A SPEECH DELIVERED BEFORE A LARGE ASSEMBLY OF THE CITIZENS OF BUFFALO
AND THE COUNTY OF ERIE, AT A PUBLIC RECEPTION ON THE 22D OF MAY, 1851.
Fellow-Citizens of the City of Buffalo,--I am very glad to see you; I
meet you with pleasure. It is not the first time that I have been in
Buffalo, and I have always come to it with gratification. It is at a
great distance from my own home. I am thankful that circumstances have
enabled me to be here again, and I regret that untoward events deprived
me of the pleasure of being with you when your distinguished
fellow-citizen, the President of the United States, visited you, and
received from you, as he deserved, not only a respectful, but a cordial
and enthusiastic welcome. The President of the United States has been a
resident among you for more than half his life. He has represented you
in the State and national councils. You know him and all his relations,
both public and private, and it would be bad taste in me to say any
thing of him, except that I wish to say, with emphasis, that, since my
connection with him in the administration of the government of the
United States, I have fully concurred with him in all his great and
leading measures. This might be inferred from the fact that I have been
one of his ordinary advisers. But I do not wish to let it rest on that
presumption; I wish to declare that the principles of the President, as
set forth in his annual message, his letters, and all documents and
opinions which have proceeded from him, or been issued by his authority,
in regard to the great question of the times,--all these principles are
my principles; and if he is wrong in them, I am, and always shall be.
Gentlemen, it has been suggested to me that it would be agreeable to the
citizens of Buffalo, and their neighbors in the county of Erie, that I
should state to you my opinions, whatever may be their value, on the
present condition of the country, its prospects, its hopes, and its
dangers; and, fellow-citizens, I intend to do that, this day, and this
hour, as far as my strength will permit.
Gentlemen, believe me, I know where I am. I know to whom I am speaking.
I know for whom I am speaking. I know that I am here in this singularly
prosperous and powerful section of the United States, Western New York,
and I know the character of the men who inhabit Western New York. I know
they are sons of liberty, one and all; that they sucked in liberty with
their mothers' milk; inherited it with their blood; that it is the
subject of their daily contemplation and watchful thought. They are men
of unusual equality of condition, for a million and a half of people.
There are thousands of men around us, and here before us, who till their
own soil with their own hands; and others who earn their own livelihood
by their own labor in the workshops and other places of industry; and
they are independent, in principle and in condition, having neither
slaves nor masters, and not intending to have either. These are the men
who constitute, to a great extent, the people of Western New York. But
the school-house, I know, is among them. Education is among them. They
read, and write, and think. Here, too, are women, educated, refined, and
intelligent; and here are men who know the history of their country, and
the laws of their country, and the institutions of their country; and
men, lovers of liberty always, and yet lovers of liberty under the
Constitution of the country, and who mean to maintain that Constitution
with all their strength. I hope these observations will satisfy you that
I know where I am, under what responsibility I speak, and before whom I
appear; and I have no desire that any word I shall say this day shall be
withholden from you, or your children, or your neighbors, or the whole
world; for I speak before you and before my country, and, if it be not
too solemn to say so, before the great Author of all things.
Gentlemen, there is but one question in this country now; or, if there
be others, they are but secondary, or so subordinate that they are all
absorbed in that great and leading question; and that is neither more
nor less than this: Can we preserve the union of the States, not by
coercion, not by military power, not by angry controversies,--but can we
of this generation, you and I, your friends and my friends,--can we so
preserve the union of these States, by such administration of the powers
of the Constitution as shall give content and satisfaction to all who
live under it, and draw us together, not by military power, but by the
silken cords of mutual, fraternal, patriotic affection? That is the
question, and no other. Gentlemen, I believe in party distinctions. I am
a party man. There are questions belonging to party in which I take an
interest, and there are opinions entertained by other parties which I
repudiate; but what of all that? If a house be divided against itself,
it will fall, and crush everybody in it. We must see that we maintain
the government which is over us. We must see that we uphold the
Constitution, and we must do so without regard to party.
Now how did this question arise? The question is for ever misstated. I
dare say, if you know much of me, or of my course of public conduct, for
the last fourteen months, you have heard of my attending Union meetings,
and of my fervent admonitions at Union meetings. Well, what was the
object of those meetings? What was their purpose? The object and purpose
have been designedly or thoughtlessly misrepresented. I had an
invitation, some time since, to attend a Union meeting in the county of
Westchester; I could not go, but wrote a letter. Well, some wise man of
the East said he did not think it was very necessary to hold Union
meetings in Westchester. He did not think there were many disunionists
about Tarrytown! And so in many parts of the country, there is a total
misapprehension of the purpose and object of these Union meetings. Every
one knows, that there is not a county, or a city, or a hamlet in the
State of New York, that is ready to go out of the Union, but only some
small bodies of fanatics. There is no man so insane in the State, not
fit for a lunatic asylum, as to wish it. But that is not the point. We
all know that every man and every neighborhood, and all corporations, in
the State of New York, except those I have mentioned, are attached to
the Union, and have no idea of withdrawing from it. But that is not, I
repeat, the point. The question, fellow-citizens, (and I put it to you
now as the real question,) the question is, Whether you and the rest of
the people of the great State of New York, and of all the States, will
so adhere to the Constitution, will so enact and maintain laws to
preserve that instrument, that you will not only remain in the Union
yourselves, but permit your brethren to remain in it, and help to
perpetuate it? That is the question. Will you concur in measures
necessary to maintain the Union, or will you oppose such measures? That
is the whole point of the case.
