The Crisis Of Eighteen Hundred And Sixty-One In The Government Of The United States Part 5

Let us sift this unparalleled scheme of impudence and see whether it is going to be productive of permanent good to any one except to those who are desirous of involving us in anarchy and ruin.

Supposing the Republicans should abandon their principles, which seem to be the terms upon which peace is offered, and, in 1864, the Democrats should succeed in electing the President upon the slave-extension platform, and the Republicans, feeling that their interests were likely to be trampled upon by the dominant party, should say to the Democracy that, unless said Democrats would abandon the principles of their party, and secure the Republicans against the exercise of their principles in the future, by an amendment to the const.i.tution itself, they (the Republicans) would dissolve this Union? It will be observed that, if one party has the right to demand concessions, the other party has the same right, consequently it would not be the majority that would rule, but the minority. Neither have we any guarantee that, by granting the present demands, that other and still more absurd and threatening demands will not be made. We are now called upon to incorporate into the const.i.tution certain additional rights and privileges for slavery; and what is the threatened penalty that is offered to the freemen of this nation if they fail to grant what is demanded? Why it is nothing less than a complete overthrow and destruction of this government--and yet the Republicans are taunted with the charge of being the cause of all the consequences of the great calamity that seems awaiting our destruction. I call especial attention to this subject, more particularly in consequence of the probable effort that will be made to force what is called the "Crittenden Amendment," upon the people. It should be remembered that Mr. Crittenden proposes, not only to give all the territory south of 36 30' to the slave interests, but all the territory hereafter acquired.

The restoration of the Missouri Compromise sounds very smooth and pleasant to the ear, but is it the Missouri Compromise that Mr. Crittenden proposes to restore? Far from it. Let us look at the broad difference between the two measures, and see whether there is not something that looks as though there was deception, of the deepest dye, about to be practiced upon those who are desirous of preserving the territories free from the blighting curse of slavery. We have heard much about the Missouri Compromise, also about Mr. Crittenden's amendment, and, for the benefit of those who are not familiar with the two measures, we will give them both in full. The following is all that relates to the inst.i.tution of slavery in what is called the Missouri Compromise:

"SEC. 8. _And be it further enacted_, That, in all the territory ceded by France to the United States, under the name of Louisiana, which lies north of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes north lat.i.tude, not included within the limits of the State contemplated by this act, (meaning Missouri,) slavery and involuntary servitude, otherwise than in the punishment of crime, whereof the parties shall have been duly convicted, shall be and is hereby forever prohibited; provided, always, that any person escaping into the same, from whom service is lawfully claimed in any State or Territory of the United States, such fugitive may be lawfully re-claimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or her services as aforesaid."

It will be perceived that the above section does not establish slavery anywhere, but, on the contrary, it prohibited it in all the territory north of 36 30' north lat.i.tude, while south of that (we can only infer for there is nothing explicit on the subject) the people were to have slavery or not as they might decide amongst themselves. But, in order to the more fully understanding the effect of the Missouri Compromise, it is necessary to know the amount of territory belonging, at that time, to the United States, lying south of said above mentioned line. The territory that now const.i.tutes the State of Arkansas, and a small tract of Indian territory, which now belongs to four tribes of Indians, to-wit: the Chickasaws, Seminoles, Cherokees, and Choctaws, all of which territory, including that of Arkansas, is not much larger than the State of Missouri, was all the territory that remained of the Louisiana purchase, belonging to the United States, south of 36 30' north lat.i.tude, at the time of the pa.s.sage of said compromise. How different, in effect, from the above is the Crittenden amendment. Let us see. The following is the said amendment that is harped about as being a restoration of the Missouri Compromise.

Read and behold the difference:

"WHEREAS, Serious and alarming dissensions have arisen between the Northern and Southern States, concerning the rights and security of the rights of slaveholding States, and especially their rights in the common territory of the United States; and whereas, it is eminently desirable and proper that these dissensions, which now threaten the very existence of this Union, should be permanently quieted and settled by const.i.tutional provisions, which shall do equal justice to all sections, and thereby restore to the people that peace and good will which ought to prevail between all the citizens of the United States: Therefore,

"_Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress a.s.sembled_, (two-thirds of both houses concurring,) That the following articles be, and are hereby proposed and submitted as amendments to the Const.i.tution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of said Const.i.tution, when ratified by conventions of three-fourths of the several States:

"ART. 1. In all the territory of the United States now held, or hereafter acquired, situated north of lat.i.tude 36 deg. 30 min., slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, is prohibited while such territory shall remain under territorial government. In all the territory south of said line of lat.i.tude, slavery of the African race is hereby recognized as existing, and shall not be interfered with by Congress, but shall be protected as property by all the departments of the territorial government during its continuance. And when any territory, north or south of said line, within such boundaries as Congress may prescribe, shall contain the population requisite for a member of Congress according to the then federal ratio of representation of the people of the United States, it shall, if its form of government be republican, be admitted into the Union, on an equal footing with the original States, with or without slavery, as the const.i.tution of such new State may provide.

"ART. 2. Congress shall have no power to abolish slavery in places under its exclusive jurisdiction, and situate within the limits of States that permit the holding of slaves.

"ART. 3. Congress shall have no power to abolish slavery within the District of Columbia, so long as it exists in the adjoining States of Virginia and Maryland, or either, nor without the consent of the inhabitants, nor without just compensation first made to such owners of slaves as do not consent to such abolishment. Nor shall Congress at any time prohibit officers of the Federal Government, or members of Congress, whose duties require them to be in said District, from bringing with them their slaves, and holding them as such during the time their duties may require them to remain there, and afterwards taking them from the District.

"ART. 4. Congress shall have no power to prohibit or hinder the transportation of slaves from one State to another, or to a Territory, in which slaves are permitted to be held, whether that transportation be by land, navigable rivers, or by sea.

"ART. 5. That in addition to the provisions of the third paragraph of the second section of the fourth article of the Const.i.tution of the United States, Congress shall have power to provide by law, and it shall be its duty so to provide, that the United States shall pay to the owner who shall apply for it, the full value of his fugitive slave in all cases when the Marshal or other officer, whose duty it was to arrest said fugitive, was prevented from so doing by violence, or when, after arrest, said fugitive was rescued by force, and the owner thereby prevented and obstructed in the pursuit of his remedy for the recovery of his fugitive slave under the said clause of the Const.i.tution and the laws made in pursuance thereof. And in all such cases, when the United States shall pay for such fugitive, they shall have the right, in their own name, to sue the county in which said violence, intimidation, or rescue was committed, and to recover from it, with interest and damages, the amount paid by them for said fugitive slave. And the said county, after it has paid said amount to the United States, may, for its indemnity, sue and recover from the wrong doers or rescuers, by whom the owner was prevented from the recovery of his fugitive slave, in like manner as the owner himself might have sued and recovered.

"ART. 6. No future amendment to the Const.i.tution shall affect the five preceding articles; nor the third paragraph of the second section of the first article of the Const.i.tution; and no amendment shall be made to the Const.i.tution which shall authorize or give to Congress any power to abolish or interfere with slavery in any of the States by whose law it is, or may be, allowed or permitted.

"And whereas, also, beside those causes of dissension embraced in the foregoing amendments proposed to the Const.i.tution of the United States, there are others which come within the jurisdiction of Congress, and may be remedied by its legislative power; and whereas it is the desire of Congress, as far as its power will extend, to remove all just cause for the popular discontent and agitation which now disturb the peace of the country, and threaten the stability of its inst.i.tutions: Therefore,

"1. _Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America_, in Congress a.s.sembled, That the laws now in force, for the recovery of fugitives, are in strict pursuance of the plain and mandatory provisions of the const.i.tution, and have been sanctioned as valid and const.i.tutional by the judgment of the Supreme Court of the United States: that the slaveholding States are ent.i.tled to the faithful observance and execution of those laws, and that they ought not to be repealed, or so modified or changed as to impair their efficiency; and that laws ought to be made for the punishment of those who attempt, by rescue of the slave or other illegal means, to hinder or defeat the due execution of said laws.

"2. That all State laws which conflict with the fugitive slave acts of congress, or any other const.i.tutional acts of congress, or which in their operation impede, hinder or delay the free course and due execution of any of said acts, are null and void by the plain provisions of the const.i.tution of the United States; yet those State laws, void as they are, have given color to practices, and led to consequences, which have obstructed the due administration and execution of acts of congress and especially the acts for the delivery of fugitive slaves, and have thereby contributed much to the discord and commotion now prevailing. Congress, therefore, in the present perilous juncture, does not deem it improper respectfully and earnestly to recommend the repeal of those laws to the several States which have enacted them, or such legislative corrections and explanations of them as may prevent their being used or perverted to such mischievous purposes.

"3. That the act of the 18th of September, 1850, commonly called the fugitive slave law, ought to be so amended as to make the fee of the commissioner, mentioned in the 8th section of the act, equal in amount, in the cases decided by him, whether his decision be in favor of or against the claimant. And to avoid misconstruction, the last clause of the 5th section of said act, which authorises the person holding the warrant for the arrest or detention of a fugitive slave, to summon to his aid the _posse comitatus_, and which declares it to be the duty of all good citizens to a.s.sist him in its execution, ought to be amended so as to expressly limit the authority and duty to cases in which there shall be resistance or danger of resistance or rescue.

"4. That the laws for the suppression of the African slave trade, and especially those prohibiting the importation of slaves in the United States, ought to be made effectual, and ought to be thoroughly executed, and all further enactments necessary to those ends ought to be promptly made."

The above is unblus.h.i.+ngly urged upon the people by some portions of the Democracy as being eminently conservative, and, above all, a middle ground, upon which all patriots should be willing to stand or fall for the Union; but as for me I am entirely unable to see that there is any middle ground about it. What can we understand by this proposition? Is it not granting all the South have ever asked? When, and wherein, have they asked more? Could Mr. Yancey himself have made out a stronger doc.u.ment? And yet, we are told that the South are making great concessions when they submit to this measure, and cease to commit treason against the government. In the name of enlightened reason, I ask, could there be a greater insult offered to the free men of this nation, than to demand of them the sanction of the above proposed amendment, and thus engraft it into the Const.i.tution of this government, claiming, as we do, to be the freest government in the world.

Upon an examination of Mr. Crittenden's proposition, it will be perceived that he irrevocably consigns to slavery all the Territory that we now have, or may hereafter acquire, south of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes, north lat.i.tude, and north of that line he leaves the matter for the people to decide when they come to form a State government. By comparing this measure with the Missouri Compromise, it will be perceived that Mr. Crittenden proposes to leave the northern territory in the same condition that the Missouri Compromise left the territory south of said line.

But let us view this beautiful doc.u.ment of Mr. Crittenden's a little further, and see how modestly the people of the free States are asked to pay for Sambo whenever he gets it into his head to emigrate northward, provided some one or more of his sable brethren should chance to advise those whose duty it may be to invite Sambo to return to the "Sunny South,"

to make tracks with the heels towards the shanty, and allow Sambo to remain where the winters are longer. Yes, we are asked by Mr. C. to pay for Sambo whenever the marshal, whose duty it is to arrest him, is _intimidated_. This sounds most beautiful. Let the people once agree to this and we would soon have the privilege of paying for hundreds of thousands, I might say millions, of the refractory portion of the slave population, and in order to understand these fully, the consequences of adopting Mr. Crittenden's amendment, it will be well for us to estimate the probable number of the slave population in the future, as well as their inclination to escape.

It is a well known fact, that if the slave population should increase for the next eighty years as fast as they have for the past eighty years, they will amount to between forty and fifty millions of inhabitants. Now let us imagine that number of slaves, with the natural increase of intelligence, together with a corresponding decrease of the preponderance of African blood in their veins, and it will not take a very strong imaginative individual to perceive that the number of fugitives will increase at a fearful rate, and to such an extent that it would impoverish the whole nation to pay for them. By a careful examination of Mr.

Crittenden's amendment it will be perceived that it provides for recovering the value of the slave, by the United States, of the county in which said violence, INTIMIDATION, or rescue was committed.

Now let us suppose that this should become a part and parcel of the Const.i.tution of the United States, and some one or more of the States should pa.s.s laws nullifying said provision, and at the same time demand a revision of the Const.i.tution in such a manner as to annul said clause, as a condition that they would remain in the Union, will our Union-saving friends be willing to meet the case by granting the demand, or will they stand up for the enforcement of the laws and the preservation of the Union? If so, then why not a.s.sist in enforcing the laws against South Carolina or any other State that proposes to nullify the Const.i.tution and the laws made in pursuance thereof. Partisan prejudice cannot prevent any person from seeing that if one portion of the people have the right to make a demand for concessions, then any and all other portions are ent.i.tled to the exercise of the same right, and where such demands have been complied with in one case, there is no rule whereby they could justly be denied in another. Is there not great danger that by granting the South what they are now demanding, especially since the demand is accompanied with threats of such a grave character, we will establish a precedence that will sap the very principle upon which our government is based? In all Democratic governments it is the duty of every individual to submit to the laws duly enacted by a const.i.tutional majority; and whenever one portion of the people rebel against said laws they become not only traitors to their country but to the very principles upon which self government is founded. In view of this, it is clear to me that to make any concession, under the existing menacing threats, would be to offer a bounty to all future conspirutors against the government, and thus endanger the peace of our country for all time to come. Such being the case, why talk about compromises and concessions. Let us enforce obedience to the present government before we talk of compromises. To treat with men who bid defiance to the supreme law of the land, who are now engaged in open and active treason against the government, would be humiliating to every true American citizen, and a disgrace to us as a nation, besides showing to the world the most _positive_ evidence of our weakness; but on the other hand let firmness and justice be the order of the day, and although war may ensue let the consequences rest with those who are trying to overthrow this great temple of freedom, and we shall outride the threatend storm and transmit to posterity, unimpaired, this sacred legacy, bequeathed to us by our forefathers and sealed by their blood. We will then have shown ourselves worthy of the free inst.i.tutions we have inherited, and our children's children will be stimulated by our example to extra exertions to perpetuate and strengthen the bonds that is to preserve this nation in all its destined magnificent grandeur.

In conclusion, let me exhort my fellow-countrymen to stand or fall by our country. Let us not forget that our fathers, as well as we, loved peace and abhorred the calamities of war; and although the most of them have long since "gone to that bourne from which no traveler returns," yet when they were called to their country's service, they were surrounded by all the endearing ties which we now enjoy. Many a son received the mother's last parting blessing, and bid her his last farewell this side of the grave. Husbands bid their wives an affectionate adieu, to meet no more on earth; and many a bitter tear has flown from the weeping eyes of the loved ones in that lonely home, bereft of a father, husband, or brother who has fallen in the deadly struggle for the liberties we have inherited. And should we prove recreant to our trust, the immortal spirits of those n.o.ble-hearted, self-sacrificing patriots who fell while struggling with a powerful tyrant in front, and a deadly savage foe in the rear, to gain the freedom of this our beloved country, would rise up from their graves and rebuke us for our low, cringing cowardice. No, my fellow-countrymen, you will not be found wanting for courage--you will not allow this temple of freedom to be destroyed--you will stand by the Const.i.tution and the Union, and prove yourselves worthy of your n.o.ble ancestry.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Spirit of Laws, Vol. I, Book IX, Chapter I.

[2] I mean for the Union.

[3] Joseph Story, LL. D., although a most bitter political opponent of Gen. Jackson, in his commentaries on the const.i.tution of the United States, thus refers to the proclamation:

"While this sheet was pa.s.sing through the press, President Jackson's proclamation of the 10th of December, 1832, concerning the recent ordinance of South Carolina on the subject of the tariff, appeared. That doc.u.ment contains a most elaborate view of several questions, which have been discussed in this and the preceding volume, especially respecting the supremacy of the laws of the Union; the right of the judiciary to decide upon the const.i.tutionality of those laws; and the total repugnancy to the const.i.tution of the modern doctrine of nullification a.s.serted in that ordinance. As a State paper it is ent.i.tled to very high praise for the clearness, force and eloquence, with which it has defended the rights and powers of the national government. I gladly copy into these pages some of its important pa.s.sages, as among the ablest commentaries ever offered upon the const.i.tution."

[4] We are happy to say that within a few days he has dismissed some, and others, disgusted with their own acts, have withdrawn.

[5] John Fries was a noted leader in what was called the Whisky Rebellion, which became so formidable in 1794 that President Was.h.i.+ngton issued a proclamation exhorting all persons to desist from any proceedings tending to prevent the execution of the laws. This did not have the desired effect, however, and it became necessary for the President to order out a strong force, numbering some 15,000 men. This argument seemed conclusive and convincing to the rebels of that day, consequently they returned to their several avocations, and by this means quiet was restored. But at that time, as well at the present, there were numerous sympathizers with the traitors, which created a strong and powerful party against the administration of General Was.h.i.+ngton; but he knew his whole duty, and performed it unhesitatingly, regardless of the denunciations of those who were ever ready to excuse the turbulent for committing treason.

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