The Middle Period 1817-1858 Part 34

[Sidenote: Mr. Bell's att.i.tude toward the bill.]

It was furthermore suspected that Mr. Bell, of Tennessee, another member of the committee, was opposed to the bill. This suspicion turned out to be true. The bill can hardly be regarded therefore as having been reported by the committee at all. The committee consisted of six Senators, and it was at last found that it had, at no time, received the support of more than three. Of these three, two were from the North, Douglas, of Illinois, and Jones, of Iowa, and one was from the South, Johnson, of Arkansas.

[Sidenote: Mr. Douglas' amendment pa.s.sed by the Senate.]

The vote upon this amendment was taken on February 15th. Thirty-five Senators voted for it, and ten against it. Of those voting for it, twenty-four were from the North and eleven from the South. Of those voting against it, nine were from the North and one, Mr. Houston, was from the South. Mr. Bell voted for the amendment for the reason, as he afterwards explained, that he thought Mr. Douglas ought to be allowed to perfect his bill.

{394} [Sidenote: Mr. Chase's second amendment.]

[Sidenote: Mr. Pratt's amendment to Mr. Chase's amendment.]

Mr. Chase now suspected that there might be some catch concealed in the last words of the amendment just adopted. These words, it will be remembered, were: "subject only to the Const.i.tution of the United States." Mr. Chase, therefore, moved to add the words: "under which the people of the Territory, through their appropriate representatives, may, if they see fit, prohibit the existence of slavery therein." Mr. Chase now put the home rule principle in regard to slavery in the Territories to the test, for if the people of a Territory could not, under the Const.i.tution of the United States, prohibit slavery in the Territories, then was the Douglas doctrine a mere deception, a mere jugglery of words. Mr. Chase put his proposition, however, in a form which appeared one-sided, and Mr.

Badger, of North Carolina, the best const.i.tutional lawyer from the South in the Senate, contended that Mr. Chase's amendment would have the effect of denying to the Territories the power to admit slavery, and thus destroy, from that side, the home rule principle of the bill.

To remedy this defect, Mr. Pratt moved to amend Mr. Chase's proposition so as to make it read that the people might introduce or prohibit slavery in the Territories. But this was an amendment to Mr.

Chase's amendment to Mr. Douglas' amendment, and was held to be unparliamentary, unless Mr. Chase would accept it, and incorporate it into his amendment. This he refused to do, on the ground, first, that he did not believe that the Territories could, under the Const.i.tution, introduce slavery, and, second, on the ground that the union of his proposition and that of Mr. Pratt in a single amendment would unite those who did not believe that the people of a Territory could introduce slavery with those who did not believe they could prohibit slavery {395} against the entire amendment, and probably defeat it, while, if the two propositions could be voted on separately, they would both probably pa.s.s, and the bill would be cleared of all ambiguity.

[Sidenote: Mr. Chase's amendment lost.]

Mr. Chase's att.i.tude toward Mr. Pratt's motion compelled the Senate to vote upon his proposition separately, and the amendment was lost by a vote of thirty-six to ten.

[Sidenote: Mr. Badger's amendment.]

Just before the close of the debate on Mr. Chase's motion, Mr. Walker, of Wisconsin, startled the Senate by the declaration that the repeal of the Act of 1820 prohibiting slavery would revive the old French law legitimizing slavery in all of the territory acquired from France.

Both Mr. Benjamin and Mr. Badger said it would not have that effect, but on different grounds. In order to quiet apprehension on this point, and remove the difficulty out of the way of the pa.s.sage of the bill, Mr. Badger gave notice that so soon as the vote should be taken on Mr. Chase's motion, he should move an amendment to the bill providing that "nothing contained in this Act shall be construed to revive or put in force any law or regulation, which may have existed prior to 1820, either protecting, establishing, prohibiting, or abolishing slavery." After the vote upon Mr. Chase's motion, Mr.

Badger offered this amendment, and it was voted, without debate, by a very large majority.

[Sidenote: Mr. Chase's third amendment.]

Mr. Chase now turned his a.s.saults upon other points of the bill. Mr.

Douglas had been impressed by the taunts of the opponents of the bill that home rule was to be granted to the people of the Territories only upon the subject of slavery, but that they were to continue in all other respects subject to the control of the general Government, and he now moved to strike out the veto power of {396} Congress over Territorial legislation, in the cases in hand, and to so modify the usual veto power of the Territorial governors as to allow a two-thirds majority of the Territorial legislatures to overcome it. These propositions were voted without debate. Whereupon Mr. Chase moved that the governors, secretaries, and judges of the two Territories be elected by the people instead of being appointed by the President.

This was logical, but it made the "squatter-sovereignty" doctrine ridiculous. It was, therefore, rejected with a considerable show of spirit.

[Sidenote: Mr. Chase's fourth amendment.]

Mr. Chase now moved that the whole country should be organized as one Territory instead of two. He seemed to antic.i.p.ate that if two should be established at the same time, the slaveholders would claim one.

This proved to be a correct suspicion. It was subsequently declared throughout the South that the purpose in forming two Territories was to give one to the North and the other to the South. And when the North made the fight for Kansas, it was really felt in the South by the ma.s.s of the people that a tacit agreement had been violated. The Senators in favor of the bill had now come to think that Mr. Chase was simply endeavoring to discredit the bill, and they quickly voted this motion down by a large majority.

[Sidenote: Mr. Bell's argument against the bill.]

Down to this juncture, the bill had been considered in the Senate as a committee of the Whole. It was now reported to the Senate as amended by this committee, and, on March 3rd, it came to the vote upon its final pa.s.sage. It was at this point that Mr. Bell revealed his opposition to the bill, and made his great argument, the greatest effort of his long and useful life, against it. The speech was chiefly a logical and an eloquent elaboration of the three propositions, that popular sovereignty could not be {397} established in the Territories by an Act of Congress, that the pa.s.sage of the bill before the Senate attempting it would produce a vast development of the anti-slavery sentiment at the North, and that no practical benefits whatsoever could accrue to the South by the repeal of the restriction upon slavery extension in the Act of 1820. But the Southerners would not listen to these words of wisdom from their own greatest colleague.

[Sidenote: Mr. Douglas' final argument.]

Mr. Douglas is generally represented as having closed the debate, although Mr. Houston spoke briefly after him in opposition to the measure. Mr. Douglas' argument was masterful from every point of view but the highest. His chief proposition was, that, when his committee were charged with the duty of framing the bill, they were forced to choose between the principle of Congressional intervention in the Territories, in the matter of slavery, on the one hand, the principle of 1820, the principle which had, for thirty years, filled the land with agitation and conflict, and had been a standing menace to the existence of the Union, and the principle of Congressional non-intervention, on the other hand, the principle of the Measures of 1850, the principle which had tranquillized the country and cemented anew the Union, the principle which both of the two great political parties had unequivocally approved in their platforms of 1852, and which the people of the whole country had just as unequivocally approved in the elections of 1852. And his conclusion from this proposition was, that, as servants of the people who had established this principle of Congressional non-intervention, his committee were morally obligated to make it the principle of the bill presented by them for the organization of the new Territories, and that whoever arraigned him and his committee for so doing virtually arraigned the people of the United States. It was a {398} most excellent and refined bit of demagogy, and it fell upon an audience whose mental _niveau_ was not quite high enough to distinguish between it and sound reasoning. He enforced this argument by another piece of catching demagogism, which, though not quite so refined, was equally effective.

It was the proud and boastful a.s.sertion that American citizens were capable of self-government anywhere, whether in "States" or Territories, and under all conditions, whether aided by long established customs, or without any such guides to steady them in their progress. It was evident that his opponents preferred to avoid this point, and that he was sure he had them upon it. He was so thoroughly democratic in his own feelings that he entertained no doubt as to the triumph of his argument when stated in this form.

[Sidenote: The pa.s.sage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill by the Senate.]

A few minutes before five o'clock on the morning of March 4th, after a continuous session of seventeen hours, the vote upon the bill was taken, resulting in thirty-seven voices in its favor and fourteen against it. Eleven Senators had not voted. Of these, three sent word that, if they could have been present, they would have voted for the bill, and one that he would have voted against it. There were also two vacancies at the moment, one in the Vermont delegation, and one in that of North Carolina. This reduced the number of those who actually refrained from voting, though present, to five. These gentlemen were Mr. Everett, of Ma.s.sachusetts, Mr. Wright, of New Jersey, Mr. Cooper, of Pennsylvania, Mr. Clayton, of Delaware, and Mr. Pearce, of Maryland, all Whigs with the exception of Mr. Wright.

[Sidenote: a.n.a.lysis of the vote upon the bill.]

Counting the names of those who announced how they would have voted had they been able to be present, and considering the Commonwealths in whose delegations there were vacancies as represented fully by the one {399} member from each, we may say that, in the Senate, New Hampshire, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, California, Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Arkansas, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, and Louisiana voted for the bill; that Maine, Vermont, Rhode Island, New York, Ohio, and Wisconsin voted against the bill; that Connecticut, Tennessee, and Texas were divided; and that Ma.s.sachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland were doubtful. Not a single Northern Whig voted for the bill, and only two Northern Whigs failed to vote against it. One Southern Whig, Mr. Bell, voted against it, and two Southern Whigs, Mr. Clayton and Mr. Pearce, failed to vote for it. Every Southern Democrat, except only Mr.

