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UNIV OF

THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE.

The House having under consideration the question of || referring the President's Message to the Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, and the printing of ten thousand copies thereof

Mr. BRANCH said:

Mr. SPEAKER: I feel no hesitation in engaging in this debate, because I do not think it either unprofitable or a waste of time. I do not think we would be badly occupied if we were only gathering up and arranging the materials for the history of the past; and probably we could not be better employed than in defining clearly what issues have been settled by the people, in order that parties and individuals may conform their conduct to the popular verdict. I do not think it worth while to inquire why the people decided as they did decide; but I propose to state what, in my opinion, the people did decide, and what ought to be considered hereafter as settled by the

contest.

Before proceeding to do so, however, I wish to advert to one or two remarks which fell from the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. CUMBACK] who addressed the House yesterday.

As proof of the deleterious effects of slavery, where it prevails, the gentleman cited the fact, which he says appears from the census of 1850, that the State of Georgia has improved and under cultivation but six millions of acres of land, whilst it has sixteen millions of acres unimproved. Nature has been bountiful to the southern States in many respects, and has given to them much fertile soil; but if the State of Georgia possesses the proportion of good, arable soil-such as would tempt cultivation, whilst so much unappropriated land of great fertility is offered by the Government at no great distance off-as this statement would seem to indicate, she has a far greater proportion of good land than any other southern or western State with which I am acquainted. Much less than one fourth of our land is desirable for cultivation, and hence our population is sparse. This sparseness may entail upon us some disadvantages; but if it has tended to preserve us from the crimes, the isms, and the furores which constantly ⚫ afflict the thickly-settled northern States, we are amply compensated for every disadvantage.

I must say also to the gentleman, that if with slave labor Georgia cultivates six millions of acres, without slave labor it would not cultivate One million. Our soil and climate render it çer

tain that without slave labor our entire crops of sugar and rice, and two and a half of the three million bales of cotton we make, would be annihilated. And when they are annihilated, what would remain of the commerce, trade, and prosperity of the North? We have the satisfaction to know that when our northern assailants shall destroy us, they cannot themselves escape from the ruins.

The gentleman alleges also that the slaveholding States are behind the non-slaveholding in railroad building and other improvements. I have, read such assertions in newspapers and elsewhere, and seen them go forth uncontradicted; but they shall not go out from this Hall without being exposed. I hold in my hand a table, prepared by myself from data furnished by the American Almanac, published in Boston, showing the miles of railroad, the number of population, and the proportion between the two, in the Atlantic States. It does not embrace the northwestern States, because their railroads were, to a large extent, built by the Federal Government out of the common property of the Union, and furnish no indication of the wealth or enterprise of those States. I take those States embraced within the limits of the original thirteen.

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the fact that it embraces the densely-settled man- [Mr. H. MARSHALL]—a course of remark calcuufacturing States of New England, with their lated to fan into flame the dying embers of slavery concentrated wealth, and notwithstanding that the strife, and sow dissensions among those who North, in trade, has always held us tributary-are striving to extinguish them. If the South our wealth and our patronage contributing mate- desired to keep its institutions under discussion rially to build and support its roads; whilst ours here, I would not have been surprised at the genderive no patronage from them except as an tleman's remarks, for I could only construe them occasional "drummer" seeks our custom-yet into a denial that the recent election had settled we have built and now have in operation just anything in our favor; and if it settled nothing, fifty per cent. more of railroad, in proportion to of course the Black Republicans will feel themwhite population, than the North has. selves justifiable in continuing to agitate.

If we include our slaves, free negroes, and Indians, (though there is no more propriety in counting them than in counting the horses, cattle, or other live property of the North,) the North is less than ten per cent. in advance of us.

On what ground does the honorable gentleman thus summarily strip the South of all the benefit of the verdict? He says the Democrats at the North represented the Kansas and Nebraska bill as investing the people of those Territories with If we compare with the great agricultural States power to abolish slavery through the Territorial of New York and Pennsylvania, which have Legislatures, whilst the Democrats at the South coal and the commerce of the great lakes to aid represented that it could not be abolished or prothem, we have double as much in proportion tohibited until the people were assembled to frame, white population as they have; and counting our constitutions. On this ground he charges that slaves, free negroes, and Indians, we are twenty-different persons of the Democratic party place five per cent in advance of them. different constructions on the bill. Now, sir, I may admit the gentleman's premises-I do admit that some persons maintain the opinion that the Legislature of a Territory can prohibit slavery, whilst others maintain that it cannot; but that is not because of any difference of construction placed on the bill, but only a difference of opinion as to how a judicial question, arising not under the bill, but under the Constitution of the United States, will be decided by the Supreme Court.

This course of remark gives me no pleasure, nor would I derive any satisfaction from such a comparison, if it had not become necessary to vindicate the manliness and the enterprise of a great people assailed by bigoted ignorance and blind fanaticism, for holding to the institutions of

their fathers.

Satisfied with the bright deeds of the past, the fruition of the present, and the glorious promise of the future, I willingly pass on from the vindication of my people, to inquire what of their rights were decided by the recent election.

Throughout the canvass I saw inscribed on every banner, and occupying the prominent place in every party platform-the Kansas and Nebraska bill, the repeal of the Missouri restriction, nonintervention by Congress in regard to slavery in the States or Territories. I saw every other issue that parties or individuals attempted to place before the people promptly and decisively repudiated, and the whole contest made to hinge on this one idea. I saw the Democrats everywhere, North, South, East, and West, not only accepting that issue, but presenting it as that on which they demanded the verdict of the country. I saw the Black Republican party endeavor to dodge and || shirk that issue, and pretend that the real issue was slavery or no slavery, and whether Congress should legislate slavery into the Territories, although it is known that the Democratic party would as much oppose a law of Congress establishing slavery as it does one prohibiting it. I saw the issue clearly and decisively made, and the verdict of the people clearly and distinctly rendered in favor of the Kansas and Nebraska bill, in favor of peace to the South, and repose the country from the everlasting din of slavery agitation. The people have declared that the whole slavery question shall be settled now and forever on the principles of the Kansas and Nebraska bill.

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I have heard nothing in the debate here, and read nothing in the similar debate in the other end of the Capitol, to make me doubt whether the issue had been fairly made-on the contrary, much to prove that it was; and I should not open my lips but for the course of remarks indulged in by the honorable gentleman from Kentucky,

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The bill leaves the people "free to regulate their own domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States." The friends of the bill all agree that this clause releases the Territories, as regards their domestic institutions, from congressional control, but leaves them to be controlled by the Constitution. They agree that they are authorized to regulate them not only in such manner, but also at such time, as may not be inconsistent with the Constitution. And they agree that, if a question arises either as to the character of any particular regulation, or as to the competency of the Legislature to make it, it is a judicial question to go to the courts, and be decided not by reference to the bill, for the bill contains nothing about it, but according to the principles of the Constitution. Up to this point there is no disagreement among the friends of the bill, and all agree that at this point the bill stops.

The question remaining to be decided is, whether, according to the principles of our Constitution, a Legislature (especially of an inchoate Territory) can make fundamental regulations, abolishing existing rights of property already vested in individuals under State constitutions. I admit that on this point there is a difference of opinion, but all are willing to abide by the decision of the Supreme Court; and as the Kansas and Nebraska bill throws no light on it, and never pretended to decide it, the gentleman from Kentucky might as well charge us with differing in our construe tion of an act referring a case to the Court of Claims, because we may differ in opinion as to how the Court ought to decide the case.

Gentlemen on the other side ask us tauntingly what opinion the President elect entertains on these points. I undertake to say, without having any special knowledge on the subject, that he

construes the Kansas and Nebraska bill as I and all other Democrats construe it. What opinion he entertains on the judicial question, I do not know; it is not important for the country to know; and gentlemen are probably doomed to remain in ignorance, as the Executive is restrained by the fundamental principles of our Government from endeavoring to influence, by the intrusion of his opinions and wishes, the action of the judicial department on a question pending, or likely to be brought before it.

I can tell gentlemen, however, what I think the Supreme Court will decide; and as we have been so emphatically challenged from the other side, I feel no hesitation in doing so. If the result should prove me to be in error, it will only prove me to be, what the clients of much better lawyers have often to their sorrow found them to be, fallible in my judgment of the law. My opinion is, that the Supreme Court will decide that the establishment of what shall be, and what shall not be, property-who shall be citizens and who shall be slaves, is part of the original compact under which individuals enter into society; that that original compact must precede and does create government, of which a Legislature is but one of the parts; that this original compact must be made by, and is presumed to have the assent of, the individuals composing the society in their separate, original, sovereign character. In England it is unwritten and undigested. It is found in Magna Charta and the Bill of Rights; resting in traditions and alluded to in acts of Parliament; axioms announced by popular leaders and embalmed by popular approval; the tumultuous demands of rebellious masses, and the reluctant assent of humbled kings-all spread through the history of a thousand years. Such is the original compact of England, unwritten and unsubscribed, yet known to her statesmen and binding her rulers.

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This shadowy and mythical thing is the original compact establishing the rights of property and the relations of man to man, and the Parliament of England, the Supreme Legislature of the Kingdom, dares not after one of its provisions or usurp one of the prerogatives of those who established it. In the United States the original compact is set forth in written Constitutions, accurately and exactly setting forth the powers to be exercised by Government, by the Legislature, by the Executive, and by the Judiciary-which || with us constitute the Government. The basis of our whole system of republicanism is, that powers not specially granted are reserved to the people, and that changes of the fundamental policy of a State can only be made by the people themselves in their sovereign capacity, through representatives specially elected for that purpose. No one has ever attributed to a Legislature in this country sovereignty, or a right to do what it wills. After the Constitution has declared that a particular object-as land-shall be subject to be appropriated as property, it is the province of the Legislature to provide rules for its appropriation, to regulate the incidents of such appropriation, and to protect and secure the possessor in its enjoyment. But the Legislature that should assume to declare that land should no longer be appropriated to the separate use of individuals, but should be free as air to every one who should

choose to get upon it, would be laughed at as aiming to transcend its powers. A Legislature cannot, except on a special grant of power in a Constitution, exercise any of those powers usually considered as making up the aggregate of sovereignty, much less can it control and regulate at its will, and annul the rights of property, the establishment of which is supposed to be the first act of man indicating that he is emerging from barbarism.

I may be reminded that States of the Union have abolished slavery by legislative enactments. Such enactments by States may be constitutional I incline to the opinion that they are not, where the constitution of the State does not specially grant power. But the assumption of such a power by the Legislature of a sovereign State, (sovereign as to its domestic concerns,) deriving its authority from a Constitution framed by the people, might be sustained without its following that the same power belongs to a Territorial Legislature which derives its existence and all its powers from an act of Congress, constitutes part of a government never sanctioned by the people, confessedly temporary in its character, and liable to be altered or abolished at any moment by act of Congress, and possessing no more of sovereignty, and less of independence, than an ordinary moneyed corporation.

That such a body possesses power to annul rights of property acquired and held under the common law and constitutions of fifteen States of the Union, appears to me a proposition too monstrous to be entertained for a moment in a nation not prepared to revert to barbarism and anarchy.

This is not a question of the respective powers of the State and Federal governments. It is a question of the relative and respective power of the Legislature on the one side, and the sovereign people on the other. It is a conflict between the constitution-making power and the law-making power. On the one side are stability, security, conservatism; on the other are change, chaos, and agrarianism.

If it comes within the scope of the legislative power to abolish slavery, then what gentleman are pleased to call squatter sovereignty is no new thing in the Government.

The bills organizing territorial governments in Utah and New Mexico, for both of which I believe the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. H. MARSHALL] voted, and both of which were signed by Mr. Fillmore, provided as follows:

"SEC. 6. That the legislative power of said Territory shall extend to all rightful subjects of legislation consistent with the Constitution of the United States and the provisions of this act."

The same phrase occurs in almost, if not quite, all the territorial acts ever passed by Congress. If the abolition of slavery is a "rightful subject of legislation," all the territorial acts have conferred on the Legislatures the power to abolish it. If it is not a rightful subject of legislation, but belongs to the constitution-making power, then the Kansas and Nebraska act does not confer on the Legislature power to abolish it. Gentlemen who have voted for such territorial acts, or who have voted for Mr. Fillmore, may take which ever horn of the dilemma they choose; either the Kansas and Nebraska act does not contain the principle of squatter sovereignty, or they have voted

for it and are estopped from urging it against the Kansas and Nebraska act. For my part, I do not think it a rightful subject of legislation, and hence I do not think the act or the Constitution confers any such power on the Legislature, and I am satisfied that the Supreme Court will so decide, if the question should ever arise.

favor of the Kansas and Nebraska bill-in favor of peace and union, and against congressional agitation on the subject of slavery.

Will our opponents submit to the verdict? They cannot successfully assail it. They cannot hope to get it set aside. But they can do what defeated-hopelessly defeated-adversaries generally do; what Moloch, in the great poem, counseled the fallen angels to do, viz: sow dissensions and foment discord in the ranks of the

victors

"Which, if not victory, is yet revenge."

Foremost in this labor I am surprised to find, and regret to find, a southern Representativethe honorable gentleman from Kentucky, [Mr. H. MARSHALL,] who voted for the admission of California with her squatter sovereignty constitution, and who is fresh from a contest in which he sustained Mr. Fillmore, who instigated the squatters to assume the sovereignty of California, and, in effect, wrest that valuable acquisition not only from the South, but from the control of the Federal Government,

Mr. Speaker, when, in 1854, we accepted the Kansas and Nebraska bill, we accepted it with a perfect understanding of all its provisions. We knew that it referred the question I have been examining to the courts of the country. We aimed to refer it to that tribunal, because it was a question appropriate to the courts. We had confidence in them, and were willing to abide by their decision. We knew the act repealed the stigma upon us and our institutions which had been standing on the statute-book for more than thirty years. That commended it to our favor. But above all we embraced it because it contained the great doctrine of non-intervention by Congress; because, under the fair and full operation of that principle, the question of slavery could no more get into Congress to furnish fuel for the fires of agitation, and to make the main element in elections; because under it we and our institutions would cease to be a foot-ball in the political arena,it and because we might expect peace and security instead of the insubordination and insurrection which northern fanaticism is beginning to produce in our midst. We knew that the great evil under which we are suffering is the domestic disquiet caused by congressional agitation, and we embraced that bill cordially; not because it established slavery in the Territories, for we knew it did not, nor yet because we thought it insured the establishment of slavery; for leading southern statesmen declared their great doubt whether slavery would ever be desired by the people there, and none thought the stability of the institution in the southern States depended in any degree on the decision of the people of Kansas. We embraced it because it removed an odious and unconstitutional discrimination against us, and promised to arrest congressional agitation on the subject.

Will the Democratic party, especially will the southern portion of it, fall into the snare laid for by the Fillmore men of the South, and the Black Republicans of the North? Shall we quarrel over the bone of contention cast into our midst by the honorable gentleman from Kentucky? Whatever others may do, I will not. I do not believe the Kansas-Nebraska bill empowers the Territorial Legislature to exclude the slaveholder with his property. But I am willing for that question to take the course of other constitutional questions, and be decided by the courts as the bill intended it should be decided.

If the Legislature of Kansas excludes slavery, and the courts decide that it is competent for the Legislature to do so, I will abide by the decision; and when she applies for admission into the Union, I will vote for her admission if I have a seat on this floor. On the other hand, I hold every Democrat bound to vote for her admission if she applies with a constitution establishing or permitting slavery.

We seek not to force the institution on any people against their will. It is able to vindicate itself; and if its advantages in a particular locality are not obvious enough to enable it to contend against an accidental opposition, it will not be very important to the slaveholder to be permitted to go there.

Gentlemen representing the slaveholding States, who have had so recently an opportunity to learn the temper and fixed determination of the people of those States, need not be told that the continued existence of this Union depends on the cessation of congressional agitation of slavery; and that on our return home after the last session of Congress, we found those who are most at- Hence I cannot see that the question as to when tached to the Union, and the least in the habit the power may be exercised possesses the imof anticipating its dissolution, declaring sorrow-portance attributed to it by some of my friends. fully, but firmly, that unless we can have more It is certainly of too little value to distract the quiet in the Union, we will be compelled to sepa- country, divide the Democratic party, and harass rate and place ourselves in a position to fend off the South with a new issue. All agree that it intrusions detrimental to our peace. The South may be exercised at the time of framing a condemands peace; and peace she must and will stitution, and it is a mere question of time. have not the heavy and stupefying sleep that Every one knows that if the majority of the follows submission to wrong and insult, but the Legislature are opposed to slavery, there are a repose of health and vigor-the peaceful enjoy- multitude of ways in which the slaveholder may ment of acknowledged rights. be harassed and kept out by hostile legislation, and by a failure to provide remedies for the protection of his rights. Practically, the institution can only be introduced and sustained where the majority are willing to tolerate it; and one great advantage to the South of the Kansas-Nebraska act is, that hereafter Congress will stand pledged

After a two years' contest of unparalleled violence and at times, sir, of such doubtful issue as to overwhelm the friends of the Constitution and Union with gloom and despondency-the people have rendered their final verdict in that high court from which there is no appeal, in

not to prevent the people from having it if the majority wish it. It is, in my opinion, a beneficent institution, and wherever it ought to exist it will exist, if the people interested are left free to consult their choice. To establish it where, from soil, climate, or other circumstances, it ought not to exist, tends to weaken the institution everywhere, by furnishing plausible arguments against it.

