Thirty Years' View (Vol. II of 2)

I have now examined, so far as I propose to do it on a motion for indefinite postponement, the three bills which the committee have tacked together – the California, Utah, New Mexico and Texas bills. There are two other bills which I have not mentioned, because they are not tacked, but only hung on; but which belong to the system, as it is called, and without some mention of which, injustice would be done to the committee in the presentation of their scheme. The fugitive slave recovery bill, and the District of Columbia slave trade suppression bill, are parts of the system of measures which the committee propose, and which, taken together, are to constitute a compromise, and to terminate for ever and most fraternally all the dissensions of the slavery agitation in the United States. They apply to two out of the five gaping wounds which the senator from Kentucky enumerated on the five fingers of his left hand, and for healing up all which at once he had provided one large plaster, big enough to cover all, and efficacious enough to cure all; while the President only proposed to cure one, and that with a little plaster, and it of no efficacy. I do not propose to examine these two attendant or sequacious bills, which dangle at the tail of the other three.

This is the end of the committee's labor – five old bills gathered up from our table, tacked together, and christened a compromise! Now compromise is a pretty phrase at all times, and is a good thing in itself, when there happens to be any parties to make it, any authority to enforce it, any penalties for breaking it, or any thing to be compromised. The compromises of the constitution are of that kind; and they stand. Compromises made in court, and entered of record, are of that kind; and they stand. Compromises made by individuals on claims to property are likewise of that character; and they stand. I respect all such compromises. But where there happens to be nothing to be compromised, no parties to make a compromise, no power to enforce it, no penalty for its breach, no obligation on any one – not even its makers – to observe it, and when no two human beings can agree about its meaning, then a compromise becomes ridiculous and pestiferous. I have no respect for it, and eschew it. It cannot stand, and will fall; and in its fall will raise up more ills than it was intended to cure. And of this character I deem this farrago of incongruous matter to be, which has been gathered up and stuck together, and offered to us "all or none," like "fifty-four forty." It has none of the requisites of a compromise, and the name cannot make it so.

In the first place, there are no parties to make a compromise. We are not in convention, but in Congress; and I do not admit a geographical division of parties in this chamber, although the Committee of Thirteen was formed upon that principle – six from the South, half a dozen from the North, and one from the borders of both – sitting on a ridge-pole, to keep the balance even. The senator from Kentucky chairman of this committee of a baker's dozen and the illustrious progenitor of that committee, sits on that ridge-pole. It is a most critical position, and requires a most nice adjustment of balance to preserve the equilibrium – to keep the weight from falling on one side or the other – something like that of the Roman emperor, in his apotheosis, who was required to fix himself exactly in the middle of the heavens when he went up among the gods, lest, by leaning on one side or the other, he might overset the universe:

"Press not too much on any part the sphere,Hard were the task thy weight divine to bear!O'er the mid orb more equal shalt thou rise,And with a juster balance fix the skies." – Lucan.

