The Great Conspiracy, Part 1. - John Alexander Logan
"Everything has been mixed. Treaties made by Congress have been
considered as binding all the States. Some powers have been
exercised by Congress, some by the States separately. The lines
were not strictly drawn. The inability of Congress to carry its
legitimate powers into execution has gradually annulled those
powers practically, but they always existed in theory.
Independence was declared `in the name and by the authority of the
good people of these colonies.' In fact we have always been united
in some respects, separate in others. We have acted as one people
for some purposes, as distinct societies for others. I think you
have shown this clearly, and in so doing have demonstrated the
fallacy of the principle on which either nullification or the right
of peaceful, constitutional secession is asserted.
"The time is arrived when these truths must be more generally
spoken, or our Union is at an end. The idea of complete
sovereignty of the State converts our government into a league,
and, if carried into practice, dissolves the Union.
"I am, dear sir,
"Yours affectionately,
"J. MARSHALL.
"HUMPHREY MARSHALL, ESQ.,
"FRANKFORT, KY."]
The Nullifiers hailed with pretended satisfaction the report from the
House Committee on Ways and Means of a Bill making great reductions and
equalizations of Tariff duties, as a measure complying with their
demands, and postponed the execution of the Ordinance of Nullification
until the adjournment of Congress; and almost immediately afterward Mr.
Clay's Compromise Tariff Act of 1833 "whereby one tenth of the excess
over twenty per cent. of each and every existing impost was to be taken
off at the close of that year; another tenth two years thereafter; so
proceeding until the 30th of June, 1842, when all duties should be
reduced to a maximum of twenty per cent."--[Says Mr. Greeley, in his
History aforesaid.]--agreed to by Calhoun and other Nullifiers, was
passed, became a law without the signature of President Jackson, and
South Carolina once more became to all appearances a contented,
law-abiding State of the Union.
But after-events proved conclusively that the enactment of this
Compromise Tariff was a terrible blunder, if not a crime. Jackson had
fully intended to hang Calhoun and his nullifying coadjutors if they
persisted in their Treason. He knew that they had only seized upon the
Tariff laws as a pretext with which to justify Disunion, and prophesied
that "the next will be the Slavery or Negro question." Jackson's
forecast was correct. Free Trade, Slavery and Secession were from that
time forward sworn allies; and the ruin wrought to our industries by the
disasters of 1840, plainly traceable to that Compromise Tariff measure
of 1833, was only to be supplemented by much greater ruin and disasters
caused by the Free Trade Tariff of 1846--and to be followed by the armed
Rebellion of the Free Trade and Pro-Slavery States of the South in 1861,
in a mad attempt to destroy the Union.
CHAPTER III.
GROWTH OF THE SLAVERY QUESTION.
It will be remembered that during the period of the Missouri Struggle,
1818-1820, the Territory of Arkansas was formed by an Act of Congress
out of that part of the Missouri Territory not included in the proposed
State of Missouri, and that the Act so creating the Territory of
Arkansas contained no provision restricting Slavery. Early in 1836, the
people of Arkansas Territory met in Convention and formed a Constitution
under which, "and by virtue of the treaty of cession by France to the
United States, of the Province of Louisiana," they asked admission to
the Union as a State. Among other provisions of that Constitution was a
section rendering the State Legislature powerless to pass laws for the
emancipation of slaves without the consent of the owners, or to prevent
emigrants to that State from bringing with them slaves. On June 15th of
the same year, Arkansas was, under that Constitution, admitted to the
Union as a Slave State, with the sole reservation, that nothing in the
Act of admission should be" construed as an assent by Congress to all or
any of the propositions contained" in the said Constitution.
