CHAPTER XIII. BUFFALO CONVENTION. Buffalo convention. Mr. Chase president of the delegated convention. — Mr. canvass. On the 9th of August, 1848, the opponents of slavery extension met in convention at Buffalo. Salmon P. Chase was chairman of the delegated convention, and Charles Francis Adams presided over the mass meeting. A tent had been prepared large enough to accommodate the thousands who gathered there. Mr. Adams stated the reasons for the call which had brought them there, and enunciated the general principles on which the new organization must be based. He declared that they were "under a necessity" to denounce the old organization of parties as no longer worthy of the confidence of the American people. "Set up your standard," he said, "of freedom and truth,- everything for the cause, and nothing for men. Let your deliberations then proceed, and may the Divine blessing rest upon the result, so that we can take one step forward to realize that great idea of our forefathers, the model of a Christian commonwealth." ex Unity of feeling, opinion, and action seemed to pervade the convention. The Rev. William Wilson, pastor of the Church of the Covenanters in Cincinnati, sent a despatch which read like a summons to battle. It urged the convention to " hibit one issue, one front, one nomination; courage! enthusiasm! anticipate victory!" Governor Slade of Vermont, in a letter to Mr. Giddings, which was read, pleaded for union. "Union," he said, "should be our watchword. Divided we have fallen, and divided we must forever fall, before the allgrasping, overrcaching, and never-satisfied power of slavery." He would not, he said, to prevent slavery extension, take Taylor to defeat Cass; for "we should have it under either, and should therefore take neither." Stirring and eloquent speeches were made. Earnestness, deep convictions, and devotion to the cause, were everywhere manifest. "Let the men of deepest principle," said Mr. Peck of Connecticut, "manifest the most profound condescension and the deepest humility to-day, and posterity will honor them for the deed." Preston King of New York introduced three resolutions, prepared by Mr. Chase, declaring that it was the duty of the Federal government to relieve itself from all responsibility for the extension and continuance of slavery wherever it had authority; that it was not responsible for slavery in the States; and that the only safe means of preventing the extension of slavery into free territory was to prohibit its existence there by act of Congress. Benjamin F. Butler of New York, from the Committee on Resolutions, reported fifteen, in which were embodied the clearly defined principles of the new organization. They declared that the members of the convention, obedient to the example of the fathers, and trusting in God, aimed to plant themselves upon the national platform of freedom, in opposition to the sectional platform of slavery; that, slavery being à State institution, they proposed no interference with it by Congress; that the history of the ordinance of 1787 showed the settled policy of the fathers not to extend, but to limit slavery; that the fathers ordained the Constitution to secure the blessings of liberty; that Congress had no more power to make a slave than to make a king; that the national government should relieve itself from all responsibility for the exist ence of slavery; that Congress should prohibit slavery by law in all free territory; that they accepted the issue forced upon them by the Slave Power; and that their calm and final answer was: No more slave States, no more slave territory, no more compromises with slavery; and freedom for Oregon, California, and New Mexico. To this comprehensive and clearly constitutional platform of principles, policy, and measures concerning slavery, were added declarations in favor of cheap postage, retrenchment, grants of land to actual settlers, the carly payment of the national debt, a tariff adequate to the current expenses of the government and an annual instalment for the debt. Having enunciated this platform of principles and proposed measures, they resolved that "we inscribe on our banners Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labor, and Free Men; and under it will fight on and fight ever, until a triumphant victory shall reward our exertions." Mr. Giddings appealed with great earnestness and solemnity to his friends to accept the resolutions, and there on the spot to enter into "a holy and indissoluble league and covenant.” Mr. Butler declared that he had tried to meet the question with a just sense of his responsibility to his fellow-men and "to Him who is the judge that sitteth upon the throne and shall weigh all the actions of men." "I went first," he said, "to the Declaration of Independence; and I find it filled with this great foundation truth, that all men are born with certain rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And then I looked to the Bible, and I find that of one blood hath God created all the nations of the earth. Free labor cannot exist where slavery holds sway, and thus the question embraces the interests of myriads that are to come after us." Martin Grover avowed himself a "New York Democrat of the regular apostolic succession," but in favor of free soil, of the divorce of the general government from the support of slavery, and the repeal of every statute ever passed to uphold it. Erastus D. Culver of New York, who had told his constituents, when they sent him to Congress, that he should "fire upon the abominable institution of slavery so long as there was a loop-hole," and who had bravely kept his pledge, avowed himself in favor of a bold and aggressive policy. Mr. Brinkerhoff of Ohio, who drafted the Wilmot proviso, said he was no admirer of John C. Calhoun, nor of the satanic system of political philosophy of which he was the exponent; but he did agree with him that the country was "in the midst of a crisis, an important, a momentous crisis." He gloried in the name of Democrat; but he adopted the sentiments of Jefferson, embodied in the ordinance of 1787, which had madeforever free the great Northwest.. Joseph L. White of New York, formerly a Whig representative from Indiana, and a devoted admirer of Henry Clay, sharply criticised the action of the Whig convention in nominating General Taylor. Alluding to the aggressive action of the South, he said: "We have endured it until toleration has ceased to be a virtue, and now we plant ourselves upon the platform that our fathers planted themselves upon, and say to the South, 'Beware! The blood of the Roundheads is aroused." 999 He avowed himself ready to fight with Free Soil men so long as they should continue the fight; and, when they ceased, he would fight on his own hook and under his own banner, and that banner should be, "Liberty and revenge." General James W. Nye, then of New York, but subsequently United States Senator from Nevada, made a humorous and telling speech. "A crisis has arisen," he said, "when old prejudices must be laid aside, sacrificed upon the altar of our country's good. I have come here to lay down all my former predilections upon this altar, to strike hands with those even against whom I have formerly battled. God raised up a David of old to slay the giant of Gath. So hath David Wilmot, with the sling of freedom and the smooth stone of truth, struck the giant Slavery between the eyes. He reels; let us push him over." Henry B. Stanton said that "the motto of the convention should be that of the French Republic: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.' We have come up to contend against a movement on the part of the slave interest to extend that institution, which takes the image of Almighty God on the immortal soul, blots it therefrom by legislation, and stamps in its place by legal enactment the name brute,' beast,' 'property.' James A. Briggs of Ohio said that it was the "principle of freedom, which has magnetized all hearts," that had brought together the great multitude before him. They had not come up there, he said, to "sing songs of laudation to a victorious general," but "to speak and to act for free soil, free speech, and for negroes too." Rev. Samuel J. May, the veteran Abolitionist, said he had been for a dissolution of the Union, but when he beheld the movement which had culminated that day "hope was renewed." He had thought resistance to slavery extension was "a small matter, a straining at a gnat after we had swallowed the camel"; but he, "on reflection, had come to the conclusion that the extension of slavery was one of its essential elements, one of its main supports, and that in opposing extension we strike a powerful blow at slavery itself." Robert Wilson of Michigan said he was one of the instruments that, in the Democratic national convention of 1844, had put aside Martin Van Buren under the same influence which had then nominated General Cass, and he came to that convention" to atone for the wrong done to Martin Van Buren." Professor Mahan of Ohio, referring to the apprehension of antislavery men that they would not be able to secure a platform sufficiently broad and comprehensive, said that Liberty party men, " Barnburners," and Whigs could ask for nothing more, for they had secured "a platform on which the genius of Liberty could walk through the length and breadth of the land." It having been reported that John Quincy Adams had spoken approvingly of the anticipated nomination of General Taylor, Francis W. Bird of Massachusetts stated that that far-seeing statesman might have anticipated the nomina tion, but he could not have desired it, unless he did it for the purpose of "breaking up both of the old parties, and bringing about this union of good men and true of all political parties which we see here to-day "; and he added, "the last meeting 'the old man eloquent' ever attended was a meeting of 'conscience' Whigs, held in Boston at the office of his only son, Charles Francis Adams, and he approved of the ground taken by them." Henry Bibb, a fugitive slave, then residing in Michigan, addressed the convention. He referred to the fact that he had attempted to vote, but had been refused on account of his |