Mississippi and the compromise of 1850

Front matter

Wsit ^niucrgitp of Chicago

FOUNDED BY JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER

MISSISSIPPI AND THE COMPROMISE

Chapter I. The Preparation Of Mississippi For The Struggle Over Slavery

The Struggle over the extension of slavery in the territory acquired from Mexico and the Compromise of 185015 significant inthehistory of the United States as a part of the struggle over slavery between the North and the South, which was finally to result in the secession from the Union of the slaveholding states and a great war to decide whether the existence of two separate nations within the United States should be recognized.

The development of Mississippi had well fitted it to play a leading part in the defense of slavery in this struggle. Its climate and soil especially adapted it to agriculture; and its development was begun along that line by the French, the first European occupants of its soil, with negro slavery as a basis.^ Durmg the period of British control, which followed that of the French, the settlements in what is now the southern part of the state continued to grow in prosperity through the cultivation of tobacco, indigo, flax, cotton and grams,^ and the demand for cheap labor was supplied by the importation of negro slaves.* Though, after the Revolutionary War, the lands lying between the Mississippi and the Chattahoochie rivers and the thirty-first degree north latitude and a line drawn from the mouth of the Yazoo due east to the Chattahoochie were in dispute between Spain and the United States, the progress of their development was not affected. The dispute

1 This contribution was prepared in the University of Chicago and submitted as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in 1913.

A biographical sketch of the author will be found in the Puhlicahons oj the Mississippi Historical Society, XII, 37. — Editor.

2 Hamilton, Colonial Mobile. Pickett, History of Alabama.^

3 Wailes, Report on the Agriculture and Geology of Mississippi, 129. * Pickett, History of Alabama, 323.

having been settled in favor of the United States, Congress, in 1798, organized those lands as the Mississippi territory and authorized the president to establish there a government similar in all respects to that provided in the Ordinance of 1787 except that slavery should not be prohibited.^ Thus, in the very beginning of the organization of Mississippi under the government of the United States, the existence of slavery within its borders was formally recognized by Congress; and, as the territory was rounded out by the addition of other strips of land, this recognition was continued.

In the meantime, there was developing in the territory the industry that was surely making slavery a profitable institution and sweeping out of the Southern states all opposition to its continuance. The cultivation of cotton there, as elsewhere, was tremendously stimulated by the introduction of Whitney's cotton gin. The first gin in Mississippi was constructed in 1795, and two years later Sir William Dunbar declared that cotton had become the universal crop of the Natchez district.^ A letter from Governor Claiborne, in 1801, contains a statement of the remarkable returns from labor in Mississippi when applied to the production of cotton. He writes:

I have heard it supposed by men whose opinions are entitled to respect, that the aggregate amount of the Sales of Cotton, raised the present year, in this District wiU exceed 700,000 Dollars, which among a people, whose members (of all denominations) do not exceed nine thousand, is an immense Revenue; — The fact is, that Labour here, is more valuable than in any other part of the United States, and the industrial portion of the citizens are amassing great fortunes."^

Naturally this wonderful productivity of labor stimulated the importation of slaves and the number in the territory increased in the decade from 1800 to 1810 from 3,389 to 17,088.^ Governors of the territory, foreseeing the time when the slaves would outnumber the white population, viewed with alarm the increasing number of

^ United States Statutes at Large, I, 549.

There was a sharp debate in the House over an amendment to this bill, proposed by Thacher of Massachusetts, prohibiting slavery in the territory, which is interesting both as the beginning in Congress of the struggle over slavery in the territories and as advancing many of the arguments on which both sides were later to rely. Annuls of Congress, sth Cong., 1797-1799, II, 1310^-11.

* Wailes, Report on the Agriculture and Geology of Mississippi, 167. Claiborne, Mississippi as a Province, Territory and State, I, 143.

^ Letter from Governor Claiborne to James Madison, Secretary of State, Natchez, December 20, 1801, Mississippi Territorial Archives, 1798-1803, I, 363.

" Ninth Census of the United States, 1870, I, 41-43. The number of inhabitants increased during the decade from 8,850 to 40,352.

slaves® and favored the passage by the legislature of laws restricting their importation.^" But the economic advantages of slavery outweighed, with the territorial legislatures, any dread of future danger and no such laws were passed."

Thus slavery was firmly fixed in Mississippi during its colonial and territorial existence; and, in 18 17, when the Mississippi territory was divided and that part of it now known as Mississippi was organized as a state, there was no division in the constitutional convention on the continuation of slavery, the greatest restriction laid by the convention on the development of the institution being the granting to the general assembly of the state the right to prohibit the introduction of slaves into the state as merchandise.

But the legislatures of the state showed no more desire to exercise this power than had the territorial legislatures. And partly as the result of this importation of slaves for trafiic, but more as the result of the bringing in of slaves by their owners in the great tide of immigration that set into this section after the War of 1812,^2 ^^g number of slaves in Mississippi had increased, in 1820, to 32,814^^ and slavery was estabUshed in every county organized in the state.^* In the four lower counties on the Mississippi river, the slaves outnumbered the white population and in Warren fell little short of it; and even in the less fertile "piney woods" counties of the east and in sparsely settled Monroe, on the Tombigbee, their number did not fall below one-fifth that of the white population.

But though in 1820, because of its rich returns, slavery was defi-

3 Address to the Militia Officers by Governor Sargent, January 12, 1801, Mississippi Territorial Archives, 1 798-1803, I, 324-5.

1" Letter from Governor Claiborne to James Madison, January 23, 1802, Ibid., I, 374. Message of Governor Williams to the Legislature, December 4, 1807, Dunbar Rowland, Encyclopedia of Mississippi History, II, 677.

^ The only restrictions the legislature laid on the traffic in slaves were the prohibition of the introduction of criminals and the laying of a tax of $5 on each individual imported.

" The greatness of this tide of immigration is shown by the census reports. The total population of the Mississippi territory in 1810 was 40,352; by 1820 this population had increased to 127,901 in Alabama and 75,448 in Mississippi. Ninth Census of the United States, 1870, I, 41-43.

" The niunber of slaves in 1810 in the Mississippi territory was 17,088; in 1820, the number in Mississippi was 32,814, and in Alabama 41,878. Ibid.

" These counties, except Monroe, were in the southern part of the state and included all the lands over which the state had control before 1820. Riley, School History of Mississippi, map, p. 150.

lo Mississippi Historical Society.

nitely accepted as an economic institution in every county in Mississippi, it was not yet regarded as an institution to be praised and its justification was not found in the laws of nature or of God.^^ This attitude toward slavery was to be developed in the next twenty years.

During these years, the Indians, who before 1820 had occupied all except a small portion of the state, were removed^^ and their lands opened to settlers. Beginning with 1833, the sale of public lands was remarkable,^'' and the state was rapidly filled with settlers, the total population in 1840 having increased to 375,651. The wonderful returns from the culture of cotton was the great factor in attracting this stream of immigration into Mississippi, and the production of that staple increased from 43,000 bales in 1820^^ to 483,504 bales in 1840.'^ Since this cotton was produced, in the main, by slave labor, there was a corresponding increase, during these years, in the nimiber of slaves in the state. In 1840, the slave population of Mississippi numbered 195, 211^° and Mississippi had become a "black state."

During the next decade, the total population, the number of slaves, and the production of cotton continued to increase in Mississippi. By 1850 the population reached 606,526 and the number of slaves 309,- 878;^^ but there was not a corresponding increase in the production of cotton, only 484,292 bales having been produced in that year.^

From these statistics it will be seen that, when the great struggle

" This is shown in the decisions of the supreme court of the state. "What are these vested rights," asked the supreme court in June 1818, "are they derived from nature or from municipal law? Slavery is condemned by reason and by the laws of nature. It exists and can only exist, through mimicipal regulations, and in matters of doubt, it is not an unquestioned rule, that courts must lean 'in favorem \itae et libcrtatis?' " Opinion of the Supreme Court of Mississippi in the case of Harry and Others vs. Decker and Hopkins, June term, 1818, Walker, Reports of Cases Adjudged in the Supreme Court of Mississippi, 42.

