Northern Sources Anti-Slavery Principles in Ohio-Speech of Senator S.P

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Northern Sources Anti-Slavery Principles in Ohio-Speech of Senator S.P. Chase. New York Daily Times (1851-1857); Oct 2, 1851; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2007) pg. 4

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Daniel Webster’s Opinion of the Constitutional Duty of the Free States to Surrender up Fugitive Slaves

Webster was an abolitionist, and voted against Texas’ entry into the Union in 1845 because it permitted slavery. However, fearing that the issue of slavery was tearing the country apart and leading it to civil war, he worked hard to gain passage of the Compromise of 1850. Known as a gifted orator, Webster strode to the floor of the Senate on Thursday, March 7, 1850, and gave one of the most powerful and startling speeches in his long history of fiery rhetoric.

Abolitionists listened, appalled, as Webster insisted the U.S. Constitution protected the right of slave owners to hunt down, capture, and bring back into bondage any fugitive slave – and that all Northerners had a legal obligation to assist Southerners in the capture.

He began his speech with this famous line: “I wish to speak today, not as a Massachusetts man, nor as a Northern man, but as an American, and a member of the Senate of the United States…I speak today for the preservation of the Union.”

The following article was printed in the May 4, 1850, edition of the Daily Ohio Statesman (Columbus, Ohio):

Extract from his late speech in the Senate on the slavery question:

I will state one complaint of the South, which has, in my opinion, just foundation; and that is, that there has been found at the North, among individuals and among legislators of the North, a disinclination to perform fully their constitutional duties in regard to the return of persons bound to service who have escaped into the Free States. In that respect, it is in my judgment that the South is right and the North is wrong – every member of every Northern Legislature is bound by oath to support the Constitution of the United States; and this article of the Constitution, which says to these States they shall deliver up fugitives from service, is as binding in honor and conscience as any other article. No man fulfills his duty in any Legislature who sets himself to find excuses, evasions, escapes from this constitutional duty. I have always thought the Constitution addressed itself to the Legislatures of the Free States themselves, or to the States themselves. It says, that those persons escaping to the other States shall be delivered up; and I confess I have always been of the opinion that it was an injunction upon the States themselves. When it is said that a person escaping into another State, and becoming therefore within the jurisdiction of that State, shall be delivered up, it seems to me the import of the passage is, that the State itself, in obedience to the Constitution, shall cause him to be given up. This is my judgment. I have always entertained it, and I entertain it now.

And I desire to call the attention of all sober-minded men, of all conscientious men in the North, of all men who are not carried away by any fanatical idea, or by any false idea whatever, to their constitutional obligations. I put it to all the sober and sound minds at the North, as a question of morals and a question of conscience. What right have they in their legislative capacity, or any other, to endeavor to get round this Constitution, to embarrass the free exercise of the rights secured by the Constitution to the persons whose slaves escape them? None at all; none at all. Neither in the forum of conscience, nor before the face of the Constitution are they justified, in my opinion. Of course it is a matter for their consideration. They, probably, in the turmoil of the times, have not stopped to consider this; they have followed what seems to be the current of thought and of motives for the occasion, and they neglect to investigate fully the real question, and to consider their constitutional obligations; as I am sure, if they did consider, they would fulfill them with alacrity. Therefore, I repeat, sir, that here is a ground of complaint against the North well founded, which ought to be removed, which it is now in the power of the different departments of this Government to remove; which calls for the enactment of proper laws authorizing the judicature of this Government in the several States, to do all that is necessary for the recapture of fugitive slaves, and for the restoration of them to those who claim them. Wherever I go, and whenever I speak on the subject – and when I speak here I desire to speak to the whole North – I say, that the South has been injured in this respect, and has a right to complain; and the North has been too careless of what I think the Constitution peremptorily and most emphatically enjoins upon it as a duty.

Stephen Douglas' Speech Before the U.S. Sentate, "The Territorial Question" (13, 14 March 1850)

When we come to the discussion of questions of this kind, it is necessary to look into the rights of men and communities as they are acknowledged to exist throughout the civilized world. Have the people of the territories of the United States no rights? I had supposed that the principle was universally conceded in this country, that all men have certain inherent and inalienable rights; and I have yet to learn upon what grounds the people of the Territories are to be excluded from the benefit of this principle. I hold also, as a political axiom, that all mankind have an inherent and inalienable right to a government. This principle is universal in its application, and is recognized and acknowledged wherever civilization prevails and civil governments exist. I do not now speak of any particular form of government -- whether it be free or absolute, a Republic or a monarchy, or a combination of the two systems. But I assert it as an incontrovertible axiom in political science, that all men are entitled to a government of some kind....

There are several thousand citizens of the United States found themselves inhabiting a portion of their own country, without a government of any description, to afford them protection. They established a government for themselves, not in denial of, but consistent with, their obligations as citizens of the United States, and maintained it for a period of twelve years, until it was superseded by a regular territorial government, established by authority of Congress. Under that provisional government, all the various relations of society were created and respected -- marriages took place, children were born, estates were accumulated and distributed. When a question, involving the rights of property in that territory, shall hereafter arise before the courts of the United States, what law of descent will determine the case....There is no other law -- there can be none -- that could reach the case. Were not the acts of that provisional government valid then? and if so, was not the government itself a legal government, until superseded by competent authority?

So with the constitution and State government of California. The treaty of cession dissolved the relations of that people with Mexico, and is transferred their allegiance to the United States. They were thus deprived of the government under which they had formerly lived, while we failed to furnish them one in place of it. They had no alternative left but to establish a government for themselves, as the people of Oregon had done before them....All this has been done, subject to the approval of Congress, and without the violation of law or usage. Now, I submit the inquiry, whether that is not a legal government until superseded by competent authority? I do not deny your power to reject her application, to keep her out of the Union, and even to remand her back to a territorial condition; but until you take some step by which you supersede this government, by substituting another, must it not remain valid and binding upon the inhabitants of California? Will not the acts performed under it, and in pursuance of its authority, be legal? Will not the enactments of its legislature have the force of law? These questions are worthy of serious consideration, for they will speedily find their way into our courts for adjudication.

I hold that that is a legal government, and that its acts must be held to be valid until you supersede it by giving the people another in its stead. Shall they be remanded back? What you propose to gain by that? Is it that the people shall be subjected to the inconvenience, trouble, and expense of doing their work over again? I have heard no one say that it is not well done already. I have heard no objection pointed out to the constitution they have sent us, except that the boundaries of the State are too extensive. Well, I think they are too large -- I would have preferred to have had them smaller. Had I been a Californian, with a voice in the convention, I should have advocated the creation of three States, instead of one...

So far as the question of boundary is to have any bearing upon the slavery controversy, in reference to the equilibrium between the two great sections, the North is the loser, and the South the gainer, by these large boundaries. The people upon the whole coast were unanimous against the institution of slavery. The whole country was destined to be free, whether erected into one or three States. The only question to be considered in this respect was, whether we should have one or three free States there. As it now stands, we are to have one. I know not what the result would be in this respect.

I will venture the prediction, however, that if this question should be kept open one year longer, the two geographical divisions would change positions in regard to it -- the South would come here unanimous in favor of the present boundaries, and a large portion of the North in favor of curtailment. While, therefore, I would have preferred different boundaries than those established by the people of California -- while I deem the present boundaries as unwise, in view of the interest of that people -- I am disposed to leave the matter with them, and received California into the Union as she is. If she hereafter shall come to the conclusion at which I have arrived, and ask for subdivision, I presume that my vote, should I be here at that time, will be recorded in favor of granting her request. I have very little expectation, however, that this will ever be done. States, like individuals, are ever willing to extend, but seldom agree to curtail, the limits of their possessions. All new States have indulged a pride, fatal to their interests, of desiring to embrace a territory extensive enough to make them the largest States in the Union. I can scarcely hope that California will, within any reasonable period, be able to sacrifice this pride in her substantial interests, which require that the Pacific Coast should have a larger representation in the Senate of the United States....

The question is rapidly settling itself, in spite of the efforts of the extremes at both ends of the Union to keep up the agitation. The people of the whole country, North and South, are beginning to see that there is nothing in this controversy which seriously affects the interests, invades the rights, or impugns the honor of any section or State of the Confederacy. They will not consent that this question shall be kept open for the benefit of politicians, who are endeavoring to organize parties on geographical lines. The people will not sanction any such movement. They know its tendencies and its danger. The Union will not be put in peril; California will be admitted; governments for the territories must be established; and thus the controversy will end, and I trust forever. Frederick Douglass, Independence Day Speech (1852) After escaping slavery, Frederick Douglass fought for African Americans with all the powers of his intellect. He was an excellent writer and speaker whose texts did much to shape northern thinking on abolition. Many northerners became convinced that someone so articulate could not possibly belong to an inferior race. By the 1850s, particularly after the passage of the strengthened Fugitive Slave Act, Douglass and other abolitionists increasingly despaired of ever seeing the end of slavery. In this speech, Douglass gave a voice to some of that desperation.

Fellow citizens above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! whose chains, heave and grievous yesterday, are, today, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, "may my right hand forger her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth"! To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world. My subject, them, fellow citizens, is American Slavery.

…I do not hesitate to declare with all my soul that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this Fourth of July! Whether we turn to the declarations of the past or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the Constitution and the Bible which are disregarded and trampled upon, All the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery the great sin and shame of America! "I will not equivocate, I will not excuse"; I will use the severest of language I can command; and yet not one word shall escape that any man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a slaveholder, shall not confess to be right and just.

… Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? There are seventy-two crimes in the state of Virginia which, if committed by a black man (no matter how ignorant he be), subject him to the punishment of death, while only two of the same crimes will subject a white man to the like punishment. What is this but the acknowledgment that the slave is a moral, intellectual, and responsible being? The manhood of the slave is conceded.

