"We hear much just now of a _panacea_ for the dangers and evils of
slavery and slave annexation, which they call the 'Wilmot Proviso.'
That certainly is a just sentiment, but it is not a sentiment to
found any new party upon. It is not a sentiment on which
Massachusetts Whigs differ. There is not a man in this hall who
holds to it more firmly than I do, nor one who adheres to it more
than another.
"I feel some little interest in this matter, Sir. Did not I commit
myself in 1837 to the whole doctrine, fully, entirely? And I must
be permitted to say that I cannot quite consent that more recent
discoverers should claim the merit and take out a patent.
"I deny the priority of their invention. Allow me to say, Sir, it
is not their thunder....
"We are to use the first and the last and every occasion which
offers to oppose the extension of slave power.
"But I speak of it here, as in Congress, as a political question, a
question for statesmen to act upon. We must so regard it. I
certainly do not mean to say that it is less important in a moral
point of view, that it is not more important in many other points
of view; but as a legislator, or in any official capacity, I must
look at it, consider it, and decide it as a matter of political
action."
On other occasions, in debates here, I have expressed my determination
to vote for no acquisition, cession, or annexation, north or south, east
or west. My opinion has been, that we have territory enough, and that we
should follow the Spartan maxim, "Improve, adorn what you have," seek no
further. I think that it was in some observations that I made on the
three-million loan bill that I avowed this sentiment. In short, Sir, it
has been avowed quite as often, in as many places, and before as many
assemblies, as any humble opinions of mine ought to be avowed.
But now that, under certain conditions, Texas is in the Union, with all
her territory, as a slave State, with a solemn pledge, also, that, if
she shall be divided into many States, those States may come in as slave
States south of 36° 30', how are we to deal with this subject? I know no
way of honest legislation, when the proper time comes for the enactment,
but to carry into effect all that we have stipulated to do. I do not
entirely agree with my honorable friend from Tennessee,[15] that, as
soon as the time comes when she is entitled to another representative,
we should create a new State. On former occasions, in creating new
States out of territories, we have generally gone upon the idea that,
when the population of the territory amounts to about sixty thousand, we
would consent to its admission as a State. But it is quite a different
thing when a State is divided, and two or more States made out of it. It
does not follow in such a case that the same rule of apportionment
should be applied. That, however, is a matter for the consideration of
Congress, when the proper time arrives. I may not then be here; I may
have no vote to give on the occasion; but I wish it to be distinctly
understood, that, according to my view of the matter, this government is
solemnly pledged, by law and contract, to create new States out of
Texas, with her consent, when her population shall justify and call for
such a proceeding, and, so far as such States are formed out of Texan
territory lying south of 36° 30', to let them come in as slave States.
That is the meaning of the contract which our friends, the Northern
Democracy, have left us to fulfil; and I, for one, mean to fulfil it,
because I will not violate the faith of the government. What I mean to
say is, that the time for the admission of new States formed out of
Texas, the number of such States, their boundaries, the requisite amount
of population, and all other things connected with the admission, are in
the free discretion of Congress, except this; to wit, that, when new
States formed out of Texas are to be admitted, they have a right, by
legal stipulation and contract, to come in as slave States.
Now, as to California and New Mexico, I hold slavery to be excluded from
those territories by a law even superior to that which admits and
sanctions it in Texas. I mean the law of nature, of physical geography,
the law of the formation of the earth. That law settles for ever, with a
strength beyond all terms of human enactment, that slavery cannot exist
in California or New Mexico. Understand me, Sir; I mean slavery as we
regard it; the slavery of the colored race as it exists in the Southern
States. I shall not discuss the point, but leave it to the learned
gentlemen who have undertaken to discuss it; but I suppose there is no
slavery of that description in California now. I understand that
_peonism_, a sort of penal servitude, exists there, or rather a sort of
voluntary sale of a man and his offspring for debt; an arrangement of a
peculiar nature known to the law of Mexico. But what I mean to say is,
that it is as impossible that African slavery, as we see it among us,
should find its way, or be introduced, into California and New Mexico,
as any other natural impossibility. California and New Mexico are
Asiatic in their formation and scenery. They are composed of vast ridges
of mountains, of great height, with broken ridges and deep valleys. The
sides of these mountains are entirely barren; their tops capped by
perennial snow. There may be in California, now made free by its
constitution, and no doubt there are, some tracts of valuable land. But
it is not so in New Mexico. Pray, what is the evidence which every
gentleman must have obtained on this subject, from information sought by
himself or communicated by others? I have inquired and read all I could
find, in order to acquire information on this important subject. What is
there in New Mexico that could, by any possibility, induce anybody to go
there with slaves? There are some narrow strips of tillable land on the
borders of the rivers; but the rivers themselves dry up before midsummer
is gone. All that the people can do in that region is to raise some
little articles, some little wheat for their _tortillas_, and that by
irrigation. And who expects to see a hundred black men cultivating
tobacco, corn, cotton, rice, or any thing else, on lands in New Mexico,
made fertile only by irrigation?
I look upon it, therefore, as a fixed fact, to use the current
expression of the day, that both California and New Mexico are destined
to be free, so far as they are settled at all, which I believe, in
regard to New Mexico, will be but partially for a great length of time;
free by the arrangement of things ordained by the Power above us. I have
therefore to say, in this respect also, that this country is fixed for
freedom, to as many persons as shall ever live in it, by a less
repealable law than that which attaches to the right of holding slaves
in Texas; and I will say further, that, if a resolution or a bill were
now before us, to provide a territorial government for New Mexico, I
would not vote to put any prohibition into it whatever. Such a
prohibition would be idle, as it respects any effect it would have upon
the territory; and I would not take pains uselessly to reaffirm an
ordinance of nature, nor to re-enact the will of God. I would put in no
Wilmot Proviso for the mere purpose of a taunt or a reproach. I would
put into it no evidence of the votes of superior power, exercised for no
purpose but to wound the pride, whether a just and a rational pride, or
an irrational pride, of the citizens of the Southern States. I have no
such object, no such purpose. They would think it a taunt, an indignity;
they would think it to be an act taking away from them what they regard
as a proper equality of privilege. Whether they expect to realize any
benefit from it or not, they would think it at least a plain theoretic
wrong; that something more or less derogatory to their character and
their rights had taken place. I propose to inflict no such wound upon
anybody, unless something essentially important to the country, and
efficient to the preservation of liberty and freedom, is to be effected.
I repeat, therefore, Sir, and, as I do not propose to address the Senate
often on this subject, I repeat it because I wish it to be distinctly
understood, that, for the reasons stated, if a proposition were now here
to establish a government for New Mexico, and it was moved to insert a
provision for a prohibition of slavery, I would not vote for it.
Sir, if we were now making a government for New Mexico, and anybody
should propose a Wilmot Proviso, I should treat it exactly as Mr. Polk
treated that provision for excluding slavery from Oregon. Mr. Polk was
known to be in opinion decidedly averse to the Wilmot Proviso; but he
felt the necessity of establishing a government for the Territory of
Oregon. The proviso was in the bill, but he knew it would be entirely
nugatory; and, since it must be entirely nugatory, since it took away no
right, no describable, no tangible, no appreciable right of the South,
he said he would sign the bill for the sake of enacting a law to form a
government in that Territory, and let that entirely useless, and, in
that connection, entirely senseless, proviso remain. Sir, we hear
occasionally of the annexation of Canada; and if there be any man, any
of the Northern Democracy, or any one of the Free Soil party, who
supposes it necessary to insert a Wilmot Proviso in a territorial
government for New Mexico, that man would of course be of opinion that
it is necessary to protect the everlasting snows of Canada from the foot
of slavery by the same overspreading wing of an act of Congress. Sir,
wherever there is a substantive good to be done, wherever there is a
foot of land to be prevented from becoming slave territory, I am ready
to assert the principle of the exclusion of slavery. I am pledged to it
from the year 1837; I have been pledged to it again and again; and I
will perform those pledges; but I will not do a thing unnecessarily that
wounds the feelings of others, or that does discredit to my own
understanding.
Now, Mr. President, I have established, so far as I proposed to do so,
the proposition with which I set out, and upon which I intend to stand
or fall; and that is, that the whole territory within the former United
States, or in the newly acquired Mexican provinces, has a fixed and
settled character, now fixed and settled by law which cannot be
repealed,--in the case of Texas without a violation of public faith, and
by no human power in regard to California or New Mexico; that,
therefore, under one or other of these laws, every foot of land in the
States or in the Territories has already received a fixed and decided
character.
Mr. President, in the excited times in which we live, there is found to
exist a state of crimination and recrimination between the North and
South. There are lists of grievances produced by each, and those
grievances, real or supposed, alienate the minds of one portion of the
country from the other, exasperate the feelings, and subdue the sense of
fraternal affection, patriotic love, and mutual regard. I shall bestow a
little attention, Sir, upon these various grievances existing on the one
side and on the other. I begin with complaints of the South. I will not
answer, further than I have, the general statements of the honorable
Senator from South Carolina, that the North has prospered at the expense
of the South in consequence of the manner of administering this
government, in the collecting of its revenues, and so forth. These are
disputed topics, and I have no inclination to enter into them. But I
will allude to other complaints of the South, and especially to one
which has in my opinion just foundation; and that is, that there has
been found at the North, among individuals and among legislators, a
disinclination to perform fully their constitutional duties in regard to
the return of persons bound to service who have escaped into the free
States. In that respect, the South, in my judgment, is right, and the
North is wrong. Every member of every Northern legislature is bound by
oath, like every other officer in the country, to support the
Constitution of the United States; and the article of the
Constitution[16] which says to these States that they shall deliver up
fugitives from service is as binding in honor and conscience as any
other article. No man fulfils his duty in any legislature who sets
himself to find excuses, evasions, escapes from this constitutional
obligation. I have always thought that the Constitution addressed itself
to the legislatures of the States or to the States themselves. It says
that those persons escaping to other States "shall be delivered up," and
I confess I have always been of the opinion that it was an injunction
upon the States themselves. When it is said that a person escaping into
another State, and coming therefore within the jurisdiction of that
State, shall be delivered up, it seems to me the import of the clause
is, that the State itself, in obedience to the Constitution, shall cause
him to be delivered up. That is my judgment. I have always entertained
that opinion, and I entertain it now. But when the subject, some years
ago, was before the Supreme Court of the United States, the majority of
the judges held that the power to cause fugitives from service to be
delivered up was a power to be exercised under the authority of this
government. I do not know, on the whole, that it may not have been a
fortunate decision. My habit is to respect the result of judicial
deliberations and the solemnity of judicial decisions. As it now stands,
the business of seeing that these fugitives are delivered up resides in
the power of Congress and the national judicature, and my friend at the
head of the Judiciary Committee[17] has a bill on the subject now before
the Senate, which, with some amendments to it, I propose to support,
with all its provisions, to the fullest extent. And I desire to call the
attention of all sober-minded men at the North, of all conscientious
men, of all men who are not carried away by some fanatical idea or some
false impression, to their constitutional obligations. I put it to all
the sober and sound minds at the North as a question of morals and a
question of conscience. What right have they, in their legislative
capacity or any other capacity, to endeavor to get round this
Constitution, or to embarrass the free exercise of the rights secured by
the Constitution to the persons whose slaves escape from them? None at
all; none at all. Neither in the forum of conscience, nor before the
face of the Constitution, are they, in my opinion, justified in such an
attempt. Of course it is a matter for their consideration. They
probably, in the excitement of the times, have not stopped to consider
of this. They have followed what seemed to be the current of thought and
of motives, as the occasion arose, and they have neglected to
investigate fully the real question, and to consider their
constitutional obligations; which, I am sure, if they did consider, they
would fulfil with alacrity. I repeat, therefore, Sir, that here is a
well-founded ground of complaint against the North, which ought to be
removed, which it is now in the power of the different departments of
this government to remove; which calls for the enactment of proper laws
authorizing the judicature of this government, in the several States, to
do all that is necessary for the recapture of fugitive slaves and for
their restoration to those who claim them. Wherever I go, and whenever I
speak on the subject, and when I speak here I desire to speak to the
whole North, I say that the South has been injured in this respect, and
has a right to complain; and the North has been too careless of what I
think the Constitution peremptorily and emphatically enjoins upon her as
a duty.