In June 1820, the supreme court again declared that "slaverj' exists not by force of the law of nature or of nations, but by virtue only of the positive provisions of the law, to these the master must look for all his rights." State vs. Jones Walker, 83.

•*The Choctaws made a cession of a part of their lands to the United States government in 1820 and of the remainder in 1830. The Chickasaws ceded theirs in 1832. Riley, School History of Mississippi, map, p. 150.

" Watkins, King Cotton, 162.

'* Compendium of Sixth Census, 1840, 22S.

-" Ninth Census of the United States, 1870, I, 41-43.

" Ibid.

^ Seventh Census of the United States, 1850, p. 45S. This was not a normal crop, however, 541,946 bales having been produced the preceding year and 501,146 bales tlic following. Watkins, King Cotton, Ch. 8.

DISTRIBUTION OF SLAVES, AND THE P COTTON IN MISSISS ORANGE, COUNTIE

MORE THAN

ITANTS.

GREEN, COUNTIES C

TWEEN 5,0

INHABITANT WHITE, COUNTIES

LESS THAN

ITANTS.

(TTTTj COUNTIES CONTAINING A NEGRO POPULATION OF MORE THAN 50%.

LV . J COUNTIES CONTAINING A NEGRO POPULATION OF BETWEEN 2 5% AND

KSonN 5 0%.

I I COUNTIES CONTAINING A NEGRO POPULATION OF LESS THAN 25%.

COUNTIES PRODUCING MORE THAN 10,000 BALES OF COTTON. COUNTIES PRODUCING BETWEEN 2,500 AND 10,000 BALES OFCOTTON. I 1 COUNTIES PRODUCING LESS THAN 2,500 BALES OF COTTON, over slavery between the sections came, the development of Mississippi on the basis that had been established in the period of its territorial and colonial existence, the cultivation, with negro slaves, of cotton as the great staple crop, was well under way. But this development had not been equal in every part of the state and the distribution of population, slaves, and the production of cotton as shown in the census of 1850 is of great interest in the study of the attitude of the various counties of the state in the struggle over slavery between the North and the South. The most populous district of the state consisted of the Chickasaw counties in the north and extended south, in the east, along the Alabama line through Kemper coimty, and in the west, along the Big Black river on both sides to its mouth and then down the Mississippi to the southern boundary of the state. The least populous districts were the fertile Mississippi- Yazoo delta, the lack of drainage having impeded its development, and the southeastern part of the state, for the most part the long-leaf pine region. The black belt of the state was fairly well fixed in 1850. The great mass of it was in the west, extending along the Mississippi the whole length of the state, and including twenty-two of the fifty-nine counties. In the east, on the Tombigbee river, there was also a group of four counties, Monroe, Lowndes, Noxubee, and Oktibbeha, that belonged to the black belt. In all the other counties of the state, except sparsely settled Harrison, Jones, Smith, and Newton, in the southeast and the populous counties of Itawamba, Tishomingo, and Tippah, in the northeast, the slaves exceeded one-fourth of the total population. It might be supposed that the cotton belt would coincide with the black belt, but the agricultural development of the state was not sufficiently complete for this to be true. The most important variation was in the Mississippi- Yazoo delta. TVlthough all the counties in that region were being developed with slave labor and before the next census were to be important contributors to the total amount of cotton produced in the state, in 1850, only Washington produced more than 10,000 bales, Timica, Coahoma, and Sunflower falling below 2,500 bales. In the other counties, cotton was either the dominant or an important economic interest except in a group of seventeen counties in the southeastern part of the state, the majority of which were in the "piney woods" region.^

*' For distribution of population, slaves, and the production of cotton in Mississippi in 1850, see map i.

Though slavery and the rich returns from it in the production of cotton were unequally distributed in Mississippi, there is no evidence of the opposition of any section of the state to the institution. A sectionaUsm, it is true, arose very early in the history of the state between the older and better developed counties in the southwest, on the one hand, and the new ones north of the original counties and the less fertile ones in the long-leaf pine regions, on the other. This sectionalism was due, however, in part to the difference in the state of the economic development of the two sections and in part to the unwillingness of the older dominant counties to surrender the political control of the state; and shifting somewhat with the economic development of the counties, was destined to continue as long as the economic conditions on which it was based. In regard to the protection and the promotion of slavery, the sections were in accord, the only difference being that the more undeveloped and the less wealthy, as was natural, was willing to resort to more radical measures to further these ends than the richer and more conservative section. These statements are borne out by the proceedings of the second constitutional convention.

