CHAPTER CXXXV.
SLAVERY AGITATION.
"It is painful to see the unceasing efforts to alarm the South by imputations against the North of unconstitutional designs on the subject of slavery. You are right, I have no doubt, in believing that no such intermeddling disposition exists in the body of our Northern brethren. Their good faith is sufficiently guaranteed by the interest they have as merchants, as ship owners, and as manufacturers, in preserving a Union with the slaveholding States. On the other hand what madness in the South to look for greater safety in disunion. It would be worse than jumping into the fire for fear of the frying pan. The danger from the alarms is, that the pride and resentment exerted by them may be an overmatch for the dictates of prudence; and favor the project of a Southern convention, insidiously revived, as promising by its councils, the best securities against grievances of every sort from the North."—So wrote Mr. Madison to Mr. Clay, in June 1833. It is a writing every word of which is matter for grave reflection, and the date at the head of all. It is dated just three months after the tariff "compromise" of 1833, which, in arranging the tariff question for nine years, was supposed to have quieted the South—put an end to agitation, and to the idea of a Southern convention—and given peace and harmony to the whole Union. Not so the fact—at least not so the fact in South Carolina. Agitation did not cease there on one point, before it began on another: the idea of a Southern convention for one cause, was hardly abandoned before it was "insidiously revived" upon another. I use the language of Mr. Madison in qualifying this revival with a term of odious import: for no man was a better master of our language than he was—no one more scrupulously just in all his judgments upon men and things—and no one occupying a position either personally, politically, or locally, to speak more advisedly on the subject of which he spoke. He was pained to see the efforts to alarm the South on the subject of slavery, and the revival of the project for a Southern convention; and he feared the effect which these alarms should have on the pride and resentment of Southern people. His letter was not to a neighbor, or to a citizen in private life, but to a public man on the theatre of national action, and one who had acted a part in composing national difficulties. It was evidently written for a purpose. It was in answer to Mr. Clay's expressed belief, that no design hostile to Southern slavery existed in the body of the Northern people—to concur with him in that belief—and to give him warning that the danger was in another quarter—in the South itself: and that it looked to a dissolution of the Union. It was to warn an eminent public man of a new source of national danger, more alarming than the one he had just been composing.
About the same time, and to an old and confidential friend (Edward Coles, Esq., who had been his private secretary when President), Mr. Madison also wrote: "On the other hand what more dangerous than nullification, or more evident than the progress it continues to make, either in its original shape or in the disguises it assumes? Nullification has the effect of putting powder under the constitution and the Union, and a match in the hand of every party to blow them up at pleasure. And for its progress, hearken to the tone in which it is now preached: cast your eyes on its increasing minorities in the most of the Southern States, without a decrease in any of them. Look at Virginia herself, and read in the gazettes, and in the proceedings of popular meetings, the figure which the anarchical principle now makes, in contrast with the scouting reception given to it but a short time ago. It is not probable that this offspring of the discontents of South Carolina will ever approach success in a majority of the States: but a susceptibility of the contagion in the Southern States is visible: and the danger not to be concealed, that the sympathy arising from known causes, and the inculcated impression of a permanent incompatibility of interests between the South and the North, may put it in the power of popular leaders, aspiring to the highest stations, to unite the South on some critical occasion, in a course that will end in creating a new theatre of great though inferior interest. In pursuing this course, the first and most obvious step is nullification, the next secession, and the last a farewell separation."
In this view of the dangers of nullification in its new "disguise"—the susceptibility of the South to its contagious influence—its fatal action upon an "inculcated incompatibility of interests" between the North and the South—its increase in the slave States—its progress, first to secession, and then to "farewell separation:" in this view of the old danger under its new disguise, Mr. Madison, then eighty-four years old, writes with the wisdom of age, the foresight of experience; the spirit of patriotism, and the "pain" of heart which a contemplation of the division of those States excited which it had been the pride, the glory, and the labor of his life to unite. The slavery turn which was given to the Southern agitation was the aspect of the danger which filled his mind with sorrow and misgiving:—and not without reason. A paper published in Washington City, and in the interest of Mr. Calhoun, was incessant in propagating the slavery alarm—in denouncing the North—in exhorting the Southern States to unity of feeling and concert of action as the only means of saving their domestic institutions. The language had become current in some parts of the South, that it was impossible to unite the Southern States upon the tariff question: that the sugar interest in Louisiana would prevent her from joining: that it was a mistake to have made that issue: that the slavery question was the right one. And coincident with this current language were many publications, urging a Southern convention, and concert of action. Passing by all these, which might be deemed mere newspaper articles, there was one which bore the impress of thought and authenticity—which assumed the convention to be a certainty, the time only remaining to be fixed, and the cause for it to be in full operation in the Northern States. It was published in the Charleston Mercury in 1835,—was entitled the "Crisis"—and had the formality of a manifesto; and after dilating upon the aggressions and encroachments of the North, proceeded thus:
"The proper time for a convention of the slaveholding States will be when the legislatures of Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and New-York shall have adjourned without passing laws for the suppression of the abolition societies. Should either of these States pass such laws, it would be well to wait till their efficacy should be tested. The adjournment of the legislatures of the Northern States without adopting any measures effectually to put down Garrison, Tappan and their associates, will present an issue which must be met by the South, or it will be vain for us ever after to attempt any thing further than for the State to provide for her own safety by defensive measures of her own. If the issue presented is to be met, it can only be done by a convention of the aggrieved States; the proceedings of which, to be of any value, must embody and make known the sentiments of the whole South, and contain the distinct annunciation of our fixed and unaltered determination to obtain the redress of our grievances, be the consequences what they may. We must have it clearly understood that, in framing a constitutional union with our Northern brethren, the slaveholding States consider themselves as no more liable to any more interference with their domestic concerns than if they had remained entirely independent of the other States, and that, as such interference would, among independent nations, be a just cause of war, so among members of such a confederacy as ours, it must place the several States in the relation towards each other of open enemies. To sum up in a few words the whole argument on this subject, we would say that the abolitionists can only be put down by legislation in the States in which they exist, and this can only be brought about by the embodied opinion of the whole South, acting upon public opinion at the North, which can only be effected through the instrumentality of a condition of the slaveholding States."
It is impossible to read this paragraph from the "Crisis," without seeing that it is identical with Mr. Calhoun's report and speech upon incendiary publications transmitted through the mail. The same complaint against the North; the same exaction of the suppression of abolition societies; the same penalty for omitting to suppress them; that penalty always the same—a Southern convention, and secession—and the same idea of the contingent foreign relation to each other of the respective States, always treated as a confederacy, under a compact. Upon his arrival at Washington at the commencement of the session 1835-'36, all his conduct was conformable to the programme laid down in the "Crisis," and the whole of it calculated to produce the event therein hypothetically announced; and, unfortunately, a double set of movements was then in the process of being carried on by the abolitionists, which favored his purposes. One of these was the mail transmission into the slave States of incendiary publications; and it has been seen in what manner he availed himself of that wickedness to predicate upon it a right of Southern secession; the other was the annoyance of Congress with a profusion of petitions for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia; and his conduct with respect to these petitions, remains to be shown. Mr. Morris, of Ohio, presented two from that State, himself opposed to touching the subject of slavery in the States, but deeming it his duty to present those which applied to the District of Columbia. Mr. Calhoun demanded that they be read; which being done,—
"He demanded the question on receiving them, which, he said, was a preliminary question, which any member had a right to make. He demanded it on behalf of the State which he represented; he demanded it, because the petitions were in themselves a foul slander on nearly one half of the States of the Union; he demanded it, because the question involved was one over which neither this nor the House had any power whatever; and a stop might be put to that agitation which prevailed in so large a section of the country, and which, unless checked, would endanger the existence of the Union. That the petitions just read contained a gross, false, and malicious slander, on eleven States represented on this floor, there was no man who in his heart could deny. This was, in itself, not only good, but the highest cause why these petitions should not be received. Had it not been the practice of the Senate to reject petitions which reflected on any individual member of their body; and should they who were the representatives of sovereign States permit petitions to be brought there, wilfully, maliciously, almost wickedly, slandering so many sovereign States of this Union? Were the States to be less protected than individual members on that floor? He demanded the question on receiving the petitions, because they asked for what was a violation of the constitution. The question of emancipation exclusively belonged to the several States. Congress had no jurisdiction on the subject, no more in this District than the State of South Carolina: it was a question for the individual State to determine, and not to be touched by Congress. He himself well understood, and the people of his State should understand, that this was an emancipation movement. Those who have moved in it regard this District as the weak point through which the first movement should be made upon the States. We (said Mr. C.), of the South, are bound to resist it. We will meet this question as firmly as if it were the direct question of emancipation in the States. It is a movement which ought to, which must be, arrested, in limine, or the guards of the constitution will give way and be destroyed. He demanded the question on receiving the petitions, because of the agitation which would result from discussing the subject. The danger to be apprehended was from the agitation of the question on that floor. He did not fear those incendiary publications which were circulated abroad, and which could easily be counteracted. But he dreaded the agitation which would rise out of the discussion in Congress on the subject. Every man knew that there existed a body of men in the Northern States who were ready to second any insurrectionary movement of the blacks; and that these men would be on the alert to turn these discussions to their advantage. He dreaded the discussion in another sense. It would have a tendency to break asunder this Union. What effect could be brought about by the interference of these petitioners? Could they expect to produce a change of mind in the Southern people? No; the effect would be directly the opposite. The more they were assailed on this point, the more closely would they cling to their institutions. And what would be the effect on the rising generation, but to inspire it with odium against those whose mistaken views and misdirected zeal menaced the peace and security of the Southern States. The effect must be to bring our institutions into odium. As a lover of the Union, he dreaded this discussion; and asked for some decided measure to arrest the course of the evil. There must, there shall be some decided step, or the Southern people never will submit. And how are we to treat the subject? By receiving these petitions one after another, and thus tampering, trifling, sporting with the feelings of the South? No, no, no! The abolitionists well understand the effect of such a course of proceeding. It will give importance to their movements, and accelerate the ends they propose. Nothing can, nothing will stop these petitions but a prompt and stern rejection of them. We must turn them away from our doors, regardless of what may be done or said. If the issue must be, let it come, and let us meet it, as, I hope, we shall be prepared to do."