The secession movement in the United States, 1847-1852

Preface

This little monograph, in substantially the form here presented, was submitted as a thesis in part fulfillment for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin in 1910. It grew out of a seminary study of the Compromise of 1850, conducted by Dr. U. B. Phillips, now of the University of Michigan, who gave me many helpful suggestions and loaned me much valuable material from his private library. I also wish to acknowledge my obligations to Dr. F. J. Turner, now of Harvard University, under whom it was my great good fortune to have studied at Wisconsin ; to Dr. H. V. Ames, of the University of Pennsylvania, for his time-saving suggestions in regard to where material was to be found; and to Dr. C. R. Fish, of the University of Wisconsin. Needless to say, the above-mentioned scholars are in no ways responsible for the faults of the work. Others whom I take this opportunity to thank are: Mrs. P. P. Claxton, formerly Miss Mary Hannah Johnson, Librarian of the Carnegie Library, Nashville, Tenn. ; and Dr. T. M. Owen, Director of the Department of Archives and History of the State of Alabama, Montgomery, Ala., for aid and courtesies extended me while in their cities. While engaged in collecting the source material upon which this study is based, Mrs. White accompanied me to libraries in different parts of the country, and rendered invaluable aid by copying manuscripts and other matter.

MELVIN JOHNSON WHITE.

Chapter I. The Wilmot Proviso Agitation, 1847-1848

The presidential campaign of 1844 marked the beginning of the last stage in the long slavery struggle in the United States. It indicated that the South, driven to a defense of the institution of negro slavery by the rapid growth of Abolition sentiment at the North, had resolved upon securing full control of the National Government. 1 The Democratic party was the chosen instrument by means of which this purpose was to be accomplished. Whipped into line by its aggressive Southern wing, it committed itself to the acquisition of new territory, which the South planned to create into additional slave States, with the object of acquiring control in Congress, without which it could not believe its favorite institution safe. Early progress in this direction gave promise of ultimate success. Texas was annexed to the Union as a slave State in 1845. During May of the following year war was declared against the comparatively weak Republic of Mexico. Up to this time the anti-slavery forces, taken by surprise and off their guard, had nothing more serious than written and verbal opposition, upon the part of isolated individuals, to oppose to the pro-slavery program. David Wilmot, a Pennsylvania Democrat, pointed out the way of attack, and paved the way for a concentration of the energies &£ the opposition, when, in August, 1846, he introduced into the House of Representatives his famous Proviso for the exclusion, by an act of Congress, of negro slavery from the territory about to be acquired from Mexico. The sections at once locked horns in a struggle that precipitated a national crisis second only to the one of 1860.

An act of President Polk's, during the first session of the twenty-ninth Congress, furnished the occasion for the introduction of the Proviso. War with Mexico had hardly begun when, in a special message to Congress, dated August 4, 1848, he suggested, since "a just and honorable peace, and not conquest" was our object in entering upon the conflict, the appropriation of such a sum of money as might be considered sufficient for con-

1. Ford, The Campaign of 1844, in Proc. Amer. Antiq. Soc, Vol. XX, Pt. 1, Page 118.

eluding the honorable peace and, besides, for the purchase of such territory as Mexico might be willing to part with, 2 a proceeding upon his part that greatly increased the activities of the anti-slavery people, who saw in it a confirmation of their contention that the war was purposely begun for the acquisition of more slave territory. As an amendment to a House bill calling for the appropriation of two millions of dollars for the purposes suggested by the President, Congressman Wilmot's measure first came before Congress and the country. 3 It immediately passed the House, where the Northerners were in a decided majority, by a vote of 87 to 64 4 , but in the Senate it was talked to death and never came to a vote during that session. 5