Houston, voted for the bill, while, even if we count Mr. Chase and Mr.

Sumner as Democrats, only six Northern Democrats voted against it. The bill may thus be fairly considered to have been a Western and Southern measure, and a Democratic measure. The Western Democracy, with its crude and radical notions about local self-government, invited the South into a position which turned out to be a snare and a pitfall. It is not meant by this that the Western Democracy was insincere, but only that it was crude and vulgarly over self-confident. And it is not meant that the South was insincere, but only too eager to vindicate its honor and dignity, by obliterating the inequality with the North in regard to the common territory of the Union, under which it fancied it had suffered since the restriction placed upon slavery extension by the Act of 1820.

[Sidenote: Development of popular opposition to the bill.]

If the bill had been subjected to the plebiscite on February 1st, it is very probable that the people in the Northern Commonwealths would have sustained the positions taken by their respective Senators. Had this been {400} done on March 1st, it is probable that this would not have been the case in some of the Northern Commonwealths, whose Senators voted for the measure. And had it been done on April 1st, it is practically certain that it would not have been. After February 1st, there was developed throughout the North a very strong opposition to the bill among the people. The most influential newspapers denounced it. Numerous meetings, largely attended, protested against it. The legislatures of several of the Commonwealths pa.s.sed resolutions condemning it. And the clergy generally arraigned it as immoral, inhuman, and irreligious. The movements against it seem to have been spontaneous and to have been connected with each other only by the common sentiment against the extension of slavery. It is, however, probable that the Address to the people, issued by Mr. Chase and his Free-soil friends in the latter part of January, furnished the necessary excitant. The Address seems to have been the text from which most of these articles, protests, memorials, speeches, and sermons were drawn. When the bill was sent to the House of Representatives, it was thus evident to all impartial observers that its growing unpopularity at the North would be a very great obstacle to its pa.s.sage by the House. Its friends felt that they must get it through speedily or see it lost altogether.

Already, on January 31st, Mr. Richardson, of Illinois, Mr. Douglas'

lieutenant in the House of Representatives, had reported from the House committee on Territories a bill for the organization of the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, which was the same in substance and language as that reported by Mr. Douglas to the Senate. It had been discussed a little in the committee of the Whole House, but had slumbered there after February 15th.

{401} [Sidenote: The Kansas-Nebraska bill in the House.]

On March 7th, the Senate bill was sent into the House for concurrence.

It was taken up for consideration on the twenty-first, and, after some parliamentary pa.s.ses, was referred to the House committee on Territories.

[Sidenote: The relation of the Administration to the bill.]

Some of the historians teach that this would have been the end of the bill, except for the interference of President Pierce and his two most trusted advisers, Mr. Caleb Cushing and Mr. Jefferson Davis. Mr. Davis relates his connection with the matter in his own book. He says that, on Sunday morning, January 22nd, gentlemen from the two Congressional committees on Territories called at his house and asked his aid in obtaining an interview with the President; that he went with them to the executive mansion, and secured for them the desired access to the President; that the President listened patiently to the reading of the bill for organizing Kansas and Nebraska; and that the President decided that the bill "rested upon sound const.i.tutional principles, and recognized in it only a return to that rule which had been infringed by the Compromise of 1820, and the restoration of which had been foreshadowed by the legislation of 1850." Mr. Davis furthermore specifically denies that the measure was inspired by President Pierce or any member of his Cabinet. Of course, though not inspired, it may have been aided on the way of its pa.s.sage through Congress by the Administration. The proof upon which these historians chiefly rely, in their a.s.sertion that it was so aided, was the fact that the editorials in the Washington _Union_ supported the bill, and the claim that this paper was the organ of the Administration. But Mr. Sidney Webster, President Pierce's private secretary at the time, has recently declared that the Washington _Union_ was not President {402} Pierce's organ in the Kansas-Nebraska matter, or in any other matter; that President Pierce had no organ.

[Sidenote: President Pierce and Mr. Davis.]

The character of President Pierce was that of a punctilious gentleman.

Mr. Davis resembled him much in this general trait. In fact, it was said to have been this likeness which drew them so closely together in their friendship for each other. Men of such character are not inclined to meddle, and a strong positive evidence is necessary to substantiate any such charge against them. There is no doubt that the President's view of the doctrine of the bill was well known. There is no doubt that there were members of Congress who made a chief point of coinciding with the Administration upon every subject, and who thought that such servility would give weight to their recommendations for official positions. And there is no doubt that the President appointed some persons to office recommended by such members. But no satisfactory evidence has been as yet produced to prove that President Pierce gave or promised any patronage to any member for supporting the bill, or withheld any to punish any member for not supporting it. In fact, the President's att.i.tude toward the two factions of the Democratic party in New York in the matter of appointments, making selections from both in almost equal numbers, without regard to the Free-soil sentiments of the "Softs," manifests a quite different spirit from that with which these historians represent him to have been animated in meddling with the pa.s.sage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill.

