which it now exists, shall be received by this House, or entertained in any way whatever."

Substantially, the same principle had been already adopted by both branches of the National Legislature. The only real difference between this rule and the resolution of the House, in 1836, correspondent with the previous action of the Senate, was, that the resolution provided for laying such papers on the table, while the rule refused to receive them at all; but was equivalent, in effect, to the course of proceeding already in practice. This rule, however, was the occasion of great prejudice, and became the ready means of increasing and intensifying antislavery agitation.

Amongst other indications of Northern dissatisfaction, was an attempt made in the Legislature of Massachusetts, in the year 1840, to relieve the negro of certain social disabilities, which had long denoted, in that State, a more marked distinction between the races than had existed, perhaps, in any other State of the Union. In the year 1705, during the reign of Queen Anne, a provincial statute had been passed, of the following tenor:

“None of her Majesty's English or Scotch subjects, nor of any other Christian nation, shall contract matrimony with any negro or mulatto."

It is evident from the phraseology of this statute, that negroes and their offspring were regarded in the Puritan Commonwealth as neither more nor less than heathen; and, as religion then exerted a powerful influence in political and social affairs, such a mixture of races was looked upon much as idolatry would have been, or any vicious and depraved degradation of the accountable human being to the base uses of merely sensual indulgence. By the State law of 1786, Indians were also included within the forbidden limits. This law was reaffirmed by the Revised Statutes, passed in 1836, and the issue of marriages between whites and negroes, mulattoes and Indians, was declared illegitimate. So that, for a hundred and thirty years, the people of Massachusetts had kept in force a penal statute against an intermixture of

MARRIAGE OF WHITES WITH COLORED PERSONS. 119

races, which they regarded as contrary to good morals, and with the evident design of interposing a safeguard against any casual tendency to the deterioration of the superior species.

In the year 1840, upon a petition presented to the legisla ture for the repeal of this statute, the matter was referred to a committee, which reported favorably, but the bill was voted down. The measure was brought forward again, by the same process, in the legislature of 1841, and, after an animated debate, was decisively defeated in the House. The argument generally urged by the advocates of the repeal was, that the statute was practically useless, since few or none would be inclined to contract marriages ordinarily so repulsive. On the other hand, it may be said that comparatively few persons actually commit murder, or any of the higher class of crimes; yet every moral and social consideration requires that the warning and the penalty, in such cases, should be provided by the law. On one of the occa sions referred to, the petition for the repeal of the statute was subscribed by more than five thousand males and a not much less number of the more delicate sex. There could be no doubt that it was a movement of the abolitionists, and designed to break down the most conspicuous barrier which could have been raised to denote the generally admitted inequality between the several races in question.

It is a striking fact, whatever the inference may be, that this object was effected in the year 1843, when Massachusetts had elected one of the Democratic party for Governor, and a majority of Democrats to both branches of its legislature. Doubtless, this result was due, in part, to the strongly intimated abolition opinions of Governor Morton, and to his extremely liberal sentiments upon the subject of equal rights, as expressed in his inaugural address to the legislature; but even more than this to the anomalous situation in which the two chief political parties had recently been placed. The Governor, in addressing the General Court of Massachusetts, which could do nothing, and was bound to do nothing, in

regard to slavery, had seen fit somewhat rhetorically to say:

"While some are rejoicing in freedom, others bow under the oppressor's yoke, or reluctantly submit to the despot's chain. Can such a state of civil society be in harmony with the will of Him who created us all of one flesh and blood? Does it not cry for melioration?"

On the same occasion, the Chief Magistrate of the Commonwealth advanced the following remarkable doctrines in favor of almost universal suffrage:

"I hold that every man has a natural right to a voice, and an equal voice, in the government under which he lives-a voice which, like other essential rights, he may forfeit by his own misconduct, but of which he cannot rightfully be deprived without bis fault. That right is not derived from the Government. It cannot be bought of it by the payment of a price; nor can it be withheld by an omission to call for, or a refusal to receive money. Every man, whether he pays taxes or not, owes duties to the Government over him; is entitled to protection from it; is bound by its decrees, and has a right to be heard in making them."

Under the influence of teachings like these, it was no wonder, perhaps, that a legislative assembly, composed mainly of "unterrified" Democrats, who claimed for themselves, individually and collectively, no stinted liberty of thought and action, should be obedient to recommendations proceeding from so high a quarter. Accordingly, they hastened to do all they could for the cause of universal equality, by repealing the act which forbade the marriage of whites with negroes, mulattoes, and Indians.

