The Collected Works of Theodore Parker/Volume 04/Discourse 05
V.
The people of the United States have just chosen an officer, who, for the next four years, will have more power than any monarch of Europe ; yet three years ago he was scarcely known out of the army in Florida, and even now has appeared only in the character of a successful general. His supporters at the North intend, by means of his election, to change the entire commercial policy of the country, and perhaps, also, its financial policy ; they contemplate, or profess to contemplate, a great change. Yet the election has been effected without tumult or noise; not a soldier has drawn his bayonet; scarcely has a constable needed his official rod to keep order withal. In Europe, at the same time, the beginning of a change in the national dynasty or the national policy is only attempted by violence, by soldiers with arms ready for fight, by battle and murder. One day or another, men will be wise enough to see the cause of this difference, and insular statesmen in England, who now sneer at the new government in America, may learn that democracy has at least one quality—that of respecting law and order, and may live to see ours the oldest government in the whole Caucasian race.
Since the election is now over, it is worth while to look a moment at the politics and political parties of the country, that we may gain wisdom for the future, and perhaps hope; at any rate, may see the actual condition of things. Each political party is based on an Idea, which corresponds to a Truth, or an Interest. It commonly happens that the idea is represented as an interest, and the interest as an idea, before either becomes the foundation of a large party. Now when a new idea is introduced to any party, or applied to any institution, if it be only auxiliary to the old doctrines incarnated therein, a regular growth and new development take place; but when the new idea is hostile to the old, the development takes place under the form of a revolution, and that will be greater or less in proportion to the difference between the new idea and the old doctrine; in proportion to their relative strength and value. As Aristotle said of seditions, a revolution comes on slight occasions, but not of slight causes;[1] the occasion may be obvious and obviously trivial, but the cause obscure and great. The occasion of the French Revolution of 1848 was afforded by the attempt of the king to prevent a certain public dinner: he had a legal right to prevent it. The cause of the Revolution was a little different; but some men in America and England, at first, scarcely looked beyond the occasion, and, taking that for the cause, thought the Frenchmen fools to make so much ado about a trifle, and that they had better eat their soupe maigre at home, and let their victuals stop their mouths. The occasion of the American Revolution may be found in the Stamp-Act, or the Sugar-Act, the Writs of Assistance, or the Boston Port-Bill; some men, even now, see no further, and logically conclude the colonists made a mistake, because for a dozen years they were far worse off than before the "Rebellion," and have never been so lightly taxed since. Such men do not see the cause of the Revolution, which was not an unwillingness to pay taxes, but a determination to govern themselves.
At the present day it is plain that a revolution, neither slow nor silent, is taking place in the political parties of America. The occasion thereof is the nomination of a man for the presidency, who has no political or civil experience, but who has three qualities that are important in the eyes of the leading men who have supported and pushed him forward : one is, that he is an eminent slave-holder, whose interests and accordingly whose ideas are identical with those of the slaveholders; the next, that he is not hostile to the doctrines of northern mannfacturers respecting a protective tariff; and the third, that he is an eminent and very successful military commander. The last is an accidental quality, and it is not to be supposed that the intelligent and influential men at the North and South who have promoted his election, value him any more on that account, or think that mere military success fits him for his high office, and enables him to settle the complicated difficulties of a modern State. They must know better; but they must have known that many men of little intelligence are so taken with military glory that they will ask for no more in their hero; it was foreseen, also, that honest and intelligent men of all parties would give him their vote because he had never been mixed up with the intrigues of political life. Thus " far-sighted" politicians of the North and South, saw that he might be fairly elected, and then might serve the purposes of the slave-holder, or the manufacturer of the North. The military success of General Taylor, an accidental merit, was only the occasion of his nomination by the whigs; his substantial merit was found in the fact, that he was supposed, or known, to be favourable to the "peculiar institution" of the South, and the protective policy of the manufacturers at the North: this was the cause of his formal nomination by the Whig Convention of Philadelphia, and his real nomination by members of the whig party at Washington. The men of property at the South wanted an extension of slavery; the men of property at the North, a high protective tariff; and it was thought General Taylor could serve both purposes, and promote the interests of the North and South.
Such is the occasion of the revolution in political parties: the cause is the introduction of a new idea into these parties entirely hostile to some of their former doctrines. In the electioneering contest, the new idea was represented by the words "Free Soil." For present practice it takes a negative form: "No more Slave States, no more Slave Territory," is the motto. But these words and this motto do not adequately represent the idea, only so much thereof as has been needful in the present crisis.
Before now there has been much in the political history of America to provoke the resentment of the North. England has been ruled by various dynasties; the American chair has been chiefly occupied by the Southern House, the Dynasty of Slaveholders: now and then a member of the Northern House has sat on that seat, but commonly it has been a "Northern man with Southern principles," never a man with mind to see the great idea of America, and will to carry it out in action. Still the spirit of liberty has not died out of the North; the attempt to put an eighth slaveholder in the chair of "the model republic," gave occasion for that spirit to act again.
The new idea is not hostile to the distinctive doctrine of either political party; neither to free-trade, nor to protection; so it makes no revolution in respect to them: it is neutral, and leaves both as it found them. It is not hostile to the general theory of the American State, so it makes no revolution there; this idea is assumed as self-evident, in the Declaration of Independence. It is not inimical to the theory of the Constitution of the United States, as set forth in the preamble thereto, where the design of the Constitution is declared to be "To form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."
There are clauses in the Constitution, which are exceptions to this theory, and hostile to the design mentioned above; to such, this idea will one day prove itself utterly at variance, as it is now plainly hostile to one part of the practice of the American Government, and that of both the parties.
We have had several political parties since the Revolution: the federalists, and anti-federalists,—the latter shading off into republicans, democrats, and loco focos; the former tapering into modern whigs, in which guise some of their fathers would scarcely recognise the family type. We have had a protective party and an anti-protective party; once there was a free-trade party, which no longer appears in politics. There has been a National Bank party, which seems to have gone to the realm of things lost on earth. In the rise and fall of these parties, several dramas, tragic and comic, have been performed on the American boards, where "One man in his time plays many parts," and stout representatives of the Hartford Convention find themselves on the same side with worshippers of the Gerrymander, and shouting the same cry. It is kindly ordered that memory should be so short, and brass so common. None of the old parties is likely to return; the living have buried the dead. "We are all federalists," said Mr. Jefferson, "we are all democrats," and truly, so far as old questions are concerned. It is well known that the present representatives of the old federal party have abjured the commercial theory of their predecessors ; and the men who were "Jacobins" at the beginning of the century, curse the new French Revolution by their gods. At the presidential election of 1840, there were but two parties in the field—democrats and whigs. As they both survive, it is well to see what interests or what ideas they represent.
They differ accidentally in the possession and the desire of power; in the fact that the former took the initiative, in annexing Texas, and in making the Mexican war, while the latter only pretended to oppose either, but zealously and continually co-operated in both. Then, again, the democratic party sustains the sub-treasury system, insisting that the government shall not interfere with banking, shall keep its own deposits, and give and take only specie in its business with the people. The whig party, if we understand it, has not of late developed any distinctive doctrine, on the subject of money and financial operations, but only complained of the action of the sub-treasury; yet, as it sustained the late Bank of the United States, and appropriately followed as chief mourner at the funeral thereof, uttering dreadful lamentations and prophecies which time has not seen fit to accomplish, it still keeps up a show of differing from the democrats on this matter. These are only accidental or historical differences, which do not practically affect the politics of the nation to any great degree.
The substantial difference between the two is this : the whigs desire a tariff of duties which shall directly and intentionally protect American industry, or, as we understand it, shall directly and intentionally protect manufacturing industry, while the commercial and agricultural interests are to be protected indirectly, not as if they were valuable in themselves, but were a collateral security to the manufacturing interest: a special protection is desired for the great manufactures, which are usually conducted by large capitalists—such as the manufacture of wool, iron, and cotton. On the other hand, the democrats disclaim all direct protection of any special interest, but, by raising the national revenue from the imports of the nation, actually afford a protection to the articles of domestic origin to the extent of the national revenue, and much more. That is the substantial difference between the two parties—one which has been much insisted on at the late election, especially at the North.
Is this difference of any practical importance at the present moment? There are two methods of raising the revenue of a country: first, by direct taxation,—a direct tax on the person, a direct tax on the property; second, by indirect taxation. To a simple-minded man direct taxation seems the only just and equal mode of collecting the public revenue: thereby, the rich man pays in proportion to his much, the poor to his little. This is so just and obvious, that it is the only method resorted to, in towns of the North, for raising their revenue. But while it requires very little common sense and virtue to appreciate this plan in a town, it seems to require a good deal to endure it in a nation. The four direct taxes levied by the American government since 1787 have been imperfectly collected, and only with great difficulty and long delay. To avoid this difficulty, the government resorts to various indirect modes of taxation, and collects the greater part of its revenue from the imports which reach our shores. In this way a man's national tax is not directly in proportion to his wealth, but directly in proportion to his consumption of imported goods, or directly to that of domestic goods, whose price is enhanced by the duties laid on the foreign article. So it may happen that an Irish labourer, with a dozen children, pays a larger national tax than a millionaire who sees fit to live in a miserly style. Besides, no one knows when he pays or what. At first it seems as if the indirect mode of taxation made the burden light, but in the end it does not always prove so. The remote effect thereof is sometimes remarkable. The tax of one per cent, levied in Massachusetts on articles sold by auction, has produced some results not at all anticipated.
Now since neither party ventures to suggest direct taxation, the actual question between the two is not between free trade and protection, but only between a protective and a revenue tariff. So the real and practical question between them is this: Shall there be a high tariff or a low one? At first sight a man not in favour of free trade might think the present tariff gave sufficient protection to those great manufactures of wool, cotton, and iron, and as much as was reasonable. But the present duty is perhaps scarcely adequate to meet the expenses of the nation, for with new territory new expenses must come; there is a large debt to be discharged, its interest to be paid; large sums will be demanded as pensions for the soldiers. Since these things are so, it is but reasonable to conclude that, under the administration of the whigs or democrats, a pretty high tariff of duties will continue for some years to come. So the great and substantial difference between the two parties ceases to be of any great and substantial importance.
