In total disregard of history, the President, in his annual message, tells us that this compromise “was reluctantly acquiesced in by Southern States.” Just the contrary is true. It was the work of slaveholders, and by their concurring votes was crowded upon a reluctant North. It was hailed by slaveholders as a victory. Charles Pinckney, of South Carolina, in an oft quoted letter, written at eight o’clock on the night of its passage, says: “It is considered here by the Slaveholding States as a great triumph.”[68] At the North it was accepted as a defeat, and the friends of Freedom everywhere throughout the country bowed their heads with mortification. Little did they know the completeness of their disaster. Little did they dream that the prohibition of Slavery in the territory, which was stipulated as the price of their fatal capitulation, would also, at the very moment of its maturity, be wrested from them.
Time passed, and it became necessary to provide for this territory an organized government. Suddenly, without notice in the public press, or the prayer of a single petition, or one word of open recommendation from the President, after an acquiescence of thirty-four years, and the irreclaimable possession by the South of its special share under this compromise, in breach of every obligation of honor, compact, and good neighborhood, and in contemptuous disregard of the outgushing sentiments of an aroused North, this time-honored Prohibition—in itself a Landmark of Freedom—was overturned, and the vast region now known as Kansas and Nebraska was opened to Slavery. It is natural that a measure thus repugnant in character should be pressed by arguments mutually repugnant. It was urged on two principal reasons, so opposite and inconsistent as to fight with each other: one being, that, by the repeal of the Prohibition, the Territory would be left open to the entry of slaveholders with their slaves, without hindrance; and the other being, that the people would be left absolutely free to determine the question for themselves, and to prohibit the entry of slaveholders with their slaves, if they should think best. With some the apology was the alleged rights of slaveholders; with others it was the alleged rights of the people. With some it was openly the extension of Slavery; and with others it was openly the establishment of Freedom, under the guise of Popular Sovereignty. The measure, thus upheld in defiance of reason, was carried through Congress in defiance of all securities of legislation. These things I mention that you may see in what foulness the present Crime was engendered.
It was carried, first, by whipping in, through Executive influence and patronage, men who acted against their own declared judgment and the known will of their constituents; secondly, by thrusting out of place, both in the Senate and House of Representatives, important business, long pending, and usurping its room; thirdly, by trampling under foot the rules of the House of Representatives, always before the safeguard of the minority; and, fourthly, by driving it to a close during the very session in which it originated, so that it might not be arrested by the indignant voice of the People. Such are some of the means by which this snap judgment was obtained. If the clear will of the people had not been disregarded, it could not have passed. If the Government had not nefariously interposed, it could not have passed. If it had been left to its natural place in the order of business, it could not have passed. If the rules of the House and the rights of the minority had not been violated, it could not have passed. If it had been allowed to go over to another Congress, when the People might be heard, it would have been ended; and then the Crime we now deplore would have been without its first seminal life.
Mr. President, I mean to keep absolutely within the limits of parliamentary propriety. I make no personal imputations, but only with frankness, such as belongs to the occasion and my own character, describe a great historical act, now enrolled in the Capitol. Sir, the Nebraska Bill was in every respect a swindle. It was a swindle of the North by the South. On the part of those who had already completely enjoyed their share of the Missouri Compromise, it was a swindle of those whose share was yet absolutely untouched; and the plea of unconstitutionality set up—like the plea of usury after the borrowed money has been enjoyed—did not make it less a swindle. Urged as a bill of peace, it was a swindle of the whole country. Urged as opening the doors to slave-masters with their slaves, it was a swindle of Popular Sovereignty in its asserted doctrine. Urged as sanctioning Popular Sovereignty, it was a swindle of slave-masters in their asserted rights. It was a swindle of a broad territory, thus cheated of protection against Slavery. It was a swindle of a great cause, early espoused by Washington, Franklin, and Jefferson, surrounded by the best fathers of the Republic. Sir, it was a swindle of God-given, inalienable rights. Turn it over, look at it on all sides, and it is everywhere a swindle; and if the word I now employ has not the authority of classical usage, it has, on this occasion, the indubitable authority of fitness. No other word will adequately express the mingled meanness and wickedness of the cheat.
