temptations by which I should probably be assailed in that
position. Soon afterwards prominent men and politicians began to
make their way to Wheatland in great numbers, and the stream
increased steadily until the departure of Mr. Buchanan for
Washington.
In addition to personal attendance upon the President-elect, I
soon had my hands full of work in examining and briefing the daily
mails, which were burdened with letters of recommendation from
individuals, committees and delegations of various States, in
regard to the cabinet appointments and a few of the more important
offices. Mr. Buchanan was also preparing his inaugural address
with his usual care and painstaking, and I copied his drafts and
recopied them until he had it prepared to his satisfaction. It
underwent no alteration after he went to the National Hotel in
Washington, except that he there inserted a clause in regard to
the question then pending in the Supreme Court, as one that would
dispose of a vexed and dangerous topic by the highest judicial
authority of the land. When the time came to leave Wheatland for
the capital, preliminary to his inauguration, Mr. Buchanan, Miss
Lane, Miss Hetty and I drove into Lancaster in his carriage,
escorted all the way to the railway station by a great and
enthusiastic crowd of Lancaster citizens and personal friends,
with a band of music, although it was very early on a bleak winter
morning. I remember his modestly remarking upon the vast crowd
thus doing reverence to a mortal man. At the station he was met by
an ardent personal and political friend, Robert Magraw, then
president of the Northern Central Railroad, and received into a
special car, built for the occasion, and the windows of which were
in colors and represented familiar scenes of and about Wheatland.
After receiving ovations all along the way, especially at
Baltimore, the President-elect and party arrived safely in
Washington. We were somewhat fearful that Mr. Buchanan might be
seriously embarrassed during the inaugural ceremonies from the
effects of what was then known as the National Hotel disease, a
disorder which, from no cause that we could then discover, had
attacked nearly every guest at the house, and from the dire
effects of which many never wholly recovered. Dr. Foltz, a naval
surgeon, whose appointment in the service, many years before, Mr.
Buchanan had assisted, was in constant attendance upon him, and I
remember that he and I went together to the Capitol in a carriage
just behind the one that conveyed the retiring President and the
President-elect, and that he had occasion to administer remedies.
The inauguration ceremonies, the ball, and the first reception at
the White House by the new President, were very largely attended
and successful. It happened that they took place during a short
era of good feeling among all shades of politics and party, but
unhappily an era of peace destined soon to terminate in bitter
discord over the Lecompton Constitution, or Kansas question, and
by the more disastrous following appeal to the passions of the two
great political sections of the North and the South, which so
nearly ended the administration in blood. The dinners at the White
House, during the first year, were attended by Republicans as well
as Democrats, with great seeming friendship and good-will.
The Inaugural Address of the new President was as follows:
FELLOW-CITIZENS: I appear before you this day to take the solemn
oath “that I will faithfully execute the office of President of
the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve,
protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
In entering upon this great office, I most humbly invoke the God
of our fathers for wisdom and firmness to execute its high and
responsible duties in such a manner as to restore harmony and
ancient friendship among the people of the several States, and to
preserve our free institutions throughout many generations.
Convinced that I owe my election to the inherent love for the
Constitution and the Union which still animates the hearts of the
American people, let me earnestly ask their powerful support in
sustaining all just measures calculated to perpetuate these, the
richest political blessings which Heaven has ever bestowed upon
any nation. Having determined not to become a candidate for
re-election, I shall have no motive to influence my conduct in
administering the government except the desire ably and faithfully
to serve my country, and to live in the grateful memory of my
countrymen.
We have recently passed through a presidential contest in which
the passions of our fellow-citizens were excited to the highest
degree by questions of deep and vital importance; but when the
people proclaimed their will, the tempest at once subsided, and
all was calm.
The voice of the majority, speaking in the manner prescribed by
the Constitution, was heard, and instant submission followed. Our
own country could alone have exhibited so grand and striking a
spectacle of the capacity of man for self-government.
What a happy conception, then, was it for Congress to apply this
simple rule—that the will of the majority shall govern—to the
settlement of the question of domestic slavery in the Territories!
Congress is neither “to legislate slavery into any Territory or
State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people
thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic
institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of
the United States.” As a natural consequence, Congress has also
prescribed that, when the Territory of Kansas shall be admitted as
a State, it “shall be received into the Union, with or without
slavery, as their constitution may prescribe at the time of their
admission.”
A difference of opinion has arisen in regard to the point of time
when the people of a Territory shall decide this question for
themselves.
This is, happily, a matter of but little practical importance.
Besides, it is a judicial question, which legitimately belongs to
the Supreme Court of the United States, before whom it is now
pending, and will, it is understood, be speedily and finally
settled. To their decision, in common with all good citizens, I
shall cheerfully submit, whatever this may be, though it has ever
been my individual opinion that, under the Nebraska-Kansas act,
the appropriate period will be when the number of actual residents
in the Territory shall justify the formation of a constitution
with a view to its admission as a State into the Union. But be
this as it may, it is the imperative and indispensable duty of the
government of the United States to secure to every resident
inhabitant the free and independent expression of his opinion by
his vote. This sacred right of each individual must be preserved.
That being accomplished, nothing can be fairer than to leave the
people of a Territory free from all foreign interference, to
decide their own destiny for themselves, subject only to the
Constitution of the United States.
The whole territorial question being thus settled upon the
principle of popular sovereignty—a principle as ancient as free
government itself—everything of a practical nature has been
decided. No other question remains for adjustment; because all
agree that, under the Constitution, slavery in the States is
beyond the reach of any human power, except that of the respective
States themselves wherein it exists. May we not, then, hope that
the long agitation on this subject is approaching its end, and
that the geographical parties to which it has given birth, so much
dreaded by the Father of his Country, will speedily become
extinct? Most happy will it be for the country when the public
mind shall be diverted from this question to others of more
pressing and practical importance. Throughout the whole progress
of this agitation, which has scarcely known any intermission for
more than twenty years, whilst it has been productive of no
positive good to any human being, it has been the prolific source
of great evils to the master, the slave, and to the whole country.
