MESSAGE OF DECEMBER 6, 1858. 325 CHAPTER VII. THE SECOND SESSION OF THE THIRTY-FIFTH CONGRESS. If the president's annual message of December 6, 1858, sent to the thirty-fifth congress at the beginning of its second session, judged the situation correctly, it was to be expected that questions of foreign policy would, in the near future, engross the attention of the republic. At least the ship of state had, according to his utterances, so far as home affairs were concerned the financial question to a certain extent excepted - owing, in the first place, to his strong and wise policy, and, in the second, to the support which that policy had received from congress, an unusually calm sea before it. The description of the events in Utah already discussed was summarized in the sentence: "The authority of the constitution and the laws has been fully restored, and peace prevails throughout the territory." Just as satisfactory results were said to have been obtained by the legislative measures by which it was sought to deprive the Kansas question of its threatening character, inasmuch as the violent struggle over the slavery question was confined to its legitimate domain, the territory. The exhaustive demonstration of this assertion did not add a single new argument to the reasoning that had been heard so often. As new protests against the most recent acts of violence and outrage had been added to the old ones, made in the name of right and justice, he only sung the old tune in a still higher key: "In the course of my long public life, I have never performed any official act which, in the retrospect, has afforded me more heartfelt satisfaction." Thus, Buchanan now pretended to pass judgment on his course in the Lecompton question, although he was obliged immediately thereafter to make the admission, which was far behind the documentarily proven fact, that he, "as an individual," was in favor of a vote of the people on the entire constitution. From the man who could write. that, even the most decided opponent needed to ask no further argument in justification of what afterwards happened. Buchanan, therefore, spared himself the trouble of making such further argument; for the mere literal copying of the most important sentences of English's bill cannot well be considered such. His judgment on the bill was given without any assignment of reasons for it. The statesman-like authority of the "Sage of Wheatland " was the sole proof that it was "surely not unreasonable" to forbid the third attempt of Kansas to constitute itself a state until it had the population necessary for the election of a representative. To extend "this excellent provision" in future to all territories might, indeed, be commendable. Why "of course it would be unjust" to extend it to Oregon also was, however, a riddle hard to solve. In support of this claim all that was said was that, "acting upon the past practice of the government," it had already given itself a state constitution, and had elected a legislature and other officers. But every just claim growing out of the fact that the population of the territory, acting upon the previous practice of the government, had already tried to constitute themselves a state, might undoubtedly be made with at least the same right by Kansas as by Oregon. Politically, however, that was of no importance, if, as the president said, Kansas was now, because congress had guaranteed it complete freedom in respect to its own affairs, "tranquil and prosperous;" and after the sad experience it had had with resistance to territorial laws, it was not to be as sumed that it would try to give itself a constitution in opposition to the express provisions of a federal law. Then English's bill had not only put an end to the excitement in the states over the Kansas question, but it might and even must be assumed that the population of Kansas likewise had at last come to recognize how "insignificant" the question over which it had become so excited, "viewed in its political effects," was. Now, as the message leaving out of consideration the economic condition of the country-touched on no internal question, except those of Utah, Kansas and Oregon, to which a political character could be attributed, those people, evidently, whose wishes were not suited to a time of political calm must have thanked the president for his endeavor to put the dead waters in motion by the request for extensive powers against certain American states, and for the appropriation of a sum for the purpose of negotiating for the purchase of Cuba.. The best criticism of the message was furnished by a' speech of Iverson of January 9, 1859, although it did not even mention it. The speech of the senator from Georgia showed only how the country's situation was reflected in his own mind. If he so judged the situation, his estimate of it, considering the position he held among southern politicians, of itself showed Buchanan's description of it to be absurd. That a question not necessarily a political one- the construction of a railway to the Pacific ocean- gave Iverson occasion to describe the situation generally, served only to place the contrast between the president's assertions and the facts in a still more glaring light. In all the northern states east of the Rocky Mountains, said Iverson," in which elections have been held, our enemies have been victorious. Even Illinois is no exception, for Douglas's doctrines oppose just as insurmountable a barrier to the extension of slavery as those of the republicans. The slave states must, therefore, either surrender their peculiar institutions or separate from the north, and the time could not be distant when they would form a confederation of their own. แ "Step by step, it [the republican party] will be driven onward in its mad career until slavery is abolished or the Union dissolved. One of these two things is as inevitable as death." The south, therefore, will not wait for an aggressive act: the election of a republican president in an electoral campaign carried on on a sectional basis will suffice. That a general convention of all the slave states would resolve upon secession is very improbable. But if only one slave state secedes, every slave state will be soon forced to follow it. The attempt to bring back by force into the Union a seceded state would be the greatest folly of which a weak and corrupt government ever became guilty. If the Union is once sundered, it can be restored again only by concessions from the north guarantying full security to the south.1 The value of the pacification which, according to the assurance given by Buchanan, had been brought about by the wise laws of the last session, had to be measured in accordance with this echo which his congratulations awakened among the radical slavocrats. Of course that echo was not unexpected by him, and hence he would certainly have now written the parts of his message in question word for word as he had written them a month ago. At the time he was, indeed, less inclined than usual to take such speeches very tragically, because of the successful erection of a new barrier against the eventuality 1 Congr. Globe, 2d Sess. 85th Congr., pp. 242-244. OREGON ADMITTED AS A STATE. 329 which, according to Iverson, would be followed by secession. On the 14th of February, 1859, Buchanan signed the bill that admitted Oregon into the Union. Two days before, it had been passed by the house of representatives by a vote of one hundred and fourteen against one hundred and three. No party had voted as a unit. The republican minority of the committee on territories had, in their report,' furnished the figures proving that Kansas, so far as one was warranted to draw a conclusion from the number of votes cast at the elections, had a larger population than Oregon, and had therefore asked that the census provision of English's bill should be repealed. So long as what was recognized to be just for Oregon was not allowed to be right in the case of Kansas, they would oppose the admission of the former. All their party associates, of course, agreed with them that the two territories should not be measured with different measures; but a part of them considered it neither wise nor just that Oregon should be punished because others were unjust to Kansas. In addition to this another reason was advanced from Oregon itself and from a friendly source, to which considerable weight had to be attached, if the actual condition of affairs were really what it was alleged to be. Its constitution had taken such a position against free persons of color that its provisions must not only have aroused the indignation of every man who thought aright, but that their accordance with the federal constitution might be very seriously questioned. But a letter from Owen Wade2 to a member of the house of representatives urgently argued that this should be overlooked if something incomparably worse were to be 1 Congr. Globe, 2d Sess. 35th Congr., p. 946. Ibid., pp. 980, 981. |