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07 - Charles Sumner, The Scholar in Politics by Archibald Grimké · Charles Sumner, The Scholar in Politics

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Speaker 1: Chapter six of Charles Sumner, The Scholar in Politics by
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Speaker 1: Archibald Grimkey. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain
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Speaker 1: the Learnean Hydra. The slavery question in the United States
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Speaker 1: in the year eighteen forty five transcended in public interest
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Speaker 1: all other questions. It was the one, all absorbing, all
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Speaker 1: over shadowing subject in the Union. There was no citizen, however,
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Speaker 1: obscure in the North or in the South, but was
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Speaker 1: sucked into the mailstream of the agitation. In this year
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Speaker 1: of grace. There was none so high and powerful who
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Speaker 1: escaped its tremendous moral and political section and gravitation. All
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Speaker 1: the intelligence, all the conscience, all the greed for power,
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Speaker 1: all the sectional jealousies and antagonisms between the slave volting
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Speaker 1: and the non slave volting halves of the Republic, all
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Speaker 1: the love of liberty, and all the love of slavery,
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Speaker 1: rushed together in the storm of passion which the movement
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Speaker 1: for the annexation of Texas aroused in the land. Sixteen
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Speaker 1: years before, William Lloyd Garrison was persecuted and imprisoned by
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Speaker 1: Maryland justice for writing disrespectfully of a fellow townsman of
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Speaker 1: his Francis Todd, whose ship had taken a cargo of
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Speaker 1: slaves from Baltimore to New Orleans fourteen years before the
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Speaker 1: Texas agitation. He therefore said Garrison had started the Liberator
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Speaker 1: and launched the anti slavery reform at the same time
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Speaker 1: upon the attention of the country. Since that event, a
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Speaker 1: marvelous change had passed over every part of the nation
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Speaker 1: in relation to the subject of slavery. The small but
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Speaker 1: aggressive sect of Garrisonian abolitionists, with their doctrine of immediate emancipation,
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Speaker 1: in their stern denunciations of slaveholding as robbery, murder, and
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Speaker 1: the sum of all Villanese, had effected anne almost instant
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Speaker 1: transformation in the state of public opinion at the South.
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Speaker 1: Not only were Southern interests and institutions held up to
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Speaker 1: public odium by the abolitionists, but Southern character as well.
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Speaker 1: It is not in human nature to be indifferent to
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Speaker 1: such treatment. It drove the South wild with fear and indignation.
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Speaker 1: That section metaphorically foamed with excitement, lost all self control,
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Speaker 1: and plunged into excesses of rage, which are explicable alone
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Speaker 1: on the ground that it had suffered a sudden aberration
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Speaker 1: of reason and common sense. It put a price on
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Speaker 1: the heads of leading abolitionists, issued bulls against the circulation
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Speaker 1: of abolition and publications within its limits, subjected the males
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Speaker 1: to a tyrannus and irresponsible censorship, and individuals to outrageous
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Speaker 1: surveillance and barbarous abuse. The constitutional provision, which guarantees to
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Speaker 1: the citizens of each state all privileges and immunities of
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Speaker 1: citizens in the several states, was everywhere reduced to a nullity.
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Speaker 1: In the slaves States, Northern men were presently regarded and
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Speaker 1: treated precisely as though they were aliens and enemies instead
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Speaker 1: of fellow citizens of a common country. To travel through
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Speaker 1: the South became four persons from the North within a
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Speaker 1: surprisingly brief space after the inauguration of the moral movement
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Speaker 1: against slavery, as hazardous and undertaking as would have been
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Speaker 1: for them a passage across territory belonging to a foreign
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Speaker 1: and hostile power. Interstate intercourse and communication were increasingly discouraged
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Speaker 1: and obstructed. The slave section drew itself more and more
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Speaker 1: aloof from its free cistern, raised higher and higher about
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Speaker 1: itself insurmountable social barriers. To these signs of violent disintegration.
