six Republicans voting against even this explicit condemnation of those States who had simply and only enacted laws for the protection of their own citizens. Mr. Wilson then stated that Mr. Clingman's resolution having been adopted by the votes of Republicans, because they agreed with its declaration that there was no need of Congressional protection of slave property in the Territories; but, not wishing to be responsible for any portion of the series, he moved a reconsideration of the vote that adopted it. "I want," he said, " to wash my hands of all connection with any of these resolutions. Everybody knows that all of us on this side of the chamber are opposed to any slave code, now or at any future period, and under any possible circumstances." All the Republicans voting for the motion, the resolution was reconsidered and then rejected. Thus did the Senate of this Republic, in abject obedience to the demands of the Slave Power, and under the lead of Jefferson Davis, place on record its most solemn and emphatic condemnation of the principles, not only of the ordinance of 1787, but of the Declaration of Independence, the Magna Charta of the very government it was pretending to administer. Nor was this action simply negative. It was positive and prospective. By the solemnities of legislative enactment the Senate of the United States made public proclamation and pledge to make slavery and not freedom national, and its conservation the fundamental principle of all subsequent legislation and governmental policy. ney. CHAPTER LIII. PROSCRIPTION, LAWLESSNESS, AND BA..DARISM. --- Disturbed condition of the South. - Methodist Church North in Texas. - Ministers expelled. - Indorsement of the religious press. Rev. Solomon McKinBanishment and memorial. Rev. Daniel Worth. — Imprisonment and conviction. Stone-cutter. - Rev. John G. Fee. Berea. Its success. Settlement broken up and Fee banished. Cassius M. Clay. Case in Dela- Northern papers excluded from the mails. Virginia law indorsed at Washington. Violence in Congress. — Adams, Giddings, Lovejoy, and Sumner. Lovejoy's speech. - Widespread demoralization. ware. THE proscription, lawlessness, and barbarism of slavery were the necessary conditions of its existence. Its essential injustice and inevitable cruelties, its malign and controlling influences upon society and the state, its violence of word and conduct, its unfriendliness to freedom of thought and its repression of free speech even in the presence of the most flagrant enormities, its stern and bloody defiance of all who questioned its action or resisted its behests, were specially manifest during the closing years of its terrible reign. Statutes, however severe, and courts, however servile, were not enough. The mob was sovereign. Vigilance committees took the law into their own hands, prompting and executing the verdicts and decisions of self-constituted judges and selfselected juries. Merchants on lawful business, travellers for pleasure, teachers and day-laborers, all felt alike the proscriptive ban. A merciless vindictiveness prevailed, and held its stern and pitiless control over the whole South. The privileges and immunities of citizenship were worthless, and the law afforded no protection. Southern papers were filled with accounts of the atrocities perpetrated, and volumes alone could contain descriptions of all that transpired during this reign of terror. Illustrative of this inexorable intolerance and completeness of subjection was the course pursued towards members of the Methodist Church North residing in Texas. Offended by their presence, the mob demanded not only the silence but the ejection of any ministers of its connection. They yielded to the menace, and this lawless action received the indorsement of the religious press. The Texas " Advocate," the organ of the Methodist Church South, urged "the thorough and immediate eradication of the Methodist Church North in Texas, with whatever force may be necessary." If such were the teachings of their religious journals, little surprise need be felt that the mob reigned, and reigned ruthlessly. In the spring of 1860 Rev. Solomon McKinney, a Campbellite preacher, went from Kentucky to the same State. He was a Democrat, and believed that the Bible sanctioned slavery. In Dallas County, at the request of a slaveholder, he preached on the relative duties of master and slave. Though nothing very radical would be expected from one with his avowed belief, antecedents, and political affiliations, his utterances probably breathed too much of truth and of humanity for that meridian. A public meeting was held, and he was warned not to preach there again. Even his Southern opinions and Democracy could not save him. Heeding the warning, which he knew betokened extreme measures, in company with another preacher of the same denomination, he started for the North. But he and his companion were overtaken, carried back to Dallas County, and imprisoned. They were soon taken from the jail by armed men, and whipped with raw hides, receiving eighty lashes each, until their "backs were one mass of clotted blood and bruised and mangled flesh." In a memorial sent to the legislature of Wisconsin by Mr. Blount, the companion of McKinney, he made the singular statement that he had never preached against slavery, and that "for more than thirty years he had uniformly supported the Democratic party in both State and nation, and had sustained the views of that party upon the issues between the North and the South." As little creditable as was this statement to himself, it exposed with unmistakable clearness the intense intolerance of his persecutors, and revealed how much better the South loved darkness than light, and how dense that darkness must be. Nor was Texas exceptionally intolerant. During the closing days of 1859 Rev. Daniel Worth, a minister of highly respectable family and position, an eloquent and popular preacher, formerly an inhabitant of Indiana and member of its legislature, was arrested in North Carolina for circulating Helper's "Impending Crisis." He was indicted, and committed to jail to await his trial in the spring. His bonds, placed at an unreasonable amount, he could not obtain, and he was consigned to a "cell wholly unsuitable for a person to live in, and his only bedding a dirty pallet"; and all this was for the alleged crime of circulating a book written by a Southerner, in the interests of the white man more than of the black, and devoted mainly to material rather than moral arguments against negro slavery. He was convicted, and sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment, a sentence deemed too light by many, because, they said, he might have been "publicly whipped," according to the law. - Nor was there respect of persons. The day-laborer, no less than the minister, must be silent before this imperious Power. A young Irishman, a stone-cutter, at work on the State House of South Carolina, dropped the casual remark that "slavery caused a white laborer at the South to be looked upon as an inferior and degraded man." This simple expression of a truth known to all, and deeply appreciated by himself, gave mortal offence, and he was at once seized, thrust into jail, taken out and dragged through the streets, tarred and feathered, and then, without other clothing than a pair of pants, put into a negro car for Charleston, whence, after a week's imprisonment, he was banished from the State. And he, too, could urge, though without avail, in extenuation of his conduct, that he had "always voted the Democratic ticket." Among the few antislavery men afforded by the South was Rev. John G. Fee of Kentucky. A strictly religious and conscientious man, he hated slavery, and would rid his beloved commonwealth of its guilt and damage. Not content with simply enunciating the doctrines of freedom, he would exhibit to his fellow-citizens their practical workings when brought to the test of fair experiment. With others of similar character and purposes, he established a colony, or community, in one of the counties of the State. Beside the church there were a large and flourishing school and a steam saw-mill. These appliances, and the good character, industry, and thrift of its inhabitants, produced their natural results. Intelligent and moral, industrious and law-abiding, being punctilious even in their purpose to "submit to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake," the people of Berea made it a marked neighborhood, extorting from a leading and intelligent slaveholder the encomium that " it was the best he had seen in all Kentucky." But no fidelity as citizens, no caution, no unobtrusiveness, could hide their success. Their virtues became trumpet-tongued; their very reticence was eloquent; and the light of that little community made the surrounding darkness more hideous and dense. The slaveholders saw it, winced under the rebuke thus quietly bestowed, "felt how awful goodness is," and determined that that light should be extinguished, and that condemning voice should be silenced. A meeting was held, at which it was resolved to expel them from the State; and a committee of sixty-five, "representing," it was said, "the wealth and respectability of the county," was intrusted with the cruel task of breaking up their homes and banishing them therefrom; not because they had broken the laws, for it was admitted that they had not, but because, as alleged, their "principles were opposed to the public peace." They appealed in vain to the governor for protection, but were advised by that official, "for the sake of peace," to leave the State. This they did without resistance, "preferring exile," it was said, "with the silent preaching their absence would furnish, to the shedding of blood." Similar demonstrations were made in two other counties, for similar reasons, and with like results. The ostracized took legal counsel, and received for advice that, though they could oppose force to force, it was expedient that they should leave. They did; the school-house was closed, the steam-mill was dismantled, and again "order reigned." The same intolerance and impatience of rebuke, however considerate and qualified, were exhibited towards Cassius M. |