Chapter X: Part 10

If Mr. Davis' position be thought to be extremely southern, it must be remembered that he is an honest, upright man--much more so than some who clamor after office; and that such a man can be trusted generally, in spite of his prejudices, to deal fairly even with his opponents. An honest man, however ultra his position, if he have intellect, is safer to be trusted with a high office, than the mere twaddling politician, who will execute the party's bidding, however iniquitous it may be.

In the great "non-intervention debate" of the Senate, in February, 1859, Mr. Davis said:

"Now, the senator asks will you make a discrimination in the
territories? I say yes, I would discriminate in the territories
wherever it is needful to assert the right of a citizen: wherever
it is proper to carry out the principle, the obligation, the clear
intent and meaning of the Constitution of the United States. I
have heard many a siren's song on this doctrine of
non-intervention; a thing shadowy and fleeting, changing its color
as often as the chameleon, which never meant anything fairly
unless it was that Congress would not attempt to legislate on a
subject over which they had no control; that they would not
attempt to establish slavery anywhere nor to prohibit it anywhere;
and such was the language of the compromise measures of 1850 when
this doctrine was inaugurated. Since that, it has been woven into
a delusive gauze, thrown over the public mind, and presented as an
obligation of the Democratic party to stand still; withholding
from an American citizen the protection he has a right to claim;
to surrender their power; to do nothing; to prove faithless to the
trust they hold at the hands of the people of the States. If the
theory of the senator be correct, and if Congress has no power to
legislate in any regard upon the subject, how did you pass the
fugitive slave law? He repeats, again and again, that you have no
power to legislate in regard to slavery either in the States or in
the territories, and yet the fugitive slave law stands on the
statute-book; and although he did not vote for it, he explained to
the country why he did not, and expressed his regret that his
absence had prevented him from recording his vote in favor of it.

"From the plain language of the Constitution, as I have read it,
how is it possible for one still claiming to follow the path of
the Constitution, to assert that Congress has no power to
legislate in relation to the subject anywhere? He informs us,
however, that by the Kansas-Nebraska bill, the full power of the
inhabitants of a territory to legislate on all subjects not
inconsistent with the Constitution, was granted by Congress. If
Congress attempted to make such a grant; if Congress thus
attempted to rid themselves of a trust imposed upon them, they
exceeded their authority. They could delegate no such power. The
territorial legislature can be but an instrument, through which
the Congress of the United States execute their trust in relation
to the territories. Therefore it was, that notwithstanding the
exact language of that bill which the senator has read, the
Congress of the United States did assume, and did exercise, the
power to repeal a law passed in that very territory of Kansas,
which they clearly could not have done if they had surrendered all
control over its legislation. Whether the senator voted for that
report or not, I do not know; I presume he did; but whether he did
or not, does not vary the question, except so far as it affects
himself. The advocates of the Kansas-Nebraska bill were generally
the men who most promptly claimed the repeal of those laws,
because they said they were a violation of those rights which
every American citizen possessed under the Constitution.

"But the senator says territorial laws can only be set aside by an
appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States. If so, then they
have a power not derived from Congress; they are not the
instruments of Congress. But in the course of the senator's
remarks, and quite inconsistent with this position, he announced
that they possessed no power save that which they derived from the
organic act and the Constitution. They can derive no power from
the Constitution save as territories of the United States, over
which the States have given the power of a trustee to the
Congress; and being the delegate of the Congress, they have such
powers as Congress has thought proper to give, provided they do
not exceed such powers as the Congress possesses. How, then, does
the Senator claim that they have a power to legislate which
Congress cannot revise; and yet no power to legislate at all save
that which they derive from their organic act?

"My friend from Alabama presented a question to the senator from
Illinois, which he did not answer. It was, whether a law
pronounced unconstitutional by the Supreme Court was still to
remain in force within the territory, Congress failing to provide
any remedy which would restore the right violated by that
unconstitutional act? The senator answers me from his seat,
'clearly not.' Then I ask him, what is the remedy? The law is
pronounced unconstitutional, and yet the right which it has
violated is not restored; the protection which is required is not
granted; the law which deprived him of the protection, though it
may be declared unconstitutional, is not replaced by any which
will give him the adequate protection to hold his property. Then
what is the benefit he derives from the decision of the Supreme
Court? The decision of the Supreme Court is binding upon the
Congress; but this squatter-sovereignty legislation, seeming to be
outside of the Constitution, outside of the legislation of the
Federal Government, erects itself into an attitude that seems to
me quite inappropriate.