Long ere this, all the Northern and Middle States had made provision for
the emancipation of such slaves as remained within their borders, and
only a few years previous (in 1829 and 1831-32) Virginia had made strong
but insufficient efforts toward the same end. The failure to free
Virginia of Slavery--the effort to accomplish which had been made by
some of the greatest of her statesmen--only served to rivet the chains
of human bondage more securely throughout all the Slave States, and from
that time on, no serious agitation occurred in any one of them, looking
toward even the most gradual emancipation. On the other hand, the
advocates of the extension of the Slave-Power by the expansion of
Slave-territory, were ever on the alert, they considered it of the last
importance to maintain the balance of power between the Slave States and
the Free States. Hence, while they had secured in 1819 the cession from
Spain to the United States of the Slave-holding Floridas, and the
organization of the Slave Territory of Florida in 1822--which
subsequently came in as a Slave State under the same Act (1845) that
admitted the Free State of Iowa--their greedy eyes were now cast upon
the adjoining rich territories of Mexico.
Efforts had (in 1827-1829) been made to purchase from Mexico the domain
which was known as Texas. They had failed. But already a part of Texas
had been settled by adventurous Americans under Mexican grants and
otherwise; and General Sam Houston, an adherent of the Slave Power,
having become a leading spirit among them, fomented a revolution. In
March, 1836, Texas, under his guidance, proclaimed herself a Republic
independent of Mexico.
The War that ensued between Texas and Mexico ended in the flight of the
Mexican Army and the capture of Santa Anna at San Jacinto, and a treaty
recognizing Texan independence. In October, 1836, General Houston was
inaugurated President of the Republic of Texas. Close upon this
followed (in August, 1837) a proposition to our Government from the
Texan envoy for the annexation of Texas to the United States. President
Van Buren declined the offer. The Northern friends of Freedom were as
much opposed to this annexation project as the advocates of Slavery were
anxious for it. Even such conservative Northern Statesmen as Daniel
Webster strongly opposed the project. In a speech delivered in New York
[1837], after showing that the chief aim of our Government in the
acquisition of the Territory of Louisiana was to gain command of the
mouths of the great rivers to the sea, and that in the acquisition of
the Floridas our policy was based on similar considerations, Mr. Webster
declared that "no such necessity, no such policy, requires the
annexation of Texas," and that we ought "for numerous and powerful
reasons to be content with our present boundaries. He recognized that
Slavery already existed under the guarantees of the Constitution and
those guarantees must be fulfilled; that "Slavery, as it exists in the
States, is beyond the power of Congress. It is a concern of the States
themselves," but "when we come to speak of admitting new States, the
subject assumes an entirely different aspect. Our rights and our duties
are then both different. The Free States, and all the States, are then
at liberty to accept or to reject;" and he added, "In my opinion the
people of the United States will not consent to bring into the Union a
new, vastly extensive and Slaveholding country, large enough for a half
a dozen or a dozen States. In my opinion, they ought not to consent to
it."
Farther on, in the same speech--after alluding to the strong feeling in
the Northern States against the extension of Slavery, not only as a
question of politics, but of conscience and religious conviction as
well-he deems him a rash man indeed "who supposes that a feeling of this
kind is to be trifled with or despised." Said he: "It will assuredly
cause itself to be respected. It may be reasoned with; it may be made
willing--I believe it is entirely willing--to fulfill all existing
engagements and all existing duties--to uphold and defend the
Constitution as it is established, with whatever regrets about some
provisions which it does actually contain. But to coerce it into
silence, to endeavor to restrain its free expression, to seek to
compress and confine it, warm as it is, and more heated as such
endeavors would inevitably render it,--should this be attempted, I know
nothing, even in the Constitution or in the Union itself, which would
not be endangered by the explosion which might follow."
In 1840, General Harrison, the Whig candidate, was elected to the
Presidency, but died within a few weeks after his inauguration in 1841,
and was succeeded by John Tyler. The latter favored the Slave Power;
and on April 12th, 1844, John C. Calhoun, his Secretary of State,
concluded with Texas a treaty of annexation--which was, however,
rejected by the Senate. Meanwhile the public mind was greatly agitated
over the annexation and other, questions.
