CHAPTER XVII.
THE ORGANIZATION OF OREGON TERRITORY AND THE COMPROMISE OF 1850
[Bills for Oregon Territory]—[Thirty-six Degrees and Thirty Minutes to the Pacific]—[Mr. Rhett on the Rights of the South in the Territories]—[The Third Oregon Bill]—[The Party Platforms of 1848]—[The President Urges the Organization of California and New Mexico]—[Mr. Clayton's Attempt at Compromise]—[Passage of the Oregon Bill by Congress]—[The Free-soil Party in 1848]—[The President's Approval of the Oregon Bill]—[Gold and Silver in California]—[The Election of Taylor, and the Disaffection of the Northern Democrats]—[Plans for the Organization of California and New Mexico]—[The House Bill for the Territorial Organization of Upper California]—[Mr. Walker's Scheme in the House]—[Mr. Webster and Mr. Berrien on the Status of Slavery in the Territory Acquired from Mexico]—[Emigration to California]—[President Taylor's Scheme]—[The Convention at Monterey]—[The Policy of the Administration]—[The Policy of the Slavery Extensionists]—[The Elements of the Slavery Question in Congress]—[Mr. Clay's Plan of Compromise]—[Objections to Mr. Clay's Plan]—[California's Application for Admission]—[Mr. Calhoun's Last Speech]—[Mr. Webster's March 7th Speech]—[Mr. Bell's Proposition]—[The Death of Mr. Calhoun]—[Mr. Foote's Motion and the Committee of Thirteen]—[The Report and Recommendations of the Committee]—[The Debate Upon the Bills Proposed by the Committee, and the Failure to Pass Them]—[The Temper of the Country]—[The Succession of Fillmore and His Message of August 6th]—[The Passage of Bills, Separately, Covering All Questions Contained in Mr. Clay's Compromise Measures.]
| First bill for Oregon Territory. |
On August 6th, 1846, Mr. Douglas, of Illinois, chairman of the committee on Territories, asked the House of Representatives to consider a bill prepared by that committee for the organization of Oregon as a Territory. The House consented, and immediately upon the second reading of the bill, Mr. Thompson, of Pennsylvania, a Democrat and friend of the Administration, moved to amend the bill by the provision "that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in said Territory, except for crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." The amendment was adopted by a very large majority, and the bill, as thus amended, was passed. On the following day, the bill was presented in the Senate, and referred by that body to its Judiciary committee, which committee did not report the bill during the session.
| The second bill. |
At the beginning of the next session, Mr. Douglas introduced a new bill for the same purpose. This bill virtually contained the Thompson amendment in the proviso that all the restrictions in the Ordinance of 1787, in regard to the Northwest Territory, should apply to Oregon.
| Thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes to the Pacific. |
On January 12th, 1847, Mr. Burt, of South Carolina, moved to insert before this proviso the words, "inasmuch as the whole of the said Territory lies north of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes north latitude, known as the line of the Missouri Compromise." The purpose of this was, of course, to commit Congress and the North to that line to the Pacific. This was so evident that the Northern members voted the amendment down. We can, however, hardly charge the invention of this idea to the South Carolinian. On August 8th preceding, Mr. Wick, of Indiana, had moved to amend the Wilmot proviso, so as to make it read, that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude should exist, in any territory acquired from Mexico north of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes.
| Mr. Rhett on the rights of the South in the Territories. |
It was during the debate on this bill, just after Mr. Burt's amendment had been rejected, that Mr. Rhett, of South Carolina, made his noted speech, in which the new view, which the South was now beginning to take upon the rights of the two sections in the Territories, was first pronounced. That view was, briefly expressed, that the "States" were joint owners of the Territories, and "co-Sovereigns" in them; that the general Government was only the agent of the "States" therein, and had only the power "to dispose of, and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory, or other property of the United States," from which power, the power to determine in what property should consist within the Territories could not be derived; and that the "ingress of the citizen" of any "State" into any Territory, "is the ingress of his Sovereign," his "State," who is bound to protect him in his settlement.
Mr. Rhett qualified this conclusion by saying that it did not mean that each "State" should set up government in the Territories over its citizens immigrating into them, but that it meant that the citizens of each "State" should have equal right to enter the Territories and settle and occupy them with their property, with whatever was recognized as property by their respective "States." Stated more clearly, it meant that the general Government must execute the laws of each "State;" defining and protecting property, in each Territory of the Union—of each "State" from which citizens had emigrated into the Territory concerned—and must execute these several "State" laws over the immigrants from the several "States" separately.
In plain, blunt Anglo-Saxon, it meant that the general Government must recognize and protect, as property, in any Territory, anything which was so recognized and protected by any "State" of the Union. It meant the establishment of slavery in every Territory of the Union.
This was a new doctrine in 1847, and it could not immediately prevail, but its appearance is a mark of the progress which the political system of the United States was making toward confederatism and dissolution.
| The failure of the bill in the Senate. |
The bill passed the House on January 16th, 1847, by a vote of nearly four to one, and was immediately sent to the Senate. The Senate referred it to its Judiciary committee. The committee reported on it, and the bill was laid on the table, the last day of the session.
| The third Oregon bill. |
During the next session, bills were introduced into both Houses for organizing Oregon as a Territory. On January 10th, 1848, Mr. Douglas, who had been transferred from the House to the Senate, presented in the Senate a bill for the organization of a Territorial government for Oregon, which provided, among other things, that the laws which the Oregon settlers had constructed for themselves should, in so far as they were compatible with the Constitution and laws of the United States, remain in force until the Territorial legislature should change them. These laws excluded slavery. Here was the germ of "squatter-sovereignty," afterward developed by Mr. Douglas in his Kansas-Nebraska bill.
The House bill, containing substantially the same provision as the bill of the preceding session, was introduced on February 9th, 1848, but this time it met with much more opposition, and the discussion on it revealed the fact that Mr. Rhett's doctrine had, within the year, made many converts.
| The President urging action on the bill. |
The bills were dragging along slowly in both Houses, when, on May 29th, the President sent a special message to Congress urging immediate action on the subject. This gave some impetus to the proceedings in both Houses.
| Mr. Hale's amendment. Mr. Davis' amendment. |
On May 21st, Mr. Hale, of New Hampshire, moved to amend the Senate bill by a provision excluding slavery, and insisted upon the power and the duty of Congress to settle the question of slavery in the Territories, and to settle it in the interest of freedom. The debate in the Senate upon Mr. Hale's motion was long and acrimonious, during which the Southerners advanced to more and more radical ground, until Mr. Calhoun and his disciple, Mr. Jefferson Davis, expressed the same constitutional doctrine upon the subject of the extension of slavery to the Territories as Mr. Rhett had done, which was, in brief, that neither Congress nor the inhabitants of a Territory had any constitutional power to abolish slavery in, or exclude it from, a Territory. On June 23rd, Mr. Davis moved to amend the Oregon bill by the provision that nothing in the bill should be so construed as to authorize the prohibition of domestic slavery in said Territory while it remained in the condition of a Territory. The direct contradiction between the two amendments expressed, at last, the difference of attitude now assumed between the North and the South upon the question of the extension of slavery.
| The party platforms of 1848. |
It cannot be said, however, that it represented the difference of attitude of the two great parties upon the subject. The National conventions of these parties for the nominations of candidates for the presidency had just been held. The convention of the Democratic party had refused to insert the declaration in its platform that Congress had no power to interfere with slavery in the Territories, in spite of the fact that the candidate nominated by it, General Cass, had acknowledged a leaning to something akin to that view, some five months previous, in a letter to Mr. Nicholson, of Tennessee, which was probably intended for circulation in the South. The exact wording of Mr. Cass' letter does not warrant us in representing him as holding to anything more, at that time, than that it was sound policy for Congress to leave the matter of the admission of slavery to, or its exclusion from, the Territories to the people of the Territories themselves. It was hardly time for Northern men to take the view of Congressional impotence in the matter held by Messrs. Rhett, Calhoun, and Davis.
On the other hand, the convention of the Whig party had refused to make the principle of the Wilmot proviso a plank in its platform, in fact had dodged the whole question of principles by adopting no platform at all, and by nominating a military man, with no political record at all, for its candidate, the old hero of Buena Vista, General Taylor.
The contradiction of view upon the question of the extension of slavery to the Territories was, thus, not one between the parties, but one between the sections. The parties were yet to be transformed by the differences between the sections. That this was to be the outcome no far-seeing eye ought then to have failed to perceive.
| The President urges the organization of California and New Mexico. |
For a fortnight more the confusion produced by the contradictory propositions of Mr. Hale and Mr. Davis paralyzed the efforts of the Senate to pass the Oregon bill, when, on July 6th, 1848, the President sent a special message to Congress urging the immediate organization of Territorial governments for California and New Mexico, which were still under the military régime established at the time of their occupation.
| Mr. Clayton's attempt at compromise. |
It appeared to some of the Senators that here was now offered the opportunity for settling the whole question of the extension of slavery to the Territories, by compromise; and, on July 12th, Mr. Bright, of Indiana, moved to refer the whole matter of the organization of Territorial governments in Oregon, California, and New Mexico, to a select committee, composed of four Whigs and four Democrats, two of each party from the North and the South, respectively. Mr. Bright's motion was in the form of an amendment or suggestion to a motion made by Mr. Clayton, that the Oregon bill be referred to such a committee. Mr. Clayton accepted Mr. Bright's modification of his motion, and the Senate immediately voted the resolution, and appointed the committee, with Mr. Clayton as chairman.