Complaint has been made against certain resolutions that emanate from
legislatures at the North, and are sent here to us, not only on the
subject of slavery in this District, but sometimes recommending Congress
to consider the means of abolishing slavery in the States. I should be
sorry to be called upon to present any resolutions here which could not
be referable to any committee or any power in Congress; and therefore I
should be unwilling to receive from the legislature of Massachusetts any
instructions to present resolutions expressive of any opinion whatever
on the subject of slavery, as it exists at the present moment in the
States, for two reasons: first, because I do not consider that the
legislature of Massachusetts has any thing to do with it; and next,
because I do not consider that I, as her representative here, have any
thing to do with it. It has become, in my opinion, quite too common; and
if the legislatures of the States do not like that opinion, they have a
great deal more power to put it down than I have to uphold it; it has
become, in my opinion, quite too common a practice for the State
legislatures to present resolutions here on all subjects and to instruct
us on all subjects. There is no public man that requires instruction
more than I do, or who requires information more than I do, or desires
it more heartily; but I do not like to have it in too imperative a
shape. I took notice, with pleasure, of some remarks made upon this
subject, the other day, in the Senate of Massachusetts, by a young man
of talent and character, of whom the best hopes may be entertained. I
mean Mr. Hillard. He told the Senate of Massachusetts that he would vote
for no instructions whatever to be forwarded to members of Congress, nor
for any resolutions to be offered expressive of the sense of
Massachusetts as to what her members of Congress ought to do. He said
that he saw no propriety in one set of public servants giving
instructions and reading lectures to another set of public servants. To
his own master each of them must stand or fall, and that master is his
constituents. I wish these sentiments could become more common. I have
never entered into the question, and never shall, as to the binding
force of instructions. I will, however, simply say this: if there be any
matter pending in this body, while I am a member of it, in which
Massachusetts has an interest of her own not adverse to the general
interests of the country, I shall pursue her instructions with gladness
of heart and with all the efficiency which I can bring to the occasion.
But if the question be one which affects her interest, and at the same
time equally affects the interests of all the other States, I shall no
more regard her particular wishes or instructions than I should regard
the wishes of a man who might appoint me an arbitrator or referee to
decide some question of important private right between him and his
neighbor, and then _instruct_ me to decide in his favor. If ever there
was a government upon earth it is this government, if ever there was a
body upon earth it is this body, which should consider itself as
composed by agreement of all, each member appointed by some, but
organized by the general consent of all, sitting here, under the solemn
obligations of oath and conscience, to do that which they think to be
best for the good of the whole.
Then, Sir, there are the Abolition societies, of which I am unwilling
to speak, but in regard to which I have very clear notions and opinions.
I do not think them useful. I think their operations for the last twenty
years have produced nothing good or valuable. At the same time, I
believe thousands of their members to be honest and good men, perfectly
well-meaning men. They have excited feelings; they think they must do
something for the cause of liberty; and, in their sphere of action, they
do not see what else they can do than to contribute to an Abolition
press, or an Abolition society, or to pay an Abolition lecturer. I do
not mean to impute gross motives even to the leaders of these societies;
but I am not blind to the consequences of their proceedings. I cannot
but see what mischiefs their interference with the South has produced.
And is it not plain to every man? Let any gentleman who entertains
doubts on this point recur to the debates in the Virginia House of
Delegates in 1832, and he will see with what freedom a proposition made
by Mr. Jefferson Randolph for the gradual abolition of slavery was
discussed in that body. Every one spoke of slavery as he thought; very
ignominious and disparaging names and epithets were applied to it. The
debates in the House of Delegates on that occasion, I believe, were all
published. They were read by every colored man who could read; and to
those who could not read, those debates were read by others. At that
time Virginia was not unwilling or afraid to discuss this question, and
to let that part of her population know as much of the discussion as
they could learn. That was in 1832. As has been said by the honorable
member from South Carolina, these Abolition societies commenced their
course of action in 1835. It is said, I do not know how true it may be,
that they sent incendiary publications into the slave States; at any
rate, they attempted to arouse, and did arouse, a very strong feeling;
in other words, they created great agitation in the North against
Southern slavery. Well, what was the result? The bonds of the slaves
were bound more firmly than before, their rivets were more strongly
fastened. Public opinion, which in Virginia had begun to be exhibited
against slavery, and was opening out for the discussion of the question,
drew back and shut itself up in its castle. I wish to know whether
anybody in Virginia can now talk openly as Mr. Randolph, Governor
McDowell, and others talked in 1832, and sent their remarks to the
press? We all know the fact, and we all know the cause; and every thing
that these agitating people have done has been, not to enlarge, but to
restrain, not to set free, but to bind faster, the slave population of
the South.[18]
Again, Sir, the violence of the Northern press is complained of. The
press violent! Why, Sir, the press is violent everywhere. There are
outrageous reproaches in the North against the South, and there are
reproaches as vehement in the South against the North. Sir, the
extremists of both parts of this country are violent; they mistake loud
and violent talk for eloquence and for reason. They think that he who
talks loudest reasons best. And this we must expect, when the press is
free, as it is here, and I trust always will be; for, with all its
licentiousness and all its evil, the entire and absolute freedom of the
press is essential to the preservation of government on the basis of a
free constitution. Wherever it exists there will be foolish and violent
paragraphs in the newspapers, as there are, I am sorry to say, foolish
and violent speeches in both houses of Congress. In truth, Sir, I must
say that, in my opinion, the vernacular tongue of the country has become
greatly vitiated, depraved, and corrupted by the style of our
Congressional debates. And if it were possible for those debates to
vitiate the principles of the people as much as they have depraved their
tastes, I should cry out, "God save the Republic!"
Well, in all this I see no solid grievance, no grievance presented by
the South, within the redress of the government, but the single one to
which I have referred; and that is, the want of a proper regard to the
injunction of the Constitution for the delivery of fugitive slaves.
There are also complaints of the North against the South. I need not go
over them particularly. The first and gravest is, that the North adopted
the Constitution, recognizing the existence of slavery in the States,
and recognizing the right, to a certain extent, of the representation of
slaves in Congress, under a state of sentiment and expectation which
does not now exist; and that, by events, by circumstances, by the
eagerness of the South to acquire territory and extend her slave
population, the North finds itself, in regard to the relative influence
of the South and the North, of the free States and the slave States,
where it never did expect to find itself when they agreed to the compact
of the Constitution. They complain, therefore, that, instead of slavery
being regarded as an evil, as it was then, an evil which all hoped would
be extinguished gradually, it is now regarded by the South as an
institution to be cherished, and preserved, and extended; an institution
which the South has already extended to the utmost of her power by the
acquisition of new territory.
