The Age of Gold
Page 33
It was a lot to ask, as Clay conceded. “But it is impossible for us to be blind to the facts which are daily transpiring before us.” Everywhere the spirit of section raged, goaded by the spirit of party. “It is passion, passion— party, party—and intemperance; that is all I dread in the adjustment of the great questions which unhappily at this time divide our distracted country. At this moment, we have in the legislative bodies of this Capitol, and in the States, twenty-odd furnaces in full blast in generating heat and passion and intemperance, and diffusing them throughout the whole extent of this broad land. Two months ago, all was calm in comparison with the present moment. All now is uproar, confusion, menace to the existence of the Union and to the happiness and safety of this people.”
Because California had precipitated the current uproar, Clay concentrated on the candidate state. Senators from the South complained that their section was being shut out of the prize for which all Americans had fought against Mexico. Clay asked the distinguished gentlemen to consider who, precisely, was shutting them out. Was it Congress? Was it the North? “No, sir, the interdiction is imposed by California herself. And has it not been the doctrine of all parties that, when a State is about to be admitted into the Union, that State has a right to decide for itself whether it will or will not have within its limits slavery?” Did Congress claim the right to prevent New York from abolishing slavery within its own borders? For that matter, did Congress claim the right to force abolition on Virginia? It did neither. Likewise, then, Congress should not presume to dictate to California regarding slavery.
Clay spoke at considerable length—for two days, in fact—on the rest of his compromise package. He would have continued into a third day, but when a weary colleague moved to adjourn, Clay promised, “I begin to see land. I shall pretty soon arrive at the end.” In getting there he acknowledged the deficiencies of any set of compromises, yet he contended that the alternative to compromise was something far worse. Extremists spoke of secession as though that could be accomplished without violence. They were woefully wrong. “War is the only alternative by which a dissolution could be accomplished….In less than sixty days, war would be blazing forth in every part of this now happy and peaceable land.” And it would be such a war as no one in America had ever seen. “We may search the pages of history, and none so furious, so bloody, so implacable, so exterminating, from the wars of Greece down, including those of the Commonwealth of England, and the revolutions of France—none, none of them raged with such violence, or was ever conducted with such bloodshed and enormities as will that war which shall follow that disastrous event—if that event ever happen—of dissolution.”
Clay closed with a plea.
I conjure gentlemen—whether from the South or the North, by all they hold dear in this world—by all their love of liberty—by all their veneration for their ancestors—by all their regard for posterity—by all their gratitude to Him who has bestowed upon them such unnumbered blessings—by all the duties which they owe to mankind, and all the duties they owe to themselves—by all these considerations I implore them to pause—solemnly to pause—at the edge of the precipice, before the fearful and disastrous leap is taken in the yawning abyss below, which will inevitably lead to certain and irretrievable destruction.
And, finally, Mr. President, I implore, as the best blessing which Heaven can bestow upon me upon earth, that if the direful and sad event of the dissolution of the Union shall happen, I may not survive to behold the sad and heart-rending spectacle.
NO ONE EVER called John Calhoun handsome, yet his appearance was even more arresting than Clay’s. Dubbed the “Cast-Iron Man” in honor of his unyielding character, the South Carolinian earned the label almost equally by his visage, which brought to mind the prophet Ezekiel, had the latter shaved his beard and put on a collar and cravat. (Milton’s Satan was another image that came to the mind of at least one man who knew Calhoun.) By 1850, though, Calhoun was a shadow, or specter, of his former self; tuberculosis was drawing him ineluctably to the grave. He could only croak a whisper, and then not for long. The Senate readily granted permission when he asked if a colleague might read his reply to Clay.
Calhoun concurred with Clay that the Senate confronted a single central question—“the greatest and the gravest question that can ever come under your consideration: How can the Union be preserved?” But he differed with Clay on almost everything else. The present danger arose not from any extremism in the South, he said, but from the intolerance of the North. The antipathy of the North for the South had been evident for decades, and was manifest most recently in the conspiracy to admit California. For conspiracy it was, plotted between the executive branch, whose agent in California had authorized the irregular Monterey convention, and the antislavery elements in the federal legislature, who wished to force California on Congress.
The case of California, Calhoun said, was premised on the “monstrous assumption” that sovereignty over the territories resided with the people of those territories, rather than with Congress. This was utterly false. Had California—like Texas, for example—won independence from Mexico on its own, then it would have had the right to fashion its own government. But California was acquired from Mexico by American blood and American treasure. The American government, therefore, controlled the destiny of California. “The individuals in California who have undertaken to form a constitution and a State, and to exercise the power of legislating without the consent of Congress, have usurped the sovereignty of the State and the authority of Congress, and have acted in open defiance of them both. In other words, what they have done is revolutionary and rebellious in its character, anarchical in its tendency, and calculated to lead to the most dangerous consequences.” The supporters of California’s admission had laid before the Senate a document purporting to be a constitution, and they spoke of California as having rights, as though it were already a state. Nothing could be more wrong. “Can you believe that there is such a State in reality as the State of California? No; there is no such State. It has no legal or constitutional existence. It has no validity, and can have none without your sanction.”
In opposing California, Calhoun said, the South simply asked for justice—no more than it deserved, but neither any less. The South was satisfied to remain in the Union, but only so long as its rights were honored. Gentlemen spoke of settling differences between the sections. “Can this be done? Yes, easily; but not by the weaker party, for it can of itself do nothing—not even protect itself—but by the stronger. The North has only to will it to accomplish it.” The North must concede the South’s equal rights in California and the other the acquired territories. It must fulfill its duty regarding fugitive slaves. It must cease agitation of the slave question.
Calhoun mocked the calls of northerners for “Union.” “The cry of ‘Union, Union, the glorious Union!’ can no more prevent disunion than the cry of ‘Health, health, glorious health!’ on the part of the physician can save a patient lying dangerously ill.” Besides, the cry of “Union” commonly came not from those dedicated to its preservation but from those bent on its destruction, through such crimes as the imposing of California on the rest of the country. Calhoun gave a grim warning, and ominously washed his hands of what might follow.
California will become the test question. If you admit her, under all the difficulties that oppose her admission, you compel us to infer that you intend to exclude us from the whole of the acquired territories, with the intention of destroying irretrievably the equilibrium between the two sections. We would be blind not to perceive, in that case, that your real objects are power and aggrandizement, and infatuated not to act accordingly.
I have now, Senators, done my duty in expressing my opinions fully, freely, and candidly, on this solemn occasion. In doing so, I have been governed by the motives which have governed me in all the stages of the agitation of the slavery question since its commencement. I have exerted myself, during the whole period, to arrest it, with the i
ntention of saving the Union, if it could be done; and, if it could not, to save the section where it has pleased Providence to cast my lot, and which I sincerely believe has justice and the Constitution on its side. Having faithfully done my duty to the best of my ability, both to the Union and my section, throughout this agitation, I shall have the consolation, let what will come, that I am free from all responsibility.
DANIEL WEBSTER FOLLOWED Clay. From youth, the New Englander’s swarthy appearance seemed an apt complement to his dark intensity. “He was a black, raven-haired fellow,” recalled one who knew him then, “with an eye as black as death, and as heavy as a lion’s—and no lion in Africa ever had a voice like him, and his look was like a lion’s—that same heavy look, not sleepy, but as if he didn’t care about any thing that was going on about any thing; but as if he would think like a hurricane if he once got worked up to it.” Webster’s reputation grew until he came to be considered the greatest orator in an age that prized the ability to speak. Generations of schoolchildren memorized the closing line of his address in the nullification debate: “Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!” Thenceforth he was regularly referred to as “the God-like Daniel.” A British observer was moved to declare, “That man is a fraud, for it is impossible for anyone to be as great as he looks.”
Accordingly, an expectant hush fell over the Senate when Webster rose to answer Calhoun. “I wish to speak today,” he said, “not as a Massachusetts man, nor as a northern man, but as an American.” Southerners groaned at this appropriation of the national label, but such was Webster’s manner that none openly disputed it. “We live in the midst of strong agitations, and are surrounded by very considerable dangers,” he went on.
The imprisoned winds are let loose. The East, the West, the North, and the stormy South, all combine to throw the whole ocean into commotion, to toss its billows to the skies, and to disclose its profoundest depths. I do not affect to regard myself, Mr. President, as holding, or as fit to hold, the helm in this combat of political elements; but I have a duty to perform, and I mean to perform it with fidelity—not without a sense of surrounding dangers, but not without hope. I have a part to act, not for my own security or safety, for I am looking out for no fragment upon which to float away from the wreck, if wreck there must be, but for the good of the whole, and the preservation of the whole; and there is that which will keep me to my duty during this struggle, whether the sun and the stars shall appear, or shall not appear, for many days. I speak today for the preservation of the Union. Hear me for my cause!
Webster inquired how the current crisis had come about, the present tempest arisen. He made no claim that high ideals drove the peopling of California. “In January of 1848, the Mormons, it is said, or some of them, made a discovery of an extraordinarily rich mine of gold; or, rather, of a very great quantity of gold, hardly fit to be called a mine, for it was spread near the surface—on the lower part of the south or American branch of the Sacramento.” Webster’s geography was a little shaky, but not the thrust of his argument. “The digging commenced in the spring of that year, and from that time to this, the work of searching for gold has been prosecuted with a success not heretofore known in the history of this globe.” From all over the world, and from all across the United States, gold-seekers flocked to the mines. Yet even as their numbers mounted, and with their numbers their need for the security of government, Congress had failed to act. So they took responsibility on themselves. They called a convention at Monterey and wrote a constitution that they subsequently submitted to the people of California, who approved it. All the Californians asked now was the belated blessing of the federal government on their efforts.
