[31]
Chapter 6:
- Agitation continued -- political parties: their origin, changes, and modifications -- some account of the “popular sovereignty,” or “non-intervention,” theory -- rupture of the Democratic party -- the John Brown raid -- resolutions introduced by the author into the Senate on the relations of the States, the Federal Government, and the Territories: their discussion and adoption.
The strife in Kansas and the agitation of the territorial question in Congress and throughout the country continued during nearly the whole of Buchanan's administration, finally culminating in a disruption of the Union. Meantime the changes or modifications which had occurred or were occurring in the great political parties were such as may require a word of explanation to the reader not already familiar with their history. The names adopted by political parties in the United States have not always been strictly significant of their principles. The old Federal party inclined to nationalism or consolidation, rather than federalization of the states. On the other hand, the party originally known as Republican, and afterward as Democratic, can scarcely claim to have been distinctively or exclusively such in the primary sense of these terms, inasmuch as no party has ever avowed opposition to the general principles of government by the people. The fundamental idea of the Democratic party was that of the sovereignty of the states and the federal, or confederate, character of the Union. Other elements have entered into its organization at different periods, but this has been the vital, cardinal, and abiding principle on which its existence has been perpetuated. The Whig, which succeeded the old Federal party, though by no means identical with it, was in the main favorable to a strong central government, therein antagonizing the transatlantic traditions connected with its name. The “Know-nothing,” or “American” party, which sprang into existence on the decadence of the Whig organization, based upon opposition to the alleged overgrowth of the political influence of naturalized foreigners and of the Roman Catholic Church, had but a brief duration, and after the presidential election of 1856 declined as rapidly as it had risen. At the period to which this narrative has advanced, the “Free-soil,” which had now assumed the title of “Republican” party, had grown to a magnitude which threatened speedily to obtain entire control of the [32] government. Based, as has been shown, upon sectional rivalry and opposition to the growth of the Southern equally with the Northern states of the Union, it had absorbed within itself not only the abolitionists, who were avowedly agitating for the destruction of the system of negro servitude, but other diverse and heterogeneous elements of opposition to the Democratic party. In the presidential election of 1856, their candidates (Fremont and Dayton) had received 114 of a total of 296 electoral votes, representing a popular vote of 1,341,264 in a total of 4,053,967. The elections of the ensuing year (1857) exhibited a diminution of the so-called Republican strength, and the Thirty-fifth Congress, which convened in December of that year, was decidedly Democratic in both branches. In the course of the next two years, however, the Kansas agitation and another cause, to be presently noticed, had so swollen the ranks of the so-called Republicans that, in the House of Representatives of the Thirty-sixth Congress, which met in December, 1859, neither party had a decided majority, the balance of power being held by a few members still adhering to the virtually extinct Whig and American (or Know-Nothing) organizations, and a still smaller number whose position was doubtful or irregular. More than eight weeks were spent in the election of a Speaker, and a so-called Republican (Pennington of New Jersey) was finally elected by a majority of one vote. The Senate continued to be decidedly Democratic, though with an increase of the so-called Republican minority. The cause above alluded to, as contributing to the rapid growth of the Republican party after the elections of the year 1857, was the dissension among the Democrats, occasioned by the introduction of the doctrine called by its inventors and advocates “popular sovereignty,” or “nonin-tervention,” but more generally and more accurately known as “squatter sovereignty.” Its character has already been concisely stated in the preceding chapter. Its origin is generally attributed to General Cass, who is supposed to have suggested it in some general expressions of his celebrated Nicholson letter, written in December, 1847. On May 16 and 17, 1860, it became necessary for me, in a debate in the Senate, to review that letter of Cass. From my remarks then made, the following extract is taken:
The Senator [Douglas] might have remembered, if he had chosen to recollect so unimportant a thing, that I once had to explain to him, ten years ago, the fact that I repudiated the doctrine of that letter at the time it was published, and that the Democracy of Mississippi had well-nigh crucified me for the construction which I placed upon it. There were men mean enough to suspect that the construction I gave to the Nicholson letter was prompted by the confidence [33] and affection I felt for General Taylor. At a subsequent period, however, Mr. Cass thoroughly reviewed it. He uttered (for him) very harsh language against all who had doubted the true construction of his letter, and he construed it just as I had done during the canvass of 1848. It remains only to add that I supported Mr. Cass, not because of the doctrine of the Nicholson letter, but in despite of it; because I believed a Democratic President, with a Democratic Cabinet and Democratic counselors in the two houses of Congress, and he as honest a man as I believed Mr. Cass to be, would be a safer reliance than his opponent, who personally possessed my confidence as much as any man living, but who was of, and must draw his advisers from, a party the tenets of which I believed to be opposed to the interests of the country, as they were to all my political convictions. I little thought at that time that my advocacy of Mr. Cass upon such grounds as these, or his support by the State of which I am a citizen, would at any future day be quoted as an endorsement of the opinions contained in the Nicholson letter, as those opinions were afterward defined. But it is not only upon this letter, but equally upon the resolutions of the Convention as constructive of that letter, that the Senator rested his argument. [I will here say to the Senator that, if at any time I do him the least injustice, speaking as I do from such notes as I could take while he progressed, I will thank him to correct me.] But this letter entered into the canvass; there was a doubt about its construction: there were men who asserted that they had positive authority for saying that it meant that the people of a Territory could only exclude slavery when the Territory should form a Constitution and be admitted as a State. This doubt continued to hang over the construction, and it was that doubt alone which secured Mr. Cass the vote of Mississippi. If the true construction had been certainly known, he would have had no chance to get it.Whatever meaning that generally discreet and conservative statesman, Cass, may have intended to convey, it is not at all probable that he foresaw the extent to which the suggestions would be carried and the consequences that would result from it. In the organization of a government for California in 1850, the theory was more distinctly advanced, but it was not until after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, in 1854, that it was fully developed under the plastic and constructive genius of the Hon. Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois. The leading part which that distinguished Senator had borne in the authorship and advocacy of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, which affirmed the right of the people of the territories “to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States,” had aroused against him a violent storm of denunciation in the state which he represented and in other Northern states. He met it very manfully in some respects, and defended his action resolutely, but in so doing was led to make such concessions of principle and to attach such an interpretation to the bill as would have [34] rendered it practically nugatory—a thing to keep the promise of peace to the ear and break it to the hope. The Constitution expressly confers upon Congress the power to admit new states into the Union, and also to “dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States.” Under these grants of power, the uniform practice of the government had been for Congress to lay off and divide the common territory by convenient boundaries for the formation of future states; to provide executive, legislative, and judicial departments of government for such territories during their temporary and provisional period of pupilage; to delegate to these governments such authority as might be expedient—subject always to the supervision and controlling government of the Congress; and finally, at the proper time, and on the attainment by the territory of sufficient strength and population for self-government, to receive it into the Union on a footing of entire equality with the original states—sovereign and self-governing. All this is no more inconsistent with the true principles of “popular sovereignty,” properly understood, than the temporary subjection of a minor to parental control is inconsistent with the doctrines of the Declaration of Independence, or the exceptional discipline of a man-of-war or a military post with the principles of republican freedom. The usual process of transition from a territorial condition to that of a state was, in the first place, by an act of Congress authorizing the inhabitants to elect representatives for a convention to form a state constitution, which was then submitted to Congress for approval and ratification. On such ratification the supervisory control of Congress was withdrawn and the new state authorized to assume its sovereignty, and the inhabitants of the territory became citizens of a state. In the cases of Tennessee in 1796, and Arkansas and Michigan in 1836, the failure of the inhabitants to obtain an “enabling act” of Congress before organizing themselves very nearly caused the rejection of their applications for admission as states, though they were eventually granted on the ground that the subsequent approval and consent of Congress could heal the prior irregularity. The entire control of Congress over the whole subject of territorial government had never been questioned in earlier times. Necessarily conjoined with the power of this protectorate was, of course, the duty of exercising it for the safety of the persons and property of all citizens of the United States permanently or temporarily resident in any part of the domain belonging to the states in common. Logically carried out, the new theory of “popular sovereignty” [35] would apply to the first adventurous pioneers settling in the wilderness before the organization of any territorial government by Congress, as well as afterward. If “sovereignty” is inherent in a thousand or five thousand persons, there can be no valid ground for denying its existence in a dozen, as soon as they pass beyond the limits of the state governments. The advocates of this novel doctrine, however, if rightly understood, generally disavowed any claim to its application prior to the organization of a territorial government. The territory legislatures, to which Congress delegated a portion of its power and duty to “make all needful rules and regulations respecting the Territory,” were the mere agents of Congress, exercising an authority subject to Congressional supervision and control — an authority conferred only for the sake of convenience, and liable at any time to be revoked and annulled. Yet it is proposed to recognize in these provisional, subordinate, and temporary legislative bodies a power not possessed by Congress itself. This is to claim that the creature is endowed with an authority not possessed by the creator, or that the stream has risen to an elevation above that of its source. Furthermore, in contending for a power in the territorial legislatures permanently to determine the fundamental, social, and political institutions of the territory, and thereby virtually to prescribe those of the future state, the advocates of “popular sovereignty” were investing those dependent and subsidiary bodies with powers far above any exercised by the legislatures of the fully organized and sovereign states. The authority of the state legislatures is limited, both by the federal Constitution and by the respective state Constitutions from which it is derived. This latter limitation did not and could not exist in the territories. Strange as it may seem, a theory founded on fallacies so flimsy and leading to conclusions so paradoxical was advanced by eminent and experienced politicians, and accepted by many persons, both in the North and in the South--not so much, perhaps, from intelligent conviction as under the delusive hope that it would afford a satisfactory settlement of the “irrepressible conflict” which had been declared. The terms “popular sovereignty” and “non-intervention” were plausible, specious, and captivating to the public ear. Too many lost sight of the elementary truth that political sovereignty does not reside in unorganized or partially organized masses of individuals, but in the people of regularly and permanently constituted states. As to the “noninter-vention” proposed, it meant merely the abnegation by Congress of its [36] duty to protect the inhabitants of the territories subject to its control. The raid into Virginia under John Brown—already notorious as a fanatical partisan leader in the Kansas troubles—occurred in October, 1859, a few weeks before the meeting of the Thirty-sixth Congress. Insignificant in itself and in its immediate results, it afforded a startling revelation of the extent to which sectional hatred and political fanaticism had blinded the conscience of a class of persons in certain states of the Union, forming a party steadily growing stronger in numbers, as well as in activity. Sympathy with its purposes or methods was earnestly disclaimed by the representatives of all parties in Congress; it was charged, on the other hand, that it was only the natural outgrowth of doctrines and sentiments which for some years had been freely avowed on the floors of both houses. A committee of the Senate made a long and laborious investigation of the facts, with no very important or satisfactory results. In their final report, June 15, 1860, accompanying the evidence obtained and submitted, this Committee said:
It [the incursion] was simply the act of lawless ruffians, under the sanction of no public or political authority, distinguishable only from ordinary felonies by the ulterior ends in contemplation by them, and by the fact that the money to maintain the expedition, and the large armament they brought with them, had been contributed and furnished by the citizens of other States of the Union under circumstances that must continue to jeopard the safety and peace of the Southern States, and against which Congress has no power to legislate. If the several States [adds the Committee], whether from motives of policy or a desire to preserve the peace of the Union, if not from fraternal feeling, do not hold it incumbent on them, after the experience of the country, to guard in future by appropriate legislation against occurrences similar to the one here inquired into, the Committee can find no guarantee elsewhere for the security of peace between the States of the Union.On February 2, 1860, the author submitted in the Senate of the United States a series of resolutions, afterward slightly modified to read as follows:
1. Resolved, That, in the adoption of the Federal Constitution, the States, adopting the same, acted severally as free and independent sovereignties, delegating a portion of their powers to be exercised by the Federal Government for the increased security of each against dangers, domestic as well as foreign; and that any intermeddling by any one or more States, or by a combination of their citizens, with the domestic institutions of the others, on any pretext whatever, political, moral, or religious, with the view to their disturbance or subversion, is in violation of the Constitution, insulting to the States so interfered with, endangers their domestic peace and tranquility—objects for which the Constitution was formed—and, by necessary consequence, tends to weaken and destroy the Union itself. [37] 2. Resolved, That negro slavery, as it exists in fifteen States of this Union, composes an important portion of their domestic institutions, inherited from our ancestors, and existing at the adoption of the Constitution, by which it is recognized as constituting an important element in the apportionment of powers among the States, and that no change of opinion or feeling on the part of the non-slaveholding States of the Union in relation to this institution can justify them or their citizens in open covert attacks thereon, with a view to its overthrow; and that all such attacks are in manifest violation of the mutual and solemn pledge to protect and defend each other, given by the States respectively, on entering into the constitutional compact which formed the Union, and are a manifest breach of faith and a violation of the most solemn obligations. 3. Resolved, That the Union of these States rests on the equality of rights and privileges among its members, and that it is especially the duty of the Senate, which represents the States in their sovereign capacity, to resist all attempts to discriminate either in relation to persons or property in the Territories, which are the common possessions of the United States, so as to give advantages to the citizens of one State which are not equally assured to those of every other State. 4. Resolved, That neither Congress nor a Territorial Legislature, whether by direct legislation or legislation of an indirect and unfriendly character, possesses power to annul or impair the constitutional right of any citizen of the United States to take his slave property into the common Territories, and there hold and enjoy the same while the territorial condition remains. 5. Resolved, That if experience should at any time prove that the judiciary and executive authority do not possess means to insure adequate protection to constitutional rights in a Territory, and if the Territorial government shall fail or refuse to provide the necessary remedies for that purpose, it will be the duty of Congress to supply such deficiency.1 6. Resolved, That the inhabitants of a Territory of the United States, when they rightfully form a Constitution to be admitted as a State into the Union, may then, for the first time, like the people of a State when forming a new Constitution, decide for themselves whether slavery, as a domestic institution, shall be maintained or prohibited within their jurisdiction; and they shall be received into the Union with or without slavery, as their Constitution may prescribe at the time of their admission. 7. Resolved, That the provision of the Constitution for the rendition of fugitives from service or labor, “without the adoption of which the Union could not have been formed,” and that the laws of 1793 and 1850, which were enacted to secure its execution, and the main features of which, being similar, bear the impress of nearly seventy years of sanction by the highest judicial authority, should be honestly and faithfully observed and maintained by all who enjoy the benefits of our compact of union; and that all acts of individuals or of State Legislatures to defeat the purpose or nullify the requirements of that provision, and the laws made in pursuance of it, are hostile in character, subversive of the Constitution, and revolutionary in their effect.2[38] After a protracted and earnest debate, these resolutions were adopted seriatim on May 24 and 25 by a decided majority of the Senate (varying from thirty-three to thirty-six yeas against from two to twenty-one nays), the Democrats, both Northern and Southern, sustaining them unitedly, with the exception of one adverse vote (that of Pugh of Ohio) on the fourth and sixth resolutions. The Republicans all voted against them or refrained from voting at all, except that Teneyck of New Jersey voted for the fifth and seventh of the series. Douglas, the leader if not the author of “popular sovereignty,” was absent on account of illness, and there were a few other absentees. The conclusion of a speech in reply to Douglas, a few days before the vote was taken on these resolutions, is introduced here as the best evidence of the position of the author at that period of excitement and agitation:
conclusion of reply to Mr. Douglas, may 17, 1860. Mr. President: I briefly and reluctantly referred, because the subject had been introduced, to the attitude of Mississippi on a former occasion. I will now as briefly say that in 1851, and in 1860, Mississippi was, and is, ready to make every concession which it becomes her to make to the welfare and the safety of the Union. If, on a former occasion, she hoped too much from fraternity, the responsibility for her disappointment rests upon those who failed to fulfill her expectations. She still clings to the Government as our fathers formed it. She is ready to-day and to-morrow, as in her past and though brief yet brilliant history, to maintain that Government in all its power, and to vindicate its honor with all the means she possesses. I say brilliant history; for it was in the very morning of her existence that her sons, on the plains of New Orleans, were announced, in general orders, to have been the admiration of one army and the wonder of the other. That we had a division in relation to the measures enacted in 1850, is true; that the Southern rights men became the minority in the election which resulted, is true; but no figure of speech could warrant the Senator in speaking of them as subdued — as coming to him or anybody else