Slavery: letters and speeches

by Horace Mann

Under these circumstances, a most desperate effort was made at the close of the last Congress to provide a government for the territories with no prohibition of slavery. Had General Cass been elected, no such effort would have been necessary, for he was pledged to veto a prohibition. General Taylor was supposed to be pledged to an opposite course; and hence the struggle. The facts must be so fresh in the recollection of all, that they hardly need to be recounted. The House performed its duty to the country and to freedom, by sending territorial bills to the Senate containing the prohibitory clause. The Senate, equalling the northern by its southern votes, and far outnumbering the Whigs by its Democrats, left those bills to sleep the sleep of death upon its table. But during the closing hours of the session, it foisted a provision for the government of the territories into the general appropriation bill; and held out the menace that this bill should not pass at all, unless the territorial clause should pass with it. The flagitiousness of this proceeding it is difficult to comprehend and impossible to describe. The appropriation bill is one on which the working, and even the continuance of the government, depend. Without it, the machinery of the state must cease to move. Contracts by the government to pay money must be violated. Officers cannot obtain their salaries. Families must be left without subsistence. If long continued, all judges would resign, and courts be broken up; and when justice should cease to be administered, violence, robbery, and every form of crime would run riot through the land.

Besides, an appropriation bill and a bill for the government of territories have no congruity with each other. They are not relevant. Neither is germane to the other. Every one knows it to be a common parliamentary rule that when a proposition is submitted which is susceptible of a division, any one member has a right to demand it. All bills, too, for raising revenue, must, by the constitution, originate in the House; and the House has as much right to interfere to prevent the Senate from ratifying a treaty, as the Senate has to obstruct the passage of a revenue bill by adding to it extraneous provisions. It was this effort on the part of the Senate to incorporate into the appropriation bill a provision most unrighteous in itself and most odious to the free sentiments of the north, which led to the protracted session on the night of the 3d of March, 1849. The course of the pro-slavery leaders, on that occasion, resembled that of a madman who should seize a torch and stand over the magazine of a ship, and proclaim that he would send men and vessel to destruction, unless they would steer for his port. A portion of the House confederated with the majority of the Senate in this unprincipled machination; but the larger number stood undaunted, and after perils, such as so precious an interest never before encountered, the pro-slavery amendment was stricken out, and its champions were foiled. Through that memorable night the friends of freedom wrestled like Jacob with the angel of God, and though the session did not close until the sun of a Sabbath morning shone full into the windows of the capitol, yet a holier work never was done on that holy day.

It was with a joy such as no words can ever express, that I saw the territories rescued from the clutch of slavery by the expiration of the Thirtieth Congress. I felt confident that when the Thirty-first Congress should assemble, it would be under better auspices, and with a stronger phalanx on the side of freedom. In regard to California, those hopes have been fulfilled; but I proceed to state how they have been nearly extinguished in regard to the residue of the territory.

Our first disaster was the election of a most adroit, talented, and zealous pro-slavery speaker. A better organ for the accomplishment of their purposes the friends of slavery could not have found; nor the friends of freedom a more formidable opponent. Whilst the pro-slavery champions of the south, almost without distinction of party, exulted over this triumph, it has been the occasion of most lamentable criminations and recriminations at the north. Southern men abandon all distinctions of Whig or Democrat for the cause of slavery. Would to God we could do as much for the cause of freedom.

The choice of a pro-slavery speaker was immediately followed by the appointment of most ultra pro-slavery committees. Some Free-Soil members, it is true, were placed upon these committees; but in this, the speaker only carried out more fully his own purposes and those of his party, by putting, what they considered as insane men, into close custody, instead of letting them run at large. He showed, however, either a want of courage in himself, or of confidence in his chosen guards; for, on the District of Columbia committee he detailed a file of five, on the judiciary committee a file of four, and on the territorial committee a file of six strong pro-slavery men, for the safe keeping of one Free-Soiler.

Within an hour after the House was organized, Mr. Root, of Ohio, submitted a resolution, instructing the committee on territories to report territorial bills prohibiting slavery. Many true friends to freedom believed this movement to be ill timed and unfortunate; and though the House then refused, by a handsome vote, to lay the resolution on the table, yet when it came up for consideration again, the first decision was reversed by about the same majority. There is abundant proof that the latter vote did not express the true sentiment of the House. Not a few voted against the resolution avowedly because of its paternity,—thus spiting a noble son on account of its obnoxious father. Others repented of their votes as soon as they came to reflect that the record would go where their explanation could not accompany it.

But unfortunately it was too late. There stands the record, to survive through all time and to be read of all men. The champions of slavery seized upon this vote as a propitious omen. They derided and scouted the proviso with a fierceness unknown before. They shouted their threats of disunion with a more defiant tone, should any attempt at what they called its resurrection, be made. A speech was delivered by Mr. Clingman, of North Carolina, in which a massacre of a majority of the House was distinctly shadowed forth, so that not “a quorum should be left to do business.” The effect of that vote was almost as bad as though it meant what it said.

At a later day, when a bill for the admission of California was presented, the tactics of delay were resorted to, and midnight found us calling the yeas and nays, for more than the thirtieth time, on questions whose frivolousness and vexatiousness cannot be indicated by numbers.

The proceedings in the Senate, however, are those which now threaten the most disastrous consequences. Early in the session, in order to bring his northern friends up to the doctrine that it is unconstitutional to legislate against slavery in the territories, General Cass made a speech, in which he denies that Congress has any power, under any circumstances, to pass any law respecting their inhabitants. According to that speech, the United States stands in the relation of a foreign government to the people of its own territories; and if they set up a king or establish a religion, we cannot help it; for we have no more power or right to control them than we have the subjects of Great Britain or the citizens of France. It has been said that the doctrine of General Cass and that of General Taylor, on this subject, are identical; but there is this all-important difference between them:—General Taylor maintains the right of Congress to legislate for the territories, and will doubtless approve any bill for the prohibition of slavery in them; but General Cass, denying this right in Congress, would, if President, veto such a bill. He, therefore, would leave the territories open to be invaded and possessed by slavery; and in southern law and practice possession is more than nine points.

Next came Mr. Clay’s compromise resolutions, so called. By these, California was to be admitted as a state; the territories organized without any restriction upon slavery; the south-western boundary of Texas to be extended to the Rio Grande; a part of her ten or twelve million debt to be paid by the United States, on condition of her abandoning her claim to a part of New Mexico lying east of the Rio Grande; the abolition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia, and the inviolability of slavery in the District daring the good pleasure of Maryland and of the inhabitants of the District; more effectual provision for the restitution of fugitive slaves, and free traffic in slaves forever between the states, unless forbidden by themselves.