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ly sensitive on this subject. I am aware that similar petitions have been presented, and referred to the Committee for the District of Columbia; and, as was stated by the chairman of that committee two years ago, without the chance of provoking any action of that committee. To use his language, "the committee-room was to them the lion's den, from which there were no footprints to mark their return."

But, sir, this course is not the proper one to pursue now. There is in it neither justice nor expediency. We have a right to demand that some other remedy should be applied, and we do demand it. When I consider the extraordinary excitement which has been produced throughout the country; the combustible material, in the shape of incendiary pamphlets, which has been accumulated and spread abroad; the vast multitudes which have assembled; the apostles who have addressed them; their acts and their menaces; though I am but little disposed to allude to them, yet a regard to the honor and interests of the South calls upon me to do so, and and that, too, in language which she has a right to expect and demand.

Sir, the Southern mind has been already filled with agitation and alarm. Their property, their domestic relations, their altars, their lives, are in danger; and, as if this were not sufficient, we have now these agitators and incendiaries calling upon Congress to act upon the slaveholding States, either directly or indirectly, through the medium of this District. And are we, sir, to sit still and see it? Are we to behold our rights and privileges trampled upon? All upon which the permanence and security of our prosperity depends assailed by these blood-thirsty fanatics, and Government called upon to participate in the wanton and malicious movement, without lifting a hand, without raising a voice, without acting as a due regard to the honor, dignity, and happiness, of our constituents calls upon us to act?

Sir, I, for one, do not fear the action of Government. There exists no right, either in law, in the constitution, or in morals, for such action; and if there did, thank God, the physical power is still wanting. We are prepared for resistance; and we shall resist with all the means that God and nature has placed at our disposal. Our determination is firm and steadfast, and ought not to be concealed or misunderstood. Let me, therefore, implore and conjure the Senate to manifest at once, and without delay, their friendship and fidelity to the constitution and the union of the States. Let me conjure and implore them to look at the blessings which these corrupt and unprincipled men are laboring to destroy. Let me beseech them to weigh well the consequences which will follow the success of their mad and misguided efforts-insurrection and rebellion. A servile, not a civil war. A war upon women and children. A war that spares no sex, respects no age, pities no suffering; that consigns our bearths and altars to flame and blood, and fills our fields and woods with a foe at once savage, bloody, and remorseless.

There is another important truth which we would urge upon your consideration. We demand peace and repose. We require you to say, in language express and distinct, that this Government neither will nor can interfere with the constitutional rights of the slaveholder. We ask you to raise a barrier between us and these hotheaded and cold-hearted men, women, and children. We may well calculate, indeed, sir, am confident, that the virtue and patriotism of the Senate will lead them to do both the one and the other. In a country free as this, thank God, the fanatical cant, the Quixotic feeling, the cheap charity, the unexpensive humanity, of these miserable fanatics, can perhaps be neither allayed nor interfered with by Congress.

[JAN. 7, 1836.

She

can interpose decidedly, distinctly, and at once.
can stay the desperate efforts of these stirrers up of
bloodshed and murder. She can interpose the shield,
not merely of reason and argument, but of the constitu-
tion and the law. She can send back the Representa-
tives of the South and West, to say to their constituents
that she will in no manner countenance or encourage
this mistaken philanthropy; that she will be no agent of
this paltry Quixotism; that she will not be instrumental
to a result which cannot be contemplated by the most
callous without emotions at once painful and overwhelm-
ing.

Sir, I fear that unless this be done--unless the plans and operations of the abolitionists are thus put down-unless Government stands as an impassable barrier between us and them--unless some prompt and immediate action is had--I fear, I say, sir, that no adequate conception can be formed of the tremendous consequences which will follow. I wish not to menace or threaten. I speak from the deepest, fullest, firmest conviction. We exist under a necessity which cannot be touched or tampered with. Our property and lives may be in jeopardy. Let but the crisis come, and no feeling of the heart, no ratiocination of the head, can hold the Union together for a single moment. Why not then, sir, act in this exigency as we ask you to act? Why not silence in this hall, at once and for ever, these enemies of our peace? Why not, as friends of liberty and union, drive from your doors whatever is likely to jeopard either, and enable us to approach the necessary business of the country-the conscientious discharge of our duty-with minds and hearts untrammelled and undisturbed.

Sir, we are obliged to act in this matter; we have been compelled to do so by an imperious sense of duty. We abhor the idea of mixing it up with party--of making it part and parcel of any political intrigue--of gathering about it measures or modes of policy to which it stands in no relation. Our sole object is to protect our lives and property; to allay this exacerbated and enkindled feeling; to put down this spirit of fanaticism, this domineering insolence, which may prove destructive to our happiness and prosperity. It is of the first importance to crush and extinguish the efforts of these individuals at once. They are not only dangerous in themselves, but it may be in their power to mislead the majority of a people who have no direct interest in the matter at issue. The question will then become political, and the country be revolutionized at once. To prevent it, you must secure us from agitation here--here, if not elsewhere. This, at least, must be neutral ground.

Sir, we ask for such legislation upon this petition as will close the doors, once and for all, upon others of similar import; we ask to be relieved from the consternation in which we and our constituents are thrown; we ask that the motion of my honorable friend and colleague may prevail, and that whatever language these petitioners, these calumniators, and disorganizers, may hold elscwhere, they shall not be permitted to hold it here. The gentleman from Ohio acts under a misconception; he is not warranted, by any precedent, in supposing that the question, whether this petition shall or shall not be received, cannot be put. Sir, that is the preliminary question, and, if carried in the affirmative, there is an end of the matter. The right of petitioning is not at all prejudiced by such a course; nor has it been so considered by any previous Congress; for I have a case before me in which a petition from York county, Pennsylvania, was rejected, the vote on receiving it being yeas 20, nays 24.

No, sir, this motion is a far milder one than the people of the South have a right to demand; they have the right to ask an express renunciation on the part of ConBut, sir, on the great question here at issue, Congressgress of any shadow of power to interfere between the

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planter and his slaves. The constitution justifies them in such a demand; and yet they only require you to say that you will not, and cannot, entertain these petitions. Has Congress prohibited itself from doing so? Not at all, sir. Does it, in so doing, abridge the right to assemble peaceably and petition for redress of grievances? Nothing of the kind. What petitions is it bound to receive! Not surely those which are violent, disrespect ful, and insolent in language, which would visit with a moral contagion the whole body politic; which degrades the character of our mothers and sisters; which impugns the honor and outrages the feelings of the South and West! Grievances! For what grievances do these petitioners seek redress? Does slavery in this District interfere with them? Have they any local or general interest in the matter? Or are you to elect this Government into an ethical college? If so, sir, I plead to the jurisdiction. It is not a tribunal before which we can be brought. Has the constitution guarantied to these people, having neither a general nor local interest in the matter, the right to come here and require me to weaken and abolish the very institution which I represent? Am I, acting for three fifths of the slave population of South Carolina, to impugn the very principle upon which I hold my seat? Shall I, sir, bound by ties that will cleave to me through life, to protect and defend the character of my constituents, submit to this insolent dictation, and lend a helping hand to cover that character with insult and opprobrium? Let me suppose a case. Suppose that you were called upon to establish a general national religion, would you consider the proposition for one moment? Certainly you would not. Why, then, consider this proposition? What right have these petitioners to interfere between the District of Columbia and

its slaves? The constitution authorizes the taking of private property for public uses: but the use of property supposes its continuance. From what funds is this property to be purchased? From those of the United States? from my funds? from the funds of South Carolina? Am I to furnish a torch for my own dwelling, a knife for my own throat?

Sir, the Government has the same power over this District that it has over a State, and it has no more. There is no adjudicated case, no dictum, admitting any further jurisdiction. Maryland and Virginia, slaveholding States, ceded these ten miles square to the general Government; and for what? That an unlimited despotism might be exercised in it? No, sir; they gave it in trust. There was an implied understanding that nothing injurious to their interests should be transacted within its borders; that here, at least, the cause of agitation and rebellion should find no material for its purpose; that here the wild frenzy of the abolitionists should neither be confirmed nor promoted; that here the mad and odious, the rash, stormy, and uncompromising doctrines of these rancorous fanatics, should not gravitate as to a common centre. Why, sir, if one of the free States--if Pennsylvania, for instance--should cede to you her metropolis, you might, with the same propriety, place the nest egg of slavery there, as attempt to interfere with the mature development of that institution here. There is no distinction whatever--not the slightest; the cases are parallel. You are invested with no power to meddle or make; you are estopped by the constitution: and your fidelity to that instrument, your full and ready appreciation of it, is only to be shown by obeying its injunctions.

Looking, then, sir, all around at the plighted faith, the federal compact, existing between us and our Northern brethren, and at the friendship, and confidence, and sympathy, which should exist between us; looking at the letter and spirit of our glorious constitution, and cherishing an abiding trust in the virtue and patriotism

VOL. XII.-6

[SENATE.

of this Senate, we do hope (and no man who has character enough to come here, or, at any rate, to deserve to be here, can hope otherwise) that the portcullis of the constitution may be dropped between these men and our lives and property.

Sir, let me call upon you for the strongest possible action; let me ask you to restore a spirit of peace and harmony to members of the same confederacy, to brethren of the same family, to human beings speaking the same language, practising the same religion, having the same deep and solemn interest in the happiness and prosperity of our beloved country. Such action, consequent upon moderation, firmness, and good sense, will be at once honorable to you and satisfactory to the South. Instead of sweeping away our laws and institutions, our rights and property, it will go abroad with healing on its wings. Instead of the fruits of bitterness, blood-thirsty tumults, house-burning, and massacre, the whole strength and fury of this excitement will be at once stifled and dissipated; and, instead of the confidence of the slaveholding States being withdrawn from the Government, never more to be restored, they will look upon it with yet more of honor, gratitude, and affection.

Mr. BUCHANAN said that, for two or three weeks past, there had been in his possession a memorial from the Caln Quarterly Meeting of the religious Society of Friends, in the State of Pennsylvania, requesting Congress to abolish slavery and the slave trade within the District of Columbia. This memorial was not a printed form; its language was not that in established use for such documents.

It did not proceed from those desperate fanatics who have been endeavoring to disturb the security and peace of society in the Southern States, by the distribution of incendiary pamphlets and papers. Far different is the truth. It emanates from a society of Christians, whose object had always been to promote peace and good-will among men, and who have been the efficient and persevering friends of humanity in every clime. To their untiring efforts, more than to those of any other denomination of Christians, we owe the progress which has been made in abolishing the African slave trade throughout the world. This memorial was their testimony against the existence of slavery. This testimony they had borne for more than a century. Of the purity of their motives there can be no question.

He had

He had omitted to present this memorial at an earlier day, because he had thought that, on its presentation at the proper time, much good might be done. believed that, by private consultations, some resolution might be devised upon this exciting subject, which would obtain the unanimous vote of the Senate. If there was one man in that body not willing to adopt any proper measure to calm the troubled spirit of the South, he did not know him. This, in his judgment, would be the best mode of accomplishing the object which we all desire to accomplish. The proper course to attain this result was, in his opinion, to refer the subject, either to a select committee, or to the Committee for the District of Columbia. They would examine it in all its bearings; they would ascertain the views and feelings of individual Senators, and he had no doubt they would be able to recommend some measure to the Senate on which they could all unite. This would have a most happy effect upon the country. He had intended, upon presenting the memorial which he had in charge, to have suggested this mode of proceeding. He regretted, therefore, that he had not known that his friend from Ohio [Mr. MORRIS] was in possession of memorials having a similar object in view. If he had been informed of it, he should have endeavored to persuade him to wait until Monday next, when he (Mr. B.) would

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have been prepared to pursue the course he had indicated. But the question has now been forced upon us. No, (said Mr. B.,) it has not been forced upon me, because I am glad to have a suitable occasion of expressing my opinions upon the subject.

The memorial which I have in my possession is entitled to the utmost respect, from the character of the memorialists. As I entirely dissent from the opinion which they express, that we ought to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, I feel it to be due to them, to myself, and to the Senate, respectfully, but firmly, to state the reasons why I cannot advocate their views or acquiesce in their conclusions.

If any one principle of constitutional law can, at this day, be considered as settled, it is, that Congress have no right, no power, over the question of slavery within those States where it exists. The property of the master in his slave existed in full force before the federal constitution was adopted. It was a subject which then belonged, as it still belongs, to the exclusive jurisdiction of the several States. These States, by the adoption of the constitution, never yielded to the general Government any right to interfere with the question. It remains where it was previous to the establishment of our confederacy.

The constitution has, in the clearest terms, recognised the right of property in slaves. It prohibits any State into which a slave may have fled from passing any law to discharge him from slavery, and declares that he shall be delivered up by the authorities of such State to his master. Nay, more; it makes the existence of slavery the foundation of political power, by giving to those States within which it exists, Representatives in Congress, not only in proportion to the whole number of free persons, but also in proportion to three fifths of the

number of slaves.

An occasion very fortunately arose in the first Congress to settle this question for ever. The society for the abolition of slavery in Pennsylvania brought it before that Congress by a memorial, which was presented on the 11th day of February, 1790. After the subject had been discussed for several days, and after solemn deliberation, the House of Representatives, in Committee of the Whole, on the 23d day of March, 1790, resolved "That Congress have no authority to interfere in the emancipation of slaves, or in the treatment of them, within any of the States; it remaining with the several States alone to provide any regulations therein which humanity and true policy may require."

I have thought it would be proper to present this decision, which was made almost half a century ago, distinctly to the view of the American people. The language of the resolution is clear, precise, and definite. It leaves the question where the constitution left it, and where, so far as I am concerned, it ever shall remain. The constitution of the United States never would have been called into existence; instead of the innumerable blessings which have flowed from our happy Union, we should have had anarchy, jealousy, and civil war, among the sister republics of which our confederacy is composed, had not the free States abandoned all control over this question. For one, whatever may be my opinions upon the abstract question of slavery, (and I am free to confess they are those of the people of Pennsylvania,) I shall never attempt to violate this fundamental compact. The Union will be dissolved, and incalculable evils will rise from its ashes, the moment any such attempt is seriously made by the free States in Congress. What, then, are the circumstances under which these memorials are now presented? A number of fanatics, led on by foreign incendiaries, have been scattering "arrows, firebrands, and death," throughout the Southern States. The natural tendency of their publications

[JAN. 7, 1836.

All

is to produce dissatisfaction and revolt among the slaves, and to incite their wild passions to vengeance. history, as well as the present condition of the slaves, proves that there can be no danger of the final result of a servile war. But, in the mean time, what dreadful scenes may be enacted, before such an insurrection, which would spare neither age nor sex, could be suppressed! What agony of mind must be suffered, especially by the gentler sex, in consequence of these publications! Many a mother clasps her infant to her bosom when she retires to rest, under dreadful apprehensions that she may be aroused from her slumbers by the savage yells of the slaves by whom she is surrounded. These are the works of the abolitionist. That their motives may be honest I do not doubt; but their zeal is without knowledge. The history of the human race presents numerous examples of ignorant enthusiasts, the purity of whose intentions cannot be doubted, who have spread devastation and bloodshed over the face of the earth.

These fanatics, instead of benefiting the slaves who are the objects of their regard, have inflicted serious injuries upon them. Self-preservation is the first law of nature. The masters, for the sake of their wives and children, for the sake of all that is near and dear to them on earth, must tighten the reins of authority over their slaves. They must thus counteract the efforts of the abolitionists. The slaves are denied many indulgences which their masters would otherwise cheerfully grant. They must be kept in such a state of bondage as effectually to prevent their rising. These are the injurious effects produced by the abolitionists upon the slave himself. Whilst, on the one hand, they render his condition miserable, by presenting to his mind vague notions of freedom never to be realized, on the other, they make it doubly miserable, by compelling the master to be severe, in order to prevent any attempts at insurrection. They thus render it impossible for the master to treat his slave according to the dictates of his heart and his feelings.

Besides, do not the abolitionists perceive that the spirit which is thus roused must protract to an indefinite period the emancipation of the slave? The necessary ef fect of their efforts is to render desperate those to whom the power of emancipation exclusively belongs. I believe most conscientiously, in whatever light this subject can be viewed, that the best interests of the slave require that the question should be left, where the constitution has left it, to the slaveholding States themselves, without foreign interference.

This being a true statement of the case, as applied to the States where slavery exists, what is now asked by these memorialists? That in this District of ten miles square--a District carved out of two slaveholding States, and surrounded by them on all sides--slavery shall be abolished. What would be the effects of granting their request? You would thus erect a citadel in the very heart of these States, upon a territory which they have ceded to you for a far different purpose, from which abolitionists and incendiaries could securely attack the peace and safety of their citizens. You establish a spot within the slaveholding States which would be a city of refuge for runaway slaves. You create by law a central point from which trains of gunpowder may be securely laid, extending into the surrounding States, which may at any moment produce a fearful and destructive explosion. By passing such a law, you introduce the enemy into the very bosom of these two States, and afford him every opportunity to produce a servile insurrection. Is there any reasonable man who can for one moment suppose that Virginia and Maryland would have ceded the District of Columbia to the United States, if they had entertained the slightest idea that Congress would ever

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use it for any such purpose? They ceded it for your use, for your convenience, and not for their own destruction. When slavery ceases to exist under the laws of Virginia and Maryland, then, and not till then, ought it to be abolished in the District of Columbia.

Mr. B. said that, notwithstanding these were his opinions, he could not vote for the motion of the Senator from South Carolina, [Mr. CALHOUN,] not to receive these memorials. He would not at present proceed to state his reasons, still hoping the Senate could yet agree upon some course which would prove satisfactory to all. With this view, he moved that the whole subject be postponed until Monday next.

Mr. BENTON rose to express his concurrence in the suggestion of the Senator from Pennsylvania, [Mr. BUCHANAN,] that the consideration of this subject be postponed until Monday. It had come up suddenly and unexpectedly to-day, and the postponement would give an opportunity for Senators to reflect, and to confer together, and to conclude what was best to be done where all were united in wishing the same end, namely, to allay, and not to produce, excitement. He had risen for this purpose; but, being on his feet, he would say a few words on the general subject, which the presentation of these petitions had so suddenly and unexpectedly brought up. With respect to the petitioners, and those with whom they acted, he had no doubt but that many of them were good people, aiming at benevolent objects, and endeavoring to ameliorate the condition of one part of the human race, without inflicting calamities on another part; but they were mistaken in their mode of proceeding, and so far from accomplishing any part of their object, the whole effect of their interposition was to aggravate the condition of those in whose behalf they were interfering. But there was another part, and he meant to speak of the abolitionists generally, as the body containing the part of which he spoke; there was another part whom he could not qualify as good people seeking benevolent ends by mistaken means, but as incendiaries and agitators, with diabolical objects in view, to be accomplished by wicked and deplorable means. He did not go into the proofs now to establish the correctness of his opinion of this latter class, but he presumed it would be admitted that every attempt to work upon the passions of the slaves, and to excite them to murder their. owners, was a wicked and diabolical attempt, and the work of a midnight incendiary. Pictures of slave degradation and misery, and of the white man's luxury and cruelty, were attempts of this kind; for they were appeals to the vengeance of slaves, and not to the intelligence or reason of those who legislated for them. He (Mr. B.) had had many pictures of this kind, as well as many diaboli cal publications, sent to him on this subject, during the last summer, the whole of which he had cast into the fire, and should not have thought of referring to the circumstance at this time, as displaying the character of the incendiary part of the abolitionists, had he not within these few days past, and while abolition petitions were pouring into the other end of the Capitol, received one of these pictures, the design of which could be nothing but mischief of the blackest dye. It was a print from an engraving, (and Mr. B. exhibited it, and handed it to Senators near him,) representing a large and spreading tree of liberty, beneath whose ample shade a slave owner was at one time luxuriously reposing, with slaves fanning him; at another carried forth in a palanquin, to view the half-naked laborers in the cotton field, whom drivers, with whips, were scourging to the task. The print was evidently from the abolition mint, and came to him by some other conveyance than that of the mail, for there was no post mark, or mark of any kind, to identify its origin and to indicate its line of march. For what purpose could such a picture be intended, unless

ure.

[SENATE.

to inflame the passions of slaves? And why engrave it, except to multiply copies for extensive distribution? But it was not pictures alone that operated upon the passions of the slaves, but speeches, publications, petitions presented in Congress, and the whole machinery of abolition societies. None of these things went to the understandings of the slaves, but to their passions, all imperfectly understood, and inspiring vague hopes, and stimulating abortive and fatal insurrections. Societies, especially, were the foundation of the greatest mischiefs. Whatever might be their objects, the slaves never did, and never can, understand them but in one way: as allies organized for action, and ready to march to their aid on the first signal of insurrection! It was thus that the massacre of San Domingo was made. The society in Paris, Les Amis des Noirs, Friends of the Blacks, with its affiliated societies throughout France and in London, made that massacre. And who composed that society? In the beginning, it comprised the extremes of virtue and of vice; it contained the best and the basest of hu man kind! Lafayette and the abbe Gregoire, those purest of philanthropists; and Marat and Anacharsis Chlootz, those imps of hell in human shape. In the end, for all such societies run the same career of degeneration, the good men, disgusted with their associates, retired from the scene, and the wicked ruled at pleasDeclamations against slavery, publications in gazettes, pictures, petitions to the constituent assembly, were the mode of proceeding; and the fish women of Paris-he said it with humiliation, because American females had signed the petitions now before us-the fish women of Paris, the very poissardes from the quays of the Seine, became the obstreperous champions of West India emancipation. The effect upon the French islands is known to the world; but what is not known to the world, or not sufficiently known to it, is that the same societies which wrapt in flames and drenched in blood the beautiful island, which was then a garden and now a wilderness, were the means of exciting an insurrection upon our own continent; in Louisiana, where a French slave population existed, and where the language of Les Amis des Noirs could be understood, and where their emissaries could glide. The knowledge of this event (Mr. B. said) ought to be better known, both to show the danger of these societies, however distant, and though oceans may roll between them and their victims, and the fate of the slaves who may be excited to insurrection by them on any part of the American continent. He would read the notice of the event from the work of Mr. Charles Gayarre, lately elected by his native State to a seat on this floor, and whose resignation of that honor he sincerely regretted, and particularly for the cause which occasioned it, and which abstracted talent from a station that it would have adorned. Mr. B. read from the work, "Essai Historique Sur la Louisiane." "The white population of Louisiana was not the only part of the population which was agitated by the French revolution. The blacks, encouraged without doubt by the success which their race had obtained in San Domingo, dreamed of liberty and sought to shake off the yoke. The insurrection was planned at Pointe Coupeé, which was then an isolated parish, and in which the number of slaves was considerable. The conspiracy took birth on the plantation of Mr. Julien Poydras, a rich planter, who was then travelling in the United States, and spread itself rapidly throughout the parish. The death of all the whites was resolved. Happily the conspirators could not agree upon the day for the massacre, and from this disagreement resulted a quarrel, which led to the discovery of the plot. The militia of the parish immediately took arms, and the Baron de Carondelet caused them to be supported by the troops of the line. It was resolved to arrest, and to

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punish the principal conspirators. The slaves opposed it; but they were quickly dispersed, with the loss of twenty of their number killed on the spot. Fifty of the insurgents were condemned to death. Sixteen were executed in different parts of the parish; the rest were put on board a galley and hung at intervals, all along the river, as far as New Orleans, (a distance of one hundred and fifty miles.) The severity of the chastisement intimidated the blacks, and all returned to perfect order."

Resuming his remarks, Mr. B. said he had read this passage to show that our white population had a right to dread, nay, were bound to dread, the mischievous influence of these societies, even when an ocean intervened, and much more when they stood upon the same hemisphere, and within the bosom of the same country. He had also read it to show the miserable fate of their victims, and to warn all that were good and virtuous—all that were honest, but mistaken--in the three hundred and fifty affiliated societies, vaunted by the individuals who style themselves their executive committee, and who date, from the commercial emporium of this Union, their high manifesto against the President; to warn them at once to secede from associations which, whatever may be their designs, can have no other effect than to revive in the Southern States the tragedy, not of San Domingo, but of the parish of Pointe Coupeé.

Mr. B. went on to say that these societies had already perpetrated more mischief than the joint remainder of all their lives spent in prayers of contrition, and in works of retribution, could ever atone for. They had thrown the state of the emancipation question fifty years back. They had subjected every traveller, and every emigrant, from the non-slaveholding States, to be received with coldness, and viewed with suspicion and jealousy, in the slaveholding States. They had occasioned many slaves to lose their lives. They had caused the deportation of many ten thousands from the grain-growing to the planting States. They had caused the privileges of all slaves to be curtailed, and their bonds to be more tightly drawn. Nor was the mischief of their conduct confined to slaves; it reached the free colored people, and opened a sudden gulf of misery to that population. In all the slave States, this population has paid the forfeit of their intermediate position, and suffered proscription as the instruments, real or suspected, of the abolition societies. In all these States, their exodus had either been enforced or was impending. In Missouri there was a clause in the constitution which prohibited their emigration to the State; but that clause had remained a dead letter in the book until the agitation produced among the slaves by the distant rumbling of the abolition thunder, led to the knowledge in some instances, and to the belief in others, that these people were the antennæ of the abolitionists, and their medium for communicating with the slaves, and for exciting them to desertion first, and to insurrection eventually. Then ensued a painful scene. The people met, resolved, and prescribed thirty days for the exodus of the obnoxious caste. Under that decree a general emigration had to take place at the commencement of winter. Many wor thy and industrious people had to quit their business and their homes, and to go forth under circumstances which rendered them objects of suspicion wherever they went, and sealed the door against the acquisition of new friends while depriving them of the protection of old ones. He (Mr. B.) had witnessed many instances of this kind, and had given certificates to several, to show that they were banished, not for their offences, but for their misfortunes; for the misfortune of being allied to the race which the abolition societies had made the object of their gratuitous philanthropy.

|

[JAN. 7, 1836.

non-slaveholding States, Mr. B. turned, with pride and exultation, to a different theme-the conduct of the great body of the people in all these States. Before he saw that conduct, and while the black question, like a portentous cloud was gathering and darkening on the Northeastern horizon, he trembled, not for the South, but for the Union. He feared that he saw the fatal work of dissolution about to begin, and the bonds of this glo. rious confederacy about to snap; but the conduct of the great body of the people in all the non-slaveholding States quickly dispelled that fear, and in its place planted deep the strongest assurance of the harmony and indivisibility of the Union which he had felt for many years. Their conduct was above all praise, above all thanks, above all gratitude. They had chased off the foreign emissaries, silenced the gabbling tongues of female dupes, and dispersed the assemblages, whether fanatical, visionary, or incendiary, of all that congrega. ted to preach against evils which afflicted others, not them, and to propose remedies to aggravate the disease which they pretended to cure. They had acted with a noble spirit. They had exerted a vigor beyond all law. They had obeyed the enactments, not of the statute book, but of the heart; and while that spirit was in the heart, he cared nothing for laws written in a book. He would rely upon that spirit to complete the good work it has began; to dry up these societies; to separate the mistaken philanthropist from the reckless fanatic and the wicked incendiary, and put an end to publications and petitions which, whatever may be their design, can have no other effect than to impede the object which they invoke, and to aggravate the evil which they deplore.

Turning to the immediate question before the Senate, that of the rejection of the petitions, Mr. B. said his wish was to give that vote which would have the greatest effect in putting down these societies. He thought the vote to be given to be rather one of expediency than of constitutional obligation. The clause in the constitution so often quoted in favor of the right of petitioning for a redress of grievances would seem to him to apply rather to the grievances felt by ourselves than to those felt by others, and which others might think an advantage, what we thought a grievance. The petitioners from Ohio think it a grievance that the people of the District of Columbia should suffer the institution of slavery, and pray for the redress of that grievance; the people of the District think the institution an advantage, and want no redress; now, which has the right of petitioning? Looking to the past action of the Senate, Mr. B. saw that, about thirty years ago, a petition against slavery, and that in the States, was presented to this body by the society of Quakers in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and that the same question upon its reception was made, and decided by yeas and nays, 19 to 9, in favor of receiving it. He read the names, to show that the Senators from the slave and non-slaveholding States voted some for and some against the reception, according to each one's opinion, and not according to the position or the character of the State from which he came. Mr. B. repeated that he thought this question to be one of expediency, and that it was expedient to give the vote which would go furthest towards quieting the public mind. The quieting the South depended upon quieting the North; for when the abolitionists were put down in the former place, the latter would be at ease. It seemed to him, then, that the gentlemen of the nonslaveholding States were the proper persons to speak first. They knew the temper of their own constituents best, and what might have a good or an ill effect upon them, either to increase the abolition fever, or to allay it. He knew that the feeling of the Senate was general; that Having said thus much of the abolition societies in the all wished for the same end; and the gentlemen of the

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