As new counties were organized in the Indian cessions, the political strength of the state passed, of course, to the north and east; and, in 1832, this shifting of political power resulted in a convention of the state to amend the constitution of 181 7 so as to make it accord more with the views of the new dominant sections. The only division in this convention on the subject of slavery was on the question of the prohibition of the importation of slaves into the state for sale. Probably as a result of the stimulus of the Nat Turner insurrection in Virginia, a provision was adopted declaring:

The introduction of slaves into this state as merchandise or for sale, shall be prohibited from and after the first day of May, eighteen hundred and thirty-three: Provided, that the actual settler or settlers shall not be prohibited from purchasing slaves in any state in the Union and bringing them into this state for their own individual use, until the year eighteen hundred and forty-five.'*''

While the divisions in the convention on these provisions were not entirely sectional, the opposition to the prohibition of the introduction

" The Constitution of the State of Mississippi as revised in convention on the twenty-sixth day of October, A.D., 1832. Journal of the Convention of the Stale of Mississippi, 1832, Appendix, p. 25.

of slaves as merchandise was almost entirely from the new and mideveloped counties north of the original ones and the "piney woods" counties in the east.^^ On the other hand, the opposition to the proviso came from the counties in the west.^^

The removal by the convention of 1832 of all property qualifications for voting or holding office placed the power over the political affairs of the state securely in the hands of the small slaveholders and the non-slaveholders, and those classes thereafter, through the Democratic party, lorded it over the great planters, who, for the most part, were members of the Whig party, in respect to the bank, repudiation of bonds, and other national and local issues. Yet they made no effort to restrict the development of slavery in the state by the enactment of the legislation necessary to carry into effect the provisions of the constitution of 1832 concerning the importation of slaves.^^ In fact the Democratic party in Mississippi manifested a devotion to slavery hardly equaled by the Whig and a willingness to resort to more extreme measures for its protection and promotion.

Hence, when the movement came for the expansion of the United States to the west that was to result in the great struggle between the sections over slavery, the people of Mississippi, as a whole, were committed to the support of slavery. They were, also, convinced that their social existence, economic prosperity, and poHtical power were bound up with that institution, and were ready to further expansion to the southwest as conducive to the promotion of its prosperity. A report made in the legislature, in 1837, by a committee of the House, recommending the annexation of Texas, gives evidence of this and, also, of the change taking place in the state in regard to the earlier

25 The vote on the resolution of McNabb, of Pike, to strike out the provision relating to the prohibition of the introduction of slaves as merchandise was seventeen yeas and twenty-six nays. The yeas were two each from Copiah and Yazoo, and one each from Hancock, Monroe, Rankin, Lawrence, Pike, Greene, Covington, Lowndes, and the districts composed of Yazoo and Madison, Copiah and Jefferson, Lawrence, Simpson, and Covington, Amite and Franklin, and Monroe, Lowndes, and Rankin. Journal of the Constitutional Convention of Mississippi, 1832, 159.

-^ The vote on this proviso, introduced by Howard of Rankin, was 28 yeas and IS nays. The nays were two each from Jefferson, Amite, and Wilkinson and one each from Adams, Claiborne, Franklin, Hinds, Marion, Pike, Washington, and the districts composed of Amite and Franklin and Pike and Marion. Ibid., 174.

-' The Supreme Court of the United States decided that a legislative enactment was necessary to carry those provisions of the constitution into effect. Claiborne, Mississippi as a Province, Territory and State, 476.

\dew of slavery as an e\al. The committee urged the interests of slavery as a reason why the South should demand annexation and declared that "an equipoise of influence in the halls of Congress" might be thus secured. It then proceeded to set forth the \dew of slavery that the state was coming to adopt and that was to form the basis of its fierce struggle in defense of this institution. The committee declared:

This system is cherished by our constitutents as the very palladium of their prosperity and happiness, and whatever ignorant fanatics may elsewhere conjecture, the committee are fully assured, upon the most diligent observation and reflection on the subject, that the South does not possess within her limits a blessing, with which the affections of her people are so closely entwined and so completely enfi-

bered, and whose value is more highly appreciated To this system we

owe more than we can well estimate of domestic comfort and social happiness.-*

The people of the state were enthusiastically in favor of the policy recommended in this report and Robert J. Walker, Senator from Mississippi, in becoming a leader in the movement for the annexation of Te.xas, fittingly reflected the will of his constitutents. By his famous letter advocating the " reannexation of Texas and the reoccupation of Oregon," he did much to make those measures the issue in the presidential campaign of 1844; and he contributed further to this end by assisting in the shrewd political manoeuvering that set aside Van Buren in the Democratic National Convention of 1844 and nominated Polk for president on that issue.^^ His constitutents approved his course by casting the electoral vote of the state for Polk.

The annexation of Texas succeeded the election of Polk and the people of Mississippi, having contributed their share in bringing about both events, staunchly supported the administration of Polk in the war with Mexico that followed. They contributed more than their quota of troops, approved the conduct of the administration in carrying on the war,^" favored the acquisition of territory from Mexico as indemnity, and, without doubt, would have approved the policy of holding all Mexico urged upon the president by, at least, two of their fellow-citizens, Robert J. Walker, who had become Secretary of the Treasury and a most powerful factor in the Cabinet,^^ and John

" House Journal, 1837, 158.

*' Claiborne, Mississippi as a Province, Territory and State, I, 417-421. *" Resolutions of the Legislature of Mississippi on the Mexican War, April 20, 1848. Senate Miscellaneous Documents, 30th Congress, ist Session, No. 126. " Polk, Diary, III, 229, November 23, 1847.

A. Quitman.32 g^^. ^jjg carrying out of this policy was prevented by the beginning of a greater struggle than the war with Mexico.

When it became evident that the war would result in the expansion of the United States to the southwest the question of the extension of slavery into the region to be acquired was raised; and, as Calhoun and other leaders both North and South had foreseen, a fierce struggle between the two sections on the subject was precipitated. Mississippi was prepared by the course of its development to align itself with the other states of the South in defense of the extension of slavery; but it did not assume a leading part in the beginning of the struggle. For the leaders from Mississippi who were to play an important part in Congress in this crisis had not appeared in the twenty-ninth Congress; and, outside of Congress, Mississippi awaited the initiative of the older slaveholding states to which the South was accustomed to look for leadership. But to explain fully the part of Mississippi in the Compromise of 1850, a brief account of the beginning of the struggle over slavery m the territory acquired from Mexico is necessary.

*2 Claiborne, Life and Correspondence of John A. Quitman, II, 7-9.

Chapter II

THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CONTROVERSY OVER SLAVERY AND OF THE SOUTHERN MOVEMENT.

It had been understood by all that a war with Mexico would result in the expansion of the United States to the southwest and it had been recognized, with equal clearness, by many, that any acquisition of territory would precipitate a struggle between the two sections over the question of the extension of slavery. But the war was begun in spite of the opposition of those who feared its consequences and the struggle over slavery was not long delayed.

August 8, 1846, there was introduced into the House a bill appropriating two million dollars for the purpose of making peace with Mexico, which sum, it was very generally known, was to be used to further negotiations that had in view the cession of a large amount of territory to the United States. Accordingly, David Wilmot, of Pennsylvania, offered an amendment to the bill providing that, as an express and fundamental condition to the acquisition of any territory from Mexico by the United States, slavery should be forever excluded from any part of it.^ An amendment to confine the operation of the proviso to the territory north of the line 36° 30' having been defeated, the proviso was adopted by a vote of 83 to 64 and the bill as amended passed the House.^ Although the proviso failed to reach a vote in the Senate because of the adjournment of Congress,' its passage by the

' Coug. Globe, 29 Cong., i Sess., 1217.

Polk characterized the proviso as "mischievous and foolish," and states that it " was voted on to the Bill by the opponents of the measure, and when voted on, the original friends of the Bill voted against it, but it was passed by the Whigs and Northern Democrats, who had been opposed to making the appropriation. In this form it had gone to the Senate. Had there been time, there is but little doubt the Senate would have struck out the slavery proviso and that the House would have concurred. Senator Davis however resorted to the disreputable expedient of sf)caking against time and thus prevented the Senate from acting upon it, until the hour of adjournment arrived."

House raised again the question of the extension of slavery, the dangerous possibilities of which had startled Jefferson in the days of the controversy over Missouri, and began the great sectional controversy over slavery that was to end in the realization of his worst fears.

In the next session of Congress, the struggle between the sections over the extension of slavery was fairly joined. To a bill in the House appropriating three million dollars to be used to negotiate a treaty with Mexico, there was added, February 15, 1847, by a vote of 115 to 106, an amendment, more sweeping than the original Wilmot proviso, prohibiting slavery in any territory that might be annexed to the United States in any way whatever.'* But an effort to attach the Wilmot proviso to a similar appropriation bill in the Senate was defeated by the votes of all the senators from the Southern states, except John M. Clayton, of Delaware, and of five Northern Democrats.^ Although a motion of David Wilmot, in the House, in the committee of the whole, to attach the Wilmot proviso to this appropriation bill from the Senate, was carried by a vote of 90 to 80, the amendment was defeated in the House by the vote of the representatives of all the slaveholding states, except Delaware, and of twenty-three Northern Democrats;® and the Senate three miUion dollar bill was passed March 3, 1847, by a vote of 115 to 81.'' With the passage of this bill, the struggle over the extension of slavery into Mexican territory was suspended until that territory should be actually acquired from Mexico.

The struggle over the bills for this appropriation and the proposed amendments was ominously significant. In its course, all party lines among the members of Congress from the South were broken down and the effort to exclude slavery by the Wilmot proviso from the territory to be acquired from Mexico was resisted by the united strength of all the slaveholding states, except Delaware. Moreover, though the votes, in this struggle, of members of Congress from the

A motion made by Douglas to confine the operation of the amendment to the temtor>' above the line 36° 30' north latitude failed by a vote of 82 to 109.

The vote was 21 to 31. The five Northern Democrats who voted against the proviso were Breese, of Illinois, Bright and Hannigan, of Indiana, Cass, of Michigan, and Dickinson, of New York.

^ Ibid., 573. The vote was 97 to 102.

free states were determined partly by party considerations and factional strife within the Democratic party, yet they showed an alarming tendency in the North to unite in opposition to the extension of slavery. Furthermore, the debates displayed a fully developed consciousness of sectional differences and revealed the forces at work that were to array section against section.

The belief in the free states that slavery is a moral, religious, and social evil had been strengthened by the abolition agitation and other humanitarian and social movements of the time; and the opposition to the expansion of slavery was due, in part, to the unalterable determination of many that its blighting influence should not be extended through the instrumentaUty of the general government of the United States.^ It was, also, partly due to a conviction that there was an inherent hostility between an economic system based on free labor and one based on slavery and a determination to preserve the territory to be acquired by the United States for the expansion of free labor and the development of the industrial institutions of the free states.' Using these motives of opposition to the extension of slavery as a means, many of the leaders of the North worked to wrest political power from the slavehoiding states by uniting the majority against the minority section over the policy of the exclusion of slavery from the territories.^"

In the controversy, the Southern delegates based their defense of slavery on the arguments that were to be maintained by the South throughout the struggle over slavery, namely, that the institution is sustained by the Bible and the constitution and is conducive to the welfare of society." But they, also, revealed that the people of the South were firmly convinced that their whole social order was irrevocably bound up with slavery and that anything that tended to undermine the institution in a like measure tended to bring their section face

* Speech of James Dixon, of Connecticut, February 9, 1847, Cong. Globe, 29 Cong., 2 Sess., appx., ,-532; Speech of B. R. Wood, of New York, February 10, 1847. Ibid. 342-345; Speech of J. R. Giddings, of Ohio, February 13, 1847, Ibid. 403-406.

'Speech of David Wihnot, of Pennsylvania, February 8, 1847, Ibid., 314-318.