The Life of Jefferson Davis. Alfriend Frank Heath
or south of the river Ohio, under the laws thereof, shall escape into any other of the said States or Territories, the person to whom such service or labor may be due, his agent, or attorney, is hereby empowered to seize or arrest such fugitive from labor,” etc.
Is it not apparent that, when the Congress legislated in 1793, they recognized the existence of slavery and protected that kind of property in the territory north-west of the river Ohio, and is it not conclusive that they did not intend, by the act of 1789, to confirm, ratify, and give effect to the ordinance of 1787, which would have excluded it?
This doctrine of protection, then, is not new. It goes back to the foundation of the Government. It is traceable down through all the early controversies; and they arose at least as early as 1790. It is found in the messages of Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison, and in the legislation of Congress; and also in the messages of the elder Adams. There was not one of the first four Presidents of the United States who did not recognize this obligation of protection, who did not assert this power on the part of the Federal Government; and not one of them ever attempted to pervert it to a power to destroy. If division in the Democratic party is to arise now, because of this doctrine, it is not from the change by those who assert it, but of those who deny it. It is not from the introduction of a new feature in the theory of our Government, but from the denial of that which was recognized in its very beginning.
As I understood the main argument of the Senator, it was based upon the general postulate that the Democratic Convention of 1848 recognized a new doctrine, a doctrine which inhibited the General Government from interfering in any way, either for the protection of property or otherwise, with the local affairs of a Territory; he held the party responsible for all the opinions entertained by the candidate in 1848, because the party had nominated him, and he quoted the record to show what States, by voting for him, had committed themselves to the doctrine of the “Nicholson letter.” He even quoted South Carolina, represented by that man who became famous for a single act, and, as South Carolinians said, without authority at home to sustain it. But this was cited as pledging the faith of South Carolina to the doctrine of the “Nicholson letter;” and, worse than all, the Senator did this, though he knew that the doctrine of the “Nicholson letter” was the subject of controversy for years subsequently; that, what was the true construction of that letter, entered into the canvass in the Southern States; that the construction which Mr. Cass himself placed upon it at a subsequent period was there denied; and the Senator might have remembered, if he had chosen to recollect so unimportant a thing, that I once had to explain to him, ten years ago, the fact that I repudiated the doctrine of that letter at the time it was published, and that the Democracy of Mississippi had well-nigh crucified me for the construction which I placed upon it; there were men mean enough to suspect that the construction I gave to the Nicholson letter was prompted by the confidence and affection I felt for General Taylor. At a subsequent period, however, Mr. Cass thoroughly reviewed it. He uttered, for him, very harsh language against all who had doubted the true construction of his letter, and he construed it just as I had done during the canvass of 1848. It remains only to add that I supported Mr. Cass, not because of the doctrine of the Nicholson letter, but in despite of it; because I believed a Democratic President, with a Democratic cabinet and Democratic counselors in the two houses of Congress, and he as honest a man as I believed Mr. Cass to be, would be a safer reliance than his opponent, who personally possessed my confidence as much as any man living, but who was of and must draw his advisers from a party, the tenets of which I believed to be opposed to the interests of the country as they were to all my political convictions.
I little thought at that time that my advocacy of Mr. Cass, upon such grounds as these, or his support by the State of which I am a citizen, would at any future day be quoted as an indorsement of the opinions contained in the Nicholson letter, as those opinions were afterwards defined. But it is not only upon this letter, but equally upon the resolutions of the convention as constructive of that letter, that he rested his argument. I will here say to the Senator that if, at any time, I do him the least injustice, speaking as I do from such notes as I could take while he progressed, I will thank him to correct me.
But this letter entered into the canvass; there was a doubt about its construction; there were men who asserted that they had positive authority for saying that it meant that the people of a Territory could only exclude slavery when the Territory should form a constitution and be admitted as a State. This doubt continued to hang over the construction, and it was that doubt alone which secured Mr. Cass the vote of Mississippi. If the true construction had been certainly known he would have had no chance to get it. Our majority went down from thousands to hundreds, as it was. In Alabama the decrease was greater. It was not that the doctrine was countenanced, but the doubt as to the true meaning of the letter, and the constantly reiterated assertion that it only meant the Territories when they should be admitted as States, enabled him to carry those States.
But if I mistook the Senator there, I think probably I did not on another point: that he claimed the support of certain Southern men for Mr. Richardson as Speaker of the House to be by them an acknowledgment of the doctrine of squatter sovereignty.
I suppose those Southern men who voted for Mr. Richardson voted for him as I did for Mr. Cass, in despite of his opinions on that question, because they preferred Mr. Richardson to Mr. Banks, even with squatter sovereignty. They considered that the latter was carrying an amount of heresies which greatly exceeded the value of squatter sovereignty. It was a choice of evils – not an indorsement of his opinions. Neither did they this year indorse the opinions on that point of Mr. McClernand when they voted for him. According to the Senator’s argument I could show him that Illinois was committed to the doctrine of federal protection to property in the Territories and the remedy of secession as a State right; committed irrevocably, unmistakably, with no right to plead any ignorance of the political creed of the individual, or the meaning of his words.
In 1852 – I refer to it with pride – Illinois did me the honor to vote consistently for me for the Vice-Presidency, up to the time of adjournment; though in 1850, and in 1851, I had done all these acts which have been spoken of, and the Senator has admitted my consistency, in opinions which were avowed with at least such perspicuity as left nobody in doubt as to my opinion. Did Illinois then adopt my theory of protection in the Territories, or of the right of State secession? No, sir. I hold them to no such consequences. Some of the old inhabitants of Illinois may have remembered me when their northern frontier was a wilderness, when they and I had kind relations in the face of hostile Indians. Some of them may have remembered me, and, I believe, kindly, as associated with them, at a later period, on the fields of Mexico. The Senator himself, I know, remembered kindly his association with me in the halls of Congress. It was these bonds which gave me the confidence of the State of Illinois. I never misconstrued it. I never pretended to put them in the attitude of adopting all my opinions. Never required it, never desired it, save as in so far as wishing all men would agree with me, confidently believing my position to be true. At a later period, and when these questions were more important in the public mind, when public attention has been more directed to them, when public opinion has been more matured, at the very time when the Senator claims that his doctrine culminated, the State of Illinois voted for a gentleman for Vice-President at Cincinnati who held the same opinions with myself, or, if there was a difference, held them to a greater extreme – I mean General Quitman.
Mr. Douglas. We made no test on any one.
Mr. Davis. Then, how did the South become responsible for the doctrine of General Cass, by consenting to his nomination in 1848, and supporting his election? But at a later period, down to the present session, what is the position in which the Senator places his friends – those sterling Democrats, uncompromising Anti-Know-Nothings; men who give no quarter to the American party, and yet who voted this year for Mr. Smith, of North Carolina, to be Speaker of the House of Representatives. Is the Senator answered? Does he not see that there is no justice in assuming a vote for an individual to be the entire adoption of his opinions?
He cited, in this connection, a resolution of 1848, as having been framed to cover the doctrines of the Nicholson letter; and he claimed thus to have shown that the convention not only understood it, but adopted it, and made it the party creed, and that we were bound to it from that period forward. He even had that resolution of 1848 read, in order that there should be, at no future time, any question as to the principle