"In speaking of Mr. Calhoun as a man and a neighbor, I hope I may speak of him in a sphere in which all will like to contemplate him. Whilst he was a gentleman of striking deportment, he was a man of primitive tastes and simple manners. He had the hardy virtues and simple tastes of a republican citizen. No one disliked ostentation and exhibition more than he did. When I say he was a good neighbor, I imply more than I have expressed. It is summed up under the word justice. I will venture to say, that no one in his private relations could ever say that Mr. Calhoun treated him with injustice, or that he deceived him by professions. His private character was characterized by a beautiful propriety, and was the exemplification of truth, justice, temperance, and fidelity to his engagements."
[CHAPTER CXCII.]
MR. CLAY'S PLAN OF SLAVERY COMPROMISE: MR. BENTON'S SPEECH AGAINST IT: EXTRACTS.
Mr. Benton. It is a bill of thirty-nine sections—forty, save one—an ominous number; and which, with the two little bills which attend it, is called a compromise, and is pressed upon us as a remedy for the national calamities. Now, all this labor of the committee, and all this remedy, proceed upon the assumption that the people of the United States are in a miserable, distracted condition; that it is their mission to relieve this national distress, and that these bills are the sovereign remedy for that purpose. Now, in my opinion, all this is a mistake, both as to the condition of the country, the mission of the committee, and the efficacy of their remedy. I do not believe in this misery and distraction, and distress, and strife, of the people. On the contrary, I believe them to be very quiet at home, attending to their crops, such of them as do not mean to feed out of the public crib; and that they would be perfectly happy if the politicians would only permit them to think so. I know of no distress in the country, no misery, no strife, no distraction, none of those five gaping wounds of which the senator from Kentucky made enumeration on the five fingers of his left hand, and for the healing of which, all together, and all at once, and not one at a time, like the little Doctor Taylor, he has provided this capacious plaster in the shape of five old bills tacked together. I believe the senator and myself are alike, in this, that each of us has but five fingers on the left hand; and that may account for the limitation of the wounds. When the fingers gave out, they gave out; and if there had been five more fingers, there might have been more wounds—as many as fingers—and, toes also. I know nothing of all these "gaping wounds," nor of any distress in the country since we got rid of the Bank of the United States, and since we got possession of the gold currency. Since that time I have heard of no pecuniary or business distress, no rotten currency, no expansions and contractions, no deranged exchanges, no decline of public stocks, no laborers begging employment, no produce rotting upon the hands of the farmer, no property sacrificed at forced sales, no loss of confidence, no three per centum a month interest, no call for a bankrupt act. Never were the people—the business-doing and the working people—as well off as they are to-day. As for political distress, "it is all in my eye." It is all among the politicians. Never were the political blessings of the country greater than at present: civil and religious liberty eminently enjoyed; life, liberty, and property protected; the North and the South returning to the old belief that they were made for each other; and peace and plenty reigning throughout the land. This is the condition of the country—happy in the extreme; and I listen with amazement to the recitals which I have heard on this floor of strife and contention, gaping wounds and streaming blood, distress and misery. I feel mystified. The senator from Kentucky (Mr. Clay), chairman of the committee, and reporter of the bill, and its pathetic advocate, formerly delivered us many such recitals, about the times that the tariff was to be increased, the national bank charter to be renewed, the deposits to be restored, or a bankrupt act to be passed. He has been absent for some years; and, on returning among us, seems to begin where he left off. He treats us to the old dish of distress! Sir, it is a mistake. There is none of it; and if there was, the remedy would be in the hands of the people—in the hearts of the people—who love their country, and mean to take care of it—and not in the contrivances of politicians, who mistake their own for their country's distresses. It is all a mistake. It looks to me like a joke. But when I recollect the imposing number of the committee, and how "distinguished" they all were, and how they voted themselves free from instructions, and allowed the Senate to talk, but not to vote, while they were out, and how long they were deliberating: when I recollect all these things, I am constrained to believe the committee are in earnest. And as for the senator himself, the chairman of the committee, the perfect gravity with which he brought forward his remedy—these bills and the report—the pathos with which he enforced them, and the hearty congratulations which he addressed to the Senate, to the United States, and all mankind on the appointment of his committee, preclude the idea of an intentional joke on his part. In view of all this, I find myself compelled to consider this proceeding as serious, and bound to treat it parliamentarily; which I now proceed to do. And, in the first place, let us see what it is the committee has done, and what it is that it has presented to us as the sovereign remedy for the national distempers, and which we are to swallow whole—in the lump—all or none—under the penalty of being treated by the organs as enemies to the country.
Here are a parcel of old bills, which have been lying upon our tables for some months, and which might have been passed, each by itself, in some good form, long ago; and which have been carried out by the committee, and brought back again, bundled into one, and altered just enough to make each one worse; and then called a compromise—where there is nothing to compromise—and supported by a report which cannot support itself. Here are the California State admission bill, reported by the committee on territories three months ago—the two territorial government bills reported by the same committee at the same time—the Texas compact bill, originated by me six years ago, and reproduced at the present session—the fugitive slave recovery bill, reported from the judiciary committee at the commencement of the session—and the slave trade suppression bill for this District of Columbia, which is nothing but a revival of an old Maryland law, in force before the District was created, and repealed by an old act of Congress. These are the batch—five bills taken from our files, altered just enough to spoil each, then tacked together, and christened a compromise, and pressed upon the Senate as a sovereign remedy for calamities which have no existence. This is the presentation of the case: and now for the case itself.
The committee has brought in five old bills, bundled into one, and requires us to pass them. Now, how did this committee get possession of these bills? I do not ask for the manual operation. I know that each senator had a copy on his table, and might carry his copy where he pleased; but these bills were in the possession of the Senate, on its calendar—for discussion, but not for decision, while the committee was out. Two sets of resolutions were referred to the committee—but not these bills. And I now ask for the law—the parliamentary law—which enables a committee to consider bills not referred to it? to alter bills not in their legal power or possession? to tack bills together which the Senate held separate on its calendar? to reverse the order of bills on the calendar? to put the hindmost before, and the foremost behind? to conjoin incongruities, and to conglomerate individualities? This is what I ask—for this is what the committee has done; and which, if a point of order was raised, might subject their bundle of bills to be ruled off the docket. Sir, there is a custom—a good-natured one—in some of our State legislatures, to convert the last day of the session into a sort of legislative saturnalia—a frolic—something like barring out the master—in which all officers are displaced, all authorities disregarded, all rules overturned, all license tolerated, and all business turned topsy-turvy. But then this is only done on the last day of the session, as a prelude to a general break-up. And the sport is harmless, for nothing is done; and it is relieved by adjournment, which immediately follows. Such license as this may be tolerated; for it is, at least, innocent sport—the mere play of those "children of a larger growth" which some poet, or philosopher, has supposed men to be. And it seems to me that our committee has imitated this play without its reason—taken the license of the saturnalia without its innocence—made grave work of their gay sport—produced a monster instead of a merry-andrew—and required us to worship what it is our duty to kill.
I proceed to the destruction of this monster. The California bill is made the scape-goat of all the sins of slavery in the United States—that California which is innocent of all these sins. It is made the scape-goat; and as this is the first instance of an American attempt to imitate that ancient Jewish mode of expiating national sins, I will read how it was done in Jerusalem, to show how exactly our committee have imitated that ancient expiatory custom. I read from an approved volume of Jewish antiquities:
"The goat being tied in the north-east corner of the court of the temple, and his head bound with scarlet cloth to signify sin; the high-priest went to him, and laid his hands on his head, and confessed over it all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them all on the head of the goat. After which, he was given to the person appointed to lead him away, who, in the early ages of the custom, led him into the desert, and turned him loose to die; but as the goat sometimes escaped from the desert, the expiation, in such cases, was not considered complete; and, to make sure of his death, the after-custom was to lead him to a high rock, about twelve miles from Jerusalem, and push him off of it backwards, to prevent his jumping, the scarlet cloth being first torn from his head, in token that the sins of the people were taken away."
This was the expiation of the scape-goat in ancient Jerusalem: an innocent and helpless animal, loaded with sins which were not his own, and made to die for offences which he had never committed. So of California. She is innocent of all the evils of slavery in the United States, yet they are all to be packed upon her back, and herself sacrificed under the heavy load. First, Utah and New Mexico are piled upon her, each pregnant with all the transgressions of the Wilmot Proviso—a double load in itself—and enough, without further weight, to bear down California. Utah and New Mexico are first piled on; and the reason given for it by the committee is thus stated in their authentic report: