434 CALHOUN ON THE COMPROMISE. gradual transformation of the government "from a Federal Republic into a great national consolidated Democracy." The North having acquired an absolute control over the government sacrificed Southern interests. Here Calhoun referred to the slaves who, he declared, constituted a vital portion of the social organization of the South. The enemies of slavery regarded it as a sin, and many Northern men believing that they were in some way implicated in the sin, felt responsible for suppressing it by every power within their means. Others regarded it as a crime. At the South, on the contrary, it was believed that the relation between master and slave could not be destroyed without subjecting the two races to the greatest calamity and impoverishing the section, therefore, the Southern people felt bound to defend it in every way. Hostility to slavery had taken the form of an organized movement in 1835, when societies were founded, presses established and lecturers sent forth to excite the Northern people against the institution. Incendiary publications were scattered throughout the South, through the mails for the purpose of provoking servile insurrection. The South was alarmed and aroused and compelled to enter upon its own protection. The agitation was not abated. Petitions were poured in from the North upon Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia; to prohibit the inter-state slave trade, and, mingled with these petitions, was the unconcealed announcement of the ultimate purpose of their authors to bring about the abolition of slavery throughout the Union. Calhoun reminded the Senate that in 1833 he had warned Congress against receiving these petitions, and that had his voice been heeded, the fanatical zeal of the abolitionists might have been ex CALHOUN'S CONCLUSIONS. 435 tinguished. "That," said he, "was the time for the North to show her devotion to the Union." But abolitionism had increased, Northern legislatures had passed acts which in effect abrogated the provisions of the Constitution respecting the delivery of fugitive slaves, and the agitation had culminated in the demand of the North, that Congress should henceforth exclude slavery from the territories and admit no more slave States. All these agitations had weakened the cords of Union, and every act and resolution of Congress, which had suffered the agitation to continue only hastened the overthrow of the Union. The extremes were disunion or the submission of the Southern people. Clay's proposition, Calhoun believed would only add fuel to the fires already kindled. His plan could not save the Union. The principle of the Wilmot proviso was exclusion of the South from all territory acquired by the Mexican treaty, and at this point Calhoun referred to the solemn resolutions of the Southern legislatures, announcing that the South would unite to resist the adoption of that principle. The principle of the proviso could not be found in the Constitution, for it claimed for Congress an unlimited power over the territories, a claim which the Southern States held to be unjust and unconstitutional. Calhoun combated the idea that the inhabitants of a territory had the inherent right of self-government belonging to the inhabitants of a State, and he characterized the late conduct of the people of California, in forming a constitution and a State government, and appointing Senators and Representatives, as "the first fruit of this monstrous assumption." Had California been a sovereign and independent State its people would have had the right to establish whatever government they pleased, but the 1 See page 413, ante. 436 CALHOUN'S CONCLUSIONS. United States had conquered California, and sovereignty over the country was vested in the general government and not in individuals, who, without its consent had lately attempted to form a constitution and set up a State government. Calhoun's contention was, that sovereignty over the territories was vested in the United States, and that the power of legislating for them was expressly vested in Congress, therefore, Clay's first resolution to recognize California as a State was calculated to lead to most dangerous consequences; it would recognize a revolutionary and rebellious act as a constitutional procedure. The same defect characterized the remaining resolutions. The South did not ask for compromise, she demanded only the Constitution. She had surrendered much, she had little left. Satisfy her that she could remain honorably and safely in the Union and the questions at issue would be forever settled. This was easy to do. "The North," concluded he, "has only to will it to accomplish it; to do justice by conceding to the South an equal right in the acquired territory, and to do her duty by causing the stipulation relative to fugitive slaves to be faithfully fulfilled, to cease the agitation of the slave question, and to provide for the insertion of a provision in the Constitution, by an amendment, which would restore to the South in substance, the power she possessed of protecting herself before the equilibrium between the sections was destroyed by the action of the government." In this, almost the last public utterance of the great Expounder of State Sovereignty, is to be found the basis of political operations which the South pursued for the next ten years. It was accepted by slavocracy as the conclusion of the whole matter; to the radical wing of the slavocrats it became a declaration of Southern independence, and the constitutional principles which it laid down were incor WEBSTER ON THE COMPROMISE. 437 porated ten years later in the formation of the Southern Confederacy.1 Three days later, Webster discussed the great issue of the hour in his famous Seventh of March speech.2 His attitude toward the compromise was not exactly known. Thirty years before he had changed his opinions on the tariff; would be now change his opinions on the Constitution? In reply to Hayne, he had given voice to the popular sentiment of nationality. Would he now raise his voice for freedom? He spoke, he said, for the preservation of the Union, not as a Northern man, but as an American. Like Calhoun, he made a swift review of the history of the country, but he found the first and principal cause of discord in the act of the California convention prohibiting slavery. The war had been waged for the sole purpose of acquiring more slave territory, and as the California country,-here Webster's geography was sadly at fault,-lay mostly South of the United States in a warm climate, it was naturally expected by the South, he said, that the acquisition in that region would become slave soil. But events had taken an unexpected turn; California and New Mexico were likely to come into the Union as free States, and the petition of California had revived the whole slavery question. For this reason, Webster found the apple of discord in the free soil clause of the California constitution. Slavery, he said, had existed in the world for ages. The Founder of Christianity and His disciples had not pronounced against it. But the North, though unable to find a direct prohibition of it in the New Testament, had pronounced it wrong, and indeed, had identified antislavery sentiments with religion. In the South, on the 1 March 4, 1850; Calhoun's Works, IV, 524. 2 Works, V, 324. 438 WEBSTER ON THE COMPROMISE. contrary, where slavery prevailed, and there were thousands of religious men with consciences as tender as any of their brethren at the North, the institution was not considered unlawful. Taking up the prevailing objections to slavery, he attempted to answer all of them, and he dwelt at length upon the pro-slavery compromises of the Constitution. The intention of the Fathers, he said, was to leave slavery where they found it, entirely under the control of the States themselves, and with this understanding the Constitution had been adopted. It was the States which had agreed to the ordinance of 1787. The several acquisitions of territory down to the annexation of Texas had successively changed the aspect of the slavery question, but the most important change had been effected by the admission of Texas. From the moment of its annexation the whole country to the western boundary of Texas was pledged forever to be slave property. In Webster's opinion there was not within the United States or any of its territories a single foot of land, the character of which in so far as being free or slave soil, was not fixed by some irrevocable law beyond the power of the general government. By the terms of its admission, the vast domain of Texas might be subdivided into four slave States, for it lay South of the Missouri Compromise line; and Texas had been obtained, said he, "for the security of the slave interest of the South;" a statement to which Calhoun promptly demurred. After the acquisition of New Mexico and California, many Northern Democrats had voted to extend the Wilmot proviso over them and had returned to their constituents to make political capital out of their conduct, crying free soil and no slavery. In thus attacking the free soilers it was Webster's purpose to create a doubt in the public mind, of their integrity and con |