The Life of Jefferson Davis

But, to close the matter, this convention, in its seventh resolution, after stating all those questions on which it would resist, declared:

“That, as the people of Mississippi, in the opinion of this convention, desire all further agitation of the slavery question to cease, and have acted upon and decided the foregoing questions, thereby making it the duty of this convention to pass no act in the perview and spirit of the law under which it is called, this convention deems it unnecessary to refer to the people, for approval or disapproval, at the ballot-box, its action in the premises.”

So that when the Senator appealed to this as evidence of what the people of Mississippi had done, he was ignorant of the fact that the delegates of the people of Mississippi did not agree with him; that their resolutions did not sustain the view which he took, and that the people of Mississippi never acted on them. If, then, there had been good taste in the intervention of this local question, there was certainly very bad judgment in hazarding his statements on a subject of which he was so little informed.

The Senator here, as in relation to our friends at Charleston, takes kind care of us – supposes we do not know what we are about, but that he, with his superior discrimination, sees what must necessarily result from what we are doing; he says that, at Charleston, they – innocent people – did not intend to destroy the Government; but he warns them that, if they do what they propose, they will destroy it; and so he says we of Mississippi, not desiring to break up the Union, nevertheless pursued a course which would have had that result if it had not been checked. Where does he get all this information? I have been in every State of the Union except two – three now, since Oregon has been admitted – but I have never seen a man who had as much personal knowledge. It is equally surprising that his facts should be so contrary to the record.

We believed then, as I believe now, that this Union, as a compact entered into between the States, was to be preserved by good faith, and by a close observance of the terms on which we were united. We believed then, as I believe now, that the party which rested upon the basis of truth; promulgated its opinions, and had them tested in the alembic of public opinion, adopted the only path of safety. I can not respect such a doctrine as that which says, “You may construe the Constitution your way, and I will construe it mine; we will waive the merit of these two constructions, and harmonize together until the courts decide the question between us.” A man is bound to have an opinion upon any political subject upon which he is called to act; it is skulking his responsibility for a citizen to say, “Let us express no opinion; I will agree that you may have yours, and I will have mine; we will coöperate politically together; we will beat the opposition, divide the spoils, and leave it to the court to decide the question between us.”

I do not believe that this is the path of safety; I am sure it is not the way of honor. I believe it devolves on us, who are principally sufferers from the danger to which this policy has exposed us, to affirm the truth boldly, and let the people decide after the promulgation of our opinions. Our Government, resting as it does upon public opinion and popular consent, was not formed to deceive the people, nor does it regard the men in office as a governing class. We, the functionaries, should derive our opinions from the people. To know what their opinion is, it is necessary that we should pronounce, in unmistakable language, what we ourselves mean.

My position is, that there is no portion of our country where the people are not sufficiently intelligent to discriminate between right and wrong, and no portion where the sense of justice does not predominate. I, therefore, have been always willing to unfurl our flag to its innermost fold – to nail it to the mast, with all our principles plainly inscribed upon it. Believing that we ask nothing but what the Constitution was intended to confer – nothing but that which, as equals, we are entitled to receive – I am willing that our case should be plainly stated to those who have to decide it, and await, for good or for evil, their verdict.

For two days, the Senator spoke nominally upon the resolutions, and upon the territorial question; but, like the witness in the French comedy, who, when called upon to testify, commenced before the creation, and was stopped by the judge, who told him to come down, for a beginning, to the deluge, he commenced so far back, and narrated so minutely, that he never got chronologically down to the point before us.

What is the question on which the Democracy are divided? Are we called upon to settle what every body said from 1847 down to this date? Have the Democracy divided on that? Have they divided on the resolutions of the States in 1840, or 1844, or 1848? Have the Democracy undertaken to review the position taken in 1854, that there should be a latitude of construction upon a particular point of constitutional law while they did await the decision of the Supreme Court? No, sir; the question is changed from before to after the event; the call is on every man to come forward now, after the Supreme Court has given all it could render upon a political subject, and state that his creed is adherence to the rule thus expounded in accordance with previous agreement.

The Senator tells us that he will abide by the decision of the Supreme Court; but it was fairly to be inferred, from what he said, that, in the Dred Scott case, he held that they had only decided that a negro could not sue in a Federal Court. Was this the entertainment to which we were invited? Was the proclaimed boon of allowing the question to go to judicial decision, no more than that, one after another, each law might be tested, and that, one after another, each case, under every law, might be tried, and that after centuries should roll away, we might hope for the period when, every case exhausted, the decision of our constitutional right and of the federal duty would be complete? Or was it that we were to get rid of the controversy which had divided the country for thirty years; that we were to reach a conclusion beyond which we could see the region of peace; that tranquillity was to be obtained by getting a decision on a constitutional question which had been discussed until it was seen that, legislatively, it could not or would not be decided? If, then, the Supreme Court has judicially announced that Congress can not prohibit the introduction of slave property into a Territory, and that no one deriving authority from Congress can do so, and the Senator from Illinois holds that the inhabitants derive their power from the organic act of Congress, what restrains his acknowledgment of our right to go into the Territories, and his recognition of the case being closed by the opinion of the court? I can understand how one who has followed to its logical consequences the original doctrine of squatter sovereignty might still stand out, and say this inherent right can not be taken away by judicial decision; but is not one who claims to derive the power of the territorial legislation from a law of Congress, and who finds the opinion of the court conclusive as to Congress, and to all deriving their authority from it, estopped from any further argument?

Much of what the Senator said about the condition of public affairs can only be regarded as the presentation of his own case, and requires no notice from me. His witticism upon the honorable Senator, the Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary [Mr. Bayard], who is now absent, because of the size of the State which he represents, reminds one that it was mentioned as an evidence of the stupidity of a German, that he questioned the greatness of Napoleon because he was born in the little island of Corsica. I know not what views the Senator entertained when he measured the capacity of the Senator from Delaware by the size of that State, or the dignity of his action at Charleston by the number of his constituents. If there be any political feature which stands more prominently out than another in the Union, it is the equality of the States. Our stars have no variant size; they shine with no unequal brilliancy. A Senator from Delaware holds a position entitled to the same respect, as such, as the Senator from any other State of the Union. More than that, the character, the conduct, the information, the capacity of that Senator might claim respect, if he was not entitled to it from his position.

Twice on this occasion, and more than the same number of times heretofore, has the Senator referred to the great benefit derived from that provision which grants a trial in the local court, an appeal to the Supreme Court of the Territory, and an appeal from thence to the Supreme Court of the United States, on every question involving title to slaves. I wish to say that whatever merit attaches to that belongs to a Senator to whom the advocates of negro slavery have not often been in the habit of acknowledging their obligations – the Senator from New Hampshire [Mr. Hale], who introduced it in 1850 as an amendment to the New Mexico Bill. We adopted it as a fair proposition, equally acceptable upon one side and the other. On its adoption, no one voted against it. That proposition was incorporated in the Kansas Bill, but unless we acknowledge obligations to the Senator from New Hampshire, how shall they be accorded for that to the Senator from Illinois?

I am asked whether the resolutions of the Senate can have the force of law. Of course not. The Senate, however, is an independent member of the Government, and from its organization should be peculiarly watchful of State rights. Before the meeting of the Charleston Convention, it was untruly stated that these resolutions were concocted to affect the action of the Charleston Convention. Now we are asked if they are to affect the Baltimore Convention. They were not designed for the one; they are not pressed in view of the other. They were introduced to obtain an expression of the opinion of the Senate, a proceeding quite frequent in the history of this body. It was believed that they would have a beneficial effect, and that they were stated in terms which would show the public the error of supposing that there was a purpose on the part of the Democracy, or of the South, to enact what was called a slave code for the Territories of the United States. It was believed that the assertion of sound principles at this time would direct public opinion, and might be fruitful of such reuniting, harmonizing results as we all desire, and which the public need. Whether it is to have this effect or not; whether at last we are to be shorn of our national strength by personal or sectional strife, depends upon the conduct of those who have it in their power to control the result. The Democratic party, in its history, presents a high example of nationality; its power and its usefulness has been its co-extension with the Union. The Democrats of the Northern States who vote for these resolutions, but affirm that which we have so often announced with pride, that there was a political opinion which pervaded the whole country; there was a party capable to save the Union, because it belonged to all the States. If the two Democratic Senators who alone have declared their opposition should so vote, to that extent the effect would be impaired, and they will stand in that isolation to which the Senator points as a consequence so dreadful to the Southern men at Charleston.

[Here Mr. Davis gave way for a motion to adjourn, and on the 17th resumed.]

Mr. Davis. At the close of the session of yesterday, I was speaking of the hope entertained that the Democratic party would yet be united; that the party which had so long wielded the destinies of the country, for its honor, for its glory, and its progress, was not about to be checked midway in its career – to be buried in a premature grave; but that it was to go on, with concentrated energy, toward the great ends for which it has striven since 1800, by a long pull, and a strong pull, and a pull altogether, to bring the ship of State into that quiet harbor where

“Vessels safe, without their hawsers, ride.”

This was a hope, however, not founded on any supposition that we were to escape from the issues which are presented – a hope not based on the proposition that every man should have his own construction of our creed, and that we should unite together merely for success; but that the party, as heretofore, in each succeeding quadrennial convention, would add to the resolutions of the preceding one such declarations as passing events indicated, and the exigencies of the country demanded.

In the last four years a division has arisen in the Democratic party, upon the construction of one of the articles of its creed. It behooves us, in that state of the case, to decide what the true construction is; for, if the party be not a union of men upon principle, the sooner it is dissolved the better; and if it be such a union, why shall not those principles be defined, so as to remove doubt or cavil, and be applied in every emergency to meet the demands of each succeeding case? Thus only can we avoid division in council and confusion in action.

The Senator from Illinois, who preceded me, announced that he had performed a pleasing duty in defending the Democratic party. That party might well cry out, Save me from my defender. It was a defense of the party by the arraignment of its prominent members. It was the preservation of the body by the destruction of its head – for the President of the United States is, for the time being, the head of the party that placed him in position; and the head of the party thus in position can not be destroyed without the disintegration of the members and the destruction of the body itself. I suppose the Senator, however, was at his favorite amusement of “shooting at the lump.” The “lump” heretofore has been those Democratic Senators who dissented from him: this time he involved Democrats all over the country. Not even the presiding officer, whose position seals his lips, could escape him. And here let me say that I found nothing in the extract read from that gentleman’s address, which, construed as was no doubt intended, does not meet my approval; but if tried by the modern lexicon of the Senator, it might be rendered a contradiction to his avowed opinions, and by the same mode of expounding, non-intervention would be a sin of which the whole Democracy might be convicted, under the indictment of squatter sovereignty. The language quoted from the address of the Vice-President is to be construed as understood at the time, at the place, and by men such as the one who used it.

With that force which usually enters into his addresses – with even more than his usual eloquence – the Senator referred to the scene which awaited him upon his return to Chicago, when, as represented, he met an infuriated mob, who assailed him for having maintained the measures of 1850 – those compromises which, in the Northern section, it was urged had been passed in the interest of the South. But, pray, what one of those measures was it which excited the mob so described? Only one, I believe, was put in issue at the North – the fugitive slave law; that one he did not vote for. But it was the part of manliness to say that, though absent and not voting for it, he approved of it. Such, I believe, was his commendable course on that occasion. I give him, therefore, all due credit for not escaping from a responsibility to which they might not have held him. Are we to give perpetual thanks to any one because he did not yield to so senseless a clamor, but conceded to us that small measure of constitutional right – because he has complied with a requirement so plain that my regret is that it ever required congressional intervention to enforce it? It belonged to the honor of the States to execute that clause of the Constitution. They should have executed it without congressional intervention; congressional action should only have been useful to give that uniformity of proceeding which State action could not have secured.

Concurring in the depicted evil of the destruction of the Democratic organization, it must be admitted that such consequence is the inevitable result of a radical difference of principle. The Senator laments the disease, but instead of healing, aggravates it. While pleading the evils of the disruption of the party, it is quite apparent that, in his mind, there is another still greater calamity; for, through all his arraignment of others, all his self-laudation, all his complaints of persecution, like an air through its variations, appears and re-appears the action of the Charleston Convention. That seemed to be the beginning and the end of his solicitude. The oft-told tale of his removal from the chairmanship of the Committee on Territories had to be renewed and connected with that convention, and even assumed as the basis on which his strength was founded in that convention. I think the Senator did himself injustice. I think his long Career and distinguished labors, his admitted capacity for good hereafter, constitute a better reason for the support which he received, than the fact that his associates in the Senate had not chosen to put him in a particular position in the organization of this body. It is enough that that fact did not divert support from him; and I am aware of none of his associates here who have forced it upon public attention with a view to affect him.

He claims that an arraignment made against his Democracy has been answered by the action of a majority of the Convention at Charleston; and then proceeds to inform the minority men that he would scorn to be the candidate of a party unless he received a majority of its votes. There was no use in making that declaration; it requires not only a majority, but, under our ruling, a vote of two-thirds, for a nomination. It was unnecessary for any body to feel scorn toward that which he could not receive. Other unfortunate wights might mourn the event; it belonged to the Senator from Illinois to scorn it. The remark of Mr. Lowndes, which has been so often quoted, and which, beautiful in itself, has acquired additional value by time, that the Presidency was an office neither to be sought nor declined, has no application, therefore, to the Senator, for, under certain contingencies, he says he would decline it. It does not devolve on me to decide whether he has sought it or not.

But, sir, what is the danger which now besets the Democratic party? Is it, as has been asserted, the doctrine of intervention by Congress, and is that doctrine new? Is the idea that protection, by Congress, to all rights of person or property, wherever it has jurisdiction, so dangerous that, in the language employed by the Senator, it would sweep the Democratic party from the face of the earth? For what was our Government instituted? Why did the States confer upon the Federal Government the great functions which it possesses? For protection – mainly for protection beyond the municipal power of the States. I shall have occasion, in the progress of my remarks, to cite some authority, and to trace this from a very early period. I will first, however, notice an assault which the Senator has thought proper to make upon certain States, one of which is, in part, represented by myself. He says they are seceders, bolters, because they withdrew from a party convention when it failed to announce their principles. There can be no tie to bind me to a party beyond my will. I will admit no bond that holds me to a party a day longer than I agree to its principles. When men meet together to confer, and ascertain whether or not they do agree, and find that they differ – radically, essentially, irreconcilably differ – what belongs to an honorable position except to part? They can not consistently act together any longer. It devolves upon them frankly to announce the difference, and each to pursue his separate course.

The letter of Mr. Yancey – acknowledged to be a private letter, an unguarded letter, but which, somehow or other, got into the press – was read to sustain this general accusation against what are called the Cotton States. I do not pretend to judge how far the Senator has the right here to read a private letter, which, without the authority of the writer, has gone into the public press. It is one of those questions which every man’s sense of propriety must, in his own case, decide. Whether or not the use of that letter was justifiable, how is it to be assumed that the Southern States are bound by any opinion there enunciated? How to be asserted that we, the residents in those States, have pinned our faith to the sleeve of any man, and that we will follow his behest, no matter whither he may go? But was this the only source of information, or was the impression otherwise sustained? Did Mr. Yancey, in his speech delivered at Charleston, justify the conclusions which the Senator draws from this letter? Did he admit them to be correct? There he might have found the latest evidence, and the best authority. Speaking to that point, Mr. Yancey said:

“It has been charged, in order to demoralize whatever influence we might be entitled to, either from our personal or political characteristics, or as representatives of the State of Alabama, that we are disruptionists, disunionists per se; that we desire to break up the party in the State of Alabama – to break up the party of the Union, and to dissolve the Union itself. Each and all of these allegations, come from what quarter they may, I pronounce to be false. There is no disunionist, that I know of, in the delegation from the State of Alabama. There is no disruptionist that I know of; and if there are factionists in our delegation, they could not have got in there, with the knowledge upon the part of our State Convention that they were of so unenviable a character. We come here with two great purposes: first, to save the constitutional rights of the South, if it lay in our power to do so. We desire to save the South by the best means that present themselves to us; and the State of Alabama believes that the best means now in existence is the organization of the Democratic party, if we shall be able to persuade it to adopt the constitutional basis upon which we think the South alone can be saved.”

He further says:

“We have come here, then, with the twofold purpose of saving the country and saving the Democracy; and if the Democracy will not lend itself to that high, holy, and elevated purpose; if it can not elevate itself above the mere question of how perfect shall be its mere personal organization, and how wide-spread shall be its mere voting success, then we say to you, gentlemen, mournfully and regretfully, that, in the opinion of the State of Alabama, and, I believe, of the whole South, you have failed in your mission, and it will be our duty to go forth, and make an appeal to the loyalty of the country to stand by that Constitution which party organizations have deliberately rejected.” [Applause.]

Mr. Yancey answers for himself. It was needless to go back to old letters. Here were his remarks delivered before the convention, speaking to the point in issue, and answering both as to his purposes and as to the motives of those with whom he conferred and acted.

The Senator next cited the resolutions of the State of Alabama; and here he seemed to rest the main point in his argument. The Senator said that Alabama, in 1856, had demanded of the Democratic convention, non-intervention, and that, in 1860, she had retired from the convention because it insisted upon non-intervention. He read one of the resolutions of the Alabama Convention of 1856; but the one which bore upon the point was not read. The one which was conclusive as to the position of Alabama then, and its relation to her position now, was exactly the one that was omitted – I read from the resolutions of this year – was as follows:

“Resolved, further, That we re-affirm so much of the first resolution of the platform adopted in the convention by the Democracy of this State, on the 8th of January, 1856, as relates to the subject of slavery, to-wit.”

It then goes on to quote from that resolution of 1856, as follows:

“The unqualified right of the people of the slaveholding States to the protection of their property in the States, in the Territories, and in the wilderness, in which territorial governments are as yet unorganized.”

That was the resolution of 1856; and like it was one of February, 1848: