Latest / Creating America / Episode 21: Slavery, Secession, and the Union | Calhoun, Webster, and the Compromise of 1850
Transcript
- In the late 1840s leading into 1850, new states were going to be added to the Union. This brought up considerations around the subject of slavery and the balance of power between the southern (slave owning) and northern states. The Compromise of 1850 was a legislative package introduced by Henry Clay designed to ease escalating tensions over the expansion of slavery into territories gained from the Mexican-American War. Welcome to the Creating America Podcast, where we are reading through some of the documents and speeches that shaped the United States I’m Will Sarris. I’m an actor and media professional and I’ve always loved the study of history. At one point I realized that often I know ABOUT various speeches and documents that shaped the history of the US, but I haven’t actually read them. Maybe you’re in the same position? Well, I’m a voice actor, so here I hope I can not only read you the text, but make it come alive. Many of these documents and speeches are well known, others you’ve probably never heard of. Some are inspirational, others will probably shock you. As I have stated before, I’m interested in and have studied history over my lifetime, but I am not a historian. I won’t comment too much on these texts, other than to provide a little context. And I’ll try to point you to good historians who can help you out if you want to delve deeper. Additionally, the country has always benefited from a diversity of opinions, and that should be reflected here. So I’ll try to bring you texts from many different sources when I can. We’re proceeding somewhat chronologically through American history, but I’m sure I’ll miss a document of speech you want to hear. If you want to contact me, you can email CreatingAmericaPod@gmail.com and you can interact with me on social media. On Threads, Instagram and Facebook we are “Creating America Pod” and you can also contact me directly many apps. My handle is “williamsarris” one word. And you can subscribe on Patreon at patreon.com/williamsarris. It is my hope that as you listen to these documents and speeches you will gain an appreciation of what our country was, what it is, and what it hopes to be. In the Senate, the debates between John Calhoun and Daniel Webster, arguing over what is knowns as the Compromise of 1850, were a climactic clash between the pro-slavery and nationalist factions of the U.S. Senate. Daniel Webster argued for compromise to preserve the Union, while the ailing John C. Calhoun demanded absolute protection for slavery. The differing perspectives of Calhoun and Webster defined the era's great ideological divide. As a staunch defender of the South, Calhoun argued that the North's numerical majority in Congress threatened the South's "equilibrium" and Constitutional rights. Too ill to speak, he had his colleague read an address on March 4, 1850 address. He demanded that the North completely cease attempts to limit slavery in new territories, and warned that if Southern rights were not protected, secession was the only honorable option. He fundamentally rejected compromise unless it offered full concessions to slaveholders. Seeking to avert civil war, Daniel Webster delivered his famous "Seventh of March" speech in which he urged both sides to make concessions. He famously began by stating, "I wish to speak today, not as a Massachusetts man, nor as a Northern man, but as an American." Webster outraged his Northern abolitionist base by endorsing a stricter Fugitive Slave Act (under which states that had abolished slavery were forced to return runaway slaves in their territory to their masters, part of the compromise) to satisfy Southern demands. However, he strongly cautioned the South that secession would inevitably lead to violent conflict. Calhoun passed away from tuberculosis on March 31, 1850, before the compromise was passed. Webster's impassioned pleas, combined with the efforts of Senator Stephen A. Douglas and President Millard Fillmore, ultimately pushed the measures through. The resulting laws included the admission of California as a free state, the implementation of a harsher Fugitive Slave Act, and allowing residents of the Utah and New Mexico territories to decide the slavery issue for themselves. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 drastically escalated sectional tensions, radicalized the Northern public against slavery, and set the nation on a direct path to the Civil War. It transformed the issue of slavery from a distant Southern problem into a daily, unavoidable reality for Northern citizens. The law required regular citizens to help capture suspected runaway slaves under penalty of heavy fines or imprisonment. Accused African Americans could not testify in court or have a jury trial, outraging Northern legal sensibilities. Federal commissioners were paid $10 if they ruled an individual was a runaway slave, but only $5 if they set them free. Several Northern states passed local laws to deliberately obstruct, delay, or nullify the federal act. Abolitionists forming "vigilance committees" violently clashed with slave catchers, notably during the Christiana Riot of 1851. The secret Underground Railroad network accelerated its operations, shifting its destination targets from Northern states to the safety of Canada. Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote her groundbreaking anti-slavery novel in direct response to the law, fueling massive Northern empathy. The Whig political party split permanently along regional lines over the act, leading to its total collapse. The political vacuum directly birthed the anti-slavery Republican Party, which propelled Abraham Lincoln to power. Today we are going to read excerpts from these long speeches by Calhoun and Webster. You’ll notice that Calhoun insists the south is weaker when it still held a lot of political sway. And of course it goes without saying that he views slavery as the only issue that really separates the two sections. He’s talking about owning other people, and dances around that fact throughout the whole speech. He views slavery as something that defines the south in terms of its culture and economy. Excerpt from John Calhoun’s March 4, 1850 speech to Congress. . . . What is the cause of this discontent? It will be found in the belief of the people of the Southern States, as prevalent as the discontent itself, that they can not remain, as things now are, consistently with honor and safety, in the Union. The next question to be considered is: What has caused this belief? One of the causes is, undoubtedly, to be traced to the long-continued agitation of the slave question on the part of the North, and the many aggressions which they have made on the rights of the South during the time. . . . There is another lying back of it--with which this is intimately connected--that may be regarded as the great and primary cause. This is to be found in the fact that the equilibrium between the two sections in the government as it stood when the Constitution was ratified and the government put in action has been destroyed. At that time there was nearly a perfect equilibrium between the two, which afforded ample means to each to protect itself against the aggression of the other; but, as it now stands, one section has the exclusive power of controlling the government, which leaves the other without any adequate means of protecting itself against its encroachment and oppression. The result of the whole is to give the Northern section a predominance in every department of the government, and thereby concentrate in it the two elements which constitute the federal government: a majority of States, and a majority of their population, estimated in federal numbers. Whatever section concentrates the two in itself possesses the control of the entire government . . . Unless something decisive is done, I again ask, What is to stop this agitation before the great and final object at which it aims--the abolition of slavery in the States--is consummated? Is it, then, not certain that if something is not done to arrest it, the South will be forced to choose between abolition and secession? . . . But surely that can with no propriety of language be called a Union when the only means by which the weaker is held connected with the stronger portion is force. It may, indeed, keep them connected; but the connection will partake much more of the character of subjugation on the part of the weaker to the stronger than the union of free, independent, and sovereign States in one confederation, as they stood in the early stages of the government, and which only is worthy of the sacred name of Union. . . . How can the Union be saved? To this I answer, there is but one way by which it can be, and that is by adopting such measures as will satisfy the States belonging to the Southern section that they can remain in the Union consistently with their honor and their safety. There is, again, only one way by which this can be effected, and that is by removing the causes by which this belief has been produced. Do this, and discontent will cease, harmony and kind feelings between the sections be restored, and every apprehension of danger to the Union removed. The question, then, is, How can this be done? There is but one way by which it can with any certainty; and that is by a full and final settlement, n the principle of justice, of all the questions at issue between the two sections. The South asks for justice, simple justice, and less she ought not to take. She has no compromise to offer but the Constitution, and no concession or surrender to make. She has already surrendered so much that she has little left to surrender. Such a settlement would go to the root of the evil, and remove all cause of discontent, by satisfying the South that she could remain honorably and safely in the Union, and thereby restore the harmony and fraternal feelings between the sections which existed anterior to the Missouri agitation. Nothing else can, with any certainty, finally and for ever settle the question at issue, terminate agitation, and save the Union. But can this be done? Yes, easily; not by the weaker party, for it can of itself do nothing--not even protect itself-- but by the stronger. The North has only to will it to accomplish it--to do justice by conceding to the South an equal right in the acquired territory, and to do her duty by causing the stipulations relative to fugitive slaves to be faithfully fulfilled—to cease the agitation of the slave question, and to provide for the insertion of a provision in the Constitution, by an amendment, which will restore to the South, in substance, the power she possessed of protecting herself before the equilibrium between the sections was destroyed by the action of this government. There will be no difficulty in devising such a provision--one that will protect the South, and which at the same time will improve and strengthen the government instead of impairing and weakening it. But will the North agree to this? It is for her to answer the question. But, I will say, she can not refuse if she has half the love of the Union which she professes to have, or without justly exposing herself to the charge that her love of power and aggrandizement is far greater than her love of the Union. At all events, the responsibility of saving the Union rests on the North, and not on the South. The South can not save it by any act of hers, and the North may save it without any sacrifice whatever, unless to do justice and to perform her duties under the Constitution should be regarded by her as a sacrifice. . . . If the question is not now settled, it is uncertain whether it ever can hereafter be; and we, as the representatives of the States of this Union regarded as governments, should come to a distinct understanding as to our respective views, in order to ascertain whether the great questions at issue can be settled or not. If you who represent the stronger portion, can not agree to settle them on the broad principle of justice and duty, say so; and let the States we both represent agree to separate and part in peace. If you are unwilling we should part in peace, tell us so; and we shall know what to do when you reduce the question to submission or resistance. If you remain silent, you will compel us to infer by your acts what you intend. In that case California will become the test question. If you admit her under all the difficulties that oppose her admission, you compel us to infer that you intend to exclude us from the whole of the acquired Territories, with the intention of destroying irretrievably the equilibrium between the two sections. We should be blind not to perceive in that case that your real objects are power and aggrandizement, and infatuated, not to act accordingly . . . Now we turn to Daniel Webster. John Calhoun was definitely in favor of secession. And you’ll hear Daniel Webster be passionately in favor of keeping the Union. Yet, Webster seems to think slavery is just fine and part of how people grew up. He thinks that Southerners, who grew up with slavery from birth, treat slaves with kindness and respect, which we know was not true, and we’ll hear more from abolitionists in future episodes, including Frederick Douglass, who was a slave himself. Daniel Webster, March 7, 1850 . . . Now, Sir, upon the general nature and influence of slavery there exists a wide difference of opinion between the northern portion of this country and the southern. It is said on the one side, that, although not the subject of any injunction or direct prohibition in the New Testament, slavery is a wrong; that it is founded merely in the right of the strongest; and that is an oppression, like unjust wars,. . . These are the sentiments that are cherished, and of late with greatly augmented force, among the people of the Northern States . . . The South, upon the other side, having been accustomed to this relation between two races all their lives, from their birth, having been taught, in general, to treat the subjects of this bondage with care and kindness, and I believe, in general, feeling great kindness for them, have not taken the view of the subject which I have mentioned. There are thousands of religious men, with consciences as tender as any of their brethren at the North, who do not see the unlawfulness of slavery; and there are more thousands, perhaps, that whatsoever they may think of it in its origin, and as a matter depending upon natural right, yet take things as they are, and, finding slavery to be an established relation of the society in which they live, can see no way in which, let their opinions on the abstract question be what they may, it is in the power of the present generation to relieve themselves from this relation . . . Then, Sir, there are the Abolition societies . . . I do not think them useful. I think their operations for the last twenty years have produced nothing good or valuable. At the same time, I believe thousands of their members to be honest and good men, perfectly well-meaning men. They have excited feelings; they think they must do something for the cause of liberty; and, in their sphere of action, they do not see what else they can do than to contribute to an Abolition press, or an Abolition society, or to pay an Abolition lecturer. I do not mean to impute gross motives even to the leaders of these societies, but I am not blind to the consequences of their proceedings. I cannot but see what mischiefs their interference with the South has produced... There can be no such thing as peaceable secession. Peaceable secession is an utter impossibility. Is the great Constitution under which we live, covering this whole country, is it to be thawed and melted away by secession, as the snows on the mountain melt under the influence of a vernal sun, disappear almost unobserved, and run off? No, Sir! No, Sir! I will not state what might produce the disruption of the Union; but, Sir, I see as plainly as I see the sun in heaven what that disruption itself must produce; I see that it must produce war, and such a war as I will not describe, in its twofold character. Peaceable secession! Peaceable secession! The concurrent agreement of all the members of this great republic to separate! A voluntary separation, with alimony on one side and on the other. Why, what would be the result? Where is the line to be drawn? What States are to seceded? What is to remain American? What am I to be? An American no longer? Am I to become a sectional man, a local man, a separatist, with no country in common with the gentlemen who sit around me here, or who fill the other house of Congress? . . . there are impossibilities in the natural as well as in the physical world, and I hold the idea of a separation of these States, those that are free to form one government, and those that are slave-holding to form another, as such an impossibility. We could not separate the States by any such line, if we were to draw it. We could not sit down here to-day and draw a line of separation that would satisfy any five men in the country. There are natural causes that would keep and tie us together, and there are social and domestic relations which we could not break if we would, and which we should not if we could.... And now, Mr. President, instead of speaking of the possibility or utility of secession, instead of dwelling in those caverns of darkness, instead of groping with those ideas so full of all that is horrid and horrible, let us come out into the light of day; let us enjoy the fresh air of Liberty and Union . . . Never did there devolve on any generation of men higher trusts than now devolve upon us, for the preservation of this Constitution and the harmony and peace of all who are destined to live under it. Let us make our generation one of the strongest and brightest links in that golden chain which is destined, I fondly believe, to grapple the people of all the States to this Constitution for ages to come. We have a great, popular, constitutional government, guarded by law and by judicature, and defended by the affections of the whole people. No monarchical throne presses these States together, no iron chain of military power encircles them; they live and stand under a government popular in its form, representative in its character, founded upon principles of equality, and so constructed, we hope, as to last for ever. In all its history it has been beneficent; it has trodden down no man's liberty; it has crushed no State. Its daily respiration is liberty and patriotism; its yet youthful veins are full of enterprise, courage, and honorable love of glory and renown. We’ll see in future episodes the fallout from the Compromise of 1850. Thanks for listening to this episode of Creating America, where we read the documents and speeches that shaped the United States as we know it today. I’m Will Sarris, your host and narrator. This show is written and produced by me. If you like this podcast, please subscribe and rate the show and share it with your friends. 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