"I concede to the Congress the power, through the instrumentality
of a territorial legislature, to legislate upon such subjects as
Congress itself has the right to make laws for; no more than that.
More than that the senator cannot claim, unless he can show to us
that philosophical problem of getting more out of a tub than it
contains; its contents being measured, to find something more
which can be taken out of it. If he will not--and I suppose he
will not--contend that Congress can delegate more power than it
possesses, how does he get the power in the territorial
legislature to pass laws which will interfere with the rights of a
citizen choosing to migrate to a territory? It is the common
property of the people of the States. Every citizen has a right to
go there, and to carry with him whatever property is recognized by
the Constitution; the common law of the States forming the Union.
Congress has no power to prohibit it; is bound to see that it is
fully enjoyed. Then, I ask the senator, where does he derive the
power for the territorial legislature to do it? for he has planted
himself now on the ground that they derive their authority from
the organic act."

At a subsequent stage of the debate, the subjoined colloquy occurred between Mr. Pugh, of Ohio, who had the floor, and Mr. Davis:

"MR. DAVIS.--With the permission of the senator from Ohio, I will
ask him whether he understood the senator from Virginia to assert
that the Constitution of the United States would give the right to
carry this property into the limits of a State where it is
prohibited?

"MR. PUGH.--No, sir; but I say that this proposition is nothing,
unless it goes to that extent.

"MR. DAVIS.--In the absence of my friend from Virginia, I would
say that his theory, I believe, agrees with mine; and certainly
does not go to that extent. It is that the Constitution makes it
property throughout the United States. It can, therefore, be taken
and held wherever the sovereign power of a State has not
prohibited it. When it reaches the territory of a sovereign State
where its introduction is inhibited, it there stops; except for
the reserved right to recover a fugitive, and for the right of
transit, which belongs to every citizen of the United States. That
is the decision of the Supreme Court.

"MR. PUGH.--I repeat my assertion: if the Constitution of the
United States gives this form of property its peculiar protection,
as gentlemen assert, and the right to carry it, it is carried into
every State over the constitution and laws of the State; for the
Constitution of the United States is supreme above the
constitutions and laws of the States; and it means that, or it
means nothing. There is no distinction; there can be none made;
and my colleague put the very question which proved the fallacy of
the whole proposition. But senators say there is no sovereignty in
the territories. I agree to that; but why do we deceive ourselves
about words? There is no such language as sovereignty in the
Constitution of the United States. Senators say it requires a
power of sovereignty to exclude slavery, and the senator from
Mississippi has just now spoken of the sovereignty of the State
which excludes slavery. He says it requires sovereign power to
exclude slavery. Well, how is that sovereignty to be expressed?

"MR. DAVIS.--When a State, being a sovereign, by its organic law
excludes that species of property, the act is final. There is no
sovereignty in the Constitution, as the senator states, and why?
Because the Constitution is a compact between sovereigns creating
an agent with delegated powers; and sovereignty is an indivisible
thing. They gave functions of sovereignty from their plenary
power. Sovereignty remained with the people of the States.

"MR. PUGH.--Then I understand the senator that the sovereignty can
only speak through a constitution, and that it is in the
constitution of a State only that the power to admit or exclude
slavery is to be exercised. Why, sir, until the year 1820 not a
State of this Union, in her constitution, either admitted or
excluded slavery, and I do not believe Virginia did until 1850 or
1851. None of the States did it until Missouri when she came into
the Union, and she put it into her constitution, not upon the idea
that that was peculiarly the place, but for the express purpose of
disarming her legislature. It was an ordinary legislative power,
nothing else in the world; known and recognized as such and
admitted as such by every State in the Union. New York abolished
slavery by law, Pennsylvania abolished slavery by law, and in the
States where the institution continued, it was fostered,
protected, and recognized by ordinary acts of legislation.

"MR. DAVIS.--I am sorry to interrupt the senator again, and I
believe this will be the last time. The first instance he will
find was that of Massachusetts, who, in her bill of rights, at the
Revolutionary era, made a declaration which her supreme court held
to be the abolition of slavery; and I think he will find that it
has generally been acted on in that way; but he has not the right
to assume anything more than I stated. I stated a mode."

JAMES L. ORR.

Col. Orr is of Irish extraction, his ancestors on the paternal and maternal side coming originally from Ireland. His grandfather, a native of North Carolina, was a Revolutionary soldier. Christopher Orr, his father, was a country merchant of considerable means, and who expended them liberally upon the education of his children. James L. Orr was born May 12, 1822, at Craytonville, Anderson District, South Carolina. He began his education at a common school, but was soon sent to the Anderson Academy, at the same time, however, assisting his father in keeping his books. When he was eighteen years old, he was sent to the University of Virginia, where his proficiency in his studies was so great, that he attracted the attention of his tutors, who predicted a promising career for the young student. In 1841, he left college and spent two years in pursuing a course of general reading, of the greatest importance to him in after life.