On the 18th, Mr. Clayton reported the bill from his committee, which provided for the organization of Oregon, with its existing anti-slavery laws, and with the recognition of the power to the Territorial legislature to change them; and for the organization of California and New Mexico, referring the question of the legality of slavery in them to the Territorial courts, with appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, as a constitutional question. That is, the proposition with reference to slavery in California and New Mexico was, that slaveholders might take their slaves into these Territories upon their own responsibility, and that if any slaveholder should be disturbed in the possession of his slave, he might bring an action in the Territorial courts against the party disturbing him, with the right of appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, which final tribunal should determine the question as a matter of constitutional law, and, therefore, upon its own independent interpretation of the Constitution.
| Passage of Mr. Clayton's bill in the Senate, and rejection of it in the House. |
The Senate debated this bill for a week, during which time the flimsy character of the makeshifts became painfully apparent. The Senate passed the bill, however, on the 26th, and sent it to the House.
The House rejected it, and proceeded with its own bill, and, on August 2nd, passed the latter by a strict sectional vote, and sent it to the Senate for concurrence.
| The House bill in the Senate, and Mr. Douglas' amendment. Passage of the Oregon bill by Congress. |
On the 10th, the Senate passed this bill, with an amendment, proposed by Mr. Douglas, extending the Missouri Compromise line of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes to the Pacific. The House immediately rejected the amendment, and the Senate was compelled to recede, or let Oregon go without Territorial government. It wisely voted, on the 12th, to recede from its amendment, and passed the bill, with the Congressional prohibition of slavery, and without compromise as to the settlement of the slavery question in California and New Mexico. Among the Senators who changed their votes upon the amendment were Douglas from the North, and Benton and Houston from the South.
| The Free-soil party in 1848. |
The feeling aroused outside of Congress by the contest within the body was most intense, and had, for its permanent result the organization of the Anti-slavery-extension party. It called itself then the "Free-soil" party. It held a National convention at Buffalo, New York, on August 9th, and nominated Mr. Van Buren for the presidency, on a platform which distinctly affirmed the power of Congress to exclude slavery from the Territories, and its duty to exercise the power. Here was, at last, the principle and the party of the future. Those who composed it held to the Union and the Government, vindicated the national character of both, and while they denied none of the constitutional rights of the Southern Commonwealths, and none of the compromises of the Constitution with the slaveholders, yet they refused to allow the great evil under which the country suffered to spread into regions uncontaminated by it.
| The President's approval of the Oregon bill. |
The President signed the Oregon bill, on August 14th, for the reason, he said, among other reasons, that it preserved the principle of the Missouri Compromise, making the territory north of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes free soil. And in his message of December 5th, following, he urged the speedy organization of California and New Mexico, either upon that principle, or upon the principle of non-interference by Congress with the question of slaveholding in them, or upon the basis of an appeal of the question to the Supreme Court of the United States, which body should interpret the Constitution upon the subject. He said he believed the first way contained the true principle, and was the fair thing, but that he was willing to proceed in either of the other two ways.
| Gold and silver in California. |
At the same time, the President gave official verification to the rumors of the discovery of great quantities of gold and silver in California, which quickened the emigration of the bold and adventurous spirits from all parts of the country to the new El Dorado.
| The election of Taylor, and the disaffection of the Northern Democrats. Plans for the organization of California and New Mexico. |
The temper of Congress against slavery extension was even stronger in the session of 1848-49, than in the preceding session. The Whig majority in the House of Representatives remained, and now came a support to the anti-slavery-extension principle of the Northern Whigs from Northern Democrats, which had not been before accorded. The elections of 1848 had greatly surprised the Northern Democrats. The Whig candidate, General Taylor, carried a majority of the Southern Commonwealths, and was chosen President. The Democrats of the North considered that they had been left in the lurch by the Democrats of the South, and came to the session of 1848-49 with revenge in their hearts. They were disposed to join hands with the Northern Whigs against the extension of slavery into any more of the Territories of the Union. This spirit was, however, far more manifest in the House of Representatives than in the Senate. On December 11th, 1848, Mr. Douglas brought into the Senate a plan for avoiding the question in respect to slavery in California and New Mexico, by immediately erecting the whole of the territory acquired from Mexico into a single Commonwealth, and reserving the right to Congress to create new Commonwealths in that part of this territory lying east of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. This proposition was referred to the Judiciary committee for report; but before the report was presented Mr. Smith, of Indiana, chairman of the committee on Territories, brought in bills for the organization of Upper California and New Mexico, with the slavery restriction of the Ordinance of 1787 in them. On January 9th, 1849, Mr. Berrien, chairman of the Judiciary committee, reported adversely upon Mr. Douglas' proposition, on the grounds, alleged by him, that Congress could not create a Commonwealth, but could only admit a Commonwealth into the Union after it had been created by the sovereign act of the people residing in it, for the performance of which act the status of Territorial organization was necessary, and that Congress could never constitutionally disconnect from any Commonwealth any portion of its territory for the purpose of forming it into another Commonwealth, without the consent of the Commonwealth itself.
| Mr. Douglas' plan. |
Mr. Douglas immediately modified his bill so as to meet the latter objection; and on January 24th, offered a substitute for his former proposition, which provided for a Commonwealth of California that would not quite cover the territory which the Mexicans included under the title of the Province of Upper California. On Mr. Douglas' own motion, this proposition was referred to a select committee, of which he was appointed chairman; and, on the 29th, he reported a bill from the committee for forming the territory acquired from Mexico into two Commonwealths, to be called California and New Mexico; but the Senate showed so much opposition to the project that it was dropped. More than half the session had now passed, and the Senate appeared to be farther than ever from any consensus in regard to what should be done for California and New Mexico. It was a serious condition of things. The inhabitants of these Territories were importunately demanding the establishment of civil government over them for the protection of life, liberty, and property, and Congress was apparently to do nothing for them during the current session.
| Mr. Walker's expedient. |
On February 19th, Mr. Walker, of Wisconsin, came forward in the Senate with an expedient. He moved to attach to the Civil and Diplomatic Appropriation Bill a provision for extending the Constitution, and the laws of the United States naturally applicable, over all the territory acquired from Mexico, and for authorizing the President to make all needful rules and regulations, and to appoint civil officials, for their execution. The Senate passed this amendment, and sent the Appropriation Bill thus modified back to the House for concurrence.
| The House bill for the Territorial organization of Upper California. |
Meanwhile the bill in the House for the Territorial organization of Upper California, with the slavery prohibition clause in it, was proceeding through a most exciting debate, but with increasing prospect of final passage. On February 27th, it was passed, by an almost sectional vote, and sent to the Senate. The Senate referred it to its committee on Territories, and there it slept as in "the tomb of all the Capulets."
| Mr. Walker's scheme in the House. |
On March 1st, the House took up the Senate's amendment to the Civil and Diplomatic Appropriation Bill, and referred it to the committee on Ways and Means. This committee reported, on March 2nd, an amendment to the Senate's amendment, which provided for the continuance of the status of military possession and of the Mexican laws in all the territory acquired from Mexico, until six months after the close of the next session of Congress. The purpose of this amendment was the continuance of the Mexican law excluding slavery. The House did not, however, adopt this proposition, but sent the Appropriation Bill back to the Senate stripped of the Senate's amendment. The Senate asked a conference upon the subject, which was granted by the House, but the Conference committee could come to no agreement.
| Mr. Webster and Mr. Berrien on the status of slavery in the territory acquired from Mexico. |
The House now passed the proposition of the Ways and Means committee, slightly modified in form, and sent it to the Senate. Mr. Webster moved concurrence with the House in this proposition, and said that it meant no more than the existing status, which would continue if nothing were done. Mr. Berrien contended, on the contrary, that only the private law of the ceding country, the law regulating the relations between individuals, remains in force in the territory ceded, until changed by the positive acts of the country receiving the cession; that the public law of the receiving country is extended at once, by virtue of the occupation, over the cession; and that slavery was a part of the public law of the United States, since both the system of taxation and that of representation rested in part upon it. Mr. Berrien concluded from these postulates of international and constitutional law that, if Congress did nothing in the premises, the President would continue to administer, by means of his military officials, the private law of Mexico, and the public law of the United States, in the territory acquired from Mexico, and that this would allow slaveholders to take their slaves into this territory, and hold them in slavery; but that if Congress, by a positive enactment, should adopt the Mexican laws, en bloc, for this territory, slavery would be thereby excluded from it. In a word, he demonstrated, or thought he did, that the proposition of the House of Representatives contained the principle of the Wilmot proviso. The Senate was so deeply impressed by Mr. Berrien's argument, and so much opposition to the proposition of the House was manifested, that Mr. Webster offered to withdraw his motion, if the Southerners would agree to recede from the Senate's amendment. The bargain was struck, and the Thirtieth Congress expired without having done anything for the governmental organization of California and New Mexico, and without having advanced, in the slightest measure, toward the solution of the fateful question of slavery extension in the vast empire conquered from Mexico.
| Emigration to California. |
The official announcement made by President Polk of the mineral wealth of California had increased the excitement for emigration thither to a fever, and by the close of the spring of 1849, California had a population within her provincial limits numerous enough, according to prevailing conceptions, to make a Commonwealth.
| President Taylor's scheme. |
The new President, Taylor, thought that all further controversy about the Territorial organization of California might now be avoided, by skipping the Territorial period and status altogether, and organizing California immediately as a Commonwealth. He sent a commissioner to examine the situation on the ground and make report. Whether the commissioner imparted the President's scheme to General Riley, the military Governor, or not, we are not informed. We have good reason, however, to suspect it, since Riley immediately issued a call for a convention of the people of California to frame a Commonwealth.
| The convention at Monterey. |
The people quickly responded by choosing delegates, and the delegates met at Monterey on September 1st, 1849. By October 13th, their work was completed, and the organic law which they drafted was ratified by the people, on November 13th. One of its provisions was the prohibition of slavery. The filling up of California by immigration had been too sudden for the holders of slaves to take part in the movement. It was accomplished, it could be accomplished, only by bold, alert, shrewd adventurers, untrammelled by families or stupid African retainers. It was reported that every delegate in the convention voted for the prohibition of slavery, and the people ratified the instrument containing it by a vote of fifteen to one.
| The policy of the Administration. |
The President informed Congress, in his message of December 4th, 1849, of the proceedings in California, and manifested his desire to admit California into the Union at once. He also predicted that the people of New Mexico would soon follow the example of the Californians. The policy of the Administration in reference to this question was thus clearly defined, and was, whether intentional or not, a policy favorable to the prohibition of slavery in both California and New Mexico. The slaveholders, or rather the slavery extensionists, regarded the President's position as treachery to his section.
| The policy of the slavery extensionists. |
The policy of the slavery extensionists was to organize California and New Mexico as Territories, without the prohibition of slavery in them, giving thus time and opportunity for slaveholders to settle in them, with their slaves, and, when the time should come for the formation of Commonwealth governments in them, to vote an organic law perpetuating slavery. This policy was manifested anew in the bill introduced into the Senate, on the last day of December, 1849, by Mr. Foote, of Mississippi, for the organization of the entire Mexican cession into three Territories—California, Deseret or Utah, and New Mexico.
| The elements of the slavery question in Congress. |
The slavery question in Congress had now come, however, to include more than the matter of the governmental organization of the territory acquired from Mexico. There was, in the first place, the question of the Texas boundary, in that, by the Joint Resolution annexing Texas, the adjustment of that boundary, as regarded foreign states, at least, was reserved to Congress. Texas, as we know, claimed the Rio Grande from mouth to source, and thence the longitude to the forty-second parallel of latitude as her southwestern and western boundary. She came into the Union with a law on her statute book asserting this boundary. The Treaty with Mexico, recognizing the line of the Rio Grande to the limits of New Mexico, and ceding New Mexico, made the question of the Texan boundary a purely internal question for the United States, if it was any longer a question. The Abolitionists and anti-slavery-extensionists wanted to reduce Texas in area, since slavery was established by the law of the Commonwealth throughout its entire extent. They therefore interpreted the Resolution of annexation as reserving that power to Congress, even after the question had become purely internal. The slavery extensionists, on the contrary, contended that the power reserved to Congress in reference to the Texan boundary was now obsolete, since it expressly related only to the adjustment of the same with Mexico, and that had been accomplished by the Treaty. Then, there was the war debt of Texas, which was justly a charge upon the United States—although the Resolution of annexation repudiated it—since it was hypothecated upon revenue, the proceeds from which were being covered into the United States Treasury, the customs collected in the Texan ports. And, then, there was the question of the rendition of fugitive slaves, since the execution of the existing law, that of 1793, in regard to this matter, had been rendered so difficult by the movements of the Abolitionists, after 1835, as to make a more strenuous measure necessary, unless the slaveholders would abandon their constitutional rights to the rendition of their escaped slaves. And, lastly, there was the ever-recurring question of slavery and the slave-trade in the District of Columbia, which was still clamoring for a hearing.
Already, before the closing week of January, 1850, had bills been brought forward, both in the Senate and in the House, touching all of these subjects, except, perhaps, the last, when, on the 29th, Mr. Clay came forward with his famous proposition for the adjustment of them all in one grand scheme.
| Mr. Clay's plan of compromise. |
This proposition provided, in the first place, for the immediate admission of California as a Commonwealth, with suitable boundaries, and without any restrictions as to slavery; in the second place, for the establishment of Territorial governments in all of the remainder of the Mexican cession, without any restrictions as to slavery; in the third place, for fixing the western boundary of Texas, so as to exclude any portion of New Mexico; in the fourth place, for the assumption of the Texan debt contracted before annexation and hypothecated upon the Texan customs, on condition of the relinquishment by Texas of all claims on New Mexico; in the fifth place, for the abolition of the slave-trade in the District of Columbia, in slaves brought into the District from the outside for the purpose of sale; and in the sixth place, for a more effective law for the rendition of fugitive slaves. The resolutions also contained declarations that slavery did not then exist in any of the territory acquired from Mexico, and that Congress had no power to prohibit or obstruct trade in slaves between the slaveholding Commonwealths.
| Slaveholders' objections to Mr. Clay's plan. |
In spite of the fact that Mr. Clay asked the Senators to consider his propositions carefully before committing themselves, and suggested that they should lay over for a week, the Southern Senators immediately proceeded to attack the plan at several points. They objected to California being allowed to jump the Territorial period of probation and preparation for Commonwealth government. They declared Mr. Clay's dictum about the existing illegality of slavery in the territory acquired from Mexico to be an assumption, and asserted that slavery was legal everywhere in the United States, unless a positive law forbade it. They vindicated the claims of Texas to the boundaries designated by the Act of the Texan Congress in 1836. And while some of them were not decidedly opposed to the abolition of the slave-trade in the District of Columbia, most of them deprecated meddling with the subject at all, and wanted to substitute for Mr. Clay's proposition on the subject a declaration of the lack of any power in Congress to deal with slavery in the District. The improvement of the fugitive slave-law was about the only thing in the entire plan which met with their approval. Mr. Jefferson Davis said outright that he wanted a positive recognition from Congress of the legality of slavery in the new territory south of the parallel of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes.
| Anti-slavery objections to Mr. Clay's plan. |
On the other hand, the Abolitionists and the anti-slavery-extensionists insisted upon the immediate admission of California, with its anti-slavery constitution; upon the insertion of the principle of the Wilmot proviso in the Territorial organization of the remainder of the acquisition from Mexico; upon the contraction of the Texan limits, without any compensation to Texas; upon the abolition of the slave-trade in the District of Columbia, and a declaration of the power of Congress to deal with slavery in the District; and upon a jury trial, at the place of apprehension, for every claimed fugitive from labor.
| California's application for admission. |
The contradiction between these views appeared irreconcilable. We may say, however, that a start toward an approach was caused by the transmission of California's application to Congress for admission, as a Commonwealth, into the Union.
This happened on February 13th. On the following day, Mr. Douglas moved to take up the President's message accompanying the application, and thus to consider the California question separately from the others. Mr. Clay agreed to this. Mr. Foote, of Mississippi, scolded Mr. Clay for thus betraying the South, but the Southerners were made to feel that they must modify their opposition to Mr. Clay's plan, if they desired to avoid something like this.
| Mr. Calhoun's last speech. |
On March 4th, Mr. Calhoun made his last great speech upon the whole political situation, its threatening character, and its possible rectification. He was too feeble to pronounce it himself, and it was read for him by Senator Mason. Mr. Calhoun's propositions were, that the Union was endangered; that the immediate cause of the danger was the universal discontent prevailing in the South from the feeling that the South could no longer remain with safety and honor in the Union; and that the cause of this feeling was the fact that the balance of power between the two sections of the country in the Government was gone, and the stronger section was endeavoring to make the Government an unlimited centralized democracy, and use it for interfering in the internal affairs of the weaker, and for absorbing the substance, as well as destroying the rights, of the weaker.
He suggested as remedies for the evils, which he thought existed and impended, an equal division of the territory to the Pacific between the North and the South, an amendment to the Constitution restoring the balance of power between the two sections, proper laws for the rendition of fugitives from labor, and cessation of the agitation of the slavery question.
What should be the provisions of the amendment, restoring the balance of power in the Government, and how the cessation of the agitation could be compelled, were not explained. It was not easy to see how these points could be advanced beyond the position of general propositions. It was, however, a great and solemn presentation of the whole question, and it made a great impression.
| Mr. Webster's March 7th speech. |
On March 7th, Mr. Webster made his famous speech, giving his great influence to pacification and compromise, and to the preservation of the Constitution. He told the Northerners that they were bound by the agreement with Texas to admit four new Commonwealths from Texan territory, under the usual conditions; that they were bound by the Constitution to deliver up fugitive slaves; and that since nature had made slavery impossible in California and New Mexico, they ought not to irritate the Southerners by demanding a Congressional prohibition of slavery therein. He told the Southerners, on the other hand, that they should desist from denying to citizens from Northern Commonwealths, temporarily within the jurisdiction of Southern Commonwealths, the rights of citizens. And he told the Abolitionists that they should measure their ideas of right, in some degree at least, by the standard of the common consciousness of the country, and modify them, in some degree, thereby. His words were received with great satisfaction by all moderate and prudent men. Of course, they did not satisfy the extremists, either in the North or the South, but they settled the minds of many who were wavering, and moved the work of temporary pacification, at least, several stages onward.
| Mr. Bell's proposition. |
During the course of the debate upon Mr. Clay's resolutions, and before the great efforts either of Mr. Calhoun or Mr. Webster, Mr. Bell, of Tennessee, had offered some propositions, looking to the admission of California as a Commonwealth, and to the formation of Territorial government for New Mexico. On the day after Mr. Webster's great speech, Mr. Foote moved the reference of Mr. Bell's resolutions to a select committee of thirteen members. No vote, however, was immediately taken, but the debate upon both sets of resolutions dragged on from day to day, and was made more complicated by the introduction of a bill from the committee on Territories, providing for the immediate admission of California, and the formation of Territorial governments for New Mexico and Utah.
| The death of Mr. Calhoun. |
On March 31st, Mr. Calhoun passed away. The announcement of his death, the eulogies pronounced upon his memory, and the funeral rites, were most solemn and impressive occasions. The influence of the sad event seemed, for the moment, to soften the hearts of those who had associated with him toward one another. It seemed as if political foes would be willing to join hands across his bier.
| Mr. Foote's motion and the Committee of Thirteen. |
On April 11th, Mr. Mangum, of North Carolina, moved to refer the resolutions of Mr. Clay, along with those of Mr. Bell, to the committee suggested by Mr. Foote. Mr. Foote accepted Mr. Mangum's motion as an amendment to his own. After a most determined opposition by Senator Benton to Mr. Foote's motion, during which temper rose so high that Mr. Benton threatened to cudgel Mr. Foote, and Mr. Foote actually drew a pistol upon Mr. Benton, both in the course of the debate in the Senate chamber, Mr. Foote's motion was passed. On the next day, April 19th, the members of the committee were chosen by ballot. They were Mr. Clay, Mr. Bell, Mr. Berrien, Mr. Bright, Mr. Cass, Mr. Cooper, Mr. Dickinson, Mr. Downs, Mr. King, Mr. Mason, Mr. Mangum, Mr. Phelps, and Mr. Webster. Seven members, including the chairman, Mr. Clay, were from the South and six from the North.
| The report and recommendations of the committee. |
On May 8th, Mr. Clay made the report, and offered the bills, from the grand committee, covering all the subjects referred. The first bill provided for the admission of California, with the Commonwealth organization formed by her people the preceding autumn; for the Territorial organization of Utah and New Mexico, without any slavery restriction, and with restrictions upon the Territorial legislatures against passing any acts in regard to slavery; for fixing the northern boundary of Texas upon a line drawn from a point on the Rio Grande twenty miles above El Paso to the point on the Red River where the line of the one hundredth degree of longitude intersects this river; for quit-claiming, so to speak, to Texas the claims of the United States to the country between the Nueces and the Rio Grande; and for paying Texas a sum of money, in consideration of the discharge of the United States from all obligations to pay the Texan debt, and of the surrender of all claims by Texas to country north of the northern boundary as fixed in the bill.
The second bill provided that a fugitive from labor must be delivered up on the order of any judge or commissioner of the United States authorized by the laws of the United States so to act, and that such judge or commissioner was authorized to issue such order on presentation to him, by the claimant of the fugitive, of a copy of the record of a competent court in the Commonwealth, Territory, or District from which the fugitive was said to have escaped, before which the facts of ownership, identity, and escape had been satisfactorily proven. The judge or commissioner issuing such order was required, in case the fugitive declared himself to be a free man, to demand of the claimant of the fugitive a bond, with surety, for $1,000, pledging the claimant to accord the fugitive a trial by jury of the question of his freedom, in a competent court of the Commonwealth, Territory, or District from which he was said to have escaped.
The third bill provided for the abolition of the slave-trade in the District of Columbia, and for the liberation of any slave brought into the District for the purposes of sale or dépôt.
| The debate upon the bills proposed by the committee, and the failure to pass them. |
The debate began immediately upon the first bill, and the opposition to it from both sections advanced about the same arguments as were employed against these same subjects when presented in the form of Mr. Clay's resolutions. The discussion continued through May, June, and July, until, at the end of July, nothing remained of the bill but that part of it which provided for the Territorial organization of Utah. The general plan of the compromise was lost.
| The temper of the country. |
The whole country was amazed, disappointed, and angry. The Senators were quickly and decidedly made to feel that they dare not separate without doing something to heal the distractions of the land.
| The succession of Fillmore and his message of August 6th. |
The death of President Taylor, on July 9th, and the accession of Mr. Fillmore, made the Administration more favorable to the measures included in the compromise plan. On August 6th, he communicated to Congress the fact that the Governor of Texas, P. H. Bell, in execution of an act of the Texas legislature, was extending the jurisdiction of Texas over the disputed territory on the eastern border of New Mexico, and that the President, as military Governor, in highest instance, of New Mexico, felt obliged to resist the movement, and that he had informed the Governor of Texas of his purpose. He besought Congress to avert the calamity which now threatened, by attending at once to the matter of the boundary between Texas and New Mexico.
| The passage of bills, separately, covering all the questions contained in Mr. Clay's compromise measures. |
Under this pressure, the Senate took up the Texan boundary bill, introduced by Mr. Pierce, of Maryland, which provided that the northern boundary of Texas should be the parallel of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes from the one hundredth degree of longitude to the one hundred and third degree; that the western and southwestern boundary should be the one hundred and third parallel of longitude from the northern line to latitude thirty-two degrees, thence along this parallel westward to the Rio Grande, thence the Rio Grande to the Gulf; and that ten millions of dollars should be paid Texas for agreeing to this boundary, and for relinquishing all claims on the United States in regard to the payment of her public debt. On August 9th, the bill passed the Senate.
On the 13th, the Senate took up the bill for the immediate admission of California, reported from the committee on Territories, and passed it by a large majority.
On August 15th, the Senate passed the bill from the committee on Territories for the Territorial organization of New Mexico, without any provision as to slavery. The bill for the organization of Utah had passed, it will be remembered, on August 1st, as the remnant of the compromise plan.
The Senate then took up the Fugitive Slave Bill reported in March from the Judiciary committee. Inasmuch as the United States Supreme Court had given its opinion, in the case of Prigg versus Pennsylvania, that Commonwealth officers were not required by the Constitution of the United States to render any assistance in the rendition of fugitive slaves, the Judiciary committee had so constructed its bill as to make use of the machinery of the central Government alone in the execution of the proposed law. The bill was a somewhat more stringent measure than that proposed by Mr. Clay's committee. It did away with the right of a fugitive claiming to be a freeman to a trial by jury of the question of his freedom in a competent court of the Commonwealth, Territory, or District from which he was said to have escaped. It made it the duty of the marshals and deputy marshals of the United States courts to obey and execute all of the warrants and precepts issued under the provisions of the Act. It imposed a penalty of fine and imprisonment upon any person knowingly hindering the arrest of a fugitive, or attempting to rescue one from custody, or harboring one, or aiding one to escape. And it made the fee of the commissioner $10 in case he should issue the certificate of arrest to the claimant of the fugitive, and only $5 in case he should not. Otherwise it was substantially the same as the bill proposed by the Clay committee. The Senate passed this bill, on August 26th.
At last, on September 16th, the Senate passed the bill recommended by Mr. Clay's committee, for the abolition of the slave-trade in the District of Columbia.
One after another, all these bills passed the House of Representatives, against great opposition, but with no material alteration, except the connection of the bill for the organization of Territorial government in New Mexico with that for the adjustment of the Texan boundary, in which change the Senate acquiesced, and were all signed by the President; and before the first session of the Thirty-first Congress expired, on September 30th, 1850, the great work of pacification, as it was hoped and believed to be, had been accomplished.