Part 6 (1/2)
TOOMBS IN THE SENATE.
When Robert Toombs entered the Senate of the United States, in 1853, the _personnel_ of that body had changed since the great debates on the compromise measures. Calhoun had died before the compromise was effected, and only a short time after his last address had been read to the Senate by Mr. Mason of Virginia. Clay survived his last greatest work but two years, and on the 29th of June, 1852, was no more. Daniel Webster lived only four months longer than Mr. Clay. Among the new leaders in that body were Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, William M.
Seward of New York, Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, and Charles Sumner of Ma.s.sachusetts. To this list may be added the familiar names of Thompson of Mississippi, Bayard of Delaware, Toucey of Connecticut, Slidell of Louisiana, Achison of Missouri, Bell of Tennessee, and Ca.s.s of Michigan.
The third great sectional fight on the Territories came up on the report to organize a government for that tract of public domain lying in the Louisiana cession, known as Kansas and Nebraska. In doing this, Mr.
Douglas, as chairman of the Committee on Territories, adopted the same principle on the slavery question as had been settled in the Utah and New Mexico bills of 1850.
The words of the Nebraska bill were that ”said Territory, or any portion of the same, shall be received into the Union with or without slavery as their const.i.tutions may prescribe at the time of their admission.” Mr.
Douglas claimed that the question of congressional interference was an ”exploded doctrine”; that the Missouri Compromise bill had been ignored by North and South; that the Wilmot Proviso had been rejected altogether; and that the principles of 1850 had superseded the principles of 1820. The committee sought to avoid the perils of slavery agitation for all time, they claimed, by withdrawing the question of slavery from the halls of Congress and from national politics. ”Let the new States and Territories,” they said, ”settle this matter for themselves.” Mr. Sumner of Ma.s.sachusetts took the lead in opposing the Kansas-Nebraska bill. He declared that the bill violated the principles of the Missouri Compromise, which prohibited slavery in all that territory ceded by France and lying north of 36 30'. He and his friends held that this was a ”sacred compact,” and this territory could not be controlled by the same principles as the land secured from Mexico.
The second bill drawn by Mr. Douglas, which provided for the establishment of two territorial governments in Kansas and Nebraska, instead of one, expressly repealed the Missouri Compromise as being inconsistent with the principles of non-intervention by Congress. Here, then, the contest waged anew.
One of the first speeches made by Senator Toombs was on the 23d of February, 1854, on the Kansas-Nebraska bill.
Douglas was in charge of the Territorial bills, and his readiness in debate, his sinewy intellect, his tact and shrewdness, had gained for him the name of ”Little Giant.” Seward, Chase, and Sumner had been elected from their States as ”independent Democrats” by the Abolitionists, who held the balance of power in New York, Ohio, and Ma.s.sachusetts. Mr. Toombs was more than willing to measure swords with the champions of free soil. He declared that he would address himself to the consideration of the Kansas-Nebraska bill ”with a heart filled with grat.i.tude to the Disposer of human events, that after the conflicts of more than a third of a century this great question has found its solution, not in temporary expedients for allaying sectional discord, but in the true principles of the Const.i.tution and upon the broad foundation of justice and right, which forms the only true basis of fraternity and of national concord.”
Mr. Toombs repudiated the libel cast by Mr. Sumner upon Northern men who ”dared to exercise the rights of freemen” and differ from the Abolitionists upon this question. ”It appears,” said he, ”from the speeches of the senator from Ma.s.sachusetts, that all such are white slaves, whose manhood has been debased and enervated by the irresistible attractions of slave power.” He declared that the men who talked about ”solemn compact” in this connection were men whom ”no oaths can bind and no covenants restrain.” They called the Missouri Compromise a compact, yet showed their willingness to violate it.
”In all governments,” said Mr. Toombs, ”the acquisitions of the state belong rightfully to the people. Much more strongly does this principle apply to a purely popular government. Therefore, any exercise of power to injure or destroy those who have equal rights of enjoyment is arbitrary, unauthorized by the contract, and despotic.”
”You have no power to strike from the meanest Indian trapper, the basest trader or camp-follower, as the senator from New York styled these people, their equal privileges, this sovereignty of right, which is the birthright of every American citizen. This sovereignty may--nay, it must--remain in abeyance until society becomes sufficiently strong and stable to be ent.i.tled to its full exercise, as sovereignty does not belong to the general government, and its exercise is a marked usurpation.”
”The power and duty, then, of this government over the inchoate society of the Territories, is simply to protect this equality of right of persons and property of all the members of society until the period shall arrive when this dormant sovereignty shall spring into active existence and exercise all the powers of a free, sovereign, and independent State. Then it can mold, according to its own sovereign will and pleasure, its own inst.i.tutions, with the single restriction that they must be republican.”
”Justice,” said Mr. Toombs, ”is the highest expediency, the supremest wisdom. Applying that test to the principles of this measure, I say that no fair man in any portion of the country can come to any other conclusion than that it establishes between the people of this Union, who are bound together under a common Const.i.tution, a firm, a permanent, a lasting bond of harmony.
”What is it that we of the South ask? Do we make any unjust or unequal demands on the North? None. Do we ask what we are not willing on our side to grant to them? Not at all. We say to them 'Gentlemen, here is our common territory. Whether it be ceded by old States, whether it be acquired by the common treasure, or was the fruits of successful war to which we rallied, and in which we all fought, we ask you to recognize this great principle of the revolution: let such as desire, go there, enjoy their property, take with them their flocks and herds, their men-servants and maid-servants, if they desire to take them there; and when the appropriate time comes for the exercise of the dormant sovereignty of the people, let them fix the character of their inst.i.tutions for themselves.'”
Senator Toombs ridiculed the idea of the ”thunder of popular indignation.” ”If even this were true, it should in no wise control the actions of American senators. But it is not real but melodramatic thunder--nothing but phosphorus and sheet-iron.”
Senator Toombs admitted that the North had the power to reject the principles of the Kansas-Nebraska bill. They had a majority in the House and Senate. Aristides had said, ”True, you can do it; you have got the power; but, Athenians, it is unjust.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: ROBERT TOOMBS, UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM GEORGIA, 1855.]
Senator Toombs was a bold man. When he adopted a line of argument, he was willing to follow wherever its conclusions led. He did not hesitate, in this speech, to admit that ”if you yield to the people the right to mold their inst.i.tutions, the establishment of polygamy may result legitimately therefrom.” This point had been made in debate to fight the principle of the Kansas-Nebraska bill. Said Senator Toombs: ”It is just what they have a right to do. When the people of Utah make their organic law for admission to the Union, they have a right to approximate, as nearly as they please, the domestic manners of the Patriarchs. Connecticut may establish polygamy to-morrow. The people of Ma.s.sachusetts may do the same. How did they become possessed of greater rights, in this or any other respect, than the people of Utah? The right in both cases has the same foundation--the sovereignty of the people.”
Senator Toombs adverted to the fact that Henry Clay had denied that he framed the Missouri Compromise; that it did not originate in the House, of which he was a member; that he did not even know if he voted for it.
Senator Toombs held the Act of 1820 to be no compact--binding upon no man of honor; but, on the contrary, a plain and palpable violation of the Const.i.tution and the common rights of the citizens, and ought to be immediately abrogated and repealed. He declared that it had been rejected by the North when pa.s.sed, and rejected when Arkansas was admitted, when Oregon was formed, when California was received as a State. If the Kansas bill was settled upon sound and honest principles, he maintained that it should be applied to territory ceded from France just as elsewhere. He contended that the Missouri Compromise of 1820 was not a compromise in any sense of the term, but an unconst.i.tutional usurpation of power. ”When we look into the Const.i.tution, we find no antislavery power planted in that instrument. On the contrary, we find that it amply provides for the perpetuity and not for the extinction of slavery.”
Senator Toombs closed his first speech in the Senate with these words: ”The senator from New York asks where and when the application of these principles will stop. He wishes not to be deceived in the future, and asks us whether, when we bring the Chinese and other distant nations under our flag, we are to apply these principles to them? For one, I answer yes; that wherever the flag of the Union shall float, this republican principle will follow it, even if it should gather under its ample folds the freemen of every portion of the universe.”
The Kansas-Nebraska bill reopened the whole question of slavery. In the North, it was a firebrand. Mr. Buchanan, in his book, written after his retirement from the presidency, said that the South was for the first time the aggressor in this legislation. Mr. Fillmore declared that the repeal of the Missouri Compromise was ”the Pandora Box of Evil.” Mr.
Douglas was reviled by his opponents and burned in effigy at the North.
His leaders.h.i.+p in this fight was ascribed to his overweening ambition to reach the presidency. The clergymen of New England and of Chicago flooded the Senate with pet.i.tions crying against this ”intrigue.” On May 26, 1854, at one o'clock in the morning, the bill pa.s.sed the Senate by a vote of 31 to 13. The ”nays” were Messrs. Allen, Bell, Chase, Clayton, Fish, Foote, Gillet, Hamlin, James, Seward, Sumner, Wade, and Walker.
The enactment of this measure into a law did not settle the question. It resulted in a strife in the Territories themselves. For two years Kansas was in a state of civil war. The Emigrant Aid Societies of New England raised large sums of money to send to the Territories Free-Soil settlers and other agitators. A counter-stream of agitators set in from Missouri, in sympathy with the slavery men, and the result was a long series of b.l.o.o.d.y disorders. In February, 1856, Mr. Toombs made a speech upon the message of the President in regard to the lawless condition of Kansas.