[In the London Index, a journal established there by Jefferson
Davis's agents to support the cause of the rebellious States, a
communication appeared during the early part of the war, Dec. 4,
1861, supposed to have been written by Mr. Mason, of Virginia, in
which he said: "To tell the Norths, the Butes, the Wedderburns of
the present day, that previous to the year 1839 the sovereign
States of the South had unalterably resolved on the specific ground
of the violation of the Federal Constitution by the tariff of
spoliation which the New England States had imposed upon them--to
secede from the Union; to tell them that in that year the leader of
the South, Calhoun, urged an English gentleman, to whom he had
fully explained the position of the South, and the intolerable
tyranny which the North inflicted upon it, to be the bearer of
credentials from the chief persons of the South, in order to invite
the attention of the British Government to the coming event; that
on his death-bed (Washington, March 31, 1850), he called around him
his political friends--one of whom is now in England--warned them
that in no event could the Union survive the Presidential election
of 1860, though it might possibly break up before that urged them
to be prepared; leaving with his dying words the sacred cause of
Southern secession a solemn legacy in their hands--to have told
this to the Norths and Dartmouths of the present day, with more and
even stronger evidence of the coming events of November, 1860,
would have been like speaking to the stones of the street. In
November, 1860, they were thoroughly ignorant of all the momentous
antecedents of secession--of their nature, their character, their
bearing, import, and consequences."
In the same correspondence the distinguished Rebel emissary
substantially let out the fact that Calhoun was indirectly, through
himself (Mason), in secret communication with the British
Government as far back as 1841, with a view to securing its
powerful aid in his aforesaid unalterable resolve to Secede from
the Union; and then Mr. Mason pleads--but pleads in vain--for the
armed intervention of England at this later day. Said he:
"In the year 1841 the late Sir William Napier sent in two plans for
subduing the Union, to the War Office, in the first of which the
South was to be treated as an enemy, in the second as a friend and
ally. I was much consulted by him as to the second plan and was
referred to by name in it, as he showed by the acknowledgment of
this in Lord Fitzroy Somerset's letter of reply. This plan fully
provided for the contingency of an invasion of Canada, and its
application would, in eighteen or twenty months, have reduced the
North to a much more impotent condition than it exhibits at
present. At this very moment the most difficult portion of that
plan has been perfectly accomplished by the South itself; and the
North, in accordance with Sir William Napier's expectations, now
lies helpless before England, and at our absolute mercy. Nor is
there any doubt of this, and if Lord Palmerston is not aware of it
Mr. Seward certainly is. We have nothing remaining to do but to
stretch out our arm in the way Sir William Napier proposed, and the
Northern power--power as we ignorantly call it--must come to an
end. Sir William knew and well estimated the elements of which
that quasi power consisted; and he knew how to apply the
substantive power of England to dissolve it. In the best interest
of humanity, I venture to say that it is the duty of England to
apply this power without further delay--its duty to itself, to its
starving operatives, to France, to Europe, and to humanity. And in
the discharge of this great duty to the world at large there will
not even be the dignity of sacrifice or danger."]
Threats and counter-threats of Disunion were made on either hand by the
opponents and advocates of Slavery-extension through annexation; nor was
it less agitated on the subject of a Protective Tariff.
The Compromise Tariff of 1833, together with President Jackson's
upheaval of our financial system, produced, as has already been hinted,
terrible commercial disasters. "In 1840," says competent authority, "all
prices had ruinously fallen; production had greatly diminished, and in
many departments of industry had practically ceased; thousands of
working men were idle, with no hope of employment, and their families
suffering from want. Our farmers were without markets, their products
rotted in their barns, and their lands, teeming with rich harvests, were
sold by the sheriff for debts and taxes. The Tariff, which robbed our
industries of Protection failed to supply Government with its necessary
revenues. The National Treasury in consequence was bankrupt, and the
credit of the Nation had sunk very low."
Mr. Clay himself stated "the average depression in the value of property
under that state of things which existed before the Tariff of 1842 came
to the rescue of the country, at fifty per cent." And hence it was that
Protection was made the chief issue of the Presidential campaign of
1840, which eventuated in the election of Harrison and Tyler, and in the
Tariff Act of August 30, 1842, which revived our trade and industries,
and brought back to the land a full measure of prosperity. With those
disasters fresh in the minds of the people, Protection continued to be a
leading issue in the succeeding Presidential campaign of 1844--but
coupled with the Texas-annexation issue. In that campaign Henry Clay
was the candidate of the Whig party and James K. Polk of the Democratic
party. Polk was an ardent believer in the annexation policy and stood
upon a platform declaring for the "re-occupation of Oregon and the
re-annexation of Texas at the earliest practicable moment"--as if the
prefix "re" legitimatized the claim in either case; Clay, on the other
hand, held that we had "fairly alienated our title to Texas by solemn
National compacts, to the fulfilment of which we stand bound by good
faith and National honor;" that "Annexation and War with Mexico are
identical," and that he was "not willing to involve this country in a
foreign War for the object of acquiring Texas."
