AGGRESSIONS OF THE SLATE POWER 
 
 SPEECH OF HON. HENRY WILSON, 
 
 OF MASSACHUSETTS, 
 
 IN REPLY TO HON. JEFFERSON DAYIS. 
 
 Delivered in the Senate, January 26, I860. 
 
 Mr. WILSON. Mr. President, during the past 
 seven weeks, these Hulls have rung with angry 
 menaces of disunion. Disunion has been pre¬ 
 dicted, disunion has been threatened, in the 
 event of the triumph of the Republican party in 
 November next. We have sat here coolly, calm¬ 
 ly, and listened to those angry and noisy men¬ 
 aces. Yesterday, I gathered up some of these 
 predictions, some of these arguments, some of I 
 these threats of disunion, and presented them to 
 the consideration of the Senate. The Senator 
 from Mississippi, [Mr. Davis,] with, I thought, 
 something of sensibility, something of feeling, re¬ 
 plied to those remarks. I know, sir, that there 
 come 3 to us, from the loyal and patriotic freemen 
 of the North, the voice of condemnat ion of the 
 angry menaces which have been made in these 
 Chambers. There come to Senators on the other 
 side of this Chamber the imploring appeals of 
 men who are shivering over the political graves 
 their leaders in these halls are digging for them. 
 Sir, I was glad to see, yesterday, when the dec¬ 
 larations of Democratic presses and leaders were 
 presented to their view, a degree of feeling man¬ 
 ifested on the other side of the Chamber. Sena¬ 
 tors are beginning to feel that it is no easy task 
 to look these Democratic menaces of disloyalty 1 
 to the Union in the face. I take the movement 
 yesterday to be a premonitory symptom of re- | 
 treat from positions which even the Senator from 
 Mississippi cannot maintain. I say to the Senate ; 
 and the country, that we shall now witness the : 
 retreat of the Democratic leaders from their dis¬ 
 loyal and revolutionary positions. 
 
 The Senator from Mississippi called upon me 
 to say why I had arraigned gentlemen here for f 
 these avowals. He charged it upon the Repub- j 
 lican party, that, in 1856, it went off under a sec¬ 
 tional banner, on a sectional platform, and under 
 the lead of a sectional candidate ; and, in so do¬ 
 ing, it seceded from the Union ; it adopted prac¬ 
 tical secession. Now, I have to say to that Sen¬ 
 ator, that the call for the Republican National 
 Convention, in 1856, wms addressed to all men, 
 North and South, who concurred in the senti- ! 
 ments of the Republican fathers, who were op¬ 
 posed to the extension of slavery, and in favor of 
 its prohibition in the Territories of the United 
 States ; and that call would have summoned 
 Washington and Jefferson, and the men who i 
 founded the Government of the country, into the j 
 Convention. Men from the South came to that 
 Convention, and when they returned to their 
 homes they were denounced for their attendance, 
 and one of them banished from his State. That 
 Republican call invited the people who could 
 stand on the doctrine of slavery restriction that 
 came from the pen of Thomas Jefferson in 1784— 
 
 a doctrine sanctioned and sustained by the great 
 men of this country for two generations ; a doc¬ 
 trine endorsed as constitutional by the Supreme 
 Court of the United States in 1810, 1819, 1828, 
 and in 1840; endorsed a3 constitutional by the 
 Supreme Court of the State the Senator from 
 Mississippi represents in 1818—I say, sir, that 
 the Republican call summoned all of this class 
 of men in America into its National Convention. 
 The Republican party laid down principles as 
 broad as the Union itself. It embraced the whole 
 country and the interests of the whole country 
 in its policy. It adopted no sectional creed, no 
 sectional platform, no sectional policy, but stood 
 upon the ancient faith of our fathers, and there 
 it stands to-day, upon an impregnable basis, 
 where stood the men who framed the Constitu¬ 
 tion of the United States and early administer¬ 
 ed it. 
 
 So much, sir, for my right to speak as a Re¬ 
 publican, and to rebuke the disunion avowals of 
 men who have adopted a new creed, a new read¬ 
 ing of the Constitution, and who threaten to pull 
 down the columns of the Union unless this na¬ 
 tion accepts their new creeds and their new con¬ 
 structions of constitutional power. That is it. 
 Let the country understand it. The Republican 
 party stands upon the doctrine of Washington, 
 Jefferson, and the men who framed the Consti¬ 
 tution. It stands upon doctrines sanctioned by 
 the highest judicial tribunal of the country in 
 other and better days. The Republican party 
 proposes nothing new, but stands by the old tra¬ 
 ditional policy. A new school, accepting the 
 creed that came from the brain of Calhoun in 
 1847, now exists, and we who choose to follow 
 the fathers rather than these new lights are 
 threatened now with the overthrow of the Gov¬ 
 ernment if we do not accept their new constitu¬ 
 tional constructions. That is the whole of it, 
 and let the country understand it. 
 
 The Senator objected to my right to speak, 
 because, in 1851, I attended a social festival in 
 Boston, and made a speech at that festival. Let 
 me say that I stand by that speech here to-day. 
 I do not disavow a word of* it. That speech is 
 not full nor complete, and it does not report all 
 I did say ; but what is reported I stand by. In 
 that speech I did say, then and there, to the faces 
 of gentlemen, what I have said all my life. I 
 disagree with those gentlemen on several points, 
 and they know, and everybody in my State knows, 
 that I disagree with those gentlemen in regard 
 to their views of the Constitution, of State rights, 
 and of the Union. I never uttered a word or 
 dreamed a dream of hostility to the Union of 
 these States, and I never even allowed myself to 
 put a case of disunion even as a supposition, as 
 a contingency. But, sir, attending that festival, 
 on an invitation, I spoke of the fidelity of Mr. 
 Garrison, and of those that associated with him— 
 men who do not vote, men who hold no offices, 
 men who will accept no offices, men that you 
 may call fanatical, if you please, but men who 
 
18 
 
 in personal character, and in all the relations of 
 private life, have the respect of all who know 
 them. Disagreeing from these gentlemen in re¬ 
 gard to their construction of the Constitution, I 
 paid them the tribute of my respect for their 
 zeal, their devotion to what they regarded to be 
 their duty. For an oppressed and hated race 
 these men have devoted years of self-sacrificing 
 toil. I do not agree with them in many of their 
 views — I differ widely from them. I do not 
 think they have always labored wisely, but of 
 their sincere devotion no one can doubt; and I 
 then paid them my humble tribule of respect, 
 and I shall not recall those words, here or else¬ 
 where. Sir, I disagree with the Senator from Mis¬ 
 sissippi as 1 do with Garrison in his views of the 
 Constitution and of the Union, but I have often, 
 in public and in private, in my section of the 
 country, borne the sincere tribute of my admira¬ 
 tion of his ability, intelligence, and fidelity to 
 his convictions. 
 
 The Senator arraigns me for having, in that 
 speech, paid a compliment to the reformers of 
 England, while he says I arraigned England for 
 forcing slavery upon this continent. Why, sir, 
 does not the Senator know that, for nearly two 
 centuries, the party in favor of slavery and the 
 slave trade controlled the Government of Eng¬ 
 land, and shaped her policy, and that, too, against 
 the protests, in later years, of the noblest and 
 best intellects of England? It is not the class of 
 men who planted slavery in America to whom I 
 paid the tribute of my admiration. Nor is it the 
 class of men who are upholding the course of 
 England in India, that I regard to-day as one of 
 the greatest crimes of this nineteenth century; 
 for w r hen I think of the wrongs England has per¬ 
 petrated in India, I ean hardly bear that an Eng¬ 
 lishman should reproach me or reproach my 
 country with holding any number of men in 
 bondage. But I paid my tribute of respect to 
 that class of men who, during this century, have 
 abolished the slave trade; have given freedom to 
 eight hundred thousand bondmen in the West 
 Indies; who have carried reforms in England 
 that have enlarged the privileges of the people ; 
 and who, to-day, are engaged in pressing upon 
 the Government reforms that will enlarge their 
 rights and their privileges. A more devoted 
 class of advocates of human rights the sun, in 
 his course across tl?e heavens, never looked down 
 upon, than have acted in England during the 
 present century. They have carried their reforms 
 against hailstorms of abuse; just such abuse as 
 is now heaped upon us on this side of the water 
 by men who are but repeating the words of Eng¬ 
 lish presses and English statesmen—of blind and 
 fanatical conservatism. 
 
 The Senator refers to my remarks of yesterday 
 as to the slave power; and the Senator, in this 
 connection, does not seem to understand what I 
 mean by the slave power. I will tell the Sena¬ 
 tor, and I will try to make him understand what 
 I mean by it. When I speak of the slave power 
 of this Government, I mean the political influ¬ 
 ence of slavery in the Government of the coun¬ 
 try. When the Constitution was made, there 
 were about six hundred thousand slaves in this 
 
 country. They were not, on an average, worth 
 one hundred dollars apiece. Slavery, as an ele¬ 
 ment of political power, was utterly contempti¬ 
 ble. There were in the Constitutional Conven¬ 
 tion and in the early Government men from 
 South Carolina and Georgia representing slave 
 interests ; but the great mass of the men repre¬ 
 senting the Southern States, especially Virginia, 
 were men opposed to the extension of slavery, 
 opposed to the slave trade, and openly in favor 
 of the policy of emancipation. These six hun¬ 
 dred thousand now have increased to four mil¬ 
 lion. Their value, when the Government com¬ 
 menced, was estimated at forty or fifty million 
 dollars, and it has increased to more than two 
 thousand million. Here is a vast material inter¬ 
 est. This interest is upheld by State law; and 
 the result is, that men in favor of perpetuating 
 and extending this system of slavery over this 
 continent have obtained the control of the sov¬ 
 ereign States of this Union. Why, sir, would 
 Virginia send Washington to these Halls if he 
 was living? Would Virginia send Jefferson here 
 on the avowals he made, avowals such as have 
 never been equalled by any statesman on this 
 continent, against slavery ? Would Virginia send 
 Madison, and Patrick Henry, and George Mason, 
 or men who made the declarations they made, 
 into these Chambers now? Would Maryland 
 send Luther Martin ? Would she send William 
 Pinkney here now to represent her sentiments? 
 Would North Carolina send Judge Gaston and 
 Judge Iredell—men who have left upon the rec¬ 
 ord of the country their sentiments in favor of 
 the emancipation of the bondman ? No, sir. I 
 tell you this slave power has banished from the 
 councils of the nation not only all of that class 
 of men, but nearly all of the old Henry Clay 
 Whigs and the followers of Andrew Jackson, the 
 old national men ; a n& Congress now is made up 
 of the disciples of Mr. Calhoun, of the men who 
 have dethroned Jefferson as the apostle of De¬ 
 mocracy, and enthroned Calhoun as their phi¬ 
 losopher, guide, and friend. 
 
 Mr. MASON. Will the Senator allow me to 
 make an inquiry, that I may learn exactly his 
 position? Do I understand the Senator to mean 
 by the slave power, as he expresses it, the repre¬ 
 sentation of the slaves provided for by the Con¬ 
 stitution? / 
 
 Mr. WILSON. I will answer the Senator 
 frankly; no, sir, I do not. I will tell the Senator 
 what i do mean. I will try to make myself un¬ 
 derstood on this point. I mean the influence that 
 results from the holding of four million men as 
 property, valued at two or three thousand mil¬ 
 lion dollars. The holding of it by law, and the 
 desire to extend it and perpetuate it, have devel¬ 
 oped an element of political power; it is bold, 
 arrogant, aggressive; it governs the States ; it 
 governs the Federal Government to-day. 
 
 The Senator from Mississippi wanted me to 
 state, and he said he had called for it before, 
 what we considered the aggressions of this slave 
 power. Well, sir, I will endeavor to give the 
 Senator from Mississippi some information upon 
 this point of aggression. He seems to see none. 
 I will state a few of those points; and if the 
 
19 
 
 Senator does not see slavery aggression in those 
 points, then I think he must have come to the 
 conclusion that slavery i3 imperial, and has ti*e 
 right and the power to do what it pleases in the 
 government of this country. I choose to go 
 back only some twenty-five years. When we 
 framed the Constitution, the people of the free 
 States were not responsible for the existence cf 
 slavery in their National capital. You fixed 
 this capital here, on the banks of the Potomac; 
 you accepted the slave laws of Maryland and 
 Virginia; accepted the slave code that existed 
 here; and here, in the National capital, in the 
 eyes of representatives of free men, in the face 
 of representatives of foreign Governments ; here, 
 in the capital of this Democratic Republic, 
 slavery and the slave trade existed and flourish¬ 
 ed; and we, the people of the United States, 
 were all responsible for the existence of slavery 
 and the slave trade in this District. The Fed¬ 
 eral Government has complete constitutional 
 power in thi3 District to govern it. The people 
 of a portion of the country sent their petitions 
 here, asking Congress to abolish Ihe slave trade 
 and slavery.. This constitutional right of peti¬ 
 tion, this right that is above the Constitution, 
 as Caleb Cushing said on the floor of the House 
 of Representatives—a right won by our ances¬ 
 tors on the battle-fields of the Old World, which 
 they brought with them here—I say this right 
 of petition, for seven years, in these Halls was 
 cloven down; yes, sir, that right was cloven 
 down here on the floor of the Senate and of the 
 House of Representatives. Does not the Senator 
 from Mississippi call that an aggression upon 
 the rights of freemen, to deny their petitions a 
 hearing in the Hall3 of the Congress of the 
 United States ? This right wa3 won after a battle 
 of seven years against that aggressive policy of 
 the slave power. 
 
 Then, sir, ex-President Adams presented a 
 petition purporting to come from a few slaves; 
 and a vote of censure was moved upon him, and 
 the Hall of the House of Representatives rang 
 with bitter and fiery denunciations of that ven¬ 
 erable statesman for presenting that petition of a 
 few poor slaves to this great nation. During 
 those same days, when the right of petition was 
 cloven down on this floor and in the other Hall, 
 the mails of the United States were examined 
 by postmasters in the Southern States. Those 
 mails were rifled, and in Charleston, South Car¬ 
 olina, they were burned, and the Postmaster 
 General of the United States wrote a letter in 
 which he said he could not approve, but he 
 would not condemn. Was not that an aggres¬ 
 sion, an outrage? Yes, sir; was it not an ag¬ 
 gression and an outrage? Will the Senator 
 answer? 
 
 For years, the neutrality laws of the United 
 States, under the expanding influences of this 
 slave power, were openly violated, and then 
 came that question of the annexation of Texas 
 to this Union. While that great question was 
 pending, that was to give to this country three 
 hundred thousand square miles of slave soil, Mr. 
 Calhoun, the leader of the slave interests during 
 his life, insulted the moral and religious senti¬ 
 
 ments of the people of this country, by sending 
 to France, in the face of Europe, a public docu¬ 
 ment avowing that the annexation of Texas was 
 for the purpose of strengthening slavery in the 
 United States. Was not this aggression? Was 
 it not an outrage upon the sentiments of men 
 who believe slaver}* to be an evil, to be a wrong, 
 that the Secretary of State should send a public 
 document to Europe to notify the Christian and 
 civilized world that the Republic of the United 
 States proposed to annex a foreign nation in or¬ 
 der to uphold and perpetuate slavery? 
 
 Then, sir, came the Mexican war, the result of 
 that annexation, the predicted result of it; and 
 whatever may have been the cost of life or of 
 treasure of that great contest, the aggressive 
 policy of slavery is responsible for it. AVhen the 
 territories which we acquired from Mexico came 
 to us, the people of the tree States wished to 
 preserve them to free labor and free laboring 
 men. The Democracy of the free States, in their 
 Conventions, in their Legislatures, and all their 
 Representatives in these Chambers, with two 
 exceptions, voted for the application of the pro¬ 
 viso prohibiting slavery to the Mexican acqui¬ 
 sitions; but the slave power, that the Senator 
 from Mississippi cannot comprehend, cannot see, 
 proclaimed.that, if the Democracy of the North 
 did not abandon that position, the Democratic 
 party of this country was to be rent asunder and 
 destroyed; and under the irou rule of this slave 
 power, the Democratic leaders throughout the 
 free States changed their principles, abandoned 
 the doctrine of continuing free the Territories of 
 the United States that came to us free. Then, 
 sir, California came here, asking for admission 
 into the Union as a sovereign State. She came 
 here robed in the garments of freedom ; but the 
 influence of slavery, the slave power of w*hich 
 we are speaking, in this Chamber, held California 
 here for months, knocking at the doors of the 
 Union for admission. In the hour of their tri¬ 
 umph, they gave to Texas fifty or sixty thousand 
 square miles of territory, large enough to make 
 a State like Virginia, and paid her $10,000,000 
 to take it; when, according to the words of Mr. 
 Benton, it was but a mere claim, not an estab¬ 
 lished right. General Houston raised the claim 
 to this vast territory; but it was not acknowl¬ 
 edged by Mexico, or established by occupation. 
 
 Texas bad not established that claim, and we 
 gave her fifty or sixty thousand square miles ; 
 and we gave her $10,000,000. That was the 
 settlement. Then came the fugitive slave law. 
 I am not here to deny constitutional provisions ; 
 but I take it, if there be a provision in the Con¬ 
 stitution of the United States for the rendition of 
 fugitives, the other provisions of that Constitu¬ 
 tion, in any law that may be made, are to be 
 'carried out. There are those who believe that 
 fugitive slave law to be unconstitutional. There 
 are those who believe the time will come when 
 that fugitive slave act of 1850, in its various pro¬ 
 visions, will be pronounced unconstitutional by 
 the general judgment of the nation. 
 
 Then, sir, came the repeal of the Missouri com¬ 
 promise ; and the Senator from Mississippi has 
 made a complaint against us as the violators of 
 
20 
 
 that compromise, and not the men who repealed 
 it. What is the argument ? A bargain is made; 
 one part has all the benefits of that bargain ; 
 when the hour comes for the other to have its 
 benefits, it is taken from them. And what is the 
 argument of the Senator from Mississippi ? It 
 amounts to just this : we made a bargain ; he 
 and I make a bargain in regard to a special 
 measure; he wishes to apply it to another mat¬ 
 ter ; I refuse to do it; and then the Senator says, 
 as you refuse to do that, I will break the old bar¬ 
 gain. That is the whole it—no more, no less. 
 
 Then, sir, following the repeal of the Missouri 
 compromise came the invasion of five thousand 
 Missourians into Kansas. Was not that an ag¬ 
 gression ? They took the ballot-boxes; they 
 elected a Legislature ; they passed a slave code ; 
 they established slavery. They passed laws ma¬ 
 king it a penitentiary offence for a freeman to say 
 that slavery did not exist there. Any Northern 
 man who should say, in that Territory, that sla- J 
 very did not exist there, was liable to two years 
 in the penitentiary. Was not that an aggression ? 
 The same acts provided that any man who was op¬ 
 posed to holding slaves in the Territory of Kansas 
 could not sit upon a jury in a case of that kind. 
 What was done with the men who led in these 
 lawless acts of violence and fraud in the Terri¬ 
 tory of Kansas ? Clark, who murdered Barber, 
 was in office, and has since been appointed to 
 another office, and confirmed by the Senate. 
 Emory, who led the band that murdered Phil¬ 
 lips, is now in office in the Territory. Hender¬ 
 son, who had the control of the Delaware frauds, j 
 of which so much has been said, has held office 
 in that Territory. Many men engaged in those 
 acts have been upheld in office by the Govern¬ 
 ment. 
 
 Then, sir, came the Lecompton Constitution. 
 Was not that an aggression ? It came to this 
 Chamber, and, although it was known by every 
 intelligent man in the country that it was not 
 the will of the people of Kansas, it was pressed 
 in these Halls for months. The attempt was 
 made to force that Constitution upon an unwil¬ 
 ling people, a protesting people, a people who 
 were imploring you to reject it. 
 
 Then, sir, came the English bill, another of 
 those measures of aggression, not only an ag¬ 
 gression, but an insult, for it said to Kansas, 
 
 “ You may come into the Union as a slave State, 
 with your present population ; but if you de¬ 
 cline to come into the Union with your present 
 population as a slave State, you shall not come 
 into the Union until you have ninety-three thou¬ 
 sand inhabitants.” This was the distinction, a j 
 distinction made in that bill, that a State, with 
 its present population, could come into the Union 
 as a slave State, but if it would not come in as 
 a slave State, it should stay out of the Union un¬ 
 til. it had ninety-three thousand inhabitants. 
 The people of Kansas rejected and spurned your 
 proposition, by ten thousand majority. That is 
 not all. They have held a Convention ; they 
 have framed a Constitution ; they now ask ad¬ 
 mission into the Union as a free State; it has 
 gone through all the forms of law ; and yet that 
 slave power this day and this hour is managing, 
 
 manoeuvring to keep Kansas out of the Union 
 this session, under a Constitution of her own 
 making, and I expect to see that aggression tri¬ 
 umph. 
 
 Now we have the new constitutional construc¬ 
 tion of the right of the master to carry his slaves 
 into the Territories, and hold them there as prop¬ 
 erty, under the protection of the Constitution of 
 the United States. This is a new reading, a new 
 doctrine, a doctrine we reject, and it is an aggres¬ 
 sive policy. It is intended as a policy of aggression. 
 It is not intended so much for the present as for 
 the future. Why, sir, I find a letter written by the 
 Senator from Alabama, [Mr. Clay,] in which 
 he refers to these matters, and speaks of the prac¬ 
 tical importance to the South of maintaining and 
 upholding this doctrine of the right of the master 
 to carry his slaves into a Territory, under the 
 protection of the Federal Constitution, and we 
 have before us this very resolution of the Sen¬ 
 ator from Mississippi, [Mr. Brown,] asking the 
 Senate of the United States to pronounce upon 
 this doctrine, and not only to accept the doc¬ 
 trine, but to accept its consequences, and pass a 
 slave code for the government of slavery in all 
 the Territories of the United States. 
 
 Sir, a few years ago we had the Ostend 
 manifesto. That was dictated by this influence 
 of slavery. It was a declaration that disgraced 
 the diplomacy of the country in the face of the 
 civilized world, and there is no American that 
 can look the world in the face, and read that 
 manifesto, who will not hang his head. 
 
 We have sought the acquisition of Cuba to 
 strengthen slavery. During the last ten years 
 we have had a balance of trade against us in 
 Cuba of one hundred and forty or one hundred 
 and fifty million dollars. We had the offer, five 
 years ago, of a commercial treaty with Spain in 
 regard to the island of Cuba. A proposition was 
 made to Mr. Perry, stating the readiness of the 
 Spanish Government to make commercial treaties 
 with us ; and had this Government looked at the 
 interest of the country, instead of seeking the 
 acquisition of that island, vphich we are told 
 they would not take if it was free, they would 
 have made a commercial treaty by which the 
 material interests of this country would have 
 been cared for. So it is with Mexico ; so it is 
 with Central America. The policy of the acqui¬ 
 sition of territory for the purpose of planting 
 slavery in it has alienated the affections of the 
 people of this continent south of us towards us. 
 These people now hate us and fear us, and our 
 commercial interests with the nations south of 
 us on this continent are, and have been, sacri¬ 
 ficed, because it is the policy of the slave power 
 to acquire territory in which to plant slavery. I 
 charge that this aggressive policy, this expan¬ 
 sive policy of the slave power, is sacrificing the 
 material, the manufacturing, the commercial in¬ 
 terests of this country. 
 
 There is another subject to which I wish to 
 refer. They have a law in South Carolina, or 
 rather a series of laws in that State, by which, 
 when a vessel comes into the harbors of that 
 State, if a colored inhabitant of a Northern State 
 is on board that vessel, he shall be imprisoned, 
 
the writ of habeas corpus denied him, and he com¬ 
 pelled to pay his own jail fees. In 1843, Massa¬ 
 chusetts sent to South Carolina one of the fore¬ 
 most advocates and men of our State. He went 
 to that State to have this law tested in the judi¬ 
 cial tribunals of the country ; and this law was 
 pronounced by William Wirt to be unconstitu¬ 
 tional. This law was pronounced by Judge 
 Johnson, of the Supreme Court of the United 
 States, a son of South Carolina, to be an uncon¬ 
 stitutional law. Massachusetts sent one of the 
 first lawyers of the country to test this question 
 in the courts of the country, and he was forcibly 
 expelled from that State; and to add to that in¬ 
 dignity, a law was passed, imposing the highest 
 penalties if any person came into that State for 
 the purpose of obstructing this law by any legal 
 process. Does not the Senator from Mississippi 
 regard that as an aggression ? Is it not an out¬ 
 rage ? 
 
 Mr. HAMMOND. I do not feel disposed to in¬ 
 terrupt the Senator, or to say anything on that 
 subject; but, on a proper occasion, it will be 
 very easy to show that that is perfectly warrant¬ 
 ed. We passed a police law in South Carolina 
 for our own personal protection. Certain classes 
 of people came there and interfered with our do¬ 
 mestic affairs. Was it an aggression to repel 
 them or put them under surveillance, or do what 
 we pleased with them, while they were there ? 
 We did not bring them there. They came vol¬ 
 untarily. 
 
 Mr. WILSON. I shall be very glad, Mr. Presi¬ 
 dent, to have the Senator from South Carolina, 
 on a fit occasion, endeavor to vindicate the pol¬ 
 icy of that law. Let me say, however, to that 
 Senator now in passing, that when South Caro¬ 
 lina passes laws to protect herself, she has no 
 right to infringe upon the constitutional rights 
 of others. If any persons go into that State and 
 violate her laws, she will punish them. Of that 
 I do not complain ; but, sir, what right has South 
 Carolina to pass an act that colored citizens of 
 Massachusetts, when they go into the harbor of 
 Charleston, who are innocent of crime, shall, 
 merely because they happen to be colored men, 
 be taken and imprisoned before they commit any 
 offence ? 
 
 Mr. HAMMOND. All this grows out of the 
 peculiar differences in the domestic institutions 
 of the North and the South. Different laws must 
 be made, to suit different countries and different 
 systems. Colored people are not citizens in 
 South Carolina. We cannot recognise them 
 either as citizens of South Carolina or citizens of 
 Massachusetts ; and the Supreme Court has since 
 decided that they are not citizens of the United 
 States. They are therefore not entitled to the 
 constitutional provision that places the citizens 
 of the different States on an equality within 
 each other's limits. We had reason to believe 
 that it was dangerous to the peace of our com¬ 
 munity and to our peculiar institutions, to per¬ 
 mit them to come there. Let me say again, that 
 all this grows out of what the Senators on the 
 other side do not seem at all to comprehend ; 
 that we live under distinctly different social sys¬ 
 tems, and must have peculiar laws. Without 
 
 intending to aggress upon anybody else, or to 
 infringe on the rights of any individual, much 
 less of any State or of any section, we must be 
 allowed to take care of ourselves. That law to 
 which the Senator alludes has been materially 
 modified. It has been ascertained that it was 
 unnecessarily severe, and instead of incarcerating 
 the colored persons in jail, they are now kept 
 under surveillance, perhaps allowed to stay on 
 their vessels ; I do not recollect the exact modi¬ 
 fication, but they are no longer subject to the 
 same impositions they were before. This South 
 Carolina has done voluntarily; and thus South 
 Carolina and all the South would ameliorate the 
 condition of the slaves, if they were let alone. It 
 has been done. They are ameliorating it; and 
 we could go on to a greater degree, if we were 
 let alone. 
 
 Mr. WILSON. The Senator says they live un¬ 
 der different social systems, and they must have 
 tbeir way of protecting themselves. Well, sir, I 
 am willing that they shall protect themselves ; 
 but in protecting themselves, I say they have no 
 right to infringe on the rights of others. What 
 are we to think of a social system that requires 
 this sacrifice of the rights of others? 
 
 Mr. CHE3NUT. Let me say to the Senator 
 from Massachusetts, that the ground we assume 
 in South Carolina on that point, the ground 
 whl.h has been sustained by the courts, is that 
 every State has a constitutional right to pass 
 such police laws as will protect itself against any 
 trouble. You pass your police laws in New York 
 and in every seaport town in the country; you 
 quarantine vessels; you raise all sorts of bar¬ 
 riers of protection against evils which you an¬ 
 ticipate. Now, in South Carolina we have the 
 same right, and it has been so decided by the 
 courts, under the rule of police regulations, to 
 protect ourselves against interference with our 
 rights and interests by the Senator from Massa¬ 
 chusetts and his people. I put it upon the broad 
 principle that he has no right to claim for a ne¬ 
 gro from Massachusetts, or for a negro from else¬ 
 where, that he shall become his emissary under 
 the pretended rights guarantied by the Consti¬ 
 tution to the citizens of this country—that he 
 shall insinuate him upon us under any such pre¬ 
 tence. We claim that as a right of sovereignty 
 belonging to all free people, the right of self- 
 protection by police regulations and otherwise. 
 
 Mr. WILSON. I want to call the attention of 
 the Senators from South Carolina to the precise 
 and exact issue. In Massachusetts, and in sev¬ 
 eral of our States, the colored men are regarded, 
 and ever have been regarded, as citizens. They 
 have all the rights of citizens. They fought the 
 battles of the Revolution. They help to make 
 the laws; they obey the laws. In 1820, South 
 Carolina passed this act. William W r irt, then 
 Attorney General of the United States, pro¬ 
 nounced it unconstitutional. At that time, Judge 
 Johnson, of South Carolina, was on the bench of 
 the Supreme Court of the United States, and he 
 pronounced it unconstitutional. Under these cir¬ 
 cumstances, men were imprisoned, were punish¬ 
 ed, and some of them sold into slavery. Massa¬ 
 chusetts sent a lawyer to South Carolina ; to do 
 
r 
 
 22 
 
 what? To take that case before the judicial tri¬ 
 bunals to be pronounced upon. 
 
 Mr. HAMMOND. If the Senator will allow 
 me to say one word more, I shall have done. 
 
 Mr. WILSON. Certainly. 
 
 Mr. HAMMOND. It so happens that I was 
 Governor of the State when Mr. Hoar came. I 
 had known him before in Congress, and he had 
 often avowed to me that he was not an aboli¬ 
 tionist. He was a pleasant, kind old gentleman, 
 well informed, and I had a sort of friendship for 
 him during the short time that I sat near him 
 in Congress. He came, and sent me his com¬ 
 mission under the broad seal of the State of 
 Massachusetts. Knowing that perhap's there 
 might be some violence done, 1 took care that 
 no violence should be done towards him; and 
 although he was, as you may say, ejected from 
 the State, he was only told the situation and 
 circumstances of affairs, and politely asked, and 
 escorted by some of the first gentlemen of 
 Charleston to the boat. Why did Massachu¬ 
 setts send us a commissioner but for an incendi¬ 
 ary purpose? If she wished to try the constitu¬ 
 tionality of that law, she could have got lawyers 
 enough in Charleston. 
 
 Mr. WILSON. She tried. 
 
 Mr. HAMMOND. Well, then, if she could not 
 get a lawyer there, she ought to have known 
 that the state of public feeling was such that 
 sending a commissioner there was an act of ag¬ 
 gression ; and what right had she to send a 
 commissioner there to produce an abolition ex¬ 
 citement in the city of Charleston? 
 
 Mr. WILSON. Mr. President, I am very glad 
 of the expose we have here to-day from South 
 Carolina, in regard to this law- 
 
 Mr. HAMMOND. I am not at all aware of the 
 fact that she could not get a lawyer there. I 
 doubt very much whether it is so. She could 
 not have tried all the lawyers. There are law¬ 
 yers enough now who would do it, and I believe 
 always were.* 
 
 Mr. WILSON. Mr. President, South Carolina 
 has a law, passed when that Senator was Gov¬ 
 ernor, making it an offence against the law to 
 act as counsel in such a case. I have the law 
 before me. 
 
 Mr. HAMMOND. That was after this. 
 
 Mr. WILSON. It was. 
 
 Mr. HAMMOND. And in consequence of it. 
 
 Mr. WILSON. Now, Mr. President, let us un¬ 
 derstand each other. The Senator from South 
 Carolina [Mr. Chesnut] says that this excite¬ 
 ment in 1844 was owing to the aggressions of 
 Massachusetts on South Carolina. What ag¬ 
 gressions ? 
 
 ' Mr. CHESNUT. Shall I answer. 
 
 Mr. WILSON. Certainly. 
 
 Mr. CHESNUT. Why, sir, the aggressions 
 were of the most palpable and continual char¬ 
 acter, by the people of Massachusetts, by the 
 citizens of Massachusetts, by the abolition¬ 
 ists of Massachusetts. I suppose the new Re¬ 
 publican party, under its rebaptismal name, 
 had not appeared; but Garrison, that teacher 
 at whose font the gentleman was baptized in his 
 ideas of liberty—a man whose opinion of the 
 
 Constitution of the country is, that it is a league 
 with death and a covenant with hell—that very 
 teacher from whom the gentleman, as appeared 
 from what was read here yesterday, had taken 
 his lessons of patriotism, of devotion to the 
 country and to liberty; that very man, and all 
 his class, had been exciting the people, sending 
 abolition emissaries, distributing abolition doc¬ 
 uments to us. That was the aggression of the 
 citizens of Massachusetts, which the people of 
 South Carolina had a right to protect themselves 
 against. 
 
 Mr. WILSON. Mr. President, the Senator 
 rose for the purpose of lelling me what ag¬ 
 gressions had been perpetrated upon his own 
 State, and he states no aggression; he has none 
 to state. The people of Massachusetts never 
 made an aggression on the people of South Car¬ 
 olina to this hour, and that Senator cannot put 
 his finger on a solitary one. I defy him to do it. 
 
 I say here, to-day, to that Senator, that he has 
 not, and the men whom he associates with never 
 have, produced the shadow of evidence that any 
 such attempt was ever made by the citizens of 
 Massachusetts to incite slaves to insurrection in 
 South Carolina, at any time, or on any occasion. 
 Before he makes that declaration again, I ask 
 him to give us one fact, one well-authenticated 
 fact. 
 
 But the other Senator from South Carolina 
 [Mr. Hammond] complains that we sent this 
 agent, because we might have employed lawyers 
 in Charleston. I say to that Senator, that Mas¬ 
 sachusetts did endeavor to engage lawyers in 
 Charleston to take this case, but she could not 
 obtain a lawyer in Charleston to test the case ; 
 and we sent Mr. Hoar to South Carolina to try 
 the case, and South Carolina would not allow 
 him to take that case into court. She passed a 
 law that one of her most distinguished men on 
 the bench of the Supreme Court pronounced un¬ 
 constitutional. Massachusetts wished to test it, 
 and sent a lawyer there when she could not ob¬ 
 tain one in the State. The one she sent was 
 driven from the State, and then a law was .passed 
 making it a penitentiary offence to come there 
 and try that matter again, and making it an of¬ 
 fence for a South Carolina lawyer to take a case 
 of the kind. 
 
 On the 18th December, 1844, the Legislature 
 of South Carolina passed a law to prevent any 
 person thereafter coming into the State for the 
 purpose, or any attorney or other person in the 
 State, from instituting any proceeding that should 
 test the constitutionality of her law of 1820, 
 which imprisoned and sold into perpetual sla¬ 
 very the free colored persons of the North coming 
 into the State in merchant vessels or otherwise; 
 visiting any such person with the most fearful 
 penalties. 
 
 The first section of the law enacted, among 
 other things, that if any person, on his own be¬ 
 half, or in virtue of any authority from any State, 
 should come within the limits of South Carolina 
 with intent to counteract or hinder the operation 
 of such laws as have been made in relation to 
 slaves or free persons of color, he shall, on 
 conviction, be sentenced to banishment, and to 
 
/ 
 
 23 
 
 SUCH FINE AND IMPRISONMENT AS MAY BE DEEMED 
 FITTING BY THE COURT WHICH SHALL HAVE TRIED 
 
 the offence ; that is, for life, if the court 
 please. 
 
 The second section enacts, among other things, 
 that if any person within the State shall accept 
 any commission or authority from any other State, 
 and shall do anything to counteract or hinder the 
 operation of such laws, he shall, on conviction, 
 be sentenced to pay for the first offence a fine 
 not exceeding $1,000, and be imprisoned not ex¬ 
 ceeding one year ; and for the second offence, he 
 shall be imprisoned for seven years, and pay a 
 like fine, or be banished from the State, in the 
 discretion of the court. 
 
 The third section enacts that the Governor 
 shall require any person coming into South Caro¬ 
 lina on his own behalf, or for any State, for any 
 purpose “ having relation to the laws or regula¬ 
 tions of this State on the subject of slaves or free 
 persons of color,” to depart from the limits of the, 
 State in forty-eight hours, on pain of banishment 
 from the State, and fine and imprisonment at the 
 discretion of the court. 
 
 The fourth section enacts, among other things, 
 that a second offence against the third section 
 shall be punished by an imprisonment not less 
 than seven years, and by fine not less than $1,000, 
 and banishment. 
 
 On the same day, the same State enacted a law 
 taking away all benefits, privileges, or rights, un¬ 
 der the writ of habeas corpus , from “ every negro 
 or free person of color who shall enter this State 
 on board any vessel, as a cook, steward, or mari¬ 
 ner, or in any other employment on board such 
 vessel.” 
 
 Sir, they have a law in the State of Virginia 
 authorizing the officers of that State to go on 
 board vessels, and charge the commander five 
 dollars for making the examination. They have 
 an institution in Virginia that her Senator [Mr. 
 Mason] tells us “ennobles the white man and 
 the black man;” but they have got a class in 
 the community, the negroes, who, somehow or 
 other, do not like that kind of nobility, and they 
 try to run away from this ennobling system; and 
 so they try to hide themselves, it is said, on board 
 vessels, and suffer all the inconveniences of a 
 long passage, in order to escape from this system 
 that ennobles them, and then the officers charge 
 five dollars for making the examination ; and if 
 a vessel sails out of Baltimore, and passing by 
 the const of Virginia is prevented by head winds 
 from continuing her journey, a vessel that goes 
 into the harbors of Virginia only to anchor, is 
 visited and charged five dollars. 
 
 Mr. MASON. Will the Senator allow me one 
 moment? 
 
 Mr. WILSON. Certainly. 
 
 Mr. MASON. I have not looked back at my 
 language on the occasion referred to; but I think 
 I am in the habit of using language that is ap¬ 
 propriate. I did not, I am certain, use the term 
 “ennoble” in that connection, only because it 
 would have been unmeaning. I presume I said— 
 what I meant to say, and here repeat—that the 
 experience of the Southern States has shown 
 that the condition of African bondage elevates 
 
 both races. Now, sir, as to this law, I cannot 
 give the honorable Senator any specific instan¬ 
 ces, because I have not treasured them up ; but 
 the honorable Senator knows enough of the co- 
 temporaneous history of the country to know 
 that coasting vessels along the Chesapeake Bay 
 have more than once stolen, secreted, and car¬ 
 ried away the slaves of the proprietors upon its 
 shores. It was to prevent that, that the State of 
 Virginia, with full power and a perfect right, 
 passed that police law appointing a set of offi¬ 
 cers, whose duty it is to examine every coasting 
 vessel, and see that she has not kidnapped any 
 of our slaves ; and the fee—I do not know what 
 it is, five dollars probably, or whatever it is—I 
 take it for granted is paid by those whose mis¬ 
 fortune subjects them to that surveillance. It is 
 a police law of the State ; and whether the State 
 has a right to pass it or not, is a matter which 
 the State will determine for itself and by itself. 
 
 Mr. WILSON. A word about the Senator’s 
 language. I happened to hear it, and I find it 
 here before me. He said: 
 
 “ Tlie South had been led to examine the subject because 
 of the abolition agitation ; and it is now almost universally 
 believed that the best condition of the African race is the 
 one they are now subjected to in the South, and that it is 
 ennobling to both races, white and black.” 
 
 Mr. MASON. Will the Senator tell me where 
 he got that report ? 
 
 Mr. WILSON. I cannot; but it is correct, for 
 I heard it. 
 
 Mr. MASON. I will not appeal to any Sena¬ 
 tor; but I will ask whether it is possible, know¬ 
 ing something of the use of terms, that I could 
 have applied that term to the black race—that 
 it ennobled them? 
 
 Mr. CLARK. I desire to say, for one, that I 
 distinctly heard it, and other Senators around 
 me did. 
 
 Mr. MASON. Then I will not say that I did 
 not use it; but I think, if I did, I must have been 
 very unfortunate in the use of terms. The mean¬ 
 ing was “elevate.” 
 
 Mr. CLARK. I will say to the Senator that 
 we at the time thought it very singular that the 
 term should be used, and it caused some remark 
 among us. 
 
 Mr. MASON. It was a mistake of terms. I 
 do not remember the occasion; but the proper 
 term is “ elevate.” 
 
 Mr. WILSON. Why should a law of that kind 
 be imposed on those who have committed no of¬ 
 fence? Why should Virginia not pay her own 
 police officers? Why should they board vessels 
 sailing from Baltimore, who are sent in by stress 
 of weather, and tax them five dollars for making 
 this examination ? But the Senator says it is a 
 policy of their own. I believe it to be an un¬ 
 constitutional act. At any rate, I know it to be 
 an unjust and unfair one; and I put that act 
 among the other acts of aggression that the peo¬ 
 ple of this country are subjected to by the slave 
 system. No right, no interest, can stand for a 
 moment, when the interests of slavery are in¬ 
 volved. 
 