There are thirty or forty members of Congress from New York; you have
your proportion in the United States Senate. We have many members of
Congress from New England. Will they maintain the laws that are passed
for the administration of the Constitution, and respect the rights of
the South, so that the Union may be held together; and not only so that
we may not go out of it ourselves, which we are not inclined to do, but
so that, by maintaining the rights of others, they may also remain in
the Union? Now, Gentlemen, permit me to say, that I speak of no
concessions. If the South wish any concession from me, they will not get
it; not a hair's breadth of it. If they come to my house for it, they
will not find it, and the door will be shut; I concede nothing. But I
say that I will maintain for them, as I will maintain for you, to the
utmost of my power, and in the face of all danger, their rights under
the Constitution, and your rights under the Constitution. And I shall
never be found to falter in one or the other. It is obvious to every
one, and we all know it, that the origin of the great disturbance which
agitates the country is the existence of slavery in some of the States;
but we must meet the subject; we must consider it; we must deal with it
earnestly, honestly, and justly. From the mouth of the St. John's to the
confines of Florida, there existed, in 1775, thirteen colonies of
English origin, planted at different times, and coming from different
parts of England, bringing with them various habits, and establishing,
each for itself, institutions entirely different from the institutions
which they left, and in many cases from each other. But they were all of
English origin. The English language was theirs, Shakepeare and Milton
were theirs, the common law of England was theirs, and the Christian
religion was theirs; and these things held them together by the force of
a common character. The aggressions of the parent state compelled them
to assert their independence. They declared independence, and that
immortal act, pronounced on the 4th of July, 1776, made them
independent.
That was an act of union by the United States in Congress assembled. But
this act of itself did nothing to establish over them a general
government. They had a Congress. They had Articles of Confederation to
prosecute the war. But thus far they were still, essentially, separate
and independent each of the other. They had entered into a simple
confederacy, and nothing more. No State was bound by what it did not
itself agree to, or what was done according to the provisions of the
confederation. That was the state of things, Gentlemen, at that time.
The war went on; victory crowned the American arms; our independence was
acknowledged. The States were then united together under a confederacy
of very limited powers. It could levy no taxes. It could not enforce its
own decrees. It was a confederacy, instead of a united government.
Experience showed that this was insufficient and inefficient.
Accordingly, beginning as far back almost as the close of the war,
measures were taken for the formation of a united government, a
government in the strict sense of the term, a government that could pass
laws binding on the individual citizens of all the States, and which
could enforce those laws by its executive powers, having them
interpreted by a judicial power belonging to the government itself, and
yet a government strictly limited in its nature. Well, Gentlemen, this
led to the formation of the Constitution of the United States, and that
instrument was framed on the idea of a limited government. It proposed
to leave, and did leave, the different domestic institutions of the
several States to themselves. It did not propose consolidation. It did
not propose that the laws of Virginia should be the laws of New York, or
that the laws of New York should be the laws of Massachusetts. It
proposed only that, for certain purposes and to a certain extent, there
should be a united government, and that that government should have the
power of executing its own laws. All the rest was left to the several
States.
We now come, Gentlemen, to the very point of the case. At that time
slavery existed in the Southern States, entailed upon them in the time
of the supremacy of British laws over us. There it was. It was obnoxious
to the Middle and Eastern States, and honestly and seriously disliked,
as the records of the country will show, by the Southern States
themselves. Now, how was it to be dealt with? Were the Northern and
Middle States to exclude from the government those States of the South
which had produced a Washington, a Laurens, and other distinguished
patriots, who had so truly served, and so greatly honored, the whole
country? Were they to be excluded from the new government because they
tolerated the institution of slavery? Your fathers and my fathers did
not think so. They did not see that it would be of the least advantage
to the slaves of the Southern States, to cut off the South from all
connection with the North. Their views of humanity led to no such
result; and of course, when the Constitution was framed and established,
and adopted by you, here in New York, and by New England, it contained
an express provision of security to the persons who lived in the
Southern States, in regard to fugitives who owed them service; that is
to say, it was stipulated that the fugitive from service or labor should
be restored to his master or owner if he escaped into a free State.