[Sidenote: The President's consistency.]

And, finally, the inconsistency which these historians find between the President's message of December preceding and his att.i.tude toward the Kansas-Nebraska bill can be so explained as to appear a perfect consistency. What the President said in his message was that the {403} acquiescence of distinguished citizens in the Compromise Measures of 1850 had given renewed vigor to our inst.i.tutions, and restored a sense of repose and security to the public mind throughout the Union, and that this repose should suffer no shock during his official term. If, now, we consider these measures of 1850 as containing the principle of home rule in the Territories in regard to the question of slavery, and if we attribute the repose of the public mind upon this subject to that principle, would it not be maintaining that repose to apply this principle in the organization of the new Territories, and would it not be destructive of that repose to undertake to settle the slavery question in the new Territories by an act of Congress, either original or confirmatory? This view is certainly intelligible. It was professed and advanced by all the supporters of the bill. It was unquestionably the view which the President took of the matter. It proved to be an erroneous view, but the views which mortal men hold, and conscientiously hold, are very frequently erroneous.

[Sidenote: The bill taken up in the committee of the Whole of the House of Representatives.]

[Sidenote: Mr. A. H. Stephens' management of the bill.]

[Sidenote: The bill pa.s.sed and signed by the President.]

The Senate bill slept in the committee of the Whole of the House of Representatives from March 21st until May 8th. During this period its friends were undoubtedly working for it, and its opponents against it.

By the latter date the leaders in favor of the bill knew that they had a reliable majority in the House, and, on that day, Mr. Richardson moved that the House go into committee of the Whole, for the purpose of taking up the House Kansas-Nebraska bill for consideration. After much parliamentary fencing, this was accomplished. Mr. Richardson then proposed to subst.i.tute the Senate bill, shorn of the provision in it confining suffrage and office-holding in these Territories {404} to American citizens, for the House bill. The opponents of the bill now entered upon a course of obstruction, and, although there was a safe majority of about twenty in favor of the bill, they prevented such a vote being taken in the committee of the Whole, as would bring the matter to a crisis, for about two weeks. By this time Mr. Richardson seems to have been completely demoralized, and Mr. Alexander H.

Stephens came forward and took the management of the bill into his own hands. He moved to strike out the enacting clause of the House bill.

According to the rules of the House, this motion took the precedence of all motions to amend, and the effect of it would be, if pa.s.sed, equivalent to the rejection of the bill, upon the happening of which the committee must rise and report its action to the House. The House could then refuse to concur with the report of the committee of the Whole, upon the happening of which Mr. Richardson could then offer the Senate bill, as a subst.i.tute, in the House, and in the House the obstructive tactics of the opposition could be dealt with as they could not be in the committee of the Whole. Mr. Stephens explained his tactics to the committee, in order that the friends of the bill might know how to vote. The opponents of the bill called this procedure a new "gag," but Mr. Stephens remained firm, and drove the Senate bill in this manner through the House by a vote of one hundred and thirteen to one hundred. The Senate concurred in the omission of the provision limiting suffrage and office-holding in the Territories to American citizens; and the President signed the bill, on May 30th.

[Sidenote: a.n.a.lysis of the vote on the bill in the House.]

Eighty-seven members from the North, of whom forty-five were Whigs, counting the Free-soilers as Whigs, and forty-two of whom were Democrats, voted against {405} the bill; while only forty-four members from the North, all Democrats, voted for it. Sixty-nine members from the South, of whom fifty-seven were Democrats and twelve were Whigs, voted for the bill; while seven Whigs and two Democrats from the South voted against it.

[Sidenote: What the figures taught.]

These figures pretty well disposed of the claim that the bill was a tender from the North to the South. It was simply a Western and Southern Democratic measure. Taken together with the vote in the Senate, these figures also showed that the Whig party was a party opposed to slavery extension, unanimously so in the North, and in some degree in the South. They revealed that the Whig party in the North was to be merged in a Northern party with the Free-soil element of the Democratic party, and was to be overwhelmed in the South by the union of the proslavery-extension Whigs with the Democrats. They indicated that one sectional party was soon to hold the majority in the North, and another in the South; and gave thus the fearful warning that the North was, at last, to be arrayed against the South upon the subject which was of greater interest to the South, in the minds of the slaveholders, than the Union itself.