For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. It is not astonishing that, while we are plowing, planting, and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper and silver, and gold; that, while we are reading, writing, and ciphering, acting as clerks, merchants and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators, and teachers; that, while we are engaged in all manner of enterprises common to other men, digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hillside, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives, and children, and, above all, confessing and worshipping the Christian's God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave, we are called upon to prove that we are men!

How should I look today, in the presence of Americans, dividing and subdividing a discourse, to show that men have a natural right to freedom? speaking of it relatively and positively, negatively and affirmatively? To do so would be to make myself ridiculous and to offer an insult to your understanding. There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven that does not know that slavery is wrong for him.

What, am I to argue that is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks… Must I argue that a system them marked with blood, and stained with pollution, is wrong? No! I will not. I have better employment for my time and strength than such arguments would imply.

What, then remains to be argued? Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? There is blasphemy in the thought. That which is inhuman cannot be divine? Who can reason on such a proposition? They that can may; I cannot. The time for such argument is past.

…What, to the American slave is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he s the constant victim… There is not a nation of savages. There is not a nation on earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States at this very hour.

Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival. Election Results of 1848 and 1852

2012 Presidential Election Interactive Map and History of the Electoral College 10/27/11 11:52 AM

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Vote! The first 2012 Straw Poll is 44 Tweet 6.8K underway 1856 James Buchanan (D) Electoral 174 Popular 1,838,169 John C. Fremont (R) Electoral 114 Popular 1,341,264 Millard Fillmore (A) Electoral 8 Popular 873,000 (D) = Democratic (R) = Republican (A) = American

1856 Election Facts

Winner Buchanan received only about 45% of the popular vote John C. Fremont is first candidate of new Republican Party, organized largely around the opposition to slavery Issues of the Day: Slavery (Kansas-Nebraska Act, Bleeding Kansas)

About this Site 270towin.com is an interactive Electoral College map for 2012 and a history of Presidential elections in the United States. Since electoral votes are generally allocated on an "all or none" basis by state, the election of a U.S President is about winning the popular vote in enough states to achieve 270 electoral votes, a majority of the 538 that are available. It is not about getting the most overall popular votes, as we saw in the 2000 election, when the electoral vote winner (Bush) and the popular vote winner (Gore) were different.

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Vote! The first 2012 Straw Poll is 44 Tweet 6.8K underway 1860 Abraham Lincoln (R) Electoral 180 Popular 1,866,452 John C. Breckinridge (D) Electoral 72 Popular 847,953 John Bell (C) Electoral 39 Popular 592,906 Stephen A. Douglas (D) Electoral 12 Popular 1,382,713 (R) = Republican (D) = Democratic (C) = Constitutional Union

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1860 Election Facts

Welcome: Minnesota and Oregon become states during this election cycle Original 13 States control fewer than 50% of total Electoral Votes for first time Lincoln received only about 40% of the popular vote in a divided nation on the brink of Civil War New Jersey Electors split their vote: 4 for Lincoln, 3 for Douglas; Douglas had won popular vote Issues of the Day: Slavery (Dred Scott decision, Secession)

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Harriet Beecher Stowe, from Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) This selection from Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe describes a violent exchange between the slave master Simon Legree (a transplanted Connecticut native) and the patient slave Uncle Tom. Southerners criticized Stowe, who had very little (if any) experience of plantation life, for an atypical, distorted perception of slavery. Most northern readers were taken in by Stowe’s tale and its somewhat sensationalized and sentimental portrayal of slavery.

Legree looked stupefied and confounded; but at last burst forth: "What! Ye blasted black beast! Tell me ye don't think it right to do what I tell ye! What have any of you cussed cattle to do with thinking what's right? I'll put a stop to it! Why, what do ye think ye are? May be ye think ye're a gentleman, master Tom, to be a telling your master what's right, and what an't! So you pretend it's wrong to flog the gal!"

"I think so, Mas'r," said Tom; "the poor crittur's sick and feeble; 'twould be downright cruel, and it's what I never will do, nor begin to. Mas'r, if you mean to kill me, kill me; but, as to my raising my hand again any one here, I never shall-I'll die first!"

Tom spoke in a mild voice, but with a decision that could not be mistaken. Legree shook with anger; his greenish eyes glared fiercely, and his very whiskers seemed to curl with passion. But, like some ferocious beast, that plays with its victim before he devours it, he kept back his strong impulse to proceed to immediate violence, and broke out into bitterly raillery.

"Well, here's a pious dog, at last, let down among us sinners-a saint, a gentleman, and no less, to talk to us sinners about our sins! Powerful holy crittur, he must be! Here, you rascal, you make believe to be so pious-didn't you never hear, out of yer Bible, 'Servants, obey yer masters'? An't I yer master? Didn't I pay down twelve hundred dollars, cash, for all there is inside yer old cussed black shell? An't yer mine, now, body and soul?" he said, giving Tom a violent kick with his heavy boot; "tell me!"

In the very depth of physical suffering, bowed by brutal oppression, this question shot a gleam of joy an triumph through Tom's soul. He suddenly stretched himself up, and, looking earnestly to heaven, while the tears and blood that flowed down his face mingled, he exclaimed, " No! no! no! my soul an't yours, Mas'r! You haven't bought it-ye can't buy it! It's been bought and paid for by One that is able to keep it. No matter, no matter, you can't harm me!"

"I can't!" said Legree, with a sneer; "we'll see-we'll see! Here Sambo, Quimbo, give this dog such a breakin' in as he won't get over this month!"

The two gigantic Negroes that now laid hold of Tom, with fiendish exultation in their faces, might have formed no unapt personification of powers of darkness. The poor woman screamed with apprehension, and all rose, as by a general impulse, while they dragged him unresisting from the place. Excerpts from the Free Soil Party Platform (1848) Whereas, We have assembled in Convention, as a union of freemen, for the sake of freedom, forgetting all past political differences in a common resolve to maintain the rights of free labor against the aggressions of the Slave Power ...

And Whereas, The political Conventions recently assembled at Baltimore and Philadelphia, the one stifling the voice of a great constituency, entitled to be heard in its deliberations, and the other abandoning its distinctive principles for mere availability, have dissolved the National party organizations heretofore existing, by nominating for the Chief Magistracy of the United States, under the slaveholding dictation, candidates, neither of whom can bse supported by the opponents of Slavery Extension without a sacrifice of consistency, duty and self-respect;

And whereas, These nominations so made, furnish the occasion and demonstrate the necessity of the union of the people under the banner of free Democracy, in a solemn and formal declaration of their independence of the slave power, and of their fixed determination to rescue the Federal Government from its control;

Resolved, therefore, That we, the people here assembled, remembering the example of our fathers, in the days of the first Declaration of Independence, putting our trust in God for the triumph of our cause, and invoking his guidance in our endeavors to advance it, do now plant ourselves upon the National platform of Freedom in opposition to the sectional platform of Slavery.

Resolved, That Slavery in the several States of this Union which recognize its existence, depends upon State laws alone, which cannot be repealed or modified by the Federal Government, and for which laws that government is not responsible. We therefore propose no interference by Congress with Slavery within the limits of any State.

Resolved, That the Proviso of Jefferson, to prohibit the or existence of Slavery after 1800, in all the Territories of the United States, Southern and Northern; the votes of six States and sixteen delegates, in the Congress of 1784, for the Proviso, to three States and seven delegates against it; the actual exclusion of Slavery from the Northwestern Territory, by the Ordinance of 1787, unanimously adopted by the States in Congress; and the entire history of that period, clearly show that it was the settled policy of the Nation not to extend, nationalize or encourage, but to limit, localize and discourage Slavery; and to this policy, which should never have been departed from, the Government ought to return...

Resolved, That in the judgment of this Convention, Congress has no more power to make a Slave than to make a King; no more power to institute or establish Slavery than to institute or establish a Monarchy: no such power can be found among those specifically conferred by the Constitution, or derived by just implication from them.

Resolved, That it is the duty of the Federal Government to relieve itself from all responsibility for the existence or continuance of slavery wherever the government possesses constitutional authority to legislate on that subject, and it is thus responsible for its existence. Resolved, That the true, and in the judgment of this Convention, the only safe means of preventing the extension of Slavery into Territory now Free, is to prohibit its extension in all such Territory by an act of Congress.

Resolved, That we accept the issue which the Slave power has forced upon us; and to their demand for more Slave States, and more Slave Territory, our calm but final answer is, no more Slave States and no more Slave Territory. Let the soil of our extensive domains be kept free for the hardy pioneers of our own land, and the oppressed and banished of other lands, seeking homes of comfort and fields of enterprise in the new world.

Resolved, That the bill lately reported by the committee of eight in the Senate of the United States, was no compromise, but an absolute surrender of the rights of the Non-Slaveholders of all the States; and while we rejoice to know that a measure which, while opening the door for the introduction of Slavery into Territories now free, would also have opened the door to litigation and strife among the future inhabitants thereof, to the ruin of their peace and prosperity, was defeated in the House of Representatives, its passage, in hot haste, by a majority, embracing several senators who voted in open violation of the known will of their constituents, should warn the people to see to it, that their representatives be not suffered to betray them. There must be no more Compromises with Slavery; if made they must be repealed.

Resolved, That we demand freedom and established institutions for our brethren in Oregon, now exposed to hardships, peril and massacre by the reckless hostility of which the Slave Power to the establishment of Free Government for Free Territories; and not only for them, but for our new brethren in California and New-Mexico...

Abraham Lincoln, "A House Divided" (1858) In 1858, Abraham Lincoln, a one-term Republican member of Congress from Illinois, ran for the U.S. Senate seat from Illinois against Democratic candidate Stephen Douglas, one of the most prominent politicians in the nation. Lincoln, the relatively inexperienced candidate of a very young political party, had to tread carefully to avoid the impression of being an abolitionist while at the same time appealing to Free Soilers. This excerpt from one of Lincoln’s campaign speeches illustrates his ability to gauge public opinion without necessarily revealing his own views.

If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do and how to do it. We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object, and confident promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. "A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this government cannot endure permanently half-slave and half-free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved--I do not expect the house to fall--but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the states, old as well as new--North as well as South. Issues in the coming Election---Its relation to the Presidency. New York Daily Times (1851-1857); Sep 26, 1851; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2007) pg. 2

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Kansas Statehood Marked by Violence

Perhaps no state has had a more violent entry into the Union than Kansas. Caught up in the struggle over slavery that would soon explode into the American Civil War, Kansas was the battleground between pro- and anti-slavery forces for seven deadly years before the Blue and Gray took up arms against each other, earning Kansas Territory the nickname “Bleeding Kansas.”

Kansas was opened to settlement when Kansas Territory was formed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. To appease Southern interests, Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas inserted into the Kansas-Nebraska Act a provision for “popular sovereignty” which repealed the 1820 ban on slavery in the territories above 36 degrees, 30 minutes, and instead let the territories’ settlers decide the issue of slavery. This brought on a rush of zealous immigrants determined to settle the question of Kansas slavery according to their own interests and beliefs.

Many of the pro-slavery immigrants came from neighboring Missouri, a slave state. To counter their influence, abolitionist organizations in the North supported anti-slavery immigrants, especially those coming from New England. Henry Ward Beecher, a popular preacher and leading abolitionist, raised funds to help the Kansas immigrants (his sister, Harriet Beecher Stowe, wrote the abolitionist novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852). Beecher supplied the immigrants with Bibles, but he also furnished a second item he considered essential: advanced Sharps rifles. As he explained, “There are times when self-defence is a religious duty.” In fact, these precision rifles came to be called “Beecher’s Bibles.”

Conflict between the competing interests in Kansas grew heated, and violence broke out and escalated. The bloodshed increased the sharp divide over slavery threatening to tear the country apart, as Congress, the press, and public opinion raged over the issue. John Brown, whose raid on the U.S. Arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, (West) Virginia, startled the nation in 1859, came from the turmoil of Bleeding Kansas—as this editorial pointed out.

The abolitionists won the bloody struggle, and Kansas was admitted into the Union as the 34th state on Jan. 29, 1861, as a free state. By that time six states had already seceded from the Union. The seventh, Texas, seceded three days after Kansas gained statehood. One week later those states formed the original Confederate States of America, and after the attack on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, started the Civil War, four more states joined the Confederacy.

The nation plunged into a civil war. For Kansas, however, the war had already been going on for seven long years.

After the turmoil of Bleeding Kansas, you would think the news of Kansas finally being admitted into the Union would be big news. However, as the following two newspaper articles put into context, Kansas statehood was merely one factor in the rushing stream of events in the dizzying, confusing days of early 1861. This first article was printed by the Augusta Chronicle (Augusta, Georgia) in its Jan. 29, 1861, issue—just ten days after Georgia had seceded from the Union:

By Telegraph

Congressional

Washington, Jan. 28.—Senate.—The Hon. Mr. Iverson’s, from Georgia, withdrawal was read.

The President enclosed to the Senate peace propositions from Virginia, and urged Congress to carry out their recommendations.

The Hon. Mr. Hemphill defended the right of secession.

House.—The Virginia resolutions with the President’s recommendation was received, and they will be considered tomorrow.

Mr. Pryor made an eloquent speech in behalf of the South.

The rules were suspended and the Senate’s amendments to the Kansas bill were adopted. The bill only awaits the President’s signature to become law.

Washington Affairs—Abraham Lincoln on the Crisis

Washington, Jan. 28.—Mr. Lincoln has written private letters here, urging conciliation and compromise. He indicates that the border State resolutions afford a reasonable basis of adjustment. Immediately after the Electoral vote is counted by Congress, he will announce his view fully on [the] crisis.

The friends of the Union are greatly encouraged by the responses to Virginia’s propositions.

In the Senate today Mr. Douglas introduced amendments to the fugitive slave law, which, it is considered, will thoroughly and effectually obviate all objections to the statute.

Secretary Dix has instructed the commanders of U.S. revenue cutters, if their vessels are attacked, to make the best possible defence, but if overpowered, they must run their vessels ashore and blow them up.

He has also applied to the Governor of Louisiana in behalf of the patients, asking him to revoke the act of seizing the Government Hospital at New Orleans, and demonstrating the act as barbarous and disgraceful.

Virginia Legislature

Richmond, Jan. 28.—The Senate adopted a resolution looking to increased taxation. Resignation of a United States Judge

New Orleans, Jan. 28.—Judge McCaleb, of the United States District Court, for the district of Louisiana, has resigned, in consequence of the secession of his State.

This second article was printed by the Lowell Daily Citizen and News (Lowell, Massachusetts) in its Jan. 29, 1861, issue:

Congress

The proceedings of yesterday were important. The Kansas bill, as amended by the Senate, passed the House by 117 yeas to 42 nays, and only awaits the signature of the president to become a law. In the Senate, Mr. Iverson presented the Georgia secession ordinance, which he read, and proceeded to justify the course of his state. He said, if government made war, the South would seize all the fortifications and not pay a dollar of the public debt. (Laughter.) If coercion was attempted the South would fight, and never submit to subjection until every white man was exterminated. Cotton is king. If the government blockaded the ports, other nations would interfere. If no war ensued, the South might consider the subject of a reconstruction, but he was opposed to it. He acknowledged many courtesies, and bade the Senate farewell.

The president sent in the resolutions of Virginia, with a message commending the project of a convention of commissioners of all the states, to meet in Washington on the 4th of February. The president pleads want of power to enter into any agreement as to hostile action against seceding states, but adds—

“It is my duty at all times to defend and protect the public property within the seceding states so far as may be practicable, and especially to employ constitutional means to protect the property of the United States and preserve the public peace at this the seat of the federal government. If the seceding states abstain from any and all acts calculated to produce collision of arms, then the danger so much deprecated will no longer exist. Defense and not aggression has been the policy of the administration from the beginning.”

Some papers reported the admission of Kansas in a straightforward way, such as this article printed by the New York Herald (New York, New York) on the front page of its Jan. 31, 1861, issue:

The New State of Kansas

Washington, Jan. 30, 1861.

At ten minutes past two o’clock this afternoon the Private Secretary of the President announced to the United States House of Representatives that the name of James Buchanan had been appended to the bill admitting Kansas into the federal Union as a State. At twenty minutes of three Martin F. Conway, representative-elect from the new state, received the oath of office and took his seat. He was immediately congratulated by Mr. Parrott, delegate from the Territory, whose power ceased where Mr. Conway’s commenced, and by other members. The news was at once telegraphed by Mr. Parrott to Kansas, and the State government will go into immediate operation.

Other papers could not help but editorialize as they announced the new state of Kansas. This article was printed by the Sandusky Register (Sandusky, Ohio) in its Jan. 29, 1861, issue:

Justice at Last!

Though long delayed and wickedly delayed, Kansas has at last been admitted into the Union. Every man who loves justice and honors right will rejoice at this, even if it be the first fruits of the most inexcusable and treasonable rebellion that the sun ever shone upon. The absence of the Senators from the seceding States rendered it possible that this act of tardy justice should be done at last.

Other papers saw in Kansas statehood the settling of a simmering issue and hope for the nation to resolve its differences. This article was printed by the Daily National Intelligencer (Washington, D.C.) in its Jan. 30, 1861, issue:

Admission of Kansas

The reader of the Congressional proceedings reported in our paper yesterday will not have failed to remark that the House of Representatives has concurred in the Senate amendments made to the bill providing for the admission of Kansas into the Union. A new State has thus been added to the States of the federal Union; and, a long and angry controversy being thereby closed, let us hope that its termination may be the harbinger of a general pacification. The Republicans in Congress who have heretofore excused themselves from taking any step forward in the way of conciliation while Kansas stood excluded have now no longer that excuse to plead.

Here is another hopeful article, this one printed by the Philadelphia Inquirer (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) in its Jan. 31, 1861, issue:

The Thirty-fourth Star

The President signed the Kansas bill yesterday, and the Territory so long the source and the subject of political troubles, has come forth as a State. Her career since the Territorial organization in 1854, has been a “seven-years’ war”; now let us anticipate for her a long reign of peace and prosperity. An act of Congress provides that on the fourth day of July succeeding the admission of a new State, an additional star shall be added to the national flag. On this occasion, however, when stars are falling from the blue field of the standard, it appears that the authorities intend to observe the law regulating the stars in the flag before the specified day arrives, for our dispatches inform us that the flags on the public buildings in that city will bear today a thirty- fourth star, for Kansas.

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858 In a series of debates that focused national attention on the Illinois senatorial contest, Lincoln hammered away at the theme that Douglas was a covert defender of slavery because he was not a principled opponent of it. Douglas responded by accusing Lincoln of endangering the Union by his talk of putting slavery on the path to extinction. Denying that he was an abolitionist, Lincoln made a distinction between tolerating slavery in the South, where it was protected by the Constitution, and allowing it to expand to places where it could legally be prohibited. Restriction of slavery, he argued, had been the policy of the Founders, and it was Douglas and the Democrats who had departed from the great tradition of containing an evil that could not be immediately eliminated.

Seventh and Last Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Alton, Illinois October 15, 1858

MR. LINCOLN'S REPLY

I suppose most of us (I know it of myself) believe that the people of the Southern States are entitled to a Congressional Fugitive Slave law-that is a right fixed in the Constitution. But it cannot be made available to them without Congressional legislation. In the Judge's language, it is a "barren right" which needs legislation before it can become efficient and valuable to the persons to whom it is guarantied. And as the right is Constitutional I agree that the legislation shall be granted to it-and that not that we like the institution of slavery. We profess to have no taste for running and catching niggers-at least I profess no taste for that job at all. Why then do I yield support to a Fugitive Slave law? Because I do not understand that the Constitution, which guaranties that right, can be supported without it. And if I believed that the right to hold a slave in a Territory was equally fixed in the Constitution with the right to reclaim fugitives, I should be bound to give it the legislation necessary to support it. I say that no man can deny his obligation to give the necessary legislation to support slavery in a Territory, who believes it is a Constitutional right to have it there. No man can, who does not give the Abolitionists an argument to deny the obligation enjoined by the Constitution to enact a Fugitive Slave law. Try it now. It is the strongest Abolition argument ever made. I say if that Dred Scott decision is correct, then the right to hold slaves in a Territory is equally a Constitutional right with the right of a slaveholder to have his runaway returned. No one can show the distinction between them. The one is express, so that we cannot deny it. The other is construed to be in the Constitution, so that he who believes the decision to be correct believes in the right. And the man who argues that by unfriendly legislation, in spite of that Constitutional right, slavery may be driven from the Territories, cannot avoid furnishing an argument by which Abolitionists may deny the obligation to return fugitives, and claim the power to pass laws unfriendly to the right of the slaveholder to reclaim his fugitive. I do not know how such an argument may strike a popular assembly like this, but I defy anybody to go before a body of men whose minds are educated to estimating evidence and reasoning, and show that there is an iota of difference between the Constitutional right to reclaim a fugitive, and the Constitutional right to hold a slave, in a Territory, provided this Dred Scott decision is correct. I defy any man to make an argument that will justify unfriendly legislation to deprive a slaveholder of his right to hold his slave in a Territory, that will not equally, in all its length, breadth and thickness, furnish an argument for nullifying the Fugitive Slave law. Why, there is not such an Abolitionist in the nation as Douglas, after all. [Loud and enthusiastic applause.] MR. DOUGLAS' REPLY.

Mr. Lincoln has concluded his remarks by saying that there is not such an Abolitionist as I am in all America. (Laughter.) If he could make the Abolitionists of Illinois believe that, he would not have much show for the Senate. (Great laughter and applause.) Let him make the Abolitionists believe the truth of that statement and his political back is broken. (Renewed laughter)…

I ask you to look into these things, and then tell me whether the Democracy or the Abolitionists are right. I hold that the people of a Territory, like those of a State (I use the language of Mr. Buchanan in his letter of acceptance,) have the right to decide for themselves whether slavery shall or shall not exist within their limits. ("That's the idea," "Hurrah for Douglas.") The point upon which Chief Justice Taney expresses his opinion is simply this, that slaves being property, stand on an equal footing with other property, and consequently that the owner has the same right to carry that property into a Territory that he has any other, subject to the same conditions. Suppose that one of your merchants was to take fifty or one hundred thousand dollars' worth of liquors to Kansas. He has a right to go there under that decision, but when he gets there he finds the Maine liquor law in force, and what can he do with his property after he gets it there? He cannot sell it, he cannot use it, it is subject to the local law, and that law is against him, and the best thing he can do with it is to bring it back into Missouri or Illinois and sell it. If you take negroes to Kansas, as Col. Jeff. Davis said in his Bangor speech, from which I have quoted to-day, you must take them there subject to the local law. If the people want the institution of slavery they will protect and encourage it; but if they do not want it they will withhold that protection, and the absence of local legislation protecting slavery excludes it as completely as a positive prohibition. ("That's so," and cheers.) You slaveholders of Missouri might as well understand what you know practically, that you cannot carry slavery where the people do not want it. ("That's so.") All you have a right to ask is that the people shall do as they please; if they want slavery let them have it; if they do not want it, allow them to refuse to encourage it.

My friends, if, as I have said before, we will only live up to this great fundamental principle, there will be peace between the North and the South. Mr. Lincoln admits that under the Constitution on all domestic questions, except slavery, we ought not to interfere with the people of each State. What right have we to interfere with slavery any more than we have to interfere with any other question? He says that this slavery question is now the bone of contention. Why? Simply because agitators have combined in all the free States to make war upon it. Suppose the agitators in the States should combine in one- half of the Union to make war upon the railroad system of the other half? They would thus be driven to the same sectional strife. Suppose one section makes war upon any other peculiar institution of the opposite section, and the same strife is produced. The only remedy and safety is that we shall stand by the Constitution as our fathers made it, obey the laws as they are passed, while they stand the proper test and sustain the decisions of the Supreme Court and the constituted authorities. SLAVERY. New York Daily Times (1851-1857); Oct 10, 1851; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2007) pg. 1

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Senator Seward Denies Constitution Protects Slavery during Debate on the Compromise of 1850

Debate in the U.S. Senate over the Compromise of 1850 grew heated, as pro-slavery and abolitionist forces clashed repeatedly. Some senators argued that the U.S. Constitution protected slavery. Massachusetts senator and famed orator Daniel Webster went further, insisting in his March 7, 1850, speech that the Constitution protected the right of slave owners to hunt down, capture, and bring back into bondage any fugitive slave – and that all Northerners had a legal obligation to assist Southerners in the capture.

New York senator and committed abolitionist William Henry Seward would have none of this. Four days after Webster’s speech had caused a sensation, Seward rose on the floor of the Senate on March 11 and gave a powerful rebuttal to Webster that has come to be known as the “Higher Law” speech. Seward believed slavery was an evil no moral person could condone. While he acknowledged slavery was legal, he denied that the Constitution protected the rights of slave owners, nor coerced others to aid slave catchers.

And besides, he argued, there was a “higher law” than even the Constitution that said slavery was a wrong that should be abolished. The Daily Atlas (Boston, Massachusetts) printed Seward’s entire speech on the front page of its March 15, 1850, issue, including these passages:

All this is just and sound. But assuming the same premises, to wit – that all men are equal by the law of nature and nations, the right of property in slaves falls to the ground; for one who is equal to another cannot be the owner or property of that other. But you answer that the Constitution recognizes property in slaves. It would be sufficient then to reply, that this constitutional recognition must be void, because it is repugnant to the law of nature and of nations. But I deny that the Constitution recognizes property in men. I submit, on the other hand, most respectfully, that the Constitution not merely does not affirm that principle, but on the contrary altogether excludes it. The Constitution does not expressly affirm anything on the subject. All that it contains is two incidental allusions to slaves. These are, first, in the provision establishing a ratio of representation and taxation; second, in the provision relating to fugitives from labor. In both cases the Constitution designedly mentions slaves not as slaves, much less as chattels, but as persons. That this recognition of them as persons was designed is historically known, and I think never denied.

I deem it established then that the Constitution does not recognize property in men, but leaves that question as between the States to the law of nature and of nations. That law, as expounded by Vattel, is founded on the reason of things. When God had created the earth with its wonderful adaptations, he gave dominion over it to Man – absolute human dominion. The title thus bestowed would have been incomplete if the lord of all terrestrial things could himself have been the property of his fellow man. The right to have a slave implies the right in someone to make the slave. That right must be equal and mutual: and that would resolve society into a state of perpetual war. …The Constitution devotes the domain to union, to justice, to defence, to welfare and liberty. But there is a higher law than the Constitution, which regulates our authority over the domain, and devotes it to the same noble purposes. The territory is a part – no inconsiderable part – of the common heritage of mankind, bestowed upon them by the Creator of the universe. We are his stewards, and must so discharge our trust as to secure, in the highest attainable degree, their happiness.

…Sir, there is no Christian nation that, free to choose as we are, would establish slavery.

The Slave Crime at Syracuse. New York Daily Times (1851-1857); Oct 4, 1851; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2007) pg. 2

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The Colored Race. New York Daily Times (1851-1857); Sep 27, 1851; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2007) pg. 2

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

The North American Review, Vol. 71, No. 148 (Jul., 1850)

California and the Territorial Question: An analysis of the Congressional meeting in 1850 to resolve issues of slavery, sovereignty and government in the new territories acquired in the West.

The main question is, whether the introduction of slavery into any part of the territory recently ceded to this country by Mexico shall be directly prohibited by law. Most of the members from the Free States maintain that it ought to be so prohibited ; to oppose the diffusion of slavery seems to them a moral obligation, resulting directly from the laws of con science and of God, and, therefore, overriding all considera tions of expediency, and constituting an end to be pursued, if necessary, by the sacrifice of all other rights and interests whatsoever. The Southern members affirm, that this ceded territory is the common property of all the States, to which all the inhabitants of our country have an equal right to migrate, and to carry their property along with them ; that the Georgian has as good a right to transport his slaves thither, as the New York emigrant has to carry his domestic animals or his farming utensils ; that the existence of slavery is recog nized in the Constitution by the clause directing the surrender of fugitive slaves, and by another clause which allows three fifths of the slaves to be counted in making up the number which is requisite for sending one representative to Congress, and as the Constitution is extended over the new territory by the very act of its cession to the United States, slavery also is extended along with it ; so that the direct prohibition of slavery in this territory would be both illegal and unjust. In this way, issue is joined, and either party refuses to budge an inch from its position ; and as each possesses the power, either by its numerical majority, by infinite speech-making, or by endless calls for the yeas and nays upon frivolous motions, to prevent all legislation, not only upon this matter, but upon any other which may claim the attention of Congress, it is obvious that the disgraceful inactivity of this session may be continued for an indefinite period. Congress must either virtually cease to act, or this question must be adjusted by a compromise…

But it may be said, that the indirect consequence of prohibiting the introduction of slavery into the Territories will be to hasten the decay and fall of the institution in the States where it already exists; because, as the field of employment for slave labor in its present locality is limited, and large por tions of it are diminishing in value from exhaustion of the soil, while the number of slaves is constantly increasing, they must, finally, if prevented from migrating to a virgin soil, come to be rather a burden than a profit to their masters, who will then gladly emancipate them. To this it might be answered, that it is a very doubtful morality which urges us to do indirectly, by subterfuge or stealth, that which all admit we have no direct power to accomplish ; namely, to abolish slavery within the States where it now exists, and has existed ever since their formation.

Ridicule Heaped on Daniel Webster for Supporting Slave Catchers

One bad speech cannot destroy a great legacy, but it certainly can damage a reputation. Abolitionists recoiled when Senator Daniel Webster delivered his infamous “Plea for Harmony and Peace” speech before the U.S. Senate on March 7, 1850. Webster was convinced that unless the Compromise of 1850 was passed, the issue of slavery would tear the Union apart. Trying to placate the South, his speech insisted that the U.S. Constitution protected the rights of slave owners to capture fugitive slaves and mandated that all citizens aid in the capture.

At the time of his March 7th speech, Webster was a respected and leading politician admired for his intelligence and remarkable oratorical skill. After that speech, however, the great man began to suffer ridicule. The following sarcastic piece was printed in the May 23, 1850, issue of the Vermont Gazette (Bennington, Vermont):

Webster and Winthrop Chasing Down Fugitive Slaves

The Rev. Theodore Parker, of Boston, in a lecture before the anti-slavery Lyceum, referring to what Mr. Webster had said concerning fugitive slaves, gets up a first rate scene.

Suppose, said he, that a slave girl – if you please with a white skin, even whiter than Mr. Webster’s, and that would by no means be improbable – should make her escape from Washington, N.C., in a vessel bound to Boston, and landing at the foot of Long Wharf, should make her way up State street and meet Mr. Webster coming down; what should he do in accordance with the declaration in his speech? Should he not attempt to deliver up the fugitive? And would it not be a very interesting sight to see him giving chase to the woman; and just then to see Mr. Winthrop, also, running down Flagg Alley, “to head her off,” as we say; and soon to find the two coming up with and catching her just under the eaves of Faneuil Hall?

Readers in 1850 would have been aware of the significance of the many references in this short piece. For example, the allusion to Mr. Webster’s skin: he was known for having a dark complexion. The fictional slave girl escapes from Washington, North Carolina; that city, established in the year of the Declaration of Independence, 1776, was the first city named after George Washington. The reference to Mr. Winthrop is Robert Charles Winthrop, a friend of Webster’s with whom he had studied law; Winthrop, a congressman from Massachusetts, was disliked by abolitionists who resented his lukewarm support for their cause. He was appointed to replace Webster in the Senate when the latter resigned to become Secretary of State in July of 1850, but was defeated by abolitionist forces when he ran for the Senate on his own merits in 1851. Finally, the piece ends with the slave girl’s capture next to Faneuil Hall; this famous building, a meeting hall since 1742, had been the site of many rousing speeches during the days when America broke with Great Britain and declared its own freedom.

Daniel Webster: Speech to the U.S. Senate in Favor of the Compromise of 1850 (March 7, 1850) Following the Mexican War, the United States acquired the territories of New Mexico and California (including present-day Utah) in the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Without waiting for federal approval, the inhabitants of California called a convention, framed a constitution that prohibited slavery, and applied to Congress for admission as a state. The questions of whether (1) California should be admitted as a free state and (2) slavery should be allowed in New Mexico and Utah generated a great deal of controversy both within Congress and throughout the nation. Leading southern legislators threatened to dissolve the Union unless slavery was permitted in the territories acquired from Mexico. On January 29, 1850, Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky proposed a "comprehensive scheme of compromise" that included (1) the admission of California as a free state; (2) the establishment of territorial governments in New Mexico and Utah without any slavery restriction; (3) a settlement of the boundary between Texas and New Mexico; (4) an indemnity to be paid to Texas for the relinquishment of its claims to a large portion of New Mexico; (5) a declaration that slavery should not be abolished in the District of Columbia; (6) the prohibition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia; and (7) a more effective fugitive slave law. Clay's collection of legislation became known as the Compromise of 1850. Its passage by Congress delayed the onset of the Civil War for 11 years. The passage below is excerpted from a much longer speech delivered by Senator Daniel Webster of Massachusetts.

Mr. President, - I wish to speak to-day, not as a Massachusetts man, nor as a Northern man, but as an American, and a member of the Senate of the United States. It is fortunate that there is a Senate of the United States; a body not yet moved from its propriety, not lost to a just sense of its own dignity and its own high responsibilities, and a body to which the country looks, with confidence, for wise, moderate, patriotic, and healing counsels. It is not to be denied that we live in the midst of strong agitations, and are surrounded by very considerable dangers to our institutions and government. The imprisoned winds are let loose… I speak to-day for the preservation of the Union. "Hear me for my cause." I speak to-day, out of a solicitous and anxious heart for the restoration to the country of that quiet and that harmony which make the blessings of this Union so rich, and so dear to us all. These are the topics that I propose to myself to discuss; these are the motives, and the sole motives, that influence me in the wish to communicate my opinions to the Senate and the country; and if I can do anything, however little, for the promotion of these ends, I shall have accomplished all that I expect. . .

It is said on the one side, that, although not the subject of any injunction or direct prohibition in the New Testament, slavery is a wrong; that it is founded merely in the right of the strongest; and that it is an oppression, like unjust wars, like all those conflicts by which a powerful nation subjects a weaker to its will; and that, in its nature, whatever may be said of it in the modifications which have taken place, it is not according to the meek spirit of the Gospel. It is not "kindly affection"; it does not "seek another's, and not its own"; it does not "let the oppressed go free." These are sentiments that are cherished, and of late with greatly augmented force, among the people of the Northern States. They have taken hold of the religious sentiment of that part of the country, as they have, more or less, taken hold of the religious feelings of a considerable portion of mankind.

The South, upon the other side, having been accustomed to this relation between the two races all their lives, from their birth, having been taught, in general, to treat the subjects of this bondage with care and kindness, and I believe, in general, feeling great kindness for them, have not taken the view of the subject which I have mentioned. There are thousands of religious men, with consciences as tender as any of their brethren at the North, who do not see the unlawfulness of slavery; and there are more thousands, perhaps, that, whatsoever they may think of it in its origin, and as a matter depending upon natural right, yet take things as they are, and finding slavery to be an established relation of the society in which they live, can see no way in which, let their opinions on the abstract question be what they may, it is in the power of the present generation to relieve themselves from this relation. And candor obliges me to say, that I believe they are just as conscientious, many of them, and the religious people, all of them, as they are at the North who hold different opinions. . .

But we must view things as they are. Slavery does exist in the United States. It did exist in the States before the adoption of this Constitution, and at that time. Let us, therefore, consider for a moment what was the state of sentiment, North and South, in regard to slavery, at the time this Constitution was adopted. A remarkable change has taken place since; but what did the wise and great men of all parts of the country think of slavery then? In what estimation did they hold it at the time when this Constitution was adopted? It will be found, Sir, if we will carry ourselves by historical research back to that day, and ascertain men's opinions by authentic records still existing among us, that there was then no diversity of opinion between the North and south upon the subject of slavery. It will be found that both parts of the country held it equally an evil, a moral and political evil. It will not be found that, either at the North or at the South, there was much, though there was some, invective against slavery as inhuman and cruel… They are matters of history on the record. The eminent men, the most eminent men, and nearly all the conspicuous politicians of the South, held the same sentiments; that slavery was an evil, a blight, a scourge, and a curse. There are no terms of reprobation of slavery so vehement in the North at that day as in the South. The North was not so much excited against it as the South; and the reason is, I suppose, that there was much less of it at the North, and the people did not see, or think they saw, the evils so prominently as they were seen, or thought to be seen, at the South.

You observe, Sir, that the term slave, or slavery, is not used in the Constitution. The Constitution does not require that "fugitive slaves" shall be delivered up. It requires that persons held to service in one State, and escaping into another, shall be delivered up. Mr. Madison opposed the introduction of the term slave, or slavery, into the Constitution; for he said that he did not wish to see it recognized by the Constitution of the United States of America that there could be property in men. . .

And now, Mr. President, instead of speaking of the possibility or utility of secession, instead of dwelling in those caverns of darkness, instead of groping with those ideas so full of all that is horrid and horrible, let us come out into the light of day; let us enjoy the fresh air of Liberty and Union… No monarchical throne presses these States together, no iron chain of military power encircles them; they live and stand under a government popular in its form, representative in its character, founded upon principles of equality, and so constructed, we hope, as to last for ever. In all its history it has been beneficent; it has trodden down no man's liberty; it has crushed no State. Its daily respiration is liberty and patriotism; its yet youthful veins are full of enterprise, courage, and honorable love of glory and renown. Large before, the country has now, by recent events become vastly larger. This republic now extends, with a vast breadth, across the whole continent. The two great seas of the world wash the one and the other shore. We realize, on a mighty scale, the beautiful description of the ornamental border of the buckler of Achilles: - Wilmot's Proviso [ushistory.org] 10/27/11 9:57 AM

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How California Came to be Admitted This article discusses Cite This Page Share Your Thoughts the question of whether California should be admitted to the Union as a slave or free state, 30a. Wilmot's Proviso from the Californians' point of view. Included By the standards of his day, DAVID WILMOT could be are excerpts from three considered a racist. leading California newspapers of the day, and statements made Yet the Pennsylvania representative was so adamantly by representatives to against the extension of slavery to lands ceded by the convention that drafted California's Mexico, he made a proposition that would divide the constitution. Congress. On August 8, 1846, Wilmot introduced Report broken link legislation in the House that boldly declared, "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist" in David Wilmot lands won in the Mexican-American War. If he was not Politics and Poetry: proposal divided both Whitman's Leaves of parties along opposed to slavery, why would Wilmot propose such Grass and the Social sectional lines. an action? Why would the north, which only contained Crisis of the 1850s Poet Walt Whitman was a small, but growing minority, of abolitionists, agree? an anti-extensionist who publicly supported the Wilmot Proviso, and he was a delegate to Provided, That, as an express and fundamental condition to the acquisition of the Free Soil any territory from the Republic of Mexico by the United States, by virtue of any Convention in Buffalo, New York, in 1848. This treaty which may be negotiated between them, and to the use by the Executive of essay by Whitman the moneys herein appropriated, neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever biographer David exist in any part of said territory, except for crime, whereof the party shall first be Reynolds looks at Whitman's responses in duly convicted. writing and in action to – The Wilmot Proviso, 1846 the social issues of the mid-1800s. mid

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The Wilmot Proviso, 1846 The text of the Wilmot Proviso is provided in full (all 71 words) at this webpage from Mt. Holyoke College.

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David Wilmot Argues for a Free California David Wilmot was a walking paradox –- a slavery advocate who believed the new lands The status of the territories regarding slavery had not been decided by won by America should the beginning of the Mexican War. Even before the war ended the issue be free. While understanding this of slavery in the region of the Mexican Cession was a hot-button philosophy is difficult, it political issue. becomes easier when the man's explanation is Wilmot and other northerners were angered by President Polk. They felt that read. This website provides the transcript the entire Cabinet and national agenda were dominated by southern minds of Wilmot's argument as http://www.ushistory.org/us/30a.asp Page 1 of 2 Wilmot's Proviso [ushistory.org] 10/27/11 9:57 AM

he defends his desire to and southern principles. Polk was willing to fight for southern territory, but make California free territory. proved willing to compromise when it came to the north. Polk had lowered the

Report broken link tariff and denied funds for internal improvements, both to the dismay of northerners. Now they felt a war was being fought to extend the southern way of life. The term "SLAVE POWER" jumped off the lips of northern As a part of Mexico, lawmakers when they angrily referred to their southern colleagues. It was which abolished slavery in 1829, California had time for northerners to be heard. no slave tradition, and its citizens saw no reason to import one. But there were many other reasons that 4 out of 5 Californians insisted on admission as a free state. Learn More...

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Salmon P. Chase, commemorated on the $10,000 bill, founded the Free Former President Soil Party in 1848. This party advocated an end to the spread of Martin Van Buren split from the Democratic American slavery and elected 14 representatives and two senators to Party over the slavery the federal government. issue and ran for President as the Free Though Wilmot's heart did not bleed for the slave, he envisioned California as Soil candidate in 1848. Learn More... a place where free white Pennsylvanians could work without the competition

Report broken link of slave labor. Since the north was more populous and had more Representatives in the House, the Wilmot Proviso passed. Laws require the approval of both houses of Congress, however. The Senate, equally divided

between free states and slave states could not muster the majority necessary

for approval. Angrily the House passed WILMOT'S PROVISO several times, all to no avail. It would never become law.

For years, the arguments for and against slavery were debated in the churches and in the newspapers. The House of Representatives had passed a gag rule forbidding the discussion of slavery for much of the previous decade. The issue could no longer be avoided. Lawmakers in the House and Senate, north and south, would have to stand up and be counted.

http://www.ushistory.org/us/30a.asp Page 2 of 2 Southern Sources John C. Calhoun, Proposal to Preserve the Union (1850) In the antebellum period, Senator John C. Calhoun was one of the most ardent advocates of states’ rights. Already in the great debates of the Jacksonian era, Calhoun had combated federal tariff legislation by arguing that the states enjoyed the right to nullify, or declare ineffective, certain pieces of federal legislation. In the ensuing years, Calhoun became increasingly strident in his defense of southern particularity. In this speech, delivered in 1850, Calhoun summarized his views on the present condition of the Union and his fears for the future.

I have, Senators, believed from the first that the agitation of the subject of slavery would, if not prevented by some timely and effective measure, end in disunion. . . . The agitation has been permitted to proceed, with almost no attempt to resist it, until it has reached a period when it can no longer be disguised or denied that the Union is in danger. You have thus had forced upon you the greatest and the gravest question that can ever come under your consideration: How can the Union be preserved?

. . . The first question, then, presented for consideration, in the investigation I propose to make, in order to obtain such knowledge, is: What is it that has endangered the Union?

To this question there can be but one answer: That the immediate cause is the almost universal discontent which pervades all the States composing the southern section of the Union. . . .

It is a great mistake to suppose, as is by some, that it originated with demagogues. . . . No; some cause, far deeper and more powerful than the one supposed must exist to account for discontent so wide and deep. The question, then, recurs: What is the cause of this discontent? It will be found in the belief of the people of the southern States, as prevalent as the discontent itself, that they cannot remain, as things now are, consistently with honor and safety, in the Union. The next question to be considered is: What has caused this belief?

One of the causes is, undoubtedly, to be traced to the long-continued agitation of the slave question on the part of the North, and the many aggressions which they have made on the rights of the South during the time. . . .

There is another, lying back of it, with which this is intimately connected, that may be regarded as the great and primary cause. That is to be found in the fact that the equilibrium between the two sections in the Government, as it stood when the Constitution was ratified and the Government put in action has been destroyed. At that time there was nearly a perfect equilibrium between the two, which afforded ample means to each to protect itself against the aggression of the other; but, as it now stands, one section has the exclusive power of controlling the Government, which leaves the other without any adequate means of protecting itself against its encroachment and oppression. . . .

[The] great increase of Senators, added to the great increase of the House of Representatives and the electoral college on the part of the North, which must take place under the next decade, will effectually and irretrievably destroy the equilibrium which existed when the Government commenced. . . .

What was once a constitutional federal republic is now converted, in reality, into one as absolute as that of the Autocrat of Russia, and as despotic in its tendency as any absolute Government that ever existed.

As, then, the North has the absolute control over the Government, it is manifest that on all questions between it and the South, where there is a diversity of interests, the interests of the latter will be sacrificed to the former, however oppressive the effects may be. . . . But if there was no question of vital importance to the South, in reference to which there was a diversity of views between the two sections, this state of things might be endured without the hazard of destruction to the South. But such is not the fact. . . .

I refer to the relation between the two races in the southern section, which constitutes a vital portion of her social organization. Every portion of the North entertains views and feelings more or less hostile to it. . . .

If the agitation goes on, the same force, acting with increased intensity, as has been shown, will finally snap every cord, when nothing will be left to bind the States together except force. . . .

How can the Union be saved? To this I answer, there is but one way by which it can be, and that is by adopting such measures as will satisfy the States belonging to the southern section that they can remain in the Union consistently with their honor and their safety. Mr. Calhoun's Opinions. New York Daily Times (1851-1857); Sep 26, 1851; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2007) pg. 2

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Pro Slavery Argument from Cannibals All! Cannibals All! By George Fitzhugh (1806-1881) was published in 1857, the same year as the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision. The book owes both its title and much of its intellectual foundation to the British social critic and historian Thomas Carlyle. The book’s central theme was that the black slaves of the south were considerably freer than northern whites that were entrapped by the oppressive system of free labor. Fitzhugh. A native of Virginia, he married Mary Brockenbrough of Port Royal, Virginia and after their marriage he inherited several of her slaves and moved into her home a somewhat ram shackled plantation. Together they had nine children, but Fitzhugh drifted from occupation to occupation practicing law for a time and working for the Confederate Treasury Department during the Civil War. However he was read widely throughout the South both as a pamphleteer and as a correspondent for the Richmond Enquirer, and the influential southern periodical, De Bow’s Review. He also published another book entitled Sociology for the South: or the Failure of a Free Society in 1855.

Excerpt

We are all, North and South, engaged in the White Slave Trade, and he who succeeds best is esteemed most respectable. It is far more cruel than the Black Slave Trade, because it exacts more of its slaves, and neither protects nor governs them. We boast that it exacts more when we say, “that the profits made from employing free labor are greater than those from slave labor.” The profits, made from free labor, are the amount of the products of such labor, which the employer, by means of the command which capital or skill gives him, takes away, exacts, or “expatiates” from the fee laborer. The profits of slave labor are that portion of the products of such labor, which the power of the master enables him to appropriate. These profits are less, because the master allows the slave to retain a larger share of the results of his own labor than do the employers of free labor…

When the day’s labor is ended, he is free, but is overburdened with the cares of family and household, which makes his freedom an empty and delusive mockery…The Negro slave is free, too, when the labors of the day are over, and free in mind as well as body; for the master provides food, raiment, house, fuel and everything else necessary to the physical well-being of himself and his family.

The Negro slaves of the South are the happiest, and, in some sense, the freest people in the world. The children and the aged and infirm work not at all, and yet have all the comforts and necessaries of life provided for them. They enjoy liberty, because they are oppressed neither by care nor labor. The women do little hard work, and are protected from the despotism of their husband by their masters. The Negro men and stout boys work, on the average, in good weather, not more than nine hours a day. The balance of their time is spent in perfect abandon. The free laborer must work or starve. He is more a slave than the Negro because he works longer and harder for less allowance than the slave, and has no holiday, because the cares of his life with him begin when its labors end. He has no liberty, and not a single right. Henry Clay, Speech before the U.S. Senate (January 29, 1850) In the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of February 1848, Mexico ceded California and the territory of New Mexico (including present-day Utah, Arizona, and Nevada) to the United States. Without waiting for federal approval, the inhabitants of California called a convention in which they framed a constitution that prohibited slavery. They then applied to Congress for admission as a state. The questions of whether (a) California should be admitted as a free state and (b) slavery should be permitted in New Mexico and Utah generated great controversy both within Congress and throughout the nation. Leading southern legislators threatened to dissolve the Union unless slavery was admitted into the newly acquired territories. On January 29, 1850, Senator Henry Clay proposed a "comprehensive scheme of compromise" that included the following stipulations: (1) the admission of California as a state, (2) the establishment of territorial governments in New Mexico and Utah without any slavery restrictions, (3) the settlement of the boundary line between Texas and New Mexico, (4) an indemnity to be paid to Texas for relinquishing its claims to a large portion of New Mexico, (5) a declaration that slavery should not be abolished in the District of Columbia, (6) the prohibition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia, and (7) a more stringent fugitive slave law. Clay’s collection of legislative proposals became known as the Compromise of 1850, and its passage postponed the outbreak of the Civil War for another eleven years.