It was not their fault that in seeking admission they had reopened the question of slavery. Yet in a certain sense the question had not been reopened, for nature herself decreed where slavery might profitably be practiced, and where not. The law of nature—“of physical geography, the law of the formation of the earth”—spoke with an authority the institutions of man could only envy. “That law settles forever, with a strength beyond all terms of human enactment, that slavery cannot exist in California.” Here Webster explained that he was speaking of slavery on a large scale: plantation slavery. Domestic servants might be taken west and kept indefinitely. But slavery as a general institution could never thrive there.
Webster concluded from this—to the surprise and discomfiture of some of his northern supporters—that the Wilmot Proviso was superfluous, and in fact counterproductive. Providence had made any such prohibition on Western slavery unnecessary, and the very act of prohibition needlessly antagonized the South. The South had a right to feel aggrieved.
But not so aggrieved as to speak of secession, the way Calhoun did. “I hear with pain, and anguish, and distress, the word secession, especially when it falls from the lips of those who are eminently patriotic, and known to the country, and known all over the world, for their political services.” With Clay, Webster denied the possibility of peaceable secession.
Peaceable secession! Sir, your eyes and mine are never destined to see that miracle. The dismemberment of this vast country without convulsion! The breaking up of the fountains of the great deep without ruffling the surface! Who is so foolish—I beg everybody’s pardon—as to expect to see any such thing?…Peaceable secession! Peaceable secession! The concurrent agreement of all the members of this great Republic to separate! A voluntary separation, with alimony on one side and on the other. Why, what would be the result? Where is the line to be drawn? What States are to secede? What is to remain American? What am I to be—an American no longer? Where is the flag of the Republic to remain? Where is the eagle still to tower? Or is he to cower, and shrink, and fall to the ground? Why, sir, our ancestors—our fathers, and our grandfathers, those of them that are yet living among us with prolonged lives—would rebuke and reproach us; and our children, and our grandchildren, would cry out, Shame upon us! if we, of this generation, should dishonor these ensigns of the power of the Government, and the harmony of the Union, which is every day felt among us with so much joy and gratitude.
This wild talk must cease, and be supplanted by earnest effort, motivated by all the goodwill honest men could muster.
Instead of speaking of the possibility or utility of secession, instead of dwelling in these caverns of darkness, instead of groping with those ideas so full of all that is horrid and horrible, let us come out into the light of day; let us enjoy the fresh air of liberty and union; let us cherish those hopes which belong to us; let us devote ourselves to those great objects that are fit for our consideration and our action; let us raise our conceptions to the magnitude and the importance of the duties that devolve upon us; let our comprehension be as broad as the country for which we act, our aspirations as high as its certain destiny.
JOHN AND JESSIE FRéMONT observed the debate from the Senate gallery and participated from the sidelines. To all who would listen they explained that right and justice were with the Californians. “The Government of the United States has been three years indebted to the people of California for property taken and services rendered, and during this time they have been without representation, and without protection” asserted a letter published in the National Intelligencer over the signature of John but which almost certainly was edited, if not drafted, by Jessie.
Jessie had an additional stake in the debate, for her father was one of the leading antagonists. On the afternoon of June 10, Thomas Benton rose to address the Senate. Since March, Clay’s package of proposals had been referred to an ad hoc committee (called the Committee of Thirteen) and crafted into a single bill, largely at the instance of Henry Foote of Mississippi, who wished to ensure that the concessions to the South not be separated from the rest of Clay’s package. Clay initially opposed the one-bill approach; after Foote spoke in favor, Clay derided Foote’s “omnibus speech, in which he introduced all sorts of things and every sort of passenger, and myself among the number.” Bu
t such was Foote’s influence that Clay felt obliged to go along (in the process adding a term—omnibus—to the American political lexicon).
Benton refused to join Clay on the omnibus ride. As the elder statesman of the Senate, Benton took very seriously the dignity of the upper house, and he felt insulted at being presented with an all-or-nothing choice. Besides, as a staunch opponent of slavery, he resisted the concessions to slaveholders the Clay formula entailed. Moreover, as one with a long history of supporting Western expansion, he resented that California should be held hostage to such extraneous matters as slavery in the District of Columbia. Finally, he didn’t like Clay, and he absolutely despised Foote, whose tongue was as sharp as Benton’s temper was short.