The truth is, that the great Whig party had inherited from its predecessors of earlier times and other names, and had often reaffirmed, a set of doctrines on the subject of slavery, in general, which rendered their position in this re

1 In his address to the legislature of 1840, Governor Morton had laid down this doctrine still more broadly. He then remarked (and it may be, at least, questioned whether the "virtue of an if" here is not on the same footing as that of perhaps): "If the right of self-government, the right of suffrage, be a natural one, belonging to every rational human being, there can be no just cause for depriving any citizen of it, except, perhaps, as a punishment for crime."

HOW LIBERTY PARTY MEN REGARDED WHIGS. 121

spect impregnable, and occasionally an object of envy to their fellow-citizens-the Democrats-as a political party. Their axioms were, that they had no right to interfere with slavery in the States, in any way whatever; that it was inexpedient, if not inequitable, to take any action upon slavery in the District of Columbia; but that they had a clear right to oppose, and were honestly bound to oppose, the introduction of slavery into any territory of the United States already free. They stood before the country, therefore, first, upon the plain principles of the Constitution, and next, upon their views of the demands of justice and sound policy.

These were the principles often held up and advocated, with consummate ability and eloquence by their great leaders, Mr. Webster and Mr. Clay, and were assented to, in general, by the chiefs and adherents of the party, in the South as well as in the North. The Democratic party in the South entertained other opinions than these, in regard to the territories, while in the North that party was by no means united in sentiment on the subject. The Whigs, occupying an entirely definite position in this respect, were cordially hated by the abolitionists, who could expect nothing favora ble to their purposes from men who stood firmly pledged to the principles of the Constitution. As evidence of the sentiments with which the Whigs of that day were regarded by the "Liberty Party" men, of the same period, to whose instrumentality the Republican organization at length owed its origin, the extract given below, from the Boston Atlas, of December 7th, 1844, will be deemed of value. This passage is quoted from a letter written by the editor of the Albany Weekly Patriot, and was published in the Boston Emancipator, a paper edited by Mr. Joshua Leavitt, already mentioned in connection with the Buffalo Convention which nominated Mr. Van Buren in 1848. It runs as follows, the Whig party being thus specifically proscribed by it:

“Henceforth, the Liberty party is its enemy forever, and the complete and full separation from its aims, its purposes, its political economy, its measures,

and its men, is what, in my opinion, is necessary to the self-preservation, the growth, and the ultimate success of the Liberty party."

It is a great pity, and was, indeed, a fatal mistake, that the Whig party did not steadily persevere, to the end, in justifying this dislike. They stood, as has been already remarked, upon an impregnable foundation, and needed only to be true to their principles and to themselves, to hold the destinies of the country in their hands. The Liberty party, it is true, helped to defeat Mr. Clay, in 1844, by means of the few votes which they were able to cast for their candidate, Mr. Birney, in New York. This diversion of force to a third party candidate, which, if the Liberty party men had been honest in their professions of support to the Constitution, would have been certain for Mr. Clay, gave the thirty-six electoral votes of New York to the Democrats, and secured the election of Mr. Polk.

The Liberty party, therefore, refused their support to a Whig candidate from a slave State, who entertained the most rational and humane views on the subject of slavery; and wilfully promoted the election of a Democratic candidate from another slave State, who was thoroughly imbued with the most extreme Southern opinions on the same subject. The Atlas of the same date says of the Emancipator,

1

1 The electoral vote stood: for Polk, 170; for Clay, 105. With the 36 of New York, Clay would have had 141, to 134 for Polk. The popular vote in that State was: for Polk, 237,588; for Clay, 232,473; for Birney, 15,812. Less than half of the latter given to the Whig candidate would have elected a President whose administration would have been brilliant beyond example; which would have drawn to it the ablest men in the country, and which would have served as a much-needed guide to the people in the elucidation and reëstablishment of constitutional principles.

Mr. Clay was President of the Colonization Society, under the auspices of which the flourishing and valuable colony of Liberia, in Africa, was established, and has been brought forward to the excellent condition it has maintained for years. The abolitionists were always the fiercest opponents of colonization. The practical improvement of the negro, in his native country, did not suit them so well as the impracticable idea of equalizing black men with white in a strange land. It was this same "better-to-reign-in-hell" spirit which induced the Free Soilers to coalesce with the Democrats against the Whigs in 1851.