Part 18

If there is any thing to pacificate I am in favor of pacification, but in favor of it according to the Constitution. The Constitution embraces all that any State can reasonably ask or honorably concede. But if from change of circumstances or other causes, the men of the South are of the opinion that their interests are overlooked or ill-defined, I, for one, will favor a call of a convention to consider amendments to the Constitution, and I will vote for such amendments as shall give as substantial protection to the South as the North ought to ask for, in the change of circumstances.

I submitted an address and resolutions a few days since for adoption in this Convention, which I hope may be carefully read before being rejected. They contemplated a convention, and their design is to give assurance of justice to the public. I oppose the proposition for an address by the committee, to be issued to the public after our adjournment. We wish to know beforehand what we adopt, and to weigh every word. There is a northern sentiment to be regarded as well as a southern sentiment.

We of the North have heard much said in denunciation of us, and have thought it political clap-trap and gasconade. But if we are made to believe in your hostility to us and the Government, we may conclude it is best to let you leave us. We have no fears in trusting ourselves, if necessary, to our industry, our habits, and enterprise, separate from the slaveholding States. Opinions are changing rapidly. I do not like the idea of maintaining the Union by force of arms. It is not in accordance with the theory of our Government.

A Virginian stated only a few days ago, that there was nothing which the South could ask or that the North could give, that was not found in the Constitution. But you say that we do not understand it alike--that the two sections differ in their construction of it. Well, if that is so, we are willing to submit to the courts.

You have always fared well enough there. If that is not enough we will leave the whole subject, amendments and all, to a General Convention. That we now propose. We propose it fairly, not for any purpose of delay or postponement. Call the convention as early as it can be done. We will aid you. We will go home and in good faith urge our people to go into the convention, and there patiently and fairly consider all your claims, all your complaints. We would urge them to concede all they can without a sacrifice of principle. We will do this as a party, and with all our strength. Now, this does not quite come up to what you want, but is it best for you to insist upon breaking up the Government on that ground? That is neither sensible nor safe. We are like two lobes in the same skull; one cannot outlive the other. Destroy one and you destroy the other. I do not believe this Republic can stand without the Union which our fathers made. But it will stand--it must stand. Wise counsels will yet prevail. You will yet believe us sincere in our desires to relieve you. The end of the Union has not come--it is not coming. The Union will yet outlive us and our posterity.

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN:--In rising to express briefly my views, I feel oppressed and embarrassed in view of the magnitude of the subjects we are discussing, and in the presence of this distinguished auditory. I cannot claim to represent an Empire State with its four millions of people, nor a Bay State, which we are told, with its wealth, its enterprise, and its commerce, can settle a new State every year. But with my colleagues, I represent a State which performed her part in the dark night of the Revolution--her share in that great struggle for our priceless institutions--a State which has ever since been faithful in the discharge of all her constitutional obligations. In that bloody conflict, upon her own soil, New Jersey joined hands with the North and South. There is scarcely a church spire within her borders beneath whose shadows does not lay the remains of some of the entombed patriots in that great conflict from both these sections, commingled with those of her own sons!

New Jersey was true to the Union in that great struggle--she has always since been true; and under the favor of Providence she always will be faithful to the Union and its memories, so inseparably connected with the glory and honor of her sons. Other States may have done as much, may have as good a record, may be entitled to equal credit with her. But in all her past history, I can point to her fidelity to the Union and her sister States with no blush of shame upon my brow. Other States might be wanting! New Jersey never! She has always been true to her constitutional obligations; she has always kept--never sought to avoid them.

With a narrow stream separating her from a slaveholding State, there were never any underground railroads in New Jersey; she never rescued a fugitive slave from the custody of the law; no _personal liberty_ bill ever disgraced the pages of her statutes, nor ever will disgrace them. In 1793 she enacted a statute providing for the prompt return of fugitive slaves found within her limits. She subjected any judge required to act under it, to imprisonment, if he neglected to perform his duties. That law has ever since been in force. It was reënacted in 1836, and again in 1846, when some of its defects were amended. Courteous as just, she provided by another law, passed in 1820, that any southern gentleman visiting her territory, might bring with him his household slaves, travel in, through, and out of the State, or even take up his temporary residence as securely in this respect as at home. This law was reënacted in 1847, and again in 1855; one of my worthy colleagues here was associated, upon the commission which revised this act, with that distinguished New Jersey Republican, WILLIAM L. DAYTON.