Well, that had been the history of the country from its first
settlement. It was a matter of common practice to return fugitives
before the Constitution was formed. Fugitive slaves from Virginia to
Massachusetts were restored by the people of Massachusetts. At that day
there was a great system of apprenticeship at the North, and many
apprentices at the North, taking advantage of circumstances, and of
vessels sailing to the South, thereby escaped; and they were restored on
proper claim and proof. That led to a clear, express, and well-defined
provision in the Constitution of the country on the subject. Now I am
aware that all these things are well known; that they have been stated a
thousand times; but in these days of perpetual discontent and
misrepresentation, to state things a thousand times is not enough; for
there are persons whose consciences, it would seem, lead them to
consider it their duty to deny, misrepresent, falsify, and cover up
truths.
Now these are words of the Constitution, fellow-citizens, which I have
taken the pains to transcribe therefrom, so that he who runs may read:--
"NO PERSON HELD TO SERVICE OR LABOR IN ONE STATE, UNDER THE LAWS
THEREOF, ESCAPING INTO ANOTHER, SHALL, IN CONSEQUENCE OF ANY LAW OR
REGULATION THEREIN, BE DISCHARGED FROM SUCH SERVICE OR LABOR, BUT SHALL
BE DELIVERED UP ON CLAIM OF THE PARTY TO WHOM SUCH SERVICE OR LABOR MAY
BE DUE."
Is there any mistake about that? Is there any forty-shilling attorney
here to make a question of it? No. I will not disgrace my profession by
supposing such a thing. There is not, in or out of an attorney's office
in the county of Erie, or elsewhere, one who could raise a doubt, or a
particle of a doubt, about the meaning of this provision of the
Constitution. He may act as witnesses do, sometimes, on the stand. He
may wriggle, and twist, and say he cannot tell, or cannot remember. I
have seen many such efforts in my time, on the part of witnesses, to
falsify and deny the truth. But there is no man who can read these words
of the Constitution of the United States, and say they are not clear and
imperative. "No person," the Constitution says, "held to service or
labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another,
shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged
from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the
party to whom such service or labor may be due." Why, you may be told by
forty conventions in Massachusetts, in Ohio, in New York, or elsewhere,
that, if a colored man comes here, he comes as a freeman; that is a _non
sequitur_. It is not so. If he comes as a fugitive from labor, the
Constitution says he is not a freeman, and that he shall be delivered up
to those who are entitled to his service.
Gentlemen, that is the Constitution of the United States. Do we, or do
we not, mean to conform to it, and to execute that part of the
Constitution as well as the rest of it? I believe there are before me
here members of Congress. I suppose there may be here members of the
State legislature, or executive officers under the State government. I
suppose there may be judicial magistrates of New York, executive
officers, assessors, supervisors, justices of the peace, and constables
before me. Allow me to say, Gentlemen, that there is not, that there
cannot be, any one of these officers in this assemblage, or elsewhere,
who has not, according to the form of the usual obligation, bound
himself by a solemn oath to support the Constitution. They have taken
their oaths on the Holy Evangelists of Almighty God, or by uplifted
hand, as the case may be, or by a solemn affirmation, as is the practice
in some cases; but among all of them there is not a man who holds, nor
is there any man who can hold, any office in the gift of the United
States, or of this State, or of any other State, who does not bind
himself, by the solemn obligation of an oath, to support the
Constitution of the United States. Well, is he to tamper with that? Is
he to palter? Gentlemen, our political duties are as much matters of
conscience as any other duties; our sacred domestic ties, our most
endearing social relations, are no more the subjects for conscientious
consideration and conscientious discharge, than the duties we enter upon
under the Constitution of the United States. The bonds of political
brotherhood, which hold us together from Maine to Georgia, rest upon the
same principles of obligation as those of domestic and social life.
Now, Gentlemen, that is the plain story of the Constitution of the
United States, on the question of slavery. I contend, and have always
contended, that, after the adoption of the Constitution, any measure of
the government calculated to bring more slave territory into the United
States was beyond the power of the Constitution, and against its
provisions. That is my opinion, and it always has been my opinion. It
was inconsistent with the Constitution of the United States, or thought
to be so, in Mr. Jefferson's time, to attach Louisiana to the United
States. A treaty with France was made for that purpose. Mr. Jefferson's
opinion at that moment was, that an alteration of the Constitution was
necessary to enable it to be done. In consequence of considerations to
which I need not now refer, that opinion was abandoned, and Louisiana
was admitted by law, without any provision in, or alteration of, the
Constitution. At that time I was too young to hold any office, or take
any share in the political affairs of the country. Louisiana was
admitted as a slave State, and became entitled to her representation in
Congress on the principle of a mixed basis. Florida was afterwards
admitted. Then, too, I was out of Congress. I had formerly been a
member, but had ceased to be so. I had nothing to do with the Florida
treaty, or the admission of Florida. My opinion remains unchanged, that
it was not within the original scope or design of the Constitution to
admit new States out of foreign territory; and, for one, whatever may be
said at the Syracuse Convention, or at any other assemblage of insane
persons, I never would consent, and never have consented, that there
should be one foot of slave territory beyond what the old thirteen
States had at the time of the formation of the Union. Never, never! The
man cannot show his face to me, and say he can prove that I ever
departed from that doctrine. He would sneak away, and slink away, or
hire a mercenary press to cry out, What an apostate from liberty Daniel
Webster has become! But he knows himself to be a hypocrite and a
falsifier.
But, Gentlemen, I was in public life when the proposition to annex Texas
to the United States was brought forward. You know that the revolution
in Texas, which separated that country from Mexico, occurred in the year
1835 or 1836. I saw then, and I do not know that it required any
particular foresight, that it would be the very next thing to bring
Texas, which was designed to be a slave-holding State, into this Union.
I did not wait. I sought an occasion to proclaim my utter aversion to
any such measure, and I determined to resist it with all my strength to
the last. On this subject, Gentlemen, you will bear with me, if I now
repeat, in the presence of this assembly, what I have before spoken
elsewhere. I was in this city in the year 1837, and, some time before I
left New York on that excursion from which I returned to this place, my
friends in New York were kind enough to offer me a public dinner as a
testimony of their regard. I went out of my way, in a speech delivered
in Niblo's Saloon, on that occasion, for the purpose of showing that I
anticipated the attempt to annex Texas as a slave territory, and said it
should be opposed by me to the last extremity. Well, there was the press
all around me,--the Whig press and the Democratic press. Some spoke in
terms commendatory enough of my speech, but all agreed that I took pains
to step out of my way to denounce in advance the annexation of Texas as
slave territory to the United States. I said on that occasion:--
"Gentlemen, we all see that, by whomsoever possessed, Texas is
likely to be a slave-holding country; and I frankly avow my entire
unwillingness to do any thing that shall extend the slavery of the
African race on this continent, or add other slave-holding States
to the Union. When I say that I regard slavery in itself as a great
moral, social, and political evil, I only use language which has
been adopted by distinguished men, themselves citizens of
slave-holding States. I shall do nothing, therefore, to favor or
encourage its further extension. We have slavery already amongst
us. The Constitution found it in the Union; it recognized it, and
gave it solemn guaranties. To the full extent of these guaranties
we are all bound, in honor, in justice, and by the Constitution.
All the stipulations contained in the Constitution in favor of the
slave-holding States which are already in the Union ought to be
fulfilled, and, so far as depends on me, shall be fulfilled, in the
fulness of their spirit and to the exactness of their letter.
Slavery, as it exists in the States, is beyond the reach of
Congress. It is a concern of the States themselves; they have never
submitted it to Congress, and Congress has no rightful power over
it. I shall concur, therefore, in no act, no measure, no menace, no
indication of purpose, which shall interfere or threaten to
interfere with the exclusive authority of the several States over
the subject of slavery as it exists within their respective limits.
All this appears to me to be matter of plain and imperative duty.
But when we come to speak of admitting new States, the subject
assumes an entirely different aspect. Our rights and our duties are
then both different. The free States, and all the States, are then
at liberty to accept or to reject. When it is proposed to bring new
members into this political partnership, the old members have a
right to say on what terms such new partners are to come in, and
what they are to bring along with them. In my opinion, the people
of the United States will not consent to bring into the Union a
new, vastly extensive, and slave-holding country, large enough for
half a dozen or a dozen States. In my opinion they ought not to
consent to it."
Gentlemen, I was mistaken; Congress did consent to the bringing in of
Texas. They did consent, and I was a false prophet. Your own State
consented, and the majority of the representatives of New York
consented. I went into Congress before the final consummation of the
deed, and there I fought, holding up both my hands, and urging, with a
voice stronger than it now is, my remonstrances against the whole of it.
But you would have it so, and you did have it so. Nay, Gentlemen, I will
tell the truth, whether it shames the Devil or not. Persons who have
aspired high as lovers of liberty, as eminent lovers of the Wilmot
Proviso, as eminent Free Soil men, and who have mounted over our heads,
and trodden us down as if we were mere slaves, insisting that they are
the only true lovers of liberty, they are the men, the very men, that
brought Texas into this Union. This is the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth, and I declare it before you, this day. Look to
the journals. Without the consent of New York, Texas would not have come
into the Union, either under the original resolutions or afterwards.
But New York voted for the measure. The two Senators from New York voted
for it, and decided the question; and you may thank them for the glory,
the renown, and the happiness of having five or six slave States added
to the Union. Do not blame me for it. Let them answer who did the deed,
and who are now proclaiming themselves the champions of liberty, crying
up their Free Soil creed, and using it for selfish and deceptive
purposes. They were the persons who aided in bringing in Texas. It was
all fairly told to you, both beforehand and afterwards. You heard Moses
and the prophets, but if one had risen from the dead, such was your
devotion to that policy, at that time, you would not have listened to
him for a moment. I do not, of course, speak of the persons now here
before me, but of the general political tone in New York, and especially
of those who are now Free Soil apostles. Well, all that I do not
complain of; but I will not now, or hereafter, before the country, or
the world, consent to be numbered among those who introduced new slave
power into the Union. I did all in my power to prevent it.
Then, again, Gentlemen, the Mexican war broke out. Vast territory was
acquired, and the peace was made; and, much as I disliked the war, I
disliked the peace more, because it brought in these territories. I
wished for peace indeed, but I desired to strike out the grant of
territory on the one side, and the payment of the $12,000,000 on the
other. That territory was unknown to me; I could not tell what its
character might be. The plan came from the South. I knew that certain
Southern gentlemen wished the acquisition of California, New Mexico, and
Utah, as a means of extending slave power and slave population.
Foreseeing a sectional controversy, and, as I conceived, seeing how much
it would distract the Union, I voted against the treaty with Mexico. I
voted against the acquisition. I wanted none of her territory, neither
California, New Mexico, nor Utah. They were rather ultra-American, as I
thought. They were far from us, and I saw that they might lead to a
political conflict, and I voted against them all, against the treaty and
against the peace, rather than have the territories. Seeing that it
would be an occasion of dispute, that by the controversy the whole Union
would be agitated, Messrs. Berrien, Badger, and other respectable and
distinguished men of the South, voted against the acquisition, and the
treaty which secured it; and if the men of the North had voted the same
way, we should have been spared all the difficulties that have grown out
of it. We should have had peace without the territories.
Now there is no sort of doubt, Gentlemen, that there were some persons
in the South who supposed that California, if it came into the Union at
all, would come in as a slave State. You know the extraordinary events
which immediately occurred, and the impulse given to emigration by the
discovery of gold. You know that crowds of Northern people immediately
rushed to California, and that an African slave could no more live there
among them, than he could live on the top of Mount Hecla. Of necessity
it became a free State, and that, no doubt, was a source of much
disappointment to the South. And then there were New Mexico and Utah;
what was to be done with them? Why, Gentlemen, from the best
investigation I had given to the subject, and the reflection I had
devoted to it, I was of the opinion that the mountains of New Mexico and
Utah could no more sustain American slavery than the snows of Canada. I
saw it was impossible. I thought so then; it is quite evident now.
Therefore, when it was proposed in Congress to apply the Wilmot Proviso
to New Mexico and Utah, it appeared to me just as absurd as to apply it
here in Western New York. I saw that the snow-capped hills, the eternal
mountains, and the climate of those countries would never support
slavery. No man could carry a slave there with any expectation of
profit. It could not be done; and as the South regarded the Proviso as
merely a source of irritation, and as designed by some to irritate, I
thought it unwise to apply it to New Mexico or Utah. I voted
accordingly, and who doubts now the correctness of that vote? The law
admitting those territories passed without any proviso. Is there a
slave, or will there ever be one, in either of those territories? Why,
there is not a man in the United States so stupid as not to see, at this
moment, that such a thing was wholly unnecessary, and that it was only
calculated to irritate and to offend. I am not one who is disposed to
create irritation, or give offence among brethren, or to break up
fraternal friendship, without cause. The question was accordingly left
legally open, whether slavery should or should not go to New Mexico or
Utah. There is no slavery there, it is utterly impracticable that it
should be introduced into such a region, and utterly ridiculous to
suppose that it could exist there. No one, who does not mean to deceive,
will now pretend it can exist there.
Well, Gentlemen, we have a race of agitators all over the country; some
connected with the press, some, I am sorry to say, belonging to the
learned professions. They agitate; their livelihood consists in
agitating; their freehold, their copyhold, their capital, their all in
all, depend on the excitement of the public mind. The events now briefly
alluded to were going on at the commencement of the year 1850. There
were two great questions before the public. There was the question of
the Texan boundary, and of a government for Utah and New Mexico, which I
consider as one question; and there was the question of making a
provision for the restoration of fugitive slaves. On these subjects, I
have something to say. Texas, as you know, established her independence
of Mexico by her revolution and the battle of San Jacinto, which made
her a sovereign power. I have already stated to you what I then
anticipated from the movement, namely, that she would ask to come into
the Union as a slave State. We admitted her in 1845, and we admitted her
as a slave State. We admitted her also with an undefined boundary;
remember that. She claimed by conquest the whole of that territory
commonly called New Mexico, east of the Rio Grande. She claimed also
those limits which her constitution had declared and marked out as the
proper limits of Texas. This was her claim, and when she was admitted
into the United States, the United States did not define her territory.
They admitted her as she was. We took her as she defined her own limits,
and with the power of making four additional slave States. I say "we,"
but I do not mean that I was one; I mean the United States admitted her.
