Nullification vs. Secession: Jefferson Davis, 1861

William J. Cooper's Jefferson Davis, American begins with a description of the Mississippi Senator's announcement of his resignation from that body on January 21, 1861. That prompted me to locate Davis's remarks online, and I found them in the Congressional Globe here.

Davis's brief speech, it turns out, includes a fascinating discussion about the difference between secession and nullification. Davis affirmed that he believed that a state had the right to secede from the Union. He adamantly denied, however, the legitimacy of the doctrine of nullification. That doctrine, Davis maintained, amounted to an improper attempt of the States to have their cake and eat it too. A State, as a sovereign entity, had the right to remain in the Union or to sever its ties and renounce both the benefits and obligations of the Union. What it could not do was remain within the Union while denying that the laws applied to it:

I hope that none who hear me will confound this expression of mine [that a state has a right to secede] with the advocacy of the right of a State to remain in the Union, and to disregard its constitutional obligations by the nullification of the law. Such is not my theory. Nullification and secession, so often confounded, are indeed antagonistic principles. Nullification is a remedy which it is sought to apply within the Union, and against the agent of the States. It is only to be justified when the agent has violated his constitutional obligation, and a State, assuming to judge for itself, denies the right of the agent thus to act, and appeals to the other States of the Union for a decision; but when the States themselves, and when the people of the States, have so acted as to convince us that they will not regard our constitutional rights, then, and then for the first time, arises the doctrine of secession in its practical application.

A great man who now reposes with his fathers, and who has been often arraigned for want of a fealty to the Union, advocated the doctrine of nullification, because it preserved the Union. It was because of his deep-seated attachment to the Union, his determination to find some remedy for existing ills short of a severance of the ties which bound South Carolina to the other States, that Mr. Calhoun advocated the doctrine of nullification, which he proclaimed to be peaceful, to be within the limits of State power, not to disturb the Union, but only to be a means of bringing the agent before a tribunal of the States for their judgment.

Secession belongs to a different class of remedies. It is to be justified upon the basis that the States are sovereign. . . .

. . . It is by this confounding of nullification and secession that the name of a great man, whose ashes now mingle with his mother earth, has been invoked to justify coercion against a seceded State. The phrase “to execute the laws,” was an expression which General Jackson applied to the case of a State refusing to obey the laws while yet a member of the Union. That is not the case which is now presented. The laws are to be executed over the United States, and upon the people of the United States. They have no relation to any foreign country. It is a perversion of terms, at least it is a great misapprehension of the case, which cites that expression for application to a State which has withdrawn from the Union. You may make war on a foreign State. If it be the purpose of gentlemen, they may make war against a State which has withdrawn from the Union; but there are no laws of the United States to be executed within the limits of a seceded State.

A State finding herself in the condition in which Mississippi has judged she is, in which her safety requires that she should provide for the maintenance of her rights out of the Union, surrenders all the benefits, (and they are known to be many,) deprives herself of the advantages, (they are known to be great,) severs all the ties of affection, (and they are close and enduring,) which have bound her to the Union; and thus divesting herself of every benefit, taking upon herself every burden, she claims to be exempt from any power to execute the laws of the United States within her limits.

About the illustration, John Brown Exhibiting His Hangman:

Northern rejoicing at the end of the Civil War often took the form of vengeful if imaginary portrayals of the execution of Confederate president Jefferson Davis. Here abolitionist martyr John Brown rises from the grave to confront Davis, although in actuality the latter had nothing to do with Brown's 1859 execution. Brown points an accusing finger at Davis, who sits imprisoned in a birdcage hanging from a gallows. Davis wears a dress and bonnet, and holds a sour apple. Below, black men and women, resembling comic minstrel figures, frolic about. (For Davis's female attire, see "The Chas-ed "Old Lady" of the C.S.A.," no. 1865-11.) Since the beginning of the war Union soldiers had sung about "hanging Jeff Davis from a sour apple tree." Davis's actual punishment was imprisonment at Fortress Monroe after his capture on May 10, 1865.

The Inside Track

Here's another great illustration from the Gettysburg College Civil War Era Collection commenting on William Seward's role during the Secession Winter. Entitled The Inside Track, the illustration appeared in Vanity Fair on March 2, 1861, according to the site.

This time, the College's description is just a little bit off:

Lincoln stands between Weed and Seward as they address him. A man with a paper labeled Chicago Platform tries to get in the door. Seward and Weed tried to convince Lincoln that a conservative war effort was the best way, rather than the strong war the Chicago Platform Republicans advocated.

The question at that point was not what sort of "war effort" to wage. Seward was urging the president-elect to do anything to avoid a confrontation.

