Nineteenth Century Questions

by James Freeman Clarke

The passage of this measure showed the vast political advance of the slave power in the country, and how greatly it had corrupted the political conscience of the nation. It also showed, to those who had eyes, that slavery was the wedge which was to split the Union asunder. But there were in the North many persons who still thought that danger to the Union came rather from the discussion of slavery than from slavery itself. They supposed that if all opposition to slavery should cease, then there would be no more danger. The Abolitionists were the cause of all the peril; and the way to save the Union was to silence the Abolitionists. That, however, had been tried ineffectually when they were few and weak; and now it was too late, as these Union-savers ought to have seen.

Mr. Douglas and his supporters defended their cause by maintaining that the Missouri Compromise was not a contract, but a simple act of legislation, and they tauntingly asked, "Why, since antislavery men had always thought that Compromise a bad thing, should they now object to its being repealed?" Even this sophism had its effect with some, who did not notice that Douglas's resolutions only repealed that half of the Compromise which was favorable to freedom, while letting the other half remain. One part of the Act of 1820 was that Missouri should be admitted as a slave State; the other part was that all the rest of the Territory should be forever free. Only the last part was now repealed. Missouri was left in the Union as a slave State.

The political advance now made by slavery will appear from the following facts:—

In 1797 the slave power asked for only life; it did not wish to extend itself; it united with the North in prohibiting its own extension into the Northwest Territory.

In 1820 it did wish to extend itself; it refused to be shut out of Missouri, but was willing that the rest of the Territory should be always free.

In 1845 it insisted on extending itself by annexing Texas, but it admitted that it had no right to go into any Territory as far north as Missouri.

In 1850 it refused to be shut out of any of the new territory, and resisted the Wilmot Proviso; but still confessed that it had no right to go into Kansas or Nebraska.

Five years after, by the efforts of Stephen A. Douglas and Franklin Pierce, it refused to be shut out of Kansas, and repealed the part of the Missouri Compromise which excluded it from that region. But, in order to accomplish this repeal, it took the plausible name of "popular sovereignty," and claimed that the people should themselves decide whether they would have a slave State or a free State.

One additional step came. The people decided or were about to decide for freedom; and then the slave power set aside its own doctrine of popular sovereignty and invaded the Territory with an army of Missourians, chose a legislature for the people of Kansas composed of Missourians, who passed laws establishing slavery and punishing with fine and imprisonment any who should even speak against it.

The people of Kansas refused to obey these laws. They would have been slaves already if they had obeyed them. Then their own governor, appointed by our President, led an army of Missourians to destroy their towns and plunder and murder their people. Nothing was left them but to resist. They did resist manfully but prudently, and by a remarkable combination of courage and caution the people of the little Free-State town of Lawrence succeeded in saving themselves from this danger without shedding a drop of blood. Men, women, and children were animated by the same heroic spirit. The women worked by the side of the men. The men were placed on the outposts as sentinels and ordered by their general not to fire as long as they could possibly avoid it. And these men stood on their posts, and allowed themselves to be shot at by the invaders, and did not return the fire. One man received two bullets through his hat, and was ready to fire if the enemy came nearer, but neither fired nor quitted his post. The men were brave and obedient to orders; the women were resolute, sagacious, and prudent. So they escaped their first great danger.