union. These preliminary skirmishes in both Houses revealed the temper and tendencies of their members, and indicated the character of the great contest upon which they had entered, - a contest that was for months to divide and distract Congress, and for years to disturb and disgrace the nation.

CHAPTER XIX.

NORTHERN DEFECTION.

Root's resolutions laid on the table. — Giddings's resolutions defeated. - Northern defection. -Causes. - Debate on President's message.-Southern speeches of Clingman, Inge, McLane, Cabell, Brown. - Southern alarm. - Action of Southern legislatures. Bold utterances of Northern members, Sackett, Horace Mann, Thaddeus Stevens, Bissell, and Fowler. —Speeches of Ashmun and Winthrop.

THE struggle over the election of Speaker had been marked by extreme violence. The slave-masters had never exhibited greater intolerance, audacity, or a more determined purpose. On the other hand, many Northern men, especially among the Whigs, betrayed marked timidity and vacillation in both their speeches and their votes. Two or three votes especially indicated with painful distinctness the rapidity with which even Northern members were unlearning the lessons of the past, and accepting those of the new school which was then in the ascendant. Thus on the 4th of February, 1850, a motion to lay on the table Mr. Root's resolution inhibiting slavery in the newly acquired territory, was carried by a vote of one hundred and five to seventy-nine, though five weeks before the same motion was rejected; more than thirty Northern members voting for the motion, and several others, though present, declining to vote.

On the same day likewise, Mr. Giddings offered two resolutions, the first declaring that all men were created equal; and the second, that it was the duty of Congress to secure to the people of all the Territories, of whatever complexion, the enjoy ment of the inalienable rights of life and liberty. The House, on motion of Mr. Haralson of Georgia, laid the resolutions on the table by a majority of thirteen. These decisive votes settled, at least for that Congress, the policy of slavery prohibi

tion in the Territories. It was evident that the Wilmot proviso was inevitably defeated, and that the policy of excluding slavery from free Territories was ended. The Declaration of Independence and the ordinance of 1787 were thus disowned and rejected by the representatives of the people. By this latter vote it seemed as if Northern Representatives had been thoroughly subdued. They were not only ready to yield to Southern dictation in matters of practical legislation, but they were prepared ignominiously to surrender their opinions,even the time-honored opinions of the Revolution and the Declaration.

The action on Mr. Root's proposition was certainly most extraordinary. In little more than a month there was a change of more than forty votes on substantially the same motion, and that involving one of the most radical issues then before the nation. Of the thirty-two Northern members who voted to lay the motion on the table, in other words, to kill the Wilmot proviso,— eighteen were Democrats and fourteen were Whigs. There were twenty-seven absentees from the free States. Some would unquestionably have voted against the motion, had they been present; but charity itself was obliged to believe that some were absent because they preferred to dodge the vote. They therefore were prepared to reverse, not only their own action, but that of the government. No longer pleading the compromises of the Constitution as their apology, they were prepared to assume the aggressive policy dictated by the slave-masters, not making even the pretence of caring for freedom or of laboring in its behalf. The causes of this radical change, this new departure of the government on the slav ery issue, were various. The refusal of the Whig national convention to indorse the Wilmot proviso; the timidity of the administration, which seemed mainly anxious to evade the question; the increasing violence of the Slave Power; and, above all, the growing demoralization of the nation under the malign influences, at once so potent and so persistent, these were the causes of the sad and discreditable result. The nation would not do right. It could not stand still. It consequently became more and more pronounced in the wrong.

It was inevitable that the protracted and violent contest for Speaker, and the radical and conflicting principles and purposes of the contending parties, would reveal their influence in the debates which sprang up on the motion to refer the President's message to appropriate committees. Thomas L. Clingman, a Whig member from North Carolina, commenced the debate in a defiant speech in favor of the perpetuity of slavery and the rights of slave-masters. He arraigned the North for "its aggressive attitude" towards the South; declared his disgust with the senseless and insane cry of Union, Union"; and proclaimed that the people of the South did not love the North well enough to become their slaves,- that God had given them the power and the will to resist, and they would take care of themselves. He was followed by Mr. Howard of Texas. He maintained that so much of Texas as lay north of 36° 30' should, if connected with any portion of the territory south of it, become slaveholding. He contended that good faith to the South required that the introduction of the principle of free soil there should be resisted.

Mr. Inge, Democratic member from Alabama, referred to "the ominous signs of discord" already apparent on the Whig side of the House, and predicted that General Taylor, like Acteon, was doomed to be torn in pieces by his own hounds. He sarcastically and contemptuously proclaimed that the open defiance of the South to the Wilmot proviso, and the sternly expressed determination to resist it to the last extremity and at all hazards, had awakened the "Union-loving propensities" of the Northern Whigs, who had "with characteristic discretion" already abandoned it. He avowed that the admission of California would be met by the South "with determined and unmeasured resistance." Holding the Mississippi River, she could levy tribute on the non-slaveholding States seeking egress to the ocean. Cuba, with slavery and kindred sympathies, was ready to spring into the embrace of the South; while a field of indefinite expansion opened invitingly south and west of the Rio Grande. "With these views of future wealth and grandeur lighting up the path of our destiny," he inquired, "can you feel that we fear to tread it alone?"

Robert McLane, a Democratic member from Maryland, went so far in support of Southern pretensions as to frantically exclaim: "If Congress shall abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, Maryland will resume jurisdiction over the same. Her courts, her processes, her constables, are all at command, and even her militia." Though Congress had exclusive jurisdiction over the District of Columbia, yet, if in its discretion it should abolish slavery, the Representative from Baltimore insultingly declared that Maryland would resume its jurisdiction, and that her constables and militia were ready to enforce her authority over the Federal government. Could the impotence of fanaticism and arrogant assumption go further?

In a similar strain Mr. Cabell, a Whig member from Florida, gravely announced, as if he was not the single Representative of one of the weakest and most insignificant States of the Union, that she had determined upon her course of action. should Congress adopt the policy of inhibition. "Revolution," he said, "and disunion, will be the inevitable conscquence of its consummation." None, however, went so far as Robert Toombs in the assertion of these arrogant demands. Turning to the Northern Representatives, he said: "We have the right to call on you to give your blood to maintain the slaves of the South in bondage. Gentlemen, deceive not yourselves; you cannot deceive others. This is a proslavery government. Slavery is stamped on its heart, - the Constitution."

Albert G. Brown of Mississippi avowed that he regarded slavery as "a great moral, social, political, and religious blessing, a blessing to the slave and a blessing to the master." The outspoken Mississippian graciously admitted, however, that the people of the North thought slavery to be an evil, but impudently added: "Very well, think so; but keep your thoughts to yourselves." Mr. Savage of Tennessee violently denounced antislavery men as the outcasts and offscourings of the carth. Others wrathfully anathematized them as "a pestilent set of vipers, that ought in God's name to be destroyed."