HENRY CLAY

ON THE COMPROMISE OF 1850

Henry Clay was born in Hanover County, Va., 1777. Left alone at an early age, he had very few educational advantages, and what he possessed of learning was acquired by reading. In 1797 he removed to Lexington, Ky., and began to practice law. In 1803 he became a member of the legislature. In 1811 he was again elected to the House of Representatives. He was chosen as speaker, and held the office from the twelfth to the sixteenth Congress inclusive. He belonged to the Young Republican party that forced the declaration of war with England in 1812, but became one of the peace commissioners who negotiated the treaty at Ghent in 1814. The further work of that mission was the negotiating of a treaty of commerce with England, after effecting which he returned to America in 1815, and reëntered Congress, where, in the slavery agitation beginning in 1819, he became the most ardent supporter of the measure known as the Missouri Compromise, that became a law in 1821. In 1831 he entered the U. S. Senate, where with the compromise tariff measure of 1833 he earned the title of the "Great Pacificator." He died at Washington, June 29, 1852. The first of the following speeches was delivered in the Senate in 1850, the second in the House of Representatives, in 1818. His "Address to Lafayette" is printed in Volume IX.

MR. PRESIDENT:-In the progress of this debate it has been again and again argued that perfect tranquillity reigns throughout the country, and that there is no disturbance threatening its peace, endangering its safety, but that which was produced by busy, restless politicians. It has been maintained that the surface of the public mind is perfectly smooth and undisturbed by a single billow. I most heartily wish I could concur in this picture of general tranquillity that has been drawn upon both sides of the Senate. I am no alarmist; nor, I thank God, at the advanced age at which His providence has been pleased to allow me to reach, am I very easily alarmed by any human

event; but I totally misread the signs of the times, if there be that state of profound peace and quiet, that absence of all just cause of apprehension of future danger to this confederacy, which appears to be entertained by some other senators. Mr. President, all the tendencies of the times, I lament to say, are toward disquietude, if not more fatal consequences. When before, in the midst of profound peace and with all the nations of the earth, have we seen a convention, representing a considerable portion of one great part of the Republic, meet to deliberate about measures of future safety in connection with great interests of that quarter of the country? When before have we seen, not one, but more, some half a dozen, legislative bodies solemnly resolving that if any one of these measures -the admission of California, the adoption of the Wilmot proviso, the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia -should be adopted by Congress, measures of an extreme character, for the safety of the great interests to which I refer, in a particular section of the country, would be resorted to? For years this subject of the abolition of slavery, even within this District of Columbia, small as is the number of slaves here, has been a source of constant irritation and disquiet. So of the subject of the recovery of fugitive slaves who have escaped from their lawful owners: not a mere border contest, as has been supposed-although there, undoubtedly, it has given rise to more irritation than in other portions of the Union-but everywhere throughout the slaveholding country it has been felt as a great evil, a great wrong which required the intervention of congressional power. But these two subjects, unpleasant as has been the agitation to which they have given rise, are nothing in comparison to those which have sprung out of the acquisitions recently made from the republic of Mexico. These are not only great and leading causes of just apprehension as respects the future, but all the minor circumstances of the day intimate danger ahead, whatever may be its final issue and consequence.

Mr. President, I will not dwell upon other concomitant causes, all having the same tendency, and all well calculated to awaken, to arouse us-if, I hope the fact is, we are all of us sincerely desirous of preserving this Union-to rouse us to

dangers which really exist, without underrating them upon the one hand or magnifying them upon the other.

It has been objected against this measure that it is a compromise. It has been said that it is a compromise of principle, or of a principle. Mr. President, what is a compromise? It is a work of mutual concession-an agreement in which there are reciprocal stipulations-a work in which, for the sake of peace and concord, one party abates his extreme demands in consideration of an abatement of extreme demands by the other party: it is a measure of mutual concession-a measure of mutual sacrifice. Undoubtedly, Mr. President, in all such measures of compromise, one party would be very glad to get what he wants, and reject what he does not desire but which the other party wants. But when he comes to reflect that, from the nature of the government and its operations, and from those with whom he is dealing, it is necessary upon his part, in order to secure what he wants, to grant something to the other side, he should be reconciled to the concession which he has made in consequence of the concession which he is to receive, if there is no great principle involved, such as a violation of the Constitution of the United States. I admit that such a compromise as that ought never to be sanctioned or adopted. But I now call upon any senator in his place to point out from the beginning to the end, from California to New Mexico, a solitary provision in this bill which is violative of the Constitution of the United States.

Sir, adjustments in the shape of compromise may be made without producing any such consequences as have been apprehended. There may be a mutual forbearance. You forbear on your side to insist upon the application of the restriction denominated the Wilmot proviso. Is there any violation of principle there? The most that can be said, even assuming the power to pass the Wilmot proviso, which is denied, is that there is a forbearance to exercise, not a violation of, the power to pass the proviso. So, upon the other hand, if there was a power in the Constitution of the United States authorizing the establishment of slavery in any of the territories—a power, however, which is controverted by a large portion of this Senate-if there was a power under the Constitution to establish

slavery, the forbearance to exercise that power is no violation of the Constitution, any more than the Constitution is violated by a forbearance to exercise numerous powers, that might be specified, that are granted in the Constitution, and that remain dormant until they come to be exercised by the proper legislative authorities. It is said that the bill presents the state of coercion that members are coerced, in order to get what they want, to vote for that which they disapprove. Why, sir, what coercion is there? Can it be said upon the part of our northern friends, because they have not got the Wilmot proviso incorporated in the territorial part of the bill, that they are coerced-wanting California, as they do, so much-to vote for the bill, if they do vote for it? Sir, they might have intimated the noble example of my friend [Senator Cooper, of Pennsylvania] from that state upon whose devotion to this Union I place one of my greatest reliances for its preservation. What was the course of my friend upon this subject of the Wilmot proviso? He voted for it; and he could go back to his constituents and say, as all of you could go back and say to your constituents, if you chose to do so: "We wanted the Wilmot proviso in the bill; we tried to get it in; but the majority of the Senate was against it." The question then came up whether we should lose California, which has got an interdiction in her constitution which, in point of value and duration, is worth a thousand Wilmot provisos; we were induced, as my honorable friend might say, to take the bill and the whole of it together, although we were disappointed in our votes with respect to the Wilmot proviso-to take it, whatever omissions may have been made on account of the superior amount of good it contains. Not the reception of the treaty of peace negotiated at Ghent, nor any other event which has occurred during my progress in public life, ever gave such unbounded and universal satisfaction as the settlement of the Missouri compromise. We may argue from like causes like effects. Then, indeed, there was great excitement. Then, indeed, all the legislatures of the North called out for the exclusion of Missouri, and all the legislatures of the South called out for her admission as a state. Then, as now, the country was agitated like the ocean in the midst of a turbulent storm. But now, more than then, has

this agitation been increased. Now, more than then, are the dangers which exist, if the controversy remains unsettled, more aggravated and more to be dreaded. The idea of disunion was then scarcely a low whisper. Now, it has become a familiar language in certain portions of the country. The public mind and the public heart are becoming familiarized with that most dangerous and fatal of all events-the disunion of the states. People begin to contend that this is not so bad a thing as they had supposed. Like the progress in all human affairs, as we approach danger it disappears, it diminishes in our conception, and we no longer regard it with that awful apprehension of consequences that we did before we came into contact with it. Everywhere now there is a state of things, a degree of alarm and apprehension, and determination to fight, as they regard it, against the aggressions of the North. That did not so demonstrate itself at the period of the Missouri compromise. It was followed, in consequence of the adoption of the measure which settled the difficulty of Missouri, by peace, harmony, and tranquillity. So now I infer, from the greater amount of agitation, from the greater amount of danger, that, if you adopt the measures under consideration, they, too, will be followed by the same amount of contentment, satisfaction, peace and tranquillity which ensued after the Missouri compromise.

The responsibility of this great measure passes from the hands of the committee, and from my hands. They know, and I know, that it is an awful and tremendous responsibility. I hope that you will meet it with a just conception and a true appreciation of its magnitude, and the magnitude of the consequences that may ensue from your decision one way or the other. The alternatives, I fear, which the measure presents, are concord and increased discord; a servile civil war, originating in its causes on the lower Rio Grande, and terminating possibly in its consequences on the upper Rio Grande in the Santa Fe country, or the restoration of harmony and fraternal kindness. I believe from the bottom of my soul that the measure is the reunion of this Union. I believe it is the dove of peace, which, taking its aerial flight from the dome of the capitol, carries the glad tidings of assured peace and restored harmony to all the remotest extremities of this distracted land.