The Middle Period 1817-1858 Part 22

[Sidenote: Mr. Adams' futile attempt to prevent slavery agitation in Congress.]

Mr. Adams now made one more effort to preserve the Southerners against the consequences of their own folly. He undertook to arrest the debate by calling for the application of the forty-fifth rule of the House, which required that no pet.i.tion should be debated or decided on the day of its presentation. But the Speaker now decided that this rule could not apply to a pet.i.tion until it had been received. The gates of Ja.n.u.s were flung wide open, and the House went into an agitation upon the subject, to which all that had gone before was only a prelude. The struggle lasted for more than four months, during which period pet.i.tions for the abolition of slavery in the District, signed by over thirty thousand persons, were poured into the House. The slavery question was at last brought before the people of the United States in a way most highly satisfactory to the most radical Abolitionist, and no matter what the immediate compromise upon the subject might be, it was evident to all fa.r.s.eeing minds then that a death-blow had been struck at slavery.

[Sidenote: The Pinckney resolutions.]

There is not s.p.a.ce in this work to recount the scenes enacted on the floor of the House during these four exciting months, or even to give a resume of the debate. {261} The conflict was ended for the moment by the adoption, on May 25th (1836), of a series of resolutions reported by a committee appointed for the purpose, of which Mr. Pinckney, of South Carolina, was the chairman. These resolutions provided: "That Congress possesses no const.i.tutional authority to interfere in any way with the inst.i.tution of slavery in any of the States of this Confederacy; that Congress ought not to interfere with slavery in the District of Columbia; and whereas it is extremely important and desirable that the agitation of this subject should be finally arrested, for the purpose of restoring tranquillity to the public mind, ... that all pet.i.tions, memorials, propositions, or papers, relating in any way, or to any extent whatsoever, to the subject of slavery, or the abolition of slavery, shall, without being printed or referred, be laid upon the table, and that no further action whatever shall be had thereon."

[Sidenote: The new rule of the House of Representatives in regard to the Abolition pet.i.tions.]

The solution thus reached by the House of the question of the power of the House to control its procedure, over against the right of a number of individuals to excite interminable discussions and paralyze the business of the House by flooding it with pet.i.tions upon one and the same subject, was the laying of all such pet.i.tions on the table _as a rule of the House_.

Of course this rule must be readopted at the beginning of each session, and a debate upon the readoption might be thus precipitated, but, so long as a majority supported the rule, the previous question could be voted after giving a reasonable opportunity to discuss the question of readoption, and such discussion was then not likely to be renewed during the session. It was possible also for pet.i.tions to be {262} presented, at the beginning of the session, before the readoption of the rule, and these could be disposed of only by a special vote in each case to lay upon the table. There were thus still opportunities for the Abolitionists to cause the House to resolve itself into something more like a bear-garden than an a.s.sembly of Witan, as was evident from the scenes which were enacted on February 6th, 1837, when Mr. Adams came into the House with a pet.i.tion in regard to slavery signed by some twenty slaves, and asked the Speaker if it came under the rule for laying such pet.i.tions on the table.

Everybody supposed that the pet.i.tion contained the usual prayer for the abolition of slavery, and that the Abolitionists had incited the slaves to the act. Mr. Adams allowed the excitement produced by this supposition to rage for a time, and then coolly and derisively informed the House that the prayer of the pet.i.tion was not for abolition but against it. The members now felt that Mr. Adams was playing with the peace, order, and dignity of the House in a scandalous way, and for several days the question of censuring him was considered, but the matter was finally disposed of by a resolution declaring: "That slaves do not possess the right of pet.i.tion secured to the people of the United States by the Const.i.tution."

At the beginning of the next session, that of 1837-38, Mr. Slade seized the opportunity to present an abolition pet.i.tion before the re-enactment of the Pinckney rule, and to provoke a debate on the subject of slavery. He was substantially foiled, however, by a vote to adjourn, and, upon rea.s.sembly, by a suspension of the rules and a re-enactment of the resolution to lay everything in reference to slavery on the table. This rule covered all matters relating to slavery in the Territories as well as in the Commonwealths and the District.

{263} [Sidenote: The increase of pet.i.tions, and the denunciation of the Pinckney rule.]

The more the House did to discourage the pet.i.tions the more they increased. In two years from the adoption of the Pinckney resolutions the number of pet.i.tioners was tenfold greater than it was before their enactment. At the same time the legislatures of the New England Commonwealths were pa.s.sing resolutions declaring the rule of the House of Representatives in regard to the abolition pet.i.tions to be a violation of the people's const.i.tutional right, and also declaring that Congress possessed the power to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia.