settling a new country have borne the same testimony to the advantage and necessity of having labor that can be commanded. The Spaniards, who took possession of Mexico, the West Indies, and other portions of this continent soon after its discovery, though marching under the cross for a banner, and fighting in virtue of a bull of the Pope, professedly for the propagation of ChrisLooking to the relative strength of the slave- tianity, soon reduced the feeble natives to slavery, holding and non-slaveholding States, in the Sen- and compelled them to work as slaves. Our own ate, which is the only point of view in which the venerated ancestors, who took possession of this question of slavery extension affects the slave- portion of the continent, found it occupied by a holder, I have no hesitation in preferring squatter more formidable and warlike race than the feeble sovereignty to congressional sovereignty. Ay, aborigines of the tropics; but with a knowledge sir, I would rather leave the question to the first of the hardy and enterprising character of the 'hundred persons who reach the Territory than first emigrants from England, we cannot doubt to this Congress; and we all know that our chances that they would very soon have harnessed the of impartial justice from future Congresses are Pequod and the Narragansett but for the timely exceedingly gloomy. In both branches the non- arrival of a Dutch ship with a cargo of African slaveholding States have majorities; and in the || negroes. future we are far more likely to have an accession of slaveholding States under the spontaneous, uncontrolled action of the settlers in the Territories, than under a policy molded and influenced, if not dictated and controlled, by Congress.

On such slight circumstances do the fate of nations and the destiny of races depend. The enslaved, African has been civilized, and gone on increasing and multiplying beyond all precedent; whilst the Indian, rejoicing in his freedom, has receded before civilization, a prey to suffering, to want, and to barbarism, melting away on the frontiers, and carrying nothing but his boasted freedom across the broad prairies of the West, to the base of that great mountain range in whose icy gorges he must perish. When starvation and death are upon him, and his last "freedom shriek" is heard in the mountains, if the poor, friendless savage could look upon the well-fed, comfortable, and happy African on a southern

I know not on what ground the South should entertain jealousy and suspicion of the early settlers in the Territories. No people more fully realize the necessity of compulsory labor than those going forth into the wilderness to conquer, and it to the use of man. With to clear, houses to build, farms to improve, they soon learn that hireling labor cannot be commanded, for the early settlers are all hirers, and none are hirelings. And they are not usually of that canting and hypocritical class of sentiment-plantation, who can doubt that he would bewail alists who hesitate to use the blessings Providence has placed within their reach, for fear Providence has erred in blessing them.

Hence a most significant fact, to which I would call the attention of my friends who so much fear the action of the early settlers. It is this: that every Territory which has been left free to select its own institutions, has established or permitted slavery. And the Territories north west of the Ohio, over which the ordinance of 1787 extended, petitioned Congress for the repeal of the anti-slavery clause of the ordinance, protesting against it as retarding the improvement and settlement of the country, and vainly clamored for the privilege of having slaves. California presents no exception to the remark. There a snap judgment was taken against the institution at a time when the expense of transporting a slave was so great as to preclude the possibility of introducing laboring men, much less families, through which alone the institution could be planted. And besides, California cannot be said to have been free to select its institutions; for, as Congress was then constituted, it was well known that its admission into the Union would be opposed, retarded, and probably altogether defeated, on that ground, if its constitution did not prohibit slavery. And there is reason to believe that the anxiety of the people for immediate admission into the Union, and the well-known sentiments then prevailing in Congress, constrained them to forego the advantages of an institution which would do so much to develop her mineral and agricultural resources. Nor is this striking fact confined to the Territories of the American Union. Every people

the chance that left him free, and made the African a slave? The introduction of that cargo of Africans closed up the only avenue through which the Indian could have been conducted to civilization, placed under protection, and preserved from extermination.

It is a curious fact, also, that as the priest had been the foremost in enslaving the Indians in Mexico, doubtless as a means of converting them to Christianity-and in every allotment took to himself the largest share-so the New England Puritan was the foremost to enter into the African slave trade, and secure the profit of reducing men to slavery.

In looking over the face of the globe, I find that wherever there is a country fit for the use of civilized men, but which civilized men have not yet occupied, there Providence has placed a savage and debased race, having the ability but not the inclination to labor. When civilized man comes into it, I find universally a disposition manifested on his part to enslave the inferior race. The necessity of his position compels him to it; and he may be only availing himself of a wise economy of Providence, which placed the inferior race where it would be needed. I find that in all our Territories, where the policy of the Government and the sentiments of our people forbid any attempt to enslave the Indian, the early settlers in every instance manifest the greatest anxiety to avail themselves of African slavery. I infer from this that slavery is suitable to their condition, and that they realize that it is so, and will continue to introduce it in the future, as they have done in the past, if permitted to exercise a free

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