I recognize no such parties – no two halves in this Union, separated by a ridge-pole, with a man, or a god, sitting upon it, to keep the balance even. I know no North, and I know no South; and I repulse and repudiate, as a thing to be for ever condemned, this first attempt to establish geographical parties in this chamber, by creating a committee formed upon that principle. In the next place, there is no sanction for any such compromise – no authority to enforce it – none to punish its violation. In the third place, there is nothing to be compromised. A compromise is a concession, a mutual concession of contested claims between two parties. I know of nothing to be conceded on the part of the slaveholding States in regard to their slave property. Their rights are independent of the federal government, and admitted in the constitution – a right to hold their slaves as property, a right to pursue and recover them as property, a right to it as a political element in the weight of these States, by making five count three in the national representation. These are our rights by an instrument which we are bound to respect, and I will concede none of them, nor purchase any of them. I never purchase as a concession what I hold as a right, nor accept an inferior title when I already hold the highest. Even if this congeries of bills was a compromise, in fact, I should be opposed to it for the reasons stated. But the fact itself is to me apocryphal. What is it but the case of five old bills introduced by different members as common legislative measures – caught up by the senator from Kentucky, and his committee, bundled together, and then called a compromise! Now, this mystifies me. The same bills were ordinary legislation in the hands of their authors; they become a sacred compromise in the hands of their new possessors. They seemed to be of no account as laws: they become a national panacea as a compromise. The difference seems to be in the change of name. The poet tells us that a rose will smell as sweet by any other name. That may be true of roses, but not of compromises. In the case of the compromise, the whole smell is in the name; and here is the proof. The senator from Illinois (Mr. Douglass) brought in three of these bills: they emitted no smell. The senator from Virginia (Mr. Mason) brought in another of them – no smell in that. The senator from Missouri, who now speaks to the Senate, brought in the fifth – ditto, no smell about it. The olfactory nerve of the nation never scented their existence. But no sooner are they jumbled together, and called a compromise, than the nation is filled with their perfume. People smell it all over the land, and, like the inhalers of certain drugs, become frantic for the thing. This mystifies me; and the nearest that I can come to a solution of the mystery is in the case of the two Dr. Townsends and their sarsaparilla root. They both extract from the same root, but the extract is a totally different article in the hands of the two doctors. Produced by one it is the universal panacea: by the other, it is of no account, and little less than poison. Here is what the old doctor says of this strange difference:

"We wish it understood, because it is the absolute truth, that S. P. Townsend's article and Old Dr. Jacob Townsend's sarsaparilla are heaven-wide apart, and infinitely dissimilar; that they are unlike in every particular, having not one single thing in common."

And accounts for the difference thus:

"The sarsaparilla root, it is well known to medical men, contains many medicinal properties, and some properties which are inert or useless, and others which, if retained in preparing it for use, produce fermentation and acid, which is injurious to the system. Some of the properties of sarsaparilla are so volatile that they entirely evaporate, and are lost in the preparation, if they are not preserved by a scientific process, known only to the experienced in its manufacture. Moreover, those volatile principles, which fly off in vapor, or as an exhalation, under heat, are the very essential medical properties of the root, which give to it all its value."

Now, all this is perfectly intelligible to me. I understand it exactly. It shows me precisely how the same root is either to be a poison or a medicine, as it happens to be in the hands of the old or the young doctor. This may be the case with these bills. To me it looks like a clue to the mystery; but I decide nothing, and wait patiently for the solution which the senator from Kentucky may give when he comes to answer this part of my speech. The old doctor winds up in requiring particular attention to his name labelled on the bottle, to wit, "Old Doctor Jacob Townsend," and not Young Doctor Samuel Townsend. This shows that there is virtue in a name when applied to the extract of sarsaparilla root; and there may be equal virtue in it when applied to a compromise bill. If so, it may show how these self-same bills are of no force or virtue in the hands of the young senator from Illinois (Mr. Douglass), and become omnipotently efficacious in the hands of the old senator from Kentucky.

This is the end of the grand committee's work – five old bills tacked together, and presented as a remedy for evils which have no existence, and required to be accepted under a penalty – the penalty of being gazetted as enemies of compromise, and played at by the organs! The old one, to be sure, is dreadfully out of tune – the strings all broken, and the screws all loose, and discoursing most woful music, and still requiring us to dance to it! And such dancing it would be! – nothing but turn round, cross over, set-to, and back out! Sir, there was once a musician – we have all read of him – who had power with his lyre (but his instrument was spelt l y r e) – not only over men, but over wild beasts also, and even over stones, which he could make dance into their places when the walls of Ilion were built. But our old organist was none of that sort, even in his best day; and since the injury to his instrument in playing the grand national symphony of the four F's – the fifty-four forty or fight – it is so out of tune that its music will be much more apt to scare off tame men than to charm wild beasts or stones.

No, sir! no more slavery compromises. Stick to those we have in the constitution, and they will be stuck to! Look at the four votes – those four on the propositions which I submitted. No abolition of slavery in the States: none in the forts, arsenals, navy-yards, and dock-yards: none in the District of Columbia: no interference with the slave trade between the States. These are the votes given on this floor, and which are above all Congress compromises, because they abide the compromises of the constitution.

The committee, besides the ordinary purpose of legislation, that of making laws for the government of the people, propose another object of a different kind, that of acting the part of national benefactors, and giving peace and happiness to a miserable and distracted people – innuendo, the people of the United States. They propose this object as the grand result and crowning mercy of their multifarious labors. The gravity with which the chairman of the committee has brought forward this object in his report, and the pathetic manner in which he has enforced it in his speech, and the exact enumeration he has made of the public calamities upon his fingers' ends, preclude the idea, as I have heretofore intimated, of any intentional joke to be practised upon us by that distinguished senator; otherwise I might have been tempted to believe that the eminent senator, unbending from his serious occupations, had condescended to amuse himself at our expense. Certain it is that the conception of this restoration of peace and happiness is most jocose. In the first place, there is no contention to be reconciled, no distraction to be composed, no misery to be assuaged, no lost harmony to be restored, no lost happiness to be recovered! And, if there was, the committee is not the party to give us these blessings. Their example and precept do not agree. They preach concord, and practise discord. They recommend harmony to others, and disagree among themselves. They propose the fraternal kiss to us, and give themselves rude rebuffs. They set us a sad example. Scarcely is the healing report read, and the anodyne bills, or pills, laid on our tables, than fierce contention breaks out in the ranks of the committee itself. They attack each other. They give and take fierce licks. The great peacemaker himself fares badly – stuck all over with arrows, like the man on the first leaf of the almanac. Here, in our presence, in the very act of consummating the marriage of California with Utah, New Mexico, Texas, the fugacious slaves of the States, and the marketable slaves of this District – in this very act of consummation, as in a certain wedding feast of old, the feast becomes a fight – the festival a combat – and the amiable guests pummel each other.

When his committee was formed, and himself safely installed at the head of it, conqueror and pacificator, the senator from Kentucky appeared to be the happiest of mankind. We all remember that night. He seemed to ache with pleasure. It was too great for continence. It burst forth. In the fulness of his joy, and the overflowing of his heart, he entered upon that series of congratulations which we all remember so well, and which seemed to me to be rather premature, and in disregard of the sage maxim which admonishes the traveller never to halloo till he is out of the woods. I thought so then. I was forcibly reminded of it on Saturday last, when I saw that senator, after vain efforts to compose his friends, and even reminding them of what they were "threatened" with this day – innuendo, this poor speech of mine – gather up his beaver and quit the chamber, in a way that seemed to say, the Lord have mercy upon you all, for I am done with you! But the senator was happy that night – supremely so. All his plans had succeeded – Committee of Thirteen appointed – he himself its chairman – all power put into their hands – their own hands untied, and the hands of the Senate tied – and the parties just ready to be bound together for ever. It was an ecstatic moment for the senator, something like that of the heroic Pirithous when he surveyed the preparations for the nuptial feast – saw the company all present, the lapithæ on couches, the centaurs on their haunches – heard the Io hymen beginning to resound, and saw the beauteous Hippodamia, about as beauteous I suppose as California, come "glittering like a star," and take her stand on his left hand. It was a happy moment for Pirithous! and in the fulness of his feelings he might have given vent to his joy in congratulations to all the company present, to all the lapithæ and to all the centaurs, to all mankind, and to all horsekind, on the auspicious event. But, oh! the deceitfulness of human felicity. In an instant the scene was changed! the feast a fight – the wedding festival a mortal combat – the table itself supplying the implements of war!

"At first a medley flight,Of bowls and jars supply the fight;Once implements of feasts, but now of fate."

You know how it ended. The fight broke up the feast. The wedding was postponed. And so may it be with this attempted conjunction of California with the many ill-suited spouses which the Committee of Thirteen have provided for her.

Mr. President, it is time to be done with this comedy of errors. California is suffering for want of admission. New Mexico is suffering for want of protection. The public business is suffering for want of attention. The character of Congress is suffering for want of progress in business. It is time to put an end to so many evils; and I have made the motion intended to terminate them, by moving the indefinite postponement of this unmanageable mass of incongruous bills, each an impediment to the other, that they may be taken up one by one, in their proper order, to receive the decision which their respective merits require.

CHAPTER CXCIII.

DEATH OF PRESIDENT TAYLOR

He died in the second year of his presidency, suddenly, and unexpectedly, of violent fever, brought on by long exposure to the burning heat of a fourth of July sun – noted as the warmest of the season. He attended the ceremonies of the day, sitting out the speeches, and omitting no attention which he believed the decorum of his station required. It cost him his life. The ceremony took place on Friday: on the Tuesday following, he was dead – the violent attack commencing soon after his return to the presidential mansion. He was the first President elected upon a reputation purely military. He had been in the regular army from early youth. Far from having ever exercised civil office, he had never even voted at an election, and was a major-general in the service, at the time of his election. Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, Monterey, and Buena Vista, were his titles to popular favor – backed by irreproachable private character, undoubted patriotism, and established reputation for judgment and firmness. His brief career showed no deficiency of political wisdom for want of previous political training. He came into the administration at a time of great difficulty, and acted up to the emergency of his position. The slavery agitation was raging; the Southern manifesto had been issued: California, New Mexico, Utah, were without governments: a Southern Congress was in process of being called, the very name of which implied disunion: a Southern convention was actually called, and met, to consult upon disunion. He met the whole crisis firmly, determined to do what was right among all the States, and to maintain the Federal Union at all hazards. His first, and only annual message, marked out his course. The admission of California as a State was recommended by him, and would avoid all questions about slavery. Leaving Utah and New Mexico to ripen into State governments, and then decide the question for themselves, also avoided the question in those territories where slavery was then extinct under the laws of the country from which they came to the United States. Texas had an unsettled boundary on the side of New Mexico. President Taylor considered that question to be one between the United States and New Mexico, and not between New Mexico and Texas; and to be settled by the United States in some legal and amicable way – as, by compact, by mutual legislation, or judicial decision. Some ardent spirits in Texas proposed to take possession of one half of New Mexico, in virtue of a naked pretension to it, founded in their own laws and constitution. President Taylor would have resisted that pretension, and protected New Mexico in its ancient actual possession until the question of boundary should have been settled in a legal way. His death was a public calamity. No man could have been more devoted to the Union, or more opposed to the slavery agitation; and his position as a Southern man, and a slave-holder – his military reputation, and his election by a majority of the people and of the States – would have given him a power in the settlement of these questions which no President without these qualifications could have possessed. In the political division he classed with the whig party, but his administration, as far as it went, was applauded by the democracy, and promised to be so to the end of his official term. Dying at the head of the government, a national lamentation bewailed his departure from life and power, and embalmed his memory in the affections of his country.

ADMINISTRATION OF MILLARD FILLMORE.

CHAPTER CXCIV.

INAUGURATION AND CABINET OF MR. FILLMORE

Wednesday, July the tenth, witnessed the inauguration of Mr. Fillmore, Vice-President of the United States, become President by the death of President Taylor. It took place in the Hall of the House of Representatives, in the presence of both Houses of Congress, in conformity to the wish of the new President, communicated in a message. The constitution requires nothing of the President elect, before entering on the duties of his station, except to take the oath of office, faithfully to execute his duties, and do his best to preserve, protect, and defend the constitution; and that oath might be taken any where, and before any magistrate having power to administer oaths, and then filed in the department of State; but propriety and custom have made it a ceremony to be publicly performed, and impressively conducted. A place on the great eastern portico of the Capitol, where tens of thousands could witness it, and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States to administer the oath, have always been the place and the magistrate for this ceremony, in the case of Presidents elected to the office – giving the utmost display to it – and very suitably as in such cases there is always a feeling of general gratification and exultation. Mr. Fillmore, with great propriety, reduced the ceremony of his inauguration to an official act, impressively done in Congress, and to be marked by solemnity without joy. A committee of the two Houses attended him – Messrs. Soulé, of Louisiana, Davis, of Massachusetts, and Underwood, of Kentucky, on the part of the Senate; Messrs. Winthrop, of Massachusetts, Morse, of Louisiana, and Morehead, of Kentucky, on the part of the House; and he was accompanied by all the members of the late President's cabinet. The Chief Justice of the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia, the venerable William Cranch, appointed fifty years before, by President John Adams, administered the oath; which being done, the President, without any inaugural address, bowed, and retired; and the ceremony was at an end.

The first official act of the new President was an immediate message to the two Houses, recommending suitable measures to be taken by them for the funeral of the deceased President – saying:

"A great man has fallen among us, and a whole country is called to an occasion of unexpected, deep, and general mourning.

"I recommend to the two Houses of Congress to adopt such measures as in their discretion they may deem proper, to perform with due solemnities the funeral obsequies of ZACHARY TAYLOR, late President of the United States; and thereby to signify the great and affectionate regard of the American people for the memory of one whose life has been devoted to the public service; whose career in arms has not been surpassed in usefulness or brilliancy; who has been so recently raised by the unsolicited voice of the people to the highest civil authority in the government – which he administered with so much honor and advantage to his country; and by whose sudden death, so many hopes of future usefulness have been blighted for ever.

"To you, senators and representatives of a nation in tears, I can say nothing which can alleviate the sorrow with which you are oppressed. I appeal to you to aid me, under the trying circumstances which surround me, in the discharge of the duties, from which, however much I may be oppressed by them, I dare not shrink; and I rely upon Him, who holds in his hands the destinies of nations, to endow me with the requisite strength for the task, and to avert from our country the evils apprehended from the heavy calamity which has befallen us.

"I shall most readily concur in whatever measures the wisdom of the two Houses may suggest, as befitting this deeply melancholy occasion."

The two Houses readily complied with this recommendation, and a solemn public funeral was unanimously voted, and in due time, impressively performed. All the members of the late President's cabinet gave in their resignations immediately, but were requested by President Fillmore to retain their places until successors could be appointed; which they did. In due time, the new cabinet was constituted: Daniel Webster, of Massachusetts, Secretary of State; Thomas Corwin, of Ohio, Secretary of the Treasury; Alexander H. H. Stuart, of Virginia, Secretary of the Interior; Charles M. Conrad, of Louisiana, Secretary at War; William A. Graham, of North Carolina, Secretary of the Navy (succeeded by John P. Kennedy, of Maryland); John J. Crittenden, of Kentucky, Attorney-General; Nathan K. Hall, of New York (succeeded by Samuel D. Hubbard, of Connecticut).

CHAPTER CXCV.

REJECTION OF MR. CLAY'S PLAN OF COMPROMISE

The Committee of Thirteen had reported in favor of Mr. Clay's plan. It was a committee so numerous, almost a quarter of the Senate, that its recommendation would seem to insure the senatorial concurrence. Not so the fact. The incongruities were too obvious and glaring to admit of conjunction. The subjects were too different to admit of one vote – yea or nay – upon all of them together. The injustice of mixing up the admission of California, a State which had rejected slavery for itself, with all the vexations of the slave question in the territories, was too apparent to subject her to the degradation of such an association. It was evident that no compromise, of any kind whatever, on the subject of slavery, under any one of its aspects separately, much less under all put together, could possibly be made. There was no spirit of concession – no spirit in which there could be giving and taking – in which a compromise could be made. Whatever was to be done, it was evident would be done in the ordinary spirit of legislation, in which the majority gives law to the minority. The only case in which there was even forbearance, was in that of rejecting the Wilmot proviso. That measure was rejected again as heretofore, and by the votes of those who were opposed to extending slavery into the territories, because it was unnecessary and inoperative – irritating to the slave States without benefit to the free States – a mere work of supererogation, of which the only fruit was to be discontent. It was rejected, not on the principle of non-intervention – not on the principle of leaving to the territories to do as they pleased on the question; but because there had been intervention! because Mexican law and constitution had intervened! had abolished slavery by law in those dominions! which law would remain in force, until repealed by Congress. All that the opponents to the extension of slavery had to do then, was to do nothing. And they did nothing.