Thirty Years' View (Vol. I of 2)

The declaration of this overwhelming majority against the South brought a great number of the non-slaveholding senators to their feet, to declare the concurrence of their States with the South upon the subject of slavery, and to depreciate the abolitionists as few in number in any of the Northern States; and discountenanced, reprobated and repulsed wherever they were found. Among these, Mr. Isaac Hill of New Hampshire, thus spoke:

"I do not (said he) object to many of the positions taken by senators on the abstract question of Northern interference with slavery in the South. But I do protest against the excitement that is attempted on the floor of Congress, to be kept up against the North. I do protest against the array that is made here of the acts of a few misguided fanatics as the acts of the whole or of a large portion of the people of the North. I do protest against the countenance that is here given to the idea that the people of the North generally are interfering with the rights and property of the people of the South.

"There is no course that will better suit the few Northern fanatics than the agitation of the question of slavery in the halls of Congress – nothing will please them better than the discussions which are taking place, and a solemn vote of either branch denying them the right to prefer petitions here, praying that slavery may be abolished in the District of Columbia. A denial of that right at once enables them, and not without color of truth, to cry out that the contest going on is 'a struggle between power and liberty.'

"Believing the intentions of those who have moved simultaneously to get up these petitions at this time, to be mischief, I was glad to see the first petition that came in here laid on the table without discussion, and without reference to any committee. The motion to lay on the table precludes all debate; and, if decided affirmatively, prevents agitation. It was with the view of preventing agitation of this subject that I moved to lay the second set of petitions on the table. A senator from the South (Mr. Calhoun) has chosen a different course; he has interposed a motion which opens a debate that may be continued for months. He has chosen to agitate this question; and he has presented that question, the decision of which, let senators vote as they may, will best please the agitators who are urging the fanatics forward.

"I have said the people of the North were more united in their opposition to the plans of the advocates of antislavery, than on any other subject. This opposition is confined to no political party; it pervades every class of the community. They deprecate all interference with the subject of slavery, because they believe such interference may involve the existence and welfare of the Union itself, and because they understand the obligations which the non-slaveholding States owe to the slaveholding States by the compact of confederation. It is the strong desire to perpetuate the Union; it is the determination which every patriotic and virtuous citizen has made, in no event to abandon the 'ark of our safety,' that now impels the united North to take its stand against the agitators of the antislavery project. So effectually has the strong public sentiment put down that agitation in New England, that it is now kept alive only by the power of money, which the agitators have collected, and apply in the hiring of agents, and in issues from presses that are kept in their employ.

"The antislavery movement, which brings in petitions from various parts of the country asking Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, originates with a few persons, who have been in the habit of making charitable religious institutions subservient to political purposes, and who have even controlled some of those charitable associations. The petitions are set on foot by men who have had, and who continue to have, influence with ministers and religious teachers of different denominations. They have issued and sent out their circulars calling for a united effort to press on Congress the abolition of slavery in this District. Many of the clergymen who have been instruments of the agitators, have done so from no bad motive. Some of them, discovering the purpose of the agitators – discovering that their labors were calculated to make the condition of the slave worse, and to create animosity between the people of the North and the South, have paused in their course, and desisted from the further application of a mistaken philanthropy. Others, having enlisted deeply their feelings, still pursue the unprofitable labor. They present here the names of inconsiderate men and women, many of whom do not know, when they subscribe their papers, what they are asking; and others of whom, placing implicit faith in their religious teacher, are taught to believe they are thereby doing a work of disinterested benevolence, which will be requited by rewards in a future life.

"Now, sir, as much as I abhor the doings of weak or wicked men who are moving this abolition question at the North, I yet have not as bad an opinion of them as I have of some others who are attempting to make of these puerile proceedings an object of alarm to the whole South.

"Of all the vehicles, tracts, pamphlets, and newspapers, printed and circulated by the abolitionists, there is no ten or twenty of them that have contributed so much to the excitement as a single newspaper printed in this city. I need not name this paper when I inform you that, for the last five years, it has been laboring to produce a Northern and Southern party – to fan the flame of sectional prejudice – to open wider the breach, to drive harder the wedge, which shall divide the North from the South. It is the newspaper which, in 1831-'2, strove to create that state of things, in relation to the tariff, which would produce inevitable collision between the two sections of the country, and which urged to that crisis in South Carolina, terminating in her deep disgrace —

"[Mr. Calhoun here interrupted Mr. Hill, and called him to order. Mr. H. took his seat, and Mr. Hubbard (being in the chair) decided that the remarks of Mr. H. did not impugn the motives of any man – they were only descriptive of the effects of certain proceedings upon the State of South Carolina, and that he was not out of order.]

"Mr. H. resumed: It is the newspaper which condemns or ridicules the well-meant efforts of an officer of the government to stop the circulation of incendiary publications in the slaveholding States, and which designedly magnifies the number and the efforts of the Northern abolitionists. It is the newspaper which libels the whole North by representing the almost united people of that region to be insincere in their efforts to prevent the mischief of a few fanatical and misguided persons who are engaged in the abolition cause.

"I have before me a copy of this newspaper (the United States Telegraph), filled to the brim with the exciting subject. It contains, among other things, a speech of an honorable senator (Mr. Leigh of Virginia), which I shall not be surprised soon to learn has been issued by thousands and tens of thousands from the abolition mint at New-York, for circulation in the South. Surely the honorable senator's speech, containing that part of the Channing pamphlet, is most likely to move the Southern slaves to a servile war, at the same time the Channing extracts and the speech itself are most admirably calculated to awaken the fears or arouse the indignation of their masters. The circulation of such a speech will effect the object of the abolitionists without trenching upon their funds. Let the agitation be kept up in Congress, and let this newspaper be extensively circulated in the South, filled with such speeches and such extracts as this exhibits, and little will be left for the Northern abolitionists to do. They need do no more than send in their petitions: the late printer of the Senate and his friends in Congress, will create enough of excitement to effect every object of those who direct the movements of the abolitionists."

At the same moment that these petitions were presented in the Senate, their counterparts were presented in the House, with the same declarations from Northern representatives in favor of the rights of the South, and in depreciation of the number and importance of the abolitionists in the North. Among these, Mr. Franklin Pierce, of New Hampshire, was one of the most emphatic on both points. He said:

"This was not the last memorial of the same character which would be sent here. It was perfectly apparent that the question must be met now, or at some future time, fully and explicitly, and such an expression of this House given as could leave no possible room to doubt as to the opinions and sentiments entertained by its members. He (Mr. P.), indeed, considered the overwhelming vote of the House, the other day, laying a memorial of similar tenor, and, he believed, the same in terms, upon the table, as fixing upon it the stamp of reprobation. He supposed that all sections of the country would be satisfied with that expression; but gentlemen seemed now to consider the vote as equivocal and evasive. He was unwilling that any imputation should rest upon the North, in consequence of the misguided and fanatical zeal of a few – comparatively very few – who, however honest might have been their purposes, he believed had done incalculable mischief, and whose movements, he knew, received no more sanction among the great mass of the people of the North, than they did at the South. For one, he (Mr. P.), while he would be the last to infringe upon any of the sacred reserved rights of the people, was prepared to stamp with disapprobation, in the most express and unequivocal terms, the whole movement upon this subject. Mr. P. said he would not resume his seat without tendering to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Mason), just and generous as he always was, his acknowledgments for the admission frankly made in the opening of his remarks. He had said that, during the period that he had occupied a seat in this House (as Mr. P. understood him), he had never known six men seriously disposed to interfere with the rights of the slaveholders at the South. Sir, said Mr. P., gentlemen may be assured there was no such disposition as a general sentiment prevailing among the people; at least he felt confidence in asserting that, among the people of the State which he had the honor in part to represent, there was not one in a hundred who did not entertain the most sacred regard for the rights of their Southern brethren – nay, not one in five hundred who would not have those rights protected at any and every hazard. There was not the slightest disposition to interfere with any rights secured by the constitution, which binds together, and which he humbly hoped ever would bind together, this great and glorious confederacy as one family. Mr. P. had only to say that, to some sweeping charges of improper interference, the action of the people of the North at home, during the last year, and the vote of their representatives here the other day, was a sufficient and conclusive answer."

The newspaper named by Mr. Hill was entirely in the interest of Mr. Calhoun, and the course which it followed, and upon system, and incessantly to get up a slavery quarrel between the North and the South, was undeniable – every daily number of the paper containing the proof of its incendiary work. Mr. Calhoun would not reply to Mr. Hill, but would send a paper to the Secretary's table to be read in contradiction of his statements. Mr. Calhoun then handed to the Secretary a newspaper containing an article impugning the statement made by Mr. Pierce, in the House of Representatives, as to the small number of the abolitionists in the State of New Hampshire; which was read, and which contained scurrilous reflections on Mr. Pierce, and severe strictures on the state of slavery in the South. Mr. Hill asked for the title of the newspaper; and it was given, "The Herald of Freedom." Mr. Hill said it was an abolition paper, printed, but not circulated, at Concord, New Hampshire. He said the same paper had been sent to him, and he saw in it one of Mr. Calhoun's speeches; which was republished as good food for the abolitionists; and said he thought the Senate was well employed in listening to the reading of disgusting extracts from an hireling abolition paper, for the purpose of impugning the statements of a member of the House of Representatives, defending the South there, and who could not be here to defend himself. It was also a breach of parliamentary law for a member in one House to attack what was said by a member in another. Mr. Pierce's statement had been heard with great satisfaction by all except Mr. Calhoun; but to him it was so repugnant, as invalidating his assertion of a great abolition party in the North, that he could not refrain from this mode of contradicting it. It was felt by all as disorderly and improper, and the presiding officer then in the chair (Mr. Hubbard, from New Hampshire) felt himself called upon to excuse his own conduct in not having checked the reading of the article. He said:

"He felt as if an apology was due from him to the Senate, for not having checked the reading of the paragraphs from the newspaper which had just been read by the Secretary. He was wholly ignorant of the contents of the paper, and could not have anticipated the purport of the article which the senator from South Carolina had requested the Secretary to read. He understood the senator to say that he wished the paper to be read, to show that the statement made by the senator from New Hampshire, as to the feelings and sentiments of the people of that State upon the subject of the abolition of slavery, was not correct. It certainly would have been out of order, for any senator to have alluded to the remarks made by a member of the House of Representatives, in debate; and, in his judgment, it was equally out of order to permit paragraphs from a newspaper to be read in the Senate, which went to impugn the course of any member of the other House; and he should not have permitted the paper to have been read, without the direction of the Senate, if he had been aware of the character of the article."

Mr. Calhoun said he was entitled to the floor and did not like to be interrupted by the chair: he meant no disrespect to Mr. Pierce, "but wished the real state of things to be known" – as if an abolition newspaper was better authority than a statement from a member in his place in the House. It happened that Mr. Pierce was coming into the Senate Chamber as this reading scene was going on; and, being greatly surprised, and feeling much aggrieved, and having no right to speak for himself, he spoke to the author of this View to maintain the truth of his statement against the scurrilous contradiction of it which had been read. Mr. Benton, therefore, stood up —

"To say a word on the subject of Mr. Pierce, the member of the House of Representatives, from New Hampshire, whose statements in the House of Representatives had been contradicted in the newspaper article read at the Secretary's table. He had the pleasure of an intimate acquaintance with that gentleman, and the highest respect for him, both on his own account and that of his venerable and patriotic father, who was lately Governor of New Hampshire. It had so happened (said Mr. B.) that, in the very moment of the reading of this article, the member of the House of Representatives, whose statement it contradicted, was coming into the Senate Chamber, and his whitening countenance showed the deep emotion excited in his bosom. The statement which that gentleman had made in the House was in the highest degree consolatory and agreeable to the people of the slaveholding States. He had said that not one in five hundred in his State was in favor of the abolitionists: an expression understood by every body, not as an arithmetical proposition worked out by figures, but as a strong mode of declaring that these abolitionists were few in number. In that sense it was understood, and was a most welcome and agreeable piece of information to the people of the slaveholding States. The newspaper article contradicts him, and vaunts the number of the abolitionists, and the numerous signers to their petition. Now (said Mr. B.), the member of the House of Representatives (Mr. Pierce) has this moment informed me that he knows nothing of these petitions, and knows nothing to change his opinion as to the small number of abolitionists in his State. Mr. B. thought, therefore, that his statement ought not to be considered as discredited by the newspaper publication; and he, for one, should still give faith to his opinion."

In his eagerness to invalidate the statement of Mr. Pierce, Mr. Calhoun had overlooked a solecism of action in which it involved him. His bill to suppress the mail transmission of incendiary publications was still before the Senate, not yet decided; and here was matter read in the Senate, and to go forth as part of its proceedings, the most incendiary and diabolical that had yet been seen. This oversight was perceived by the author of this View, who, after vindicating the statement of Mr. Pierce, went on to expose this solecism, and —

"Took up the bill reported by the select committee on incendiary publications, and read the section which forbade their transmission by mail, and subjected the postmasters to fine and loss of office, who would put them up for transmission; and wished to know whether this incendiary publication, which had been read at the Secretary's table, would be included in the prohibition, after being so read, and thus becoming a part of our debates? As a publication in New Hampshire, it was clearly forbid; as part of our congressional proceedings would it still be forbid? There was a difficulty in this, he said, take it either away. If it could still be inculcated from this floor, then the prohibition in the bill was mere child's play; if it could not, and all the city papers which contained it were to be stopped, then the other congressional proceedings in the same paper would be stopped also; and thus the people would be prevented from knowing what their representatives were doing. It seemed to him to be but lame work to stop incendiary publications in the villages where they were printed, and then to circulate them from this chamber among the proceedings of Congress; and that, issuing from this centre, and spreading to all the points of the circumference of this extended Union, one reading here would give it ten thousand times more notoriety and diffusion than the printing of it in the village could do. He concluded with expressing his wish that the reporters would not copy into their account of debate the paper that was read. It was too offensive to the member of the House [Mr. Pierce], and would be too disagreeable to the people of the slaveholding States, to be entitled to a place in our debates, and to become a part of our congressional history, to be diffused over the country in gazettes, and transmitted to posterity in the volumes of debates. He hoped they would all omit it."

The reporters complied with this request, and the Congress debates were spared the pollution of this infusion of scurrility, and the permanent record of this abusive assault upon a member of the House because he was a friend to the South. But it made a deep impression upon senators; and Mr. King, of Georgia, adverted to it a few days afterwards to show the strangeness of the scene – Southern senators attacking their Northern friends because they defended the South. He said:

"It was known that there was a talented, patriotic, and highly influential member of the other House, from New Hampshire [Mr. Pierce], to whose diligence and determined efforts he had heard attributed, in a great degree, the present prostrate condition of the abolitionists in that State. He had been the open and active friend of the South from the beginning, and had encountered the hostility of the abolitionists in every form. He had made a statement of the strength and prospects of the abolitionists in his State, near the commencement of the session, that was very gratifying to the people of the South. This statement was corroborated by one of the senators from that State a few days after, and the senator from Carolina rose, and, without due reflection, he was very sure, drew from his pocket a dirty sheet, an abolition paper, containing a scurrilous article against the member from New Hampshire, which pronounced him an impostor and a liar. The same thing in effect had just been repeated by the senator from Mississippi against one of the best friends of the South, Governor Marcy, of New-York. [Here Mr. Calhoun rose to explain, and said he had intended, by the introduction of the paper, no disrespect to the member from New Hampshire; and Mr. Black also rose to say he only wished to show the course the abolitionists were pursuing, and their future views.] Mr. King said he had been interrupted by the senators, but corrected by neither of them. He was not attacking their motives, but only exposing their mistakes. The article read by his friend from Carolina was abusive of the member from New Hampshire, and contradicted his statements. The article read by his friend from Mississippi against Governor Marcy was of a similar character. It abused, menaced, and contradicted him. These abusive productions would seem to be credited and adopted by those who used them as evidence, and incorporated them in their speeches. Here, then, was a contest in the North between the most open and avowed friends of the South and the abolitionists; and we had the strange exhibition of Southern gentlemen apparently espousing the cause of the latter, who were continually furnishing them evidence with which to aid them in the contest. Did gentlemen call this backing their friends? What encouragement did such treatment afford to our friends at the North to step forth in our behalf?"

Mr. King did not limit himself to the defence of Mr. Pierce, but went on to deny the increase of abolitionism at the North, and to show that it was dying out there until revived by agitation here. He said:

"A great deal had been stated in one form or other, and in one quarter or other, as to the numbers and increase of these disturbers of the peace; and he did not undertake to say what was the fact. He learned, and thought it probable, that they had increased since the commencement of the session, and had heard also the increase attributed to the manner in which the subject had been treated here. However this might be, what he insisted on was, that those base productions were no evidence of the fact, or of any fact; and especially should not be used by Southern men, in opposition to the statements of high-minded, honorable men at the North, who were the active and efficient friends of the South."

As an evidence of the manner in which the English emissary, George Thompson, had been treated in the North, upon whose labors so much stress had been laid in the South, Mr. King read from an English newspaper (the Leeds Mercury), Thompson's own account of his mission as written to his English employers; thus:

"Letters of a most distressing nature have been received from Mr. George Thompson, the zealous and devoted missionary of slave emancipation, who has gone from this country to the United States, and who writes from Boston. He says that 'the North (that is, New England, where slavery does not exist), has universally sympathized with the South,' in opposition to the abolitionists; that 'the North has let fall the mask;' that 'merchants and mechanics, priests and politicians, have alike stood forth the defenders of Southern despots, and the furious denouncers of Northern philanthropy;' that all parties of politics, especially the supporters of the two rivals for the presidential office (Van Buren and Webster), vie with each other in denouncing the abolitionists; and that even religious men shun them, except when the abolitionists can fairly gain a hearing from them. With regard to himself, he speaks as follows: 'Rewards are offered for my abduction and assassination; and in every direction I meet with those who believe they would be doing God and their country service by depriving me of life. I have appeared in public, and some of my escapes from the hands of my foes have been truly providential. On Friday last, I narrowly escaped losing my life in Concord, New Hampshire.' 'Boston, September 11. – This morning a short gallows was found standing opposite the door of my house, 23 Bay-street, in this city, now occupied by Garrison. Two halters hung from the beam, with the words above them, By order of Judge Lynch!'"