The Age of Gold (43 page)
Authors: H.W. Brands
In opposing California, Calhoun said, the South simply asked for justice—no more than it deserved, but neither any less. The South was satisfied to remain in the Union, but only so long as its rights were honored. Gentlemen spoke of settling differences between the sections. “Can this be done? Yes, easily; but 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.” The North must concede the South’s equal rights in California and the other the acquired territories. It must fulfill its duty regarding fugitive slaves. It must cease agitation of the slave question.
Calhoun mocked the calls of northerners for “Union.” “The cry of
‘Union, Union, the glorious Union!’ can no more prevent disunion than the cry of ‘Health, health, glorious health!’ on the part of the physician can save a patient lying dangerously ill.” Besides, the cry of “Union” commonly came not from those dedicated to its preservation but from those bent on its destruction, through such crimes as the imposing of California on the rest of the country. Calhoun gave a grim warning, and ominously washed his hands of what might follow.
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 would be blind not to perceive, in that case, that your real objects are power and aggrandizement, and infatuated not to act accordingly.
I have now, Senators, done my duty in expressing my opinions fully, freely, and candidly, on this solemn occasion. In doing so, I have been governed by the motives which have governed me in all the stages of the agitation of the slavery question since its commencement. I have exerted myself, during the whole period, to arrest it, with the intention of saving the Union, if it could be done; and, if it could not, to save the section where it has pleased Providence to cast my lot, and which I sincerely believe has justice and the Constitution on its side. Having faithfully done my duty to the best of my ability, both to the Union and my section, throughout this agitation, I shall have the consolation, let what will come, that I am free from all responsibility.
D
ANIEL WEBSTER FOLLOWED
Clay. From youth, the New Englander’s swarthy appearance seemed an apt complement to his dark intensity. “He was a black, raven-haired fellow,” recalled one who knew him then, “with an eye as black as death, and as heavy as a lion’s—and no lion in Africa ever had a voice like him, and his look was like a lion’s—that
same heavy look, not sleepy, but as if he didn’t care about any thing that was going on about any thing; but as if he would think like a hurricane if he once got worked up to it.” Webster’s reputation grew until he came to be considered the greatest orator in an age that prized the ability to speak. Generations of schoolchildren memorized the closing line of his address in the nullification debate: “Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!” Thenceforth he was regularly referred to as “the God-like Daniel.” A British observer was moved to declare, “That man is a fraud, for it is impossible for anyone to be as great as he looks.”
Accordingly, an expectant hush fell over the Senate when Webster rose to answer Calhoun. “I wish to speak today,” he said, “not as a Massachusetts man, nor as a northern man, but as an American.” Southerners groaned at this appropriation of the national label, but such was Webster’s manner that none openly disputed it. “We live in the midst of strong agitations, and are surrounded by very considerable dangers,” he went on.
The imprisoned winds are let loose. The East, the West, the North, and the stormy South, all combine to throw the whole ocean into commotion, to toss its billows to the skies, and to disclose its profoundest depths. I do not affect to regard myself, Mr. President, as holding, or as fit to hold, the helm in this combat of political elements; but I have a duty to perform, and I mean to perform it with fidelity—not without a sense of surrounding dangers, but not without hope. I have a part to act, not for my own security or safety, for I am looking out for no fragment upon which to float away from the wreck, if wreck there must be, but for the good of the whole, and the preservation of the whole; and there is that which will keep me to my duty during this struggle, whether the sun and the stars shall appear, or shall not appear, for many days. I speak today for the preservation of the Union. Hear me for my cause!
Webster inquired how the current crisis had come about, the present tempest arisen. He made no claim that high ideals drove the peopling of
California. “In January of 1848, the Mormons, it is said, or some of them, made a discovery of an extraordinarily rich mine of gold; or, rather, of a very great quantity of gold, hardly fit to be called a mine, for it was spread near the surface—on the lower part of the south or American branch of the Sacramento.” Webster’s geography was a little shaky, but not the thrust of his argument. “The digging commenced in the spring of that year, and from that time to this, the work of searching for gold has been prosecuted with a success not heretofore known in the history of this globe.” From all over the world, and from all across the United States, gold-seekers flocked to the mines. Yet even as their numbers mounted, and with their numbers their need for the security of government, Congress had failed to act. So they took responsibility on themselves. They called a convention at Monterey and wrote a constitution that they subsequently submitted to the people of California, who approved it. All the Californians asked now was the belated blessing of the federal government on their efforts.
It was not their fault that in seeking admission they had reopened the question of slavery. Yet in a certain sense the question had
not
been reopened, for nature herself decreed where slavery might profitably be practiced, and where not. The law of nature—“of physical geography, the law of the formation of the earth”—spoke with an authority the institutions of man could only envy. “That law settles forever, with a strength beyond all terms of human enactment, that slavery cannot exist in California.” Here Webster explained that he was speaking of slavery on a large scale: plantation slavery. Domestic servants might be taken west and kept indefinitely. But slavery as a general institution could never thrive there.
Webster concluded from this—to the surprise and discomfiture of some of his northern supporters—that the Wilmot Proviso was superfluous, and in fact counterproductive. Providence had made any such prohibition on Western slavery unnecessary, and the very act of prohibition needlessly antagonized the South. The South had a right to feel aggrieved.
But not so aggrieved as to speak of secession, the way Calhoun did. “I hear with pain, and anguish, and distress, the word secession, especially when it falls from the lips of those who are eminently patriotic, and known
to the country, and known all over the world, for their political services.” With Clay, Webster denied the possibility of peaceable secession.
Peaceable secession! Sir, your eyes and mine are never destined to see that miracle. The dismemberment of this vast country without convulsion! The breaking up of the fountains of the great deep without ruffling the surface! Who is so foolish—I beg everybody’s pardon—as to expect to see any such thing?…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 secede? What is to remain American? What am I to be—an American no longer? Where is the flag of the Republic to remain? Where is the eagle still to tower? Or is he to cower, and shrink, and fall to the ground? Why, sir, our ancestors—our fathers, and our grandfathers, those of them that are yet living among us with prolonged lives—would rebuke and reproach us; and our children, and our grandchildren, would cry out, Shame upon us! if we, of this generation, should dishonor these ensigns of the power of the Government, and the harmony of the Union, which is every day felt among us with so much joy and gratitude.
This wild talk must cease, and be supplanted by earnest effort, motivated by all the goodwill honest men could muster.
Instead of speaking of the possibility or utility of secession, instead of dwelling in these 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; let us cherish those hopes which belong to us; let us devote ourselves to those great objects that are fit for our consideration and our action; let us raise our conceptions to the magnitude and the importance of the duties that devolve upon us; let our comprehension
be as broad as the country for which we act, our aspirations as high as its certain destiny.
J
OHN AND JESSIE FRéMONT
observed the debate from the Senate gallery and participated from the sidelines. To all who would listen they explained that right and justice were with the Californians. “The Government of the United States has been three years indebted to the people of California for property taken and services rendered, and during this time they have been without representation, and without protection” asserted a letter published in the
National Intelligencer
over the signature of John but which almost certainly was edited, if not drafted, by Jessie.
Jessie had an additional stake in the debate, for her father was one of the leading antagonists. On the afternoon of June 10, Thomas Benton rose to address the Senate. Since March, Clay’s package of proposals had been referred to an ad hoc committee (called the Committee of Thirteen) and crafted into a single bill, largely at the instance of Henry Foote of Mississippi, who wished to ensure that the concessions to the South not be separated from the rest of Clay’s package. Clay initially opposed the one-bill approach; after Foote spoke in favor, Clay derided Foote’s “omnibus speech, in which he introduced all sorts of things and every sort of passenger, and myself among the number.” But such was Foote’s influence that Clay felt obliged to go along (in the process adding a term—omnibus—to the American political lexicon).
Benton refused to join Clay on the omnibus ride. As the elder statesman of the Senate, Benton took very seriously the dignity of the upper house, and he felt insulted at being presented with an all-or-nothing choice. Besides, as a staunch opponent of slavery, he resisted the concessions to slaveholders the Clay formula entailed. Moreover, as one with a long history of supporting Western expansion, he resented that California should be held hostage to such extraneous matters as slavery in the District of Columbia. Finally, he didn’t like Clay, and he absolutely despised Foote, whose tongue was as sharp as Benton’s temper was short.
At one point the Benton-Foote feud turned almost deadly. On
April 17, Foote assailed Benton as a “calumniator.” Benton responded by rising from his desk on the Senate floor and striding angrily toward the Mississippian. Foote, a small, slight man, feared the worst from the bruising Benton. He pulled a revolver, aimed it at Benton, and cocked it.
As colleagues hastily intervened, Benton threw them aside. “Let the assassin fire!” he shouted. “A pistol has been brought here to assassinate me!”
Foote responded that he was only defending himself, being no match physically for Benton.
Benton refused to be mollified. “No assassin has a right to draw a pistol on me!” he bellowed.
By now the gun had been taken from Foote, and the mortal danger passed. Several senators demanded Foote’s expulsion; others were willing to settle for an investigation. The investigation proved nothing except that the debate over California was as ugly and explosive as anything the legislators had ever experienced.
In Benton’s speech of June 10, he showered scorn upon the Foote-Clay omnibus. “This batch of bills is not to be a law freely made by Congress,” he asserted, “but a compact to be swallowed, and swallowed whole, under the penalty of party execution and political damnation.” The committee responsible for the omnibus bill had crafted a “monster.” Benton intoned, “I proceed to the destruction of this monster.”
Benton’s heaviest blows were directed at the link between California’s admission and the sundry complaints of the slaveholders. “The California bill is made the scape-goat of all the sins of slavery in the United States— that California which is innocent of all these sins.” In case his listeners had forgotten what a scapegoat originally was, Benton reminded them: “an innocent and helpless animal, loaded with sins which were not his own, and made to die for offences which he had never committed.” Benton continued, “So of California. She is innocent of all the evils of slavery in the United States, yet they are all to be packed upon her back, and herself sacrificed under the heavy load.” California should have been admitted as soon as her constitution arrived, but the men now promoting the omnibus refused. “She has been delayed long, and is now endangered by this attempt to couple her with the territories [New Mexico and Utah], with
which she has no connection, and to involve her in the Wilmot Proviso question, from which she is free.” Nor was that all. “Now she is joined to Texas also, and must be damned if not strong enough to save Texas.” And there was still more: the question of slavery in the District of Columbia, and of the fugitive slaves. “The conjunction of these bills illustrates all the evils of joining incoherent subjects together. It presents a revolting enormity, of which all the evils go to an innocent party, which has done all in its power to avoid them.” California wanted nothing to do with the slavery quarrel, as she had demonstrated in her convention. “Existence and relief, is her cry!” the Senate must answer, affirmatively.
Benton’s blows accomplished their purpose. Encouraged by their senior colleague, the opponents of the omnibus bill amended it, reamended it, rescinded the amendments, and cast such a spell of confusion about the whole business that when it finally came to a vote on July 31, it failed. “The omnibus is overturned!” Benton cried triumphantly.