Nineteenth Century Questions

by James Freeman Clarke

Mr. Adams ended his speech by declaring that the honor of the House of Representatives was always regarded by him as a sacred sentiment, and that he should feel a censure from that House as the heaviest misfortune of a long life, checkered as it had been by many vicissitudes.

When Mr. Adams began his defense, not only was a large majority of the House opposed to his course, but they had brought themselves by a series of violent harangues into a condition of bitter excitement against him. When he ended, the effect of this extraordinary speech was such, that all the resolutions were rejected, and out of the whole House only twenty-two members could be found to pass a vote of even indirect censure. The victory was won, and won by Mr. Adams almost single-handed. We count Horatius Cocles a hero for holding the Roman bridge against a host of enemies; but greater honors belong to him who successfully defends against overwhelming numbers the ancient safeguards of public liberty. For this reason we have repeated here at such length the story of three days, which the people of the United States ought always to remember. It took ten years to accomplish the actual repeal of these gag-laws. But the main work was done when the right of speech was obtained for the friends of freedom in Congress; and John Quincy Adams was the great leader in this warfare. He was joined on that arena by other noble champions,—Giddings, Mann, Palfrey, John P. Hale, Chase, Seward, Slade of Vermont, Julian of Indiana. Others no less devoted followed them, among whom came from Massachusetts Charles Sumner and Henry Wilson, the author of the present work. What he cannot properly say of himself should be said for him. Though an accomplished and eager politician, Henry Wilson has never sacrificed any great principle for the sake of political success. His services to the antislavery cause have been invaluable, his labors in that cause unremitting. Personal feelings and personal interests he has been ready to sacrifice for the sake of the cause. Loyal to his friends, he has not been bitter to his opponents; and if any man who fought through that long struggle were to be its historian, no one will deny the claims of Mr. Wilson to that honor.

Under the lead of John Quincy Adams, the power to discuss the whole subject of slavery in the National Legislature was won, and never again lost. This was the second triumph of the antislavery movement; its first was the power won by Garrison and his friends of discussing the subject before the people. The wolfish mob in the cities and in Congress might continue to howl, but it had lost its claws and teeth. But now came the first great triumph of the slave power, in the annexation of Texas. This was a cruel blow to the friends of freedom. It was more serious because the motive of annexation was openly announced, and the issue distinctly presented in the Presidential election. Mr. Upshur, Tyler's Secretary of State, in an official dispatch, declared that the annexation of Texas was necessary to secure the institution of slavery. The Democratic Convention which nominated Mr. Polk for the Presidency deliberately made the annexation of Texas the leading feature of its platform. Nor was the slave power in this movement opposed merely by the antislavery feeling of the country. Southern senators helped to defeat the measure when first presented in the form of a treaty by Mr. Tyler's administration. Nearly the whole Whig party was opposed to it. The candidate of the Whigs, Henry Clay, had publicly declared that annexation would be a great evil to the nation. Twenty members of Congress, with John Quincy Adams at their head, had proclaimed in an address to their constituents that it would be equivalent to a dissolution of the Union. Dr. Channing, in 1838, had said that it would be better for the nation to perish than to commit such an outrageous wrong. Edward Everett, in 1837, spoke of annexation as "an enormous crime." Whig and Democratic legislatures had repeatedly denounced it. In 1843, when the Democrats had a majority in the Massachusetts legislature, they resolved that "under no circumstances whatever" could the people of Massachusetts approve of annexation. Martin Van Buren opposed it as unjust to Mexico. Senator Benton, though previously in favor of the measure, in a speech in Missouri declared that the object of those who were favoring the scheme was to dissolve the Union, though he afterward came again to its support. And yet when the Presidential campaign was in progress, a Democratic torchlight procession miles long was seen marching through the streets of Boston, and flaunting the lone star of Texas along its whole line. And when Polk was elected, and the decision of the nation virtually given for this scheme, it seemed almost hopeless to contend longer against such a triumph of slavery. If the people of the North could submit to this outrage, it appeared as if they could submit to anything.

Such, however, was not the case. On one side the slave power was greatly strengthened by the admission of Texas to the Union as a slave State; but, on the other hand, there came a large accession to the antislavery body. And this continued to be the case during many years. The slave power won a succession of political victories, each of which was a moral victory to its opponents. Many who were not converted to antislavery by the annexation of Texas in 1845 were brought over by the defeat of the Wilmot Proviso and the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850. Many who were not alarmed by these successes of slavery were convinced of the danger when they beheld the actual working of the Fugitive Slave Act. How many Boston gentlemen, before opposed to the Abolitionists, were brought suddenly to their side when they saw the Court House in chains, and were prevented by soldiers guarding Anthony Burns from going to their banks or insurance offices in State Street! All those bitter hours of defeat and disaster planted the seeds of a greater harvest for freedom. Others who remained insensible to the disgrace of the slave laws of 1850 were recruited to the ranks of freedom by the repeal of the Missouri Compromise in 1854. This last act, Mr. Wilson justly says, did more than any other to arouse the North, and convince it of the desperate encroachments of slavery. Men who tamely acquiesced in this great wrong were startled into moral life by the murderous assault on Charles Sumner by Preston Brooks in 1856. Those who could submit to this were roused by the border ruffians from Missouri who invaded Kansas, and made the proslavery Constitution for that State. The Dred Scott decision in 1857, which declared slavery to be no local institution, limited to a single part of the land, but having a right to exist in the free States under the Constitution, alarmed even those who had been insensible to the previous aggressions of slavery. This series of political successes of the slave power was appalling. Every principle of liberty, every restraint on despotism, was overthrown in succession, until the whole power of the nation had fallen into the hands of an oligarchy of between three and four hundred thousand slaveholders. But every one of their political victories was a moral defeat; every access to their strength as an organization added an immense force to the public opinion opposed to them; and each of their successes was responded to by some advance of the antislavery movement. The annexation of Texas in 1845 was answered by the appearance of John P. Hale, in 1847, in the United States Senate,—the first man who was elected to that body on distinctly antislavery grounds and independent of either of the great parties. The response to the defeat of the Wilmot Proviso and passage of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850 was the election of Charles Sumner to the Senate in April, 1851, and the establishment of the underground railroad in all the free States. When the South abrogated the Missouri Compromise, the North replied by the initiation of the Republican party. The Kansas outrages gave to freedom John Brown of Osawatomie. And the answer to the Dred Scott decision was the nomination of Abraham Lincoln. Till that moment the forces of freedom and slavery had stood opposed, like two great armies, each receiving constant recruits and an acccession of new power. On one side, hitherto, had been all the political triumphs, and on the other all the moral. But with this first great political success of their opponents the slave power became wholly demoralized, gave up the conflict, threw away the results of all its former victories, and abandoned the field to its enemies, plunging into the dark abyss of secession and civil war.

And yet, what was the issue involved in that election? It was simply whether slavery should or should not be extended into new Territories. All that the Republican party demanded was that slavery should not be extended. It did not dream of abolishing slavery in the slave States. We remember how, long after the war began, we refused to do this. The Southerners had every guaranty they could desire that they should not be interfered with at home. If they had gracefully acquiesced in the decision of the majority, their institution might have flourished for another century. The Fugitive Slave Law would have been repealed; or, at all events, trial by jury would have been given to the man claimed as a fugitive. But no attempt would have been made by the Republican party to interfere with slavery in the slave States, for that party did not believe it had the right so to do.

