with him likewise lost position in their States. The result of the agitation was that the great compromise of 1850 was made. California was admitted, the Texas boundary adjusted, and territorial governments for Utah and New Mexico framed on the principle of non-intervention by Congress in reference to slavery. The sectional storm was hushed. But the silence and peace were deceptive. They were not the results of public acquiescence and satisfaction. It was that condition of quiet which is devoted to preparation for a renewal of the conflict about to take place.

The second session of the thirty-first Congress met December 2, 1850. The President (Fillmore) in his message had spoken of his duty to enforce the laws, including the fugitive slave law.

On the seventh day of the session Mr. Giddings assailed the President and that portion of his message with vigor and bitterness. He said that if a fugitive slave were returned, all knew he would be sent to a sugar plantation where he could not live five years, or to a cotton plantation where he could not live seven. This incredible statement was eagerly accepted by the people of the North, notwithstanding that if it had been true, slavery before that time would have been abolished by the inhuman action of the slaveholders themselves.

Mr. Giddings further said: "The men of the North, who look upon this as murder, would as soon turn out and cut the throats of the defenseless Negro as to send him back to a land of chains and whips. . . . The man who should assist in the capture of a fugitive would be regarded by us as guilty as he under whose lash the victim expires." He thought that the capture of a fugitive slave to send him to the South to die under a torture of five years was worse than ordinary murder. Referring to Dr. Webster, the murderer of Dr. Parkman, and to the great statesman, Daniel Webster, Mr. Giddings said: "During last summer two distinguished gentlemen of the same name occupied much of the public attention. One was said to have committed murder, and the other to have procured the passage of this [fugitive slave] law. One was hanged for his crime; the other, for his efforts, taken to the Executive Cabinet. One destroyed the life of an individual; the other contributed his efforts for the passage of this law,

which must consign hundreds, perhaps thousands, to premature graves. I, sir, cannot speak for others; but for myself I would rather meet my final Judge with the guilt of him who has gone to his final account than of him who now sits in yonder Cabinet."

Proceeding to discuss union and disunion, he said: "Well, sir, I do not say that Northern men have lost all love and regard for the Union. But one thing is certain, that they do not feel that reverence for it which once was so prevalent among us. They feel, sir, less attachment to it than formerly. They now speak of dissolution without hesitation. And if the Union be exerted for their degradation, by subjecting them to the provisions of this fugitive law, they would greatly prefer to see it dissolved. On this subject I feel no compunctions.

"More than eight years since, with twenty (20) other members of this body, I addressed the people of the free States, foretelling this state of things."

Mr. Giddings then proceeded to quote from this address as follows: "We hesitate not to say that annexation (of Texas) effected by any act or proceeding of the Federal Government, or any of its departments, would be identical with dissolution (sic). It would be a violation of our national compact, its objects and designs, and the great elementary principles which entered into its formation, of a character so deep and fundamental, and would be an attempt to eternize an institution and a power so unjust in themselves, so injurious to the interests and abhorrent to the feelings of the people of the free States as, in our opinion, not only inevitably to result in a dissolution of the Union, but fully to justify it. And we not only assert that the people of the free States ought not to submit to it, but we say with confidence, they will not submit to it."1 Mr. Giddings stated that ex-President John Quincy Adams was one of the signers of this paper.

About this time we begin to hear first of a law binding the political action of the American people that is higher than the Constitution. Hitherto, so far as we have observed, the assailants of the South preferred to act in professed obedience to that instrument. Their actions, however con'Congressional Globe, 2d Session, 31st Congress, pp. 15, 16.

trary to that instrument, they believed, or professed to believe, were in obedience to it and in many instances, as was claimed, were demanded by its terms. As the first instance of the higher law we have noted in the proceedings of Congress we call attention to a petition for the repeal of the fugitive slave law that was sent to Congress by the Quakers of Indiana, who based their action on the assertion that "there is a higher law than any human enactment."

On a motion to receive this petition with a view to referring it to the Judiciary Committee with instructions to report a bill repealing the fugitive slave law, there were sixty-eight votes in the affirmative.

ORGANIZATION OF TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENTS IN KANSAS AND NEBRASKA

In the thirty-third Congress, 1853-5, came up the organization of territorial governments in Kansas and Nebraska. The Committee on Territories in the Senate, through Mr. Douglas, their chairman, undertook to make the legislation on the subject of slavery conform to the principle of non-intervention recognized in the compromise of 1850. The principle seems to have received the endorsement of the country in the Presidential election of 1852. General Pierce, the candidate of the Democratic party, was understood to stand upon that compromise as a finality. General Scott, the Whig candidate, was supposed to be doubtful on that subject. But both parties in their national platforms had declared that compromise was to be adhered to in principle and in substance. The result was an overwhelming victory for Pierce, he receiving two hundred and fifty-four electoral votes to Scott's forty-two, and carrying all the states except Vermont, Massachusetts, Tennessee, and Kentucky.1

The bill for territorial governments in Kansas and Nebraska declared the eighth section of the Act of 1820, authorizing the people of Missouri to form a Constitution (the section prohibiting slavery north of 36° 30′), inconsistent with the principles of the compromise of 1850, and, therefore, inoperative. Immediately on the introduction of this 'Cooper's "American Politics," Book V, p. 7.

measure an effort, in a large degree successful, was made to renew the sectional controversy.

And here again it is to be remarked that the agitation seems to have been wholly unnecessary. These Territories, as in fact all others then belonging to the United States, by physical geography and by natural laws were unfitted for slavery. A further exclusion by Act of Congress would not have been more effective. In the language of Mr. Webster before quoted, it would have been but unnecessarily reaffirming an ordinance of God. As a matter of practical politics it seems now to have been wholly a useless agitation from which nothing ever came but sectional bitterness,—a further alienation between the people of the North and the people of the South. That the South should insist on legislation which, on its face, would be equal and fair, and would give to her citizens an equal legal opportunity of settling in these Territories, was the result of a mere sentiment,-a sentiment, however, likely to prevail among a spirited and free people, jealous of their rights and liberties. That the North should insist on legislative exclusion, if not intended as a "taunt and a reproach," to quote Mr. Webster, was wholly unnecessary. But both sides were excited. The long and bitter controversy on the subject had left traces in the passions and feelings of men that seemed ineradicable.

In the minds of many Northern men this so-called Missouri compromise suddenly acquired sanctity instead of the reprobation formerly attached to it. In the minds of many Southern men there came a strange delusion born of hope and fear, the apprehension of danger to their domestic institutions and the vain hope of preserving them. The hope was that it was possible to extend slavery into these Territories, and thus furnish an additional defense to assaults now plainly intended. Here again the debates show that the controversy grew out of the same old cause, the desire for political power on both sides.

Mr. Seward, in his speech delivered in the Senate on February 17th, 1854, showed that this was the groundwork of the controversy. He said: "A rivalry for political ascendency was soon developed; and, besides the motives of interest and philanthropy . . . . there was now on each side a desire to increase, from among the candidates for admission

into the Union, the number of States in their respective classes," as slaveholding or non-slaveholding,—“and so their relative weight and influence in the Federal Councils."

Mr. Seward, proceeding from this exposition of the views and aspirations of both parties to express himself as to the apprehended course of the South, said: "But I am well assured also, on the other hand, that if ever the slaveholding States shall multiply themselves and extend their sphere so that they could, without association with the non-slaveholding States, constitute of themselves a commercial republic, from that day their rule through the Executive, Judicial, and Legislative powers of this Government will be such as will be hard for the non-slaveholding States to bear; and their pride and ambition, since they are congregations of men, and are moved by human passions, will consent to no union in which they shall not so rule." 1

Like apprehensions were manifested by Southern men as to Northern supremacy. Let history answer whether their apprehensions have been realized!

1

1 Appendix to the Congressional Globe, 33d Congress, 1st Session, p. 150.