[In his letter of April 17, 1844, published in the National
Intelligencer.]
As to the Tariff issue also, Clay was the acknowledged champion of the
American system of Protection, while Polk was opposed to it, and was
supported by the entire Free-trade sentiment, whether North or South.
As the campaign progressed, it became evident that Clay would be
elected. Then occurred some of those fatalities which have more than
once, in the history of Presidential campaigns, overturned the most
reasonable expectations and defeated the popular will. Mr. Clay
committed a blunder and Mr. Polk an equivocation--to use the mildest
possible term. Mr. Clay was induced by Southern friends to write a
letter--[Published in the North Alabamian, Aug. 16, 1844.]--in which,
after stating that "far from having any personal objection to the
annexation of Texas, I should be glad to see it--without dishonor,
without War, with the common consent of the Union, and upon just and
fair terms," he added: "I do not think that the subject of Slavery ought
to affect the question, one way or the other." Mr. Polk, on the other
hand, wrote a letter in which he declared it to be "the duty of the
Government to extend, as far as it may be practicable to do so, by its
revenue laws and all other means within its power, fair and just
Protection to all the great interests of the whole Union, embracing
Agriculture, Manufactures, the Mechanic Arts, Commerce and Navigation."
This was supplemented by a letter (August 8, 1844) from Judge Wilson
McCandless of Pennsylvania, strongly upholding the Protective principle,
claiming that Clay in his Compromise Tariff Bill had abandoned it, and
that Polk and Dallas had "at heart the true interests of Pennsylvania."
Clay, thus betrayed by the treachery of Southern friends, was greatly
weakened, while Polk, by his beguiling letter, backed by the false
interpretation put upon it by powerful friends in the North, made the
North believe him a better Protectionist than Clay.
Polk was elected, and rewarded the misplaced confidence by making Robert
J. Walker his Secretary of the Treasury, and, largely through that
great Free Trader's exertions, secured a repeal by Congress of the
Protective Tariff of 1842 and the enactment of the ruinous Free Trade
Tariff of 1846. Had Clay carried New York, his election was secure. As
it happened, Polk had a plurality in New York of but 5,106 in an immense
vote, and that slim plurality was given to him by the Abolitionists
throwing away some 15,000 on Birney. And thus also it curiously
happened that it was the Abolition vote which secured the election of
the candidate who favored immediate annexation and the extension of the
Slave Power!
Emboldened and apparently sustained by the result of the election, the
Slave Power could not await the inauguration of Mr. Polk, but proceeded
at once, under whip and spur, to drive the Texas annexation scheme
through Congress; and two days before the 4th of March, 1845, an Act
consenting to the admission of the Republic of Texas as a State of the
Union was approved by President Tyler.
In that Act it was provided that "New States of convenient size, not
exceeding four in number, in addition to the said State of Texas, and
having sufficient population, may hereafter, by the consent of said
State, be formed out of the territory thereof, which shall be entitled
to admission under the provisions of the Federal Constitution; and such
States as may be formed out of that portion of said territory lying
south of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes north latitude, commonly
known as the Missouri Compromise line, shall be admitted into the Union
with or without Slavery, as the people of each State asking admission
may desire. And in such State or States as shall be formed out of said
territory north of said Missouri Compromise line, Slavery or involuntary
servitude (except for crime) shall be prohibited." As has been lucidly
stated by another,--[Greeley's History]--"while seeming to curtail and
circumscribe Slavery north of the above parallel (that of 36 30' north
latitude), this measure really extended it northward to that parallel,
which it had not yet approached, under the flag of Texas, within
hundreds of miles. But the chief end of this sham Compromise was the
involving of Congress in an indirect indorsement of the claim of Texas
to the entire left bank of the Rio Grande, from its mouth to its source;
and this was effected."
Texas quickly consented to the Act of annexation, and in December, 1845,
a Joint Resolution formally admitting her as a State of the Union,
reported by Stephen A. Douglas, was duly passed.
In May, 1846, the American forces under General Taylor, which had been
dispatched to protect Texas from threatened assault, were attacked by
the Mexican army, which at Palo Alto was badly defeated and at Resaca de
la Palma driven back across the Rio Grande.
Congress immediately declared that by this invasion a state of War
existed between Mexico and the United States. Thus commenced the War
with Mexico--destined to end in the triumph of the American Army, and
the acquisition of large areas of territory to the United States. In
anticipation of such triumph, President Polk lost little time in asking
an appropriation of over two million dollars by Congress to facilitate
negotiations for peace with, and territorial cession from, Mexico. And
a Bill making such appropriation was quickly passed by the House of
Representatives--but with the following significant proviso attached,
which had been offered by Mr. Wilmot: "Provided. That as an express and
fundamental condition to the acquisition of any territory from the
Republic of Mexico by the United States, by virtue of any treaty that
may be negotiated between them, and to the use by the Executive of the
moneys herein appropriated, neither Slavery nor involuntary servitude
shall ever exist in any part of said territory, except for crime,
whereof the party shall first be duly convicted."
The debate in the Senate upon the Wilmot proviso, which immediately
ensued, was cut short by the expiration of the Session of Congress--and
the Bill accordingly failed of passage.
In February, 1848, the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was made between
Mexico and the United States, and Peace reigned once more. About the
same time a Bill was passed by the Senate providing Territorial
Governments for Oregon, California and New Mexico, which provided for
the reference of all questions touching Slavery in such Territories to
the United States Supreme Court, for arbitration. The Bill, however,
failed in the House. The ensuing Presidential campaign resulted in the
election of General Taylor, the Whig candidate, who was succeeded upon
his death, July 10, 1850, by Fillmore. Meanwhile, on the Oregon
Territory Bill, in 1848, a strong effort had been made by Mr. Douglas
and others to incorporate a provision extending to the Pacific Ocean the
Missouri Compromise line of 36 30' of north latitude and extending to
all future organizations of Territories of the United States the
principles of said Compromise. This provision was adopted by the
Senate, but the House struck it from the Bill; the Senate receded, and
Oregon was admitted as a Free Territory. But the conflict in Congress
between those who would extend and those who would restrict Slavery
still continued, and indeed gathered vehemence with time. In 1850,
California was clamoring for admission as a Free State to the Union, and
New Mexico and Utah sought to be organized under Territorial
Governments.
In the heated discussions upon questions growing out of bills for these
purposes, and to rectify the boundaries of Texas, it was no easy matter
to reach an agreement of any sort. Finally, however, the Compromise of
1850, offered by Mr. Clay, was practically agreed to and carried out,
and under it: California was admitted as a Free State; New Mexico and
Utah were admitted to Territorial organization without a word pro or con
on the subject of Slavery; the State of Texas was awarded a pecuniary
compensation for the rectification of her boundaries; the Slave Trade in
the District of Columbia was abolished; and a more effectual Fugitive
Slave Act passed.
By both North and South, this Compromise of 1850, and the measures
growing out of it, were very generally acquiesced in, and for a while it
seemed as though a permanent settlement of the Slavery question had been
reached. But in the Fugitive Slave law, thus hastily enacted, lay
embedded the seed for further differences and excitements, speedily to
germinate. In its operation it proved not only unnecessarily cruel and
harsh, in the manner of the return to bondage of escaped slaves, but
also afforded a shield and support to the kidnapping of Free Negroes
from Northern States. The frequency of arrests in the Northern States,
and the accompanying circumstances of cruelty and brutality in the
execution of the law, soon made it especially odious throughout the
North, and created an active feeling of commiseration for the unhappy
victims of the Slave Power, which greatly intensified and increased the
growing Anti-Slavery sentiment in the Free States.