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NOMINATION OF MR. FREMONT. -
NORTHERN SENTIMENT. - DEFENCE OF REPUBLICAN PARTY. - VISIT TO CANADA. -
CONGRESSIONAL CAREER, 1857. - LETTERS.
JOHN C. FREMONT was
nominated as the Republican candidate for president in the convention
held at Philadelphia, June 17, 1836, on platform opposing the repeal of
the Missouri Compromise, the extension of slavery into the free
Territories, the policy of the pro-slavery administration of Mr. Pierce,
and in favor of a railroad to the Pacific, and the admission of Kansas
as a free State into the Union. Mr. Wilson, though not a delegate, was
present at the convention, where he was most cordially received, and
where he brought forward Mr. Dayton for vice-president. On return from
Congress, he went into the presidential contest with his usual ardor,
delivering powerful speeches before immense audiences, in which he
rebuked the aggressive spirit of the South and the pusillanimity of the
administration, and developed the principles of the Republican party.
In a festival of the Sons
of New Hampshire, held at Natick Aug. 18, he was greeted with tremendous
applause, and his senatorial course commended. The indignity cast on
Massachusetts by the dastardly assault on Mr. Sumner, and the arrogance
of the border ruffians, were converting rapidly her conservatives to
Republicanism; and great enthusiasm for the liberal candidates was
manifested, especially by the working-people.
It was generally admitted
that Mr. Fremont would be elected; and mutterings were heard, that, in
such event, the South would dissolve the Union. Senator Butler said, "If
he should be chosen, I shall advise my legislature to go at the tap of
the drum;" and Mr. Toombs of Georgia, that "the Union would be
dissolved, and ought to be dissolved."
But the action of the
third party in the nomination of Mr. Fillmore brought James Buchanan
into the executive chair. The large vote cast, however, for the
Republican candidate, revealed the strength of the party, the sentiment
of the North, and abundantly repaid the exertion which the contest cost.
On entering Congress in
December, Mr. Wilson introduced a bill to organize the Territory of
Kansas and Nebraska on the 16th inst.; and on the 10th made a speech of
masterly ability in defence of the acts and principles of his
organization, which had an immense circulation through the country, and
fully sustained his reputation as an orator, a statistician, and a
statesman. In it he said,-
"On the 4th of November
last, more than thirteen hundred thousand men, intelligent, patriotic,
liberty-loving, law-abiding citizens of New England the great Central
States, and of the North-west, holding with our republican fathers that
all men are are created equal, and have an inalienable right to liberty;
that the Constitution of the United States was ordained and established
to secure that inalienable right everywhere under its exclusive
authority; denying 'the authority of Congress, of a Territorial
legislature, of any individual, or association of individuals, to give
legal existence to slavery in any Territory of the United States while
the present Constitution shall be maintained,'— pronounced through the
ballot-box that 'the Constitution confers upon Congress sovereign power
over the Territories of the United States; and that, in the exercise of
this power, it is both the right and the duty of Congress to prohibit in
the Territories those twin relics of barbarism, polygamy and slavery.'
Believing with Franklin, that 'slavery is an atrocious debasement of
human nature;' with Adams, that 'consenting to slavery is a sacrilegious
breach of trust;' with Jefferson, that 'one hour of American slavery is
fraught with more misery than ages of that which we rose in rebellion to
oppose;' with Madison, that 'slavery is a dreadful calamity,' -that
'imbecility is ever attendant upon a country filled with slaves;' with
Monroe, that 'slavery has preyed on the vitals of the community in all
the States where it has existed;' with Montesquieu, 'that even the very
earth, which teems with profusion under the cultivating hand of the
free-born laborer, shrinks into barrenness from the contaminating sweat
of a slave,- they pronounced their purpose to be to save Kansas, now in
peril, and all the Territories of the republic, for the free laboring-men
of the North and the South, their children, and their children's
children, forever.
"Accepting the
Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States as
their political charts; avowing their purposes to be to maintain the
Constitution, the Federal Union, and the rights of the States;
proclaiming everywhere their purpose not to make war upon the South, not
to interfere with the legal and constitutional rights of the people of
any of the States,- they gave their votes with the profoundest
conviction that they were discharging the duties sanctioned by humanity,
patriotism, and religion."
He thus denied the
charges of the president -
"Assuming, Mr. President,
that his policy has been sanctioned by the election, the president
proceeds to accuse more than thirteen hundred thousand American citizens
of an attempt to organize a sectional party, and usurp the government of
the country. He proceeds to arraign more than thirteen hundred thousand
citizens of the free North, and to charge them with forming associations
of individuals, 'who, pretending to seek only to prevent the spread of
slavery into the present or future inchoate States, are really inflamed
with a desire to change the domestic institutions of existing States;'
with seeking 'an object which they well know to be a revolutionary one;'
with entering 'a path which leads nowhere, unless it be to civil war and
disunion;' with being 'perfectly aware that the only path to the
accomplishment' of the change they seek 'is through burning cities and
ravaged fields and slaughtered populations;' with endeavoring 'to
prepare the people of the United States for civil war, by doing every
thing in their power to deprive the Constitution and the laws of moral
authority, and to undermine the fabric of the Union by appeals to
passion and sectional prejudice, by indoctrinating its people with
reciprocal hatred, and by educating them, stand face to face as
enemies.' "Sir, I
deny each, every one, ay, all, of these charges. There is not the
semblance of truth in them. If the serpent that stole into Eden, that
beguiled our first mother, which the angels
'Found
Squat like a toad at the ear of Eve,'
had glided into the executive mansion, that
serpent could not have hissed into the president's ear words more
skilfully adapted to express the precise and exact opposite of truth.
Sir, these accusations against as intelligent and patriotic men as as
ever rallied around the standard of Freedom are untruthful and
malignant, showing that the shafts hurled in the conflict through which
we have just passed rankle in his bosom."
Of the issues and the real agitator he said,
- "Surely senators
cannot be surprised at the discussion of questions so vast as those
which grow out of the slavery of nearly four millions of men in America.
American slavery, our connections with it, and our relations to it, and
the obligations these connections and relations impose upon us as men,
as citizens of the States and the United States, make up the
overshadowing issues of the age in which we live. Philanthropists, who
have sounded the depths and shoals of humanity; scholars, who have laid
under contribution the domain of matter and of mind, of philosophic
inquiry and historical research; statesmen, who are impressing their
genius upon the institutions of their country and their age, all are now
illustrating, by their genius, learning, and eloquence, the vast and
complicated issues involved in the great problems we of this age in
America, are working out. The transcendent magnitude of the interests
involved in the existence and expansion of the system of human bondage
in America is arresting the attention of the people, and stirring the
country to its profoundest depths.
"The senator from Tennessee (Mr. Jones)
quoted a remark of mine, to the effect that this agitation of the
slavery question would never cease while the soil of the republic should
be trod by the foot of a slave. That sentiment I repeat here to-day. I
believe it. GOD is the great agitator. While his throne stands,
agitation will go on until the foot of a slave shall not press the soil
of the Eastern or Western continent."
Of the Union sentiment of his party he
remarked, - "Then
we are charged in the message with having entered upon a path which has
no possible outlet but disunion. When the Republican party was
organized, the avowal was made that the Union must be maintained. The
declaration of Mr. Webster, 'Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and
inseparable;' the declaration of Andrew Jackson, 'The Union must be
preserved,'— were borne throughout the canvass on all our banners. In
the public press, and before the people everywhere, the doctrine was
maintained that we were for the Union; and if any men, North or South,
laid their hands upon it, they should die, if we had the power, traitor
deaths, and leave traitor names in the history of the republic."
He thus rebuked the sneer of "bleeding
Kansas":- "Sir, the
senator from Texas spoke sneeringly of 'bleeding Kansas.' Throughout the
canvass, our efforts in favor of making Kansas a free State, and
protecting the legal rights of the people, were sneered at as 'shrieks
for Freedom' and for 'bleeding Kansas.' I remember that on the evening
when the news came to New York that Pennsylvania was carried, in
October, the Empire Club came out with cannon, banners, and
transparencies. The Five Points, where the waves of abolition fanaticism
have never reached, - the inhabitants of that locality, like the people
of the Lower Egypt of the West, stood fifty to one by the Democracy; the
Fire Points and the Sixth Ward were out; and upon a transparency, borne
through the streets of the great commercial capital of the Western
world, was the picture of three scourged black men; and on that
transparency were the words, 'Bleeding Kansas.' I thought then that it
was a degradation which had reached the profoundest depths of
humiliation; but even that degradation has been surpassed here in the
national capital. In that procession which passed along these avenues
but a few evenings before we came here - a procession formed under the
immediate eyes of the chiefs of the executive departments of the
government, and filled with their retainers, led by government officials
- was borne upon a transparency the words, 'Sumner and Kansas, - let
them bleed!' "The
senator from Texas may sneer, and others may sneer, at 'bleeding
Kansas;' but I tell him one thing, - that the next day at ten o'clock,
after the presidential election, there was an assemblage of men,
continuing through two days, in the city of Boston, from several States,
and from 'bleeding Kansas,' - men, some of whom you guarded through the
summer. months for treason, - assembled together to take measures to
save Kansas; and I assure that senator, and others who may think this
struggle for Kansas is ended with the election, that more money has been
contributed since that election than during any three months of the
whole controversy. Thousands of garments have been sent to clothe that
suffering people. We have resolved, -and we mean to keep that
resolution, - that if by any lawful effort, any personal sacrifice,
Kansas can be saved to Freedom, it shall be saved in spite of your
present administration, or an thing that your incoming administration
can do." Respecting
freedom of speech, he spoke as follows -
"But we are charged by the president with
inculcating a spirit which would lead the people of the North and South
to stand face to face as enemies. Sir, I repel that charge as utterly
and wholly false. There is no such feeling in the Northern States
towards the people of the South. But a few months ago, the senator from
Georgia (Mr. Toombs), whose views upon this question of slavery are
known to be extremely ultra, went to the city of Boston, and lectured
before one of the most intelligent audiences that ever assembled in that
section of our country. He was received by all with that courtesy and
that kindness of feeling which every Southern man who visits that
section receives, and to which they bear testimony. Mr. Benton is in the
North now, lecturing in favor of the Union, - 'carrying coals to
Newcastle.' He is everywhere sought after, everywhere listened to,
everywhere treated kindly, although he holds views in regard to slavery
that not one man in ten thousand in that section. approves.
Can we utter in the South the words which
the fathers of the South taught us? Could the senator from New York (Mr.
Fish), whose father fought at Yorktown,, go to that field, and utter the
sentiments which were upon the lips of all the great men of Virginia
when Cornwallis surrendered? Could the senators from New Hampshire stand
on that spot once baptized by the blood of Alexander Scammell, and there
utter the sentiments of Henry, or of Jefferson, or of Mason? Could one
of us go down to Mount Vernon, which slavery has converted into a sort
of jungle, and there repeat the words of Washington, - 'No man desires
more earnestly than I do to see slavery abolished: there is only one
proper way to do it, and that is by legislative action; and for that my
vote shall never be wanting'? Could we go to Monticello, could we stand
by the graves of Jefferson, of Madison, of Henry, of the great men of
Virginia, and utter the sublime thoughts which they uttered for the
liberty of the bond- men? Could we stand by the grave of Henry Clay, and
declare, as lie declared, slavery to be 'a curse,' 'a wrong,' a
'grievous wrong to the slave, that no contingency could make right'?
In the slaveholding States, free speech and
a free press are known only in theory. A slaveholding, slavery-extending
Democracy has established a relentless despotism. We invited you of the
South to meet us in national convention to restore the government to the
policy of the fathers. Mr. Underwood of Virginia did go to Philadelphia.
He united with us in our declaration of principles; he united with us in
the nomination of John C. Fremont: and for this offence he was banished
from Virginia. He returned a few days since, and was notified, that, if
he remained, he must run the risk of being dealt with by an indignant
community. He has left there, and I believe is now here in the city of
Washington. When the Fremont flag was raised in Norfolk, the civil
authorities took it down. Mr. Stannard, a merchant of Norfolk, a native
of Connecticut, went up to the ballot-box, and quietly handed in his
vote for Fremont. It was handed back to him. They would not receive it.
He was driven from the polls, and compelled to hide himself for days,
until he could find an opportunity to escape from the State to preserve
his life." Of the
despotism of slavery he said, -
"Sir, I have said that you have no freedom
of speech at the South. Senators have denounced us as sectional because
we have no votes in the South. That reminds me of the Dutch judge in old
democratic Berks, who kicked the defendant out of doors, locked the
door, and then entered a judgment for default. (Laughter.)' Your native
sons stand on electoral tickets, or vote our principles, at the peril of
life. Then, when you are able with your iron despotism to crush out all
there who would go with us, you turn round and tell us we are getting up
a sectional party. I assure you, there are tens of thousands of men in
the South whose sympathies are with us; but they have no opportunity so
to vote. In the city of St. Louis, nearly three thousand Germans, to
show their devotion to liberty, went to the ballot-boxes, when they
could get up a State ticket for Fremont, and voted for Millard Fillmore,
the Know-Nothing candidate, with the word 'Protest' printed on their
ballots, - an act which illustrates your despotism, and shows that these
men, who were true to liberty in the Old World, will not be false to
their cherished convictions in the New.
"Even here in the national capitol, that
vacant seat (pointing to Mr. Sumner's chair) is an evidence that freedom
of speech is not always tolerated, - not always- safe."
To the charge of fanaticism he replied, -
"If you believe that the people are
fanatics, or that their leaders deceive them, remember one thing, -
that, in 1850, there were in the United States nearly eight hundred
thousand free persons above twenty years of age who could not read or
write. Only ninety-four thousand out of this eight hundred thousand
happen to live in the States which Fremont has carried. Remember another
thing, - that the State of Massachusetts, which you consider so ultra, -
a people so easily deluded, - prints within a few thousand, and
circulates, more newspapers within the State than all the fifteen
Southern States of the Union. Remember, they have more volumes in their
public libraries than all the slave States. Remember, they give away
more money to the Bible and Missionary and other benevolent societies,
every year, than the entire slaveholding States; and they have done so
during the last quarter of a century.
"I tell you, sir, that the people are ahead
of us; and that is what you fear. You say that they are deceived by us;
and then you turn round and declare that you cannot rely on our
disclaimers, because the people will pass beyond the direction and
control of political leaders. The people understand this question, sir:
they know their responsibilities, their powers, and their duties."
He closed by these brave words: -
"I give you notice to-day, gentlemen, what
we intend to do. If the incoming administration sends into this body the
nomination of a single man who ever threatened the dissolution of the
Union, we intend to camp on this floor, and to resist his confirmation
to the bitter end. I give you notice now, that we shall resist the
coming into power of all that class of men, as enemies of the
Constitution and the Union.
"We go farther. We mean to hold the incoming
administration responsible if it gives confidence or patronage to your
'Richmond Enquirers' and 'Examiners,' your 'Charleston Mercuries' and
'Standards,' your 'New Orleans Deltas' and your 'South-side Democrats,'
or any Democratic journal in the United States which threatened the
dissolution of the Union in the event of our success. We intend here in
our places to defend that Union which makes us one people against the
men of your party who have threatened to subvert and destroy it. We
intend to go a little farther. Your slave propagandist journals have
denounced the independent laboring-men of the North as 'greasy
mechanics,' 'filthy operatives,' 'small-fisted farmers,' 'moon-struck
theorists.' We mean to hold you responsible if you bestow your
confidence and patronage upon journals which maintain that 'the
principle of slavery is itself right, and does not depend on difference
of complexion.'
"Senators have told us they want peace; they want repose. Well, sir, I
want peace; I want repose. The State I represent wants peace; wants
repose. Tens of millions of our property are scattered broadcast over
the Southern States. The business-men, the merchants, the manufacturers,
of my State want peace as much as you can want it. You can have it. But
you cannot have it if you want to extend slavery over the free
Territories. You cannot have it if you continue your efforts to bring
Kansas here a slave State. If you want peace, abandon your policy of
slavery extension. Cease all efforts to control the political destinies
of the country through the expansion of slavery as an element of
political power. Plant yourselves upon your reserved constitutional
rights, and we will aid you in the vindication of those rights. Turn
your attention from the forbidden fruits of Cuban, Central-American, or
Mexican acquisitions, to your own dilapidated fields, where the
revegetating forests are springing up, and where, in the language of
Gov. Wise, you have the owners skinning the negroes, the negroes
skinning the land, until all grow poor together.' Erase from your
statute-books those cruel laws which shock the sensibilities of mankind.
Place there humane and beneficent legislation, which shall protect the
relations of husband and wife, parent and child; which shall open
darkened minds to the elevating influence of Christian culture. You will
then have the generous sympathies, the sincere prayers, of men who
reverently look to Him whose hand guides the destinies of the world. You
will have the best wishes of the friends of liberty all over the globe.
Humanity and Christianity will sanction and bless your efforts to hasten
on that day, though it may be distant, when freedom shall be the
inalienable birthright of every man who treads the soil of the
North-American continent."
Mr. Wilson visited Canada for the first time
in the autumn, and was present at the banquet in Montreal at the opening
of the Grand-Trunk Railroad, where to the third toast, which was to the
chief magistrate of the United States, he made this admirable response:
- "Mr. MAYOR AND
FELLOW-CITIZENS, - I thank you, in behalf of the citizens of the United
States who have come to join you on this great festival, for the
sentiment you have given for the chief magistrate of the United States.
(Cheers.) I am sure, sir, that I speak the sentiments of every American
here to-day, when I say that we not only thank you for proposing a
sentiment to the chief magistrate of our country, but I thank you for
saying that you trust that the people of the United States and the
people of British America will always meet as friends. (Cheers.)
Difficulties have arisen, have frequently arisen, between Great Britain
and the United States. These difficulties, sir, between our governments,
we all trust, are in process of settlement, so that peace, perpetual
peace, may be preserved between Great Britain and America. (Great
applause.) Let me say here today,—what I know every son of New England,
New York, and, in an especial manner, the sons of the mighty West, will
sustain me in saying, - that we witness the development and the
prosperity of the British Colonies in North America (cheers) not only
without jealousy, but we witness them with pride and admiration.
(Cheers.) Go on, brethren; improve and develop all the mighty resources
of British America. Your prosperity is our prosperity. (Applause.) We
are bound together by a thousand associations of blood and of kindred.
We are connected together by those mighty improvements which we are met
here to-day to commemorate. We are bound together by a treaty of
reciprocity, mutually beneficial to you and to us. We are beginning to
understand each other, to value each other, to be proud of each other's
prosperity and success; and may God grant that the Sons of British
America and the sons of the North-American republic may never meet again
on the banks of the St. Lawrence, on river, on lake, on land, in any
other way than that in which we are all met today, - to grasp each
other's hands in friendship, and to aid, to encourage each other in the
development of the resources of the North-American continent! (Great
applause.) Sir, the governor - general has alluded to Lord Durham, - a
statesman in whose premature grave were buried many of the high hopes of
the reformers of England. He uttered a sentiment that every statesman,
whether in the service of England or America, should respond to; and
that was this, — 'that he never saw an hour pass over recognized and
unreformed abuses without profound regret.' (Cheers.) Gentlemen, I give
you in conclusion this sentiment: 'Prosperity to the people of the
Canadas, and success to their government.'" (Great applause.)
Mr. Wilson's Congressional career in 1857,
though characterized by no striking effort in debate, was nevertheless
marked by incessant and effective labor. We find him, in addition to his
arduous duties in the Military Committee, always abreast of the
questions of the times, and vigorously advocating liberal and
progressive measures. This may be seen from a brief record of his doings
in the Senate for the month of February, here presented: On the 4th
inst. he spoke in favor of disposing of the alternate sections of land
along the railroads aided by the government, not to speculators, but to
actual settlers on the lines. Twenty-one millions of acres had been
granted to the States for railroad-purposes: by selling to the
cultivators of the soil, a population would arise to support the roads,
and make them really serviceable to the country. On the 10th he
presented a resolution against the repeal of the fishing bounty; on the
12th, a resolution to inquire into the cause of the failure of the mails
at Washington, this having occurred thirty-eight times within
seventy-two days; on the 17th inst. he spoke in favor of increasing the
pay of officers of a rank lower than lieutenant-colonels in the army; on
the 18th he advocated the introduction of a bust of Chief Justice
William Cushing, as an offset to that of Mr. Rutledge; on the 21st he
made an argument in favor of admitting Minnesota, "clothed," as he said,
"in the white robes of Freedom," into the Union; on the 26th he declared
himself in favor of a sub-marine telegraph; on the 27th he spoke in
favor of a telegraphic line between the Atlantic and Pacific States; and
on the 28th he introduced a bill for the erection of a court-house in
the city of Boston. Such were some of his labors for the month; and, by
a reference to "The Congressional Globe," it will be seen that the
interests of the Commonwealth he represented did not suffer in his
hands. On the
Lecompton Constitution, and the admission of Kansas into the Union under
it, Mr. Wilson declared his sentiments in forcible language on the 3d
and 4th of February, 1858. Replying to Mr. Brown, he asks, -
"Why is this act to be consummated, when we
know, that, on 4th of January, twelve thousand men of that Territory
voted against this constitution ; and that there were only six thousand
votes cast for it on 21st of December, of which three or four thousand
were unquestionably fraudulent?
"There is only one power on this continent
which could thus control, direct, and guide men: and that is that
gigantic slave power which holds this administration in the hollow of
its hand; which guides and directs the Democratic party; and which has
only to stamp its foot, and the men who wield the government of this
country tremble, submit, and bow to its will. Senators talk about the
dangers of the country. Great God! what are our dangers? The danger is
that there is such a power —a local, sectional power that can control
this government, can ride over justice, ride over a wronged people,
consummate glaring and outrageous frauds, and trample down the will of a
brave and free people. That is the danger. The time has come when the
freemen of this country, looking to liberty, to popular rights, to
justice to all sections of the country, should overthrow this power, and
trample it under their feet forever. The time has come when the people
should rise in the majesty of conscious power, and hurl from office and
from places of influence the men who thus bow to this tyranny.
Senators are anxious about the Union. The
senator from Delaware (Mr. Bayard) to-day thought it was in peril. Well,
sir, I am not alarmed about it. I am in the Union; my State is in the
Union and we intend to stay in it. If anybody wants to go out, Mexico
and Central America, and the valley of the Amazon, are all open to
emigration, let them start. I shall not hold them back, nor mourn over
their departure. But all this continent now in the Union is American
soil, and a part of my country; and my vote and my influence, now and
hereafter, will be given to keep it a part of my country."
The following letter from the late Hon.
George T. Bigelow indicates the spirit with which liberty-loving men
responded to the sentiments which the Massachusetts senator expressed -
BOSTON, Feb. 22, 1858.
DEAR SIR, - I had read a report of your
remarks in the Senate in reply to Messrs. Brown and Green before I
received your pamphlet edition of them. I trust that you will not think
it intrusive in me to say that I was highly gratified by the matter, as
well as by the tone and temper which pervade them. They are manly and
dignified; sufficiently bold and resolute, without being vituperative or
personal; maintaining the truth fearlessly, and resisting the
disposition of the Southern men to overawe and browbeat in the right
spirit. The South will soon learn that their bastard chivalry, is worth
but little when opposed to such courageous assaults.
I suppose that there is but little, if any,
hope of successfully resisting the admission of Kansas under the
Lecompton Constitution. There is no scheme of fraud and tolerance which
the South will not adopt to secure their ends, and which the Northern
Democracy will not subserviently support. I cannot doubt, however, that
the flagrant wrong and injustice of the whole proceeding will arouse the
spirit of the North and North-west to a united effort against the
slavery propagandism of the party in power. The great danger is that the
enthusiasm of the people of the free States will expend itself in
electing a Republican majority in the next Congress, and will then die
away, so that we shall lose the presidential election of 1860. However
this may be, the only way is to fight on in the confident hope that the
day of triumph will surely come.
I am, with great respect,
Your friend and servant,
G. T. Bigelow.
Another letter, dated Feb. 22, says in
relation to this speech, -
"It adds to your laurels; and I congratulate
you on your successful encounter with our enemies in the Senate. Your
whole course since you have been a member of the Senate has been highly
honorable to you, and gratifying to the great body of your constituents.
You have manifested not only the most distinguished ability, but a
fearlessness that has raised you amazingly in the good opinion of
Northern men. I hear but one sentiment expressed in regard to you; and
that is friendly and respectful. You never held so elevated a position
as you do at the present time. We all feel proud that we have at least
one representative who is both able and willing to take a defiant stand
against the tyranny which is making our country worthless to us and a
mockery to the world.
"Yours very truly,
"G. R. RusselI." |