In 1843, he studied law, was admitted to the bar. He began the practice of law at home, in Anderson, the same year establishing a village newspaper and editing it. It was called the "Anderson Gazette." In 1844, when but twenty-two years of age, his neighbors and friends elected him to the State Legislature, where he began his political career in a quiet, unostentatious manner. Still, he took a very decided position--one which gave an indication of his future policy. It was this: he delivered a speech in opposition to the doctrine of nullification, in reference to the tariff of 1812. He also took democratic ground in favor of the election of Presidential electors of the people. They were then, and are now in South Carolina, elected by the legislature.

In 1848, Mr. Orr became a candidate for Congress. His chief opponent was a Democrat, a lawyer of wealth and talents, and of course the contest was simply one of personal popularity, as both gentlemen held the same political sentiments. After a very lively contest, Mr. Orr was elected by 700 majority over his Democratic competitor. He entered Congress at a time when the country was convulsed with the slavery question, and though such men as Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Cass, and the like, were in Congress, he very soon attracted the attention of the experienced legislators of that time. Not by egotistic speeches, forcing himself, as some men do, upon the attention of Congress and the country, but by delivering, at judicious times, speeches which were full of solid ability. While he was a firm defender of slavery and what are called "the constitutional rights of the South," he condemned the agitation of the question of slavery, and arrayed himself against the ultraists of his section of the country. Col. Orr's constituents were so well pleased with his conduct that they have left him in it till he was, in December, 1857, elected speaker of the House of Representatives.

When the compromise measures were passed, South Carolina for a time seemed to favor a secession from the Union. A Constitutional Convention had been called and a large majority of the delegates were pledged to favor secession. Col. Orr, however, come out very boldly and eloquently against their policy. A General Convention of the disaffected people was held in Charleston, in 1851, and Col. Orr attended as a delegate from the Anderson District. In the Convention he took strong ground against disunion, and introduced resolutions embodying his opinions on that subject. But out of 450 members, only 30 came to his support. But Col. Orr was undaunted by the majority of numbers against him. He appealed to the people by voice and pen, and as the result he and a companion in his disunion views were elected to the proposed Southern Congress over two secession candidates. An apparent admirer of Col. Orr, speaking of this contest, says:

"That the crisis was one full of alarm and danger must be admitted
even by those furthest from the scene, and most disposed to deny
both the right and power of a State to secede; and that Mr. Orr,
in the very opening of a brilliant political career, hazarded his
future hopes and prospects to a sense of right and duty, entitles
him to the regard of every true lover of the Union. His triumph
was highly honorable to himself, and fixed him more firmly than
ever in the esteem and affections of his constituents."

The same writer remarks:

"The Congressional career of Mr. Orr, which a want of space prevents us from noticing more in detail, has been both a brilliant and a useful one. Always sustaining his positions with eloquence and force of argument, and exhibiting great fairness in debate, he has commanded attention, and exercised a powerful influence over the questions of the day. His habits of thorough investigation and analysis, and his tenacious adherence to his convictions of right, have frequently placed him at the head of important committees; and his reports are among the ablest in our legislative records. As chairman of the Committee of the Whole on the State of the Union, during the discussion of the most important and exciting measures, he displayed so much promptness, firmness, and intelligence in his decisions that he won the confidence and respect of men of all parties; and at the commencement of last Congress he was almost unanimously selected by the Democrats as their candidate for Speaker. His party was, however, in the minority, and his election failed. When the present session of Congress opened, Mr. Orr was nominated, without opposition, and elected its presiding officer. So far he has justified the expectations of his friends and of the party which placed him in the chair. In the fulfillment of the duties of his present position Mr. Orr will doubtless add honorably to the reputation he now enjoys. He is too wise a man not to perceive that while fidelity to party was the best ladder for him to rise to his present height, impartial neutrality will now serve his fame and ambition better."

Upon the whole, Mr. Orr made an admirable Speaker to the Thirty-fifth Congress. If he was not always rigidly impartial, the exceptional cases were rare, and when he was swerved from the straight line of duty by his sectional prejudices.

In November, 1855, to go back a little--Col. Orr published a letter in reference to the duty of South Carolina toward the Democratic party of the North. The people of that State were then, as they seem almost always to be, in a state of high excitement on the slavery question. Many leading politicians counselled secession and non-action in reference to the Presidential canvass. But Col. Orr took different ground. In his letter to Hon. C. W. Dudley, dated Anderson, Nov. 23, 1855, he said:

"A convention is merely a method of finding out what the popular
opinion is, and giving to it a more conspicuous and imposing
expression. It has been steadily and uniformly pursued by the
Democracy of all the States (except our own) for fifteen years or
more, and the selection of delegates, manner of voting and
nominating, has been defined by a usage well understood and
acquiesced in, as if regulated by law. Hence, we know that such a
convention will assemble in Cincinnati in May next, and that it
will nominate candidates for the Presidency and Vice
Presidency--adopt a platform of principles--and it is nearly
certain that the nominees will receive the votes of the Democratic
party of every State in the Union. Shall the Democracy of this
State send delegates? It is our privilege to be represented there,
and at the present time I believe it to be a high and solemn duty
to meet our political allies, and to aid, by our presence and
councils, in selecting suitable nominees and constructing a
platform, which will secure our rights and uphold the
Constitution.

"There has never been a time since the convention policy was
adopted--if, indeed, there has been such a time since the
government was inaugurated--when the success of the Democratic
party in the electoral college was so vitally important as now. If
that party should be defeated in the election before the people,
every patriot's mind must be filled with gloomy forebodings of the
future. The indications now are, that the opposition to the
Democratic party, made up of Know Nothings, Abolitionists, and
Fusionist, will run two or more candidates: if the Democracy fail
to secure a majority in the electoral college over all elements of
opposition, then the election must be made, according to the
Constitution, by the House of Representatives. Can we safely trust
the election of our rights to that body? The House is now elected,
and we _know_ that a decided majority of the House are members of
the Know Nothing, Fusion and Whig parties; and if the election be
devolved on them, the Democratic party will be certainly defeated,
and perhaps a Fusionist promoted to the Presidency. Are the people
of South Carolina so indifferent to their relations to the Federal
Government, that they will quietly look on and see such an
administration as we have had since the 4th of March, '53--an
administration that has faithfully and fearlessly maintained the
Constitution in its purity--supplanted by Know Nothingism or Black
Republicanism? That is the issue to be decided in the next
presidential election, and that, too, in the electoral college;
for if we fail there, then we know now with absolute certainty
that we must be defeated before the House. Was it, then, ever so
important before that the Convention should be filled with
discreet, patriotic men; that there should be the fullest
representation of every man devoted to the Democratic faith, and
opposed to Fusion and Know Nothingism; that they should commune
freely together, and nominate a candidate who will command the
confidence of the entire party.

* * * * *

"We have heard much of southern union being necessary to our
safety. We now have it in our power, by cordial cooperation with
our southern sisters, to secure it--to secure it on such a basis
as will permanently preserve our institutions. We can here make
our demand, and with a united South, we can offer it to the true
men of the North. If we act wisely and present such an ultimatum,
I doubt not that thousands, perhaps millions, at the North, will
espouse and maintain it; for it is a platform of the Constitution,
and there are hosts of conservative men who I know are prepared to
maintain the Constitution of our fathers.

"Will we reject it with silent contempt--adhere to our isolation,
and stubbornly refuse to fraternize with her, and all the balance
of our southern sisters? Who doubts that all the South will be
represented there? and can it be said, truthfully, that our voice
can be of no avail or weight, when the ultimatum shall be laid
down? If we send delegates, who can say that our votes may not
secure a reliable nominee and a sound platform? Will the
instructions of Georgia to her delegates be more or less potent
with the indorsement of all or of only a portion of the South?

"If, indeed, fanaticism is in the ascendant in the North, and
cannot be overcome, then what initiative step toward a southern
Union, for the last resort, can be more effective than to unite
all the South on the Georgia platform and instructions? Our
influence in counsel and in action will be increased, whenever we
show a hearty disposition to harmonize with our sisters in the
South. Have we not heretofore kept aloof from their consultations
in every instance, save in the Nashville Convention?--and that was
a movement which did not derive any popularity in the South from
being suspected of having originated in South Carolina. Sooner or
later we must learn the important truth, that the fate and destiny
of the entire South is identical. Isolation will give neither
security nor concert. When we meet Virginia and Georgia, Alabama
and Mississippi, in consultation, as at Cincinnati, it is the
supremacy of Pharisaism to flippantly denounce such association as
either dangerous or degrading. North Carolina, Missouri, Florida,
and Texas, will be there represented; and are we too exalted or
conceited to meet them at the same council board?

"We shall meet there many liberal men from the North; those who in
their section have done good service against political
abolitionism. When we insist upon our platform with firmness, and
they see we only make a demand of our constitutional rights, they
will concede it; and when they go home they will prosecute the
canvass in good faith, upon the principles enunciated at the
Convention. Concert among ourselves, with the aid of the
conservative men at the North, may enable us to save a
constitutional Union; if that cannot be preserved, it will enable
us to save ourselves and our institutions. Are we alone to have
unoccupied seats, when such grave matters are to be decided by the
Cincinnati Convention?

"Suppose the Democracy of this State should decide not to send
delegates, and the other States of the South should follow her
example, who would be voted for? Could the party, _even at the
South_, without some concert, which could only be secured by
meeting, rally upon the same man? No well-informed person would
venture an affirmative answer; what would be the result? The
Democratic party would certainly be defeated, and the Know
Nothing, or Black Republican party, would as certainly be
successful. Our policy, then, would inevitably bring upon us
defeat; and if we are to be saved from a free-soil President, it
is only to be done by the party in the other States assembling and
making a nomination in which we refuse to participate. Even those
who are opposing the sending of the delegates, I doubt not,
rejoice in the hope that the other States, despite our
impracticable example, will meet and nominate candidates.

* * * * *

"The northern Democrats aided us to bring into the Union Texas, a
magnificent slave-holding territory--large enough to make four
slave States, and strengthened us more in that peculiar interest
than was ever before done by any single act of the Federal
Government. Since then they have amended a very imperfect fugitive
slave law, passed in 1793, and have given us now a law for the
recovery of fugitive slaves, as stringent as the ingenuity of man
could devise. Since then they have aided us by their votes in
establishing the doctrine of non-intervention with slavery by
Congress in the territories. Since then they have reduced the
odious tariff of 1842, and fixed the principle of imposts on the
revenue, not the protective basis. Since then they have actually
repealed the Missouri restriction, opened the territories to
settlement, and enabled us, if the South will be true to herself,
and aid in peopling Kansas, to form another slave State.

"In 1843, a man would have been pronounced insane, had he
predicted that slavery would be introduced there by the removal of
congressional restrictions. Since then they have adopted the
Virginia and Kentucky resolutions and Madison's report--the very
corner-stone of State rights--as a part of the Democratic
platform. They have by their votes in Congress and Convention
given all these pledges to the Constitution since 1843; and if we
could then fraternize with them, what change has transpired that
justifies the delegates in that Convention, at least, in refusing
now to fraternize with northern and southern Democrats?"

The reader will easily see Col. Orr's position from this letter. He is a southern Democrat, and, as such, a defender of slavery and slavery extension, a free trader, and an opponent of all homestead bills, but he does not go with the most ultra class of Southern politicians; in short, he is "a National Democrat." He stands by the Democratic organization of the country, so long as it stands by the South and her institutions as well as it has done in the past. Upon the new issues of intervention for slavery in the territories he has not yet spoken, but he was, of course, a rigid Lecomptonite. But during the debate on the Kansas-Nebraska bill he spoke very decidedly. He said: "The legislative authority of a territory is invested with no vote for or against laws. We think they ought to pass laws in every territory, when the territory is open to settlement, and slaveholders go there, to protect slave property. But if they decline to pass such laws, what is the remedy? _None, sir._ If the majority of the people are opposed to the institution, and if they do not desire it ingrafted upon their territory, all they have to do is simply to decline to pass laws in the territorial legislature for its protection."

In Congress, Col. Orr has generally ranged himself with the compromising democracy. He is not born of the old aristocratic stock of South Carolina planters, but was the son of a worker--a country merchant. This fact has never been lost sight of by a portion of the citizens of South Carolina, and they have been, some of them at least, his bitter enemies for years. It is not impossible but Col. Orr, for this reason, has taken a more "national" view of politics, and has refused to go out of the Union for the sake of the slaveholding aristocracy.

In his personal appearance Col. Orr is not, perhaps, prepossessing; though his great, black eye and fine open face show the force and power of his intellect. He is large in person, and not particularly graceful in his actions or appearance. He has a certain dignity, however, which enforces attention if he is the orator of the occasion, and obedience if he is the presiding officer.

JOHN MINOR BOTTS.

We have no extended sketch of Mr. Botts to present to the reader, but a few leading facts in reference to the political man.

Mr. Botts is a native of Dumfries, Prince William County, Virginia, and was born in September, 1802. As early as 1834, he joined the Whig party, and in 1839, he came to Congress as a Whig. He was known in the House as a follower of Mr. Clay, or rather a supporter of Mr. Clay and his peculiar doctrines. Mr. Botts, in other words, was in favor of a highly protective tariff, the distribution of the public lands, and internal improvements. He is to-day in favor of these measures of what he would call reform. So strong was he in his devotion to the tenets of the Whig party, that when President Tyler disappointed his friends by his tariff policy, Mr. Botts, though a friend of years, at once terminated the friendship. He could not hold in respect the man who, it seemed to him, had betrayed his friends.

Mr. Botts was opposed to the Kansas-Nebraska act and to the passage of the Lecompton bill. Nevertheless he is a slaveholder and a defender of the institution as it now exists in Virginia. But he is not a believer in the finality of the present system, nor is he afraid to express his opinions of slavery. This will be seen at once by the perusal of a letter to the "Richmond Whig," from Mr. Botts, from which we quote. It is dated April 18, 1859:

"I have recently received many letters from different parts of the
State, asking for a copy of my Powhatan speech, delivered in 1850,
which it is impossible for me to furnish, as I have only some half
dozen copies left. As the best means of supplying the information
so earnestly sought by those friends who are anxious to ascertain
_what horrible sentiments I uttered on the subject of slavery_,
which have been recently, to a great extent, substituted for the
'free negro' misrepresentation, I have concluded to publish, for
the benefit of the Imposition party in particular, everything in
that speech that relates to the question of slavery; garbled
extracts of which have already appeared in a small portion of the
press of that party--many of them, seeming to think there was no
great amount of capital to be made out of it, have declined to
notice it. The following is the portion objected to. I said:

"'There are, sir, two parties in our country, distinct from all
the rest, of whom I wish to say a word. The one in the North,
called 'Abolitionists,' and the other, in the South, known as
'Disunionists.' I am not sure for which of the two parties I have
the least sympathy or respect; and I am not sure to which attaches
the largest share of the responsibility for the chief difficulties
with which the nation has been lately afflicted.

"The Abolitionists seem to estimate the value of this Union (and
to hold as a condition and a price for its continuance) by the
_abolition of African slavery_. While the ultra men of the South,
or disunionists, seem to regard the _perpetuation_ and _extension_
of slavery as the chief bond that can hold them and the Union
together. For neither of these parties have I any sympathy. I hold
to the Union for far different, and, I trust, higher and nobler
purposes. It is for the _perpetuation of American Freedom_, rather
than the _abolition_ or _perpetuation of African Slavery_. I am
one of those who think slavery, in the abstract, is much to be
deprecated; and whilst I think that, as at present organized in
the southern States, it is a humanizing, civilizing, and
Christianizing institution, as must all agree who will take the
pains to compare the present condition of our slaves with the
original African race, yet I regard it as a great calamity that it
should have been entailed upon us; and I should look upon that man
as the first and greatest benefactor to his country, whose wisdom
could point out to us some practical and satisfactory means by
which we could, through our own instrumentality, and without
interference from our neighbors, provide for the ultimate
emancipation and removal of all the slaves in the country. I speak
of this as a desirable thing, especially to the owners of slaves,
who, I think, are the chief sufferers, but at the same time I fear
it is perfectly Utopian to attempt it; but I have seen too much
difference between the enterprise, the industry, and the
prosperity of the free and the slave States, to doubt the
advantage we would derive from it if it could be accomplished.'

"Now, there it is; let them make the most of it. I will add, that
I said it all at mature age, after full and careful deliberation,
honestly believing and thinking all that it contains. I have seen
no reason for _modification_, _recantation_, or _equivocation_.
What I thought and said then, I think and repeat now, _in the most
emphatic terms_; and hold, that he who objects to the sentiments
conveyed, to be consistent, must not only be in favor of reopening
the African slave trade at this time, but must take the position,
that if no such thing as slavery had ever been known to or
introduced amongst us, he would now favor its introduction for the
first time; for if its original introduction is not to be
deprecated, but justified and approved, why would he not advocate
a traffic that holds so high a place in his judgment and regard? I
do not know how many there are in this State, or in the South, who
set themselves up as advocates of this revolting trade, nor do I
care; I have only to say, that I am not one of them, and that, as
a _humanized_, _civilized_ and _christianized_, member of the
community, I should be utterly _ashamed_ of myself, if I could
_entertain_ any other opinions than those I have expressed; and I
should deserve the scorn of all men, if I could permit any
condition of the public mind to induce me so far to _debase_
myself as to render me capable of expressing any other, for the
purpose of catering to a morbid, vitiated, and corrupt taste, or
to an affected and artificial sentimentality on the subject of
slavery. These were then, and are now, my honest convictions, and
I think all who have participated in the clamor that has been
attempted to be gotten up, for the opportunity afforded me of
proclaiming them from the house-tops, to the _humanized_,
_civilized_, and _christianized_ world; and I hope the Imposition
press, throughout the State, will publish them, and that their
candidates for gubernational and subordinate honors may read this
my last declaration on the subject, wherever they may speak.

"In another part of that speech I said:

"'What I would ask and _demand_ of the North, is that they shall
not interfere with slavery as it exists under the Constitution;
that they shall not touch the question of the slave trade between
the States; that they shall carry out the true intent and meaning
of the Constitution in reference to the restitution of fugitive
slaves. These are the _true issues_ between the North and the
South; and I would go as far as he who goes furthest in exacting
them, 'at all hazards, and to the last extremity." And what I
would ask of the South is, not to suffer itself to be led off,
without due consideration, upon false issues, presented by
intemperate or over-zealous politicians, many of whom delight in,
and live upon, agitation and excitement, and many more, perhaps,
who owe their ephemeral fame and position to a _pretended,
exclusive championship for southern rights_. Southern honor does
not depend upon making unreasonable and untenable demands. The
interference _with_, or abolition _of_ slavery, where it exists,
is one thing; the extension of it, where it does not exist, is a
very different thing! Let us claim no more than we are entitled to
under the Constitution; and then, what we do claim, let us stand
by, like men who "know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain
them.'"

"I have seen no reason to recant what I said here, either; these
are the sentiments I now entertain, as I did when they were
delivered before the people of Powhatan. What fault do they find
with this? Do they indorse it or repudiate it? If they indorse it,
even-handed justice requires them to say so. If they condemn it,
justice to themselves, as they are resolved to make war on me,
requires that they should point out wherein they differ from me.

"In this connection it may be proper to add, for the information
of all who feel an interest in my record, one short paragraph from
my African Church speech, in 1856, relating to the same subject;
and from the several extracts herewith furnished, I think few will
have any difficulty in ascertaining my position on the slavery
question. Here is the passage referred to:

"'My position on the question of slavery is this; and, so far from
wishing to conceal it, I desire it should be known to all. Muzzles
were made for dogs, and not for men; and no press and no party can
put a muzzle on my mouth, so long as I value my freedom. I make
bold, then, to proclaim that I am no slavery propagandist. I will
resort to all proper remedies to protect and defend slavery where
it exists, but I will neither assist in nor encourage any attempt
to force it upon a reluctant people anywhere, and still less will
I justify the use of the military power of the country to
establish it in any of the territories. If it finds its way there
by legitimate means, it is all well; but never by force, through
any instrumentality of mine. I am myself a slaveholder, and all
the property my children have in the world is slave property,
inherited from their mother; and he who undertakes to connect my
name, or my opinions, with abolitionism, is either a knave or a
fool, and not unfrequently both. And this is the only answer I
have to make to them. I have not connected myself with any
sectional party or sectional question; and so help me God, I never
will.'"

JAMES H. HAMMOND.

The moderate political views which Gov. Hammond, of South Carolina, has within a couple of years given publicity to, has given him a somewhat national reputation among the adherents of the Democratic party. He came to Congress as a politician of the Southern Rights school, and it was generally supposed that he would be found acting with the ultra wing of the Southern party in Congress. He brought with him the reputation of a scholar and an orator, and mingled at once in the Lecompton fray. He took sides with the administration against Mr. Douglas, though it was noticed at the time that the senator had very little to say about the Lecompton Constitution and the real issue then before Congress. His speeches were upon the general question of slavery.

The new senator from South Carolina attracted the universal attention of Congress and the strangers then present in Washington, and the impression he made was generally a happy one. His manners were quiet, unostentatious, gentlemanly. His style of speech was smooth, pleasant, and sometimes eloquent. As a man he was liked. Genial in his nature and pleasant in his conversation, he soon made warm friends at the capital--even among some of the very men whom he had in his South Carolina home regarded as little less than monsters in human shape. Senator Hammond at first tried his lance with the Illinois Giant, but either from personal considerations, or other, he soon desisted. To show Gov. Hammond's position on the slavery question in the winter of 1847-8, we quote a few passages from his celebrated speech delivered in the Senate in the Lecompton debate. We have, in the following passage, his opinion of squatter sovereignty:

"If what I have said be correct, then the will of the people of
Kansas is to be found in the action of her Constitutional
Convention. It is immaterial whether it is the will of a majority
of the people of Kansas _now_, or not. The convention was, or
might have been, elected by a majority of the people of Kansas. A
convention, elected in April, may well frame a constitution that
would not be agreeable to a majority of the people of a new State,
rapidly filling up, in the succeeding January; and if legislatures
are to be allowed to put to vote the acts of a convention, and
have them annulled by a subsequent influx of immigrants, there is
no finality. If you were to send back the Lecompton Constitution,
and another was to be framed, in the slow way in which we do
public business in this country, before it would reach Congress
and be passed, perhaps the majority would be turned the other way.
Whenever you go outside of the regular forms of law and
constitutions to seek for the will of the people, you are
wandering in a wilderness--a wilderness of thorns.

"If this was a minority constitution, I do not know that that
would be an objection to it. Constitutions are made for
minorities. Perhaps minorities ought to have the right to make
constitutions, for they are administered by majorities. The
Constitution of this government was made by a minority, and as
late as 1840 a minority had it in their hands, and could have
altered or abolished it; for, in 1840, six out of the twenty-six
States of the Union held the numerical majority. In all countries
and in all time, it is well understood that the numerical majority
of the people could, if they chose, exercise the sovereignty of
the country; but for want of intelligence, and for want of
leaders, they have never yet been able successfully to combine and
form a stable popular government. They have often attempted it,
but it has always turned out, instead of a popular sovereignty, a
_populace_ sovereignty; and demagogues, placing themselves upon
the movement, have invariably led them into military despotism.

"I think that the popular sovereignty which the senator from
Illinois would derive from the acts of his territorial
legislature, and from the information received from partisans and
partisan presses, would lead us directly into _populace_, and not
popular sovereignty. Genuine popular sovereignty never existed on
a firm basis except in this country. The first gun of the
Revolution announced a new organization of it, which was embodied
in the Declaration of Independence, developed, elaborated, and
inaugurated forever in the Constitution of the United States. The
two pillars of it were Representation and the Ballot-box. In
distributing their sovereign powers among the various departments
of the Government, the people retained for themselves the single
power of the ballot-box; and a great power it was. Through that
they were able to control all the departments of the Government.
It was not for the people to exercise political power in detail;
it was not for them to be annoyed with the cares of government;
but, from time to time, through the ballot-box, to exert their
sovereign power and control the whole organization. This is
popular sovereignty, the popular sovereignty of a legal
constitutional ballot-box; and when spoken through that box, the
'voice of the people,' for all political purposes, 'is the voice
of God; but when it is heard outside of that, it is the voice of a
demon, the _tocsin_ of the reign of terror."

Speaking of the South and slavery, he said:

"If we never acquire another foot of territory for the South, look
at her. Eight hundred and fifty thousand square miles. As large as
Great Britain, France, Austria, Prussia, and Spain. Is not that
territory enough to make an empire that shall rule the world? With
the finest soil, the most delightful climate, whose staple
productions none of those great countries can grow, we have three
thousand miles of continental shore line, so indented with bays
and crowded with islands, that, when their shore lines are added,
we have twelve thousand miles. Through the heart of our country
runs the great Mississippi, the father of waters, into whose bosom
are poured thirty-six thousand miles of tributary streams; and
beyond we have the desert prairie wastes, to protect us in our
rear. Can you hem in such a territory as that? You talk of putting
up a wall of fire around eight hundred and fifty thousand square
miles so situated! How absurd.

"But, in this territory lies the great valley of the Mississippi,
now the real, and soon to be the acknowledged, seat of empire of
the world. The sway of that valley will be as great as ever the
Nile knew in the earlier ages of mankind. We own the most of it.
The most valuable part of it belongs to us now; and, although
those who have settled above us are now opposed to us, another
generation will tell a different tale. They are ours by all the
laws of nature; slave labor will go over every foot of this great
valley where it will be found profitable to use it; and some of
those who may not use it are soon to be united with us by such
ties as will make us one and inseparable. The iron horse will soon
be clattering over the sunny plains of the South, to bear the
products of its upper tributaries to our Atlantic ports, as it now
does through the ice-bound North. There is the great Mississippi,
a bond of union made by Nature herself. She will maintain it
forever."

* * * * *

"In all social systems, there must be a class to do the menial
duties, to perform the drudgery of life--that is, a class
requiring but a low order of intellect and but little skill. Its
requisites are vigor, docility, fidelity. Such a class you must
have, or you would not have that other class which leads progress,
civilization, and refinement. It constitutes the very mud-sill of
society and of political government; and you might as well attempt
to build a house in the air, as to build either the one or the
other, except on this mud-sill. Fortunately for the South, she
found a race adapted to that purpose to her hand--a race inferior
to her own, but eminently qualified, in temper, in vigor, in
docility, in capacity, to stand the climate to answer all her
purposes. We use them for our purpose, and call them slaves. We
found them slaves, by the 'common consent of mankind,' which,
according to Cicero, '_lex naturae est_'--the highest proof of what
is Nature's law. We are old-fashioned at the South yet; it is a
word discarded now by 'ears polite;' I will not characterize that
class at the North with that term; but you have it; it is there;
it is everywhere; it is eternal."

Upon going home to his South Carolina plantation, a change seems to have come over the mind of the senator--or he was greatly misunderstood while at Washington. In a speech, delivered at Brownwell Court House, South Carolina, October 27, 1858, he astonished some of his neighbors as well as distant friends and enemies, by the enunciation of peculiarly moderate views for a South Carolina Democrat. Let us quote a few paragraphs. First upon Disunion. Says Senator Hammond:

"But I will not detain you longer with what belongs to the past.
The present and the future are what concern us most. You desire to
know my opinion of the course the South should pursue under
existing circumstances. I will give you, frankly and fully, the
results of my observations and reflections on this all-important
point. The first question is, Do the people of the South consider
the present Union of these States as an evil in itself, and a
thing that it is desirable we should get rid of under all
circumstances? There are some, I know, who do; but I am satisfied
that an overwhelming majority of the South would, if assured that
this government was hereafter to be conducted on the true
principles and construction of the Constitution, decidedly prefer
to remain in the Union rather than incur the unknown costs and
hazards of setting up a separate government. I think I say what is
true when I say that, after all the bitterness that has
characterized our long warfare, the great body of the southern
people do not seek disunion, and will not seek it as a primary
object, however promptly they may accept it as an alternative,
rather than submit to unconstitutional abridgments of their
rights. I confess that for many years of my life I believed that
our only safety was in the dissolution of the Union, and I openly
avowed it. I should entertain and without hesitation express the
same sentiments now, but that the victories we have achieved, and
those I think we are about to achieve, have inspired me with hope,
I may say the belief, that we can fully sustain ourselves in the
Union, and control its action in all great affairs."

Upon the African Slave Trade thus speaks the senator: