Chapter VIII: Part 8

Henry A. Wise was born in Drummond Town, Accomack County, Virginia, December 3, 1806. He was a precocious lad, for he graduated at Washington College, Pa., when he was but nineteen years old. He then studied law, and was admitted to the bar of Winchester, Va., in 1828. With a western fever in his bones, and desirous of a new field in a new country, he emigrated to Nashville, Tennessee, where he practised law for two years. He soon grew homesick for old Virginia, and returned to Accomack County. The district showed its estimation of the young man by returning him to Congress in 1833. He continued to represent it in the House of Representatives for ten years. In 1843, he resigned his place and took the mission to Brazil. He remained there for a Presidential term. In 1848, he was a Presidential elector in Virginia; in 1850, was a member of the Reform Convention which adopted the present constitution of the State. In 1852, he was again a Presidential elector, and in 1855 was nominated by his party as their candidate for Governor. This caucus will always be remembered and will give him unfading political laurels. The contest was probably one of the most exciting, close, and bitter, which ever took place, even in Virginia. The Know Nothings, or Americans, were then in the height of power and were sanguine of success. Mr. Wise took the stump with the prophets against him, and in fact with a general impression abroad that he would be defeated. He carried on the year's canvass as no other man beside Henry A. Wise could have done it. He bearded Americanism in its den--forced it upon its own territory--and triumphed in the popular vote by thousands. However rash and extravagant his speeches were, he had that overwhelming enthusiasm and vigor, which carried down all opposition, and placed him in the Governor's chair.

As a politician, Governor Wise has always been true to the Virginian school. Rigidly in favor of State rights, and as rigidly opposed to protective tariffs--in short, bitterly anti-Whig in all his opinions. On the slavery question, from the outset, he has been ultra pro-slavery, though he was opposed to the Lecompton policy of Mr. Buchanan's administration. He has favored internal improvements in Virginia, and has in this respect differed from Mr. Hunter. This is the bright feature in Governor Wise's political character. He never was an old fogy, but is brimful of originality and reform. To see what is Governor Wise's position on many of the issues of the day, we will quote a few passages from his letter of January 3, 1859, to Hon. David Hubbard:

"Now, I have raised my warning of late against this weakness and
wickedness on our part. I have tried to protect my widowed mother,
the South, by giving honest filial counsel against the whole
household. The Reubens have tried to sell me into Egypt for my
'dreaming.' But I am, nevertheless, loyal to the house of my
father and loving to my misguided brethren, and I mean to redouble
my efforts the more to save the house of Israel. If I must be
driven out as a dreamer, I will, at least, preserve 'mine
integrity,' and time and the day of famine will show whose counsel
and whose course will have saved the household and fed it, and all
the land of the stranger too. Aye; and is democracy as well as the
South to have no out-spoken, honest counsellor? Are we to be given
over to the federal gods of Pacific railroads? Are we to
_out-Yazoo Yazoo_? To out-Adams Adams in putting internal
improvements by the General Government on the most Omnipotent and
indefinitely stretching power of all powers of the Federal
Government--_the war power_? Are we to abolish _ad valorem_ and
adopt the specific duties to supply a tariff for revenue, the
standard of which is already eighty-one millions of expenditure on
three hundred and twenty-one millions average rate of
importations? Are we to increase eighty-one millions of
expenditure to the unknown limitless amount required for railroads
across this continent; for post-offices that don't pay expenses;
for pensions unheard of in character and amount; for a land office
which gives away three acres for every one sold, and brings us in
debt; for increase of a standing army such as our frontiers and
Indian wars and protectorates of foreign territory propose; and,
therefore, for such a navy as Isthmian wars with no less than
eight powers of the earth--England, Spain, France, Mexico,
Nicaragua, Costa Rica, New Granada, and Paraguay--demand if
threatened only? Is protection to be turned into prohibition? If
so, what is a 'direct tax?' Is land tax the only one which can be
'apportioned?' Are the landowners to pay all the cost of the
crusade of Congress and manifest destiny? Is strict construction
and are State rights to be abandoned, and are we to give up State
corporations to the bankruptcies of a federal commission? Where
would have been our people and their effects last year if a
federal power could have put our State banks into a course of
liquidation under a commission of bankruptcy? Is the South, is any
portion of our community, in a situation to rush into wars--wars
invited by the President with three European and five American
powers? And are we to be a grand consolidated, elective, North and
South American imperialism? The question is not, 'Will the Union
be dissolved?' That is a settled question. But the question is,
'Is the old Virginia democratic faith to be abandoned, and are we
to rush on with the President into a full scheme of federal policy
which in its outline and filling up, exceeds any federalism, in
all its points, which a Hamilton, or Adams, or any other
latitudinarian, ever dared to project or propose?

"For my part, I take ground now firmly and at once against the war
power. I am for the Washington policy of peace, and against all
entangling alliances and protectorates, and the Jackson rule of
'demanding nothing but what is right, and submitting to nothing
that is wrong,' and for preserving and protecting the South and
whole country from ambitious and buccaneering wars, of which the
landed and planting interests would have to bear the burden, at a
great sacrifice of present prosperity. I am against internal
improvements by the General Government, more than ever since their
construction is put on the war power. If we could beard England up
to 54 deg. 40', ten years ago, without a road or known route to
Oregon, why can't we wait for emigrants to beat a path on their
way to gold mines, and hold California, without cutting a military
road in time of peace? I am for retrenchment and reform of all
expenditures, and for revenue only for economical administration,
on a scale of pure, old-fashioned republican simplicity,
discriminating no more than is necessary to prevent prohibition on
non-dutiable articles. I am for free trade, and the protection it
affords is demonstrably ample for a people of enterprise and art
like ours. I am against State-bank bankruptcy, and all sorts of
bankruptcy whatever. The Federal Government shall never declare
again that honest debts shall be paid by gulping and oaths, with
my consent. But my paper is run out.

"The President bids high. To filibusters he offers Cuba and the
Isthmus and North Mexico; to the West a Pacific Railroad; to the
North protection to iron and coarse woollens; and to the great
commercial countries the power of centralization by obvious uses
and abuses of a bankrupt act to supply to State banks. Yesterday
Biddle was a monster, and to-day a few Wall street bankers can
expand and contract upon us more like a vice than he did; and what
would they not do if they could force the poor provinces when they
pleased into bankruptcy?"

In his later letter--to Mr. Samford, of Alabama--Gov. Wise gave his opinion of the Douglas "non-intervention" doctrine in unmistakable language. He says:

"Intervention for protection, by the United States, through
Congress, is all-pervading. It penetrates into States,
territories, districts and other places throughout the United
States, and is one of the most vitally essential attributes of our
blessed Federal Union. No doctrine could be more repugnant to its
benign spirit, none more destructive of federal immunities and
privileges, and none more fatal to State rights and the safety of
individual persons and their property, than this new light of
"Non-Intervention" to protect all and everything in the
jurisdiction of the United States. It is a question which cannot
be retired from discussion in Congress, where it rises up every
day in every form, and where it must be met with intelligence,
integrity and courage. It cannot be renounced or smothered, or the
Government must relinquish its dominion over every subject of its
jurisdiction.

"And this doctrine of 'Non-Intervention for Protection' is only
equalled in danger and destructiveness by that correlative error
of some minds in these days: 'That Congress may not intervene to
protect; for if it has the power to protect, it has the power to
destroy.' This is a _non sequitur_, and a weak fallacy and gross
delusion. The power and duty to protect is the power and duty not
only not to destroy, but something far greater--it is the duty to
intervene against invasion and violence. The whole American system
of government throughout is one to protect against destruction.
Because Congress may and shall provide the writ of habeas corpus,
trial by jury, freedom of speech or of the press, etc., etc.,
shall it, therefore, be said to possess the power to withhold,
deny or destroy either or all of these rights?

"But, say some, _cui bono_?--if a majority of Congress are opposed
to the protection of the right, what use is there in claiming the
mere abstraction of the right? I reply that there is great use and
practical effect in it too.

"The proposition of non-intervention is: 'By the Compromise of
1850, the Kansas Nebraska act, and other declarations of its will,
Congress renounced the exercise of any direct jurisdiction over
the territories, and delegated its power to the local
legislatures.' But it concedes that Congress could bestow no
authority on the local legislatures of which it was not itself
possessed'--in other words, "Congress cannot delegate more power
than it possesses itself; and it has none to prohibit slavery.
Very well, and so good as to the power. But there is a positive
duty to be discharged as well as a power not to be exercised.
Suppose the territorial legislature attempts to prohibit slavery,
and thus do what Congress itself cannot do in the territories. Has
Congress renounced its jurisdiction in the case? Could it or can
it do so? If not, what is its duty? Does non-intervention renounce
this duty of protection, in such a case, or not? It replies that
this claim upon Congress to discharge this duty will be vain. Why?
There is a dead majority against us in Congress, and they will not
heed the appeal to the legislative department for protection.

"Well, but the case supposes a like dead majority and an
aggressive majority against us in the territorial legislature
too.--What then? There is no refuge of safety from a majority
against us in territorial legislatures. Non-intervention quickly
answers this dilemma, by saying: 'let the courts determine between
us and our adversaries.' This is what is called 'remitting' the
question to the judiciary, which may decide as well as the
Congress or the Executive.--True, the judiciary may and must
decide, anyhow, in either case, for that was no discovery of Mr.
Calhoun, but a Constitutional function, which has ever belonged to
the courts, and of which Congress and the Executive and the
Territorial authorities cannot deprive them; and, without any
remission by Congress, the judiciary department has the power of
deciding upon the validity of laws. And it can as well and more
directly pass upon the validity of laws enacted by Congress itself
as upon the validity of those enacted by the territorial
legislatures. If Congress passes an unconstitutional law, we can
go to the courts, just as easy as if the law was passed by its
delegate, the territorial Legislature. And if Congress does not
renounce its direct jurisdiction and delegate it to the
territorial legislature, then the latter will have no power to
annoy the slave property locally by its abuse of delegated power;
and the territorial legislature is more apt to pass a prohibition
than Congress is, for very obvious reasons. The eye of the whole
nation is immediately upon Congress, and no positive code is
required to establish its power and duty to protect persons and
property. The Constitution itself dictates and enjoins both. And
it is first of all necessary, that neither the power nor the duty
shall be practically denied, embarrassed or obstructed, by the
enactment of unconstitutional laws of prohibition. Positive
legislation is more apt to be passed against slavery by local than
by national laws. In any practical view, then, we are attempting
to shear a lion instead of a wolf. Non-intervention is simply
absurd and impossible, and it is worse than impracticable.

* * * * *

"Such are the teachings to me of our past history, and I trust
that I have now demonstrated in the second place: 'That the
inhabitants or people of a territory are sovereign to form
themselves a constitution and State government as I have shown in
the first place, that in their territorial condition they are
within the entire control and jurisdiction, or under the entire
rule or regulation of Congress, subject to the Constitution of the
United States, and that the citizens of each and all of the States
are alike equally entitled to protection in all the privileges and
immunities of persons and property, common to equal confederates.

"And this right and this duty of protection is not to be evaded or
avoided either by the false _ad captandum_ clamor that a code is
required to be enacted by Congress for the protection of slave
property. This is but to cast odium upon slavery, by creating the
impression that a discrimination is necessary to distinguish it
above what is due to other personal and proprietary rights. On the
contrary, no such code is required to create either the right or
the duty of protection, and no law is necessary to distinguish
slave property from any other property. All persons and all
property, equally and alike, require only not to be assailed and
destroyed in, or excluded from the common territories. Every
species of rights requires laws, it is true, suited to its
character and to its case. Personal property, for example, must
have a law that it shall not be 'taken and carried away;' and
land, which cannot be 'taken and carried away,' must have a law
that it shall not be trespassed upon in some other way; and so
with slaves and everything else, they must have provisions
according to their kind. But the Constitution of the United
States, and the laws of Congress heretofore organizing territories
are sufficient, and if amendments of the laws are required, it is
the duty of Congress to see that they are provided, of the
Executive of the United States to see that they are executed, and
of the judiciary to decide upon the rights under the laws. The
slave States should never pretend to any peculiar privileges, and
do not, so far as I know. They ask only that their rights shall
not be assailed and invaded, and, if they be assailed, that they
may be protected as other personal and proprietary rights are
protected; that they may have equal, confederate, federal
privileges and immunities, and they ask for no special or peculiar
code....

"To escape danger or disaster to themselves, your Congress, and
Executives, and judiciary, and State legislatures, shall not, with
my consent, be allowed to drop the reins of government and leap
from the seats of power and responsibility, and renounce the duty
of protection and preservation to all within their care by the
ignoring and stultifying and disqualifying plea of
negation--'_Non-intervention_.' There are too many elements of
discord in this country which require to be restrained by the most
active and positive, but prudent intervention. These resolutions
of Vermont, the tendency of which is either to drive one section
of the States out of the Union, or to degrade and subjugate them
in it, are an example. If anything can be worse than disunion to
the United States, it would be the more dire alternative of
degrading and subjugating any one State by forcing her submission
to unequal laws and dishonorable conditions in the confederacy.
The state or section of states thus subdued and humbled, would be
unworthy of the union with other free republics, and such a union
would be no longer what union now is. It should, then, be the
watchful concern of all to maintain and support the honor,
dignity, and equality of each; and equality alone can reciprocally
maintain the strength of all. If first one and then another may be
subdued, finally all but one will become subject to that one,
central and consolidated. This should always combine the majority
of States to support the weaker portion of the Union against the
very appearance of oppression."

Such is the position of Gov. Wise on the slavery question. He is radical in his views, demanding the fullest protection from the courts and Congress for the protection of slavery. The faults as well as the virtues of Gov. Wise he carries openly in his face; if he is bold and imprudent, so he is frank and truthful. There is no deceit in him, and his political enemies know the worst when they know anything of his views or his course.

R. M. T. HUNTER.

Senator Hunter is a contrast, in almost every one of his traits of character, to Governor Wise. The Governor is voluble--he writes letters thirty columns long upon the condition of the country. Senator Hunter is reticent. The Governor is, say his enemies, rash. Mr. Hunter is cautious and prudent to a fault. Governor Wise, again, is a reformer in his way--Senator Hunter is set down as an "old fogy" in politics. Yet both are Democrats, and agree in essentials, as a matter of course.

Few members of the Senate enjoy to such an extent the respect of the entire body as Mr. Hunter. His manners, his bearing, his style of speaking, and his deportment in social circles, are such as to win him the esteem of all who know him, even in spite of political opposition.

In the Senate, he resembles some quiet unpretending farmer, who might have come up from a rural district, to sit in a State legislature. He dresses plain, is dignified without the least particle of pretension; speaks plainly, slowly, but clearly. Never tries to ride down a political opponent by declamation, but coolly _argues_ the point of difference. During the most exciting debates he keeps his temper, and though in political matters, especially upon the slavery question, he is ultra-southern in his views, he is so watchful, so prudent, so mild in his speech, that he contrives to win the esteem of his northern associates, and to be very popular with them.

Mr. Hunter is a native of Essex County, Va., was liberally educated, and adopted the law as a profession. His first political experience was gained in the Virginian State Legislature, where he remained three years; but in 1837, he was elected to Congress as a member of the House of Representatives, where he remained four years. In 1845, he was reelected to Congress, and was made Speaker of the Twenty-sixth Congress. In 1847, he was elected United States' Senator, where he still remains, and has been for years the able Chairman of the Finance Committee.

Mr. Hunter's political views are known to the country at large. He is a southern Democrat, with the views of a southern democratic politician--anti-tariff, of course--anti-homestead law--in the last Congress voting in the Senate against bringing up the bill for consideration. His views on Popular Sovereignty, we will give, shortly, from his own lips. He supported the Lecompton bill through thick and thin, though he did it as he does all his work, in a modest, quiet way, without bluster, or any attempt to intimidate.

In the non-intervention debate of March, 1839, Senator Hunter gave his views of the question under discussion, in the following language:

"It is with extreme reluctance that I say a word on this subject so unhappily sprung up on the appropriation bill, of which I stand here as the guardian, a very insufficient one, as it seems; but the course of the debate has made it necessary for me, in my own vindication, to say a word or two in regard to this Nebraska-Kansas act.

"I differ from the senator from Illinois in regard to the bill,
the history of its inception, and what was intended by it. As I
understand it, we stood in this position: the southern senators, I
believe, almost without an exception, who spoke upon that
question--I know I did for one, as I have always done from the
time I first made my appearance on this floor--maintained that the
South had the right, under the Constitution, of protection of this
property in the Territories; on the other hand, senators from the
free States denied that right. None of them would vote to give it
to us; but there were a portion of the northern democracy who were
willing to do this; they were willing to repeal the Missouri
restriction, and establish a territorial government there. A bill
was immediately drawn which left this right to the territories to
legislate for the prohibition of slavery in abeyance. It neither
affirmed nor disaffirmed the power of the territorial legislature
to legislate upon this subject of slavery; but it provided very
carefully and cautiously that any question arising out of it might
be referred to the judiciary....

The case then stood thus: whilst the southern men maintained on
one side (and I was amongst them) that they had the right to the
protection of their property under the Constitution, those from
the free States maintained the opposite opinion. There could have
been no accord between them on that point; but the southern men,
with some objection and reluctance, in order to harmonize, did
agree, as the only mode of getting the Missouri Compromise
repealed, if the territorial legislature attempted to exercise the
power, that the court should decide; and this they could do with
perfect consistency, because they provided that whatever powers
were delegated to the territorial legislature should be exercised
under the Constitution. In their opinion, the Constitution not
only prohibited Congress from delegating a power to abolish
slavery to the territories, but from exercising it itself. Whilst
they maintained that Congress had the power to govern in the
territories, they maintained that there was an obligation on
Congress, imposed by the equality of the States, that they should
not prohibit the institutions of one State while they allowed
those of another; and that was the mode in which it was passed.
The bill in itself was, in my opinion, a compromise in which
neither sacrificed principles, but left the whole question in
abeyance to be decided by the courts without taking from Congress
the power to resume jurisdiction, if they should choose to do so
afterward. They retained as much good as they could without
raising those questions upon which there could have been no accord
of opinion.

"Now, sir, I say it never was understood, so far as I had anything
to do with the bill, by the southern men who maintained the class
of opinions of which I am speaking, that they were conferring on
the territorial legislature the absolute power to deal with this
subject. They did not; but they were secured to vote for a bill
which would organize a territorial Legislature which should leave
this question in abeyance, and this bill decided nothing, but only
provided that the question should go to the courts, to be decided
under that jurisdiction.

"Nor did the bill--although everybody consented to strike out the
phrase to which the senator from Illinois alludes--nor did the
bill ever mean to say that Congress absolutely gave up
jurisdiction over the subject. Inasmuch as it was a common point
which accomplished good, which repealed what all the branches of
the Democracy thought unconstitutional--the Missouri
Compromise--they passed a bill which did that, without deciding
absolutely on other differences of opinion, but merely providing a
tribunal to decide them when they should come up."

That Senator Hunter stated the truth in reference to himself is evident from the subjoined quotation from a speech of his, delivered during the discussion of the Kansas-Nebraska act in 1854:

"But it has been often said by those who admit that Congress has
the power of governing the territories, that it is a power to be
exercised, not in reference to the rights of the States, but in
reference to the good and welfare of the people of the
territories. Now, if in exercising this power we are to be
confined to the single consideration of the good and welfare of
the people of the territories, then, I say, the whole subject of
government ought to be left to the people of the territories. That
is the true American principle. If the only consideration which is
to apply to their government be the good and welfare of the people
of the territories, then they ought to determine all questions in
regard to their domestic institutions and laws. But, in my
opinion, the government of these territories ought to be
administered with the double object of securing the rights of the
States as well as those of the people of the territories, and to
these last should be given all the rights of self-government which
are consistent with the limitation, that they shall not interfere
with the equal rights of the States, or violate the provisions of
the Constitution. With those limitations, all the power that could
possibly be given to the people of that territory, ought to be
given to them. All that portion of the power which is to be
exercised with a view to their interests, ought to be exercised as
they wish it. That, in my opinion, is the true principle.

