Part 14 (1/2)

The second proposition announced nothing new, as cases involving t.i.tles to slaves, or questions of personal freedom, must necessarily go for final determination to the courts, with a right of appeal.

The third proposition, like the second, was a mere plat.i.tude.

The bill accompanying the report, as first presented, required that any part of Nebraska Territory admitted as a state (as provided in the New Mexico and Utah Acts of 1850) ”shall be received into the Union with or without slavery, as its Const.i.tution may prescribe at the time of admission.” This, too, was not new in any sense, as new States had ever been thus received. The anti-slavery press and societies, and all people opposed to further slavery aggression and extension, at once took alarm and violently a.s.sailed the new doctrines of the report; the South, too, at first viewed them with surprise, denominating them ”a snare set for the South,” yet later regarded them as favorable to the extension of slavery. Southern statesmen, however, determined to force Douglas to amend them so as to accomplish the ends of the South. Accordingly, Senator Dixon of Kentucky, on January 16th, offered an amendment to the Nebraska Bill providing for the absolute repeal of the Missouri Compromise line. This amendment Douglas, apparently with reluctance,(81) accepted, after a consultation with Jefferson Davis, then Secretary of War, and President Pierce, both of whom promised it their support.(82)

January 23, 1854, Douglas presented a subst.i.tute for his original bill, wherein it was provided that the restriction of the Missouri Compromise ”was superseded by the principles of the legislation of 1850, and is hereby declared inoperative.”

The new bill divided the Territory in two parts; the southern, called Kansas, lay between 37 and 40 of lat.i.tude, extending west to the Rocky Mountains, and the northern was still called Nebraska.

As early as 1853 a movement in Missouri was started, avowedly to make Nebraska slave Territory, and this was well known to Douglas and the supporters of his newly announced doctrines. Kansas, lying farthest south, was climatically better suited for slavery than the new Nebraska. Before the bill pa.s.sed, plans were made to invade Kansas from Missouri and Arkansas by slaveholders with their slaves.

January 24, 1854, the _Appeal of the Independent Democrats in Congress to the People of the United States_ was published.

Chase and Giddings of Ohio were its authors; some verbal additions, however, were made to it by Sumner and Gerritt Smith.(83)

This _Appeal_ was signed by S. P. Chase, Charles Sumner, Joshua R.

Giddings, Edward Wade, Gerritt Smith, and Alexander De Witt; three at least of whom were then, or soon became first among the great statesmen opposed to human slavery. The _Appeal_ declared the new Nebraska Bill would ”open all the unorganized Territories of the Union to the ingress of slavery.” A plot to convert them ”into a dreary region of despotism, inhabited by masters and slaves,” to the exclusion of immigrants from the Old World and free laborers from our own States. It reviewed the history of Congressional legislation on slavery in the Territories, reciting, among other things, that President Monroe approved the Missouri Compromise after his Cabinet had given him a written opinion that the section restricting slavery was const.i.tutional.

John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State, John C. Calhoun, Secretary of War, Wm. H. Crawford, Secretary of the Treasury, and Wm. Wirt, Attorney-General--three from slave States--then const.i.tuted Monroe's Cabinet.

The _Appeal_ warningly proceeded:

”The dearest interests of freedom and the Union are in imminent peril. Demagogues may tell you that the Union can be maintained only by submitting to the demands of slavery. We tell you that the Union can only be maintained by the full recognition of the just claims of freedom and man. When it fails to accomplish these ends it will be worthless, and when it becomes worthless it cannot long endure... . Whatever apologies may be offered for the toleration of slavery in the States, none can be offered for its extension into the Territories where it does not exist, and where that extension involves the repeal of ancient law and the violation of solemn compact.

”For ourselves, we shall resist it by speech and vote, and with all the abilities which G.o.d has given us. Even if overcome in the impending struggle, we shall not submit. We shall go home to our const.i.tuents, erect anew the standard of freedom, and call on the people to come to the rescue of the country from the dominion of slavery. We will not despair; for the cause of human freedom is the cause of G.o.d.”

These patriotic expressions electrified the whole country. The North was aroused to their truth, the South seized upon them as threats of disunion, and still louder than before, if possible, called for a united South to vindicate slavery's rights in the Territories. Douglas attempted in the Senate to answer the _Appeal_.

This led to an acrimonious debate, partic.i.p.ated in by Chase, Sumner, Seward, Everett, and others, too long to be reviewed here.

Senator Benjamin F. Wade, of Ohio, took a prominent part in the memorable debate over the Douglas-Nebraska Bill. He was bold, and never dealt in sophistry, but in plain speech.

Mr. Badger, of North Carolina, while making a slavery-dilution argument, appealingly said:

”Why, if some Southern gentleman wishes to take the nurse who takes charge of his little baby, or the old woman who nursed him in childhood, and whom he called 'Mammy' until he returned from college, ... and whom he wishes to take with him ... into one of these new Territories, ... why, in the name of G.o.d, should anybody prevent it?”

Mr. Wade responded:

”The Senator entirely mistakes our position. We have not the least objection, and would oppose no obstacle to the Senator's migrating to Kansas and taking his old 'Mammy' along with im. We only insist that he shall not be empowered to _sell_ her after taking her there.”

Mr. Chase moved to amend the bill by adding the words:

”Under which the people of the Territories, through their appropriate representatives, may, if they see fit, prohibit the existence of slavery therein.”

This amendment failed, but it served to test the good faith of those who supported the squatter sovereignty feature of the bill.

After a long struggle the bill pa.s.sed, and was approved by the President in May, 1854.

(79) Area of original thirteen States, 354,504 square miles.

(80) ”Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States,” etc.--Art. IV., Sec. 3, Con. U. S.