Well, then, passing from that, everybody in the North reads; and
everybody reads whatsoever the newspapers contain; and the newspapers,
some of them, especially those presses to which I have alluded, are
careful to spread about among the people every reproachful sentiment
uttered by any Southern man bearing at all against the North; every
thing that is calculated to exasperate and to alienate; and there are
many such things, as everybody will admit, from the South, or some
portion of it, which are disseminated among the reading people; and they
do exasperate, and alienate, and produce a most mischievous effect upon
the public mind at the North. Sir, I would not notice things of this
sort appearing in obscure quarters; but one thing has occurred in this
debate which struck me very forcibly. An honorable member from Louisiana
addressed us the other day on this subject. I suppose there is not a
more amiable and worthy gentleman in this chamber, nor a gentleman who
would be more slow to give offence to anybody, and he did not mean in
his remarks to give offence. But what did he say? Why, Sir, he took
pains to run a contrast between the slaves of the South and the laboring
people of the North, giving the preference, in all points of condition,
and comfort, and happiness, to the slaves of the South. The honorable
member, doubtless, did not suppose that he gave any offence, or did any
injustice. He was merely expressing his opinion. But does he know how
remarks of that sort will be received by the laboring people of the
North? Why, who are the laboring people of the North? They are the whole
North. They are the people who till their own farms with their own
hands; freeholders, educated men, independent men. Let me say, Sir, that
five sixths of the whole property of the North is in the hands of the
laborers of the North; they cultivate their farms, they educate their
children, they provide the means of independence. If they are not
freeholders, they earn wages; these wages accumulate, are turned into
capital, into new freeholds, and small capitalists are created. Such is
the case, and such the course of things, among the industrious and
frugal. And what can these people think when so respectable and worthy a
gentleman as the member from Louisiana undertakes to prove that the
absolute ignorance and the abject slavery of the South are more in
conformity with the high purposes and destiny of immortal, rational
human beings, than the educated, the independent free labor of the
North?
There is a more tangible and irritating cause of grievance at the North.
Free blacks are constantly employed in the vessels of the North,
generally as cooks or stewards. When the vessel arrives at a Southern
port, these free colored men are taken on shore, by the police or
municipal authority, imprisoned, and kept in prison till the vessel is
again ready to sail. This is not only irritating, but exceedingly
unjustifiable and oppressive. Mr. Hoar's mission, some time ago, to
South Carolina, was a well-intended effort to remove this cause of
complaint. The North thinks such imprisonments illegal and
unconstitutional; and as the cases occur constantly and frequently, they
regard it as a great grievance.
Now, Sir, so far as any of these grievances have their foundation in
matters of law, they can be redressed, and ought to be redressed; and so
far as they have their foundation in matters of opinion, in sentiment,
in mutual crimination and recrimination, all that we can do is to
endeavor to allay the agitation, and cultivate a better feeling and more
fraternal sentiments between the South and the North.
Mr. President, I should much prefer to have heard from every member on
this floor declarations of opinion that this Union could never be
dissolved, than the declaration of opinion by anybody, that, in any
case, under the pressure of any circumstances, such a dissolution was
possible. I hear with distress and anguish the word "secession,"
especially when it falls from the lips of those who are patriotic, and
known to the country, and known all over the world, for their political
services. Secession! Peaceable secession! Sir, your eyes and mine are
never destined to see that miracle. The dismemberment of this vast
country without convulsion! The breaking up of the fountains of the
great deep without ruffling the surface! Who is so foolish, I beg
everybody's pardon, as to expect to see any such thing? Sir, he who sees
these States, now revolving in harmony around a common centre, and
expects to see them quit their places and fly off without convulsion,
may look the next hour to see the heavenly bodies rush from their
spheres, and jostle against each other in the realms of space, without
causing the wreck of the universe. There can be no such thing as a
peaceable secession. Peaceable secession is an utter impossibility. Is
the great Constitution under which we live, covering this whole
country,--is it to be thawed and melted away by secession, as the snows
on the mountain melt under the influence of a vernal sun, disappear
almost unobserved, and run off? No, Sir! No, Sir! I will not state what
might produce the disruption of the Union; but, Sir, I see as plainly as
I see the sun in heaven what that disruption itself must produce; I see
that it must produce war, and such a war as I will not describe, _in its
twofold character_.
Peaceable secession! Peaceable secession! The concurrent agreement of
all the members of this great republic to separate! A voluntary
separation, with alimony on one side and on the other. Why, what would
be the result? Where is the line to be drawn? What States are to secede?
