Part 116

What, then, was the state of things in 1850? There was Texas claiming all, or a great part, of that which the United States had acquired from Mexico as New Mexico. She claimed that it belonged to her by conquest and by her admission into the United States, and she was ready to maintain her claim by force of arms. Nor was this all. A man must be ignorant of the history of the country who does not know, that, at the commencement of 1850, there was great agitation throughout the whole South. Who does not know that six or seven of the largest States of the South had already taken measures looking toward secession; were preparing for disunion in some way? They concurred apparently, at least some of them, with Texas, while Texas was prepared or preparing to enforce her rights by force of arms. Troops were enlisted by her, and many thousand persons in the South disaffected towards the Union, or desirous of breaking it up, were ready to make common cause with Texas; to join her ranks, and see what they could make in a war to establish the right of Texas to New Mexico. The public mind was disturbed. A considerable part of the South was disaffected towards the Union, and in a condition to adopt any course that should be violent and destructive.

What then was to be done, as far as Texas was concerned? Allow me to say, Gentlemen, there are two sorts of foresight. There is a military foresight, which sees what will be the result of an appeal to arms; and there is also a statesmanlike foresight, which looks not to the result of battles and carnage, but to the results of political disturbances, the violence of faction carried into military operations, and the horrors attendant on civil war. I never had a doubt, that, if the administration of General Taylor had gone to war, and had sent troops into New Mexico, the Texan forces would have been subdued in a week. The power on one side was far superior to all the power on the other. But what then? What if Texan troops, assisted by thousands of volunteers from the disaffected States, had gone to New Mexico, and had been defeated and turned back? Would that have settled the boundary question? Now, Gentlemen, I wish I had ten thousand voices. I wish I could draw around me the whole people of the United States, and I wish I could make them all hear what I now declare on my conscience as my solemn belief, before the Power who sits on high, and who will judge you and me hereafter, that, if this Texan controversy had not been settled by Congress in the manner it was, by the so-called adjustment measures, civil war would have ensued; blood, American blood, would have been shed; and who can tell what would have been the consequences? Gentlemen, in an honorable war, if a foreign foe invade us, if our rights are threatened, if it be necessary to defend them by arms, I am not afraid of blood. And if I am too old myself, I hope there are those connected with me by ties of relationship who are young, and willing to defend their country to the last drop of their blood. But I cannot express the horror I feel at the shedding of blood in a controversy between one of these States and the government of the United States, because I see in it a total and entire disruption of all those ties that make us a great and happy people. Gentlemen, this was the great question, the leading question, at the commencement of the year 1850.

Then there was the other matter, and that was the Fugitive Slave Law. Let me say a word about that. Under the provisions of the Constitution, during Washington's administration, in the year 1793, there was passed, by general consent, a law for the restoration of fugitive slaves. Hardly any one opposed it at that period; it was thought to be necessary, in order to carry the Constitution into effect; the great men of New England and New York all concurred in it. It passed, and answered all the purposes expected from it, till about the year 1841 or 1842, when the States interfered to make enactments in opposition to it. The act of Congress said that State magistrates might execute the duties of the law. Some of the States passed enactments imposing a penalty on any State officers who exercised authority under the law, or assisted in its execution; others denied the use of their jails to carry the law into effect; and, in general, at the commencement of the year 1850, it had become absolutely indispensable that Congress should pass some law for the execution of this provision of the Constitution, or else give up that provision entirely. That was the question. I was in Congress when it was brought forward. I was for a proper law. I had, indeed, proposed a different law; I was of opinion that a summary trial by a jury might be had, which would satisfy the people of the North, and produce no harm to those who claimed the service of fugitives; but I left the Senate, and went to another station, before any law was passed. The law of 1850 passed. Now I undertake, as a lawyer, and on my professional character, to say to you, and to all, that the law of 1850 is decidedly more favorable to the fugitive than General Washington's law of 1793; and I will tell you why. In the first place, the present law places the power in much higher hands; in the hands of independent judges of the Supreme and Circuit Courts, and District Courts, and of commissioners who are appointed to office for their legal learning. Every fugitive is brought before a tribunal of high character, of eminent ability, of respectable station. In the second place, when a claimant comes from Virginia to New York, to say that one A or one B has run away, or is a fugitive from service or labor, he brings with him a record of the court of the county from which he comes, and that record must be sworn to before a magistrate, and certified by the county clerk, and bear an official seal. The affidavit must state that A or B had departed under such and such circumstances, and had gone to another State; and that record under seal is, by the Constitution of the United States, entitled to full credit in every State. Well, the claimant or his agent comes here, and he presents to you the seal of the court in Virginia, affixed to a record of his declaration, that A or B had escaped from service. He must then prove that the fugitive is here. He brings a witness; he is asked if this is the man, and he proves it; or, in nine cases out of ten, the fact would be admitted by the fugitive himself.

Such is the present law; and, much opposed and maligned as it is, it is more favorable to the fugitive slave than the law enacted during Washington's administration, in 1793, which was sanctioned by the North as well as by the South. The present violent opposition has sprung up in modern times. From whom does this clamor come? Why, look at the proceedings of the antislavery conventions; look at their resolutions. Do you find among those persons who oppose this Fugitive Slave Law any admission whatever, that any law ought to be passed to carry into effect the solemn stipulations of the Constitution? Tell me any such case; tell me if any resolution was adopted by the convention at Syracuse favorable to the carrying out of the Constitution. Not one! The fact is, Gentlemen, they oppose the constitutional provision; they oppose the whole! Not a man of them admits that there ought to be any law on the subject. They deny, altogether, that the provisions of the Constitution ought to be carried into effect. Look at the proceedings of the antislavery conventions in Ohio, Massachusetts, and at Syracuse, in the State of New York. What do they say? "That, so help them God, no colored man shall be sent from the State of New York back to his master in Virginia!" Do not they say that? And, to the fulfilment of that they "pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor." Their sacred honor! They pledge their sacred honor to violate the Constitution; they pledge their sacred honor to commit treason against the laws of their country!

I have already stated, Gentlemen, what your observation of these things must have taught you. I will only recur to the subject for a moment, for the purpose of persuading you, as public men and private men, as good men and patriotic men, that you ought, to the extent of your ability and influence, to see to it that such laws are established and maintained as shall keep you, and the South, and the West, and all the country, together, on the terms of the Constitution. I say, that what is demanded of us is to fulfil our constitutional duties, and to do for the South what the South has a right to demand.

Gentlemen, I have been some time before the public. My character is known, my life is before the country. I profess to love liberty as much as any man living; but I profess to love American liberty, that liberty which is secured to the country by the government under which we live; and I have no great opinion of that other and higher liberty which disregards the restraints of law and of the Constitution. I hold the Constitution of the United States to be the bulwark, the only bulwark, of our liberties and of our national character, I do not mean that you should become slaves under the Constitution. That is not American liberty. That is not the liberty of the Union for which our fathers fought, that liberty which has given us a right to be known and respected all over the world. I mean only to say, that I am for constitutional liberty. It is enough for me to be as free as the Constitution of the country makes me.

Now, Gentlemen, let me say, that, as much as I respect the character of the people of Western New York, as much as I wish to retain their good opinion, if I should ever hereafter be placed in any situation in public life, let me tell you now that you must not expect from me the slightest variation, even of a hair's breadth, from the Constitution of the United States. I am a Northern man. I was born at the North, educated at the North, have lived all my days at the North. I know five hundred Northern men to one Southern man. My sympathies, all my sympathies, my love of liberty for all mankind, of every color, are the same as yours. My affections and hopes in that respect are exactly like yours. I wish to see all men free, all men happy. I have few personal associations out of the Northern States. My people are your people. And yet I am told sometimes that I am not a friend of liberty, because I am not a Free Soil man. What am I? What was I ever? What shall I be hereafter, if I could sacrifice, for any consideration, that love of American liberty which has glowed in my breast since my infancy, and which, I hope, will never leave me till I expire?

Gentlemen, I regret that slavery exists in the Southern States; but it is clear and certain that Congress has no power over it. It may be, however, that, in the dispensations of Providence, some remedy for this evil may occur, or may be hoped for hereafter. But, in the mean time, I hold to the Constitution of the United States, and you need never expect from me, under any circumstances, that I shall falter from it; that I shall be otherwise than frank and decisive. I would not part with my character as a man of firmness and decision, and honor and principle, for all that the world possesses. You will find me true to the North, because all my sympathies are with the North. My affections, my children, my hopes, my everything, are with the North. But when I stand up before my country, as one appointed to administer the Constitution of the country, by the blessing of God I will be just.

Gentlemen, I expect to be libelled and abused. Yes, libelled and abused. But it does not disturb me. I have not lost a night's rest for a great many years from any such cause. I have some talent for sleeping. And why should I not expect to be libelled? Is not the Constitution of the United States libelled and abused? Do not some people call it a covenant with hell? Is not Washington libelled and abused? Is he not called a bloodhound on the track of the African negro? Are not our fathers libelled and abused by their own children? And ungrateful children they are. How, then, shall I escape? I do not expect to escape; but, knowing these things, I impute no bad motive to any men of character and fair standing. The great settlement measures of the last Congress are laws. Many respectable men, representatives from your own State and from other States, did not concur in them. I do not impute any bad motive to them. I am ready to believe they are Americans all. They may not have thought these laws necessary; or they may have thought that they would be enacted without their concurrence. Let all that pass away. If they are now men who will stand by what is done, and stand up for their country, and say that, as these laws were passed by a majority of the whole country, we must stand by them and live by them, I will respect them all as friends.

Now, Gentlemen, allow me to ask of you, What do you think would have been the condition of the country, at this time, if these laws had not been passed by the last Congress? if the question of the Texas boundary had not been settled? if New Mexico and Utah had been left as desert-places, and no government had been provided for them? And if the other great object to which State laws had opposed so many obstacles, the restoration of fugitives, had not been provided for, I ask, what would have been the state of this country now? You men of Erie County, you men of New York, I conjure you to go home to-night and meditate on this subject. What would have been the state of this country, now, at this moment, if these laws had not been passed? I have given my opinion that we should have had a civil war. I refer it to you, therefore, for your consideration; meditate on it; do not be carried away by any abstract notions or metaphysical ideas; think practically on the great question, What would have been the condition of the United States at this moment, if we had not settled these agitating questions? I repeat, in my opinion, there would have been a civil war.

Gentlemen, will you allow me, for a moment, to advert to myself? I have been a long time in public life; of course, not many years remain to me. At the commencement of 1850, I looked anxiously at the condition of the country, and I thought the inevitable consequence of leaving the existing controversies unadjusted would be civil war. I saw danger in leaving Utah and New Mexico without any government, a prey to the power of Texas. I saw the condition of things arising from the interference of some of the States in defeating the operation of the Constitution in respect to the restoration of fugitive slaves. I saw these things, and I made up my mind to encounter whatever might betide me in the attempt to avert the impending catastrophe. And allow me to add something which is not entirely unworthy of notice. A member of the House of Representatives told me that he had prepared a list of one hundred and forty speeches which had been made in Congress on the slavery question. "That is a very large number, my friend," I said; "but how is that?" "Why," said he, "a Northern man gets up and speaks with considerable power and fluency until the Speaker's hammer knocks him down. Then gets up a Southern man, and he speaks with more warmth. He is nearer the sun, and he comes out with the greater fervor against the North. He speaks his hour, and is in turn knocked down. And so it has gone on, until I have got one hundred and forty speeches on my list." "Well," said I, "where are they, and what are they?" "If the speaker," said he, "was a Northern man, he held forth against slavery; and if he was from the South, he abused the North; and all these speeches were sent by the members to their own localities, where they served only to aggravate the local irritation already existing. No man reads both sides. The other side of the argument is not heard; and the speeches sent from Washington in such prodigious numbers, instead of tending to conciliation, do but increase, in both sections of the Union, an excitement already of the most dangerous character."

Gentlemen, in this state of things, I saw that something must be done. It was impossible to look with indifference on a danger of so formidable a character. I am a Massachusetts man, and I bore in mind what Massachusetts has ever been to the Constitution and the Union. I felt the importance of the duty which devolved upon one to whom she had so long confided the trust of representing her in either house of Congress. As I honored her, and respected her, I felt that I was serving her in my endeavors to promote the welfare of the whole country.

And now suppose, Gentlemen, that, on the occasion in question, I had taken a different course. If I may allude so particularly to an individual so insignificant as myself, suppose that, on the 7th of March, 1850, instead of making a speech that would, so far as my power went, reconcile the country, I had joined in the general clamor of the Antislavery party. Suppose I had said, "I will have nothing to do with any accommodation; we will admit no compromise; we will let Texas invade New Mexico; we will leave New Mexico and Utah to take care of themselves; we will plant ourselves on the Wilmot Proviso, let the consequences be what they may." Now, Gentlemen, I do not mean to say that great consequences would have followed from such a course on my part; but suppose I had taken such a course. How could I be blamed for it? Was I not a Northern man? Did I not know Massachusetts feelings and prejudices? But what of that? I am an American. I was made a whole man, and I did not mean to make myself half a one. I felt that I had a duty to perform to my country, to my own reputation; for I flattered myself that a service of forty years had given me some character, on which I had a right to repose for my justification in the performance of a duty attended with some degree of local unpopularity. I thought it my duty to pursue this course, and I did not care what was to be the consequence. I felt it was my duty, in a very alarming crisis, to come out; to go for my country, and my whole country; and to exert any power I had to keep that country together. I cared for nothing, I was afraid of nothing, but I meant to do my duty. Duty performed makes a man happy; duty neglected makes a man unhappy. I therefore, in the face of all discouragements and all dangers, was ready to go forth and do what I thought my country, your country, demanded of me. And, Gentlemen, allow me to say here to-day, that if the fate of John Rogers had stared me in the face, if I had seen the stake, if I had heard the fagots already crackling, by the blessing of Almighty God I would have gone on and discharged the duty which I thought my country called upon me to perform. I would have become a martyr to save that country.

And now, Gentlemen, farewell. Live and be happy. Live like patriots, live like Americans. Live in the enjoyment of the inestimable blessings which your fathers prepared for you; and if any thing that I may do hereafter should be inconsistent, in the slightest degree, with the opinions and principles which I have this day submitted to you, then discard me for ever from your recollection.

THE ADDITION TO THE CAPITOL.

AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE LAYING OF THE CORNER-STONE OF THE ADDITION TO THE CAPITOL, ON THE 4th OF JULY, 1851.[1]

Fellow-Citizens,--I greet you well; I give you joy, on the return of this anniversary; and I felicitate you, also, on the more particular purpose of which this ever-memorable day has been chosen to witness the fulfilment. Hail! all hail! I see before and around me a mass of faces, glowing with cheerfulness and patriotic pride. I see thousands of eyes turned towards other eyes, all sparkling with gratification and delight. This is the New World! This is America! This is Washington! and this the Capitol of the United States! And where else, among the nations, can the seat of government be surrounded, on any day of any year, by those who have more reason to rejoice in the blessings which they possess? Nowhere, fellow-citizens! assuredly, nowhere! Let us, then, meet this rising sun with joy and thanksgiving!

This is that day of the year which announced to mankind the great fact of American Independence. This fresh and brilliant morning blesses our vision with another beholding of the birthday of our nation; and we see that nation, of recent origin, now among the most considerable and powerful, and spreading over the continent from sea to sea.

Among the first colonists from Europe to this part of America, there were some, doubtless, who contemplated the distant consequences of their undertaking, and who saw a great futurity. But, in general, their hopes were limited to the enjoyment of a safe asylum from tyranny, religious and civil, and to respectable subsistence, by industry and toil. A thick veil hid our times from their view. But the progress of America, however slow, could not but at length awaken genius, and attract the attention of mankind.

In the early part of the second century of our history, Bishop Berkeley, who, it will be remembered, had resided for some time in Newport, in Rhode Island, wrote his well-known "Verses on the Prospect of Planting ARTS and LEARNING in AMERICA." The last stanza of this little poem seems to have been produced by a high poetical inspiration:--

"Westward the course of empire takes its way; The four first acts already past, A fifth shall close the drama with the day: Time's noblest offspring is the last."

This extraordinary prophecy may be considered only as the result of long foresight and uncommon sagacity; of a foresight and sagacity stimulated, nevertheless, by excited feeling and high enthusiasm. So clear a vision of what America would become was not founded on square miles, or on existing numbers, or on any common laws of statistics. It was an intuitive glance into futurity; it was a grand conception, strong, ardent, glowing, embracing all time since the creation of the world, and all regions of which that world is composed, and judging of the future by just analogy with the past. And the inimitable imagery and beauty with which the thought is expressed, joined to the conception itself, render it one of the most striking passages in our language.

On the day of the Declaration of Independence our illustrious fathers performed the first scene in the last great act of this drama; one in real importance infinitely exceeding that for which the great English poet invokes

"A muse of fire, ... A kingdom for a stage, princes to act, And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!"

The Muse inspiring our fathers was the Genius of Liberty, all on fire with a sense of oppression, and a resolution to throw it off; the whole world was the stage, and higher characters than princes trod it; and, instead of monarchs, countries and nations and the age beheld the swelling scene. How well the characters were cast, and how well each acted his part, and what emotions the whole performance excited, let history, now and hereafter, tell.

At a subsequent period, but before the Declaration of Independence, the Bishop of St. Asaph published a discourse, in which the following remarkable passages are found:--

"It is difficult for man to look into the destiny of future ages; the designs of Providence are vast and complicated, and our own powers are too narrow to admit of much satisfaction to our curiosity. But when we see many great and powerful causes constantly at work, we cannot doubt of their producing proportionable effects.