In the recent unhappy political contest, New Jersey, ever anxious to do justice to all sections of the Union, and injustice to none, as if hesitating and doubtful toward which of the two parties in that struggle she ought to incline, extended her fraternal hands to North and South, by giving one-half her electoral vote to each; thus showing that she still retains her unselfish spirit, which leads her to sacrifice her own preferences to her duty to the Union.

In the same spirit to-day she bears her full share of the heavy sorrow that rests, like a pall, over the people of the whole country as they witness this glorious fabric, which our fathers erected and cemented with their blood and their prayers--trembling, shattered, and dismembered. In the conciliatory spirit of my State, I, as a Jerseyman, proud of the title and every thing connected with it, wish to say a word to the South in all frankness and candor. I freely tell you that, in my opinion, you have a right to guarantees, and to constitutional guarantees. It is no answer to say that the Constitution has not been broken. That is not the question now. Reference has been made to the fact that WASHINGTON signed the present Constitution. Yes, but when he did so we had a population of but three millions, and now we have a population of upward of thirty millions. Is it surprising that some change should be required in that instrument with this great change in the nation? The balance of power so long fluctuating between the free and the slaveholding States has at length entirely changed. It has now come to us of the free States, and therefore we are bound to respect the claims of the South, and quiet the apprehensions of its people.

It is of little use to make patriotic speeches here. The South demands guarantees, and I feel under obligations to respond to that demand. I assert as a general principle, that whoever has a right is entitled to have it guaranteed. I believe there is not a gentleman here, who, in his heart, does not think so. If it is right for them to have these guarantees at all, they should have them to-day. I do not care whether Virginia occupies a menacing attitude or not, my moral code is still the same; it is not effected by any thing that has been done or can be done by Virginia or any other State. It is my belief that nineteen-twentieths of the people of the North to-day are in favor of giving to the South all the guarantees it asks against all interference with slavery in the territories. Some say, "We admit this, but we will do nothing until the Republican President is inaugurated on the 4th of March." I am ready to do it now; and my obligations to do right will not be changed by the 4th of March rolling over my head.

Gentlemen have made eloquent and patriotic speeches asserting their determination not to interfere with the rights of the South. That is very pleasant and very proper. But those speeches are the expressions of individuals, and they pass away. Where is the man who will consent to hold any political right at the will of any man or class of men, no matter how kindly disposed? We all require security. The highest and grandest aim and object of government is not the stability and peace of society, but a well-grounded confidence in the minds of the people of the perpetuity of that stability and peace.

The South asks the right to use and occupy a portion of the common territory of the country. As a northern man I will accept the compromise, and I believe a large majority of the people will agree with me. You, gentlemen of the South, have asked that the arrangement may be extended to territory hereafter to be acquired. New Jersey has voted in this Convention against interference with slavery in the territory, present or future, and she is the only northern State that has cast her vote in favor of your demand. Her representatives have been told somewhat sneeringly, that while slaveholding States voted against this proposition, New Jersey was the only free State that voted for it. Well, we accept the responsibility, and will bear it. New Jersey has made up her record. There it stands, and there let it stand forever. We are proud of it. If civil war is to come, if this land is to be deluged with fraternal blood, when that time comes there will not be a northern State represented here that would not give untold millions to be placed upon that record by the side of New Jersey.

The fact is, sir, we have acquired our liberties too cheaply. Had we purchased them at the cost our fathers did, by coloring the snows of winter by our blood tracks, and by passing the summers in the unhealthy morass, we should have learned to prize them more highly; we should be more patriotic and less proud, more sensible and less sensitive.

A word further on the subject of extending this provision to territory hereafter acquired. Gentlemen, you do not want that provision; you do not need any provision as to future acquisitions. You are better off without it. No present rights are involved in it. You are providing for a contingency which may never, and probably never will happen. Would it not be inconsistent for a nation to commit suicide because a constitution is not made to meet an improbable contingency? You have territory enough for the next two hundred years. You say you require it to maintain your honor, to preserve your fair equality, to maintain your lawful rights. Permit me to say you have no rights in territory which we never owned, and I hope never may. This is no question of honor or equality. But if we should acquire territory and should then exclude you from it, will it not then be time enough to resort to the expedient of national suicide as a remedy for the wrong? Nor do you require it for any particular purpose. You have within your States room for all the increase of a century. Your interest is to retain your sons at home and develop the wealth and advance the prosperity of your States, and not to send them to the western wilderness where one-half die in the process of acclimation. The fact that you are all in favor of placing in the Constitution new _restrictions_ as to the _acquisition_ of territory, proves you do not consider you need more territory. I heard it said, the other day, by a gentleman from Virginia, that the South wanted the provision for a finality, to end forever this dispute about slavery. With all my heart I sympathize with him in his desire to end this discussion forever. You think you have suffered from these discussions at the South; so have we at the North. It has separated families and neighborhoods; it has broken up and scattered Christian churches; it has severed every benevolent society of the land; it has destroyed parties; it broke up the good old Whig party, and more recently sapped the strength and vigor from the Herculean Democracy. It now threatens the dissolution of the Union. Let us crush the head of the monster forever. Let us do it by restricting and defining its limits in existing territory.

Suppose the word "future" had been inserted. You do not wish to destroy all probability of the adoption of this proposition at the North. These proposals could not pass Congress, with the word "future," by the requisite vote; and if it passed Congress, there is no hope that twenty-five out of twenty-eight States would have adopted it. With it you would have given great strength to the opposition at the North. It would have created a more powerful anti-slavery party than ever before existed. No, you are better off by confining the provisions of this compromise to present territory--you having, as well as the North, in the contemplated amendment a veto on the acquisition of territory.

The North will want new territory before you will desire it. They will demand Mexico and Cuba for the advantages of trade. You then, having the veto power, can say to them--No, gentlemen, we will not agree to it unless our particular institution is there respected; or, if you please, you may go further and say, We will not acquiesce unless this territory comes in as a slave State so as to restore measurably the balance of power in the Government. With this veto power you would have the North in your hands, and could make your own terms. You make the provision more of a finality by letting it stand as it is.

But gentlemen say, they want the amendment for another purpose, in order that they may induce States that have gone out to return. Here, again, I sympathize with you. I had rather bring back South Carolina than to secure the annexation of both the Canadas. I would give more for one American than for a regiment of John Bulls. Ungenerous as South Carolina has been, I would receive her home again. I desire the States to return. Let their place at the Federal Board remain vacant for them. Let the stars of their sovereignty on our nation's ensign remain unobliterated and without further dishonor. We are ready to receive them. But this provision as to future territory is not necessary for their return. The same considerations to which I have alluded, and which, will satisfy you that such provision is not requisite, will satisfy them. The guarantees which the North are ready to give as to the representation, taxation, and return of property, and the compromise as to the existing territory, will do much to satisfy them. To effect a compromise, you of the South must demand as little as you can render satisfactory to your people, and we of the North must give as much as our people will approve, and both parties must consent to avoid all objectionable phraseology.

Now, a few words to my friends of the North. There is resting upon us a grave responsibility. We are bound to settle this question finally in this Convention. Talk about a convention of the people! We who have no constitution, we who are tied up to no technicalities, must settle it. We of the North may meet political death; but let political death come, it is enough to have lived for, if we can settle this question.

But one asks, Will you strike hands with treason, and enter into compacts with rebels and traitors? Yes, sir! I will strike hands with just such rebels and traitors as I see around me; and I would give them what they ask as cheerfully and as freely as I would give a glass of water to a soldier returning wounded and weary from the field of battle.

But it is said we must first see whether we have a Government. We must try the strength of the Government. We must know whether the Government can assert its supremacy and compel obedience to its laws. Sir, that is just what I do not want to try. What, try the strength of the Government! and do so at the end of an administration in which corruption and treason and every evil principle have been contending for the mastery, when our ships are all away beyond sea, when our arms and our fortifications are out of our hands, when our treasury is bankrupt, our people divided, insolvency and ruin threatening our country, and all the Gulf States defying the authority of the Government? No, sir! this is no time to try the strength of the Government. When we do that, let us select some more auspicious period.

But another says these proposals of amendment contravene the Chicago platform. What if they do? Is the Chicago platform a law to us? Is it a law to any one? It was passed upon ten minutes' consideration in a convention of five thousand people. If it was a law, the convention should have been perpetual and never dissolved, in order that the law might have been subject to requisite modifications without a change of circumstances. A strange manner in which to enact such a law! But things have changed since the Chicago Convention. In fifty days, fifty years of history have transpired. This is enough to release us from the obligation, if any existed. It is not a law; it is a doctrine, the spirit, the policy of the party that it undertakes to enunciate. It is not a law, because a majority of the people have never given it their sanction. Mr. Lincoln was elected by less than a majority. And in his vote how many old Whigs and Democrats may be counted who did not support him _because_ he stood upon the Chicago platform, but because they preferred him to either of the opposing candidates. And even if it is a law, I call upon the North to support the proposals of amendment here submitted. Let us, as Republicans, be honest, and when the opportunity offers are we not bound so to change the Constitution that three-fourths of all our present territory, now open to slavery, shall be consecrated to freedom? Yes, we are bound to relieve that three-fourths from slavery. All we need to do to secure this, is not to carry slavery where it is not, but to secure it where it is. I can go home to the Republicans of New Jersey with a clear conscience and say to them, that by our action here we have not carried slavery one inch farther than it was before. If they are not satisfied with that, they must be dissatisfied.

But there is one plank in the Chicago platform to which I will call the attention of my Republican friends. It must not be forgotten. I read from a genuine copy which I brought from Chicago myself.

"_Resolved_, That to the Union of the States, this nation owes its unprecedented increase in population, its surpassing development of internal resources, its rapid augmentation of wealth, its happiness at home and its honor abroad, and we hold in abhorrence all schemes of disunion, come from whatever source they may."

It is a rule of construction, that all parts of an instrument must be construed together; that due regard and effect must be given to all parts of it, unless they are clearly repugnant. Will any gentleman tell me how the Union can be more effectually preserved than by controlling disunion? It is by granting what is asked to those who might disturb its tranquillity, when they ask nothing unreasonable. This resolution every patriot can subscribe to; and I hold that it can be as effectually violated by the neglect to do all we can to turn aside disunion, as by affirmative action against the Government. And let me say that the party in this country which goes between the people and the preservation of the Union, will sink so low, eventually, that a bubble will not return to mark the spot where it went down. But I cannot understand how any one who is honestly opposed to the extension of slavery, as a political institution, can refuse the compromise proposed. The federal courts, to which we have committed the power, have decided that slavery, of right, goes into all the territories. The distinguished Republican from Massachusetts has told us that the court cannot be so organized, even if we keep the power, as to change that decision in twenty-five years. In that time the whole question will be determined. Now we have an opportunity, at once and forever, by constitutional enactment, to prohibit slavery from going into three-fourths of the territory, by simply agreeing that as to the other one-fourth, while it remains a territory, the _status_ of slavery shall not be changed. I confess I have not the ingenuity to contrive how I should apologize to an audience of Republicans for refusing such a contract.

Now, what can we of the North, we Republicans, do? By a settlement here we can retain the Border States, and, in my opinion, that is equivalent to saving the Union. Retain the Border States and the seceding States must come back. If the Border States go, I believe war is inevitable. How can two sections exist with only an imaginary line between them. I do not believe the South will ever consent to give up the Capital, claimed to be within her borders, and the North could never surrender it. Sir, I shrink from the prospect of civil war. The picture of civil war has often been painted, and by abler hands than mine. Its calamities and miseries, the sufferings that attend it, strike a chill of horror to the soul. But such a picture as a civil war in this country would be, has never been drawn. History would be searched in vain for its parallel. A civil war between the members of a family, between brother and brother, father and son, who have all enjoyed the same blessings which their fathers made early and bloody sacrifices to secure! Shall it be said that such a people, for such a cause, risked their interests, their country, their all, and rushed blindly into the calamities of a civil war? He has read history to little account who has not learned that such a warfare is, in its nature, not only cruel, but protracted. It is like letting loose the hurricane. Passion and poverty, carnage and crime, desolation and death, become the condition of a hitherto happy people. For thirty years Germany was ravaged, and millions slain by a contest occasioned by a difference in religious opinions. For more than thirty years the war of the Roses devastated England. The French Revolution, including the "Reign of Terror"--originating in a question of taxation and terminating with the supremacy of Napoleon--lasted nearly ten years. For a like decade civil war raged between England and Scotland, originating in a question of authority between the King and Commons, and ending in Cromwell's protectorate. Why, I ask, if we admit this fiendish visitant to our borders, should we anticipate that our fate would be more favorable? No! war is to be averted, and a nation still covered with glory is to be preserved by holding the Border States in the Union.