What is to remain American? What am I to be? An American no longer? Am I
to become a sectional man, a local man, a separatist, with no country in
common with the gentlemen who sit around me here, or who fill the other
house of Congress? Heaven forbid! Where is the flag of the republic to
remain? Where is the eagle still to tower? or is he to cower, and
shrink, and fall to the ground? Why, Sir, our ancestors, our fathers and
our grandfathers, those of them that are yet living amongst us with
prolonged lives, would rebuke and reproach us; and our children and our
grandchildren would cry out shame upon us, if we of this generation
should dishonor these ensigns of the power of the government and the
harmony of that Union which is every day felt among us with so much joy
and gratitude. What is to become of the army? What is to become of the
navy? What is to become of the public lands? How is each of the thirty
States to defend itself? I know, although the idea has not been stated
distinctly, there is to be, or it is supposed possible that there will
be, a Southern Confederacy. I do not mean, when I allude to this
statement, that any one seriously contemplates such a state of things. I
do not mean to say that it is true, but I have heard it suggested
elsewhere, that the idea has been entertained, that, after the
dissolution of this Union, a Southern Confederacy might be formed. I am
sorry, Sir, that it has ever been thought of, talked of, or dreamed of,
in the wildest flights of human imagination. But the idea, so far as it
exists, must be of a separation, assigning the slave States to one side
and the free States to the other. Sir, I may express myself too
strongly, perhaps, but there are impossibilities in the natural as well
as in the physical world, and I hold the idea of a separation of these
States, those that are free to form one government, and those that are
slave-holding to form another, as such an impossibility. We could not
separate the States by any such line, if we were to draw it. We could
not sit down here to-day and draw a line of separation that would
satisfy any five men in the country. There are natural causes that would
keep and tie us together, and there are social and domestic relations
which we could not break if we would, and which we should not if we
could.
Sir, nobody can look over the face of this country at the present
moment, nobody can see where its population is the most dense and
growing, without being ready to admit, and compelled to admit, that
erelong the strength of America will be in the Valley of the
Mississippi. Well, now, Sir, I beg to inquire what the wildest
enthusiast has to say on the possibility of cutting that river in two,
and leaving free States at its source and on its branches, and slave
States down near its mouth, each forming a separate government? Pray,
Sir, let me say to the people of this country, that these things are
worthy of their pondering and of their consideration. Here, Sir, are
five millions of freemen in the free States north of the river Ohio. Can
anybody suppose that this population can be severed, by a line that
divides them from the territory of a foreign and an alien government,
down somewhere, the Lord knows where, upon the lower banks of the
Mississippi? What would become of Missouri? Will she join the
_arrondissement_ of the slave States? Shall the man from the Yellowstone
and the Platte be connected, in the new republic, with the man who lives
on the southern extremity of the Cape of Florida? Sir, I am ashamed to
pursue this line of remark. I dislike it, I have an utter disgust for
it. I would rather hear of natural blasts and mildews, war, pestilence,
and famine, than to hear gentlemen talk of secession. To break up this
great government! to dismember this glorious country! to astonish Europe
with an act of folly such as Europe for two centuries has never beheld
in any government or any people! No, Sir! no, Sir! There will be no
secession! Gentlemen are not serious when they talk of secession.
Sir, I hear there is to be a convention held at Nashville. I am bound to
believe that, if worthy gentlemen meet at Nashville in convention, their
object will be to adopt conciliatory counsels; to advise the South to
forbearance and moderation, and to advise the North to forbearance and
moderation; and to inculcate principles of brotherly love and affection,
and attachment to the Constitution of the country as it now is. I
believe, if the convention meet at all, it will be for this purpose; for
certainly, if they meet for any purpose hostile to the Union, they have
been singularly inappropriate in their selection of a place. I remember,
Sir, that, when the treaty of Amiens was concluded between France and
England, a sturdy Englishman and a distinguished orator, who regarded
the conditions of the peace as ignominious to England, said in the House
of Commons, that, if King William could know the terms of that treaty,
he would turn in his coffin! Let me commend this saying of Mr. Windham,
in all its emphasis and in all its force, to any persons who shall meet
at Nashville for the purpose of concerting measures for the overthrow of
this Union over the bones of Andrew Jackson!
Sir, I wish now to make two remarks, and hasten to a conclusion. I wish
to say, in regard to Texas, that if it should be hereafter, at any time,
the pleasure of the government of Texas to cede to the United States a
portion, larger or smaller, of her territory which lies adjacent to New
Mexico, and north of 36° 30' of north latitude, to be formed into free
States, for a fair equivalent in money or in the payment of her debt, I
think it an object well worthy the consideration of Congress, and I
shall be happy to concur in it myself, if I should have a connection
with the government at that time.