I am directly opposed to any purpose of secession, of separation. I am for staying with the Union, and defying any portion of this Union to expel or drive me out of the Union. I am for staying within the Union and fighting for my rights -- if necessary, with the sword -- within the bounds and under the safeguard of the Union. I am for vindicating these rights; but not by being driven out of the Union rashly and unceremoniously by any portion of this confederacy. Here I am within it, and here I mean to stand and die -- as far as my individual purposes or wishes can go -- within it to protect myself, and to defy all power upon earth to expel me or drive me from the situation in which I am placed. Will there not be more safety in fighting within the Union than without it? ...

I think that the Constitution of the thirteen states was made not merely for the generation which then existed but for posterity, undefined, unlimited, permanent, and perpetual; for their prosperity; and for every subsequent state which might come into the Union, binding themselves by that indissoluble bond.... The dissolution of the Union and war are identical and inseparable; they are convertible terms. Election Results of 1848 and 1852

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George Freeman – Protestant minister and pro-slavery advocate

The following document excerpts are from a sermon given by George Freeman, a Protestant minister and pro-slavery advocate. The words used by Freeman offer insight into the argument used by religious leaders to advocate for slavery.

"Slavery, it appears, is of great antiquity. It has existed in the world, in some form or other, even from the times immediately following, if not before the flood. It may be regarded as one of the penal consequences of sin--an effect of that doom pronounced upon the human race in consequence of the disobedience of our first parents, whereby perpetual labour was entailed upon man as the only means of sustaining life--"Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. In the swat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground."

"To such a state of things had the world advanced long before the establishment of the Mosaic Institutions. Subordination in society existed everywhere. Servitude was recognized as a necessary condition, and patiently, if not cheerfully, submitted to, in every variety of form. Patriarchs, or heads of families, held in subjection to their authority, not only the inferior branches of their respective tribes, together with their hired labourers and menials, but also servants "bought with their money," or "born in their houses"--that is, slaves.* (See Genesis xiv. 24, 25--svi. 6,90--xvii. 12. 13.)"

Issues in the coming Election---Its relation to the Presidency. New York Daily Times (1851-1857); Sep 26, 1851; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2007) pg. 2

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Kansas Statehood Marked by Violence

The nation plunged into a civil war. For Kansas, however, the war had already been going on for seven long years.

By Telegraph

Congressional

Washington, Jan. 28.—Senate.—The Hon. Mr. Iverson’s, from Georgia, withdrawal was read.

The President enclosed to the Senate peace propositions from Virginia, and urged Congress to carry out their recommendations.

The Hon. Mr. Hemphill defended the right of secession.

House.—The Virginia resolutions with the President’s recommendation was received, and they will be considered tomorrow.

Mr. Pryor made an eloquent speech in behalf of the South.

The rules were suspended and the Senate’s amendments to the Kansas bill were adopted. The bill only awaits the President’s signature to become law.

Washington Affairs—Abraham Lincoln on the Crisis

The friends of the Union are greatly encouraged by the responses to Virginia’s propositions.

In the Senate today Mr. Douglas introduced amendments to the fugitive slave law, which, it is considered, will thoroughly and effectually obviate all objections to the statute.

Virginia Legislature

Richmond, Jan. 28.—The Senate adopted a resolution looking to increased taxation. Resignation of a United States Judge

New Orleans, Jan. 28.—Judge McCaleb, of the United States District Court, for the district of Louisiana, has resigned, in consequence of the secession of his State.

This second article was printed by the Lowell Daily Citizen and News (Lowell, Massachusetts) in its Jan. 29, 1861, issue:

Congress

Some papers reported the admission of Kansas in a straightforward way, such as this article printed by the New York Herald (New York, New York) on the front page of its Jan. 31, 1861, issue:

The New State of Kansas

Washington, Jan. 30, 1861.

Other papers could not help but editorialize as they announced the new state of Kansas. This article was printed by the Sandusky Register (Sandusky, Ohio) in its Jan. 29, 1861, issue:

Justice at Last!

Admission of Kansas

Here is another hopeful article, this one printed by the Philadelphia Inquirer (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) in its Jan. 31, 1861, issue:

The Thirty-fourth Star

Seventh and Last Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Alton, Illinois October 15, 1858

MR. LINCOLN'S REPLY

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Opinion of the Supreme Court for Dred Scott v. Sanford(1857) Dred Scott was a slave whose master had taken him to Illinois and the Wisconsin Territory, both of which prohibited slavery, before moving to Missouri, a slave state. In Missouri, Scott sued to gain his freedom. He argued that because his master had taken him to free states, he was no longer a slave. Scott fought his case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where he ultimately lost. Beyond Scott’s individual fate, the court’s decision had serious consequences for the fate of slaves, free African Americans, and the abolitionist cause in general. Not only the court’s judgment, but also the opinions of each of the justices, damaged the abolitionist cause. Particularly damning was the decision of Chief Justice Roger Taney, excerpted below.

Chief Justice Roger B. Taney: The Question is simply this: Can a negro, whose ancestors were imported into this country, and sold as slaves, become a member of the political community formed and brought into existence by the Constitution of the United States, and as such become entitled to all the rights, and privileges, and immunities, guarantied [sic] by that instrument to the citizen? One of which rights is the privilege of suing in a court of the United States in the cases specified in the constitution.

. . . The only matter in issue before the Court, therefore, is, whether the descendants of such slaves, when they shall be emancipated, or who are born of parents who had become free before their birth, are citizens of a State, in the sense which the word citizen is used in the Constitution.

. . .The words "people of the United States" and "citizens" are synonymous terms. . . . They both describe the political body who, according to our republican institutions, form the sovereignty, and who hold the power and conduct the government through their representatives. . . . The question before us is, whether the class of persons described in the plea in abatement compose a portion of this people, and are constituent members of this sovereignty? We think they are not, under the word "citizens" in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States. On the contrary, they were at that time considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings, who had been subjugated by the dominant race, and whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the government might choose to grant them. . . .

In discussing the question, we must not confound the rights of citizenship which a State may confer within its own limits, and the rights of citizenship as a member of the Union. It does not by any means follow, because he has all the rights and privileges of a citizen of a State, that he must be a citizen of the United States. . . .

In the opinion of the court, the legislation and histories of the times, and the language used in the Declaration of Independence, show, that neither the class of persons who had been imported as slaves, nor their descendants, whether they had become free or not, were then acknowledged as a part of the people, nor intended to be included in the general words used in that memorable instrument. . . . They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit. . . .

. . . there are two clauses in the constitution which point directly and specifically to the negro race as a separate class of persons, and show clearly that they were not regarded as a portion of the people or citizens of the government then formed.

. . . upon full and careful consideration of the subject, the court is of opinion, that, upon the facts stated. . . , Dred Scott was not a citizen of Missouri within the meaning of the constitution of the United States and not entitled as such to sue in its courts. . . . The Slave Crime at Syracuse. New York Daily Times (1851-1857); Oct 4, 1851; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2007) pg. 2

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The Fugitive Slave Act (1850) As a result of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848, the United States acquired territory that included the present-day states of New Mexico, Utah, and California. Without waiting for federal approval, the inhabitants of California organized a convention that framed a constitution in which slavery was prohibited. California then applied to Congress for admission as a state. The questions of whether California should be admitted as a free state and whether slavery should be permitted in New Mexico and Utah generated great excitement both in Congress and throughout the nation. Leading southern legislators threatened to dissolve the Union unless slavery was admitted into the territories. On 29 January, 1850, Senator Henry Clay proposed a "comprehensive scheme of compromise" that included (1) the admission of California as a state, (2) the establishment of territorial governments in New Mexico and Utah without any slavery restriction, (3) a settlement of the boundary between Texas and New Mexico, (4) an indemnity to be paid to Texas for relinquishing their claims to a large portion of New Mexico, (5) a declaration that slavery should not be abolished in the District of Columbia, (6) the prohibition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia, and (7) a more effective fugitive slave law. Clay’s collection of legislation became known as the Compromise of 1850. By adopting the Compromise, Congress managed to postpone the onset of the Civil War for another eleven years. The reading below is the Fugitive Slave Act that was passed by Congress as part of the Compromise.

Section 1

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the persons who have been, or may hereafter be, appointed commissioners, in virtue of any act of Congress, by the Circuit Courts of the United States, and Who, in consequence of such appointment, are authorized to exercise the powers that any justice of the peace, or other magistrate of any of the United States, may exercise in respect to offenders for any crime or offense against the United States, by arresting, imprisoning, or bailing the same under and by the virtue of the thirty-third section of the act of the twenty-fourth of September seventeen hundred and eighty-nine, entitled "An Act to establish the judicial courts of the United States" shall be, and are hereby, authorized and required to exercise and discharge all the powers and duties conferred by this act.

Section 2

And be it further enacted, That the Superior Court of each organized Territory of the United States shall have the same power to appoint commissioners to take acknowledgments of bail and affidavits, and to take depositions of witnesses in civil causes, which is now possessed by the Circuit Court of the United States; and all commissioners who shall hereafter be appointed for such purposes by the Superior Court of any organized Territory of the United States, shall possess all the powers, and exercise all the duties, conferred by law upon the commissioners appointed by the Circuit Courts of the United States for similar purposes, and shall moreover exercise and discharge all the powers and duties conferred by this act. Section 3

And be it further enacted, That the Circuit Courts of the United States shall from time to time enlarge the number of the commissioners, with a view to afford reasonable facilities to reclaim fugitives from labor, and to the prompt discharge of the duties imposed by this act.

Section 4

And be it further enacted, That the commissioners above named shall have concurrent jurisdiction with the judges of the Circuit and District Courts of the United States, in their respective circuits and districts within the several States, and the judges of the Superior Courts of the Territories, severally and collectively, in term-time and vacation; shall grant certificates to such claimants, upon satisfactory proof being made, with authority to take and remove such fugitives from service or labor, under the restrictions herein contained, to the State or Territory from which such persons may have escaped or fled.

Section 5

And be it further enacted, That it shall be the duty of all marshals and deputy marshals to obey and execute all warrants and precepts issued under the provisions of this act, when to them directed; and should any marshal or deputy marshal refuse to receive such warrant, or other process, when tendered, or to use all proper means diligently to execute the same, he shall, on conviction thereof, be fined in the sum of one thousand dollars, to the use of such claimant, on the motion of such claimant, by the Circuit or District Court for the district of such marshal; and after arrest of such fugitive, by such marshal or his deputy, or whilst at any time in his custody under the provisions of this act, should such fugitive escape, whether with or without the assent of such marshal or his deputy, such marshal shall be liable, on his official bond, to be prosecuted for the benefit of such claimant, for the full value of the service or labor of said fugitive in the State, Territory, or District whence he escaped: and the better to enable the said commissioners, when thus appointed, to execute their duties faithfully and efficiently, in conformity with the requirements of the Constitution of the United States and of this act, they are hereby authorized and empowered, within their counties respectively, to appoint, in writing under their hands, any one or more suitable persons, from time to time, to execute all such warrants and other process as may be issued by them in the lawful performance of their respective duties; with authority to such commissioners, or the persons to be appointed by them, to execute process as aforesaid, to summon and call to their aid the bystanders, or posse comitatus of the proper county, when necessary to ensure a faithful observance of the clause of the Constitution referred to, in conformity with the provisions of this act; and all good citizens are hereby commanded to aid and assist in the prompt and efficient execution of this law, whenever their services may be required, as aforesaid, for that purpose; and said warrants shall run, and be executed by said officers, any where in the State within which they are issued.

Section 6 And be it further enacted, That when a person held to service or labor in any State or Territory of the United States, has heretofore or shall hereafter escape into another State or Territory of the United States, the person or persons to whom such service or labor may be due, or his, her, or their agent or attorney, duly authorized, by power of attorney, in writing, acknowledged and certified under the seal of some legal officer or court of the State or Territory in which the same may be executed, may pursue and reclaim such fugitive person, either by procuring a warrant from some one of the courts, judges, or commissioners aforesaid, of the proper circuit, district, or county, for the apprehension of such fugitive from service or labor, or by seizing and arresting such fugitive, where the same can be done without process, and by taking, or causing such person to be taken, forthwith before such court, judge, or commissioner, whose duty it shall be to hear and determine the case of such claimant in a summary manner; and upon satisfactory proof being made, by deposition or affidavit, in writing, to be taken and certified by such court, judge, or commissioner, or by other satisfactory testimony, duly taken and certified by some court, magistrate, justice of the peace, or other legal officer authorized to administer an oath and take depositions under the laws of the State or Territory from which such person owing service or labor may have escaped, with a certificate of such magistracy or other authority, as aforesaid, with the seal of the proper court or officer thereto attached, which seal shall be sufficient to establish the competency of the proof, and with proof, also by affidavit, of the identity of the person whose service or labor is claimed to be due as aforesaid, that the person so arrested does in fact owe service or labor to the person or persons claiming him or her, in the State or Territory from which such fugitive may have escaped as aforesaid, and that said person escaped, to make out and deliver to such claimant, his or her agent or attorney, a certificate setting forth the substantial facts as to the service or labor due from such fugitive to the claimant, and of his or her escape from the State or Territory in which he or she was arrested, with authority to such claimant, or his or her agent or attorney, to use such reasonable force and restraint as may be necessary, under the circumstances of the case, to take and remove such fugitive person back to the State or Territory whence he or she may have escaped as aforesaid. In no trial or hearing under this act shall the testimony of such alleged fugitive be admitted in evidence; and the certificates in this and the first [fourth] section mentioned, shall be conclusive of the right of the person or persons in whose favor granted, to remove such fugitive to the State or Territory from which he escaped, and shall prevent all molestation of such person or persons by any process issued by any court, judge, magistrate, or other person whomsoever.

Section 7

And be it further enacted, That any person who shall knowingly and willingly obstruct, hinder, or prevent such claimant, his agent or attorney, or any person or persons lawfully assisting him, her, or them, from arresting such a fugitive from service or labor, either with or without process as aforesaid, or shall rescue, or attempt to rescue, such fugitive from service or labor, from the custody of such claimant, his or her agent or attorney, or other person or persons lawfully assisting as aforesaid, when so arrested, pursuant to the authority herein given and declared; or shall aid, abet, or assist such person so owing service or labor as aforesaid, directly or indirectly, to escape from such claimant, his agent or attorney, or other person or persons legally authorized as aforesaid; or shall harbor or conceal such fugitive, so as to prevent the discovery and arrest of such person, after notice or knowledge of the fact that such person was a fugitive from service or labor as aforesaid, shall, for either of said offences, be subject to a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, and imprisonment not exceeding six months, by indictment and conviction before the District Court of the United States for the district in which such offence may have been committed, or before the proper court of criminal jurisdiction, if committed within any one of the organized Territories of the United States; and shall moreover forfeit and pay, by way of civil damages to the party injured by such illegal conduct, the sum of one thousand dollars for each fugitive so lost as aforesaid, to be recovered by action of debt, in any of the District or Territorial Courts aforesaid, within whose jurisdiction the said offence may have been committed.

Section 8

And be it further enacted, That the marshals, their deputies, and the clerks of the said District and Territorial Courts, shall be paid, for their services, the like fees as may be allowed for similar services in other cases; and where such services are rendered exclusively in the arrest, custody, and delivery of the fugitive to the claimant, his or her agent or attorney, or where such supposed fugitive may be discharged out of custody for the want of sufficient proof as aforesaid, then such fees are to be paid in whole by such claimant, his or her agent or attorney; and in all cases where the proceedings are before a commissioner, he shall be entitled to a fee of ten dollars in full for his services in each case, upon the delivery of the said certificate to the claimant, his agent or attorney; or a fee of five dollars in cases where the proof shall not, in the opinion of such commissioner, warrant such certificate and delivery, inclusive of all services incident to such arrest and examination, to be paid, in either case, by the claimant, his or her agent or attorney. The person or persons authorized to execute the process to be issued by such commissioner for the arrest and detention of fugitives from service or labor as aforesaid, shall also be entitled to a fee of five dollars each for each person he or they may arrest, and take before any commissioner as aforesaid, at the instance and request of such claimant, with such other fees as may be deemed reasonable by such commissioner for such other additional services as may be necessarily performed by him or them; such as attending at the examination, keeping the fugitive in custody, and providing him with food and lodging during his detention, and until the final determination of such commissioners; and, in general, for performing such other duties as may be required by such claimant, his or her attorney or agent, or commissioner in the premises, such fees to be made up in conformity with the fees usually charged by the officers of the courts of justice within the proper district or county, as near as may be practicable, and paid by such claimants, their agents or attorneys, whether such supposed fugitives from service or labor be ordered to be delivered to such claimant by the final determination of such commissioner or not.

Section 9

And be it further enacted, That, upon affidavit made by the claimant of such fugitive, his agent or attorney, after such certificate has been issued, that he has reason to apprehend that such fugitive will he rescued by force from his or their possession before he can be taken beyond the limits of the State in which the arrest is made, it shall be the duty of the officer making the arrest to retain such fugitive in his custody, and to remove him to the State whence he fled, and there to deliver him to said claimant, his agent, or attorney. And to this end, the officer aforesaid is hereby authorized and required to employ so many persons as he may deem necessary to overcome such force, and to retain them in his service so long as circumstances may require. The said officer and his assistants, while so employed, to receive the same compensation, and to be allowed the same expenses, as are now allowed by law for transportation of criminals, to be certified by the judge of the district within which the arrest is made, and paid out of the treasury of the United States.

Section 10

And be it further enacted, That when any person held to service or labor in any State or Territory, or in the District of Columbia, shall escape therefrom, the party to whom such service or labor shall be due, his, her, or their agent or attorney, may apply to any court of record therein, or judge thereof in vacation, and make satisfactory proof to such court, or judge in vacation, of the escape aforesaid, and that the person escaping owed service or labor to such party. Whereupon the court shall cause a record to be made of the matters so proved, and also a general description of the person so escaping, with such convenient certainty as may be; and a transcript of such record, authenticated by the attestation of the clerk and of the seal of the said court, being produced in any other State, Territory, or district in which the person so escaping may be found, and being exhibited to any judge, commissioner, or other office, authorized by the law of the United States to cause persons escaping from service or labor to be delivered up, shall be held and taken to be full and conclusive evidence of the fact of escape, and that the service or labor of the person escaping is due to the party in such record mentioned. And upon the production by the said party of other and further evidence if necessary, either oral or by affidavit, in addition to what is contained in the said record of the identity of the person escaping, he or she shall be delivered up to the claimant, And the said court, commissioner, judge, or other person authorized by this act to grant certificates to claimants or fugitives, shall, upon the production of the record and other evidences aforesaid, grant to such claimant a certificate of his right to take any such person identified and proved to be owing service or labor as aforesaid, which certificate shall authorize such claimant to seize or arrest and transport such person to the State or Territory from which he escaped: Provided, That nothing herein contained shall be construed as requiring the production of a transcript of such record as evidence as aforesaid. But in its absence the claim shall be heard and determined upon other satisfactory proofs, competent in law.

Approved, September 18, 1850.

The North American Review, Vol. 71, No. 148 (Jul., 1850)

California and the Territorial Question: An analysis of the Congressional meeting in 1850 to resolve issues of slavery, sovereignty and government in the new territories acquired in the West.

HIGHLY IMPORTANT FROM NICARAGUA. New York Daily Times (1851-1857); Nov 29, 1855; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2007) pg. 2

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. A serious Farce. New York Daily Times (1851-1857); Dec 14, 1853; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2007) pg. 4

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Judge Stuart's Trial. New York Daily Times (1851-1857); Nov 14, 1855; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2007) pg. 4

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.