But, in truth, the course of the Southern leaders illustrated in a striking way the distinction between a politician and a statesman. They were very acute politicians, trained in all the tactics of their art; but they were poor statesmen, incapable of any large strategic plan of action. As statesmen, they should have made arrangements for the gradual abolition of slavery, as an institution incapable of sustaining itself in civilized countries in the nineteenth century. Or, if they wished to maintain it as long as possible, they ought to have seen that this could only be accomplished by preserving the support of the interests and the public opinion of the North. Alliance with the Northern States was their only security; and, therefore, they ought to have kept the Northern conscience on their side by a loyal adherence to all compacts and covenants. Instead of this, they contrived to outrage, one by one, every feeling of honor, every sentiment of duty, and every vested right of the free States, until, at last, it became plain to all that it was an "irrepressible conflict," and must be settled definitely either for slavery or for freedom. When this point was reached by the American people, they saw also that it could not be settled in favor of slavery, for no concession would satisfy the slaveholders, and no contract these might make could be depended on. The North gave them, in 1850, the Fugitive Slave Law for the sake of peace. Did it gain peace? No. It relinquished, for the sake of peace, the Wilmot Proviso. Was the South satisfied? No. In 1853 Mr. Douglas offered it the Nebraska Bill. Was it contented? By no means. Mr. Pierce and Mr. Buchanan did their best to give it Kansas. Did they content the South by their efforts? No. Mr. Douglas, Mr. Pierce, and Mr. Buchanan were all set aside by the South. The Lecompton Bill was not enough. The Dred Scott decision was not enough. The slaveholders demanded that slavery should be established by a positive act of Congress in all the Territories of the Union. Even Judge Douglas shrank aghast from the enterprise of giving them such a law as that; and so Judge Douglas was immediately thrown aside. Thus, by the folly of the Southern leaders themselves, more than by the efforts of their opponents, the majority was obtained by the Republicans in the election of 1860.

But during this conflict came many very dark days for freedom. One of these was after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850. That law was one of a series of compromises, intended to make a final settlement of the question and to silence all antislavery agitation. Although defended by great lawyers, who thought it necessary to save the Union, there is little doubt that it was as unconstitutional as it was cruel. The Constitution declares that "no person shall be deprived of his liberty without due process of law," and also that "in suits at common law, when the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved." Anthony Burns was in full possession of his liberty; he was a self-supporting, tax-paying citizen of Massachusetts; and in ten days, by the action of the Fugitive Slave Law, he was turned into a slave under the decision of a United States commissioner, without seeing a judge or a jury. The passage of this law, and its actual enforcement, caused great excitement among the free colored people at the North, as well as among the fugitives from slavery. No one was safe. It was evident that it was meant to be enforced,—it was not meant to be idle thunder. But instead of discouraging the friends of freedom, it roused them to greater activity. More fugitives than ever came from the slave States, and the underground railroad was in fuller activity than before. The methods employed by fugitives to escape were very various and ingenious. One man was brought away in a packing-box. Another clung to the lower side of the guard of a steamer, washed by water at every roll of the vessel. One well-known case was that of Ellen Crafts, who came from Georgia disguised as a young Southern gentleman, attended by her husband as body-servant. She rode in the cars, sitting near Southerners who knew her, but did not recognize her in this costume, and at last arrived safe in Philadelphia. In one instance a slave escaped from Kentucky, with all his family, walking some distance on stilts, in order to leave no scent for the pursuing blood-hounds. When these poor people reached the North, and told their stories on the antislavery platform, they excited great sympathy, which was not confined to professed antislavery people. A United States commissioner, who might be called on to return fugitives to bondage, frequently had them concealed in his own house, by the action of his wife, whose generous heart never wearied in this work, and who was the means of saving many from bondage. A Democratic United States marshal, in Boston, whose duty it was to arrest fugitive slaves, was in the habit of telling the slave-owner who called on him for assistance that he "did not know anything about niggers, but he would find out where the man was from those who did." Whereupon he would go directly to Mr. Garrison's office and tell him he wanted to arrest such or such a man, a fugitive from slavery. "But," said he, "curiously enough, the next thing I heard would be, that the fellow was in Canada." And when a colored man was actually sent back to slavery, as in the case of Burns, the event excited so much sympathy with the fugitive, and so much horror of the law, that its effects were disastrous to the slave power. Thomas M. Simms was arrested in Boston as a fugitive from slavery, April 3, 1851, and was sent to slavery by the decision of George Ticknor Curtis, a United States commissioner. The answer to this act, by Massachusetts, was the election of Charles Sumner, twenty-one days after, to the United States Senate. Anthony Burns was returned to slavery by order of Edward G. Loring, in May, 1854; and Massachusetts responded by removing him from his office as Judge of Probate, and refusing his confirmation as a professor in Harvard University.

The passage of what were called the compromise measures of 1850, including the Fugitive Slave Law, had, it was fondly believed, put an end to the whole antislavery agitation. The two great parties, Whig and Democrat, had agreed that such should be the case. The great leaders, Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, Cass and Buchanan, were active in calling on the people to subdue their prejudices in favor of freedom. Southern fire-eaters, like Toombs and Alexander Stephens, joined these Union-savers, and became apostles of peace. Agitation was the only evil, and agitation must now come to an end. Public meetings were held in the large cities,—one in Castle Garden in New York, another in Faneuil Hall in Boston. In these meetings the lion and the lamb lay down together. Rufus Choate and Benjamin Hallet joined in demanding that all antislavery agitation should now cease. The church was called upon to assist in the work of Union-saving, and many leading divines lent their aid in this attempt to silence those who desired that the oppressed should go free, and who wished to break every yoke. Many seemed to suppose that all antislavery agitation was definitely suppressed. President Fillmore called the compromise measures "a final adjustment." All the powers which control human opinion—the two great political parties, the secular and the religious newspapers, the large churches and popular divines, the merchants and lawyers—had agreed that the antislavery agitation should now cease.[52]

But just at that moment, when the darkness was the deepest, and all the great powers in the church and state had decreed that there should be no more said concerning American slavery, the voice of a woman broke the silence, and American slavery became the one subject of discussion throughout the world. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was written by Mrs. Stowe for the "National Era," Dr. Bailey's paper in Washington. It was intended to be a short story, running through two or three numbers of the journal, and she was to receive a hundred dollars for writing it. But, as she wrote, the fire burned in her soul, a great inspiration came over her, and, not knowing what she was about to do, she moved the hearts of two continents to their very depths. After her story had appeared in the newspaper, she offered it as a novel to several publishers, who refused it. Accepted at last, it had a circulation unprecedented in the annals of literature. In eight weeks its sale had reached one hundred thousand copies in the United States, while in England a million copies were sold within the year. On the European Continent the sale was immense. A single publisher in Paris issued five editions in a few weeks, and before the end of 1852 it was translated into Italian, Spanish, Danish, Swedish, Dutch, Flemish, German, Polish, and Magyar. To these were afterward added translations into Portuguese, Welsh, Russian, Arabic, and many other languages. For a time, it stopped the publication and sale of all other works; and within a year or two from the day when the politicians had decided that no more should be said concerning American slavery, it had become the subject of conversation and discussion among millions.

"Uncle Tom's Cabin" was published in 1852. Those were very dark hours in the great struggle for freedom. Who that shared them can ever forget the bitterness caused by the defection of Daniel Webster, and his 7th of March speech in 1850; by the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, which made the whole area of the free States a hunting-ground for the slaveholders; and by the rejection of the Wilmot Proviso, which abandoned all the new territory to slavery? This was followed by the election of Franklin Pierce as President in 1852, on a platform in which the Democratic party pledged itself to resist all agitation of the subject of slavery in Congress or outside of it. And in December, 1853, Stephen A. Douglas introduced his Nebraska Bill, which repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820, and opened all the territory heretofore secured to freedom to slaveholders and their slaves. This offer on the part of Mr. Douglas was a voluntary bid for the support of the slaveholders in the next Presidential election. And in spite of all protests from the North, all resistance by Democrats as well as their opponents, all arguments and appeals, this solemn agreement between the North and the South was violated, and every restriction on slavery removed. Nebraska and Kansas were organized as Territories, and the question of slavery left to local tribunals, or what was called "squatter sovereignty."