I have one other remark to make. In my observations upon slavery as it
has existed in this country, and as it now exists, I have expressed no
opinion of the mode of its extinguishment or melioration. I will say,
however, though I have nothing to propose, because I do not deem myself
so competent as other gentlemen to take any lead on this subject, that
if any gentleman from the South shall propose a scheme, to be carried on
by this government upon a large scale, for the transportation of free
colored people to any colony or any place in the world, I should be
quite disposed to incur almost any degree of expense to accomplish that
object. Nay, Sir, following an example set more than twenty years ago by
a great man,[19] then a Senator from New York, I would return to
Virginia, and through her to the whole South, the money received from
the lands and territories ceded by her to this government, for any such
purpose as to remove, in whole or in part, or in any way to diminish or
deal beneficially with, the free colored population of the Southern
States. I have said that I honor Virginia for her cession of this
territory. There have been received into the treasury of the United
States eighty millions of dollars, the proceeds of the sales of the
public lands ceded by her. If the residue should be sold at the same
rate, the whole aggregate will exceed two hundred millions of dollars.
If Virginia and the South see fit to adopt any proposition to relieve
themselves from the free people of color among them, or such as may be
made free, they have my full consent that the government shall pay them
any sum of money out of the proceeds of that cession which may be
adequate to the purpose.
And now, Mr. President, I draw these observations to a close. I have
spoken freely, and I meant to do so. I have sought to make no display. I
have sought to enliven the occasion by no animated discussion, nor have
I attempted any train of elaborate argument. I have wished only to speak
my sentiments, fully and at length, being desirous, once and for all, to
let the Senate know, and to let the country know, the opinions and
sentiments which I entertain on all these subjects. These opinions are
not likely to be suddenly changed. If there be any future service that I
can render to the country, consistently with these sentiments and
opinions, I shall cheerfully render it. If there be not, I shall still
be glad to have had an opportunity to disburden myself from the bottom
of my heart, and to make known every political sentiment that therein
exists.
And now, Mr. President, instead of speaking of the possibility or
utility of secession, instead of dwelling in those caverns of darkness,
instead of groping with those ideas so full of all that is horrid and
horrible, let us come out into the light of day; let us enjoy the fresh
air of Liberty and Union; let us cherish those hopes which belong to us;
let us devote ourselves to those great objects that are fit for our
consideration and our action; let us raise our conceptions to the
magnitude and the importance of the duties that devolve upon us; let our
comprehension be as broad as the country for which we act, our
aspirations as high as its certain destiny; let us not be pygmies in a
case that calls for men. Never did there devolve on any generation of
men higher trusts than now devolve upon us, for the preservation of this
Constitution and the harmony and peace of all who are destined to live
under it. Let us make our generation one of the strongest and brightest
links in that golden chain which is destined, I fondly believe, to
grapple the people of all the States to this Constitution for ages to
come. We have a great, popular, constitutional government, guarded by
law and by judicature, and defended by the affections of the whole
people. No monarchical throne presses these States together, no iron
chain of military power encircles them; they live and stand under a
government popular in its form, representative in its character, founded
upon principles of equality, and so constructed, we hope, as to last for
ever. In all its history it has been beneficent; it has trodden down no
man's liberty; it has crushed no State. Its daily respiration is liberty
and patriotism; its yet youthful veins are full of enterprise, courage,
and honorable love of glory and renown. Large before, the country has
now, by recent events, become vastly larger. This republic now extends,
with a vast breadth, across the whole continent. The two great seas of
the world wash the one and the other shore. We realize, on a mighty
scale, the beautiful description of the ornamental border of the buckler
of Achilles:--
"Now, the broad shield complete, the artist crowned
With his last hand, and poured the ocean round;
In living silver seemed the waves to roll,
And beat the buckler's verge, and bound the whole."
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