Volume I Part 2 (1/2)
”Note.-No party in Mississippi ever advocated disunion. They differed as to the mode of securing their rights in the Union, and on the power of a State to secede-neither advocating the exercise of the power.
J.D.”
CHAPTER IV.
The Author enters the Cabinet.-Administration of the War Department.-Surveys for a Pacific Railway.-Extension of the Capitol.-New Regiments organized.-Colonel Samuel Cooper, Adjutant-General.-A Bit of Civil-Service Reform.-Reelection to the Senate.-Continuity of the Pierce Cabinet.-Character of Franklin Pierce.
Happy in the peaceful pursuits of a planter; busily engaged in cares for servants, in the improvement of my land, in building, in rearing live-stock, and the like occupations, the time pa.s.sed pleasantly away until my retirement was interrupted by an invitation to take a place in the Cabinet of Mr. Pierce, who had been elected to the Presidency of the United States in November, 1852. Although warmly attached to Mr. Pierce personally, and entertaining the highest estimate of his character and political principles, private and personal reasons led me to decline the offer. This was followed by an invitation to attend the ceremony of his inauguration, which took place on the 4th of March, 1853. While in Was.h.i.+ngton, on this visit, I was [pg 23] induced by public considerations to reconsider my determination and accept the office of Secretary of War. The public records of that period will best show how the duties of that office were performed.
While in the Senate, I had advocated the construction of a railway to connect the valley of the Mississippi with the Pacific coast; and, when an appropriation was made to determine the most eligible route for that purpose, the Secretary of War was charged with its application. We had then but little of that minute and accurate knowledge of the interior of the continent which was requisite for a determination of the problem. Several different parties were therefore organized to examine the various routes supposed to be practicable within the northern and southern limits of the United States. The arguments which I had used as a Senator were ”the military necessity for such means of transportation, and the need of safe and rapid communication with the Pacific slope, to secure its continuance as a part of the Union.”
In the organization and equipment of these parties, and in the selection of their officers, care was taken to provide for securing full and accurate information upon every point involved in the determination of the route. The only discrimination made was in the more prompt and thorough equipment of the parties for the extreme northern line, and this was only because that was supposed to be the most difficult of execution of all the surveys.
In like manner, my advocacy while in the Senate of an extension of the Capitol, by the construction of a new Senate-Chamber and Hall of Representatives, may have caused the appropriation for that object to be put under my charge as Secretary of War.
During my administration of the War Department, material changes were made in the models of arms. Iron gun-carriages were introduced, and experiments were made which led to the casting of heavy guns hollow, instead of boring them after casting. Inquiries were made with regard to gunpowder, which subsequently led to the use of a coa.r.s.er grain for artillery.
During the same period the army was increased by the addition of two regiments of infantry and two of cavalry. The [pg 24] officers of these regiments were chosen partly by selection from those already in service in the regular army and partly by appointment from civil life. In making the selections from the army, I was continually indebted to the a.s.sistance of that pure-minded and accurately informed officer, Colonel Samuel Cooper, the Adjutant-General, of whom it may be proper here to say that, although his life had been spent in the army, and he, of course, had the likes and dislikes inseparable from men who are brought into close contact and occasional rivalry, I never found in his official recommendations any indication of partiality or prejudice toward any one.
When the first list was made out, to be submitted to the President, a difficulty was found to exist, which had not occurred either to Colonel Cooper or myself. This was, that the officers selected purely on their military record did not const.i.tute a roster conforming to that distribution among the different States, which, for political considerations, it was thought desirable to observe-that is to say, the number of such officers of Southern birth was found to be disproportionately great. Under instructions from the President, the list was therefore revised and modified in accordance with this new element of geographical distribution. This, as I am happy to remember, was the only occasion in which the current of my official action, while Secretary of War, was disturbed in any way by sectional or political considerations.
Under former administrations of the War Office it had not been customary to make removals or appointments upon political grounds, except in the case of clerks.h.i.+ps. To this usage I not only adhered, but extended it to include the clerks.h.i.+ps also. The Chief Clerk, who had been removed by my predecessor, had peculiar qualifications for the place; and, although known to me only officially, he was restored to the position. It will probably be conceded by all who are well informed on the subject that his restoration was a benefit to the public service.11
[The reader desirous for further information relative to the [pg 25] administration of the War Department during this period may find it in the various official reports and estimates of works of defense prosecuted or recommended, a.r.s.enals of construction and depots of arms maintained or suggested, and foundries employed, during the Presidency of Mr. Pierce, 1853-'57.]
Having been again elected by the Legislature of Mississippi as Senator to the United States, I pa.s.sed from the Cabinet of Mr. Pierce, on the last day of his term (March 4, 1857), to take my seat in the Senate.
The Administration of Franklin Pierce presents the only instance in our history of the continuance of a Cabinet for four years without a single change in its personnel. When it is remembered that there was much dissimilarity if not incongruity of character among the members of that Cabinet, some idea may be formed of the power over men possessed and exercised by Mr. Pierce. Chivalrous, generous, amiable, true to his friends and to his faith, frank and bold in the declaration of his opinions, he never deceived any one. And, if treachery had ever come near him, it would have stood abashed in the presence of his truth, his manliness, and his confiding simplicity.
Footnote 11: (return) Soon after my entrance upon duty as secretary of War, General Jesup, the Quartermaster-General, presented to me a list of names from which to make selection of a clerk for his department. Observing that he had attached certain figures to these names, I asked whether the figures were intended to indicate the relative qualifications, or preference in his estimation, of the several applicants; and, upon his answer in the affirmative, without further question, authorized him to appoint ”No. 1” of his list. A day or two afterward, certain Democratic members of Congress called on me and politely inquired whether it was true that I had appointed a Whig to a position in the War Office. ”Certainly not,” I answered. ”We thought you were not aware of it,” said they, and proceeded to inform me that Mr. --, the recent appointee to the clerks.h.i.+p just mentioned, was a Whig. After listening patiently to this statement, I answered that it was they who were deceived, not I. I had appointed a clerk. He had been appointed neither as a Whig nor as a Democrat, but merely as the fittest candidate for the place in the estimation of the chief of the bureau to which it belonged. I further gave them to understand that the same principle of selection would be followed in similar cases, so far as my authority extended. After some further discussion of the question, the visitors withdrew, dissatisfied with the result of the interview.
The Quartermaster-General, on hearing of this conversation, hastened to inform me that it was all a mistake-that the appointee to the office had been confounded with his father, who was a well-known Whig, but that he (the son) was a Democrat. I a.s.sured the General that this was altogether immaterial, adding that it was ”a very pretty quarrel” as it stood, and that I had no desire to effect a settlement of it on any inferior issue. Thenceforward, however, I was but little troubled with any pressure for political appointments in the department.
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CHAPTER V.
The Territorial Question.-An Incident at the White House.-The Kansas and Nebraska Bill.-The Missouri Compromise abrogated in 1850, not in 1854.-Origin of ”Squatter Sovereignty.”-Sectional Rivalry and its Consequences.-The Emigrant Aid Societies.-”The Bible and Sharpe's Rifles.”-False Pretensions as to Principle.-The Strife in Kansas.-A Retrospect.-The Original Equilibrium of Power and its Overthrow.-Usurpations of the Federal Government.-The Protective Tariff.-Origin and Progress of Abolitionism.-Who were the Friends of the Union?-An Ill.u.s.tration of Political Morality.
The organization of the Territory of Kansas was the first question that gave rise to exciting debate after my return to the Senate. The celebrated Kansas-Nebraska Bill had become a law during the Administration of Mr. Pierce. As this occupies a large s.p.a.ce in the political history of the period, it is proper to state some facts connected with it, which were not public, but were known to me and to others yet living.
The declaration, often repeated in 1850, that climate and the will of the people concerned should determine their inst.i.tutions when they should form a Const.i.tution, and as a State be admitted into the Union, and that no legislation by Congress should be permitted to interfere with the free exercise of that will when so expressed, was but the announcement of the fact so firmly established in the Const.i.tution, that sovereignty resided alone in the States, and that Congress had only delegated powers. It has been sometimes contended that, because the Congress of the Confederation, by the Ordinance of 1787, prohibited involuntary servitude in all the Northwestern Territory, the framers of the Const.i.tution must have recognized such power to exist in the Congress of the United States. Hence the deduction that the prohibitory clause of what is known as the Missouri Compromise was justified by the precedent of the Ordinance of 1787. To make the action of the Congress of the Confederation a precedent for the Congress of the United States is to overlook the great distinction between the two.
The Congress of the Confederation represented the States in their sovereignty, and, as such representatives, had legislative, [pg 27] executive, and, in some degree, judicial power confided to it. Virtually, it was an a.s.semblage of the States. In certain cases a majority of nine States were required to decide a question, but there is no express limitation, or restriction, such as is to be found in the ninth and tenth amendments to the Const.i.tution of the United States. The General Government of the Union is composed of three departments, of which the Congress is the legislative branch, and which is checked by the revisory power of the judiciary, and the veto power of the Executive, and, above all, is expressly limited in legislation to powers expressly delegated by the States. If, then, it be admitted, which is certainly questionable, that the Congress of the Confederation had power to exclude slave property northwest of the Ohio River, that power must have been derived from its character as representing the States in their sovereignty, for no indication of such a power is to be found in the Articles of Confederation.
If it be a.s.sumed that the absence of a prohibition was equivalent to the admission of the power in the Congress of the Confederation, the a.s.sumption would avail nothing in the Congress under the Const.i.tution, where power is expressly limited to what had been delegated. More briefly, it may be stated that the Congress of the Confederation could, like the Legislature of a State, do what had not been prohibited; but the Congress of the United States could only do what had been expressly permitted. It is submitted whether this last position is not conclusive against the possession of power by the United States Congress to legislate slavery into or exclude it from Territories belonging to the United States.
This subject, which had for more than a quarter of a century been one of angry discussion and sectional strife, was revived, and found occasion for renewed discussion in the organization of Territorial governments for Kansas and Nebraska. The Committees on Territories of the two Houses agreed to report a bill in accordance with that recognized principle, provided they could first be a.s.sured that it would receive favorable consideration from the President. This agreement was made on Sat.u.r.day, and the ensuing Monday was the day (and the only day for two weeks) on which, according to the order of business established [pg 28] by the rules of the House of Representatives, the bill could be introduced by the Committee of that House.
On Sunday morning, the 22d of January, 1854, gentlemen of each Committee called at my house, and Mr. Douglas, chairman of the Senate Committee, fully explained the proposed bill, and stated their purpose to be, through my aid, to obtain an interview on that day with the President, to ascertain whether the bill would meet his approbation. The President was known to be rigidly opposed to the reception of visits on Sunday for the discussion of any political subject; but in this case it was urged as necessary, in order to enable the Committee to make their report the next day. I went with them to the Executive mansion, and, leaving them in the reception-room, sought the President in his private apartments, and explained to him the occasion of the visit. He thereupon met the gentlemen, patiently listened to the reading of the bill and their explanations of it, decided that it rested upon sound const.i.tutional principles, and recognized in it only a return to that rule which had been infringed by the compromise of 1820, and the restoration of which had been foreshadowed by the legislation of 1850. This bill was not, therefore, as has been improperly a.s.serted, a measure inspired by Mr. Pierce or any of his Cabinet. Nor was it the first step taken toward the repeal of the conditions or obligations expressed or implied by the establishment, in 1820, of the politico-sectional line of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes. That compact had been virtually abrogated, in 1850, by the refusal of the representatives of the North to apply it to the territory then recently acquired from Mexico. In May, 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Bill was pa.s.sed; its purpose was declared in the bill itself to be to carry into practical operation the ”propositions and principles established by the compromise measures of 1850” The ”Missouri Compromise,” therefore, was not repealed by that bill-its virtual repeal by the legislation of 1850 was recognized as an existing fact, and it was declared to be ”inoperative and void.”
It was added that the ”true intent and meaning” of the act was ”not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly [pg 29] free to form and regulate their domestic inst.i.tutions in their own way, subject only to the Const.i.tution of the United States.”