Much is said by Southern people about the affection of slaves for their masters and mistresses; and a part of it, at least, is true. A plot for an uprising could scarcely be devised and communicated to twenty individuals before some one of them, to save the life of a favorite master or mistress, would divulge it. This is the rule; and the slave revolution in Hayti was not an exception to it, but a case occurring under peculiar circumstances. The gunpowder plot of British history, though not connected with slaves, was more in point. In that ease, only about twenty were admitted to the secret; and yet one of them, in his anxiety to save a friend, betrayed the plot to that friend, and, by consequence, averted the calamity. Occasional poisonings from the kitchen, and open or stealthy assassinations in the field, and local revolts extending to a score or so, will continue to occur as the natural results of slavery; but no general insurrection of slaves, as I think, can happen in this country for a long time. Whoever much fears or much hopes for such an event will be alike disappointed....
John Brown's effort was peculiar. It was not a slave insurrection. It was an attempt by white men to get up a revolt among slaves, in which the slaves refused to participate. In fact, it was so absurd that the slaves, with all their ignorance, saw plainly enough it could not succeed. That affair, in its philosophy, corresponds with the many attempts related in history, at the assassination of kings and emperors. An enthusiast broods over the oppression of a people till he fancies himself commissioned by Heaven to liberate them. He ventures the attempt, which ends in little else than his own execution. Orsini's attempt on Louis Napoleon, and John Brown's attempt at Harper's Ferry were, in their philosophy, precisely the same. The eagerness to cast blame on old England in the one ease, and on New England in the other, does not disprove the sameness of the two things.
"Tribune Almanac," 1860.
The aggravation of partisan temper over the Harper's Ferry incident found a manifestation in a contest over the Speakership in the House of Representatives as prolonged and bitter as that which attended the election of Banks. In the Congressional elections of 1858, following the Lecompton controversy, the Democrats had once more lost control of the House of Representatives; there having been chosen 113 Republicans, 93 Administration Democrats, 8 anti-Lecompton Democrats, and 23 South Americans, as they were called; that is, members, mainly from the slave-States, opposed to the Administration.
"Globe," December 5, 1859, p. 3.
This Thirty-sixth Congress began its session three days after the execution of John Brown, and the election of a Speaker was the first work of the new House of Representatives. The Republicans, not having a majority, made no caucus nomination; but John Sherman, of Ohio, had the largest following on the first ballot, and thereafter received their united efforts to elect him. At this point a Missouri member introduced a resolution declaring: "That the doctrines and sentiments of a certain book called 'The Impending Crisis of the South—How to Meet It,' purporting to have been written by one Hinton R. Helper [of North Carolina], are insurrectionary and hostile to the domestic peace and tranquillity of the country, and that no member of this House who has indorsed and recommended it, or the compend from it, is fit to be Speaker of this House."
This resolution was aimed at Sherman, who with some seventy Republicans of the previous Congress had signed a circular indorsing and recommending the book upon the general statement that it was an anti-slavery work, written by a Southerner. The book addressed itself to non-slaveholding Southern whites, and was mainly made up of statistics, but contained occasional passages of intolerant and vindictive sentiment against slaveholders. Whether it could be considered "insurrectionary" depended altogether on the pro-slavery or anti-slavery bias of the critic. Besides, the author had agreed that the obnoxious passages should not be printed in the compendium which the Republicans recommended in their circular. When interrogated, Mr. Sherman replied that he had never seen the book, and that "I am opposed to any interference whatever by the people of the free-States with, the relations of master and slave in the slave-States." But the disavowal did not relieve him from Southern enmity. The fire-eaters seized the pretext to charge him with all manner of "abolition" intentions, and by violent debate and the utterance of threats of disunion made the House a parliamentary and almost a revolutionary babel for nearly two months. Certain appropriations were exhausted, and the treasury was in great need of funds. Efforts were made to adopt the plurality rule, and to choose a Speaker for a limited period; but every such movement was resisted for the purpose of defeating Sherman, or rather, through his defeat to force the North into unconditional submission to extreme pro-slavery sentiment. The struggle, nominally over an incident, was in reality over a policy.
On January 30, 1860, Mr. Sherman withdrew his name, and the solid Republican vote was given to William Pennington, of New Jersey, another Republican, who, on February 1, was elected Speaker by 117 votes, 4 opposing members having come to his support. The South gained nothing by the obstructionist policy of its members. During the long contest, extending through forty-four ballots, their votes were scattered among many candidates of different factions, while the Republicans maintained an almost unbroken steadiness of party discipline. On the whole, the principal results of the struggle were, to sectionalize parties more completely, ripen Southern sentiment towards secession, and combine wavering voters in the free-States in support of Republican doctrines.
[ [1]] On the night of May 24-25, 1856, five pro-slavery men living on Pottawatomie Creek, in Kansas, were mysteriously and brutally assassinated. The relatives and friends of the deceased charged John Brown and his band with these murders, which the relatives and friends of Brown persistently denied. His latest biographer, however, unreservedly admits his guilt: "For some reason he [John Brown] chose not to strike a blow himself; and this is what Salmon Brown meant when he declared that his father 'was not a participator in the deed.' It was a very narrow interpretation of the word 'participator' which would permit such a denial; but it was no doubt honestly made, although for the purpose of disguising what John Brown's real agency in the matter was. He was, in fact, the originator and performer of these executions, although the hands that dealt the wounds were those of others."—Frank B. Sanborn, "Life and Letters of John Brown," pp. 263-4.