[Sidenote: The final denial of the right of pet.i.tion on the subject of Slavery by the House of Representatives.]

To meet these demonstrations of increasing strength and increasing determination on the part of the Abolitionists, the House not only repeated its rule, but made it more stringent, until, at last, irritated beyond measure at the persistence of the pet.i.tioners, it took the fatal step, and, on January 8th, 1840, enacted as a standing rule of the House: "That no pet.i.tion, memorial, resolution, or other paper, praying the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, or any State or Territory, or the slave-trade between the States or Territories of the United States in which it now exists, _shall be received by this House, or entertained in any way whatever_."

At last the House had encroached upon the most essential part of the right of pet.i.tion, the right to have the pet.i.tion heard. The moderate men of the South and twenty-eight members from the North had given way before the radical men of the South, and had fallen into the ranks under their lead. The Southern radicals thought that they had won a great victory, but it was not so. They had only identified the denial of the right of pet.i.tion with the interests of slavery. They {264} had only demonstrated that slavery was a matter of national concern, since its interests required that limitations should be placed upon the well understood rights of the people in the non-slaveholding Commonwealths.

They only made it manifest that, sooner or later, the nation must deal with the question. Their most violent enemies could not have wished them a more disastrous result.

[Sidenote: The Abolition pet.i.tions in the Senate.]

The proceedings in the Senate in regard to the Abolition pet.i.tions must be even more concisely stated. The course pursued and the result reached were similar to what has been described in the account of the experiences of the House. The Senate first received and heard the pet.i.tions, and voted immediately to deny their prayer. Then, when it became evident that this would not prevent anti-slavery agitation on the floor of the Senate, the body adopted the custom of hearing a motion not to receive a pet.i.tion, and voting immediately to lay the motion not to receive, and along with it the pet.i.tion itself, on the table. This practice was modified a little later, by a ruling of the presiding officer, to the effect that an objection to the pet.i.tion by any member would raise the question of the reception of the pet.i.tion without a formal motion. Mr. Calhoun had contended for this method of raising the question in regard to the reception of the pet.i.tions from the beginning of the struggle over the subject, in January of 1836. He seemed, however, to desire to dispose of them by simply voting not to receive them. In fact, he made a motion to this effect, at the very outset of the contest, but without success. While thus the Senate did not formally adopt the practice finally reached in the House of refusing to receive the pet.i.tions, it arrived at about the same result in practice. It is true that the presiding officer of the Senate allowed the pet.i.tions to be {265} read before putting the motion upon their reception, which seems to have been an illogical practice indeed, and that any member might move to call up the motion not to receive, and with it the pet.i.tion or pet.i.tions to which that motion referred; but the reading before the motion not to receive, or before the objection to receiving, was perfunctory, and there was no member of the Senate who desired to call up the tabled pet.i.tions or persisted in so doing. As a matter of fact, the public opinion which the Abolitionists succeeded in creating in the North concerning the att.i.tude of the Senate toward the Abolition pet.i.tions was that the Senate had done the same violence to the people's const.i.tutional right of pet.i.tion that the House had done. It was held and believed throughout the North, in 1840, that the Congress of the United States, in both of its branches, had set the interests of slavery above the liberties of the people of the North.

There were two incidents which happened during the course of the proceedings in the Senate upon the subject to which brief reference should be made. One was the noted pa.s.sage of words between Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Rives, of Virginia, in regard to the morality of slavery, and the other was the pet.i.tion from the legislature of Vermont for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia.

[Sidenote: Mr. Rives and Mr. Calhoun in regard to the morality of slavery.]

The Abolitionists had a.s.sumed to have the ethical principle entirely upon their side, and this had not, down to 1836, been clearly disputed by the slaveholders. The slaveholders had, themselves, as we have so often seen, acknowledged slavery to be an evil, and had, therefore, defended it chiefly from the point of view of positive law. Of course so profound a thinker as Mr. Calhoun knew that positive law cannot permanently withstand the {266} a.s.saults of ethical principle. He knew that the moral arguments against slavery must be met upon moral grounds, as well as upon legal grounds. The discussion was carried over upon ethical premises by the remark of Mr. Rives that he, though a slaveholder, was not in favor of slavery in the abstract, and differed on that point with the gentleman from South Carolina. Mr.