Either through failure to appreciate the seriousness of his act, or through indifference towards the opposition, the President persevered, and in his annual message, December 8, 1846, at the assembling of the members for the second session of the twenty-ninth Congress, he again called attention to the matter, this time strongly recommending the appropriation. 6 A prolonged debate followed that brought out the sectional nature of the question in a manner ominous of future trouble. The following extract from a letter A. H. Stephens wrote to his brother Linton, January 5, 1847, aptly describes the situation: "The North is going to stick the Wilmot amendment to every appropriation, and then all the South will vote against any measure thus clogged. Finally, a tremendous struggle will take place, and perhaps Polk in starting one war may find half a dozen on his hands. I tell you the prospect ahead is dark, cloudy, thick, and gloomy. I hope for the best, while I fear the worst. ' ' 7

The transition from party to sectional ties, an inevitable outcome by reason of the step taken by the Southern Democracy in 1844, was forecasted in the action of such a Northern Democrat as Preston King, of New York, who introduced into the House of Representatives a two-million appropriation bill with a slavery excluding clause attached. Another significant fact, to be in-

7. Johnston & Browne, A. H. Stevens, p. 218.

ferred from the proceedings, was that the older statesmen had been left high and dry by the progress of events, and were unable to meet the changed conditions; the political leadership of the country was passing into the hands of a younger generation. This was illustrated in the action of Senator Berrien, a Georgia Whig, who appealed to the men from his section to oppose all additions of territory, for the reason that slavery could not be carried to any portion of it, and urged the necessity of keeping the irritating question out of Congress. Calhoun, who was absorbed in a scheme of his own for the settlement of the sectional difficulty, 8 opposed the Mexican war for similar reasons. Not a few members, from a sincere desire to avert all danger to the Union, busied themselves with schemes of compromise. Benton, and a few others, to quote Benton, "produced the laws and the Constitution of Mexico to show that New Mexico and California were free from slavery, and argued that neither party had anything to fear, or to hope — the free soil party nothing to fear, because the soil was now free, the slave soil party nothing to hope, because they could not take a step to make it slave soil, having just invented the dogma of 'No power in Congress to legislate upon slavery in the territories.' " 9

The Proviso never became a law. It passed the House in the form of a clause attached to a two-million appropriation bill in February, 1847, but it is extremely doubtful if, under any circumstances, it could have commanded a sufficient majority in the Senate during that session. The matter was not put to the test, however, for while the discussion of the measure was going on in the House, the Senate had passed a bill of its own, for the appropriation of three million dollars, instead of two, and containing no clause regarding slavery. When taken up by the House, on March 3, 1847, Wilmot added fresh fuel to the flame by moving to amend it by adding his Proviso, but his motion failed by a vote of 102 to 97. After considerable wrangling, the bill was passed in the form in which it came from the Senate. The final vote on the Proviso was decidedly sectional. All of the Northern Whigs, including the member from Delaware, supported the measure ; all members of that party from the Southern

8. See below, pp. 11-15.

States voted against it. Its defeat as an amendment to the "Three Million" bill was due to the votes of Northern Democrats, 10 who, from a sincere desire to restore peace and harmony, or through inability to see the real issue involved in the struggle, cast their votes with the South.

One matter that came up during the Congressional struggle deserves more than passing notice. It was the championship of the cause of the domestic expansion of slavery by Calhoun. On February 19, 1847, he introduced a set of resolutions, in the Senate, declaring that the territories were the common property of the States composing the Union, and that Congress, as the joint agent and representative of the States, had no right to make any law, or do any act whatever, that should, directly or by its effects, make any discrimination between the States by which any of them should be deprived of its full and equal right in any territory acquired, or to be acquired, by the United States 11 — the old familiar doctrine of State Sovereignty expressed in a form suitable for the occasion. No action was taken upon these resolutions ; it is possible that Calhoun introduced them only for their effect upon public opinion south of Mason and Dixon's line. At all events, the theory of Congressional power here set forth met with favor in the Southern States, and it was the chief argument put forward by his section during the territorial crisis that followed.

The agitation in Congress spread to the country at large. At the North, the war was denounced as a scheme of Southern statesmen to increase the slave area of the country. New England opposition found expression in the ' ' Bigelow Papers, ' ' of Lowell, the poems of Whittier, and in numberless press and pamphlet articles by authors of lesser fame. Theodore Parker, the eminent Boston clergyman, expressed his opposition in a speech at Fanuel Hall, February 7, 1847. 12 A Whig meeting, held at Lebanon, Ohio, August 28, 1847, approved the course of their Senator, Thomas Corwin, who had been active in his opposition to the Mexican war, declared their opposition to an improper inter-

10. For the debate and other proceedings relative to the Proviso struggle see Cong. Globe, 29 Cong., 2 Sess., pp. 360-363, 383-386, 529-548, Appendix pp. 177-180, 342, 518, 406-409.

12. Chadwick, Theodore Parker, p. 237.

ference with slavery where it constitutionally existed, bnt recorded their opposition to its further extension. Ten Northern States, through legislative resolutions, sanctioned the principles of the Proviso. Three of these went beyond the principles embodied in the measure. New Hampshire urged the passage of measures putting an end to slavery in the District of Columbia, for its exclusion from Oregon, and from such territory as might thereafter belong to the United States ; Ohio requested her Congressmen to procure the passage of measures excluding slavery from the Territory of Oregon; and Vermont declared that she would not countenance, aid, or assent to the admission of any State whose Constitution tolerated slavery. 13 The issues here mentioned came up to render the situation the more complicated at a later period.

The intensity of Northern feeling was even more strongly revealed in the repeal of the so-called Sojourn Laws — measures that were originally passed by the Legislatures of the free States for the benefit of Southerners, allowing them to abide in, or to pass through, those States with their negro servants. By the year 1850, all of the Northern States, with the exception of Rhode Island and New Jersey, had done away with all laws of this nature. 14 Calhoun considered that the spirit prompting such acts was far more dangerous to Southern rights than was the spirit of the Wilmot Proviso. 15

In the South the Proviso debate aroused alarm and resentment. Born and bred in the presence of the institution of negro slavery, Southerners took its existence for granted, and it is not strange that Northern attacks upon the institution were regarded as attacks upon their civilization. 16 Calhoun had furnished them with a theory of governmental power that they could use in opposing the purpose of the North, and they were quick to seize it. The first Southern State to take legislative action was Virginia. Her general Assembly adopted a series of resolutions, March 8,

13. Niles Register, Vol. LXXIII, p. 44.

14. See Clay's speech on the Compromise measure, Cong. Globe, 31 Cong., 1 Sess., App. pp. 115-117. Clay stated that the abolitionists of Philadelphia set the slaves of Langdon Cheves, of South Carolina, free on writ of Habeas Corpus, while that gentleman was in the city during the Mexican war. The case was carried to the State Supreme Court, where it was argued for days.

15. See his letter to an Alabama legislator in Benton, Thirty Years' View, Vol. II, p. 698.

16. Ingle,SouthernSidelights,p.303.

1847, holding that the Federal government had no control over the institution of slavery, and that in taking any y such control it exceeded its legitimate functions by destroying the internal organization of the sovereignties which created it. The second and third of the series expressed, in substance, the theory of Congressional power as set forth by Calhoun in his Senate resolutions of the month before. Should the issue be forced upon the country by the adoption of the Proviso, one of the later resolutions declared: "the people of Virginia can have no difficulty in choosing between the alternatives of abject submission to aggression and outrage on the one hand, or determined resistance on the other, at all hazards and to the last extremity. ' ' 17 These resolutions, which strongly suggest Calhoun influence, were received with general approval in the South, and they served as a model for those adopted by other State Legislatures in that section. Provision was made for the Governor to transmit copies of the proceedings to the executives of the other States in the Union. Upon receiving his copy, Governor Brown, of Mississippi, wrote in acknowledgement that he would lay the measure before the Legislature of Mississippi, wrote in acknowledgement that he would lay the measure before the Legislature of Mississippi when it met, which would not be until January, 1848, but it afforded him great pleasure to say in advance that the action of Virginia would meet with the hearty approval of both political parties in his State. 18 The Legislature of Alabama indorsed the action of the Virginia Legislature; 19 the Democratic State conventions in Alabama and Georgia concurred ; 20 and, besides, the resolutions were approved at many public meetings held in different parts of the South. 21

While opposition to the Wilmot Proviso was general in the South, the feeling of outrage was strongest in South Carolina. Public meetings were held in different parts of the commonwealth to denounce the measure. On March 9, 1847, the citizens of Charleston held a meeting and adopted resolutions condemning its principle; declaring the is. Xiles Register, Vol. LXXII, p. 178.

20. Niles Register, Vol. LXXII, pp. 179, 293.

21. Rhodes,. I'nited States, Vol. 1, pp. 105-106.

IO question paramount to all party considerations; adopting the Virginia resolutions; and expressing pride and pleasure in the able and dignified conduct of Mr. Calhoun in defense of the rights of the South and the guarantees of the Constitution. Calhoun was present and addressed the gathering. 22 On October 4, 1847, a similar meeting was held in the court house of Barnwell district. Resolutions to the number of eleven were adopted, which, besides covering matters taken up at the Charleston meeting, approved a plan to establish at Washington a newspaper for the defense "of those guarantees which the Constitution secures to the slave holding States ; ' ' 23 declared the adoption of anti-slavery resolutions by the Northern States to be violations of the Constitution; and recommended that the Legislature instruct their delegates in Congress to return to their constituents should the Wilmot Proviso pass that body. 24

In the same month General Waddy Thompson, a man of strong Union views, addressed the citizens of Greenville County, the pronounced Union center of South Carolina. He made a speech strongly condemning the Proviso, and in it declared that he yielded to no man in a sincere and rational attachment to the Union. As for the government, it "should not be changed for slight and trancient causes ; but when the great end of the institution is defeated, and all hope of remedy is gone, and the government is only felt in its insults and its wrongs, it is not only a right, but the most sacred of human duties to abolish it. ' ' Should the principle contained in the Proviso be asserted by an act of Congress, he was ready to abolish the Union. 25 In the face of the strong popular condemnation of the measure, even the moderate men of the South were taking action in close accord with Calhoun 's views on the slavery issue.

Attention has previously been called to the Calhoun theory that Congress had no power to pass acts depriving any State of the Union of its equal rights in the Territories. In his speech delivered before the citizens of Charleston, March 9, 1847, he set forth the political and economic situation of the South and outlined a general program for Southern action. In this speech he

22. Niles Register, Vol. LXXII, p. 39.

23. This paper, The Southern Press, was later established. See p. 61.

24. Niles Register, Vol. LXXIII, p. 127.

25. Greenville Mountaineer, Oct. 15, 1847.

II said that he fully concurred in the address of the committee and in the resolutions accompanying it. Then followed a comparison of the political strength of the two sections in Congress; the conclusion drawn from which was that the non-slaveholding States had mere power of numbers. The admission of the free States of Iowa and Wisconsin would give the North a majority of four in the Senate, which had previously been the Southern shield against attacks upon the institution of slavery. The loss of control over the Senate would put the South in a minority in all departments of the government. It was fortunate that the mere power of numbers was not the sole element of power under our sj-stem of government. The South had the Constitution upon its side. As to what that would avail them, he stated that already there were many enlightened and patriotic men in the Northern States and "the effect of the discussion will not improbably greatly increase their number, and, induce a still greater number to hesitate, and abate somewhat in their confidence in former opinions, and prepare the way to give full effect to another advantage which we possess."

Since the Northern crusade against slavery did not spring from hostility of interests, the advantage spoken of was to "annihilate the products of their labor — strike from the list the three great articles, which are almost exclusively the products of their labor— cotton, rice, and tobacco, and what would become of the great shipping, navigating, commercial, and manufacturing interests of the non-slaveholding States? What of their Lowells and Walthams; their New York and Boston, and other manufacturing and commercial cities? What, to enlarge the question, would become of the exports and imports of the Union itself ; its shipping and tonnage, its immense revenue, in the disbursements of which millions in those States, directly or indirectly, lve and prosper?"

