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THE

AMERICAN REVIEW,

No. XXVII.

FOR MARCH, 1850.

POLICY OF THE NATION IN REGARD TO SLAVERY AND
ITS EXTENSION.

PRESIDENT TAYLOR'S SPECIAL MESSAGE ON THE TERRITORIES.'
MR. CLAY'S RESOLUTIONS AND SPEECH.†

portant that can be entered upon; it must be impartial, and purely deliberative; from a point of view at once humane and prudent, but from which the interest of the nation as a whole shall be seen as paramount to that of any one of its members;a point of view which needs no apology on his part who assumes it, and which, if correctly taken, with a sufficient knowledge of facts and a proper determination to abide by the great laws of nature and necessity, must lead to a conclusion, final, salutary, and that defies exception.

WE APPROACH the subject before us with feelings of unfeigned anxiety; it is not our intention to discuss it at large, or to weary the reader by repeating what has been already said, or demonstrating in new forms of argument what is already established. We do not feel called upon to show, that the general government must not interfere with the State sovereignties, nor directly or indirectly attempt any modification of their institutions; nor do we feel obliged to enter again upon a demonstration of the full powers of the central government over the territories of the nation. We look at these The first of these lines of policy is that things as established, and we are willing which has been advocated, and is strongly that those who differ with us in regard to urged, by the majority of Northern legisthem, should continue to differ; awaiting lators, namely the suppression and prevenfor them, on our part, the slow but cer- tion of slavery in all territories of the Unitain triumph of reason and common sense. ted States, by an act of the central governThe seed of truth has been sown; nature ment. We propose to discuss the expediand time will cause it to grow and to pre-ency of such a measure; not its constituvail.

What we now offer to our readers is an enquiry into the relative merits of three distinct lines of policy which have been proposed to be followed by the nation in the treatment of slavery and its extension. The enquiry is at present the most im

tionality; since we have already claimed for the national government a full and absolute sovereignty over the territories of the nation. We have used the word "expediency" as of large import, and having a moral, as well as a prudential significance and value.

*National Intelligencer, Jan. 22d, 1850. †National Intelligencer. Also, Congressional Summary of this number. See page 320.

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The experience of every moral being will have taught him that there are situations in life from which the line of abstract justice, in its narrow and restricted sense, cannot be pursued. There are virtues in conduct, which, under the names of mercy, generosity, forbearance, and long suffering, are claimed to be among the highest attributes of humanity, revealing traits of divinity in man, and obtaining for him a respect which is denied to the merely just and retributive. A measure may be constitutional, but it may be ill-timed or inhumane: it may be constitutional, and yet smack of arbitrary power, of oppression it may, like the Wilmot Proviso, carry with it a sentiment of disrespect towards the minority; seeming to impugn the motives and discredit the intentions of great numbers-numbers forming a third part of the entire moral and intellectual force of the nation. It may be impolitic, as creating formidable dangers for the Commonwealth; enemies, plotters for disunion, conspirators, upon whom the law has no grasp, and against which the nation cannot defend itself. Such a measure, it seems to us, would be a legislative act passed in Congress by a mere majority, at the present moment, abolishing slavery, if it exists, and forbidding it if it does not exist, in every portion of the national territory. We hold to, and have steadily defended, the constitutionality of such a measure, and under other circumstances, we should advocate its immediate adoption: our first objection to it is its impolicy.

Measures are impolitic when they defeat the end for which they are adopted. They may be just and lawful in themselves, but fatal in their consequences.

They are impolitic, when their adoption at the present time will ensure their reversal and hopeless defeat at a future time. They are impolitic when, notwithstanding their intrinsic justice, appearances are against them. If, for example, appearances are such against the measure called the Wilmot Proviso, that it is regarded by those against whom it is directed, as an insult, or as a stroke for power, or a measure not calculated for itself, but for certain results not foreseen by the public generally and serving factious ends, it would be impolitic to pursue it. Even

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though a bare majority might establish it, or something resembling it, if its passage by such a feeble power served only to rally its adversaries to crush it with a second effort, the measure would have been impolitic: it involves too much to be trusted on a bare majority.

Those who desire, not for factious ends nor from any passion of revolution stimulated by vain theories, to witness the final extinction of slavery within the Union-to witness the extinction of an evil by the substitution of a good-the extinction of slavery by the only possible humane and equitable method, rendering justice alike to the slave and his master,-the method of amelioration-would do well to consider whether violent attacks upon that institution, are not more likely to prolong its existence than to effect their own truly humane purpose: Such attacks are impolitie.

It matters not whether an offensive aggression be direct or oblique; whether it be couched in courteous or opprobrious language; whether it be a measure attached to a bill, or the bill itself; whether it be a block thrown before the wheels, or a clog attached behind them: if its motive be insult and aggression, that motive will be penetrated by those against whom it is directed, and the insult will be the more bitterly felt as it is more ingeniously contrived.

Let Northern constituents, before they "instruct their Senators or advise their Representatives" to adopt the measure that is so offensive to the South, consider how that measure originated: it was adopted under the supposition that the war with Mexico originated in a secret and unavowed intention of the South to extend the area of slavery. The majority of Southern Senators and Representatives disavowed that intention: a proviso was brought forward which gave them the lie direct: which said to them, 'if you insist upon the acquisition of territory it shall not at least be slave territory.'

The South openly disavowed this intention: a proviso was brought forward, as a public act, founded upon the supposition that the majority of the South had been guilty of a falsehood. We have said, the majority. A few there were, certainly, among Southern Representatives, who intimated such intentions as those against which the Pro

viso was directed, but they were a minority; they were few in number; individually of little weight; and we do not remember that their intentions were openly expressed in the councils of the nation. It was, then, against the unavowed intentions of the entire South that the Proviso was directed; it was an aggravation, and nothing more: had it passed, as a political measure it was worthless and ineffectual.

To understand its merit and effect as a law, we have first to observe, that it is a fact that slavery had been abolished in all the territories of the Mexican Republic long previous to the cession of any part of those territories to the United States. It is unnecessary to enter here upon any historical examination of the proceedings of the Mexican Government for the effectual abolition of slavery in its territories. We are not to enquire whether slavery, de facto, existed in defiance of the laws of Mexico, in any part of that Republic. If such slavery did exist, it was unlawful; a local evil, and not to be taken into the account after the cession of any portion of Mexico to the United States.

The Proviso was directed (it follows of necessity) against the possibility of the establishment, by Act of Congress, of slavery in territories where it did not exist,-in territories ceded by a Republic which had finally abolished that institution. The Proviso rested upon the supposition that it was a competent act for the general government of the Union to re-establish slavery in a region in which it had been abolished by the laws of another country; and, upon the supposition that Congress might, nay, probably would, perpetrate such a mischief. Had the Proviso become a law it would have been ineffectual. If the succeeding Congress had been determined, as the movers of the Proviso imagined they might be, upon establishing slavery in any part of the territories, it would have been as easy to rescind the Proviso as to do the thing so much feared. Would such a Congress have allowed itself to be shackled by such a Proviso? Would not the South then have argued for, as they have now against, the full sovereignty of the nation over its territory? Nay, would not they have claimed that this Proviso was an attempt to defeat the just and necessary legislation of succeeding ages? Would they not have

argued that it was no law, but the effort of a feeble majority to establish a fundamental law?-the effort of the majority of two or three to establish a principle of legislation for all future times? Would it not be easy for a Congress, roused by such considerations, to rescind the Proviso ?

Money was to have been appropriated for the addition of new territories to the Union, on the condition that, in the event of acquiring such territories, slavery should not be permitted or established upon them. Should not be established by whom?-by the general government? But in case the majority of the succeeding year chose to disregard the Proviso, before whom lies the appeal? The Proviso was not to be a clause in the Constitution, but an act of a mere majority, reversible by a succeeding majority; it was the mere majority of one year attempting to control the majority of the next; it was, therefore, in this sense, an impolitic measure,-as its very enactment would have weakened the cause it was intended to support, and would have drawn on the party of the South to attempt a direct legislation in favor of the establishment of slavery in the territories. It was the evident supposition of the Proviso that such an attempt would be made, and the supposition that it would be made couched in the form of law, would have ensured its being made.

It was a sullen spirit of opposition, a suspicious and a sullen spirit which dietated the form of the Proviso-a childish plucking at the skirts of one who has irresistibly moved by us. It implied, indeed, had it passed, a full confidence in the right of Congress to legislate for the territories, but its movers did not rely upon the direct exertion of that right; it expressed in them a fear that when the territory was acquired, it would not be in their power to prevent the extension of slavery upon it; it was a confession of weakness. If we are resolved that no part of the new territories shall be given up to the South, and deem it not only constitutional, but politic, to wrest them away-if we hold the consequences of such a measure in light estimation, let us legislate effectually. If you can obtain a majority for a Proviso attached to a bill, you can obtain a majority for an entire bill. We say, then, bury the Proviso out of sight,

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