Calhoun immediately denied that he had expressed any opinion in regard to the question of slavery in the abstract, and said he had spoken of slavery only "as existing where two races of men, of different color, and striking dissimilarity in conformation, habits, and a thousand other particulars, were placed in immediate juxtaposition." Mr.

Calhoun elaborated his argument in many directions, but the gist of it was that where a civilized race and a barbarous race, nearly equal numerically, must live together, the civilized race must, in the interests of the civilization of both races, control the barbarous race, through the relation of the slavery of the latter to the former, and that the only alternative to this would be the barbarizing of the whole society by the uncontrolled deeds and pa.s.sions of the barbarous race, if the two races are left to themselves, or the establishment of a barbaric despotism over the civilized race, if the barbaric race be aided by successful interference from without. In contrast with either of these conditions, Mr. Calhoun contended that the slavery of the barbarous race to the civilized race was a moral good.

From a metaphysical point of view the only question between Mr. Rives and Mr. Calhoun was whether every departure from the perfect good must be considered an evil, or whether a nearer approximation to the perfect good may be called a good in contrast with a lower approximation. Mr. Rives was looking at the subject {267} from an abstract, transcendental point of view, while Mr. Calhoun was regarding it from the historical point of view. Mr. Rives was with the Abolitionists upon the abstract principle, but against them as to the time and means of applying it. Mr. Calhoun was not against the Abolitionists upon the abstract principle, but the time of its possible application appeared to him so far distant, and the impropriety and unfairness of interference by outsiders in the matter and the disastrous consequences which must flow from such interference seemed to him so plain and so certain, that he almost lost sight of the abstract height upon which the Abolitionists stood behind the many intervening elevations, which must be first attained and traversed in order to reach their position.

[Sidenote: The moral ground upon which Calhoun and the Abolitionists could have met.]

There was a possible moral ground upon which Mr. Calhoun and the Abolitionists might have met. Could the Abolitionists have conceived that the existence of certain conditions would justify domestic slavery as a relation which could _temporarily_ produce a better state of morals in a particularly const.i.tuted society than any other relation, that is, could they have taken the historical view of ethics, the evolutionary view of morals, and could Mr. Calhoun have seen that the time had come for a modification of the existing form of negro slavery in the South, for a step toward a greater degree of personal liberty for the slave, an approach between him and them might have been, at least, begun; but their implacable dogmatism, and his stern resentment at their persistent interference in what he thought no concern of theirs, widened the gulf between him and them from day to day. They regarded him as a sinner and a criminal because he held persons to service and labor who had not freely agreed to the same, and he {268} considered them to be greater sinners and criminals because they would overturn the existing order of society in communities where they had no personal interests to be affected, and would introduce into these communities the reign of plunder, rapine, and murder.

[Sidenote: Mr. Calhoun's resolutions in regard to the political relations of slavery.]

When Mr. Calhoun saw that he could not bring the Senate to refuse formally to receive the Abolition pet.i.tions, he undertook to bring the Senate over to his views of the "States' sovereignty" character of the Union, of the obligation of the general Government to protect slavery in the slaveholding Commonwealths, of the ethical obligation of the people of the non-slaveholding Commonwealths not to attack the inst.i.tution of slavery, and of the practical impotence of Congress to deal with slavery in the District of Columbia and in the Territories.

He did not, however, succeed. The Senate did not repudiate his "States' sovereignty" view of the Union, but, while it was willing to say that neither the Northern Commonwealths nor the Northern people had any legal right to attack slavery under moral or religious pretexts, it would not say that they were under moral or religious obligations to abstain from the attack. Neither would the Senate say that the general Government must so exercise its powers as to give increased security to slavery, nor that the general Government had no power over the subject of slavery in the District and the Territories.

It modified these demands of Mr. Calhoun so as to make them read, that the general Government should not so exercise its powers as to interfere with the security of the domestic inst.i.tutions of the Commonwealths, and that the general Government ought not in good faith to undertake to abolish slavery in the District or in the Territories, except under certain conditions.

{269} [Sidenote: The anti-slavery pet.i.tion from the Vermont legislature.]

The immediate occasion of the presentation of these resolutions of December 27th, 1837, by Mr. Calhoun, was probably the other incident to which reference has been made, the introduction, by Senator Swift, of Vermont, of a pet.i.tion from the legislature of Vermont praying for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. This shaft had struck Mr. Calhoun in his most vulnerable part. Here was, according to his own doctrine, a "sovereign State" instructing its governmental agent for general affairs. Could that agent refuse to receive the instructions of one of his princ.i.p.als? There certainly was no precedent for any such procedure as that in any system of jurisprudence known to the world. Mr. Calhoun recognized fully the embarra.s.sment of his position. He begged that the communication from the Vermont legislature might lay upon the table until he could prepare his mind for action upon the subject, and pledged himself to call it up very shortly, if no one else should do so. Mr. Swift helped the Senate, and Mr. Calhoun especially, out of the dilemma by withdrawing the pet.i.tion for the time being. This incident occurred on December 19th.

Mr. Swift a.s.sumed that Mr. Calhoun's resolutions of the 27th contained the results of his preparation of mind to meet the Vermont memorial, and after the consideration of them by the Senate, Mr. Swift reintroduced the memorial on January 16th (1838). The Southerners had been thrown into such confusion by the _coup de surprise_ sprung upon them by the Vermonters that they had not been able to agree upon any plan for meeting the exigency. Some of them denounced the action of the Vermont legislature as incendiary, outrageous, and degrading. Mr.

King gave his "States' sovereignty" creed entirely away in saying: "We {270} defend the legitimate rights of the States, but we do not defend a sovereign State when she a.s.serts calumny and falsehood."

Mr. Calhoun was measured in his language, but evidently greatly disturbed in mind. He said that as a "States' rights" man, in the strongest sense, he believed that the "State" of Vermont had a right to come there and be heard; that, on the best reflection he could give to the matter, he could not vote against receiving the pet.i.tion; but that, on the other hand, he considered the language of the memorial so objectionable that he could not vote to receive it.

It does seem as if this incident should have taught Mr. Calhoun the fallacy of his logic in insisting upon the power of the Senate to refuse to receive a pet.i.tion. Here was a case in which his doctrine of parliamentary procedure had absolutely broken down, according to his own acknowledgment. Mr. Strange, of North Carolina, committed the folly of objecting to the reception of the pet.i.tion, and moving that the question of reception, and with it the pet.i.tion, be laid on the table. The motion was defeated by a vote of twenty-six to twelve. The memorial was received and the debate upon it was in order. The Southerners were helpless, and had not Mr. Swift himself come to their rescue, no man can say what would have happened. Mr. Swift moved that the papers from the Vermont legislature be laid upon the table, without being printed. They had accomplished their immediate purpose, and it was wise as well as patriotic to let them rest in dignity and honor.

[Sidenote: The Abolition doc.u.ments and the United States mails.]

The Abolitionists were more successful in their attempt to use the United States mails for the distribution of their literature throughout the South. During the course of the year 1835, it became known that {271} their opinions and doctrines were being disseminated by this means. The Southerners considered these opinions to be incendiary and dangerous to the peace and safety of their communities and their firesides. They thought that they had the legal right to prevent the delivery of such mail matter in their respective communities. They did not wait, however, to deal with the subject through legal forms. On the night of July 29th, 1835, a mob of respectables broke into the post-office at Charleston, S. C., in search of Abolition doc.u.ments. They found a sack full of them, took it away with them, and publicly burned its contents. On August 4th following, a meeting of the citizens took place, at which a committee of public safety was elected, which should, in understanding with the postmaster, determine what mail matter should not be delivered by him to the addressees. The postmaster apparently acquiesced in this arrangement, but he wrote, upon his own responsibility, a letter to the postmaster of New York City, whence the Abolition pamphlets had come, requesting him not to forward any more such doc.u.ments. The postmaster at New York endeavored to induce the Abolitionists not to put any more of their literature into the mails until he could receive instructions from the Postmaster-General at Was.h.i.+ngton in regard to the question; and when the Abolitionists repelled his request, he refused to forward their doc.u.ments, pending his conference with the Postmaster-General.

[Sidenote: The Postmaster-General's ruling in regard to the Abolition doc.u.ments in the mails.]

The Postmaster-General, Mr. Amos Kendall, one of the shrewdest of politicians, though no great const.i.tutional lawyer, answered the appeal from the postmaster at New York immediately. He instructed his subordinate that the executive power of the Government had no legal authority to exclude mail matter, as defined by {272} Congress, from the mails on account of the character of its contents, real or supposed. If Mr. Kendall had stopped with this he would have been entirely correct; but he went on to say that he would not direct the postmaster at New York to forward the Abolition doc.u.ments or the postmaster at Charleston to deliver them, commended their a.s.sumption of the responsibility of withholding them from the addressees, and declared that the United States officials owed an obligation to the laws of the United States, but a higher one to the communities in which they lived. Mr. Kendall probably meant this part of his communication as the advice of one private citizen to another. Looked at in the most charitable light possible, however, it was unjustifiable and pernicious. It was nothing less than an encouragement to his subordinates to suspend the execution of the laws which they were appointed to execute and sworn to execute, when in their several opinions the welfare of the communities in which they might live should require it. This was nullification, not by a "State"

convention, but by an individual United States officer. How the President, who had always so sternly denounced any attempt to prevent the execution of the laws, could approve this is difficult to understand. His indignation at the Abolitionists in persisting in what he considered an abuse of the freedom of the mails probably blinded him to the real significance of the matter.

[Sidenote: Jackson on the use of the mails by the Abolitionists.]

In his message of the following December, the President denounced the methods of the Abolitionists in sending their incendiary literature into the South as calculated and intended to excite a servile war with all its horrors, and recommended Congress to pa.s.s a law prohibiting, "under severe penalties, the circulation in the Southern States, {273} through the mail, of incendiary publications intended to instigate the slaves to insurrection."

Mr. Calhoun himself moved the reference of this part of the President's message to a select committee in the Senate. Mr. Calhoun was appointed the chairman of the committee, and on February 4th, 1836, he brought in a report and a bill.

[Sidenote: Mr. Calhoun's report and bill on the subject.]

In the report Mr. Calhoun took the ground that the freedom of the mails was a necessary part of the freedom of the press, and argued that, as Congress was prohibited by the first amendment to the Const.i.tution from pa.s.sing any law abridging the freedom of the press, so Congress possessed no power to pa.s.s any law excluding mail matter from the mails on account of the character of its contents or authorizing such matter to be withheld from the addressees. Mr.

Calhoun's conclusion was that only the "States" could make such laws as would effect these things. He proposed in his bill, therefore, that no deputy postmaster in any "State," Territory, or district of the Union should knowingly receive and put into the mail any printed or written paper or pictorial representation touching the subject of slavery, addressed to a person or a post-office within any "State,"

Territory, or district in which the circulation of such papers and representations was forbidden by the local laws; that the officers and agents of the Post-Office Department should co-operate with the local officials in preventing the circulation of such papers and representations where their circulation was prohibited by the local laws; that the matter so detained from transmission by a post-office official should be burned, after one month's notice, if the person depositing the same should not claim it within that period; and that the post-office officials who should violate these duties should not be {274} protected by the laws of the United States against the jurisdiction of the local law and government.

[Sidenote: Clay's criticism of Calhoun's proposition.]

Mr. Clay immediately pointed out the fatal weaknesses of this proposition. He argued that it attributed to Congress either the power to adopt the laws of the "States" upon subjects in regard to which Congress itself had not the power to legislate, or the power to pa.s.s laws in execution of laws which it had no power to make. The argument was unanswerable, and the conclusion was unavoidable that if Congress could not itself pa.s.s a law excluding the Abolition papers and doc.u.ments from the mail, or forbidding their delivery to the addressees, it could not enact Mr. Calhoun's proposition. After four months of deliberation the Senate rejected the proposed bill by a vote of twenty-five to nineteen. Mr. Calhoun thus lost the aid of the general Government in his contest with the Abolitionists over the use of the mails chiefly through his exaggerated "States' rights"

doctrine.

[Sidenote: The act of Congress protecting the Abolition doc.u.ments in the mails.]

Encouraged by this victory, the friends of free mails succeeded in having a provision incorporated into the Act of July 2nd, 1836, for changing the organization of the Post-Office Department, which ordains that any postmaster intentionally detaining any mail matter from the addressees shall be fined and imprisoned, and incapacitated to hold thereafter the office of a postmaster in the United States.

[Sidenote: General results of the struggle over the right of pet.i.tion and the freedom of the mails.]

It would not be extravagant to say that the whole course of the internal history of the United States from 1836 to 1861 was more largely determined by the struggle in Congress over the Abolition pet.i.tions and the use of the mails for the distribution of the Abolition literature than by anything else.

{275} In the first place, it did more than anything else to make a political party out of the Abolitionists, through the conviction which it produced throughout the North that the demands of the slavery system in the South would ultimately destroy civil and political liberty in the North, and it increased the strength of the Abolitionists an hundredfold in less than four years. The development and ultimate triumph of this party in the North became inevitable from the moment that it was clearly recognized that the preservation of slavery at the South required and demanded the denial of the freedom of speech and of the press, and of the right of pet.i.tion, to the people of the North.