What, then, was the state of things in 1850? There was Texas claiming
all, or a great part, of that which the United States had acquired from
Mexico as New Mexico. She claimed that it belonged to her by conquest
and by her admission into the United States, and she was ready to
maintain her claim by force of arms. Nor was this all. A man must be
ignorant of the history of the country who does not know, that, at the
commencement of 1850, there was great agitation throughout the whole
South. Who does not know that six or seven of the largest States of the
South had already taken measures looking toward secession; were
preparing for disunion in some way? They concurred apparently, at least
some of them, with Texas, while Texas was prepared or preparing to
enforce her rights by force of arms. Troops were enlisted by her, and
many thousand persons in the South disaffected towards the Union, or
desirous of breaking it up, were ready to make common cause with Texas;
to join her ranks, and see what they could make in a war to establish
the right of Texas to New Mexico. The public mind was disturbed. A
considerable part of the South was disaffected towards the Union, and in
a condition to adopt any course that should be violent and destructive.
What then was to be done, as far as Texas was concerned? Allow me to
say, Gentlemen, there are two sorts of foresight. There is a military
foresight, which sees what will be the result of an appeal to arms; and
there is also a statesmanlike foresight, which looks not to the result
of battles and carnage, but to the results of political disturbances,
the violence of faction carried into military operations, and the
horrors attendant on civil war. I never had a doubt, that, if the
administration of General Taylor had gone to war, and had sent troops
into New Mexico, the Texan forces would have been subdued in a week. The
power on one side was far superior to all the power on the other. But
what then? What if Texan troops, assisted by thousands of volunteers
from the disaffected States, had gone to New Mexico, and had been
defeated and turned back? Would that have settled the boundary question?
Now, Gentlemen, I wish I had ten thousand voices. I wish I could draw
around me the whole people of the United States, and I wish I could make
them all hear what I now declare on my conscience as my solemn belief,
before the Power who sits on high, and who will judge you and me
hereafter, that, if this Texan controversy had not been settled by
Congress in the manner it was, by the so-called adjustment measures,
civil war would have ensued; blood, American blood, would have been
shed; and who can tell what would have been the consequences? Gentlemen,
in an honorable war, if a foreign foe invade us, if our rights are
threatened, if it be necessary to defend them by arms, I am not afraid
of blood. And if I am too old myself, I hope there are those connected
with me by ties of relationship who are young, and willing to defend
their country to the last drop of their blood. But I cannot express the
horror I feel at the shedding of blood in a controversy between one of
these States and the government of the United States, because I see in
it a total and entire disruption of all those ties that make us a great
and happy people. Gentlemen, this was the great question, the leading
question, at the commencement of the year 1850.
Then there was the other matter, and that was the Fugitive Slave Law.
Let me say a word about that. Under the provisions of the Constitution,
during Washington's administration, in the year 1793, there was passed,
by general consent, a law for the restoration of fugitive slaves. Hardly
any one opposed it at that period; it was thought to be necessary, in
order to carry the Constitution into effect; the great men of New
England and New York all concurred in it. It passed, and answered all
the purposes expected from it, till about the year 1841 or 1842, when
the States interfered to make enactments in opposition to it. The act of
Congress said that State magistrates might execute the duties of the
law. Some of the States passed enactments imposing a penalty on any
State officers who exercised authority under the law, or assisted in its
execution; others denied the use of their jails to carry the law into
effect; and, in general, at the commencement of the year 1850, it had
become absolutely indispensable that Congress should pass some law for
the execution of this provision of the Constitution, or else give up
that provision entirely. That was the question. I was in Congress when
it was brought forward. I was for a proper law. I had, indeed, proposed
a different law; I was of opinion that a summary trial by a jury might
be had, which would satisfy the people of the North, and produce no harm
to those who claimed the service of fugitives; but I left the Senate,
and went to another station, before any law was passed. The law of 1850
passed. Now I undertake, as a lawyer, and on my professional character,
to say to you, and to all, that the law of 1850 is decidedly more
favorable to the fugitive than General Washington's law of 1793; and I
will tell you why. In the first place, the present law places the power
in much higher hands; in the hands of independent judges of the Supreme
and Circuit Courts, and District Courts, and of commissioners who are
appointed to office for their legal learning. Every fugitive is brought
before a tribunal of high character, of eminent ability, of respectable
station. In the second place, when a claimant comes from Virginia to New
York, to say that one A or one B has run away, or is a fugitive from
service or labor, he brings with him a record of the court of the county
from which he comes, and that record must be sworn to before a
magistrate, and certified by the county clerk, and bear an official
seal. The affidavit must state that A or B had departed under such and
such circumstances, and had gone to another State; and that record under
seal is, by the Constitution of the United States, entitled to full
credit in every State. Well, the claimant or his agent comes here, and
he presents to you the seal of the court in Virginia, affixed to a
record of his declaration, that A or B had escaped from service. He must
then prove that the fugitive is here. He brings a witness; he is asked
if this is the man, and he proves it; or, in nine cases out of ten, the
fact would be admitted by the fugitive himself.
Such is the present law; and, much opposed and maligned as it is, it is
more favorable to the fugitive slave than the law enacted during
Washington's administration, in 1793, which was sanctioned by the North
as well as by the South. The present violent opposition has sprung up in
modern times. From whom does this clamor come? Why, look at the
proceedings of the antislavery conventions; look at their resolutions.
Do you find among those persons who oppose this Fugitive Slave Law any
admission whatever, that any law ought to be passed to carry into effect
the solemn stipulations of the Constitution? Tell me any such case; tell
me if any resolution was adopted by the convention at Syracuse favorable
to the carrying out of the Constitution. Not one! The fact is,
Gentlemen, they oppose the constitutional provision; they oppose the
whole! Not a man of them admits that there ought to be any law on the
subject. They deny, altogether, that the provisions of the Constitution
ought to be carried into effect. Look at the proceedings of the
antislavery conventions in Ohio, Massachusetts, and at Syracuse, in the
State of New York. What do they say? "That, so help them God, no colored
man shall be sent from the State of New York back to his master in
Virginia!" Do not they say that? And, to the fulfilment of that they
"pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor." Their
sacred honor! They pledge their sacred honor to violate the
Constitution; they pledge their sacred honor to commit treason against
the laws of their country!
I have already stated, Gentlemen, what your observation of these things
must have taught you. I will only recur to the subject for a moment, for
the purpose of persuading you, as public men and private men, as good
men and patriotic men, that you ought, to the extent of your ability and
influence, to see to it that such laws are established and maintained as
shall keep you, and the South, and the West, and all the country,
together, on the terms of the Constitution. I say, that what is demanded
of us is to fulfil our constitutional duties, and to do for the South
what the South has a right to demand.
Gentlemen, I have been some time before the public. My character is
known, my life is before the country. I profess to love liberty as much
as any man living; but I profess to love American liberty, that liberty
which is secured to the country by the government under which we live;
and I have no great opinion of that other and higher liberty which
disregards the restraints of law and of the Constitution. I hold the
Constitution of the United States to be the bulwark, the only bulwark,
of our liberties and of our national character, I do not mean that you
should become slaves under the Constitution. That is not American
liberty. That is not the liberty of the Union for which our fathers
fought, that liberty which has given us a right to be known and
respected all over the world. I mean only to say, that I am for
constitutional liberty. It is enough for me to be as free as the
Constitution of the country makes me.
Now, Gentlemen, let me say, that, as much as I respect the character of
the people of Western New York, as much as I wish to retain their good
opinion, if I should ever hereafter be placed in any situation in public
life, let me tell you now that you must not expect from me the slightest
variation, even of a hair's breadth, from the Constitution of the United
States. I am a Northern man. I was born at the North, educated at the
North, have lived all my days at the North. I know five hundred Northern
men to one Southern man. My sympathies, all my sympathies, my love of
liberty for all mankind, of every color, are the same as yours. My
affections and hopes in that respect are exactly like yours. I wish to
see all men free, all men happy. I have few personal associations out of
the Northern States. My people are your people. And yet I am told
sometimes that I am not a friend of liberty, because I am not a Free
Soil man. What am I? What was I ever? What shall I be hereafter, if I
could sacrifice, for any consideration, that love of American liberty
which has glowed in my breast since my infancy, and which, I hope, will
never leave me till I expire?
Gentlemen, I regret that slavery exists in the Southern States; but it
is clear and certain that Congress has no power over it. It may be,
however, that, in the dispensations of Providence, some remedy for this
evil may occur, or may be hoped for hereafter. But, in the mean time, I
hold to the Constitution of the United States, and you need never expect
from me, under any circumstances, that I shall falter from it; that I
shall be otherwise than frank and decisive. I would not part with my
character as a man of firmness and decision, and honor and principle,
for all that the world possesses. You will find me true to the North,
because all my sympathies are with the North. My affections, my
children, my hopes, my everything, are with the North. But when I stand
up before my country, as one appointed to administer the Constitution of
the country, by the blessing of God I will be just.
Gentlemen, I expect to be libelled and abused. Yes, libelled and abused.
But it does not disturb me. I have not lost a night's rest for a great
many years from any such cause. I have some talent for sleeping. And why
should I not expect to be libelled? Is not the Constitution of the
United States libelled and abused? Do not some people call it a covenant
with hell? Is not Washington libelled and abused? Is he not called a
bloodhound on the track of the African negro? Are not our fathers
libelled and abused by their own children? And ungrateful children they
are. How, then, shall I escape? I do not expect to escape; but, knowing
these things, I impute no bad motive to any men of character and fair
standing. The great settlement measures of the last Congress are laws.
Many respectable men, representatives from your own State and from other
States, did not concur in them. I do not impute any bad motive to them.
I am ready to believe they are Americans all. They may not have thought
these laws necessary; or they may have thought that they would be
enacted without their concurrence. Let all that pass away. If they are
now men who will stand by what is done, and stand up for their country,
and say that, as these laws were passed by a majority of the whole
country, we must stand by them and live by them, I will respect them all
as friends.
Now, Gentlemen, allow me to ask of you, What do you think would have
been the condition of the country, at this time, if these laws had not
been passed by the last Congress? if the question of the Texas boundary
had not been settled? if New Mexico and Utah had been left as
desert-places, and no government had been provided for them? And if the
other great object to which State laws had opposed so many obstacles,
the restoration of fugitives, had not been provided for, I ask, what
would have been the state of this country now? You men of Erie County,
you men of New York, I conjure you to go home to-night and meditate on
this subject. What would have been the state of this country, now, at
this moment, if these laws had not been passed? I have given my opinion
that we should have had a civil war. I refer it to you, therefore, for
your consideration; meditate on it; do not be carried away by any
abstract notions or metaphysical ideas; think practically on the great
question, What would have been the condition of the United States at
this moment, if we had not settled these agitating questions? I repeat,
in my opinion, there would have been a civil war.
Gentlemen, will you allow me, for a moment, to advert to myself? I have
been a long time in public life; of course, not many years remain to me.
At the commencement of 1850, I looked anxiously at the condition of the
country, and I thought the inevitable consequence of leaving the
existing controversies unadjusted would be civil war. I saw danger in
leaving Utah and New Mexico without any government, a prey to the power
of Texas. I saw the condition of things arising from the interference of
some of the States in defeating the operation of the Constitution in
respect to the restoration of fugitive slaves. I saw these things, and I
made up my mind to encounter whatever might betide me in the attempt to
avert the impending catastrophe. And allow me to add something which is
not entirely unworthy of notice. A member of the House of
Representatives told me that he had prepared a list of one hundred and
forty speeches which had been made in Congress on the slavery question.
"That is a very large number, my friend," I said; "but how is that?"
"Why," said he, "a Northern man gets up and speaks with considerable
power and fluency until the Speaker's hammer knocks him down. Then gets
up a Southern man, and he speaks with more warmth. He is nearer the sun,
and he comes out with the greater fervor against the North. He speaks
his hour, and is in turn knocked down. And so it has gone on, until I
have got one hundred and forty speeches on my list." "Well," said I,
"where are they, and what are they?" "If the speaker," said he, "was a
Northern man, he held forth against slavery; and if he was from the
South, he abused the North; and all these speeches were sent by the
members to their own localities, where they served only to aggravate the
local irritation already existing. No man reads both sides. The other
side of the argument is not heard; and the speeches sent from Washington
in such prodigious numbers, instead of tending to conciliation, do but
increase, in both sections of the Union, an excitement already of the
most dangerous character."
Gentlemen, in this state of things, I saw that something must be done.
It was impossible to look with indifference on a danger of so formidable
a character. I am a Massachusetts man, and I bore in mind what
Massachusetts has ever been to the Constitution and the Union. I felt
the importance of the duty which devolved upon one to whom she had so
long confided the trust of representing her in either house of Congress.
As I honored her, and respected her, I felt that I was serving her in my
endeavors to promote the welfare of the whole country.
And now suppose, Gentlemen, that, on the occasion in question, I had
taken a different course. If I may allude so particularly to an
individual so insignificant as myself, suppose that, on the 7th of
March, 1850, instead of making a speech that would, so far as my power
went, reconcile the country, I had joined in the general clamor of the
Antislavery party. Suppose I had said, "I will have nothing to do with
any accommodation; we will admit no compromise; we will let Texas invade
New Mexico; we will leave New Mexico and Utah to take care of
themselves; we will plant ourselves on the Wilmot Proviso, let the
consequences be what they may." Now, Gentlemen, I do not mean to say
that great consequences would have followed from such a course on my
part; but suppose I had taken such a course. How could I be blamed for
it? Was I not a Northern man? Did I not know Massachusetts feelings and
prejudices? But what of that? I am an American. I was made a whole man,
and I did not mean to make myself half a one. I felt that I had a duty
to perform to my country, to my own reputation; for I flattered myself
that a service of forty years had given me some character, on which I
had a right to repose for my justification in the performance of a duty
attended with some degree of local unpopularity. I thought it my duty to
pursue this course, and I did not care what was to be the consequence. I
felt it was my duty, in a very alarming crisis, to come out; to go for
my country, and my whole country; and to exert any power I had to keep
that country together. I cared for nothing, I was afraid of nothing, but
I meant to do my duty. Duty performed makes a man happy; duty neglected
makes a man unhappy. I therefore, in the face of all discouragements and
all dangers, was ready to go forth and do what I thought my country,
your country, demanded of me. And, Gentlemen, allow me to say here
to-day, that if the fate of John Rogers had stared me in the face, if I
had seen the stake, if I had heard the fagots already crackling, by the
blessing of Almighty God I would have gone on and discharged the duty
which I thought my country called upon me to perform. I would have
become a martyr to save that country.
And now, Gentlemen, farewell. Live and be happy. Live like patriots,
live like Americans. Live in the enjoyment of the inestimable blessings
which your fathers prepared for you; and if any thing that I may do
hereafter should be inconsistent, in the slightest degree, with the
opinions and principles which I have this day submitted to you, then
discard me for ever from your recollection.