In. the mean time another party rises up, representing neither of these interests; without developing any peculiar views relative to trade or finance, it proclaims the doctrine that there must be no more slave territory, and no more slave States. This doctrine is of great practical importance, and one in which the free soil party differs substantially from both the other parties. The idea on which the party rests is not new; it does not appear that the men who framed the Constitution, or the people who accepted it, ever contemplated the extension of slavery beyond the limits of the United States at that time; had such a proposition been then made, it would have been indignantly rejected by both. The principle of the Wilmot Proviso boasts the same origin as the Declaration of Independence. The state of feeling at the North occasioned by the Missouri Compromise is well known, but after that there was no political party opposed to slavery. No President has been hostile to it; no Cabinet; no Congress. In 1805, Mr. Pickering, a Senator from Massachusetts, brought forward his bill for amending the Constitution, so that slaves should not form part of the basis of representation; but it fell to the ground, not to be lifted up by his successors for years to come. The refusal of John Quincy Adams, while President, to recognise the independence of Hayti, and his efforts to favour the slave power, excited no remark. In 1844, for the first time the anti-slavery votes began seriously to affect the presidential election. At that time the whigs had nominated Mr. Clay as their candidate, a man of great powers, of popular manners, the friend of northern industry, but still more the friend of southern slavery, and more directly identified with that than any man in so high a latitude. The result of the anti-slavery votes is well known. The bitterest reproaches have been heaped on the men who voted against him as the incarnation of the slave power; the annexation of Texas, though accomplished by a whig senate, and the Mexican war, though only sixteen members of Congress voted against it, have both been laid to their charge; and some have even affected to wonder that men conscientiously opposed to slavery cotdd not forget their principle for the sake of their party, and put a most decided slaveholder, who had treated not only them but their cause with scorn and contempt, in the highest place of power.
The whig party renewed its attempt to place a slave- holder in the President's chair, at a time when all Europe was rising to end for ever the tyranny of man. General Taylor was particularly obnoxious to the anti-slavery men. He is a slaveholder, holding one or two hundred men in bondage, and enlarging that number by recent purchases; he employs them in the worst kind of slave labour, the manufacture of sugar; he leaves them to the mercy of overseers, the dregs and refuse of mankind; he has just returned from a war undertaken for the extension of slavery; he is a southern man with southern interests, and opinions favourable to slavery, and is uniformly represented by his supporters at the South, as decidedly opposed to the Wilmot Proviso, and in favour of the extension of slavery. We know this has been denied at the North; but the testimony of the South settles the question. The convention of democrats in South Carolina, when they also nominated him, said well, "His interests are our interests: … we know that on this great, paramount, and leading question of the rights of the South [to extend slavery over the new territory], he is for us and he is with us." Said a newspaper in his own State, " General Taylor is from birth, association, and conviction, identified with the South and her institutions, being one of the most extensive slaveholders in Louisiana, and supported by the slaveholding interest; is opposed to the Wilmot Proviso, and in favour of procuring the privilege to the owners of slaves to remove with them to newly acquired territory."
The southerners evidently thought the crisis an important one. The following is from the distinguished whig senator, Mr. Berrien:—
"I consider it the most important Presidential election, especially to southern men, which has occurred since the foundation of the government.
"We have great and important interests at stake. If we fail to sustain them now, we may be forced too soon to decide whether we will remain in the Union, at the mercy of a band of fanatics or political jugglers, or reluctantly retire from it for the preservation of our domestic institutions, and all our rights as freemen. If we are united, we can sustain them; if we divide on the old party issues, we must be victims.
"With a heart devoted to their interests on this great question, and without respect to party, I implore my fellow-citizens of Georgia, whig and democratic, to forget for the time their party divisions: to know each
other only as southern men: to act upon the truism uttered by Mr. Calhoun, that on this vital question—the preservation of our domestic institutions—the southern man who is furthest from us is nearer to us than any northern man can be; that General Taylor is identified with us, in feeling and interest, was born in a slaveholding State, educated in a slaveholding State, is himself a slaveholder; that his slave property constitutes the means of support to himself and family; that he cannot desert us without sacrificing his interest, his principle, the habits and feelings of his life; and that with him, therefore, our institutions are safe. I beseech them, therefore, from the love which they bear to our noble State, to rally under the banner of Zachary Taylor, and, with one united voice, to send him by acclamation to the executive chair."
All this has been carefully kept from the sight of the people at the North.
There have always been men in America who were opposed to the extension and the very existence of slavery. In 1787, the best and the most celebrated statesmen were publicly active on the side of freedom. Some thought slavery a sin, others a mistake, but nearly all in the Convention thought it an error. South Carolina and Georgia were the only States thoroughly devoted to slavery at that time. They threatened to withdraw from the Union, if it were not sufficiently respected in the new Constitution. If the other States had said, "You may go, soon as you like, for hitherto you have been only a curse to us, and done little but brag," it would have been better for us all. However, partly for the sake of keeping the peace, and still more for the purpose of making money by certain concessions of the South, the North granted the southern demands. After the adoption of the Constitution, the anti-slavery spirit cooled down; other matters occupied the public mind. The long disasters of Europe; the alarm of the English party, who feared their sons should be "conscripts in the armies of Napoleon," and the violence of the French party, who were ready to compromise the dignity of the nation, and add new elements to the confusion in Europe; the subsequent conflict with England, and then the efforts to restore the national character, and improve our material condition,—these occupied the thought of the nation, till the Missouri Compromise again disturbed the public mind. But that was soon forgotten; little was said about slavery. In the eighteenth century, it was discussed in the colleges and newspapers, even in the pulpits of the North; but, in the first quarter of the nineteenth, little was heard of it. Manufactures got established at the North, and protected by duties; at the South, cotton was cultivated with profit, and a heavy duty protected the slave-grown sugar of Louisiana. The pecuniary interests of North and South became closely connected, and both seemed dependent on the peaceable continuance of slavery. Little was said against it, little thought, and nothing done. Southern masters voluntarily brought their slaves to New England, and took them back, no one offering the African the conventional shelter of the law, not to speak of the natural shelter of justice. We well remember the complaint made somewhat later, when a Judge decided that a slave, brought here by his master's consent, became, from that moment, free!
