the solemn guarantees we are under, not to interfere with the institution as it exists in the States. * * *

"Slavery was not finally abolished here [New York] until 1827. We were left to come to this result in our own time and manner, without any molestation or interference from any other State. I am very sure that any intermeddling with us in this matter by the citizens of other States would not have accelerated our measures, and might have proved mischievous. Such services, if they had been tendered, would have been rejected as useless, and regarded as an invasion of our rights. #

*

"If the abolitionists design to enlist our passions in this cause, such a course would be worse than useless, unless it had reference to some subsequent action. If it is expected in this manner to influence the action of Congress, then they are aiming at a usurpation of power. Legislation by Congress would be a violation of the Constitution, by which that body exists, and to support which every member of it is bound by the solemn sanction of an oath. The powers of Congress cannot be enlarged so as to bring the subject of slavery within its cognizance, without the consent of the slaveholding States. * If their operations here are to inflame the fanatical zeal of emissaries, and instigate them to go on missions to the slaveholding States, there to distribute abolition publications and to promulgate abolition doctrines, their success in this enterprise is foretold by the fate of the deluded men who have preached them. The moment they pass the borders of those States, and begin their labors, they violate the laws of the jurisdiction they have invaded, and incur the penalty of death, or other ignominious punishment. I can conceive no other object that the abolitionists can have in view, so far as they propose to operate here, but to embark the people of this State, under the sanction of the civil authority, or with its connivance, in a crusade against the slaveholding States, for the purpose of forcing abolition upon them by violence and bloodshed. If such a mad project as this could be contemplated for a single moment, as a possible thing, every one must see that the first step toward its accomplishment would be the end of our Confederacy and the beginning of civil war. So far, then, as respects the people of this State, or any action that can emanate from them, I can discover no good that has resulted, or that can be reasonably expected to result from the proceedings of the abolitionists; but the train of evils that must necessarily attend their onward movement is in number and magnitude most appalling."

Mr. Everett was at the same time (January, 1836) Governor of Massachusetts, and took up the subject in a similar strain in his address to the Legislature, at the opening of the session, as follows:

"The country has been greatly agitated during the past year in relation to slavery, and acts of illegal violence and outrage have grown out of the excite

VIEWS OF GOVERNOR EVERETT.

101

ment kindled on this subject in different parts of the Union, which cannot be too strongly deplored, or too severely condemned. In this State, and several of our sister States, slavery has long been held in public estimation as an evil of the first magnitude. It was fully abolished in this Commonwealth in the year 1783, by decisions of the courts of justice, and by the interpretation placed on the declaration of equality in the bill of rights. But it existed in several of the States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, and in a greater ratio to the free population of the country than at the present time. It was, however, deemed a point of the highest public policy by the non-slaveholding States, notwithstanding the existence of slavery in their sister States, to enter with them into the present Union on the basis of the constitutional compact. That no Union could have been formed on any other basis, is a fact of historical notoriety; and is asserted in terms by General Hamilton, in the reported debates of the New York Convention for adopting the Constitution. This compact expressly recognizes the existence of slavery, and concedes to the States where it prevails the most importants rights and privileges connected with it. Every thing that tends to disturb the relations created by this compact is at war with its spirit; and whatever, by direct and necessary operation, is calculated to excite an insurrection among the slaves, has been held, by highly respectable legal authority, an offence against the peace of this Commonwealth, which may be prosecuted as a misdemeanor at common law. Although opinions may differ on this point, it would seem the safer course, under the peculiar circumstances of the case, to imitate the example of our fathers the Adamses, the Hancocks, and other eminent patriots of the Revolution, who, although fresh from the battles of liberty, and approaching the question as essentially an open one, deemed it nevertheless expedient to enter into a union with our brothers of the slaveholding States, on the principles of forbearance and toleration on this subject. As the genius of our institutions and the character of our people are entirely repugnant to laws impairing the liberty of speech and of the press, even for the sake of repressing its abuses, the patriotism of all classes of citizens must be invoked to abstain from a discussion which, by exasperating the master, can have no other effect than to render more oppressive the condition of the slave, and which, if not abandoned, there is great reason to fear will prove the rock on which the Union will split. Such a disastrous consummation, in addition to all its remediless political evils for every State in the Union, could scarcely fail, sooner or later, to bring on a war of extermination in the slaveholding States. On the contrary, a conciliatory forbearance with regard to this subject in the non-slaveholding States, would strengthen the hands of a numerous class of citizens of the South, who desire the removal of the evil; whose voice has often been heard for its abolition in legislative assemblies, but who are struck down and silenced by the agitation of the question abroad; and it would leave the whole painful subject where the Constitution leaves it, with the States where it exists, and in the hands of an all-wise Providence, who, in His own good time, is able

to cause it to disappear, like the slavery of the ancient world, under the gradual operation of the gentle spirit of Christianity."

These extracts serve to show to what lengths the abolitionists were then pushing their designs, and the sentiments with which they were regarded by eminent citizens of unquestionable patriotism. The picture would not be complete without the addition of a passage from a speech of Mr. Clay, delivered in the Senate at the same period. His vigorous and glowing, but unpremeditated language, forcibly portrays the real evil which then threatened the country; as his sagacious foresight indicated those future terrible trials and ills of which, if unchecked, it must prove the source; from the actual sight and experience of which he and his great compatriots of that earlier generation have been mercifully spared. With another Clay and another Webster on the floor of the Senate, popular delusion might have been turned aside, before it had overwhelmed the barriers of the Constitution, to the foot of which, in their day, its tide was never permitted to approach. In reference to the means by which the abolitionists were seeking to effect their objects, Mr. Clay remarked, on the occasion alluded to:

"Another, and much more lamentable one, is that which this class is endeavoring to employ, of arraying one portion against another of the Union. With that view, in all their leading prints and publications, the alleged horrors of slavery are depicted in the most glowing and exaggerated colors, to excite the imaginations and stimulate the rage of the people of the free States against the people of the slaveholding States. The slaveholder is held up and represented as the most atrocious of human beings. Advertisements of fugitive slaves, and of slaves to be sold, are carefully collected and blazoned forth to infuse a spirit of detestation and hatred against one entire, and the largest, section of the Union. * * Why are the slave States wantonly and cruelly assailed? Why does the abolition press teem with publications tending to excite hatred and animosity on the part of the free States against the slave States ? Why is Congress petitioned? What would be thought of the formation of societies in the slave States, the issuing of violent and inflammatory tracts, and the deputation of missionaries, pouring out impassioned denunciations against institutions under the exclusive control of the free States? Is their purpose to appeal to our understandings and actuate our humanity? And do they expect to accomplish that purpose by holding

*

MR. CLAY ON ABOLITION.

103 us up to the scorn and contempt and detestation of the people of the free States and the whole civilized world? * * Sir, I am not in the habit of speaking lightly of the possibility of dissolving this happy Union. The Senate knows that I have deprecated allusions on ordinary occasions to that direful event. The country will testify that, if there be any thing in my public career worthy of recollection, it is the truth and sincerity of my ardent devotion to its lasting preservation. But we should be false in our allegiance to it if we did not discriminate between the imaginary and the real dangers by which it may be assailed. Abolition should no longer be regarded as an imaginary danger. The abolitionists, let me suppose, succeed in their present aim of uniting the inhabitants of the free States, as one man, against the inhabitants of the slave States. Union on the one side will beget union on the other. And this process of reciprocal consolidation will be attended with all the violent prejudices, embittered passions, and implacable animosities, which ever degraded or deformed human nature. A virtual dissolution of the Union will have taken place, while the forms of its existence remain. The most valuable element of union, mutual kindness, the feelings of sympathy, the fraternal bonds which now happily unite us, will have been extinguished forever. One section will stand in menacing, hostile array against another; the collision of opinion will be quickly followed by the clash of arms."

CHAPTER IV.

"Aggression" against the South in Active Operation at the North for Thirty Years before the War.-Resolutions of Congress, in 1836.-Action of the Legislature of Massachusetts upon the Resolutions of Five Southern States.-Conflict in Congress, in regard to Abolition Memorials, in 1837.-Its Resolution.-Remarks of Mr. Benton upon the Result.-The "Partisan Leader."-Mr. Van Buren.-The "21st Rule."-The Whig Party.-The Liberty Party.-The Shufflers among the Northern Democratic Leaders.

Ir thus appears that an active and alarming system of aggression against the South was in operation at the North, thirty years ago, threatening to excite servile insurrection, to imperil union, to stir up civil war. This fact rests upon testimony which cannot but be considered both impartial and conclusive. Few would think of questioning the patriotism of President Jackson, whatever they might think of many of the measures of his administration; no one ever doubted the exalted and all-embracing national spirit of Mr. Clay. Mr. Marcy was one of the ablest and most prominent leaders of the National Democratic party; Mr. Everett held an equal rank among the conspicuous members of the National Whig party. The danger apprehended by them, however, and by other persons of sound judgment, was in reference to the resentment of the South, provoked, as it could not but be, by these continuous missiles directed against its domestic relations from without, and not on account of the actual numbers of the antislavery agitators, or of any important influence which they could exert at home.

But it was generally thought, upon the whole, that the danger was rather a matter of speculative inquiry, than of a nature to excite present alarm for our institutions; and that