History of American Abolitionism Part 6

One Delia Webster suffered for such an interference with other people's affairs by an incarceration in the penitentiary at Lexington, Ky., in 1845, for two years. Another, Rev. Charles Torrey, for similar offences, was sentenced to six years in the Maryland penitentiary, but died before the expiration of the sentence.

Many other instances of a similar nature might be cited; but these are enough to indicate the extent to which fanaticism carried its followers.

The year 1848 was characterized by the usual venom which the anti-slavery societies industriously endeavored to distil into the community. Fred.

Douglas, Edmund Quincy, Francis Jackson, Abby Kelly, Garrison, Phillips, Pillsbury, Lucy Stone, Theodore Parker, and a retinue of negro orators, escaped slaves and others, regularly held their meetings and indulged in their customary rhodomontades. At the New England Convention, which a.s.sembled during this year, a series of one hundred conventions for the purpose of agitating the question of dissolution of the Union was commenced in Ma.s.sachusetts, and funds were raised for the purpose. Some of these meetings were broken up by indignant mobs, but they were mainly allowed to go on, and acc.u.mulated disciples.

THE FOURTH EPOCH.

CHAPTER VII.

History of the Compromise Measures of 1850--Cessation of the Agitation in Congress--The Fugitive Slave Law in the North--Repeal of the Missouri Compromise--Narrative of the Difficulties in Kansas--Disunion Convention in Ma.s.sachusetts.

The next important move upon the political chessboard with reference to slavery preceded the adoption of the celebrated measures familiarly known by the above t.i.tle, or as the "Omnibus Bill of 1850." The events which led to this measure may be briefly stated thus:--

Ever since 1848, a storm had been lowering in the political horizon of the country on the slavery question, threatening to dissolve the Union, which necessarily burst over Congress in Legislating for the new Territories brought into the Union by the result of the Mexican war. Probably no subject has been presented since the adoption of the federal const.i.tution involving questions of such deep and vital importance to the inhabitants of the different States of the confederacy as that in reference to the territory thus acquired. Not only was the sentiment avowed of the existence of danger to the Union, but in various quarters was heard an open and undisguised declaration of a necessity and desire for its dissolution. General Taylor was elected, a new administration came into power, and being somewhat identified with the Northern anti-slavery elements, as opposed to the Democratic party, a tremendous agitation was at once created, and the whole question of slavery thrown again into the crucible.

The Thirtieth Congress had adjourned without organizing the new Territories, or settling any great principle as to their future government and destiny. California had gone forth without asking leave, formed a State government prohibiting slavery, and put its machinery in operation.

Utah was governed by a high and arbitrary spiritual despotism, and New Mexico was under military rule, ordered from the seat of federal power at Was.h.i.+ngton. In addition to this, it was discovered that Mexico had abolished slavery, and consequently that the _lex loci_ of all the countries ceded by Mexico to the United States excluded slavery. The Wilmot Proviso had been carried in the House, but failed in the Senate, and waited only for the admission of California, which would give sixteen free States against fifteen slave States.

Of course the whole South rose in arms against the consequences of this disappointment. They would not admit California; they declared that slavery did exist in the territories acquired from Mexico; that in any case the Const.i.tution of the United States would carry it there and protect it there; and that they would dissolve the Union if the Wilmot Proviso became a law.

In this state of affairs, Henry Clay, on the 29th of January, brought forward in the Senate his famous resolutions of compromise, and laid the basis of an adjustment which might have lasted till this day but for the repeal of the Missouri Compromise in 1854. Subsequently, a Committee of Thirteen was appointed by the Senate, charged with the duty of considering all the subjects, of which Mr. Clay was appointed chairman. On the 8th of May, 1850, this committee reported a series of measures, differing but inconsiderably from the original resolutions of Mr. Clay. These were:--

1. The admission of California as a free State, according to the expression of the will of her people.

2. The establishment of Territorial governments, without the Wilmot Proviso, for New Mexico and Utah, embracing all the territory recently acquired by the United States from Mexico, not contained in the boundaries of California. The question of slavery was left without any other restriction than the will of the people.

3. The establishment of the western and northern boundary of Texas, and the exclusion from her jurisdiction of all New Mexico, with the grant to Texas of a pecuniary equivalent.

4. More effectual enactments for the recovery of fugitive slaves.

5. Abstaining from abolis.h.i.+ng slavery, but under a heavy penalty prohibiting the slave trade, in the District of Columbia.

Separate bills were drawn embodying all the main features of this compromise, and eight months having been consumed in their discussion, the two houses were at last brought to a vote on each bill by itself.

The Utah Territorial Bill pa.s.sed the Senate, August 10, 1850, by a vote of yeas 32, nays 18.

The Texas Boundary Bill pa.s.sed the Senate, August 10, 1850, by a vote of yeas 30, nays 20.

The bill for the admission of California pa.s.sed the Senate, August 13, 1850, by a vote of 34 to 18.

The New Mexico Bill pa.s.sed the Senate, August 14, 1850, by a vote of 27 to 10.

The Fugitive Slave Bill pa.s.sed the Senate on the 23d of August, 1850, by a vote of 27 to 12.

The bill abolis.h.i.+ng the slave trade in the District of Columbia pa.s.sed the Senate, September 14, 1850, by a vote of 33 to 19.

In the House, the vote on the several bills was:--

New Mexico and Texas boundary, Sept. 6, 1850, yeas 180, nays 97.

Admission of California, Sept. 7, 1850, yeas 150, nays 53.

Utah Bill, Sept. 7, 1850, yeas 97, nays 85.

Fugitive Slave Bill, Sept. 12, 1850, yeas 109, nays 76.

Slave trade in the District of Columbia, Sept. 17, 1850, yeas 124, nays 59.

Out of Congress the abolitionists were aroused almost to a pitch of frenzy by the pa.s.sage of the Compromise measures and the Fugitive Slave Law.

Addresses were immediately issued by thousands, which were freely circulated in all the Northern States, counseling resistance to the law under every circ.u.mstance. Conventions were held of whites and negroes, in which was proclaimed death to every slaveholder who attempted to carry out the provisions of the infamous enactment. The tide of runaway slaves from the South, which had been flowing for so many years, swelled into a flood.

Where one slave formerly made a successful escape, scores made good their flight now. New England became the goal of the fugitives, and here they found friends without number, who furnished them with the means of extending their journey to the Canadian provinces.

One of the first and most successful attempts to resist the Fugitive Slave Law was in Boston, in April, 1851, when one Thomas Sims, who had escaped from Georgia, was taken in custody by the city authorities, on a warrant issued by the United States Commissioner. A mob was the result. The military was called out, and for several days the most intense excitement ensued. The law finally triumphed, however, and amid the cry of "Sims, preach liberty to your fellow slaves," he was put on a steamtug and sent where he belonged.

Shortly after this, a meeting was called by the Vigilance Committee, which was presided over by Hon. Horace Mann, when Anson Burlingame, Henry Wilson, Remond, Higginson and several other negroes appeared and made denunciatory speeches against the law and in favor of the resolutions, which proclaimed the necessity of resistance to the uttermost.

On September 11, 1851, occurred the celebrated Christiana affair. Edward Gorsuch, of Maryland, his son and a party of friends, accompanied by a United States Commissioner, appeared in the neighborhood of Christiana, Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, in pursuit of a slave. An attack was made upon them by negroes, and both father and son were killed. The United States marines were ordered to the spot, and for several days the place was under martial law. The slave, of course, escaped. We might also refer to the rescues of Shadrack, Anthony Burns, the slave Jerry at Syracuse, and similar incidents that occurred in various parts of the Northern States; but the circ.u.mstances are most of them too recent and familiar to require more than a pa.s.sing allusion.

It is only necessary to say that this kind of agitation--resistance to the laws and disturbance of the peace--has been a part of the tactics of abolitionists down to the present moment. They have never allowed an opportunity to pa.s.s of showing their utter disregard for law and order, and of interposing every obstacle in the way of those whose sincere desire it is to promote the peace and prosperity of the country. The breeze has become a gale, and the gale has swelled into a tempest, under the influence of which the mind of a portion of the North has been lashed into insane fury.

THE REPEAL OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE, AND FORMATION OF THE TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENTS OF KANSAS AND NEBRASKA.

It was reserved for the years 1853 and 1854 to be a period of agitation--revived under the auspices of such men as Stephen A. Douglas, Franklin Pierce, Caleb Cus.h.i.+ng, David Atchinson and other politicians intent upon the Presidency--unrivalled in the annals of the country.

The new danger came up in the shape of a proposition to establish a Territorial government in Nebraska (then embracing Kansas), a Territory which, with Missouri, originally const.i.tuted the upper part of the province of Louisiana, and was acquired from the French in 1803 by the payment of 60,000,000 francs.

As early as Dec. 11, 1844, Mr. Douglas gave notice to the House of his intention to introduce a bill for this purpose, which he did on the 17th instant following. After being favorably reported upon, it was referred to the Committee of the Whole, where, owing to the importance of other measures pending, it was not again acted upon during the session. On the 15th of March, 1848, he introduced a similar bill, and again it met a similar fate. In the Senate, in 1852, Mr. Dodge, of Iowa, early introduced a resolution, which was pa.s.sed, instructing the Committee on Territories to inquire into the expediency of organizing the Territory; but no further action was taken upon it until the House of Representatives had pa.s.sed its bill for that purpose. On December 17, the pet.i.tion of Mr. Guthrie for a seat as a delegate from Nebraska, was received and referred, and on the 2d day of February, 1853, the Committee on Territories, through Mr.

Richardson, of Illinois, their chairman, reported their bill for organizing Nebraska, which, after three days consideration, was pa.s.sed on the 10th, by a vote of 98 to 43. It was silent on the subject of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. The Senate received it the next day, and on the 17th instant, the Committee on Territories reported it without amendment. On the 3d of March, 1853, it was laid upon the table. In the debate which immediately preceded this disposition, Senator Atchison, of Missouri, openly avowed the ground of his opposition to be that the law excluding slavery from the Territory of Louisiana, north of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes, would be enforced in the new Territory, "unless specially rescinded." He did not appear, however, to entertain any hope that this desirable object could be effected. He said he should, therefore, oppose the organization, unless the whole South could go into the Territory with rights and privileges, respecting property, equal to other people of the Union. The idea of the possibility of a repeal of the Missouri Compromise was thus, for the first time, thrown out and left to take root in the minds of the nation, with the chance of growing up to perfection. Even the most ultra among the Southerners then regarded this as a thing rather to be hoped for than realized.

On the 4th of January, 1854, Mr. Douglas, from the Committee on Territories, (which consisted of Messrs. Douglas, of Illinois; Houston, of Texas; Johnson, of Arkansas; Bell, of Tennessee; Jones, of Iowa, and Everett, of Ma.s.sachusetts,) to whom had been referred the bill of Mr.

Dodge, reported back the same with amendments and a report which contained the first open, and as it were official, declaration of the impending _coup d'etat_. This report a.s.sumed as its basis that the Compromise acts of 1850, which, it will be recollected, leave to the people of the Territories to decide for themselves whether or not there shall be slavery in their midst, were the supreme, authentic law of the land, and the Missouri Compromise was cited and put aside as immaterial, because it came in collision with this latest legislation and adjustment of the question.

This perpetual prohibition Mr. Douglas proposed incidentally to repeal by the following provision in the bill:--

"And when admitted as a State or States, the said Territory, or any portion of the same, shall be received in the Union with or without slavery, as their const.i.tutions may prescribe at the time of their admission."

Later in this month the same committee submitted an amended bill by which two Territories--Kansas and Nebraska--were to be created out of the domain in question.

On the 22d of January, Messrs. Chase and Sumner, of the Senate, and Messrs. Giddings, Wade, Dewitt and Gerrit Smith, of the House, issued a stirring appeal to the people of the United States, urging and imploring instant action to avert the pending calamity. This was circulated over the whole country, and aided not a little in adding fuel to the already furious flame of excitement.

The discussion of the bill in the Senate was continued from time to time through January. It swallowed up all other interests, and was the absorbing topic throughout the country. The vote was finally reached at five o'clock in the morning of March 4, 1854, when the bill pa.s.sed the Senate by a vote of thirty-seven to fourteen. Fourteen of the votes in its favor were given by Senators from the free States, and two of those against it by Senators from the slave States--Messrs. Houston, of Texas, and Bell, of Tennessee.

On the 14th of March Mr. Everett presented the famous mammoth memorial, signed by 3,050 clergymen of New England, protesting against the pa.s.sage of the bill.