5. Resolutions were pa.s.sed a.s.serting the right of pet.i.tion as inalienable--condemning Mr. Patton"s resolution of Dec. 21, 1837 as an invasion of the rights of the people, and calling on the Connecticut delegation in Congress to use their efforts to have the same rescinded.
APPENDIX D.
In the year 1793 there were but 5,000,000 pounds of cotton produced in the United States, and but 500,000 exported. Cotton never could have become an article of much commercial importance under the old method of preparing it for market. By hand-picking, or by a process strictly _manual_, a cultivator could not prepare for market, during the year, more than from 200 to 300 pounds; being only about one-tenth of what he could cultivate to maturity in the field. In "93 Mr. Whitney invented the Cotton-gin now in use, by which the labor of at least _one thousand_ hands under the old system, is performed by _one_, in preparing the crop for market. Seven years after the invention (1800) 35,000,000 pounds were raised, and 17,800,000 exported. In 1834, 460,000,000 were raised--384,750,000 exported. Such was the effect of Mr. Whitney"s invention. It gave, at once, extraordinary value to the _land_ in that part of the country where alone cotton could be raised; and to _slaves_, because it was the general, the almost universal, impression that the cultivation of the South could be carried on only by slaves. There being no _free_ state in the South, compet.i.tion between free and slave labor never could exist on a scale sufficiently extensive to prove the superiority of the former in the production of cotton, and in the preparation of it for market.
Thus, it has happened that Mr. Whitney has been the innocent occasion of giving to slavery in this country its present importance--of magnifying it into the great interest to which all others must yield. How he was rewarded by the South--especially by the planters of Georgia--the reader may see by consulting Silliman"s Journal for January, 1832, and the Encyclopedia Americana, article, WHITNEY.
APPENDIX E.
It is impossible, of course, to p.r.o.nounce with precision, how great would have been the effect in favor of emanc.i.p.ation, if the effort to resist the admission of Missouri as a slaveholding state had been successful. We can only conjecture what it would have been, by the effect its admission has had in fostering slavery up to its present huge growth and pretensions. If the American people had shown, through their National legislature, a _sincere_ opposition to slavery by the rejection of Missouri, it is probable at least--late as it was--that the early expiration of the "system" would, by this time, have been discerned by all men.
When the Const.i.tution was formed, the state of public sentiment even in the South--with the exception of South Carolina and Georgia, was favorable to emanc.i.p.ation. Under the influence of this public sentiment was the Const.i.tution formed. No person at all versed in const.i.tutional or legal interpretation--with his judgment unaffected by interest or any of the prejudices to which the existing controversy has given birth--could, it is thought, construe the Const.i.tution, _in its letter_, as intending to perpetuate slavery. To come to such a conclusion with a full knowledge of what was the mind of this nation in regard to slavery, when that instrument was made, demonstrates a moral or intellectual flaw that makes all reasoning useless.
Although it is a fact beyond controversy in our history, that the power conferred by the Const.i.tution on Congress to "regulate commerce with foreign nations" was known to include the power of abolishing the African slave-trade--and that it was expected that Congress, at the end of the period for which the exercise of that power on this particular subject was restrained, would use it (as it did) _with a view to the influence that the cutting off of that traffic would have on the "system" in this country_--yet, such has been the influence of the action of Congress on all matters with which slavery has been mingled--more especially on the Missouri question, in which slavery was the sole interest--that an impression has been produced on the popular mind, that the Const.i.tution of the United States _guaranties_, and consequently _perpetuates_, slavery to the South. Most artfully, incessantly, and powerfully, has this lamentable error been harped on by the slaveholders, and by their advocates in the free states. The impression of _const.i.tutional favor_ to the slaveholders would, of itself, naturally create for them an undue and disproportionate influence in the control of the government; but when to this is added the arrogance that the possession of irresponsible power almost invariably engenders in its possessors--their overreaching a.s.sumptions--the contempt that the slaveholders entertain for the great body of the _people_ of the North, it has almost delivered over the government, bound neck and heels, into the hands of slaveholding politicians--to be bound still more rigorously, or unloosed, as may seem well in their discretion.
Who can doubt that, as a nation, we should have been more honorable and influential abroad--more prosperous and united at home--if Kentucky, at the very outset of this matter, had been refused admission to the Union until she had expunged from her Const.i.tution the covenant with oppression? She would not have remained out of the Union a single year on that account. If the worship of Liberty had not been exchanged for that of Power--if her principles had been successfully maintained in this first a.s.sault, their triumph in every other would have been easy.
We should not have had a state less in the confederacy, and slavery would have been seen, at this time, shrunk up to the most contemptible dimensions, if it had not vanished entirely away. But we have furnished another instance to be added to the long and melancholy list already existing, to prove that,--
"facilis descensus Averni, Sed revocare gradum Hoc opus hic labor est,"
if _poetry_ is not _fiction_.
Success in the Missouri struggle--late as it was--would have placed the cause of freedom in our country out of the reach of danger from its inexorable foe. The principles of liberty would have struck deeper root in the free states, and have derived fresh vigor from such a triumph. If these principles had been honored by the government from that period to the present, (as they would have been, had the free states, even then, a.s.sumed their just preponderance in its administration,) we should now have, in Missouri herself, a healthful and vigorous ally in the cause of freedom; and, in Arkansas, a free people--_twice_ her present numbers--pressing on the confines of slavery, and summoning the keepers of the southern charnel-house to open its doors, that its inmates might walk forth, in a glorious resurrection to liberty and life. Although young, as a people, we should be, among the nations, venerable for our virtue; and we should exercise an influence on the civilized and commercial world that we most despair of possessing, as long as we remain vulnerable to every shaft that malice, or satire, or philanthropy may find it convenient to hurl against us.[A]
[Footnote A: A comic piece--the production of one of the most popular of the French writers in his way--had possession of the Paris stage last winter. When one of the personages SEPARATES HUSBAND AND WIFE, he cries out, "BRAVO! THIS IS THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE OF THE UNITED STATES!" [Bravo! C"est la Declaration d"Independence des Etats Unis.]
One of our distinguished College-professors, lately on a tour in Europe, had his attention called, while pa.s.sing along the street of a German city, to the pictorial representation of a WHITE MAN SCOURGING A SUPPLICATING COLORED FEMALE, with this allusion underwritten:--"A SPECIMEN OF EQUALITY--FROM REPUBLICAN AMERICA."
Truly might our countryman have exclaimed in the language, if not with the generous emotions of the Trojan hero, when he beheld the n.o.ble deeds of his countrymen pencilled in a strange land--
--"Quis jam locus-- Quae regio in terris nostri non plena laboris?"
Instead of being thus seated on a "heaven-kissing hill," and seen of all in its pure radiance; instead of enjoying its delightful airs, and imparting to them the healthful savor of justice, truth, mercy, magnanimity, see what a picture we present;--our cannibal burnings of human beings--our Lynch courts--our lawless scourgings and capital executions, not only of slaves, but of freemen--our demoniac mobs raging through the streets of our cities and large towns at midday as well as at midnight, shedding innocent blood, devastating property, and applying the incendiaries" torch to edifices erected and dedicated to FREE DISCUSSION--the known friends of order, of law, of liberty, of the Const.i.tution--citizens, distinguished for their worth at home, and reflecting honor on their country abroad, shut out from more than half our territory, or visiting it at the hazard of their lives, or of the most degrading and painful personal inflictions--freedom of speech and of the press overthrown and hooted at--the right of pet.i.tion struck down in Congress, where, above all places, it ought to have been maintained to the last--the people mocked at, and attempted to be gagged by their own servants--the time the office-honored veteran, who fearlessly contended for the _right_, publicly menaced for words spoken in his place as a representative of the people, with an indictment by a slaveholding grand jury--in fine, the great principles of government a.s.serted by our fathers in the Declaration of Independence, and embodied in our Const.i.tution, with which they won for us the sympathy, the admiration of the world--all forgotten, dishonoured, despised, trodden under foot! And this for slavery!!
Horrible catalogue!--yet by no means a complete one--for so young a nation, boasting itself, too, to be the freest on earth! It is the ripe fruit of that _chef d"oeuvre_ of political skill and patriotic achievement--the MISSOURI COMPROMISE.
Another such compromise--or any compromise now with slavery--and the nation is undone.
APPENDIX F.
The following is believed to be a correct exhibit of the legislative resolutions against the annexation of Texas--of the times at which they were pa.s.sed, and of the _votes_ by which they were pa.s.sed:--
1. VERMONT.
"1. _Resolved, By the Senate and House of Representatives_, That our Senators in Congress be instructed, and our Representatives requested, to use their influence in that body to prevent the annexation of Texas to the Union.
2. _Resolved_, That representing, as we do, the people of Vermont, we do hereby, in their name, SOLEMNLY PROTEST against such annexation in any form."
[Pa.s.sed unanimously, Nov. 1, 1837.]
2. RHODE ISLAND.
(_In General a.s.sembly, October Session, A. D. 1837_.)
"Whereas the compact of the Union between these states was entered into by the people thereof in their respective states, "in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to themselves and their posterity;" and, therefore, a Representative Government was inst.i.tuted by them, with certain limited powers, clearly specified and defined in the Const.i.tution--all other powers, not therein expressly relinquished, being "reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."
And whereas this limited government possesses no power to extend its jurisdiction over any foreign nation, and no foreign nation, country, or people, can be admitted into this Union but by the sovereign will and act of the free people of all and each of these United States, nor without the formation of a new compact of Union--and another frame of government radically different, in objects, principles, and powers, from that which was framed for our own self-government, and deemed to be adequate to all the exigencies of our own free republic:--
Therefore, Resolved, That we have witnessed, with deep concern, the indications of a disposition to bring into this Union, as a const.i.tuent member thereof, the foreign province or territory of Texas.
Resolved, That, although we are fully aware of the consequences which must follow the accomplishment of such a project, could it be accomplished--aware that it would lead speedily to the conquest and annexation of Mexico itself, and its fourteen remaining provinces or intendencies--which, together with the revolted province of Texas, would furnish foreign territories and foreign people for at least twenty members of the new Union; that the government of a nation so extended and so constructed would soon become radically [changed] in character, if not in form--would unavoidably become a military government; and, under the plea of necessity, would free itself from the restraints of the Const.i.tution and from its accountability to the people. That the ties of kindred, common origin and common interests, which have so long bound this people together, and would still continue to bind them: these ties, which ought to be held sacred by all true Americans, would be angrily dissolved, and sectional political combinations would be formed with the newly admitted foreign states, unnatural and adverse to the peace and prosperity of the country. The civil government, with all the arbitrary powers it might a.s.sume, would be unable to control the storm. The usurper would find himself in his proper element; and, after acting the patriot and the hero for a due season, as the only means of rescuing the country from the ruin which he had chiefly contributed to bring upon it, would reluctantly and modestly allow himself to be declared "Protector of the Commonwealth."
We are now fully aware of the deep degradation into which the republic would sink itself in the eyes of the whole world, should it annex to its own vast territories other and foreign territories of immense though unknown extent, for the purpose of encouraging the propagation of slavery, and giving aid to the raising of slaves within its own bosom, the very bosom of freedom, to be esported and sold in those unhallowed regions. Although we are fully aware of these fearful evils, and numberless others which would come in their train, yet we do not here dwell upon them; because we are here firmly convinced that the free people of most, and we trust of all these states, will never suffer the admission of the foreign territory of Texas into this Union as a const.i.tuent member thereof--will never suffer the integrity of this Republic to be violated, either by the introduction and addition to it of foreign nations or territories, one or many, or by dismemberment of it by the transfer of any one or more of its members to a foreign nation.
The people will be aware, that should one foreign state or country be introduced, another and another may be, without end, whether situated in South America, in the West India islands, or in any other part of the world; and that a single foreign state, thus admitted, might have in its power, by holding the balance between contending parties, to wrest their own government from the hands and control of the people, by whom it was established for their own benefit and self-government. We are firmly convinced, that the free people of these states will look upon any attempt to introduce the foreign territory of Texas, or any other foreign territory or nation into this Union, as a const.i.tuent member or members thereof, as manifesting a willingness to prostrate the Const.i.tution and dissolve the Union.
Resolved, That His Excellency, the Governor, be requested to forward a copy of the foregoing resolutions to each of our Senators and Representatives in Congress, and to each of the Executives of the several states, with a request that the same may be laid before the respective Legislatures of said states."
[The Preamble and Resolutions were unanimously adopted, Nov. 3, 1837.]
3. OHIO.
"_Resolved, by the General a.s.sembly of the State of Ohio_, That in the name, and on behalf of the people of the State of Ohio, we do hereby SOLEMNLY PROTEST against the annexation of Texas to the Union of these United States.
_And be it further resolved_, That the Governor be requested to transmit to each of our Senators and Representatives in Congress, and to the Governors of each of the States, a copy of the foregoing resolution, with a statement of the votes by which it was pa.s.sed in each branch of the Legislature."
[Pa.s.sed by 64 out of 72, the whole number in the House of Representatives--unanomously in the Senate. Feb. 24, 1838.]
4. Ma.s.sACHUSETTS.
"Resolves against the annexation of Texas to the United States.
Whereas a proposition to admit into the United States as a const.i.tuent member thereof, the foreign nation of Texas, has been recommended by the legislative resolutions of several States, and brought before Congress for its approval and sanction; and whereas such a measure would involve great wrong to Mexico, and otherwise be of evil precedent, injurious to the interests and dishonorable to the character of this country; and whereas its avowed objects are doubly fraught with peril to the prosperity and permanence of this Union, as tending to disturb and destroy the conditions of those compromises and concessions, entered into at the formation of the Const.i.tution, by which the relative weights of different sections and interests were adjusted, and to strengthen and extend the evils of a system which is unjust in itself, in striking contrast with the theory of our inst.i.tutions, and condemned by the moral sentiment of mankind; and whereas the people of these United States have not granted to any or all of the departments of their Government, but have retained in themselves, the only power adequate to the admission of a foreign nation into this confederacy; therefore,
_Resolved_, That we, the Senate and House of Representatives, in General Court a.s.sembled, do in the name of the people of Ma.s.sachusetts, earnestly and solemnly protest against the incorporation of Texas into this Union, and declare, that no act done or compact made, for such purpose by the government of the United States, will be binding on the States or the People.
_Resolved_, That his Excellency the Governor be requested to forward a copy of these resolutions and the accompanying report to the Executive of the United States, and the Executive of each State and also to each of our Senators and Representatives in Congress, with a request that they present the resolves to both Houses of Congress."
[Pa.s.sed MARCH 16, 1838, UNANIMOUSLY, in both Houses.]
5. MICHIGAN.
Whereas, propositions have been made for the annexation of Texas to the United States, with a view to its ultimate incorporation into the Union: