in the territories might be referred to the judiciary. But the agitation concerning slavery was renewed at once, becoming fiercer than ever, and it looked as if no measure involving the subject could command enough votes in both houses to pass it. December 11, 1848, a bill for the organization of the whole of the Mexican cession into a single state to be called California, with the right reserved to Congress to form new states out of any part of it east of the Sierra Nevada, was introduced in the Senate by Douglas.1 Two days later a petition was received purporting to be from a convention of the people of New Mexico, asking for a territorial government, protesting against any "dismemberment" of the territory in favor of Texas, and requesting the protection of Congress against the introduction of slavery. The president favored statehood for California and a territorial government for New Mexico; and his views prevailed with Douglas to the extent that the latter at length offered an amendment to his own bill making states of both the territories, but ignoring the subject of slavery. Meanwhile the majority of the committee of the judiciary had reported adversely on the bill, recommending that territorial governments be organized for California west of the Sierra Nevada and New Mexico west of Texas. The Senate did not get to the point of ac 1 Cong. Globe, 30 Cong., 2 Sess., 21. Polk, MS. Diary, December 12, 23, and 26, 1848. ▲ Ibid., 192. 1 cepting either proposition; the action of the House was rather slow, but positive enough when it came. Under a resolution offered by Root of Ohio, December 13, 1848, instructing the committee on territories to report promptly a bill or bills providing for territorial governments in California and New Mexico, and for the exclusion of slavery, bills were introduced; and on February 29, 1849, that which concerned California was passed, but the Senate refused to take it up. During this period another question concerning slavery was forcing itself on the attention of the national authorities and of the American people, a question more fruitful of sectional discord and alienation than any which had previously arisen; it was the status of slavery and the slave-trade in the District of Columbia. As the sections drew apart in interest and feelings, the North grew steadily less tolerant of the peculiar views of the South, and less willing that the special demesne of the national government, though geographically southern and situated in the heart of a slave-holding preserve, should be like the country around it. If the protection which the South believed the Constitution gave to the right of property in slaves, but which the North was now denying, was to be withdrawn at any point, surely the District of Columbia, standing under the direct jurisdiction of Congress, was the place.1 1 See earlier stages of the question in Hart, Slavery and Abolition (Am. Nation, XVI.), chaps. xi., xviii. So it came to pass, December 13, 1848, John G. Palfrey of Massachusetts, the preacher and author, asked the House, according to previous notice, for leave to introduce a bill to repeal all legislation by Congress establishing or maintaining slavery or the slave-trade in the district.1 Permission was refused by a vote of 69 to 82; but on December 18 Giddings of Ohio was allowed to introduce a bill authorizing the people of the district to vote on the question as to whether they desired the continuance of slavery. On being questioned as to the purport of the bill, he explained it as providing that negroes, bond as well as free, should take part in the vote. The bill was laid on the table by 106 yeas to 79 nays. Three days later Gott of New York offered a resolution instructing the committee for the District of Columbia to bring in a bill prohibiting the slave-trade in the district, which was adopted by a vote of 98 to 88; but on January 10, 1849, it was reconsidered, and disappeared in the list on the calendar. In the course of the struggle over its reconsideration, Abraham Lincoln of Illinois offered an amendment, which did not come to a vote, defining a plan for the suppression of the slave-trade and the gradual extinction of slavery in the district, if the majority of the white votes thereof should decide in favor of the plan at an election to be held for the purpose. Finally, on January 31, Edwards, of the 1 Cong. Globe, 30 Cong., 2 Sess., 38. Ibid., 83. committee for the District of Columbia, reported a bill to prevent the importation of slaves into the district for sale or hire, which caused a sharp debate, but which also seems to have died on the calendar. In the course of this movement the agitation concerning slavery revealed itself in still another issue, which was soon to become its most irritating and dangerous aspect. This was the fugitive-slave law. When Gott's resolution was reconsidered, January 10, and was again before the House, Meade of Virginia offered an amendment to instruct the committee for the district to report a bill "more effectually to enable owners to recover their slaves escaping from one state into another." Though the amendment was promptly ruled out of order, the object of the introducer was accomplished in presenting an additional grievance of the South. The sectionalizing effect of the agitation soon became apparent. On the evening of the day after the passage of Gott's resolution a meeting of about seventy southern members of Congress belonging to both political parties was held for the purpose of deciding on some common policy for the South." Two subsequent meetings were held on January 15 and January 22, at which about eighty members were present. Calhoun was the dominant spirit, 1 Cong. Globe, 30 Cong., 2 Sess., 216. 2 Polk, MS. Diary, December 22, 23, 1848; Niles' Register, LXXIV., 401. and the final result was the adoption of an address of the southern members of Congress to their constituents, reported from a committee of fifteen, of which Stephens was chairman, and prepared by a subcommittee of five, of which Calhoun was chairman. Stephens tried to prevent action by the caucus, and Polk also opposed the movement, but in vain.1 The address dwelt upon the gradual alienation between the sections that had begun with the dispute over the admission of Missouri into the Union; charged the North with a breach of the Constitution in refusing to give up fugitive slaves, and with want of respect for the Missouri Compromise line; complained of the disposition to refuse the South its share of the Mexican cession, which it had done more than the North to win, and of the attacks on slavery by Congress, forecasting complete abolition if no remedy were found; and finally recommended unity of action on the part of the South.2 The resentful complaint of injustice made in the address soon rang through the entire South. It was repeated in resolutions by the legislatures of Virginia and Missouri and in various other forms; a mass-meeting in Trimble County, Kentucky, called on Clay to resign his senatorship because he had written a letter favoring gradual emancipation; and the toasts at a dinner to Senator Butler in South 1 Polk, MS. Diary, January 17, 1849. |