style="font-size:15px;"> "Though he denounced the spirit of abolition as dangerous and wicked in the extreme, yet he did not feel himself authorized to vote for the resolutions. If the doctrines contained in them were correct, then nullification was correct; and if passed might hereafter be appealed to as a precedent in favor of that doctrine; though he acquitted the senator [Mr. Calhoun] of having the most remote intention of smuggling in any thing in relation to that doctrine under cover of these resolutions."
Mr. Calhoun, annoyed by so much condemnation of his course, and especially from those as determined as himself to protect the slave institution where it legally existed, spoke often and warmly; and justified his course from the greatness of the danger, and the fatal consequences to the Union if it was not arrested.
"I fear (said Mr. C.) that the Senate has not elevated its view sufficiently to comprehend the extent and magnitude of the existing danger. It was perhaps his misfortune to look too much to the future, and to move against dangers at too great a distance, which had involved him in many difficulties and exposed him often to the imputation of unworthy motives. Thus he had long foreseen the immense surplus revenue which a false system of legislation must pour into the Treasury, and the fatal consequences to the morals and institutions of the country which must follow. When nothing else could arrest it he threw himself, with his State, into the breach, to arrest dangers which could not otherwise be arrested; whether wisely or not he left posterity to judge. He now saw with equal clearness – as clear as the noonday sun – the fatal consequences which must follow if the present disease be not timely arrested. He would repeat again what he had so often said on this floor. This was the only question of sufficient magnitude and potency to divide this Union; and divide it it would, or drench the country in blood, if not arrested. He knew how much the sentiment he had uttered would be misconstrued and misrepresented. There were those who saw no danger to the Union in the violation of all its fundamental principles, but who were full of apprehension when danger was foretold or resisted, and who held not the authors of the danger, but those who forewarned or opposed it, responsible for consequences."
"But the cry of disunion by the weak or designing had no terror for him. If his attachment to the Union was less, he might tamper with the deep disease which now afflicts the body politic, and keep silent till the patient was ready to sink under its mortal blows. It is a cheap, and he must say but too certain a mode of acquiring the character of devoted attachment to the Union. But, seeing the danger as he did, he would be a traitor to the Union and those he represented to keep silence. The assaults daily made on the institutions of nearly one half of the States of this Union by the other – institutions interwoven from the beginning with their political and social existence, and which cannot be other than that without their inevitable destruction – will and must, if continued, make two people of one by destroying every sympathy between the two great sections – obliterating from their hearts the recollection of their common danger and glory – and implanting in their place a mutual hatred, more deadly than ever existed between two neighboring people since the commencement of the human race. He feared not the circulation of the thousands of incendiary and slanderous publications which were daily issued from an organized and powerful press among those intended to be vilified. They cannot penetrate our section; that was not the danger; it lay in a different direction. Their circulation in the non-slaveholding States was what was to be dreaded. It was infusing a deadly poison into the minds of the rising generation, implanting in them feelings of hatred, the most deadly hatred, instead of affection and love, for one half of this Union, to be returned, on their part, with equal detestation. The fatal, the immutable consequences, if not arrested, and that without delay, were such as he had presented. The first and desirable object is to arrest it in the non-slaveholding States; to meet the disease where it originated and where it exists; and the first step to this is to find some common constitutional ground on which a rally, with that object, can be made. These resolutions present the ground, and the only one, on which it can be made. The only remedy is in the State rights doctrines; and if those who profess them in slaveholding States do not rally on them as their political creed, and organize as a party against the fanatics in order to put them down, the South and West will be compelled to take the remedy into their own hands. They will then stand justified in the sight of God and man; and what in that event will follow no mortal can anticipate. Mr. President (said Mr. C.), we are reposing on a volcano. The Senate seems entirely ignorant of the state of feeling in the South. The mail has just brought us intelligence of a most important step taken by one of the Southern States in connection with this subject, which will give some conception of the tone of feeling which begins to prevail in that quarter."
It was such speaking as this that induced some votes against the resolutions. All the senators were dissatisfied at the constant exhibition of the same remedy (disunion), for all the diseases of the body politic; but the greater part deemed it right, if they voted at all, to vote their real sentiments. Many were disposed to lay the resolutions on the table, as the disturbing petitions had been; but it was concluded that policy made it preferable to vote upon them.
Mr. Benton did not speak in this debate. He believed, as others did, that discussion was injurious; that it was the way to keep up and extend agitation, and the thing above all others which the abolitionists desired. Discussion upon the floor of the American Senate was to them the concession of an immense advantage – the concession of an elevated and commanding theatre for the display and dissemination of their doctrines. It gave them the point to stand upon from which they could reach every part of the Union; and it gave them the Register of the Debates, instead of their local papers, for their organ of communication. Mr. Calhoun was a fortunate customer for them.
The Senate, in laying all their petitions and the memorial of Vermont on the table without debate, signified its desire to yield them no such advantage. The introduction of Mr. Calhoun's resolution frustrated that desire, and induced many to do what they condemned. Mr. Benton took his own sense of the proper course, in abstaining from debate, and confining the expression of his opinions to the delivery of votes: and in that he conformed to the sense of the Senate, and the action of the House of Representatives. Many hundreds of these petitions were presented in the House, and quietly laid upon the table (after a stormy scene, and the adoption of a new rule), under motions to that effect; and this would have been the case in the Senate, had it not been for the resolutions, the introduction of which was so generally deprecated.
The part of this debate which excited no attention at the time, but has since acquired a momentous importance, is that part in which Mr. Calhoun declared his favorable disposition to the Missouri compromise, and his condemnation of Mr. Randolph (its chief opponent), for opposing it; and his change of opinion since, not for unconstitutionality, but because he believed it to have become dangerous in encouraging the spirit of abolitionism. This compromise was the highest, the most solemn, the most momentous, the most emphatic assertion of Congressional power over slavery in a territory which had ever been made, or could be conceived. It not only abolished slavery where it legally existed; but for ever prohibited it where it had long existed, and that over an extent of territory larger than the area of all the Atlantic slave States put together: and thus yielding to the free States the absolute predominance in the Union.
Mr. Calhoun was for that resolution in 1820, – blamed those who opposed it; and could see no objection to it in 1838 but the encouragement it gave to the spirit of abolitionism. Nine years afterwards (session of 1846-'47) he submitted other resolutions (five in number) on the same power of Congress over slavery legislation in the territories; in which he denied the power, and asserted that any such legislation to the prejudice of the slaveholding emigrants from the States, in preventing them from removing, with their slave property, to such territory, "would be a violation of the constitution and the rights of the States from which such citizens emigrated, and a derogation of that perfect equality which belongs to them as members of this Union; and would tend directly to subvert the Union itself."
These resolutions, so new and startling in their doctrines – so contrary to their antecessors, and to the whole course of the government – were denounced by the writer of this View the instant they were read in the Senate, and, being much discountenanced