for quarter. I deemed it offensive when it was uttered, and the scorn with which I repelled it at the instant, time has only softened to contempt. Our flag was never borne from the field. We had carried it in the face of defeat, with a knowledge that defeat awaited it; but scarcely had the smoke of the battle passed away which proclaimed another victor, before the general voice admitted that the field again was ours. I have not seen a sagacious, reflecting man, who was cognizant of the events as they transpired at the time, who does not say that, within two weeks after the election, our party was in a majority; and the next election which occurred showed that we possessed the State beyond controversy. How we have wielded that power it is not for me to say. I trust others may see forbearance in our conduct—that, with a determination to insist upon our constitutional rights, then and now, there is an unwavering desire to maintain the Government, and to uphold the Democratic party. We believe now, as we have asserted on former occasions, that the best hope for [39] the perpetuity of our institutions depends upon the cooperation, the harmony, the zealous action, of the Democratic party. We cling to that party from conviction that its principles and its aims are those of truth and the country, as we cling to the Union for the fulfillment of the purposes for which it was formed. Whenever we shall be taught that the Democratic party is recreant to its principles; whenever we shall learn that it can not be relied upon to maintain the great measures which constitute its vitality—I for one shall be ready to leave it. And so, when we declare our tenacious adherence to the Union, it is the Union of the Constitution. If the compact between the States is to be trampled into the dust; if anarchy is to be substituted for the usurpation and consolidation which threatened the Government at an earlier period; if the Union is to become powerless for the purposes for which it was established, and we are vainly to appeal to it for protectionthen, sir, conscious of the rectitude of our course, the justice of our cause, selfre-liant, yet humbly, confiding trusting in the arm that guided and protected our fathers, we look beyond the confines of the Union for the maintenance of our rights. An habitual reverence and cherished affection for the Government will bind us to it longer than our interests would suggest or require; but he is a poor student of the world's history who does not understand that communities at last must yield to the dictates of their interests. That the affection, the mutual desire for the mutual good, which existed among our fathers, may be weakened in succeding generations by the denial of right, and hostile demonstration, until the equality guaranteed but not secured within the Union may be sought for without it, must be evident to even a careless observer of our race. It is time to be up and doing. There is yet time to remove the causes of dissension and alienation which are now distracting, and have for years past divided, the country. If the Senator correctly described me as having at a former period, against my own preferences and opinions, acquiesced in the decision of my party; if, when I had youth, when physical vigor gave promise of many days, and the future was painted in the colors of hope, I could thus surrender my own convictions, my own prejudices, and cooperate with my political friends according to their views of the best method of promoting the public good—now, when the years of my future can not be many, and experience has sobered the hopeful tints of youth's gilding; when, approaching the evening of life, the shadows are reversed, and the mind turns retrospectively, it is not to be supposed that I would abandon lightly, or idly put on trial, the party to which I have steadily adhered. It is rather to be assumed that conservatism, which belongs to the timidity or caution of increasing years, would lead me to cling to, to be supported by, rather than to cast off, the organization with which I have been so long connected. If I am driven to consider the necessity of separating myself from those old and dear relations, of discarding the accustomed support, under circumstances such as I have described, might not my friends who differ from me pause and inquire whether there is not something involved in it which calls for their careful revision? I desire no divided flag for the Democratic party. Our principles are national; they belong to every State of the Union; and, though elections may be lost by their assertion, they constitute the only foundation on which we can maintain power, on which we can again rise to the dignity the Democracy once possessed. Does not the Senator from Illinois see in the sectional [40] character of the vote he received,3 that his opinions are not acceptable to every portion of the country? Is not the fact that the resolutions adopted by seventeen States, on which the greatest reliance must be placed for Democratic support, are in opposition to the dogma to which he still clings, a warning that, if he persists and succeeds in forcing his theory upon the Democratic party, its days are numbered? We ask only for the Constitution. We ask of the Democracy only from time to time to declare, as current exigencies may indicate, what the Constitution was intended to secure and provide. Our flag bears no new device. Upon its folds our principles are written in living light; all proclaiming the constitutional Union, justice, equality, and fraternity of our ocean-bound domain, for a limitless future.