"I know we have most high, distinguished, and respectable
authority for the opinion that the people of the territories have
a sort of natural right to exercise all power within those
territories. It is not my purpose to raise an issue upon that
question. I do not mean to argue it. I do not wish to raise an
issue with the friends of this bill, with those whom I am
assisting, and who are assisting me, to pass this measure. Nor
will I do it unless it should be absolutely necessary, which is
not now the case. For, happily, the bill is so framed that it can
be maintained, not only by those who entertain such opinions as I
have referred to, but by those, also, who entertain opinions like
my own. The bill provides that the legislatures of these
territories shall have the power to legislate over all rightful
subjects of legislation, consistently with the Constitution. And
if they should assume powers which are thought to be inconsistent
with the Constitution, the courts will decide that question,
whenever it may be raised. There is a difference of opinion
amongst the friends of this measure, as to the extent of the
limits which the Constitution imposes upon the territorial
legislatures. This bill proposes to leave these differences to the
decision of the courts. To that tribunal I am willing to leave
this decision, as it was once before proposed to be left, by the
celebrated compromise of the senator from Delaware (Mr. Clayton),
a measure which, according to my understanding, was the best
compromise which was offered upon this subject of slavery. I say,
then, that I am willing to leave this point, upon which the
friends of this bill are at difference, to the decision of the
courts."

This position cannot be misunderstood. It is that the Supreme Court may overturn the action of territorial legislatures. But does Senator Hunter advocate, as Governor Wise does, Congressional intervention _to enforce_ the decisions of the Supreme Court? Upon this point he is silent; though, from the language he uses, it is evident enough that as a matter of right he would claim the interference of Congress for this purpose--but, considering the fact that there is not the slightest chance that Congress could ever be brought to vote such protection, he may _as a matter of policy_ relinquish the demand.

HENRY WILSON.

Henry Wilson was born on the 16th of February, 1812, at Farmington, New Hampshire. His parents being poor, with a large family of children to support by their labor, he, with their consent, at the age of ten years, apprenticed himself to Mr. William Knight, a farmer of his native town, a man remarkable for his industry and habits of rigid economy. He remained with Mr. Knight till the age of twenty-one, and for these eleven years of incessant toil, he received one yoke of oxen, and six sheep. During this period, he was annually allowed to attend the public school four weeks. Throughout these years of unremitting, severe, and scantily-rewarded toil, he devoted his Sabbaths, and as much of his evenings as he could command, to reading. Too poor to purchase lights, he was forced to read by the dim light of wood fires; and after other members of the family had retired to rest, though weary with the toils of the day, he spent the hours in reading, which they employed in sleep. During his apprenticeship, he read more than seven hundred volumes of history and biography, most of which were selected and loaned to him by the wife of the Hon. Nehemiah Eastman, a gentleman who was a member of Congress during the first years of John Quincy Adams' administration. Mrs. Eastman was the sister of Hon. Levi Woodbury, and a lady of rare intelligence. To the judicious kindness of this accomplished lady, who thus early discovered and appreciated his talents, he was indebted for the means of acquiring a fund of solid and useful knowledge, and of forming habits of study and reflection, which have largely contributed to his subsequent success. To Judge Whitehouse, of his native town, he was also largely indebted for the use of many valuable books. Poverty and toil were the companions of his boyhood. His means of mental culture were very limited, and his education, on attaining his majority, was very deficient; yet very few young men at the age of twenty-one were better read in history, especially in the history of the United States, England, and modern France.

After attaining his majority, Mr. Wilson, for eight months, worked on a farm, receiving nine dollars a month.

Hoping to better his condition, in December, 1833, he left Farmington, and, with a pack on his back, made his way, on foot, to the town of Natick, Massachusetts, his present residence. Here he hired himself to a shoemaker, who agreed, for five months' service, to teach him the art of bottoming shoes. At the end of six weeks, Mr. Wilson bought his time, and went to work on his own account, at which employment he continued for more than two years, working so hard and incessantly that his health became seriously injured, and he was at length compelled to quit for a time the shoemaker's bench; and in May, 1836, he made a visit to Washington, where he remained for several weeks in regular attendance upon the debates in Congress. During his stay at the metropolis, Pinckney's Gag Resolutions were passed by the House of Representatives, and Calhoun's Incendiary Publication bill passed the Senate by the casting vote of the Vice-President, Martin Van Buren. The exciting debates to which he listened during this memorable period, and the scenes which he witnessed at Williams' slave-pen, to which he paid a visit, made Henry Wilson an anti-slavery man, and he returned to New England with the fixed resolution to do all in his power to advance the anti-slavery cause, and overthrow the influence of slavery in the nation. How steadily he has adhered to that resolution, his subsequent career bears ample witness.

From Washington, Mr. Wilson returned to New Hampshire, and entered Stafford Academy as a student, on the first of July, 1836. In the autumn of that year, he attended the academy at Wolfsborough; and during the winter of 1837, taught school in that town. In the spring of 1837, he entered Concord Academy, where he remained six months. While there, he was chosen a delegate to the Young Men's Anti-slavery State Convention, before which body he made his first public speech in behalf of freedom. In the autumn, he returned to Wolfsborough Academy, and at the close of the academic term, went again to Natick, Mass., where he taught school during the winter of 1837-8. He had intended to continue for some time longer at school, and to commence a course of classical studies, but the failure of a friend, to whom he had intrusted the few hundred dollars his own hands had earned, left him penniless, and he was compelled to change his plans of life.

In the spring of 1838, he engaged in the shoe manufacturing business, in which he continued till the autumn of 1848. During these ten years he annually manufactured from 40,000 to 130,000 pairs of shoes, a large portion of which he sold to southern merchants. One of his southern customers, who owed him more than a thousand dollars, having failed, wrote to him that he could pay him fifty per cent. of his debt, and asked to be discharged. On examining his statement, Mr. Wilson found that several slaves were included in his assets. Here was a question to test his anti-slavery professions. Mr. Wilson promptly signed the papers discharging him from all obligations, and wrote to him, never to send him a dollar of the dividend if it included the money received for slaves.

In November, 1839, Mr. Wilson was a candidate for representative to the legislature from the town of Natick, but being a zealous temperance man, and an advocate of the fifteen-gallon law, he was defeated by the opponents of that measure. In the spring of 1840, he took the stump for General Harrison, and during that memorable campaign, made upward of sixty speeches. In 1840, he was married to Miss Harriet M. Howe, of Natick. In 1840, and again in 1841, the people of Natick elected him their representative to the legislature. In 1842, he was a candidate for the State Senate, for Middlesex County, but in that year the Whig ticket was defeated. The next year, however, and in that following, 1844, he was chosen senator.

During the session of 1845, the State was deeply agitated by the discussion of the annexation of Texas. In February of that year, a State convention was called to be held in Faneuil Hall, to protest against the annexation. Mr. Wilson drew up the paper calling the convention, for the signatures of the members of the legislature, and applied to every Whig member for his name. The president of the Senate, Hon. Levi Lincoln, and other Whig members, refused to sign the call. Mr. Abbot Lawrence, Mr. Nathan Appleton, Mr. John Davis, Mr. Winthrop, and other eminent Whigs also declined to unite in, or to approve the movement. This was the beginning of that division among the Whigs of Massachusetts on the slavery question, which resulted in an open rupture in 1848, and finally in the utter overthrow of that great and powerful party in Massachusetts.

In September, 1845, Mr. Wilson got up a call for a mass convention, in Middlesex County, to oppose the admission of Texas as a slave State. The call was responded to by the people, and at an adjourned meeting in Cambridge, over which Mr. Wilson presided, a state committee was appointed, composed of men of all parties, to procure signatures to petitions against the admission of Texas. Sixty-five thousand names were procured in a few weeks, and Henry Wilson and John G. Whittier were appointed to carry the petitions to Washington.

In the autumn of 1845, Mr. Wilson declined being a candidate for the Senate, and was chosen Representative from the town of Natick. In the legislature he introduced a resolution announcing the unalterable hostility of Massachusetts to the further extension and longer existence of slavery in America, and her fixed determination to use all constitutional and legal means for its extinction. In spite of the coldness and opposition of several leading Whigs, this resolution was adopted by ninety-three majority in the House, but was lost in the Senate by four votes. Mr. Wilson made an elaborate speech in its behalf, and Mr. Garrison, in the "Liberator," pronounced it the fullest and most comprehensive speech upon the slavery question, ever made in any legislative body in this country. In 1846, Mr. Wilson declined to be again a candidate for the legislature.

In 1843, the officers of the First Regiment of Artillery elected Mr. Wilson its Major without his knowledge. He accepted the position, and in June, 1846, he was chosen Colonel, and was elected Brigadier General of the Third Brigade in August, which position he continued to hold for five years.

In March, 1848, a Whig district convention was held at Dedham, to nominate a candidate for Congress to fill the vacancy occasioned by the death of John Quincy Adams. Henry Wilson, Horace Mann, and William Jackson, were the leading candidates. After three ballotings Mr. Wilson declined being considered a candidate, and Mr. Mann was nominated. The convention, at the same time, by an almost unanimous vote, elected Mr. Wilson a delegate to the National Whig Convention. That the vote was not unanimous was owing to the fact that he had stated in public and in private that if General Taylor should be fixed upon by the Whig party as its candidate, unpledged to the Wilmot Proviso, he not only would not support him, but would do all in his power to defeat him.

When General Taylor was nominated, and the Wilmot Proviso voted down by the Whig National Convention, in June, 1848, General Wilson, and his colleague, Hon. Charles Allen, denounced the action of the convention, and left it. Gen. Wilson then got up a meeting of a few northern men, which was held in the evening, to consider what steps should be taken.

Gen. Wilson called the meeting to order, and after stating its purposes, moved the appointment of a committee to call a convention of the opponents of the Slave Power. The committee was accordingly appointed, and united with others in calling the Buffalo Convention, which nominated Mr. Van Buren and Mr. Chas. Francis Adams.

In the summer of 1848, General Wilson purchased the "Boston Republican" a free-soil newspaper, which he edited from January, 1849, to January, 1851, during which two years he gave his whole time to the free-soil cause, and spent more than seven thousand dollars of his own property, in the support of the newspaper, whose continued existence was deemed essential to the welfare of the party of which it was the organ. In 1849, he was chosen chairman of the Free-soil State Committee, in which capacity he acted for four years. In the fall of 1849, a coalition was formed between the free-soilers, and the Democrats of Middlesex County, for the election of senators, and General Wilson was pressed by both parties to stand as a candidate for the Senate, which he steadfastly refused to do. He was, however, in that year, chosen a representative from the town of Natick. When the legislature met, he was unanimously nominated by the free-soilers, as their candidate for Speaker. During the session, he was in his seat every day, always attentive to business.

After Mr. Webster made his seventh of March speech, an effort was made to instruct him to vote for the doctrines embodied in the resolutions pending before the legislature; but the proposition was resisted, and voted down by the Whig majority. General Wilson told the House that the people would repudiate that speech, and the men who indorsed it, and that at the coming election, the men who had deserted the cause of freedom would be crushed by the people. This prediction, which was received with defiance by the Whig leaders, was fulfilled, and no one in Massachusetts contributed more to its fulfillment than the man who made it.

In the summer of 1850, General Wilson called together, at the Adams House in Boston, the State Committee, and the leading men of the free-soil party, to the number of about seventy. He stated to the meeting that the people would make a coalition; that it would be successful if the committee would aid it; that Mr. Webster's seventh of March speech could be rebuked; the Fillmore administration condemned; a free-soiler sent to the United States Senate in place of Mr. Webster for the long term; and an anti-compromise Democrat for the short term; and in short, that by a coalition, Massachusetts could be placed in such a position that the anti-slavery men could control her policy. After a debate of five hours, in which Messrs. Marcus Morton, Samuel Hoar, J. G. Palfrey, C. F. Adams, R. H. Dana, Jr., and others took part, the meeting declined to sanction the coalition, only nine gentlemen, and they the youngest present, advocating the coalition. The people, however, made it, in spite of the disapprobation of the eminent men, and the State was carried against the Whigs, and Geo. S. Boutwell made Governor, and Charles Sumner and Robert Rantoul sent to the United States Senate.

In 1850, General Wilson was unanimously nominated for senator from Middlesex County by the free-soil and Democratic conventions, and elected by twenty-one hundred majority. When the legislature met, he was chosen President of the Senate. In 1851, he was reelected and again chosen president. While President of the Senate, he was made Chairman of the Committee to welcome President Fillmore to Massachusetts, and also Chairman of the Committee to welcome Kossuth.

In 1852, he was a delegate to the free-soil National Convention at Pittsburg, and was selected to preside over that body, and also made Chairman of the National Free-soil Committee. In the same year, he was unanimously nominated for Congress by the free-soilers of the eighth district, and, although the majority against the free-soilers in that district exceeded seventy-five hundred, he failed of an election by only ninety-three votes. A large portion of the free-soilers desired him that year to be a candidate for Governor, and most of the coalition Democrats likewise desired his nomination. In a public letter he peremptorily declined to be a candidate, notwithstanding which he received more than a third of the votes of the Free-soil State Convention at Lowell.

In March, 1853, General Wilson was elected to the Constitutional Convention by the town of Berlin, and also by his own town of Natick. He was not absent from the convention for an hour during the session, and the journal and report of the debates show the active part taken by him in its transactions. During the temporary illness of the president, Mr. Banks, he was chosen president _pro tem_. In September, 1853, he was nominated by the Free Democratic State Convention, as candidate for the office of Governor. Out of six hundred votes cast by the convention, he received all but three. At the time he was nominated, men of all parties conceded the probability of his election. But the letter of Caleb Cushing, denouncing, in behalf of the administration, the cooperation of Democrats and free-soilers in State affairs--the bitter hostility of conservatism toward the new constitution, and the Irish vote against it--all contributed to overthrow the State reform party, and to defeat General Wilson and his friends.

When the proposition was made in 1854 to abrogate the Missouri Compromise, the country was profoundly excited, and the opponents of slavery extension in all parties hoped to bring about the union of men who were ready to resist the slave-power. Believing that the time had come to effect the union of men who were opposed to the Kansas Nebraska Act, Gen. Wilson labored with unflagging zeal to accomplish that result, and for that end he visited Washington, in May, and consulted with the opponents of the bill, to repeal the prohibition of slavery in Kansas and Nebraska. Returning home, he avowed in the Free-soil State Convention, assembled in Boston on the 31st of May, the readiness of the free-soilers to abandon their organization, everything but their principles, to bring about the union of men who were ready to crush out the members from the North who had betrayed the people, and to sustain the faithful men of all parties who had been true to principle, and who were ready to resist hereafter the policy of the slavery propagandists. Speaking for the men of the free-soil party, he said they "were ready to go into the rear;" if a forlorn hope was to be led, they would lead it; they would toil; others might take the lead, hold the offices, and win the honors. The hour had come to form one great Republican party, which should hereafter guide the policy and control the destinies of the Republic. A State Convention was called at Worcester on the 10th of August, with the view of uniting the people in one organization, and Gen. Wilson addressed the people in all sections of the State in favor of the fusion, in which he assured men of all political creeds that the men of the free-soil party would gladly yield to others the lead and the honors; all they asked was the acceptance of their doctrines of perpetual hostility to the aggressive policy of the slave power. But the leaders of the Whig party in Massachusetts, then in the pride of power, resisted all attempts to unite the people, and the convention at Worcester, on the 10th of August, failed to accomplish that decided result. Gen. Wilson, and other members of the free-soil party at this convention, again avowed their desire for union, for the sake of the cause of freedom, and their readiness to yield to men of other parties, everything but principle. The people desired fusion, and in spite of the efforts of the Whig leaders, they rushed into the councils of the American organization to effect that object. Gen. Wilson, finding that all efforts to unite the people in the Republican movement had been defeated by men who had personal ends to secure, urged his friends to unite in that rising organization, liberalize its platform and action, and make it a party for freedom. With the view of bringing about harmonious action among men who desired to unite the people, he accepted the nomination of the Republican party for Governor, and exerted every effort to conciliate and bring together men in favor of organizing a great party of freedom. Some of his political friends doubted the wisdom of his policy, as they did in 1850 the wisdom of the coalition with the Democrats; but that coalition placed Rantoul and Sumner in the Senate of the United States, and this union largely contributed to the influence of anti-slavery men, enabling them to choose a delegation to Congress, of true men, a majority of whom were free-soilers, and to elect the most radical anti-slavery legislature ever chosen in America.

In the elections of 1854, the Americans had in the free States cooperated with men of other parties in opposition to the pro-slavery policy of the Administration. But in November of that year, a national council assembled at Cincinnati, and through the management of southern men, anxious to win local power, and corrupt and weak politicians from the North, hungry for place, the American organization was placed in an equivocal attitude on the slavery question. The work of treachery to freedom commenced, and men who had labored to combine the opponents of slavery in one organization, as Gen. Wilson had done, were marked for swift destruction, and men who were ready to compromise away the cause of freedom, were to be the trusted leaders of the now nationalized American party.

The legislature of Massachusetts, which assembled in January, 1855, had to choose a United States senator in place of Mr. Everett, who had resigned and whose term expired on the 3d of March, 1859. General Wilson had publicly and privately declared that the slavery question was with him the paramount question, and in the spring and summer of 1854, while a member of the American organization, he had at all times openly labored to unite men of all parties for freedom. He had taken this position, and his declared opinions and acts were well known in and out of his State, and the men who were ready to sacrifice the anti-slavery cause, to adhere to the compromising policy of the past, were bitterly hostile to his elevation to the Senate. But the anti-slavery men in and out of the State were enthusiastic in his support. He was nominated in the caucus of the members of the legislature, by more than one hundred majority on the first ballot. While the election was pending, several gentlemen representing that portion of the party who wished to nationalize the organization, called upon him, and urged him to write something to modify his recorded opinions, and thus give the men who claimed to be national men, an opportunity to assent to his elevation. In answer to this request, he said he had not travelled a single mile, expended a single dollar, nor conversed with a single member to secure votes for his election;--that his opinions upon the slavery questions were the matured convictions of his life, and that he would not qualify them to win the loftiest position on earth. If elected, he should carry these opinions with him into the Senate, and if the party with which he acted proved recreant to freedom, he would, if he had the power, shiver it to atoms. His position was distinctly avowed and fully comprehended, and he was opposed to the end by members who dissented from his principles, and supported and chosen by men who concurred with him in opinion and policy. He received 234 to 130 votes in the House of Representatives, and 21 to 19 votes in the Senate, and took his seat in the Senate of the United States on the 8th of February, 1855.

When he arrived in Washington, leading politicians were assembled there from the South, endeavoring to organize a National American party, which should ignore the slavery issues, and contest the supremacy of the Democracy in the South. In his speech at Springfield, before the State Council, he thus described the efforts made to seduce him to assent to this policy:

"On my arrival at Washington, I saw at a glance that the
politicians of the South--men who had deserted their northern
associates upon the Nebraska issue, were resolved to impose upon
the American party by the aid of doughfaces from New York and
Pennsylvania, as the test of nationality, fidelity to the slave
power. Flattering words from veteran statesmen were poured into my
ears--flattering appeals were made to me to aid in the work of
nationalizing the party whose victories in the South were to be as
brilliant as they had been in the North. But I resolved that upon
my soul the sin and shame of silence or submission should never
rest. I returned home, determined to baffle if I could the
meditated treason to freedom and to the North."

Two weeks after taking his seat, he addressed the senate upon Mr. Toucey's "bill to protect persons executing the fugitive slave act, from prosecution by State courts." Extracts from this speech show that his sentiments had undergone no change in Washington, under the pressing influences of political leaders: