The Life of Jefferson Davis

by Frank H. Alfriend

Whilst the quotation in the magazine article left me in the position already stated, the debates which had occurred between us necessarily informed the Senator that it was not my position, for I brought him in that debate to acknowledge it.

On that occasion, I argued for my amendment as an obligation of the Government to remove obstructions; to give the fair operation to constitutional right; and so far from the Senator having stood with Mr. Clay against all these propositions, the fact appears, on page 1134 of the Globe, that, upon the vote on Chase’s amendment, Douglas voted for it, and Davis and Clay voted against it; that upon the vote on Davis’ amendment, Clay and Davis voted for it, and Douglas voted against it.

Mr. Douglas. The Senator should add, that that vote was given under the very instructions to which he referred the other day, and which are well known to the Senate, and are on the table.

Mr. Davis. I was aware that the Senator had voted for Mr. Seward’s amendment, the “Wilmot proviso,” under these instructions, but I receive his explanation. Mr. Berrien offered an amendment to change the provision, which said there should be no legislation in respect to slavery, so as to make it read, “there shall be no legislation establishing or prohibiting African slavery.” Mr. Clay voted for that; so did Mr. Davis. Mr. Douglas voted against it. Mr. Hale offered an amendment to Mr. Berrien’s amendment, to add the word “allowing.” Here Mr. Douglas voted for Mr. Hale’s amendment, and against Davis and Clay. Then a proposition was made to continue the Mexican laws against slavery until repealed by Congress. I think I proved—at least I did to my own satisfaction—that there was no such Mexican law; that it was a decree, and that the legislation which occurred under it had never been executed. But that proposition by Mr. Baldwin, which was to continue the Mexican laws in force, was brought to a vote, and again Mr. Douglas voted for it, and Mr. Davis and Mr. Clay voted against it. When another proposition was brought forward to amend by “removing the obstructions of Mexican laws and usages to any right of person or property by the citizens of the United States in the Territories aforesaid,” I do not find the Senator’s name among those who voted, though, by reference to the Appendix, I learned he was present immediately afterwards, by his speaking to another amendment.

Thus we find the Senator differing from me on this question, as was stated; but we do not find him concurring with Mr. Clay, as was stated; and we do not find the proposition which I introduced, and which was mentioned in the magazine article, receiving the joint opposition of himself and Mr. Clay; and yet his remarks in the Senate the other day went upon the same theory, that Mr. Clay and himself had been coöperating. Now, the fact of the case is, that they agreed in supporting the final passage of the bill, and I was against it. I was one of the few Southern men who resisted, in all its stages, what was called the compromise, or omnibus bill. I have consumed the time of the Senate by this reference, made as brief as I could, on account of the remarks the Senator had made.

Coupled with this arraignment of myself, at a time when he says he had leisure to discuss the question with the Attorney-General, but when there was nothing in my position certainly to provoke the revision of my course in Congress, is his like review of it in the Senate. As I understood his remarks, for I did not find them in the Congressional Globe the next morning, he vaunted his own consistency and admitted mine, but claimed his to be inside and mine outside of the Democratic organization. Is it so? Will our votes on test questions sustain it? The list of yeas and nays would, on the points referred to, exhibit quite the reverse. And it strikes me that, on the recent demonstrations we have had, when the Democratic administration was, as it were, put on its trial in relation to its policy in Kansas, the Senator’s associations, rather than mine, were outside of the Democratic organization. How is it, on the pending question—the declaration of great principles of political creed—the Senator’s position is outside of the Senate’s Democracy, and mine in it, so that I do not see with what justice he attempts that discrimination between him and me? That the difference exists, that it involves a division greater or less in Democratic ranks, is a personal regret, and I think a public misfortune. It gives me, therefore, no pleasure to dwell upon it, and it is now dismissed.

Mr. President, after having for forty years been engaged in bitter controversy over a question relating to common property of the States, we have reached the point where the issue is presented in a form in which it becomes us to meet it according to existing facts; where it has ceased to be a question to be decided on the footing of authority, and by reference to history. We have decided that too long had this question been disturbing the peace and endangering the Union, and it was resolved to provide for its settlement by treating it as a judicial question. Now, will it be said, after Congress provided for the adjustment of this question by the courts, and after the courts had a case brought before them, and expressed an opinion covering the controversy, that no additional latitude is to be given to the application of the decision of the court, though Congress had referred it specially to them; that it is to be treated simply and technically as a question of meum et tuum, such as might have arisen if there had been no such legislation by Congress? Surely it does not become those who have pointed us to that provision as the peace-offering, as the means for final adjustment, now to say that it meant nothing more than that the courts would go on hereafter, as heretofore, to try questions of property.

The courts have decided the question so far as they could decide any political question. A case arose in relation to property in a slave held within a Territory where a law of Congress declared that such property should not be held. The whole case was before them; every thing, except the mere technical point that the law was not enacted by a territorial legislature. Why, then, if we are to abide by the decision of the Supreme Court in any future case, do they maintain this controversy on the mere technical point which now divides, disturbs, distracts, destroys the efficiency and the power of the Democratic party? To the Senator, I know, as a question of property, it is a matter of no consequence. I should do him injustice if I left any one to infer that I treated his argument as one made by a man prejudiced against the character of property involved in the question. That is not his position; but I assert that he is pursuing an ignis fatuus—not a light caught from the Constitution—but a vapor which has arisen from the corrupting cess-pools of sectional strife, of faction, and individual rivalry. Measured by any standard of common sense, its magnitude would be too small to disturb the adjustment of the balance of our country. There can be no appeal to humanity made upon this basis. Least of all could it be made to one who, like the Senator and myself, has seen this species of property in its sparse condition on the north-western frontier, and seen it go out without disturbing the tranquillity of the community, as it had previously existed without injury to any one, if not to the benefit of the individual who held it. He has no apprehension, he can have none, that it is to retard the political prosperity of the future States—now the Territories. He can have no apprehension that in that country, to which they never would be carried except for domestic purposes, they could ever so accumulate as to constitute a great political element. He knows, and every man who has had experience and judgment must admit, that the few who may be so carried there have nothing to fear but the climate, and that living in that close connection which belongs to one or half a dozen of them in a family, the kindest relations which it is possible to exist between master and dependent, exist between these domestics and their owners.

There is a relation belonging to this species of property, unlike that of the apprentice or the hired man, which awakens whatever there is of kindness or of nobility of soul in the heart of him who owns it; this can only be alienated, obscured, or destroyed by collecting this species of property into such masses that the owner is not personally acquainted with the individuals who compose it. In the relation, however, which can exist in the north-western Territories, the mere domestic connection of one, two, or, at most, half a dozen servants in a family, associating with the children as they grow up, attending upon age as it declines, there can be nothing against which either philanthropy or humanity can make an appeal. Not even the emancipationist could raise his voice, for this is the high road and the open gate to the condition in which the masters would, from interest, in a few years, desire the emancipation of every one who may thus be taken to the north-western frontier.

Mr. President, I briefly and reluctantly referred, because the subject had been introduced, to the attitude of Mississippi on a former occasion. I will now as briefly say, that in 1851, and in 1860, Mississippi was, and is, ready to make every concession which it becomes her to make to the welfare and the safety of the Union. If, on a former occasion, she hoped too much from fraternity, the responsibility for her disappointment rests upon those who fail to fulfill her expectations. She still clings to the Government as our fathers formed it. She is ready to-day and to-morrow, as in her past, and though brief, yet brilliant history, to maintain that Government in all its power, and to vindicate its honor with all the means she possesses. I say brilliant history; for it was in the very morning of her existence that her sons, on the plains of New Orleans, were announced, in general orders to have been the admiration of one army and the wonder of the other. That we had a division in relation to the measures enacted in 1850, is true; that the Southern rights men became the minority in the election which resulted, is true; but no figure of speech could warrant the Senator in speaking of them as subdued; as coming to him or any body else for quarter. I deemed it offensive when it was uttered, and the scorn with which I repelled it at the instant, time has only softened to contempt. Our flag was never borne from the field. We had carried it in the face of defeat, with a knowledge that defeat awaited it; but scarcely had the smoke of the battle passed away which proclaimed another victor, before the general voice admitted that the field again was ours; I have not seen a sagacious, reflecting man, who was cognizant of the events as they transpired at the time, who does not say that, within two weeks after the election, our party was in a majority; and the next election which occurred showed that we possessed the State beyond controversy. How we have wielded that power it is not for me to say. I trust others may see forbearance in our conduct—that, with a determination to insist upon our constitutional rights, then and now, there is an unwavering desire to maintain the Government, and to uphold the Democratic party.