 Sir, what are the facts before the country to¬ 
 day? Is it not true that men are arrested in 
 many of the Southern States who are travelling 
 
F 
 
 24 
 
 upon their business ? that laboring men are ar¬ 
 rested, insulted, and punished ? that men are 
 banished from their hearths and homes ? that 
 laws are being passed to sell colored men into 
 slavery unless they leave their native States ? 
 Has not Arkansas passed an act of that charac¬ 
 ter? Has not such an act just been arrested by 
 the veto of the Governor of Missouri? Has not 
 Judge Catron denounced those laws as a propo¬ 
 sition to work an oppression and outrage? To¬ 
 day, in the Southern States of this Union, our 
 mails may be opened. Is a Senator on this side 
 of the Chamber safe in nearly half the States of 
 this Union ? I say to you, to-day, what Senators 
 around me will bear witness to, that our franks 
 are not safe in many of the States of this Union. 
 Is not this a violation of the right of free speech, 
 the right of freedom of the press, and a violation 
 of the sanctity of the mails? Are not these ag¬ 
 gressions upon the rights of American citizens? 
 Are they not the grossest aggressions—aggres¬ 
 sions that would mark any Government on earth 
 where they existed as a despotism ? 
 
 But, sir, the Senator from Mississippi said, in 
 the course of his remarks, that, when I referred 
 to the passage of a slave code in New Mexico, I 
 said what I could not have known to be the case. 
 I have the letter of the Delegate of that Terri¬ 
 tory, and it reads : 
 
 “ At the solicitation of General R. Daws, of Mississippi, I now 
 write you, requesting you to draw up a law for the protec¬ 
 tion of property in slaves in New Mexico, and cause it to be 
 passed by our Legislature.” 
 
 Then the request is, that this law, when passed, 
 shall be sent to the Southern newspapers, and 
 sent very quickly to the New York Herald. This 
 letter is addressed by the Delegate from New 
 Mexico to the Secretary of that Territory, request¬ 
 ing him to draw up and pass such a law, and 
 this at the request of General R. Davis, of Mis¬ 
 sissippi. 
 
 But the Senator from Mississippi suggested 
 that the Northern Democracy, in case we have a 
 contest, will, in the language of General Cushing, 
 “ throttle ” us in our own States. Now, sir, I should 
 like to have an understanding on this subject. I 
 want to know from the Senator from Mississippi, 
 whether, in the event of the happening of the 
 contingency to which certain Senators look, the 
 election of a Republican President, and an at¬ 
 tempt is made to go out of the Union, or, rather, 
 following the suggestion of the Senator from 
 North Carolina, to stay here, and hold on to the 
 Capitol, to engage in a bloody struggle, he is 
 authorized to speak for the Democracy of my 
 State, and say they will sustain him and the gen¬ 
 tlemen with whom he acts ? Have they author¬ 
 ized him to speak for them, and to answer his 
 friends that they will “ throttle us where we 
 stand ? ” 
 
 Mr. DAYI8. The Senator asks me a question, 
 and, if he wishes me to answer it now, I will an¬ 
 swer it, of course. I suppose he could hardly 
 
 have expected any other,answer than that which 
 I must necessarily give, that I have no authority 
 to speak for the Democracy of Massachusetts. It 
 seems to be almost a superfluous question. My 
 i reference to General Cushing was to an expres¬ 
 sion which he used in a speech made and pub¬ 
 lished in Massachusetts, and I considered him 
 very good authority for those of whom he spoke. 
 
 Air. WILSON. Mr. President, General Cushing 
 is very good authority for himself at the time he 
 makes a declaration. He came to these Halls 
 about twenty-five years ago, and he made the 
 House of Representatives riug with his eloquence 
 against what he was pleased to call the aggres¬ 
 sions of the South; and whenever Massachu¬ 
 setts was assailed—and she was assailed then as 
 she is now—he came to her defence. When she 
 was taunted with love of liberty, he said he 
 gloried in it, for anti-slavery was but the synonym 
 for love of liberty. General Cushing has seen 
 fit to change his views, and at the present time 
 he is certainly the greatest agitator we have in 
 New England, making speeches remarkable for 
 their intemperate zeal, writing the most singular 
 letters, some of which I have before me; and I 
 must confess my utter amazement that a gentle¬ 
 man of the very large intelligence of General 
 Cushing should pen letters of such an inflamma¬ 
 tory and ridiculous character. This phrase, 
 “ throttle us,” is one of his imprudent declara¬ 
 tions, which only excite the amusement of the 
 people in Massachusetts. 
 
 But, sir, this is not the first time this idea has 
 been thrown out during these debates, that the 
 Democracy of the North will take care of us if 
 such a contest should arise. I should like to 
 know whether the Democratic Senators and Rep¬ 
 resentatives from the North will rise in their pla¬ 
 ces here, and say that, in the event of the elec¬ 
 tion in November next to the Presidency of the 
 Senator from New York, [Mr. Seward,] or the 
 Senator from Maine, [Mr. Fessenden,] or any 
 other of the Senators about me, or any of the 
 public men who are the accepted leaders of the 
 Republican party, the administration will not be 
 permitted to come into power, and the Union be 
 dissolved ? I want to know if those Senators 
 are ready to pledge the support of the Northern 
 Democrats to that policy ? If so, I should like 
 to have them put the assurance upon the records 
 of the Senate. Do the Democratic Senators from 
 the North intend to aid those who are now mena¬ 
 cing the Union ? Sir, if Democratic Senators 
 from the loyal North and West intend to give aid 
 to those who are now menacing the unity of the 
 Republic, if the representatives of the Northern 
 Democracy in these Chambers have given assu¬ 
 rances that when the contest comes, if come it 
 must, for the preservation of that Union which 
 makes us one people, they will throttle us in our 
 tracks, let them now put their intentions upon 
 the records of the country. Let them speak for 
 themselves. 
 
 BUELL k BLANCHARD, Printers, Washington, D. C.