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Speaker 1: No man in his senses could long remain blind the
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Speaker 1: slavery agitation that started into alarming activity in the South,
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Speaker 1: the anti union making forces of our federal system of government. Therefore,
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Speaker 1: all those materials, interests, and habits of mind in the
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Speaker 1: Free States which had grown up around the Union took
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Speaker 1: fright and sought to check the progress of these anti
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Speaker 1: union forces in the South by repressing the anti slavery
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Speaker 1: movement at the north. The anti slavery movement was certainly
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Speaker 1: not productive of domestic harmony. On the contrary, it was
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Speaker 1: proving itself, as we have seen, a prodigious promoter of
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Speaker 1: domestic discord. From the beginning, this feature of the reform
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Speaker 1: aroused against it the powerful union feeling of the northern section.
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Speaker 1: Attachment to liberty was, with that section a much weaker
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Speaker 1: motive of action than attachment to the Union. Its opposition
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Speaker 1: to slavery was largely due to the fact that slavery
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Speaker 1: had operated in the general government adversely to its interests
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Speaker 1: political and industrial, rather than through sympathy for the slave
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Speaker 1: or antagonism to the master class. As such, American liberty,
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Speaker 1: it ever, was not human liberty, which possessed the charm
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Speaker 1: to stir the Northern blood. This particular notion of liberty included,
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Speaker 1: among other things, the well understood American constitutional right of
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Speaker 1: holding the African race and bondage free from federal interference
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Speaker 1: or interstate intermeddling. Under these circumstances, and in this highly legal,
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Speaker 1: if not highly moral, view of the situation, the two
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Speaker 1: sections were imperfect accord in respect of the pernicious and
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Speaker 1: unpatriotic character of Garrisonian abolitionism, and of the important consequences
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Speaker 1: which depended upon its suppression. But where public opinion ends
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Speaker 1: in legislative action begins, there the point of coincidence between
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Speaker 1: the two halves of the Union vanished, and sharp lines
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Speaker 1: of divergence appeared. Owing to its peculiar social and political media,
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Speaker 1: the self was able to translate its public opinion against
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Speaker 1: the agitation into harsh and precipitate legislation. Quite the reverse was, however,
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Speaker 1: true of the North. Its social and political media tremmelled
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Speaker 1: and pulled it back from the enactment of similar repressive measures.
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Speaker 1: The disposition was, indeed, in many instances strong to do likewise,
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Speaker 1: but there was a difficulty, which Calhoun gives this sharp
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Speaker 1: account in eighteen thirty six, The legislatures of the South,
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Speaker 1: backed by the will of their constituents expressed through innumerable meetings,
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Speaker 1: have called upon the non slaveholding states to repress the
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Speaker 1: movements made within the jurisdiction of those states against their
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Speaker 1: peace and security. Not a step has been taken, but
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Speaker 1: not a law has been passed or even proposed, and
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Speaker 1: I venture to assert that none will be not but
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Speaker 1: what there is a favorable disposition toward us in the North,
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Speaker 1: But I clearly see the state of political parties there
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Speaker 1: presents in superbowl impediments to any legislation on the subject.
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Speaker 1: Arrest my opinion on the fact that the non slaveholding states,
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Speaker 1: from the elements of their population, are and will continue
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Speaker 1: to be divided and distracted by parties of nearly equal strength,
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Speaker 1: and that each will always be ready to seize on
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Speaker 1: every movement of the other which may give them the superiority,
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Speaker 1: without regard to consequences as affecting their own states and
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Speaker 1: much less remote and distant sections. The failure of the
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Speaker 1: North to adopt the prohibitory legislation demanded of it added
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Speaker 1: fresh fuel to the hot anger burning against it in
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Speaker 1: the South. Calhoun's interpretation of this failure did not mend matters.
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Speaker 1: It tended rather to deepen a fast growing conviction in
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Speaker 1: the slave states of the incompatibility of their interests with
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Speaker 1: those of the Free States, and to produce, as a result,
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Speaker 1: increased activity of the principle of division widely in operation.
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Speaker 1: There a disposition to think and speak in unison with
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Speaker 1: them on the slavery question was not enough to satisfy
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Speaker 1: the slave states. They called upon the North, through their
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Speaker 1: legislatures and innumerable meetings, to act in unison with them
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Speaker 1: in putting down the abolitionists. But this, according to Calhoun,
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Speaker 1: and as a matter of fact, the North could not
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Speaker 1: possibly do, however strong might be its inclination in that regard.
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Speaker 1: It was the same with their controversy over the right
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Speaker 1: of petition. The representatives of the Free states in Congress
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Speaker 1: were desirous, even eager, to oblige the South on the point.
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Speaker 1: They were ready to go, and did actually go great
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Speaker 1: links to convince that section of their disapprobation of the
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Speaker 1: animus and prayers of the abolition petitions. But there were
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Speaker 1: fixed limits beyond which they did not venture to step.
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Speaker 1: The Southern extremists, under the lead of Calhoun, proposed to
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Speaker 1: reject the objectionable petitions without first receiving them. Yet, such
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Speaker 1: a northern man with Southern principles, as was James Buchanan,
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Speaker 1: then his senator from Pennsylvania, shrank from offending the sensibility
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Speaker 1: of his constituents by lending their proposition. His endorsement first
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Speaker 1: received and then immediately reject was as harsh up disposition
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Speaker 1: of the subject as the exigencies of political parties at
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Speaker 1: the north would warrant. This attempt to occupy two stools
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Speaker 1: proved unsatisfactory to the South. Calhoun hotly denounced the compromise
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Speaker 1: suggested of mister Buchanan as a mere piece of artifice
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Speaker 1: to juggle and deceive. I intend no disrespect to the Senator,
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Speaker 1: he directly apologized. I doubt not his intentions is good,
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Speaker 1: and I believe his feelings are with us. But I
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Speaker 1: must say that the course that he has intimated is,
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Speaker 1: in my opinion, the worst possible for the slaveholding states.
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Speaker 1: And so, in spite of the pro slavery intentions and
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Speaker 1: feedings of the North, the two sections were pulling fatally apart.
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Speaker 1: The Southern way was manifestly not the Northern way. The
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Speaker 1: free states could not travel the same road with their
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Speaker 1: slave sisters without stumbling upon sectional differences and causes of strife.
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Speaker 1: Another circumstance growing out of the movement against slavery, produced
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Speaker 1: somewhat similar results. This circumstance referred to was the attempt
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Speaker 1: to suppress abolitionism in the Free States by mob law,
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Speaker 1: shut off by causes which we have indicated from the
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Speaker 1: enactment of repressive measures against the agitation of the subject
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Speaker 1: of slavery within its jurisdiction. The disposition of the North
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Speaker 1: was nevertheless so good to place itself in accord with
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Speaker 1: the South under that head, and its hostility to the
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Speaker 1: abolishness so passionate that in many localities attempts were made
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Speaker 1: to accomplish by popular violence what was denied through state legislation.
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Speaker 1: But these attempts to abolish abolition in the Free States
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Speaker 1: threatened to abolish along with it law and order. This
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Speaker 1: unexpected danger to the civil establishment invested interests excited presently
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Speaker 1: in those states the greatest apprehensions. While this rising concern
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Speaker 1: created in time a public sentiment opposed to lawlessness, their
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Speaker 1: ideal in the goal of the Free States had ever
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Speaker 1: been a government of laws, not a government of men,
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Speaker 1: much less one of mobs. The Anglo saxon self control
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Speaker 1: and respect for law and order, which had characterized the
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Speaker 1: civilization of the Northern States since the landing of the Pilgrims,
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Speaker 1: suffered during the mob crisis of severe shock. Those states
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Speaker 1: totally perceived that it was quite impossible to expose one
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Speaker 1: portion of society to the lawlessness of another without putting
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Speaker 1: in jeopardy the welfare and security of the whole. Each
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Speaker 1: class must, in sooth be protected if all would be safe.
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Speaker 1: Licensed to say it not, the right of assembly and
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Speaker 1: free discussion of any part of the people by violence
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Speaker 1: was an invitation to do the same upon occasion to
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Speaker 1: other parts of the people. If mobs might, with impunity
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Speaker 1: destroy the property or lives of abolishists because of a
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Speaker 1: difference of opinion on the question of slavery, why might
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Speaker 1: they not do as much do the property and lives
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Speaker 1: of others who might fail to agree with them on
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Speaker 1: a wholly different subject. In that direction ran the short
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Speaker 1: and straight road to anarchy. The North, when its sober
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Speaker 1: second thought, it come to it, and no mind much
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Speaker 1: as it detested the abolishnists and desired to demonstrate its
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Speaker 1: sympathy with the self to travel this downward way to
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Speaker 1: certain ruin, and it pulled itself together back upon its
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Speaker 1: ancient and regular tracts of law and order. But the
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Speaker 1: attempt and the failure were productive of other and grave
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Speaker 1: collateral consequences. The attempt to suppress abolitionism in the Free
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Speaker 1: States by mobs, and the dangers to society which ensued,
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Speaker 1: created a reaction in those states adverse to slavery. That
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Speaker 1: Southern institution became thenceforth associated with frightful memories of violence
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Speaker 1: and bloodshed, with attacks on the freedom of the press
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Speaker 1: and free speech, and with outrages upon the property in
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Speaker 1: persons of white men. A new sort of enmity to
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Speaker 1: slavery was thus begotten in the North. The enlightened self
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Speaker 1: interest of the section had, from a hitherto unoccupied position
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Speaker 1: re examined the system and learned how irrepressible was the
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Speaker 1: conflict between it and Northern ideas, interests and institutions. On
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Speaker 1: the other hand, this anti slavery revulsion against the pro
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Speaker 1: slavery excesses of the period added in so to the
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Speaker 1: Southern sense of injury through fresh viel upon the already
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Speaker 1: blazing fires of the grievances of that section. It had
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Speaker 1: called in vain upon the North, with its selfish regard
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Speaker 1: for law and order and scrupulous respect for sundry ancient
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Speaker 1: rights of the people, long ago discarded at the South,
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Speaker 1: caulled upon it through state legislatures and innumerable meetings to
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Speaker 1: repress the firebrand movement against slavery. And what answer had
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Speaker 1: been returned words? Nothing but words it had demanded through
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Speaker 1: its representatives in Congress, the rejection of firebrand petitions containing
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Speaker 1: assaults on the rights, character, and institutions of slave olders,
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Speaker 1: and the North, through its representatives, had notwithstanding determined to
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Speaker 1: receive them. But the unkindest cut of all was perhaps
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Speaker 1: the anti slavery reaction in the Free States against pro
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Speaker 1: slavery mobs. Judge Lynch was a recognized authority at the South.
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Speaker 1: A government of men, as distinguished from a government of laws,
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Speaker 1: had ever marked the civilization of that section, inherent in
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Speaker 1: fact in its central social principle. In practice, however the
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Speaker 1: thing may appear in theory, there is but a short
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Speaker 1: step from a government of men to a government by mobs.
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Speaker 1: Viewing the situation from totally opposite standpoints, it is no
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Speaker 1: wonder that the slaveholding and the non slaveholding sections failed
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Speaker 1: to appreciate the feelings and the needs of each other.
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Speaker 1: The act that helped one hurt the other. The mobs,
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Speaker 1: which were two advantages the South, brought no end of
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Speaker 1: mischief at the North, and so instead of repressing the
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Speaker 1: abolition propaganda, the free states seemed to the slave ones
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Speaker 1: to be much more concerned about the repression of the
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Speaker 1: peculiarly Southern treatment of the incendiaries increased fiction and ill
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Speaker 1: will between the two halves of the Union were, in
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Speaker 1: consequence engendered. The seeds of alienation and hate grew apace
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Speaker 1: through the South. The schism between the sections sensibly widened,
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Speaker 1: and the anti union working forces took on in the
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Speaker 1: slave state's redouble activity and intensity. The abolition movement, meanwhile,
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Speaker 1: was making astonishing progress all attempts to suppress it but
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Speaker 1: operate it to augmented synergy and growth. The higher the
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Speaker 1: tide of persecution rose, the higher the spirit of the
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Speaker 1: reform mount events moved in those troublous times with surprising celerity.
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Speaker 1: What under other conditions would have required perhaps fifty years
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Speaker 1: to effect was accomplished. Then in ten the whole North
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Speaker 1: and half of that brief space was converted into one vast,
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Speaker 1: resounding anti slavery debating club. The anti slavery lecture was omnipresent.
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Speaker 1: Anti slavery publications issued from the anti slavery press, thickest
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Speaker 1: autumnal leads that strew the brooks in Balambrosa, anti slavery
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Speaker 1: societies and multitudes seemed to rush and streams out of
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Speaker 1: the ground. In eighteen thirty seven, Calhoun, who more than
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Speaker 1: any other statesman of his time comprehended the underlying causes
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Speaker 1: of difference and strife between the sections, gave this gloomy
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Speaker 1: forecast that the agitation, already it abolition, has taken possession
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Speaker 1: of the pulpit of the schools, and to a considerable
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Speaker 1: extent of the press, those great instruments by which the
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Speaker 1: mind of the rising generation will be formed. However sound,
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Speaker 1: the great body of the non sense slaveholding states are
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Speaker 1: at present, in the course of a few years, they
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Speaker 1: will be succeeded by those who will have been taught
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Speaker 1: to hate the people. An institution of nearly one half
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Speaker 1: of this union with a hatred more deadly than one
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Speaker 1: hostile nation ever entertained towards another. It is easy to
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Speaker 1: see the end by the necessary course of events. If
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Speaker 1: left to themselves, we must become finely two peoples. It
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Speaker 1: is impossible, under the deadly hatred which must spring up
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Speaker 1: between the two grade sections, if the present causes are
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Speaker 1: permitted to operate unchecked, that we should continue under the
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Speaker 1: same political system. Thus early had the national situation in
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Speaker 1: respective slavery assumed an aspect of extreme gravity. To the
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Speaker 1: Union worshipers, the outlook was threatening enough for all the
16:43
Speaker 1: signs indicated that the country was hurrying into a state
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Speaker 1: of increasing uproar and conflict. In the South, the fatal
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Speaker 1: conviction was deepening and spreading, that abolition and the Union
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Speaker 1: could not possibly coexist. But in the North, the country
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Speaker 1: belief was likewise deepening and spreading, and the Union could
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Speaker 1: not together permanently endure. The crashing and grinding of those
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Speaker 1: enormous antagonistic forces of public opinion was working destructively on
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Speaker 1: the brotherly feeling of the people of the South and
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Speaker 1: of those of the North, so that even then the
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Speaker 1: deadly hatred predicted by Calhoun was beginning between the sections.
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Speaker 1: It was at this stage of the irrepressible conflict that
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Speaker 1: the agitation over the annexation of Texas appeared to make
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Speaker 1: matters already very bad a great deal worse. However, the
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Speaker 1: design of the South upon Texas was natural enough, as
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Speaker 1: will be seen by a consideration of the causes which
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Speaker 1: led up to it. In the contest between the sections
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Speaker 1: for political ascendancy in the general government, the South had
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Speaker 1: been losing grounds since the close of the War of
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Speaker 1: eighteen twelve. The North had since that event far outstripped
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Speaker 1: in wealth and a population in fine in all the
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Speaker 1: elements of a superior and progressive civilization. Socially and industrially,
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Speaker 1: the Free States in eighteen forty were indisputably the stronger
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Speaker 1: and the slave ones that weaken half of the union.
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Speaker 1: One had become a relatively increasing and the other a
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Speaker 1: relatively diminishing national quantity. The industrial and social balance between
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Speaker 1: them was hopelessly destroyed. The influence of this fact alone would,
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Speaker 1: in course of time, by the operation of economic laws,
18:16
Speaker 1: redress the political balance between the sections in favor of
18:20
Speaker 1: the Free States. This great North Mid trend of wealth,
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Speaker 1: population and social strength in the Republic early attracted the
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Speaker 1: notice of Southern leaders, who could not conceal the apprehensions
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Speaker 1: which in consequence they felt for the future of the
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Speaker 1: slaveholding states. Calhoun watched it with profound and intense attention.
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Speaker 1: What he saw was calculated to appall a less resolute
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Speaker 1: and indomitable spirit. For clearly it was written in all
18:44
Speaker 1: this northward tilt of population and industrial prosperity, the meaning
18:49
Speaker 1: meaning teko who far sin of Southern domination in the
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Speaker 1: national government, Unless indeed some means were discovered for overcoming
18:57
Speaker 1: and reversing the action of economic laws and forced is
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Speaker 1: at the moment in full play in the Republic, certainly
19:03
Speaker 1: it behooved the weaker section to exert itself in this
19:06
Speaker 1: political extremity. The slave line of eighteen twenty shot slavery
19:11
Speaker 1: within territorial limits which it was never to exceed. The
19:15
Speaker 1: slaves to have created by the Missouri Compromise was now
19:18
Speaker 1: nearly exhausted. The emission of new slave states was about
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Speaker 1: to cease for want of material out of which to
19:23
Speaker 1: carve them. And with this final check to the territorial
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Speaker 1: expansion of the slave power, the slaveholding states would pass
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Speaker 1: in the National Senate as they had long ago passed
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Speaker 1: in the National House, to the hopeless condition of a
19:35
Speaker 1: relatively declining minority to be outnumbered and outvoted on all
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Speaker 1: sexual matters and issues by their non slaveholding arrivals. With
19:44
Speaker 1: the downfall of the South, and the Senate would vanish
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Speaker 1: as a matter of course its long political ascendancy in
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Speaker 1: the Union, and in time its slave institutions would disappear. Also,
19:54
Speaker 1: this horrible possibility oppressed Calhoun like a nightmare. Tormented by
19:58
Speaker 1: gloomy and anxious thoughts for the m future of his
20:00
Speaker 1: section and its industrial system, the veteran slave champion began
20:04
Speaker 1: to question the wisdom of a compromise which he had
20:07
Speaker 1: helped to adopt. In this state of mind, he came
20:09
Speaker 1: to view the Missouri settlement as a cardinal blunder on
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Speaker 1: the side of the South, and to cast about him
20:15
Speaker 1: for some escape out of the trap in which it
20:17
Speaker 1: had caught the slave power. Then it was that Texas
20:22
Speaker 1: rose on our horizon in his struggle for independence. The
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Speaker 1: uprising of Texas against Mexico was the breaking of day
20:28
Speaker 1: on the midnight darkness of the South. In that instant
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Speaker 1: Calhoun's purpose was formed. He would correct the old under
20:34
Speaker 1: of eighteen twenty by the annexation of slave territory, which
20:38
Speaker 1: in the graphic language of Webster, a bird could not
20:41
Speaker 1: fly over in a week out of its immense undefined area.
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Speaker 1: Slave states might be formed, as the southern exigency might demand. So,
20:49
Speaker 1: at least reasoned many of the leaders of that section.
20:52
Speaker 1: The stakes were high, and they played for them with
20:54
Speaker 1: a bold and masterly hand. From small beginnings, the agitation
20:58
Speaker 1: rose under the dexterus management of Calvin to tremendous proportions.
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Speaker 1: Texas or Disunion was the crime which the South finally raised,
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Speaker 1: and it surely expressed the determined and desperate purpose of
21:10
Speaker 1: that section in relation to annexation. The Free States, on
21:14
Speaker 1: the other hand, were not at all disposed to look
21:17
Speaker 1: with favor upon a scheme to augment the slave soil
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Speaker 1: of the country. All the old dread of Southern domination
21:22
Speaker 1: and dissatisfaction with the Southern advantages contained in the original
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Speaker 1: basis of the Union stirred rapfully in the hot heart
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Speaker 1: of the North. As the Texan agitation approached its conclusion,
21:33
Speaker 1: the Southern challenge of Texas or Union was answered by
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Speaker 1: the Northern defiance of no more slave soil, no more
21:41
Speaker 1: slave states. The struggle was long and fierce, leaving on
21:45
Speaker 1: both sections, lasting and bitter effects. It, too, like previous contests,
21:50
Speaker 1: was concluded by a compromise, if that can be called
21:52
Speaker 1: a compromise by which one side makes all the concessions
21:56
Speaker 1: and the other receives every substantial advantage admitted into the union.
22:01
Speaker 1: The slave line of thirty six degrees thirty minutes, as
22:04
Speaker 1: a matter of form, was drawn through it, and a
22:06
Speaker 1: limit imposed upon the number of states which might thereafter
22:10
Speaker 1: be constructed from it. These shattery negative benefits are crude
22:14
Speaker 1: to freedom. Slavery got the rest slavery was triumphant. Freedom
22:17
Speaker 1: had suffered what seemed at the time a disastrous defeat,
22:22
Speaker 1: but there were collateral consequences which, in a measure, compensated
22:26
Speaker 1: to liberty this crushing blow. The moral awakening which grew
22:29
Speaker 1: out of the agitation of the free states, proved an
22:32
Speaker 1: incalculable good, for it accelerated the spread of anti slavery
22:37
Speaker 1: sentiment by the creation of popular conditions favorable to their
22:40
Speaker 1: diffusion and adoption. It enlisted, besides the act of sympathy
22:44
Speaker 1: and cooperation of a highly intelligent and influential class which
22:48
Speaker 1: had previously taken a positive position on the subject of slavery,
22:52
Speaker 1: on the flood, Thus fled. The ambulition movement passed from
22:55
Speaker 1: a state of pure moral agitation to its more momentous
22:59
Speaker 1: phase of organized political opposition to the evil. This annexation controversy,
23:05
Speaker 1: in its progress, consummation and consequences, precipitated at the North
23:09
Speaker 1: the formation of a political party movement along distinctively secondal lines.
23:14
Speaker 1: In this aspect of the matter, the triumph of the
23:16
Speaker 1: South was not an unqualified gain. It must in fact
23:19
Speaker 1: be counted a sort of pyrrhic victory. But this was
23:22
Speaker 1: not all pitched. The devil out of the door, runs
23:25
Speaker 1: an old saw, and he returns through the window troubles
23:28
Speaker 1: assail of the South from an unexpected quarter. She had
23:31
Speaker 1: cast out her dread of northern political ascendency by annexing Texas.
23:36
Speaker 1: But alike and alast, this same dread had returned with
23:39
Speaker 1: tenfold strength on the wings of the Mexican War. Calhoun
23:42
Speaker 1: was techmated. Fate had outgeneraled the slave power. It was
23:48
Speaker 1: the aim of the Texan plotters to augment the southern
23:51
Speaker 1: term of the fraction of federal political power. The acquisition
23:56
Speaker 1: of California and New Mexico frustrated this design by multiplying
24:00
Speaker 1: the northern term of the fraction of federal political power.
24:03
Speaker 1: Calhoun confessed that this juncture that he was no longer
24:07
Speaker 1: able to forecast the future. An impenetrable curtain had dropped
24:10
Speaker 1: between the present and the hereafter, which shut from his
24:13
Speaker 1: vision everything but the stern and overwhelming catastrophe, and no
24:17
Speaker 1: wonder if he and his section had plunged abruptly into
24:20
Speaker 1: one of those terrible blind alleys in which human history abounds,
24:24
Speaker 1: they were entangled and trapped in the toils of their
24:27
Speaker 1: own setting. The engineers of the Texan scheme were hoisted
24:31
Speaker 1: by their own petard end of Chapter six