Part 15

Mr. Crittenden replied at some length, vindicating his propositions, and also the Massachusetts petitioners, who, he said, had been charged with “ignorance.” In the course of the debate the following passage occurred.

MR. CRITTENDEN. If the propositions I offered, and which I offered with diffidence, are not adequate to the purpose, if they ask too much, why have not gentlemen moved to amend? Why has the honorable Senator sat here for one month and more, and proposed no amendment to the propositions which he now rises to condemn his constituents for approving?

MR. SUMNER. Will the Senator allow me to say that every time I could get an opportunity I have voted against his propositions? I have missed no opportunity, direct or indirect, of voting against them, from beginning to end, every line and every word.

MR. CRITTENDEN. I do not controvert that, Mr. President; it may be so; but that is not what I am asking of the gentleman. It is, that, if he desired union and conciliation at all, why did he not move to amend the propositions which he now condemns?

MR. SUMNER. I will answer the Senator: Because I thought there could be no basis of peace on the Senator’s propositions, which are wrong in every respect, in every line, in every word. That is what I thought. I was for the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution of our fathers, as administered by George Washington.

MR. CRITTENDEN. If that was all true, and the gentleman desired an amicable settlement of the difficulties which now threaten the country, had he no proposition whatever to make?

MR. SUMNER. Certainly,--the proposition which I have already made, that the Constitution, as administered by George Washington, should be preserved pure and free from any amendment for the sake of Slavery.

MR. CRITTENDEN. Why did he not move that? Why did he sit sullen and silent here for one month or more, with his breast full of resentment? [_Applause in the galleries._]

THE PRESIDING OFFICER [Mr. FOSTER, of Connecticut]. Order will be preserved in the galleries, or they will be cleared immediately.

MR. CRITTENDEN. With such a spirit of opposition to, and thinking as he did of these resolutions, why did he not propose to strike them all out?

MR. SUMNER. Will the Senator let me answer?

MR. CRITTENDEN. Yes, I will.

MR. SUMNER. I did vote for the substitute of the Senator from New Hampshire [Mr. CLARK] just as soon as it could come to a vote, and that expresses precisely my conviction. That vote displaced the Senator’s propositions entirely.[138]

Before the debate closed, Mr. Sumner replied briefly.

MR. PRESIDENT,--I have no desire to prolong this debate, or to occupy the time of the Senate. I content myself with two remarks. The Senator from Kentucky is not aware of his own popularity in Massachusetts, of the extent to which his name is an authority there, of the willingness of the people there to adopt anything with the sanction of his respectable name. I do not think the distinguished Senator is aware of that fact; consequently he does not see how easily the people of Massachusetts might be seduced to adopt at sight a proposition brought forward by him, which otherwise they would at once reject. Now all that I suggest in regard to these petitioners is, that, under the lead of the distinguished Senator, they put their names to a petition which I am sure they did not, in all respects and in all its bearings, fully understand; and I must do them the justice to believe, that, had they known the true character of the propositions of the Senator, they would not have signed petitions for their adoption.

This is all on that point; but I wish to make one other remark. The Senator intimated, if I understood him aright, that his propositions, at least in his own mind, were not applicable to territory hereafter acquired.

MR. CRITTENDEN. No: I do not mean to be understood as saying that.

MR. SUMNER. I understood the Senator so.

MR. CRITTENDEN. I said I did not consider that proposition as an essential part of mine,--that I did not intend to insist upon it, if I found it would not be acceptable. I did not intend that that should be any obstacle to an adjustment, and I would propose to strike it out, if necessary.

MR. SUMNER. The Senator did not consider that an essential part; and yet in the Journal of the Senate, now before me, in the yeas and nays, I find his name recorded in the affirmative on introducing those words, “now held or hereafter to be acquired.” Here is the record,--the name of the Senator from Kentucky answering yea, when we were all asked to answer yea or nay.

This brief effort of Mr. Sumner at a critical moment found response, not only from his constituents, but from the North generally. In Massachusetts many made haste to testify that the petition praying for such a shameful surrender had been signed by large numbers without knowing its true character,--while the Common Council of Boston, then controlled by Compromisers, also made haste to censure Mr. Sumner, declaring, in formal resolution, that his assertion in the Senate with regard to the petitioners was “undignified, unbecoming a Senator and a citizen of Boston, and untrue.”

As through this remarkable petition, and the speech of Mr. Crittenden in presenting it, Massachusetts was vouched for Slavery, a few witnesses may be properly adduced to show how the signatures were obtained, and also what was the real sentiment of the people there.

