The Life of Jefferson Davis

by Frank H. Alfriend

I think it now appears that, in the minds of the gentlemen, non-intervention is a shadowy, unsubstantial doctrine, which has its application according to the circumstances of the case. It ceased to apply when it was necessary to annul an act in Kansas in relation to the political rights of the inhabitants. It had no application when it was necessary to declare that the old French laws should not be revived in the Territory of Kansas after the repeal of the Missouri Compromise; but it rose an insurmountable barrier when we proposed to sweep away the Mexican decrees, usages, or laws, and leave the Constitution and laws of the United States unfettered in their operation in the Territory acquired from Mexico. It thus seems to have a constantly varying application, and, as I have not yet reached a good definition, one which quite satisfies me, I must take it as I find it in the Senator’s speech, in which he says Alabama asserted the doctrine of non-intervention in 1856. The Alabama resolutions of 1856 asserted the right to protection, and the duty of the Federal Government to give it. So, if he stands upon the resolutions of Alabama in 1856, non-intervention is very good doctrine, and exactly agrees with what I believe—no assumption, by the Federal Government, of any powers over the municipal territorial governments which is not necessary; that the hand of Federal power shall be laid as lightly as possible upon any territorial community; that its laws shall be limited to the necessities of each case; that it shall leave the inhabitants as unfettered in the determination of their local legislation as the rights of the people of the States will permit, and the duty of the General Government will allow. But when non-intervention is pressed to the point of depriving the arm of the Federal Government of its one great function of protection, then it is the doctrine which we denounce—which we call squatter sovereignty; the renunciation by Congress, and the turning over to the inhabitants a sovereignty which, rightfully, it does not belong to the one to grant or the other to claim, and, further and worse, thus to divest the Federal Government of a duty which the Constitution requires it to perform.

To show that this view is not new—that it does not rest singly on the resolutions of Alabama, I will refer to a subject, the action upon which has already been quoted in this debate—the Oregon Bill. During the discussion of the Oregon Bill, I offered in the Senate, June 23, 1848, an amendment which I will read:

“Provided, That nothing contained in this act shall be so construed as to authorize the prohibition of domestic slavery in said Territory, whilst it remains in the condition of a Territory of the United States.”

Upon this, I will cite the authority of Mr. Calhoun, in his speech on the Oregon Bill, June 27, 1848:

“The twelfth section of this bill is intended to assert and maintain this demand of the non-slaveholding States, while it remains a Territory, not openly or directly, but indirectly, by extending the provisions of the bill for the establishment of the Iowa Territory to this, and by ratifying the acts of the informal and self-constituted government of Oregon, which, among others, contains one prohibiting the introduction of slavery. It thus, in reality, adopts what is called the Wilmot proviso, not only for Oregon, but, as the Bill now stands, for New Mexico and California. The amendment, on the contrary, moved by the Senator from Mississippi, near me [Mr. Davis], is intended to assert and maintain the position of the slave-holding States. It leaves the Territory free and open to all the citizens of the United States, and would overrule, if adopted, the act of the self-constituted Territory of Oregon, and the twelfth section, as far as it relates to the subject under consideration. We have thus fairly presented the grounds taken by the non-slave-holding and the slave-holding States, or as I shall call them, for the sake of brevity, the Northern and Southern States, in their whole extent, for discussion.”—Appendix to Congressional Globe, Thirtieth Congress, first Session, p. 868.

I will quote also one of the speeches which he made near the close of his life, at a time when he was so far wasted by disease that it was necessary for him to ask the Senator from Virginia, who sits before me [Mr. Mason], to read the speech which his tameless spirit impelled him to compose, but which he was physically unable to deliver; and once again he came to the Senate chamber, when standing yet more nearly on the confines of death; he rose, his heart failing in its functions, his voice faltered, but his will was so strong that he could not realize that the icy hand was upon him, and he erroneously thought he was oppressed by the weight of his overcoat. True to his devotion to the principles he had always advocated, clinging, to the last hour of his life, to the duty to maintain the rights of his constituents, still he was here, and his honored, though feeble, voice was raised for the maintenance of the great principle to which his life had been devoted. From the speech I read as follows:

“The plan of the administration can not save the Union, because it can have no effect whatever towards satisfying the States composing the Southern section of the Union, that they can, consistently with safety and honor, remain in the Union. It is, in fact, but a modification of the Wilmot proviso. It proposes to effect the same object—to exclude the South from all territory acquired by the Mexican treaty. It is well known that the South is united against the Wilmot proviso, and has committed itself, by solemn resolutions, to resist should it be adopted. Its opposition is not to the name, but that which it proposes to effect. That, the Southern States hold to be unconstitutional, unjust, inconsistent with their equality as members of the common Union, and calculated to destroy irretrievably the equilibrium between the two sections. These objections equally apply to what, for brevity, I will call the executive proviso. There is no difference between it and the Wilmot, except in the mode of effecting the object; and in that respect, I must say that the latter is much the least objectionable. It goes to its object openly, boldly, and distinctly. It claims for Congress unlimited power over the Territories, and proposes to assert it over the territories acquired from Mexico by a positive prohibition of slavery. Not so the executive proviso. It takes an indirect course, and, in order to elude the Wilmot proviso, and thereby avoid encountering the united and determined resistance of the South, it denies, by implication, the authority of Congress to legislate for the Territories, and claims the right as belonging exclusively to the inhabitants of the Territories. But to effect the object of excluding the South, it takes care, in the meantime, to let in immigrants freely from the Northern States, and all other quarters, except from the South, which it takes special care to exclude by holding up to them the danger of having their slaves liberated under the Mexican laws. The necessary consequence is to exclude the South from the Territories, just as effectually as would the Wilmot proviso. The only difference, in this respect, is, that what one proposes to effect directly and openly, the other proposes to effect indirectly and covertly.

“But the executive proviso is more objectionable than the Wilmot in another and more important particular. The latter, to effect its object, inflicts a dangerous wound upon the Constitution, by depriving the Southern States, as joint partners and owners of the Territories, of their rights in them; but it inflicts no greater wound than is absolutely necessary to effect its object. The former, on the contrary, while it inflicts the same wound, inflicts others equally great, and, if possible, greater, as I shall next proceed to explain.

“In claiming the right for the inhabitants, instead of Congress, to legislate for the Territories, the executive proviso assumes that the sovereignty over the Territories is vested in the former, or, to express it in the language used in a resolution offered by one of the Senators from Texas [General Houston, now absent], they ‘have the same inherent right of self-government as the people in the States.’ The assumption is utterly unfounded, unconstitutional, without example, and contrary to the entire practice of the Government, from its commencement to the present time, as I shall proceed to show.”—Calhoun’s Works, vol. 4, p. 562.

Mr. Davis. I find that I must abridge, by abstaining from the reading of extracts. When this question arose in 1820, Nathaniel Macon, by many considered the wisest man of his day, held the proposed interference to be unauthorized and innovative. In arguing against the Missouri Compromise, as it was called—the attempt by Congress to prescribe where slaves might or might not be held—the exercise, by the Federal Government north of a certain point, of usurped power by an act of inhibition, Mr. Macon said our true policy was that which had thus far guided the country in safety: the policy of non-intervention. By non-intervention he meant the absence of hostile legislation, not the absence of governmental protection. Our doctrine on this point is not new, but that of our opponents is so.