Its character is still further apparent in the general structure of the bill. Amidst overflowing professions of regard for the sovereignty of the people in the Territory, they are despoiled of every essential privilege of sovereignty. They are not allowed to choose Governor, Secretary, Chief Justice, Associate Justices, Attorney, or Marshal,—all of whom are sent from Washington; nor are they allowed to regulate the salaries of any of these functionaries, or the daily allowance of the legislative body, or even the pay of the clerks and door-keepers: but they are left free to adopt Slavery. And this is nicknamed Popular Sovereignty! Time does not allow, nor does the occasion require, that I should stop to dwell on this transparent device to cover a transcendent wrong. Suffice it to say, that Slavery is in itself an arrogant denial of human rights, and by no human reason can the power to establish such a wrong be placed among the attributes of any just sovereignty. In refusing it such a place, I do not deny popular rights, but uphold them, I do not restrain popular rights, but extend them. And, Sir, to this conclusion you must yet come, unless deaf, not only to the admonitions of political justice, but also to the genius of our Constitution, under which, when properly interpreted, no valid claim for Slavery can be set up anywhere in the National territory. The Senator from Michigan [Mr. Cass] may say, in response to the Senator from Mississippi [Mr. Brown], that Slavery cannot go into the Territory, under the Constitution, without legislative introduction; and permit me to add, in response to both, that Slavery cannot go there at all. Nothing can come out of nothing; and there is absolutely nothing in the Constitution out of which Slavery can be derived, while there are provisions, which, when properly interpreted, make its existence anywhere within the exclusive National jurisdiction impossible.
The offensive provision in the bill is in its form a legislative anomaly, utterly wanting the natural directness and simplicity of an honest transaction. It does not undertake openly to repeal the old Prohibition of Slavery, but seems to mince the matter, as if conscious of the swindle. It says that this Prohibition, “being inconsistent with the principle of non-intervention by Congress with Slavery in the States and Territories, as recognized by the legislation of 1850, commonly called the Compromise Measures, is hereby declared inoperative and void.” Thus, with insidious ostentation, is it pretended that an act violating the greatest compromise of our legislative history, and loosening the foundations of all compromise, is derived out of a compromise. Then follows in the bill the further declaration, entirely without precedent, which has been aptly called “a stump speech in its belly,” namely, “it being the true intent and meaning of this act not to legislate Slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States.”[69] Here are smooth words, such as belong to a cunning tongue enlisted in a bad cause. But whatever may have been their various hidden meanings, this at least is evident, that, by their effect, the Congressional prohibition of Slavery, which had always been regarded as a seven-fold shield, covering the whole Louisiana Territory north of 36° 30´, is now removed, while a principle is declared which renders the supplementary prohibition of Slavery in Minnesota, Oregon, and Washington “inoperative and void,” and thus opens to Slavery all these vast regions, now the rude cradles of mighty States. Here you see the magnitude of the mischief contemplated. But my purpose is with the Crime against Kansas, and I shall not stop to expose the conspiracy beyond.
Mr. President, men are wisely presumed to intend the natural consequences of their conduct, and to seek what their acts seem to promote. Now the Nebraska Bill, on its very face, openly clears the way for Slavery, and it is not wrong to presume that its originators intended the natural consequences of such an act, and sought in this way to extend Slavery. Of course they did. And this is the first stage in the Crime against Kansas.
This was speedily followed by other developments. It was soon whispered that Kansas must be a Slave State. In conformity with this barefaced scheme was the Government of this unhappy Territory organized in all its departments; and thus did the President, by whose complicity the Prohibition of Slavery was overthrown, lend himself to a new complicity,—giving to the conspirators a lease of connivance, amounting even to copartnership. The Governor, Secretary, Chief Justice, Associate Justices, Attorney, and Marshal, with a whole caucus of other stipendiaries, nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate, are all commended as friendly to Slavery. No man with the sentiments of Washington or Jefferson or Franklin finds favor; nor is it too much to say, that, had these great patriots once more come among us, not one of them, with his recorded, unretracted opinions on Slavery, could be nominated by the President or confirmed by the Senate for any post in that Territory. With such auspices the conspiracy proceeded. Even in advance of the Nebraska Bill, secret societies were organized in Missouri, ostensibly to protect her institutions, and afterwards, under the name of “Self-Defensive Associations” and “Blue Lodges,” these were multiplied throughout the western counties of that State, before any counter movement from the North. It was confidently anticipated, that, by the activity of these societies, and the interest of slaveholders everywhere, with the advantage derived from the neighborhood of Missouri and the influence of the Territorial Government, Slavery might be introduced into Kansas, quietly, but surely, without arousing conflict,—that the crocodile egg might be stealthily dropped in the sunburnt soil, there to be hatched, unobserved until it sent forth its reptile monster.
But the conspiracy was unexpectedly balked. The debate, which convulsed Congress, stirred the whole country. From all sides attention was directed upon Kansas, which at once became the favorite goal of emigration. The bill loudly declares that its object is “to leave the people perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way”; and its supporters everywhere challenge the determination of the question between Freedom and Slavery by a competition of emigration. Thus, while opening the Territory to Slavery, the bill also opens it to emigrants from every quarter, who may by votes redress the wrong. The populous North, stung by sense of outrage, and inspired by a noble cause, are pouring into the debatable land, and promise soon to establish a supremacy of numbers there, involving, of course, a just supremacy of Freedom.