William Lloyd Garrison, always watchful for Human Rights, and knowing the wiles of Compromise, wrote from Boston:--

“For one, I desire to thank you for declaring in the Senate that the petition from Boston, asking for any compromise to propitiate the South, did not represent the sentiment even of the city, but was signed by multitudes ignorantly and recklessly,--the left hand not knowing what the right hand did. I wish it were in your power to have that list of names critically examined. I am quite sure that hundreds of names would be proved to be ‘men of straw.’ I have been told that the names of Wendell Phillips, Henry Ward Beecher, Theodore Parker (!),[139] and my own, were appended to it. This is possible, but hardly credible. Still, excepting the Border-Ruffian returns in Kansas, I do not believe there was ever a petition more impudently and fraudulently presented to a legislative assembly than the one from this city.

“I congratulate you upon being the special object of the _Courier’s_ malignant abuse. Do not fear of being fully sustained by Massachusetts in your boldest utterances; and how posterity will decide is easily seen.”

M. P. Kennard, an excellent citizen and business man, wrote from Boston:--

“The petition was placed in the lobby of our post-office, under the charge of a crier, who saluted every one who passed him with, ‘Sign this petition?’--and it was thoughtlessly signed by men and boys, native and foreign.”

Charles W. Slack, of the newspaper press, wrote from Boston:--

“You are entirely right relative to the signers of the Crittenden Petition. Boys, non-voters, foreigners, anybody, were taken, who could write a name. The city police canvassed all the out-of-the-way places, and took the names they could gather.… Glad that you spoke as you did. We look to you to give the key-note. None knows Massachusetts better than you, and none will be more faithful to her, come weal or woe.”

Dr. William J. Dale, afterwards the Surgeon-General of Massachusetts, wrote from Boston:--

“The other day a neighbor of ours, Mr. Brown, an intelligent citizen, a provision dealer, corner of Derne and Temple Streets, stopped me and said, ‘If you ever write Mr. Sumner, tell him that I, with many others, signed that Crittenden Petition under an entire misapprehension.’ Says he, ‘I would cut off my right hand before it should sign so infamous a proposition.’ That is the feeling among the middling-interest people. The so-called Union men assume the air and manner of slave-overseers. They have overdone the thing here.”

J. Vincent Browne, afterwards Collector of Internal Revenue in the Essex District of Massachusetts, wrote from Salem:--

“At least twenty persons who signed the paper in this city have said to me, ‘Why, Mr. Crittenden’s propositions are merely to restore the Missouri Compromise. I was told so, when I signed.’ When the _truth_ was told them, as usual, they were _astonished_. And so men trifle with their rights, and are trifled with.”

John Tappan, a venerable citizen, loving peace, but hating Slavery, and anxious that Massachusetts should be right, wrote from Boston:--

“I thank you for it, and believe it speaks the sentiments of a vast majority of _all parties_ in this and the other New England States. The only reason assigned by some of the signers is, that it was not expected that it would pass as offered, but lead to some compromise.

“Be assured the heart of the Commonwealth is with you, and that, if ever we were called upon for firmness in maintaining our Constitutional rights, it is now; and although I pray God no blood may be shed in the conflict, yet submission to the demands of Slavery is not to be the alternative.

“I rejoice the conflict has come in my day, although, on the verge of four-score, I may not live to see harmony restored.”[140]

Rev. John Weiss, the eloquent preacher and author, wrote from Milton, Massachusetts:--

“Your little speech lies in the hand like an ingot,--dense and precious, and of the color which charms my eyes at least. Nothing can be truer than your statement, that multitudes of people do not know what they sign, when they indorse the Crittenden propositions. I, for one, had not read them till quite lately. They have not been freely ventilated in the newspapers. When, the other day, the Boston papers undertook to print them formally, people were shocked.… The 4th March will come with a fatal suddenness for all the plotters and expecters and adjustment-mongers. Just at the proper moment, not a moment too soon nor too late, you spoke a word which will help to clear the air.”

Others wrote correcting the statement with regard to signatures in different towns. Some in a few words exposed the petition. Professor Convers Francis wrote from Cambridge: “The big Boston petition, so far as I can learn, is regarded here as a piece of gammon, except, perhaps, in certain quarters of the business world.” Rev. R. S. Storrs, the venerable divine, wrote from Braintree: “A great hoax, that famous petition for the Crittenden Compromise!” This testimony, which might be extended indefinitely, will relieve Massachusetts from a painful complicity, and help keep her history bright.

The resolutions of the Boston Common Council did not fare better than the petition. Among newspapers, the _Boston Advertiser_ remarked:--

“It is hardly necessary for us to say that we do not concur in all respects in the policy which Mr. Sumner is understood to follow at this crisis; but in the matter of this petition we certainly hold that he was plainly right. And we are led to this belief by observing the industrious efforts made by those who urged the signing of the petition to conceal the true meaning of the scheme which is known as Mr. Crittenden’s.… It appears to us also that Mr. Sumner gave not only the most friendly, but also a most natural, account of the manner in which a large number of these petitioners must have been led to this singular mistake.”

The _New York Tribune_ stated the case.

“A great many dull people, and a few clever ones, lately signed a petition asking Congress to adopt the Crittenden Compromise. When this document was taken up in the Senate, Mr. Sumner said, with much calmness and in the most courteous spirit, that he believed the signers had so high a regard for the name of Crittenden that they had put their signatures to a paper which they could not have fully understood in all its obligations, bearings, and propositions. This was a very gentle letting-down of the Bostonians, much more tender treatment than they deserved. Nevertheless, the remark raised a breeze in the respectable city, such as only a small thing can create in that place. It would never do to say that any Boston man or boy could sign a paper the whole of which he had not read and digested. So the Common Council, of all bodies in that town, took up the matter, and actually passed a vote of censure on Senator Sumner for mildly hinting that the signers aforesaid were rather hasty than wicked, stupid, or weak.”

A sonnet by David A. Wasson, which appeared at this time, expresses gratitude to Mr. Sumner, with small sympathy for compromise in any form.

“TO CHARLES SUMNER.

“Thou and the stars, our Sumner, still shine on! No dark will dim, no spending waste thy ray; And we as soon could doubt the Milky Way, Whether enduring were its silver zone, As question of thy truth. Their light is gone Whose beam was borrowed: ever will Accident, Upon a day, the garment it hath lent Strip off,--make beggars of its kings anon. Thou and the stars eternal, inly fed From God’s own bosom with celestial light, Must needs emit the glory in ye bred; Alike it is your nature to be bright: And I, while thou art shining overhead, Know God is with us in the gloomy night.”

DUTY AND STRENGTH OF THE COMING ADMINISTRATION.

FROM NOTES OF UNDELIVERED SPEECH ON THE VARIOUS PROPOSITIONS OF COMPROMISE, FEBRUARY, 1861.

Mr. Sumner contemplated a speech reviewing the various propositions of Compromise, but he never made it. The following passages are given, as proposed at the time.

…

I would not say a word except of kindness and respect for the Senator of Kentucky [Mr. CRITTENDEN]. But that Senator must pardon me, if I insist that he is entirely unreasonable in pressing his impracticable and unconstitutional propositions so persistently in the way of most important public business. Yesterday it hindered a great measure of Internal Improvement. To-day it blocks the admission of a State into this Union, being none other than Kansas, which has earned a better hospitality.

The Senator makes his appeal in the name of the Union. But I must remind him that he takes a poor way of showing that attachment to the Union which he avers. He turns round and lectures us who are devoted to the Union, when his lecture should be addressed to the avowed and open Disunionists in this Chamber. Nay, more, he actually sides with the Disunionists in their claims. Imagine Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, John Jay, Andrew Jackson, or Henry Clay, in the place of the venerable Senator. They would not wheel towards the known friends of the Union, and ask an impossible surrender of sacred principles, but rather face to face address the Disunionists frankly, plainly, austerely, calling upon them to renounce their evil schemes; to acknowledge the National Constitution, and especially in this age of light to make no new demands for Slavery.

In reply to the Senator, who so constantly lectures us, I say, look to the good examples of our history; take counsel of the Spirit of Nationalism, rather than Sectionalism, and be willing to defend the Constitution _as it is_, rather than _patch it over_ with propositions which our fathers would have disowned.

…

Putting aside all question of concession or compromise, the single question remains, _How shall we treat the seceding States?_ And this is the question which the new Administration will be called to meet. I see well that it will naturally bear much and forbear long,--that it will be moved by principle, and not by passion,--and that it will adopt the harsh instrumentalities of power only when all other things have failed. And I see well the powerful allies which will be enlisted on its side. There will be the civilization of the Christian world, speaking with the innumerable voices of the press, and constituting a Public Opinion of irresistible energy. There will be the great contemporary example of Italy, after a slumber of centuries aroused to assertion of her rights,--and of Russia also, now completing that memorable act of Emancipation by which Freedom is assured to twenty millions of serfs. There will be also the concurring action of European powers, which, turning with disgust from a new confederacy founded on Human Slavery, will refuse to recognize it in the Family of Nations. There will be also the essential weakness of Slavery with the perils of servile insurrection, which, under the influence of this discussion, must become more and more manifest in every respect. There will be also the essential strength of Freedom, as a principle, carrying victory in its right hand. And there will be Time, which is at once Reformer and Pacificator. Such are some of the allies sure to be on the side of the Administration.

FOREIGN RELATIONS: ARBITRATION.

REPORT FROM COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, ADVISING THE PRESIDENT TO SUBMIT THE SAN JUAN BOUNDARY QUESTION TO ARBITRATION, IN THE SENATE, MARCH 19, 1861.

By the withdrawal of Southern Senators, the Republicans were left with a majority in the Senate, enabling them to reorganize the Standing Committees, which was done March 8, 1861. At the head of the Finance Committee was Mr. Fessenden, instead of Mr. Hunter,--of the Judiciary Committee, Mr. Trumbull, instead of Mr. Bayard,--of the Military Committee, Mr. Wilson, instead of Mr. Jefferson Davis,--and of the Naval Committee, Mr. Hale, instead of Mr. Mallory. Mr. Sumner was appointed Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, in place of Mr. Mason, of Virginia, who had held this position from December 8, 1851. With the former on the new Committee were Messrs. Collamer, of Vermont, Doolittle, of Wisconsin, Harris, of New York, Douglas, of Illinois, Polk, of Missouri, and Breckinridge, of Kentucky. The appointment of Mr. Sumner to this important position was contrasted with his treatment at an earlier day, when the omission of his name from any committee was justified on the ground that he was “outside of any healthy political organization in this country,” and this Senatorial sally was received with “laughter.”[141] Mr. Hale and Mr. Chase were in the same category. Only Democrats and Whigs were accepted: such was the Law of Slavery. At last this was all changed.

The reorganization of the Committees attracted the attention of the press at home and abroad. It was properly recognized as marking a change from old to new. The London _Star_, in an elaborate article on the transition, welcomed especially the new Chairman of the Committee of Foreign Relations.

“The Republican Senators have selected for the Chairman of this Committee the Hon. Charles Sumner, a statesman deservedly honored in this country, not only for his eloquence as an orator, but for his unswerving fidelity to the cause of Freedom. No man could have been chosen for this office in every respect more acceptable to the English people. It is not only as the Antislavery legislator, who, from the first moment that he took his seat in the Senate as the representative of Massachusetts, has ever raised his voice and given his vote for the hapless negro,--it is not only as the patriot who almost suffered martyrdom on the floor of the Senate Chamber from the ruffian hand of Preston S. Brooks, that the English people will be disposed to regard his appointment with hearty approval: he has established other claims to our sympathy and admiration, which we must not be slow to recognize. Mr. Sumner is well known in this country--scarcely less, indeed, than in America--as the stanch friend of Peace. Years ago, in his famous oration on the True Glory of Nations, he set forth the advantages of a pacific policy, with arguments as cogent and irresistible as those which have been employed by Mr. Cobden, and with an eloquence of language and a fertility of illustration which revived the oratory of classic times.…

“And if during the period of Mr. Lincoln’s administration causes of dispute should unhappily arise between America and Great Britain, or any other foreign power, Mr. Sumner will not fail to point to _arbitration as the only reasonable and satisfactory mode_ of settling international differences. _He will not, if he can help it, permit San Juan to be made a casus belli_, or tolerate any more of those periodical expeditions against the weak and effeminate republics of South America, by which Mr. Buchanan and his predecessors treated with contempt the solemn injunctions of the Fathers of the Republic, that their posterity should avoid the fatal quicksands of European diplomacy, and abstain from intermeddling with the affairs of other states.”

The very questions anticipated by the London journal were presented at an early day, even before its article could reach Washington. The advice of the Senate was asked by the President on submitting the San Juan Question to arbitration.

March 16, 1861, the following Message from President Lincoln was read in Executive Session, and on motion of Mr. Sumner referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations.

“TO THE SENATE:--

“The Senate has transmitted to me a copy of the Message sent by my predecessor to that body on the 21st day of February last, proposing to take its advice on the subject of a proposition made by the British Government through its minister here to refer the matter in controversy between that Government and the Government of the United States to the arbitrament of the King of Sweden and Norway, the King of the Netherlands, or the Republic of the Swiss Confederation.

“In that Message my predecessor stated that he wished to submit to the Senate the precise questions following, namely:--