It has alienated and estranged the people of the sister States
from each other, and has even seriously endangered the very
existence of the Union. Nor has the danger yet entirely ceased.
Under our system there is a remedy for all mere political evils in
the sound sense and sober judgment of the people. Time is a great
corrective. Political subjects which but a few years ago excited
and exasperated the public mind have passed away and are now
nearly forgotten. But this question of domestic slavery is of far
graver importance than any mere political question, because,
should the agitation continue, it may eventually endanger the
personal safety of a large portion of our countrymen where the
institution exists. In that event, no form of government, however
admirable in itself, and however productive of material benefits,
can compensate for the loss of peace and domestic security around
the family altar. Let every Union-loving man, therefore, exert his
best influence to suppress this agitation, which, since the recent
legislation of Congress, is without any legitimate object.
It is an evil omen of the times that men have undertaken to
calculate the mere material value of the Union. Reasoned estimates
have been presented of the pecuniary profits and local advantages
which would result to different States and sections from its
dissolution, and of the comparative injuries which such an event
would inflict on other States and sections. Even descending to
this low and narrow view of the mighty question, all such
calculations are at fault. The bare reference to a single
consideration will be conclusive on this point. We at present
enjoy a free trade throughout our extensive and expanding country,
such as the world has never witnessed. This trade is conducted on
railroads and canals—on noble rivers and arms of the sea—which
bind together the north and the south, the east and the west of
our confederacy. Annihilate this trade, arrest its free progress
by the geographical lines of jealous and hostile States, and you
destroy the prosperity and onward march of the whole and every
part, and involve all in one common ruin. But such considerations,
important as they are in themselves, sink into insignificance when
we reflect on the terrific evils which would result from disunion
to every portion of the confederacy—to the north not more than to
the south, to the east not more than to the west. These I shall
not attempt to portray; because I feel an humble confidence that
the kind Providence which inspired our fathers with wisdom to
frame the most perfect form of Government and Union ever devised
by man will not suffer it to perish until it shall have been
peacefully instrumental, by its example, in the extension of civil
and religious liberty throughout the world.
Next in importance to the maintenance of the Constitution and the
Union is the duty of preserving the government free from the
taint, or even the suspicion, of corruption. Public virtue is the
vital spirit of republics; and history shows that when this has
decayed, and the love of money has usurped its place, although the
forms of free government may remain for a season, the substance
has departed forever.
Our present financial condition is without a parallel in history.
No nation has ever before been embarrassed from too large a
surplus in its treasury. This almost necessarily gives birth to
extravagant legislation. It produces wild schemes of expenditure,
and begets a race of speculators and jobbers, whose ingenuity is
exerted in contriving and promoting expedients to obtain public
money. The purity of official agents, whether rightfully or
wrongfully, is suspected, and the character of the government
suffers in the estimation of the people. This is in itself a very
great evil.
The natural mode of relief from this embarrassment is to
appropriate the surplus in the treasury to great national objects,
for which a clear warrant can be found in the Constitution. Among
these I might mention the extinguishment of the public debt, a
reasonable increase of the navy, which is at present inadequate to
the protection of our vast tonnage afloat, now greater than that
of any other nation, as well as to the defence of our extended
seacoast.
It is beyond all question the true principle, that no more revenue
ought to be collected from the people than the amount necessary to
defray the expenses of a wise, economical, and efficient
administration of the government. To reach this point, it was
necessary to resort to a modification of the tariff; and this has,
I trust, been accomplished in such a manner as to do as little
injury as may have been practicable to our domestic manufactures,
especially those necessary for the defence of the country. Any
discrimination against a particular branch, for the purpose of
benefiting favored corporations, individuals, or interests, would
have been unjust to the rest of the community, and inconsistent
with that spirit of fairness and equality which ought to govern in
the adjustment of a revenue tariff.
But the squandering of the public money sinks into comparative
insignificance as a temptation to corruption when compared with
the squandering of the public lands.
No nation in the tide of time has ever been blessed with so rich
and noble an inheritance as we enjoy in the public lands. In
administering this important trust, whilst it may be wise to grant
portions of them for the improvement of the remainder, yet we
should never forget that it is our cardinal policy to reserve
these lands, as much as may be, for actual settlers, and this at
moderate prices. We shall thus not only best promote the
prosperity of the new States and Territories by furnishing them a
hardy and independent race of honest and industrious citizens, but
shall secure homes for our children and our children’s children,
as well as for those exiles from foreign shores who may seek in
this country to improve their condition, and to enjoy the
blessings of civil and religious liberty. Such emigrants have done
much to promote the growth and prosperity of the country. They
have proved faithful both in peace and in war. After becoming
citizens, they are entitled, under the Constitution and laws, to
be placed on a perfect equality with native-born citizens, and in
this character they should ever be kindly recognized.
The Federal Constitution is a grant from the States to Congress of
certain specific powers; and the question whether this grant
should be liberally or strictly construed, has, more or less,
divided political parties from the beginning. Without entering
into the argument, I desire to state, at the commencement of my
administration, that long experience and observation have
convinced me that a strict construction of the powers of the
Government is the only true, as well as the only safe, theory of
the Constitution. Whenever, in our past history, doubtful powers
have been exercised by Congress, these have never failed to
produce injurious and unhappy consequences. Many such instances
might be adduced, if this were the proper occasion. Neither is it
necessary for the public service to strain the language of the
Constitution; because all the great and useful powers required for
a successful administration of the Government, both in peace and
in war, have been granted, either in express terms or by the
plainest implication.
Whilst deeply convinced of these truths, I yet consider it clear
that, under the war-making power, Congress may appropriate money
towards the construction of a military road, when this is
absolutely necessary for the defence of any State or Territory of
the Union against foreign invasion. Under the Constitution,
Congress has power “to declare war,” “to raise and support
armies,” “to provide and maintain a navy,” and to call forth the
militia to “repel invasions.” Thus endowed, in an ample manner,
with the war-making power, the corresponding duty is required that
“the United States shall protect each of them [the States] against
invasion.” Now, how is it possible to afford this protection to
California and our Pacific possessions, except by means of a
military road through the Territories of the United States, over
which men and munitions of war may be speedily transported from
the Atlantic States to meet and to repel the invader? In the event
of a war with a naval power much stronger than our own, we should
then have no other available access to the Pacific coast, because
such a power would instantly close the route across the isthmus of
Central America. It is impossible to conceive that, whilst the
Constitution has expressly required Congress to defend all the
States, it should yet deny to them, by any fair construction, the
only possible means by which one of these States can be defended.
Besides, the Government, ever since its origin, has been in the
constant practice of constructing military roads. It might also be
wise to consider whether the love for the Union which now animates
our fellow-citizens on the Pacific coast may not be impaired by
our neglect or refusal to provide for them, in their remote and
isolated condition, the only means by which the power of the
States, on this side of the Rocky Mountains, can reach them in
sufficient time to “protect” them “against invasion.” I forbear
for the present from expressing an opinion as to the wisest and
most economical mode in which the Government can lend its aid in
accomplishing this great and necessary work. I believe that many
of the difficulties in the way, which now appear formidable, will,
in a great degree, vanish as soon as the nearest and best route
shall have been satisfactorily ascertained.
It may be proper that, on this occasion, I should make some brief
remarks in regard to our rights and duties as a member of the
great family of nations. In our intercourse with them there are
some plain principles, approved by our own experience, from which
we should never depart. We ought to cultivate peace, commerce, and
friendship with all nations; and this not merely as the best means
of promoting our own material interests, but in a spirit of
Christian benevolence towards our fellow-men, wherever their lot
may be cast. Our diplomacy should be direct and frank, neither
seeking to obtain more nor accepting less than is our due. We
ought to cherish a sacred regard for the independence of all
nations, and never attempt to interfere in the domestic concerns
of any, unless this shall be imperatively required by the great
laws of self-preservation. To avoid entangling alliances has been
a maxim of our policy ever since the days of Washington, and its
wisdom no one will attempt to dispute. In short, we ought to do
justice, in a kindly spirit, to all nations, and require justice
from them in return.
It is our glory that, whilst other nations have extended their
dominions by the sword, we have never acquired any territory
except by fair purchase, or, as in the case of Texas, by the
voluntary determination of a brave, kindred, and independent
people to blend their destinies with our own. Even our
acquisitions from Mexico form no exception. Unwilling to take
advantage of the fortune of war against a sister republic, we
purchased these possessions, under the treaty of peace, for a sum
which was considered at the time a fair equivalent. Our past
history forbids that we shall in the future acquire territory,
unless this be sanctioned by the laws of justice and honor. Acting
on this principle, no nation will have a right to interfere or to
complain if, in the progress of events, we shall still further
extend our possessions. Hitherto, in all our acquisitions, the
people, under the protection of the American flag, have enjoyed
civil and religious liberty, as well as equal and just laws, and
have been contented, prosperous, and happy. Their trade with the
rest of the world has rapidly increased, and thus every commercial
nation has shared largely in their successful progress.
I shall now proceed to take the oath prescribed by the
Constitution, whilst humbly invoking the blessing of Divine
Providence on this great people.
In the selection of his cabinet, the President followed the
long-established custom of making it a representation of the
different portions of the Union, so far as might be consistent with
a proper regard for personal qualifications for the different posts.
The cabinet, which was confirmed by the Senate on the 6th day of
March, 1857, consisted of Lewis Cass, of Michigan, Secretary of
State; Howell Cobb, of Georgia, Secretary of the Treasury; John B.
Floyd, of Virginia, Secretary of War; Isaac Toucey, of Connecticut,
Secretary of the Navy; Aaron V. Brown, of Tennessee, Postmaster
General; Jacob Thompson, of Mississippi, Secretary of the Interior;
and Jeremiah S. Black, of Pennsylvania, Attorney General. So far as
was practicable within the limits of a selection which, according to
invariable usage and sound policy was confined to the Democratic
party, this cabinet was a fair representation of the Eastern, the
Middle, the Western and the Southern States.
The state of the country, however, when this administration was
organized, was ominous to its internal peace and welfare. The
preceding administration of President Pierce had left a legacy of
trouble to his successor in the repeal of the Missouri Compromise.
Had it not been for this ill-advised step, the country might have
reposed upon the settlement of all the slavery questions that was
made by the “Compromise Measures” of 1850. How the flood-gates of
sectional controversy were again opened by the repeal of the earlier
settlement of 1820, and how this repeal tended to unsettle what had
been happily settled in 1850, is a sad chapter in our political
history.
The repeal of the Missouri Compromise was effected in the following
manner: In the session of 1854, Senator Douglas, chairman of the
Senate Committee on Territories, reported a bill for the
establishment of a Territorial government in Nebraska. It did not
touch the Missouri Compromise; and, being in the usual form, it
would probably have been passed without much opposition, but for the
intervention of a Senator from Kentucky, Mr. Dixon. He gave notice,
on the 16th of January, that when the bill should be reached in its
order, he would move a section repealing the Missouri Compromise,
both as to Nebraska and all other Territories of the United States.
Mr. Dixon was a Whig, and Mr. Douglas was a prominent and most
energetic Democrat, who had long been an aspirant to the Presidency.
Conceiving the idea that a new doctrine respecting the sovereign
right of the people of a Territory to determine for themselves
whether they would or would not have slavery while they were in the
Territorial condition, would better reconcile both sections of the
Union than the continuance of the Missouri Compromise, he introduced
a substitute for the original bill, which, after dividing Nebraska
into two Territories, calling one Nebraska and the other Kansas,
annulled the Missouri Compromise in regard to these and all other
Territories. This he called, “Non-intervention by Congress with
slavery in the States or Territories,” which his bill declared was
the principle of the settlement of 1850, although that settlement
had not only not invalidated the Missouri Compromise, but that
Compromise had been expressly recognized in the case of Texas. Mr.
Dixon expressed himself as perfectly satisfied with Mr. Douglas’s
new bill, and the latter, being a man of great power, both as a
debater and as a politician, carried his bill through the two
Houses, and persuaded President Pierce to approve it. It was long
and disastrously known as “the Kansas-Nebraska Act.”
Its discussion in Congress was attended with heats such as had not
been witnessed for many years. It laid the foundation for the
political success of the party then beginning to be known as the
Republican, and it produced the hopeless disruption of the
Democratic party when its nomination for the Presidency next after
Mr. Buchanan’s was to be made. Proud, disdainful of the predictions
made by others of the danger to the Union arising from his measure,
confident in his own energies and his ability to unite the
Democratic party in the South and in the North upon his principle of
“non-intervention,” Mr. Douglas gained a momentary triumph at the
expense of his own political future, of the future of his party, and
of the peace of the Union. For a time, however, it seemed as if he
had secured a following that would insure the acceptance of his
principle. All the Southern Senators, Whigs and Democrats, with two
exceptions,[29] and all the Northern Democratic Senators, with three
exceptions,[30] voted for his bill. The Whig Senators from the
North, and those who more distinctively represented the Northern
anti-slavery, or “Free-soil” sentiment, voted against it; but the
latter hailed it as a means that would consolidate the North into a
great political organization, with freedom inscribed upon its
banners. Mr. Buchanan, it will be remembered, was at this time in
England.
Footnote 29:
Mr. Bell, of Tennessee, and Mr. Clayton, of Delaware.
Footnote 30:
Messrs. Allen and James, of Rhode Island, and Mr. Walker, of
Wisconsin.
He has said that although down to this period the anti-slavery party
of the North had been the assailing party and kept the people of the
South in constant irritation, yet, “in sustaining the repeal of the
Missouri Compromise the Senators and Representatives of the Southern
States became the aggressors themselves.”[31] And it was one of the
worst features of this aggression that it was made under the lead of
a Northern Democrat; for if the repeal of the Missouri Compromise
was a boon offered to the South, they could say that it was a boon
offered from the North.[32]
Footnote 31:
Buchanan’s Defence, p. 28.
Footnote 32:
It must be remembered that this took place long before the case of
“Dred Scott” had been acted upon in the Supreme Court of the
United States.
The fatal effects of this measure were two-fold; first in unsettling
what had been settled in 1850, and secondly in precipitating a
struggle in Kansas as between the pro-slavery and the anti-slavery
parties, which, although it was local, spread itself in opposite
sympathies throughout the North and the South. The Compromise
Measures of 1850 had settled every possible question in relation to
slavery on which Congress could then or ever afterwards act.
Such was the general repose of the country upon these topics when
President Pierce was inaugurated, that he congratulated the country
upon the calm security now evinced by the public mind, and promised
that it should receive no shock during his official term, if he
could prevent it. But the shock came within two years, and it came
because the repeal of the Missouri Compromise threw open again the
whole question of slavery in the Territories, to remain an unending
sectional controversy until it had divided one great national party,
built up a new and sectional party, and finally rent the Union into
a geographical array of section against section.
The more immediate and local effect remains to be described. Kansas
at once became the theatre where the extreme men of both sections
entered into a deadly conflict, the one party to make it a free, the
other to make it a slaveholding Territory and State. Congress having
abdicated its duty of fixing the character of the Territory by law,
one way or the other, the beauty of Mr. Douglas’s principle of
“non-intervention,” now become popularly known in the political
jargon of the day as “squatter sovereignty,” had ample room for
development. What one party could do, on this principle, the other
could do. The Southern pro-slavery settler, or his sympathizer in
the Southern State which he had left, could claim that his slaves
were property in Kansas as much as in Missouri, or Tennessee, or
Kentucky. The Northern anti-slavery settler, or his sympathizer in
the Northern State from which he had come, could contend that
slavery was local and confined to the States where it existed.
Fierce war arose between the parties in their struggle for local
supremacy; both parties were respectively upheld and supplied by
their sympathizers in the near and in the distant States, North and
South; scenes of bloodshed and rapine ensued; and the bitter fruits
of opening a fine Territory to such a contest were reaped in an
abundance that made sober men stand aghast at the spectacle.
It was when Mr. Buchanan entered upon the duties of the Presidency
that this condition of things in Kansas came to its culmination. The
pro-slavery party in the Territory, in general violent and lawless
enough, in one respect kept themselves on the side of law. They
sustained the Territorial government which had been organized under
the Act of Congress, and obtained control of its legislature. The
anti-slavery party repudiated this legislature, alleging, with some
truth, that frauds and violence had been committed in the election.
To meet this wrong they committed another. They held a convention at
Topeka, framed a State constitution, elected a governor and
legislature to take the place of those who were governing the
Territory under the organic law, and applied to Congress for
admission into the Union. They had thus put themselves out of pale
of law. Congress at the end of a violent struggle rejected the
application for admission into the Union, under the Topeka
constitution, and recognized the authority of the Territorial
government. This took place in the session of Congress which
terminated on the day before Mr. Buchanan’s inauguration. As
President of the United States, he had no alternative but to
recognize and uphold the Territorial government. The fact that the
legislature of that government was in the hands of the pro-slavery
party, made the course which he adopted seem as if he favored their
pro-slavery designs, while, in truth, he had no object to subserve
but to sustain, as he was officially obliged to sustain, the
government which Congress had recognized as the lawful government of
the Territory.
This government at once proceded to call a convention, to assemble
at Lecompton, and frame a State constitution. It was now the
President’s hope that the anti-slavery party would cease their
opposition to the Territorial government, obey the laws, and elect
delegates to the Lecompton convention in sufficient number to insure
a free constitution. But for the ten months which followed from the
4th of March, 1857, to the first Monday in January, 1858, this party
continued to adhere to their Topeka constitution, and to defy the
Territorial government. In the meantime the peace had to be kept by
troops of the United States to prevent open war between the two
parties.
The President, soon after his inauguration, sent the Hon. Robert J.
Walker to Kansas, as Territorial governor, in place of Governor
Geary, who had resigned. Governor Walker was directed, if possible,
to persuade the anti-slavery party to unite with their opponents in
forming a State constitution, and to take care that the election of
delegates to the convention should be conducted so as to express the
true voice of the people on the question of slavery or freedom. The
governor performed this duty with entire impartiality. The laws
which provided for the election of delegates to the convention, and
for the registration of voters, were just and equitable. The
governor administered them fairly; he exhorted the whole body of
registered electors to vote. Nevertheless, the party that adhered to
the Topeka government and refused to recognize the Territorial
legislature, stayed away from the polls. The consequence was that a
large majority of pro-slavery delegates were elected to the
convention which was alone authorized, under the principles which,
in this country, recognize the sovereignty of the people, and
require it to be exercised through the ballot-box, under the
superintendence of the existing government, to form a constitution.
While these things were taking place in Kansas, in the summer of
1857, while a portion of the inhabitants were in a state of
rebellion against the only government that had any lawful authority;
while the friends of freedom were setting the example of disloyalty
to the established authority of the Territory, and the friends of
slavery were, in one respect, the law-abiding part of the community;
while the revolutionary Topeka legislature was in session, claiming
to be the lawful legislature, and a turbulent and dangerous military
leader was at the head of the anti-slavery party, in open opposition
to the only lawful government of the Territory, presses and pulpits
throughout the North teemed with denunciations of the new President,
who had not allowed revolutionary violence to prevail over the law
of the land. At length there came from the State of Connecticut a
memorial to the President, signed by forty-three of its
distinguished citizens, among them several eminent clergymen,
imputing to him a violation of his official oath, and informing him
that they prayed the Almighty to preserve him from the errors of his
ways. To this he replied with spirit and with a clear exposition of
the mistakes into which ignorant zeal in the cause of freedom had
led those who thus addressed him. His reply, dated August 15, 1857,
is worthy of being reproduced:
“When I entered upon the duties of the Presidential office, on the
fourth of March last, what was the condition of Kansas? This
Territory had been organized under the Act of Congress of 30th
May, 1854, and the government in all its branches was in full
operation. A governor, secretary of the Territory, chief justice,
two associate justices, a marshal, and district attorney had been
appointed by my predecessor, by and with the advice and consent of
the Senate, and were all engaged in discharging their respective
duties. A code of laws had been enacted by the Territorial
legislature, and the judiciary were employed in expounding and
carrying these laws into effect. It is quite true that a
controversy had previously arisen respecting the validity of the
election of members of the Territorial legislature and of the laws
passed by them; but at the time I entered upon my official duties,
Congress had recognized this legislature in different forms and by
different enactments. The delegate elected to the House of
Representatives, under a Territorial law, had just completed his
term of service on the day previous to my inauguration. In fact, I
found the government of Kansas as well established as that of any
other Territory. Under these circumstances, what was my duty? Was
it not to sustain this government? to protect it from the violence
of lawless men, who were determined either to rule or ruin? to
prevent it from being overturned by force? in the language of the
Constitution, to ‘take care that the laws be faithfully executed?’
It was for this purpose, and this alone, that I ordered a military
force to Kansas to act as a posse comitatus in aiding the civil
magistrate to carry the laws into execution. The condition of the
Territory at the time, which I need not portray, rendered this
precaution absolutely necessary. In this state of affairs, would I
not have been justly condemned had I left the marshal and other
officers of a like character impotent to execute the process and
judgments of courts of justice established by Congress, or by the
Territorial legislature under its express authority, and thus have
suffered the government itself to become an object of contempt in
the eyes of the people? And yet this is what you designate as
forcing ‘the people of Kansas to obey laws not their own, nor of
the United States’; and for doing which you have denounced me as
having violated my solemn oath. I ask, what else could I have
done, or ought I to have done? Would you have desired that I
should abandon the Territorial government, sanctioned as it had
been by Congress, to illegal violence, and thus renew the scenes
of civil war and bloodshed which every patriot in the country had
deplored? This would, indeed, have been to violate my oath of
office, and to fix a damning blot on the character of my
administration.
“I most cheerfully admit that the necessity for sending a military
force to Kansas to aid in the execution of the civil law, reflects
no credit upon the character of our country. But let the blame
fall upon the heads of the guilty. Whence did this necessity
arise? A portion of the people of Kansas, unwilling to trust to
the ballot-box—the certain American remedy for the redress of all
grievances—undertook to create an independent government for
themselves. Had this attempt proved successful, it would of course
have subverted the existing government, prescribed and recognized
by Congress, and substituted a revolutionary government in its
stead. This was a usurpation of the same character as it would be
for a portion of the people of Connecticut to undertake to
establish a separate government within its chartered limits for
the purpose of redressing any grievance, real or imaginary, of
which they might have complained against the legitimate State
government. Such a principle, if carried into execution, would
destroy all lawful authority and produce universal anarchy.”
And again: “I thank you for the assurances that you will ‘not
refrain from the prayer that Almighty God will make my
administration an example of justice and beneficence.’ You can
greatly aid me in arriving at this blessed consummation, by
exerting your influence in allaying the existing sectional
excitement on the subject of slavery, which has been productive of
much evil and no good, and which, if it could succeed in attaining
its object, would ruin the slave as well as his master. This would
be a work of genuine philanthropy. Every day of my life I feel how
inadequate I am to perform the duties of my high station without
the continued support of Divine Providence, yet, placing my trust
in Him and in Him alone, I entertain a good hope that He will
enable me to do equal justice to all portions of the Union, and
thus render me an humble instrument in restoring peace and harmony
among the people of the several States.”
The condition of Kansas continued for some time longer to be
disturbed by the revolutionary proceedings of the adherents of the
Topeka constitution. The inhabitants of the city of Lawrence
undertook to organize an insurrection throughout the Territory. This
town had been mainly established by the abolition societies of the
Eastern States. It had some respectable and well behaved citizens,
but it was the headquarters of paid agitators, in the employment of
certain anti-slavery organizations. It became necessary for Governor
Walker to suppress this threatened insurrection. The military leader
of the Free State party undertook, in July, to organize his party
into volunteers, and to take the names of all who refused
enrollment. The professed purpose of this organization was to
protect the polls at an election in August of a new Topeka
legislature. Many of the conservative citizens, who had hitherto
acted with the Free State party, were subjected to personal outrages
for refusing to be enrolled. To meet this revolutionary military
organization, and to prevent the establishment of an insurrectionary
government at Lawrence, the Territorial Governor had to retain in
Kansas a large body of United States troops. The insurgent general
and his military staff denied the authority of the Territorial laws,
and counselled the people not to participate in the elections
ordered under the authority of the Lecompton convention.[33]
Footnote 33:
Governor Walker’s despatches to the Secretary of State, July 15th,
20th and 27th, 1857.
The Lecompton convention, which met for the second time on the 2d of
September, and then proceeded to frame a State constitution,
adjourned on the 7th of November. Although this constitution
recognized slavery, the convention took steps to submit the question
to the people of the Territory, in a free ballot, by all the white
male inhabitants, before it should be sent to Congress for admission
into the Union. It would have been more regular to have submitted
the whole constitution to the people, although the organic Act did
not require it; but on the question of slavery, which was the vital
one, it can not be pretended that the convention acted unfairly. The
election was directed to be held on the 21st of December, (1857),
and the ballots were to be “Constitution with Slavery,” and
“Constitution with no Slavery.” Thus the opportunity was again
presented for the people of the Territory to vote upon the question
on which they were divided; and again the anti-slavery party, with
the exception of a few hundred of the voters, abstained from voting.
The result was that there were 6,226 votes in favor of the
“Constitution with Slavery,” and only 569 against it.
The Lecompton constitution provided for holding an election of State
officers, a legislature and a member of Congress, on the first
Monday of January, 1858. The President sent instructions to the
Territorial governor which secured a peaceable election. A larger
vote was polled than at any previous election. The party which had
previously refused to vote, now changed their tactics. They elected
a large majority of the members of the legislature, and the
political power of the proposed new State was therefore in their
hands. But for their previous factional resistance to the authority
of the Territorial government, they might have attained this result
at a much earlier period.
On the 30th of January, 1858, the President received the so-called
Lecompton constitution from the president of the convention, with a
request that it be laid before Congress. And here it is necessary to
pause, for the purpose of a just understanding of the grounds on
which the President recommended the admission of Kansas with this
constitution. He was assailed with almost every epithet of
vituperation of which our language admits, as if he was responsible
for and in favor of the pro-slavery feature of this constitution. A
simple and truthful consideration of his official duty under the
organic Act by which the Territory was organized, and a candid
recital of the reasons on which he urged the admission of the State
with this constitution, will enable my readers to determine with
what justice he was treated in this matter.
Mr. Buchanan was elected President upon a political “platform,”
adopted by the Cincinnati Convention, which nominated him, and
which, like all the platforms of that period, dealt, among other
things, with the vexed subject of slavery in Territories. But the
Cincinnati platform of the Democratic party did not affirm the right
of a Territorial legislature to establish or to prohibit slavery:
nor did it admit the doctrine of “popular sovereignty,” as applied
to a people while in the Territorial condition. What it did affirm
was, that at the period when the people of a Territory should be
forming and adopting a State constitution, they should be allowed to
sanction or exclude slavery as they should see fit. This distinction
has of course no interest at the present day. But in the condition
of the Union in the year 1856, this distinction was of great
practical importance. The political men who framed the Cincinnati
platform had to consider how they could present to the people of the
United States a principle of action on this exciting topic of
slavery in the Territories, that would be consistent with the rights
of slave-holding and non-slaveholding States in the common property
of the Union, and at the same time affirm as a party doctrine a
basis of proceeding that could be safely applied in any Territory
and that would maintain its true relation as a Territory to the
Government of the United States. If they were in pursuit of votes
for their candidate, it should also be remembered that they were
preparing for a great national party a set of political principles
that would live and be active for a long time to come. Mr. Douglas
had caused the Missouri Compromise to be swept away; he had procured
the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which had affirmed something
that was both new and strange in the politics of this difficult
subject. This was, that in creating the body politic known as a
Territory of the United States, Congress should neither legalize nor
prohibit slavery while the Territorial condition continued, but that
the same species of “popular sovereignty” should be held to be
inherent in the people of a Territory that is inherent in the people
of a State, so that they could act on the subject of slavery for
themselves from the time of their first entry into the Territory and
before they had been authorized to form themselves into a State. The
ad captandum phrase “popular sovereignty” procured for this theory
many adherents. But it was irreconcilable with what others asserted
to be the true relation of a Territory to the Congress of the United
States, and equally irreconcilable with the claim of the Southern
slaveholder to go into a Territory with his property in slaves and
to maintain there that property until the State constitution had
sanctioned or prohibited it. The framers of the Cincinnati platform
did not propose to elect a President on this basis. They therefore
did not affirm that a Territorial legislature, or the people of a
Territory, should be allowed to act on the subject of slavery in any
way; but they proclaimed as their doctrine that when the people of a
Territory, acting under the authority of an organic law, should
frame and adopt a State constitution, they should be at liberty to
make their State free or slave as they might see fit.
Before this period the Cincinnati platform was silent; and it was
silent because its framers did not see fit to trammel themselves or
their candidate with a doctrine of “popular sovereignty”
irreconcilable with the governing authority of Congress, and also
because in this matter of slavery there was a question of property
involved. When, therefore, Mr. Buchanan accepted the Cincinnati
platform, and was elected upon it, he went into the office of
President without being in any way committed to the doctrine of
“popular sovereignty,” as expounded by Mr. Douglas.
But the Kansas-Nebraska Act was both a bone of contention between
two portions of the Democratic party and a law of the land. As
President, Mr. Buchanan had only to construe and administer it. It
contained, as explanatory of the purpose of Congress in abolishing
the Missouri Compromise restriction, the following declaration: “It
being the true intent and meaning of this Act not to legislate
slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom,
but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate
their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the
Constitution of the United States.” This was in one respect
ambiguous, and in another not so. It was ambiguous in not clearly
defining the time at which this right to form their own domestic
institutions was to be considered as inhering in the people of a
Territory. It was unambiguous in subordinating the exercise of this
right to the Constitution of the United States. In carrying out the
law, the President had to consider what was the limitation imposed
by the Constitution of the United States upon the operation of this
newly created right. This brought before him the action of the
Supreme Court of the United States on the subject of slave property
in the Territories, which had occurred a few days after his
inauguration.
Whatever may be said of the action of the Supreme Court in the
well-known case of “Dred Scott,” in regard to its being technically
a judicial decision, there can be no doubt as to what a majority of
the judges meant to affirm and did affirm in their respective
opinions.[34] This was that property in slaves, being recognized as
a right of property by the Constitution of the United States,
although established only by the local law of a particular State,
travelled with the person of the owner into a Territory; and while
the Territorial condition continued, such property could not be
abolished by the legislation of Congress or the legislation of the
Territorial government. Mr. Buchanan always regarded this as a
judicial decision of this question of property; and as the
construction of the Kansas-Nebraska Act was by its express terms to
be determined by the court, he considered it his duty to regard the
period of time on which the people of Kansas were to decide the
question of slavery or no slavery to be at the formation and
adoption of a State constitution. This was the clear deduction to be
drawn from the constitutional doctrine which had been enunciated by
a majority of the judges.
Footnote 34:
I have more than once publicly expressed my belief that there was,
technically speaking, no judicial decision in that case. But
others, among them President Buchanan, always regarded it as a
“decision.”
Hence it was that all his official influence was exerted, through
the Territorial government, to induce the people of Kansas to act on
the question of slavery at the proper time and in the only practical
way: namely, by voting for delegates to the convention called under
the authority of the Territorial laws, and then voting on the
constitution which that convention should frame. It certainly was no
wish of his to have Kansas become a slaveholding State; he could
have no motive in the whole matter but to get it decided what her
domestic condition was to be, by the ballot-box instead of the
rifle, by voting and not by fighting. He could, by no sort of
justice, be held responsible for the result which was produced by
the refusal of the anti-slavery party to vote; and when the
Lecompton constitution reached him, he could not avoid submitting it
to Congress. He submitted it with a strong recommendation that
Kansas be received into the Union under it. His reasons for this
recommendation are now to be stated.
1. The Lecompton constitution was republican in form, and it had
been framed and voted upon in a free and open ballot, which the
convention had directed to be taken on the all-important question of
slavery. 2. The question of slavery was thus localized, confined to
the people whom it immediately concerned, and banished from the
halls of Congress, where it had been always exerting a baneful
influence upon the country at large. 3. If Congress, for the sake of
those who had refused to exercise their power of excluding slavery
from the constitution of Kansas, should now reject it because
slavery remained in it, the agitation would be renewed everywhere in
a more alarming form than it had yet assumed. 4. After the admission
of the State, its people would be sovereign over this and every
other domestic question; they could mould their institutions as they
should see fit, and if, as the President had every reason to
believe, a majority of the people were opposed to slavery, the
legislature already elected under this constitution could at once
provide for amending it in the proper manner. 5. If this
constitution should be sent back by Congress because it sanctioned
slavery, a second constitution would have to be framed and sent to
Congress, and there would be a revival of the slavery agitation,
both in Congress and throughout the Union. 6. The speedy admission
of Kansas, which would restore peace and harmony to the whole
country, was of infinitely greater consequence than the small
difference of time that would be required for the people to exercise
their own sovereign power over the whole subject after they had
become a State, compared with the process of a new convention to be
held under the auspices of the Territorial government.[35]
Footnote 35:
See the President’s message of February 28, 1858, submitting the
Lecompton constitution. In describing the President’s views on
this subject I have not only relied upon his messages and other
official papers, but I have drawn them also from an elaborate
private paper in his hand-writing, which is of too great length to
be inserted textually in this work. It relates to the construction
of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, a construction which he felt bound to
adopt in consequence of the views taken of the subject of slavery
in Territories by the Supreme Court, as he said in his inaugural
address that he should do. In this MS., he speaks of “The infamous
and unfounded assertion of Mr. ——, that in a conversation with
Chief Justice Taney, he [the Chief Justice] had informed him in
advance of the inaugural what the opinion [of the court] would
be.”
“This message,” says Mr. Buchanan, “gave rise to a long, exciting,
and occasionally violent debate in both Houses of Congress, between
the anti-slavery members and their opponents, which lasted for three
months. In the course of it, slavery was denounced in every form
which could exasperate the Southern people, and render it odious to
the people of the North; whilst on the other hand, many of the
speeches of Southern members displayed characteristic violence. Thus
two sessions of Congress in succession had been in a great degree
occupied with the same inflammatory topics, in discussing the
affairs of Kansas.”[36] At length, however, an Act which had been
reported by a committee of conference of both Houses, admitting
Kansas into the Union as a State under the Lecompton constitution,
was passed in the Senate by a vote of 31 to 22, and in the House by
a vote of 112 to 103, and was signed by the President on the 4th of
May, 1858.[37] The validity of the proceedings in Kansas which had
produced the Lecompton constitution was expressly admitted by the
preamble of this statute.
Footnote 36:
Buchanan’s Defence, p. 45.
Footnote 37:
II U. S. Laws, p. 269. In the Senate, Mr. Douglas voted with the
minority, as did a few anti-Lecompton Democrats in the House.
[_Congressional Globe_, 1857-8, pp. 1899, 1905.] The Act was
carried by a party vote.
But the Act annexed a condition precedent to the final admission of
the State under this constitution. This related, not to slavery, but
to the public lands within the territory. The ordinance of the
convention which accompanied the Lecompton constitution demanded for
the State a cession of the public lands more than six times the
quantity that had ever been granted to any other State, when
received into the Union. Congress would not assent to such an
exaction. It was therefore provided that the people of the State
should vote upon a proposition reducing the number of acres to be
ceded to the same number that had been granted to other States; and
that when this proposition should have been ascertained by the
President’s proclamation to have been accepted, the admission of the
State, upon an equal footing with all the other States, should be
complete and absolute. But the condition was never fulfilled. The
people of Kansas rejected it on the 2d of August, 1858, and the
Lecompton constitution thus fell to the ground. “Notwithstanding
this,” Mr. Buchanan observes, “the recognition by Congress of the
regularity of the proceedings in forming the Lecompton constitution,
did much good, at least for a season. It diverted the attention of
the people from fighting to voting, a most salutary change.”[38]
Footnote 38:
Buchanan’s Defence, p. 46.
In his next annual message, of December 6, 1858, the President said:
When we compare the condition of the country at the present day
with what it was one year ago, at the meeting of Congress, we have
much reason for gratitude to that Almighty Providence which has
never failed to interpose for our relief at the most critical
periods of our history. One year ago the sectional strife between
the North and the South on the dangerous subject of slavery had
again become so intense as to threaten the peace and perpetuity of
the confederacy. The application for the admission of Kansas as a
State into the Union fostered this unhappy agitation, and brought
the whole subject once more before Congress. It was the desire of
every patriot that such measures of legislation might be adopted
as would remove the excitement from the States and confine it to
the Territory where it legitimately belonged. Much has been done,
I am happy to say, towards the accomplishment of this object
during the last session of Congress.
The Supreme Court of the United States had previously decided that
all American citizens have an equal right to take into the
Territories whatever is held as property under the laws of any of
the States, and to hold such property there under the guardianship
of the Federal Constitution, so long as the Territorial condition
shall remain. This is now a well-established position, and the
proceedings of the last session were alone wanting to give it
practical effect.
The principle has been recognized, in some form or other, by an
almost unanimous vote of both Houses of Congress, that a Territory
has a right to come into the Union either as a free or a slave
State, according to the will of a majority of its people. The just
equality of all the States has thus been vindicated, and a
fruitful source of dangerous dissension among them has been
removed.
While such has been the beneficial tendency of your legislative
proceedings outside of Kansas, their influence has nowhere been so
happy as within that Territory itself. Left to manage and control
its own affairs in its own way, without the pressure of external
influence, the revolutionary Topeka organization, and all
resistance to the Territorial government established by Congress,
have been finally abandoned. As a natural consequence, that fine
Territory now appears to be tranquil and prosperous, and is
attracting increasing thousands of immigrants to make it their
happy home.
The past unfortunate experience of Kansas has enforced the lesson,
so often already taught, that resistance to lawful authority,
under our form of government, cannot fail in the end to prove
disastrous to its authors.
The people of Kansas, from this time forward, “left to manage their
own affairs in their own way, without the presence of external
influence,” found that they could decide this question of slavery by
their own votes, and that the stimulus and the materials for
fighting, which had been supplied to them from the Northern or the
Southern States, were poor means in comparison with the ballot-box.
The anti-slavery party were numerically the strongest; and having
now given up all factious resistance to the Territorial government,
they were able, under its auspices, to establish a free
constitution, under which the State was admitted into the Union on
the 29th of January, 1861. But the effect of this struggle,
precipitated by the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and carried
on for a period of seven years, was most disastrous to the peace and
harmony of the Union. It fixed the attention of both sections of the
Union upon a subject of the most inflammatory nature. On the one
hand, the Democratic party, which extended throughout all the
States, slaveholding and non-slaveholding, and which had elected Mr.
Buchanan by the votes of both free and slave States, no longer had a
common bond of party union in a common principle of action on the
question of slavery in Territories. A portion of the party, under
the lead of Mr. Douglas, and known as “the Northern Democracy,”
rejected the doctrine enunciated by the Judges of the Supreme Court,
and still adhered to their principle of “popular sovereignty.” The
residue of the party, calling themselves “the Old Democracy,”
adhered to what they regarded as the decision of the court,
maintained that the time for the people of a Territory to act on the
subject of slavery was when forming and adopting a State
constitution, and that in the previous period, the equal right of
all the States in the common property of the Union could be
respected only by confining the power of the people of a Territory
to the time of adopting a constitution. On the other hand, the new
party, to which these events had given birth, and into which were
now consolidating all the elements of the anti-slavery feeling of
the free States, rejected entirely the principle enunciated by a
majority of the Supreme Court, maintained that the Southern
slave-holder could have no right to hold as property in a Territory
that which was property at all only under the local law of a
slave-holding State, and proclaimed that Congress must, by positive
statute, annul any such supposed right in regard to all existing and
all future Territories. If these conflicting sectional feelings and
interests could have been confined to the practical question of what
was to be done in the Territories before they should become States,
there might have been less danger resulting from their agitation. In
the nature of things, however, they could not be so confined. They
brought into renewed discussion the whole subject of slavery
everywhere, until the North and the South became involved in a
struggle for the Presidency that was made to turn almost exclusively
upon this one topic. But how this came about, and how it resulted in
an attempted disruption of the Union, must be related hereafter.