Volume Iii Part 3 (1/2)

3. The prohibition of slavery in Oregon may be regarded as a third victory, though not apparently of so much consequence as the others.

Now comes another battle, and it remains to be decided whether the idea of slavery or the idea of freedom is to prevail in the territory we have conquered and stolen from Mexico. The present strife is to settle that question. Now, as before, it is a battle between freedom and slavery; one on which the material and spiritual welfare of millions of men depends; but now the difference between freedom and slavery is more clearly seen than in 1787; the consequences of each are better understood, and the sin of slavery is felt and acknowledged by a cla.s.s of persons who had few representatives sixty years ago. It is a much greater triumph for slavery to prevail now, and carry its inst.i.tutions into New Mexico in 1850, than it was to pa.s.s the pro-slavery provisions of the Const.i.tution in 1787. It will be a greater sin now to extend slavery, than it was to establish it in 1620, when slaves were first brought to Virginia.

Ever since the adoption of the Const.i.tution, protected by that s.h.i.+eld, mastering the energies of the nation, and fighting with that weapon, slavery has been continually aggressive. The slave-driver has coveted new soil; has claimed it; has had his claim allowed. Louisiana, Florida, Texas, California and New Mexico are the results of Southern aggression.

Now the slave-driver reaches out his hand towards Cuba, trying to clutch that emerald gem set in the tropic sea. How easy it was to surrender to Great Britain portions of the Oregon Territory in a high northern lat.i.tude! Had it been south of 36 30', it would not have been so easy to settle the Oregon question by a compromise. So when we make a compromise there, ”the reciprocity must be all on one side.”

Let us next look at the position of the political parties with respect to the present crisis. There are now four political parties in the land.

1. There is the Government party, represented by the President, and portions of his Cabinet, if not the whole of it. This party does not attempt to meet the question which comes up, but to dodge and avoid it.

Shall Freedom or Slavery prevail in the new territory? is the question.

The government has no opinion; it will leave the matter to be settled by the people of the territory. This party wishes California to come into the Union without slavery, for it is her own desire so to come; and does not wish a territorial government to be formed by Congress in New Mexico, but to leave the people there to form a State, excluding or establis.h.i.+ng slavery as they see fit. The motto of this party is inaction, not intervention. King James I. once proposed a question to the Judges of England. They declined to answer it, and the King said, ”If ye give no counsel, then why be ye counsellors?” The people of the United States might ask the government, ”If ye give us no leading, then why be ye leaders?” This party is not hostile to slavery; not opposed to its extension.

2. Then there is the Whig Party. This party has one distinctive idea; the idea of a Tariff for Protection; whether for the protection of American labor, or merely American capital, I will not now stop to inquire. The Whig Party is no more opposed to slavery, or its extension, than the Government party itself.

However there are two divisions of the whigs, the Whig Party South, and the Whig Party North. The two agree in their ideas of protection, and their pro-slavery character. But the Whig Party South advocates Slavery and Protection; the Whig Party North, Protection and Slavery.

In the North there are many whigs who are opposed to slavery, especially to the extension of slavery; there are also many other persons, not of the whig party, opposed to the extension of slavery; therefore in the late electioneering campaign, to secure the votes of these persons, it was necessary for the whig party North to make profession of anti-slavery. This was done accordingly, in a general form, and in special an attempt was made to show that the whig party was opposed to the extension of slavery.

Hear what Senator Chase says on this point. I read from his speech in the Senate, on March 26, 1850:--

”On the whig side it was urged, that the candidate of the Philadelphia Convention was, if not positively favorable to the Proviso, at least pledged to leave the matter to Congress free from Executive influence, and ready to approve it when enacted by that body.”

General Ca.s.s had written the celebrated ”Nicholson Letter,” in which he declared that Congress had no const.i.tutional power to enact the Proviso.

But so anxious were the Democrats of the North to a.s.sume an anti-slavery aspect,--continues Mr. Chase,--that

”Notwithstanding this letter, many of his friends in the free States persisted in a.s.serting that he would not, if elected, veto the Proviso; many also insisted that he regarded slavery as excluded from the territories by the Mexican laws still in force; while others maintained that he regarded slavery as an inst.i.tution of positive law, and Congress as const.i.tutionally incompetent to enact such law, and that therefore it was impossible for slavery to get into the territories, whether Mexican law was in force or not.”

This, says Mr. Chase, was the whig argument:--

”Prohibition is essential to the certain exclusion of slavery from the territories. If the democratic candidate shall be elected, prohibition is impossible, for the veto will be used: if the whig candidate shall be elected, prohibition is certain, provided you elect a Congress who will carry out your will. Vote, therefore, for the whigs.”

Such was the general argument of the whig party. Let us see what it was in Ma.s.sachusetts in special. Here I have doc.u.mentary evidence. This is the statement of the Whig Convention at Worcester in 1848, published shortly before the election:--

”We understand the whig party to be committed in favor of the principles contained in the ordinance of 1787, the prohibition of slavery in territory now free, and of its abolition wherever it can be const.i.tutionally effected.”

They professed to aim at the same thing which the free soil party aimed at, only the work must be done by the old whig organization. Free soil cloth must be manufactured, but it must be woven in the old whig mill, with the old whig machinery, and by the old whig weavers. See what the Convention says of the democratic party:--

”We understand the democratic party to be pledged to decline any legislation upon the subject of slavery, with a view either to its prohibition or restriction in places where it does not exist, or to its abolition in any of the territories of the United States.”

There is no ambiguity in that language. Men can talk very plain when they will. Still there were some that doubted; so the great and famous men of the party came out to convince the doubters that the whigs were the men to save the country from the disgrace of slavery.

Here let me introduce the testimony of Mr. Choate. This which follows is from his speech at Salem. He tells us the great work is, ”The pa.s.sage of a law to-day that California and New Mexico shall remain forever free.

That is ... an object of great and transcendent importance:... we should go up to the very limits of the Const.i.tution itself ... to defeat the always detested, and forever-to-be detested object of the dark ambition of that candidate of the Baltimore Convention, who has consented to pledge himself in advance, that he will veto the future law of freedom!”

”Is there a whig upon this floor who doubts that the strength of the whig party next March will extend freedom to California and New Mexico, if by the Const.i.tution they are ent.i.tled to freedom at all? Is there a member of Congress that would not vote for freedom?” [_Sancta simplicitas! Ora pro n.o.bis!_] ”Is there a single whig const.i.tuency, in any free State in this country, that would return any man that would not vote for freedom? Do you believe that Daniel Webster himself could be returned, if there was the least doubt upon this question?”

That is plain speech. But, to pa.s.s from the special to the particular, hear Mr. Webster himself. What follows is from his famous speech at Marshfield, September, 1848.