they were never pressed to a vote in that body; but were afterwards adopted by some of the slave State legislatures. One year afterwards, in a debate on the Oregon territorial bill, and on the section which proposed to declare the anti-slavery clause of the ordinance of 1787 to be in force in that territory, Mr. Calhoun denied the power of Congress to make any such declaration, or in any way to legislate upon slavery in a territory. He delivered a most elaborate and thoroughly considered speech on the subject, in the course of which he laid down three propositions:
1. That Congress had no power to legislate upon slavery in a territory, so as to prevent the citizens of slaveholding States from removing into it with their slave property. 2. That Congress had no power to delegate such authority to a territory. 3. That the territory had no such power in itself (thus leaving the subject of slavery in a territory without any legislative power over it at all). He deduced these dogmas from a new insight into the constitution, which, according to this fresh introspection, recognized slavery as a national institution, and carried that part of itself (by its own vigor) into all the territories; and protected slavery there: ergo, neither Congress, nor its deputed territorial legislature, nor the people of the territory during their territorial condition, could any way touch the subject – either to affirm, or disaffirm the institution. He endeavored to obtain from Congress a crutch to aid these lame doctrines in limping into the territories by getting the constitution voted into them, as part of their organic law; and, failing in that attempt (repeatedly made), he took position on the ground that the constitution went into these possessions of itself, so far as slavery was concerned, it being a national institution.
These three propositions being in flagrant conflict with the power exercised by Congress in the establishment of the Missouri compromise line (which had become a tradition as a Southern measure, supported by Southern members of Congress, and sanctioned by the cabinet of Mr. Monroe, of which Mr. Calhoun was a member), the fact of that compromise and his concurrence in it was immediately used against him by Senator Dix, of New York, to invalidate his present opinions.
Unfortunately he had forgotten this cabinet consultation, and his own concurrence in its decision – believing fully that no such thing had occurred, and adhering firmly to the new dogma of total denial of all constitutional power in Congress to legislate upon slavery in a territory. This brought up recollections to sustain the tradition which told of the consultation – to show that it took place – that its voice was unanimous in favor of the compromise; and, consequently, that Mr. Calhoun himself was in favor of it. Old writings were produced:
First, a fac simile copy of an original paper in Mr. Monroe's handwriting, found among his manuscripts, dated March 4, 1820 (two days before the approval of the Missouri compromise act), and indorsed: "Interrogatories – Missouri – to the Heads of Departments and the Attorney-General;" and containing within two questions: "1. Has Congress a right, under the powers vested in it by the constitution, to make a regulation prohibiting slavery in a territory? 2. Is the 8th section of the act which passed both Houses of Congress on the 3d instant for the admission of Missouri into the Union, consistent with the constitution?" Secondly, the draft of an original letter in Mr. Monroe's handwriting, but without signature, date, or address, but believed to have been addressed to General Jackson, in which he says: "The question which lately agitated Congress and the public has been settled, as you have seen, by the passage of an act for the admission of Missouri as a State, unrestricted, and Arkansas, also, when it reaches maturity; and the establishment of the parallel of 36 degrees 30 minutes as a line north of which slavery is prohibited, and permitted south of it. I took the opinion, in writing, of the administration as to the constitutionality of restraining territories, which was explicit in favor of it, and, as it was, that the 8th section of the act was applicable to territories only, and not to States when they should be admitted into the Union." Thirdly, an extract from the diary of Mr. John Quincy Adams, under date of the 3d of March, 1820, stating that the President on that day assembled his cabinet to ask their opinions on the two questions mentioned – which the whole cabinet immediately answered unanimously, and affirmatively; that on the 5th he sent the questions in writing to the members of his cabinet, to receive their written answers, to be filed in the department of State; and that on the 6th he took his own answer to the President, to be filed with the rest – all agreeing in the affirmative, and only differing some in assigning, others not assigning reasons for his opinion. The diary states that the President signed his approval of the Missouri act on the 6th (which the act shows he did), and requested Mr. Adams to have all the opinions filed in the department of State.
Upon this evidence it would have rested without question that Mr. Monroe's cabinet had been consulted on the constitutionality of the Missouri compromise line, and that all concurred in it, had it not been for the denial of Mr. Calhoun in the debate on the Oregon territorial bill. His denial brought out this evidence; and, notwithstanding its production and conclusiveness, he adhered tenaciously to his disbelief of the whole occurrence and especially the whole of his own imputed share in it. Two circumstances, specious in themselves, favored this denial: first, that no such papers as those described by Mr. Adams were to be found in the department of State; secondly, that in the original draft of Mr. Monroe's letter it had first been written that the affirmative answers of his cabinet to his two interrogatories were "unanimous" which word had been crossed out and "explicit" substituted.
With some these two circumstances weighed nothing against the testimony of two witnesses, and the current corroborating incidents of tradition. In the lapse of twenty-seven years, and in the changes to which our cabinet officers and the clerks of departments are subjected, it was easy to believe that the papers had been mislaid or lost – far easier than to believe that Mr. Adams could have been mistaken in the entry made in his diary at the time. And as to the substitution of "explicit" for "unanimous," that was known to be necessary in order to avoid the violation of the rule which forbid the disclosure of individual opinions in the cabinet consultations. With others, and especially with the political friends of Mr. Calhoun, they were received as full confirmation of his denial, and left them at liberty to accept his present opinions as those of his whole life, uninvalidated by previous personal discrepancy, and uncounteracted by the weight of a cabinet decision under Mr. Monroe: and accordingly the new-born dogma of no power in Congress to legislate upon the existence of slavery in the territories became an article of political faith, incorporated in the creed, and that for action, of a large political party. What is now brought to light of the proceedings in the Senate in '37-'38 shows this to have been a mistake – that Mr. Calhoun admitted the power in 1820, when he favored the compromise and blamed Mr. Randolph for opposing it; that he admitted it again in 1838, when he submitted his own resolutions, and voted for those of Mr. Clay. It so happened that no one recollected these proceedings of '37-'38 at the time of the Oregon debate of '47-'48. The writer of this View, though possessing a memory credited as tenacious, did not recollect them, nor remember them at all, until found among the materials collected for this history – a circumstance which he attributes to his repugnance to the whole debate, and taking no part in the proceedings except to vote.
The cabinet consultation of 1820 was not mentioned by Mr. Calhoun in his avowal of 1838, nor is it necessary to the object of this View to pursue his connection with that private executive counselling. The only material inquiry is as to his approval of the Missouri compromise at the time it was adopted; and that is fully established by himself.
It would be a labor unworthy of history to look up the conduct of any public man, and trace him through shifting scenes, with a mere view to personal effect – with a mere view to personal disparagement, by showing him contradictory and inconsistent at some period of his course. Such a labor would be idle, unprofitable, and derogatory; but, when a change takes place in a public man's opinions which leads to a change of conduct, and into a new line of action disastrous to the country, it becomes the duty of history to note the fact, and to expose the contradiction – not for personal disparagement – but to counteract the force of the new and dangerous opinion.
In this sense it becomes an obligatory task to show the change, or rather changes, in Mr. Calhoun's opinions on the constitutional power of Congress over the existence of slavery in the national
