send back fugitive slaves if the law was repealed. "Will the honorable Senator," he asked, "tell me that he will do it?" Mr. Sumner rejoined by inquiring, "Does the honorable Senator ask me if I would join in sending a fellow-man into bondage? 'Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?'"

Commenting on the answer, Mr. Butler turned to Mr. Sumner and said, with the dictatorial and insufferable bearing of the plantation," Then you would not obey the Constitution. Standing here, before this tribunal, where you swore to support it, you rise and tell me you regard it the office of a dog to enforce it. You stand in my presence as a coequal Senator, and tell me it is a dog's office to execute the Constitution of the United States."

Mr. Mason declared that "the dignity of the Senate had been rudely, grossly, and wantonly assailed by the Senator from Massachusetts; and not only the dignity of the Senate, but of the whole people, had been trifled with in the presence of the American Senate, either ignorantly or corruptly." Denying that the act refused the right of habeas corpus to a citizen, he avowed that the law had done its office well; "that it had done it in the city of Boston, in the presence of a mob which that Senator and his associates had aroused and inflamed to the very verge of treason."

Mr. Pettit of Indiana remarked that he had lived to hear fall from the lips of a Senator, who had sworn to support the Constitution, the avowal that he disregarded" all such obligations." If a petition was presented for the expulsion of a member who disavowed his constitutional obligations, he would receive it; and if referred to the Judiciary Committee, to which he belonged, he was inclined to think he should vote to report a resolution for expelling the member. He asserted that Senators were not to be tolerated in that body who openly and boldly, in the face of the country, declared that they would violate their oaths. Turning to Mr. Sumner he said: “You swore that you would support the Constitution, all and singular, each and every part, from beginning to end; and you now, in the face of your peers, are the first in the Senate to openly declare that you will violate the oath you have taken

and the bond of union your ancestors made for you." This hint at expulsion referred to a purpose seriously entertained by the Democratic leaders. But it was relinquished because it was found, on a canvass of the Senate, that the requisite vote could not be counted on.

Mr. Pettit then reasserted the sentiment he had expressed during the debate on the Nebraska bill,- that the construction by the Abolitionists of the claim in the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal was a "selfevident lie," instead of a self-evident truth. He declared that Jefferson would never have stultified himself by saying that his African negro slave- who was born his slave, created his slave, begotten his slave, who was his slave during the whole course of gestation was created his equal.

To these assaults Mr. Sumner replied with impassioned vehemence and unwonted severity. Singling out the veteran Senators from Virginia and South Carolina, the leaders in this assault, for special mention, he thus coolly and contemptuously dismissed the more vulgar and brutal violence of Pettit and Clay, who had joined in the attack. "Some persons are best answered," he said, "by silence; best answered by withholding the words which leap impulsively to the lips." Having answered their abuse, he now directed his attention to the arguments of his assailants. In vindication of his purpose not to aid in the execution of the Fugitive Slave Act, he referred to and indorsed a passage in the message of President Jackson, accompanying the veto of the United States bank, in which he affirmed that "each public officer who takes an oath to support the Constitution swears that he will support it as he understands it, and not as it is understood by others.” Mr. Sumner avowed that he supported the Constitution as he understood it, and maintained that the Fugitive Slave Act had no foundation in the Constitution, and that it was an open and unmitigated usurpation. Declaring that he stood as upon a rock upon his explicit statement of his constitutional obligations, he again avowed that he would not aid, directly or indirectly, in reducing or surrendering a fellow-man to bondage. Looking around upon the Senate, he then asked if there was

a Senator who would stoop to the service of aiding in the surrender of fugitive slaves. To this interrogatory Mr. Clay responded: "He has put the question whether any Senator upon this floor would assist in returning a fugitive slave. I tell him that I would do it." The charge being made that Mr. Sumner had qualified his original declaration, Mr. Toucey of Connecticut expressed his unwillingness to hold any Senator to the consequences of a hasty expression spoken in debate, and proposed in a direct and categorical form the question, "Do you recognize the obligation to return a fugitive slave?" To that query Mr. Sumner responded: "I answer distinctly, No."

The men who constituted the "forlorn hope" of freedom in the Senate at that time were few, and they were compelled to encounter a fierce and imbittered foes, strong in numbers, abilities, and position, and determined to make the most of the advantages afforded them by union and the compromises of the Constitution.

CHAPTER XXIX.

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1852.

Preparations by the slaveholders of both parties. - Slaveholding compact. — Mr. Webster. - His speech at Capon Springs. - Rival Whig candidates. — Whig caucus. A "finality" resolution. - Speeches of Brooks and Stanley. - Letter to Democratic candidates. — Replies. — Democratic convention. — Resolutions in favor of compromise measures. - Candidates. - Pierce nominated.Whig convention. Mr. Jessup's amendment and speech. — Dawson's defiant speech. Amendment withdrawn. Resolutions indorse compromise meas ures. Mr. Webster's agency. - Mr. Choate's speech. - Candidates. — General Scott's selection. Mr. Webster's disappointment. - Free Soil convention. Mr. Hale made candidate. - Gerrit Smith's resolutions. The canvass and result. General Pierce triumphantly elected.

As the Presidential canvass of 1852 drew near, the busy note of preparation was heard. The more far-reaching, astute, and earnest slave propagandists had been for a long time forecasting the future and laying their plans with reference to the prospective action of the Whig and Democratic parties in their approaching national conventions. They made no concealment of their purpose to dragoon these great organizations into the support of their policy by making their indorsement of the compromise measures a condition precedent of their support. Indeed, before the close of the XXXIst Congress, a compact was entered into by some of the leading members of both parties, declaring their purpose to make the compromise measures a final settlement of the slavery question, and pledging themselves not to "support for President or Vice-President of the United States, for Senator or Representative for Congress, or for member of a State legis lature, any man, of whatever party, who is not known to be opposed to the disturbance of the settlement aforesaid, and to the renewal, in any form, of agitation upon the subject of slavery." This was signed by Mr. Clay, Howell Cobb, and

others, Whigs and Democrats There were thirty-three signers from the slaveholding States and ten from the free. Among the latter was Mr. Eliot, the Representative from Boston. There were also, scattered throughout the former States, large numbers who occupied the same ground, and who styled themselves the "Reserves," avowedly determined to make everything secondary to what they recognized as sound views upon the slavery question.

While these combined efforts were in progress, Mr. Webster gave himself to a most determined and persistent series of efforts, not simply to defend the compromise measures, but to defame antislavery men and efforts, and to treat with ridicule those religious scruples which many urged as the ground of their opposition. Writing of Syracuse, New York, he spoke of it as "that laboratory of Abolitionism, libel, and treason." Visiting Virginia, in the latter part of June he addressed a large meeting at Capon Springs. In the course of his remarks he thus ridiculed the "higher law": "And, when nothing else will answer," he said, "they invoke religion, and speak of a higher law. Gentlemen, this North Mountain is high, the Blue Ridge is higher still, the Alleghany higher than either; and yet this higher law ranges farther than an eagle's flight above the highest peaks of the Alleghany. No common vision can discern it; no conscience, not transcendental and ecstatic, can feel it; the hearing of common men never listens to its high behests; and, therefore, one should think it is not a safe law to be acted on in matters of the highest practical moment. It is the code, however, of the fanatical and factious Abolitionists of the North." Thus bitterly did Mr. Webster assail the men and women of New England, even a large majority of his own constituents, who had so long delighted to honor him with their confidence and suffrages.

When Congress assembled, in December, 1851, the indications were that Mr. Fillmore would receive the Whig nomination, as he was the favorite of the South, and of those at the North most fully committed to the compromise measures; though Mr. Webster, who had shown himself equally intent on conciliating the Slave Power, had a few earnest advo

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