Then in lucid language followed his conception of the anti-slavery movement at the North. To account for it he considered it necessary to explain the views of the people in that section. There were four classes of people there: first, Abolitionists proper, about five per cent of the total population ; second, about seven-tenths of the whole body of citizens, who, while regarding slavery as a sin, preferred to put down the institution in a constitutional manner; third, a very small class that viewed slavery very much after the Southern fashion ; and fourth, the political leaders who had no convictions either way but who were ready to take either side that promised to further their political interests. In the nicely balanced situation of the parties, the Abolitionists held the balance of power, ,and the leaders of both great parties had sought their support. Since both great parties at the North had united against Southern interests, it was time for both great parties at the South to unite in opposition. Their object was the preservation of the Union, if it could be done consistently with their rights and equality with the other States. 26

In the Charleston speech, just considered, we have seen that Calhoun advocated an attitude of resistance on the part of the South without setting forth any definite constructive plans. From his after course we conclude that he did not consider that the time had come to take the public into his confidence. In a letter to one of his followers, an Alabama legislator, written at the time of the Wilmot Proviso controversy, 27 he bared his thoughts, and we now know what those plans were. This legislator had evidently expressed himself to the effect that the South should court, rather than shun, the issue offered by the measure. Calhoun, in reply, wrote that he was in favor of going still farther and forcing the issue upon the North, since the South was then relatively stronger than it would ever be afterwards. Unless they did so, delay would prove dangerous. Had the South, or even his own State, backed him in 1835, he would have forced the issue when the Abolition spirit first showed itself.

In making the issue it was necessary to look far beyond the Proviso, which he regarded as only one of many acts of aggression, and, in his opinion, by no means the most dangerous. From his point of view, the recent act of Pennsylvania, — and similar laws of that description, — were far more dangerous. 28 Any compromise or adjustment would simply lull to sleep instead of removing the danger. As to how the issue could be met without a dissolution of the Union, he wrote : " I say without its dissolution^

26. Calhoun's Works, Vol. IV, pp. 394 395 ; Niles Register, Vol. LXXII, pp. 72-73..

2 7. Given in Benton. Thirty Years' View, Vol. II, p. 698; partially given in Du Bose, Life of Yancey, p. 200. The date of this letter is not given, neither is the name of the legislator.

28. The repeal of the Sojourn laws.

for, in my opinion, a high and sacred regard for the Constitution, as well as the dictates of wisdom, make it our duty in this case, as well as in all others, not to resort to, or even to look to that extreme remedy, until all others have failed, and then only in defense of our liberty and safety. ' '

To his mind there was but one remedy, and that lay in retaliation, "by refusing to fulfill the stipulations in their favor, or such as we may select as the most efficient. Among these, the right of their ships and commerce to enter and depart from our ports." This he would apply only to sea-going vessels, "which would leave open the trade of the valley of the Mississippi to New Orleans by river, and to the other Southern cities by railroad; and tend thereby to detach the Northwestern from the Northeastern States." He saw but one practical difficulty in the way and that was, "to give it force, it will require the cooperation of all of the slave-holding States lying on the Atlantic Gulf. Without that, it would be ineffective. To get that is the great point, and for that purpose a convention of the Southern States is indispensable. Let that be called, and let it adopt measures to bring about the cooperation, and I would underwrite for the rest. The non-slaveholding States would be compelled to observe the stipulations of the Constitution in our favor, or abandon their trade with us, or to take measures to coerce us, which would throw on them the responsibility of dissolving the Union. Which they would choose, I do not think doubtful. Their unbounded avarice would, in the end, control them. Let a convention be called — let it recommend to the slave-holding States to take the course advised, giving, say one year's notice before the acts of the several States should go into effect, and the issue would fairly be made up, and our safety and triumph certain."

This, then, briefly stated, was Calhoun's scheme: to force the issue with the North in order to bring about a settlement of the slavery question. In his Alabama letter, above quoted, he did not mention the exact nature of the settlement but, from his famous speech on the Compromise measures of 1850, March 4, 1850, 29 we conclude that he had in mind an amendment to the Constitution. The plan was the result of long and deep reflection upon his part, and for several years he had awaited a favorable oppor-

29. Cong. Globe, 31 Cong., 1 Sess., App. pp. 115127.

tunity for its proposal. We shall see that he succeeded in bringing about a convention of the Southern States, but a detailed account of its origin, purpose and proceedings is left for a later chapter. 30

The Wilmot Proviso in its relation to the presidential campaign of 1848 is next to be considered, and the Democratic situation shall first claim our attention. There were three who more or less openly aspired to the honor of becoming the standard bearer, and one possibility: James Buchanan, of Pennsylvania, who had entertained hopes of some day gaining the office from the time of his entry into the House of Representatives in 1821 ; 31 George M. Dallas, of Pennsylvania, then Vice-President ; and Lewis Cass, of Michigan. Levi Woodbury, of New Hampshire, a justice of the United States Supreme Court, was regarded as a possibility. By reason of the strained sectional situation it was clear that no man who openly opposed the extension of slavery could hope for the support of the Southern wing of the party. From a full realization of all this the three aspirants early issued their studied bids for the coveted nomination. Buchanan, in a widely-published letter of August 25, 1847, to the Democrats of Berks County, Pennsylvania, recommended the extension of the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific as his method of settling the territorial question. 32 Dallas, in a speech delivered at Pittsburg, September 18, 1847, expressed his disapproval of the Proviso measure, and signified opposition to any scheme of compromise. 33 Cass, in a letter to A. 0. P. Nicholson, of Nashville, Tennessee, December 24, 1847, in reply to one received from that gentleman 34 asking him if he was in favor of the acquisition of Mexican territory, and what were his sentiments with regard to the Proviso, put forth the doctrine of ' ' Squatter Sovereignty ' ' as his method of settling the matters in controversy 35 — a doctrine that appears to have originated with Dickinson, of New York, and not with Cass, as was formerly supposed. 36

30. See Chapter IV.

31. Poore. Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. I, p. 372.

32. Niles Register, Vol. LXXIII, p. 4.

34. Nashville Whig, Jan. 11, 1848.

35. Niles Register, Vol. LXXIII, p. 293; Smith, Life and Times of Cass, pp. 607-616.

36. Garrison, Westward Expansion, p. 300.

The Whigs had three possible nominees for the presidency: Henry Clay, General Scott, and General Taylor; but the brilliant military record of the latter created such a strong popular feeling in his favor that the party leaders discarded the logical candidate, Clay, and passed over Scott, in order to make him their candidate. Could they (the Northern Whigs) afford not to run Taylor? wrote Washington Hunt to Thurlow Weed; Southern Whigs, with scarcely an exception, were for him, and he was sure to be a presidential candidate, with or without a nomination. 37 Public meetings in Trenton, New Jersey, and in New York, had boomed the candidacy of Taylor almost from the outbreak of war, and after the battle of Buena Vista a pronounced movement in his favor spread over the entire country. 38 Thurlow Weed, in his interesting autobiography, tells us that he first broke ground for Taylor by an article in his newspaper, The Albany Evening Journal, for June 18, 1846. The circumstances under which Weed claims he made the selection were somewhat extraordinary. While in conversation with General Taylor 's brother, on a New York steamboat, the latter remarked that the General had never been interested in politics, but that he admired Clay, hated Jackson, and could not be induced to wear a soat of foreign manufacture. This convinced Weed that the General was a sound enough Whig to run for the Presidency. 39

For the next act in the political drama we must look to the State of Alabama, where a leader for the South, since Calhoun was absorbed in his own plans, offered himself in the person of William Lowndes Yancey. Yancey was born in Warren County, Georgia, August 10, 1814. 40 Like Calhoun, Yancey had received a part of his education at the North, having attended Williams College for a time. Both became leaders in the movement in opposition to that section. After his return to the South, Yancey lived for a time in Greenville County, South Carolina, where he edited a Union newspaper. B. F. Perry, who was his law associate, thus writes of him at this time: "He was then a very strong Union man, and dealt out to the milliners and secessionists some terrible blows, for their disunion proclivities. Little