But where sin abounded, grace doth much more abound. There rose up one man who would not compromise, nor be silent,—who would be heard.[2] He spoke of the evil, spoke of the sin—for all true reforms are bottomed on religion, and while they seem adverse to many interests, yet represent the idea of the Eternal. He found a few others, a very few, and began the anti-slavery movement. The "platform" of the new party was not an interest, but an idea—that "All men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain unaKlinable rights." Every truth is also a fact; this was a fact of human consciousness, and a truth of necessity.
The time has not come to write the history of the abolitionists,—other deeds must come before words ; but we cannot forbear quoting the testimony of one witness, as to the state of anti-slavery feeling in New England in 1831. It is the late Hon. Harrison Gray Otis, a former mayor of Boston, who speaks in his recent letter.
"The first information received by me, of a disposition to agitate this subject in our State, was from the Governors of Virginia and Georgia, severally remonstrating against an incendiary newspaper, published in Boston, and, as they alleged, thrown broadcast among their plantations, inciting to insurrection and its horrid results. It appeared, on inquiry, that no member of the city government [of Boston] had ever heard of the publication. Some time afterwards it was reported to me by the city officers, that they had ferreted out the paper and its editor; that his office was an obscure hole, his only visible auxiliary a negro boy, and his supporters a very few insignificant persons of all colours. This information … I communicated to the above-named governors, with an assurance of my belief that the new fanaticism had not made, nor was likely to make, proselytes among the respectable classes of our people."
Such was the state of things in 1831. Anti-slavery had "an obscure hole" for its head-quarters; the one agitator, who had filled the two doughty Grovernors of Virginia and Georgia with uncomfortable forebodings, had a "negro boy" "for his only visible auxiliary," and none of the respectable men of Boston had heard of the hole, of the agitator, of the negro boy, or even of the agitation. One thing must be true: either the man and the boy were pretty vigorous, or else there was a great truth in that obscure hole; for, in spite of the governors and the mayors, spite of the many able men in the South and the North, spite, also, of the wealth and respectability of the whole land, it is a plain case that the abolitionists have shaken the nation, and their idea is the idea of the time; and the party which shall warmly welcome that is destined before long to override all the other parties. One thing must be said of the leaders of the anti-slavery movement. They asked for nothing but justice; not justice for themselves—they were not Socratic enough to ask that,—but only justice for the slave; and to obtain that, they forsook all that human hearts most love. It is rather a cheap courage that fought at Monterey and Palo Alto, a bravery that can be bought for eight dollars a month; the patriotism which hurras for "our side," which makes speeches at Faneuil Hall, nay, which carries torch- lights in a procession, is not the very loftiest kind of patriotism; even the man who stands up at the stake, and in one brief hour of agony anticipates the long torment of disease, does not endure the hardest, but oidy the most obvious kind of martyrdom. But when a man, for con- science' sake, leaves a calling that would insure him bread and respectability; when he abjures the opinions which give him the esteem of honourable men; when, for the sake of truth and justice, he devotes himself to liberating the most abused and despised class of men, solely because they are men and brothers; when he thus steps forth in front of the world, and encounters poverty and neglect, the scorn, the loathing, and the contempt of mankind—why, there is something not very common in that. There was once a Man who had not where to lay his head, who was born in "an obscure hole," and had not even a negro boy for his "auxiliary;" who all his life lived with most obscure persons—eating and drinking with publicans and sinners; who found no favour with mayors or governors, and yet has had some influence on the history of the world. When intelligent men mock at small beginnings, it is surprising they cannot remember that the greatest institutions have had their times which tried men's souls, and that they who have done all the noblest and best work of mankind, sometimes forgot self-interest in looking at a great truth; and though they had not always even a negro boy to help them, or an obscure hole to lay their heads in, yet found the might of the universe was on the side of right, and themselves workers with God!
The abolitionists did not aim to found a political party; they set forth an idea. If they had set up the interest of the whigs or the democrats, the manufacturers or the merchants, they might have formed a party and had a high place in it, with money, ease, social rank and a great name in the party—newspapers. Some of them had political talents, ideas more than enough, the power of organizing men, the skill to manage them, and a genius for eloquence. With such talents, it demands not a little manliness to keep out of politics and in the truth.
To found a political party there is no need of a great moral idea: the whig party has had none such this long time; the democratic party pretends to none and acts on none; each represents an interest which can be estimated in dollars; neither seems to see that behind questions of political economy there is a question of political morality, and the welfare of the nation depends on the answer we shall give! So long as the abolitionists had nothing but an idea, and but few men had that, there was no inducement for the common run of politicians to join them; they could make nothing by it, so nothing of it. The guardians of education, the trustees of the popular religion, did not like to invest in such funds. But still the idea went on, spite of the most entire, the most bitter, the most heartless and unrelenting opposition ever known iii America. No men were ever hated as the abolitionists ; political parties have joined to despise, and sectarian churches to curse them. Yet the idea has gone on, till now all that is most pious in the sects, most patriotic in the parties, all that is most Christian in modern philanthropy, is on its side. It has some representative in almost every family, save here and there one whose God is mammon alone, where the parents are antediluvian and the children born old and conservative, with no faculty but memory to bind them to mankind. It has its spokesmen in the House and the Senate. The tide rises and swells, and the compact wall of the whig party, the tall ramparts of the democrats, are beginning to "cave in."
As the idea has gained ground, men have begun to see that an interest is connected with it, and begun to look after that. One thing the North knows well—the art of calculation, and of ciphering. So it begins to ask questions as to the positive and comparative influence of the slave power on the country. Who fought the Revolution? Why the North, furnishing the money and the men, Massachusetts alone sending fourteen thousand soldiers more than all the present slave States. Who pays the national taxes? The North, for the slaves pay but a trifle. Who owns the greater part of the property, the mills, the shops, the ships? The North. Who writes the books—the histories, poems, philosophies, works of science, even the sermons and commentaries on the Bible ? Still the North. Who sends their children to school and college? The North. Who builds the churches, who founds the Bible societies. Education societies. Missionary societies, the thousand-and-one institutions for making men better and better off? Why the North. In a word, who is it that in seventy years has made the nation great, rich, and famous for her ideas and their success all over the world? The answer is, still the North, the North.
Well, says the calculator, but who has the offices of the nation? The South. Who has filled the Presidential chair forty-eight years out of sixty? Nobody but slave- holders. Who has held the chief posts of honour? The South. Who occupy the chief offices in the army and navy? The South. Who increases the cost of the post- office and pays so little of its expense?[3]The South. Who is most blustering and disposed to quarrel? The South. Who made the Mexican war? The South. Who sets at nought the Constitution? The South. Who would bring the greatest peril in case of war with a strong enemy? Why the South, the South. But what is the South most noted for abroad? For her three million slaves; and the North? for her wealth, freedom, education, religion!
Then the calculator begins to remember past times—opens the account-books and turns back to old charges: five slaves count the same as three freemen, and the three million slaves, which at home are nothing but property, entitle their owners to as many representatives in Congress as are now sent by all the one million eight hundred thousand freemen who make the entire population of Maine, New Hampshire, Yermont, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts, and have created a vast amount of property, worth more than all the slave States put together! Then the North must deliver up the fugitive slaves, and Ohio must play the traitor, the kidnapper, the bloodhound, for Kentucky! The South wanted to make two slave States out of Florida, and will out of Texas; she makes slavery perpetual in both; she is always bragging as if she made the Revolution, while she only laid the Embargo, and began the late war with England,—but that is going further back than is needful. The South imprisons our coloured sailors in her ports, contrary to justice, and even contrary to the Constitution. She drove our commissioners out of South Carolina and Louisiana, when they were sent to look into the matter and legally seek for redress. She affronts the world with a most odious despotism, and tried to make the English return her runaway slaves, making the nation a reproach before the world; she insists on kidnapping men even in Boston; she declares that we shall not abolish slavery in the capital of the Union; that she will extend it in spite of us from sea to sea. She annexed Texas for a slave-pasture, and then made the Mexican war to enlarge that pasture, but the North must pay for it; she treads the Constitution under her feet, the North under her feet, justice and the unalienable rights of man under her feet.
The North has charged all these items and many more; now they are brought up for settlement, and, if not can- celled, will not be forgot till the Muse of History gives up the ghost; some Northern men have the American sentiment, and the American idea, put the man before the dollar, counting man the substance, property the accident. The sentiment and idea of liberty are bottomed on Christianity, as that on human nature; they are quite sure to prevail; the spirit of the nation is on their side—the spirit of the age and the everlasting right.
It is instructive to see how the political parties have hitherto kept clear of anti-slavery. It is "no part of the whig doctrine;" the democrats abhor it. Mr. Webster, it is true, once claimed the Wilmot Proviso as his thunder, but he cannot wield it, and so it slips out of his hands, and runs round to the chair of his brother senator from New Hampshire.[4] No leading politician in America has ever been a leader against slavery. Even Mr. Adams only went as he was pushed. True, among the whigs there are Giddings, Palfrey, Tuck, Mann, Root, and Julian; among the democrats there is Hale—and a few others; but what are they among so many? The members of the family of Truth are unpopular, they make excellent servants but hard masters, while the members of the family of Interest are all respectable, and are the best company in the world; their livery is attractive; their motto, "The almighty dollar," is a passport everywhere. Now it happens that some of the more advanced members of the family of Truth fight their way into "good society," and make matrimonial alliances with some of the poor relations of the family of Interest. Straightway they become respectable: the church publishes the banns; the marriage is solemnized in the most Christian form; the attorney declares it legal. So the gospel and law are satisfied. Truth and Interest made one, and many persons after this alliance may be seen in the company of Truth who before knew not of her existence. The free soil party has grown out of the anti-slavery movement. It will have no more slave territory, but does not touch slavery in the States, or between them, and says nothing against the compromises of the Constitution; the time has not come for that. The party has been organized in haste, and is composed, as are all parties, of most discordant materials, some of its members seeming hardly familiar with the idea; some are not yet emancipated from old prejudices, old methods of action, and old interests; but the greater part seem hostile to slavery in all its forms. The immediate triumph of this new party is not to be looked for; not desirable. In Massachusetts they have gained large numbers in a very short period, and under every disadvantage. What their future history is to be, we will not now attempt to conjecture; but this is plain, that they cannot remain long in their present position; either they will go back, and, after due penance, receive political absolution from the church of the whigs, or the democrats,—and this seems impossible,—or else they must go forward where the idea of justice impels them. One day the motto, "No more slave territory" will give place to this,. "No slavery in America." The revolution in ideas is not over till that is done, nor the corresponding revolution in deeds while a single slave remains in America. A man who studies the great movements of mankind feels sure that that day is not far off; that no combination of northern and southern interest, no declamation, no violence, no love of money, no party zeal, no fraud and no lies, no compromise, can long put off the time. Bad passions will ere long league with the holiest love of right, and that wickedness may be put down with the strong hand which might easily be ended at little cost and without any violence, even of speech. One day the democratic party of the North will remember the grievances which they have suffered from the South, and, if they embrace the idea of freedom, no constitutional scruple will long hold them from destroying the "peculiar institution." What slavery is in the middle of the nineteenth century is quite plain; what it will be at the beginning of the twentieth it is not difficult to foresee. The slave power has gained a great victory: one more such will cost its life. South Carolina did not forget her usual craft in voting for a northern man that was devoted to slavery.
Let us now speak briefly of the conduct of the election. It has been attended, at least in New England, with more intellectual action than any election that I remember, and with less violence, denunciation, and vulgar appeals to low passions and sordid interest. Massachusetts has shown herself worthy of her best days; the free soil vote may be looked on with pride, by men who conscientiously cast their ballot the other way. Men of ability and integrity have been active on both sides, and able speeches have been made, while the vulgarity that marked the "Harrison campaign" has not been repeated.
In this contest the democratic party made a good confession, and "owned up" to the full extent of their conduct. They stated the question at issue, fairly, clearly, and entirely; the point could not be mistaken. The Baltimore Convention dealt honestly in declaring the political opinions of the party; the opinions of their candidate on the great party questions, and the subject of slavery, were made known with exemplary clearness and fidelity. The party did not fight in the dark ; they had no dislike to holding slaves, and they pretended none. In all parts of the land they went before the people with the same doctrines and the same arguments; everywhere they "repudiated" the Wilmot Proviso. This gave them an advantage over a party with a different policy. They had a platform of doctrines; they knew what it was; the party stood on the platform; the candidate stood on it. The whig party have conducted differently; they did not publish their confession of faith. We know what was the whig platform in 1840 and in 1844. But what is it in 1848? Particular men may publish their opinions, but the doctrines of the party are " not communicated to the public." For once in the history of America there was a whig convention which passed no "Resolutions;" it was the Convention at Philadelphia. But on one point, of the greatest importance too, it expressed the opinions of the whigs: it rejected the Wilmot Proviso, and Mr. Webster's thunder, which had fallen harmless and without lightning from his hands, was "kicked out of the meeting!" As the party had no platform, so their candidate had no political opinions. "What!" says one, "choose a President who does not declare his opinions,—then it must be because they are perfectly well known!" Not at all: General Taylor is raw in politics, and has not taken his first "drill!" "Then he must be a man of such great political and moral ability, that his will may take the place of reason!" Not at all: he is known only as a successful soldier, and his reputation is scarcely three years old. Mr. Webster declared his nomination "not fit to be made," and nobody has any authentic statement of his political opinions; perhaps not even General Taylor himself.
In the electioneering campaign there has been a certain duplicity in the supporters of General Taylor : at the North it was maintained that he was not opposed to the Wilmot Proviso, while at the South quite uniformly the opposite was maintained. This duplicity had the appearance of dishonesty. In New England the whigs did not meet the facts and arguments of the free soil party; in the beginning of the campaign the attempt was made, but was afterwards comparatively abandoned; the matter of slavery was left out of the case, and the old question of the sub-treasury and the tariff was brought up again, and a stranger would have thought, from some whig newspapers, that that was the only question of any importance. Few men were prepared to see a man of the ability and experience of Mr. Webster in his electioneering speeches pass wholly over the subject of slavery. The nation is presently to decide whether slavery is to extend over the new territory or not; even in a commercial and financial point of view, this is far more important than the question of banks and tariffs; but when its importance is estimated by its relation to freedom, right, human welfare in general,—we beg the pardon of American politicians for speaking of such things,—one is amazed to find the whig party of the opinion that it is more important to restore the tariff of 1842 than to prohibit slavery in a country as large as the thirteen States which fought the Revolution! It might have beeii expected of little, ephemeral men,—minute politicians, who are the pest of the State,—but when at such a crisis a great man rises[5] amid a sea of upturned faces, to instruct the lesser men, and forgets right, forgets freedom, forgets man, and forgets God, talking only of the tariff and of banks, why a stranger is amazed, till he remembers the peculiar relation of the great man to the moneyed men,—that he is. their attorney, retained, paid, and pensioned to do the work of men whose interest it is to keep the question of slavery out of sight. If General Cavaignac had received a pension from the manufacturers of Lyons and of Lisle, to the amount of half a million of francs, should we be surprised if he forgot the needy millions of the land? Nay, only if he did not forget them!
It was a little hardy to ask the anti-slavery men to vote for General Taylor; it was like asking the members of a temperance society to choose an eminent distiller for president of their association. Still, we know that honest anti-slavery men did honestly vote for him. We know nothing to impeach the political integrity of General Taylor; the simple fact that he is a slaveholder, seems reason enough why he should not be President of a nation who believe that "All men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights." Men will be astonished in the next century to learn that the "model republic," had such an affection for slaveholders. Here is a remarkable document, which we think should be preserved:
DEED OF SALE.
"John Hagard, Sr., to Zachariah Taylor.
"Received for Record, 18th Feb., 1843.
"This Indenture, made this twenty-first day of April, eighteen hundred and forty-two, between John Hagard, Sr., of the City of New Orleans, State of Louisiana, of one part, and Zachariah Taylor, of the other part, Witnesseth, that the said John Hagard, Sr., for and in consideration of the sum of Ninety-Five Thousand Dollars to him in hand paid, and secured to be paid, as hereafter stated by the said Zachariah Taylor, at and before the sealing and delivering of these Presents, has this day bargained, sold, and delivered, conveyed, and confirmed, and by these Presents does bargain, sell, deliver, and confinn unto the said Zachariah Taylor, his heirs and assigns, for ever, all that plantation and tract of
land:
"Also, all the following Slaves—Nelson, Milley, Peldea, Mason, Willis, Rachel, Caroline, Lucinda, Ramdall, Wirman, Carson, Little Ann, Winna, Jane, Tom, Sally, Gracia, Big Jane, Louisa, Maria, Charles, Barnard, Mira, Sally, Carson, Paul, Sansford, Mansfield, Harry Oden, Harry Horley, Carter, Henrietta, Ben, Charlotte, Wood, Dick, Harrietta, Clarissa, Ben, Anthony, Jacob, Hamby, Jim, Gabriel, Emeline, Armstead, George, Wilson, Cherry, Peggy, Walker, Jane, Wallace, Bartlett, Martha, Letitia, Barbara, Matilda, Lucy, John, Sarah, Bigg Ann, Allen, Tom, George, John, Dick, Fielding, Nelson, or Isom, Winna, Shellod, Lidney, Little Cherry, Puck, Sam, Hannah, or Anna, Mary, Ellen, Henrietta, and two small children:—Also, all the Horses, Mules, Cattle, Hogs, Farming Utensils, and Tools, now on said Plantation—together with all and singular the hereditaments, appurtenances, privileges, and advantages unto the said Land and Slaves belonging or appertaining. To have and to hold the said Plantation and tract of Land and Slaves, and other property above described, unto the said Zachariah Taylor, his heirs and assigns, for ever, and to his and to their only proper use, benefits, and behoof, for ever. And the said John Hagard, Sr., for himself, his heirs, executors, and administrators, does covenant, promise, and agree to and with said Zachariah Taylor, his heirs and assigns, that the aforesaid Plantation and tract of Land and Slaves, and other property, with the appurtenances, unto the said Zachariah Taylor, his heirs and assigns, against the claim or claims of all persons whomsoever claiming or to claim the same, or any part or parcel thereof, shall and will warrant, and by these Presents for ever defend.
"In Testimony Whereof, the said John Hagard, Sr., has hereunto set his hand and seal, the day and year first above written."
If this document had been discovered among some Egyptian papyri, with the date 1848 before Christ, it would
have been remarkable as a sign of the times. In a republic, nearly four thousand years later, it has a meaning which some future historian will appreciate. The free soil party have been plain and explicit as the democrats; they published their creed in the celebrated Buffalo platform. The questions of sub-treasury and tariff are set aside; "No more slave territory" is the watchword. In part they represent an interest, for slavery is an injury to the North in many ways, and to a certain extent puts the North into the hands of the South; but chiefly an idea. Nobody thought they would elect their candidate, whoso- ever he might be; they could only arrest public attention and call men to the great questions at issue, and so, perhaps, prevent the evil which the South was bent on accomplishing. This they have done, and done well. The result has been highly gratifying. It was pleasant and encouraging to see men ready to sacrifice their old party attachments and their private interests, oftentimes, for the sake of a moral principle. I do not mean to say that there was no moral principle in the other parties—I know better. But it seems to me that the free soilers committed a great error in selecting Mr. Van Bur en as their candidate. True, he is a man of ability, who has held the highest offices and acquitted himself honourably in all; but he had been "the "Northern man, with Southern principles;" had shown a degree of subserviency to the South, which was remarkable, if not singular or strange: his promise, made and repeated in the most solemn manner, to veto any act of Congress, abolishing slavery in the capital, was an insult to the country, and a disgrace to himself. He had a general reputation for instability, and want of political firmness. It is true, he had opposed the annexation of Texas, and lost his nomination in 1844 by that act; but it is also true that he advised his party to vote for Mr. Polk, who was notoriously in favour of annexation. His nomination, I must confess, was unfortunate; the Buffalo Convention seems to have looked at his availability more than his fitness, and in their contest for a principle, began by making a compromise of that very principle itself. It was thought he could "carry" the State of New York; and so a man who was not a fair representative of the idea, was set up. It was a bad beginning. It is better to be defeated a thousand times, rather than seem to succeed by a compromise of the principle contended for. Still, enough has been done, to show the nation that the dollar is not almighty; that the South is not always to insult the North, and rule the land, annexing, plundering, and making slaves when she will; that the North has men who will not abandon the great sentiment of freedom, which is the boast of the nation and the age.
General Taylor is elected by a large popular vote; some voted for him on account of his splendid military success; some because he is a slaveholder, and true to the interests of the slave-power; some because he is a "good whig," and wants a high tariff of duties. But we think there are men who gave him their support, because he has never been concerned in the intrigues of a party, is indebted to none for past favours, is pledged to none, bribed by none, and intimidated by none; because he seems to be an honest man, with a certain rustic intelligence; a plain blunt man, that loves his country and mankind. We hope this was a large class. If he is such a man, he will enter upon his office under favourable auspices, and with the best wishes of all good men.
But what shall the free soil party do next? they cannot go back,—conscience waves behind them her glittering wings and bids them on; they cannot stand still, for as yet their measures and their watchword do not fully represent their idea. They must go forward, as the early abolitionists went, with this for their motto: "No slavery in America." "He that would lead men, must walk but one step before them," says somebody. Well, but he must think many steps before them, or they will presently tread him under their feet. The present success of the idea is doubtful; the interests of the South will demand the extension of slavery;[6] the interests of the party now coming into power, will demand their peculiar boon. So another compromise is to be feared, and the extension of slavery
yet further West. But the ultimate triumph of the genius of freedom is certain. In Europe, it shakes the earth with mighty tread; thrones fall before its conquering feet. While in the eastern continent, kings, armies, emperors, are impotent before that power, shall a hundred thousand slaveholders stay it here with a bit of parchment?
- ↑ Γίγνυνται Σμέν ούν αί στάσΜμεις ού περί μικρών άλλ’ έκ μικρών, στασιάζουσι δέ περί μεγάλων.—Aristotle's Polit. Lib. V., Chap. 4, § 1.
- ↑ William Lloyd Garrison.
- ↑ The following table shows the facts of the case:
Cost of post-office in slave States for the year ending July 1st, 1847, $1,318,541
Receipts from post-office, 624,380Cost of post-office in free States for the year ending July 1st, 1847, §1,038,219
Receipts from post-office, 1,459,631So the Southern post-office cost the nation $694,161, and the Northern post-office paid the nation $421,412, making a difference of $1,115,573 against the South.
- ↑ Mr. John P. Hale.
- ↑ Hon. Daniel Webster.
- ↑ The following extract, from the Charleston Mercury, shows the feeling of the South. "Pursuant to a call, a meeting of the citizens of Orangeburg District was held to-day, 6th November, in the court-house, which was well filled on the occasion … Gen. D. F. Jamison then rose, and moved the appointment of a committee of twenty-five, to take into consideration the continued agitation by Congress of the question of slavery; … the committee, through their chairman, Gen. Jamison, made the following report:—
"The time has arrived when the slaveholding States of the confederacy must take decided action upon the continued attacks of the North against their domestic institutions, or submit in silence to that humiliating position in the opinions of mankind, that longer acquiescence must inevitably reduce them to The agitation of the subject of slavery commenced in the fanatical murmurings of a few scattered abolitionists, to whom it was a long time confined; but now it has swelled into a torrent of popular opinion at the North; it has invaded the fireside and the church, the press and the halls of legislation; it has seized upon the deliberations of Congress, and at this moment is sapping the foundations, and about to overthrow the fairest political structure that the ingenuity of man has ever devised.
"The overt efforts of abolitionism were confined for a long period to annoying applications to Congress, under colour of the pretended right of petition; it has since directed the whole weight of its malign influence against the annexation of Texas, and had well-nigh cost to the country the loss of that important province; but emboldened by success and the inaction of the South, in an unjust and selfish spirit of national agrarianism it would now appropriate the whole public domain. It might well have been supposed that the undisturbed possession of the whole of Oregon Territory would have satisfied the non-slaveholding States. This they now hold, by the incorporation of the ordinance of 1787 into the bill of the last session for establishing a territorial government for Oregon. That provision, however, was not sustained by them from any apprehension that the territory could ever be settled from the States of the South, but it was intended as a gratuitous insult to the southern people, and a malignant and unjustifiable attack upon the institution of slavery.
"We are called upon to give up the whole public domain to the fanatical cravings of abolitionism, and the unholy lust of political power. A territory, acquired by the whole country for the use of all, where treasure has been squandered like chaff", and southern blood poured out like water, is sought to be appropriated by one section, because the other chooses to adhere to an institution held not only under the guaranties that brought this confederacy into existence, but under the highest sanction of Heaven. Should we quietly fold our hands under this assumption on the part of the non-slaveholding States, the fate of the South is sealed, the institution of slavery is gone, and its existence is but a question of time Your committee are unwilling to anticipate what will be the result of the combined wisdom and joint action of the southern portion of the confederacy on this question ; but as an initiatory step to a concert of action on the part of the people of South Carolina^ they respectfully recommend, for the adoption of this meeting, the following resolutions:—
"Resolved, That the continued agitation of the question of slavery, by the people of the non-slaveholding States, by their legislatures, and by their representatives in Congress, exhibits not only a want of national courtesy, which should always exist between kindred States, but is a palpable violation of good faith towards the slaveholding States, who adopted the present Constitution ’in order to form a more perfect union."
"Resolved, That while we acquiesce in adopting the boundary between the slaveholding and non-slaveholding States, known as the Missouri Compromise line, we will not submit to any further restriction upon, the rights of any southern man to carry his pi'operty and his institutions into territory acquired by southern treasure and by southern blood.
"Resolved, That should the Wilmot Proviso, or any other restriction, be applied by Congress to the territories of the United States, south of 36 deg. 30 min. north latitude, we recommend to our representative in Congress, as the decided opinion of this portion of Ms district, to leave his seat in that body, and return home.
"Resolved, That we respectfully suggest to both houses of the legislature of South Carolina, to adopt a similar recommendation as to our senators in Congress from this State.
"Resolved, That upon the return home of our senators and representatives in Congress, the legislature of South Carolina should be forthwith assembled to adopt such measures as the exigency may demand.
"The resolutions were then submitted, seriatim, and, together with the report, were unanimously adopted."