William Seward: The Senatorial Tapster

When I was preparing my recent post on William Seward, I looked for, and failed to find, contemporaneous political cartoons commenting on Seward's role during the Secession Crisis. In the comments to that post, captainrlm rectified that omission by pointing out the wonderful illustration that appears above.

Taken from the Gettysburg College Civil War Era Collection, the illustration is entitled The Senatorial Tapster. The Gettysburg College site indicates it appeared in Vanity Fair on "1860-03-10". In it a customer comments, "I notice you draw your ale very mild now, William." The proprietor, Seward, replies, "Yes, this is a new tap, some I brewed myself last Wednesday; my customers thought the Rochester ale was rather too strong."

The site explains, "Two men draw beer from tapped kegs; the keg on the far right says, '1860 Senate.' After Seward lost the presidential nomination, he dropped his stronger antislavery views in favor of the more moderate Republican platform."

This description appears to be wrong, however. Assuming "1860-03-10" is March 3, 1860, the cartoon must refer to the softening of Seward's rhetoric before, not after, the 1860 Republican Convention. Sure enough, a Google search turned up a book entitled Abraham Lincoln: The Year of His Election (1929), by one Albert Shaw, that asserts that the cartoon was referring to Seward's pre-Convention activities:

As Senator Seward's pre-convention campaign for the presidential nomination progressed it was noted that his utterances in the Senate became less radical than the famous "Irrepressible Conflict" speech at Rochester in 1858.

Ulysses Grant Loses A Treasury Secretary

In his biography of Ulysses S. Grant, Josiah Bunting III reports that in 1869 newly-elected President Grant's first nomination for Treasury Secretary was retail magnate Alexander T. Stewart (think R.H. Macy, only bigger). The Senate, however, "discovered a relatively obscure statute, dated 1789, that forbade the treasury secretaryship to be filled by anyone in trade." Grant therefore had to make another selection.

This sounded odd to me, so I thought I'd check it out. Sure enough, there it was. The statute is not exactly obscure - it was the original Act to establish the Treasury Department, passed by the First Congress and signed into law by President Washington on September 2, 1789 - but no doubt the provision in question was.

That provision was Section 8 of the Act, which provided in relevant part as follows:

And be it further enacted, That no person appointed to any office instituted by this act, shall directly or indirectly be concerned or interested in carrying on the business of trade or commerce, or be owner in whole or in part of any sea-vessel, or purchase by himself, or another in trust with him, any public lands or other public property, or be concerned in the purchase or disposal of any public securities of any State, or of the United States, or take or apply to his own use, any emolument or gain for negotiating or transacting any business in the said department, other than what shall be allowed by law . . ..

I haven't gone back and checked, but it's hard to believe that one or more Treasury Secretaries who served between 1789 and 1869 didn't do so in violation of this provision. Anyone know?

What the Hell Happened to William Seward?

Can somebody tell me what the hell happened to William H. Seward? After entering the Senate in 1850, he quickly established himself as a radical on the slavery expansion issue. But by the Secession Winter he had turned into a quivering mass of jelly. What's the deal? Was he never really a radical at all? Was the radicalism just for show? Or did he have a profound change of heart when he perceived that threats of secession were more than mere bluster, and later became reality?

Seward's maiden Senate speech, delivered during the Crisis of 1850, established his radical credentials. "But there is a higher law than the Constitution," he declared, "which regulates our authority over the domain, and devotes it to the same noble purposes. The territory is a part, no inconsiderable part, of the common heritage of mankind, bestowed upon them by the Creator if the universe. We are his stewards, and must so discharge our trust as to secure in the highest attainable degree their happiness."

When the Omnibus Bill collapsed at the end of July 1850, a jubilant Seward "danc[ed] about" the Senate chamber in celebration.

Eight years later, Seward burnished his reputation for radicalism with his 1858 irrepressible conflict speech:

Hitherto the two systems [the slave-labor and free-labor systems] have existed in different States, but side by side within the American Union. This has happened because the Union is a confederation of States. But in another aspect the United States constitute only one nation. Increase of population, which is filling the States out to their very borders, together with a new and extended network of railroads and other avenues, and an internal commerce which daily becomes more intimate, is rapidly bringing the States into a higher and more perfect social unity or consolidation. Thus these antagonistic systems are continually coming into closer contact and collision results.

Shall I tell you what this collision means? They who think that it is accidental, unnecessary, the work of interested or fanatical agitators, and therefore ephemeral, mistake the case altogether. It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces, and it means that the United States must and will, sooner or later, become either entirely a slave-holding nation or entirely a free-labor nation. Either the cotton and rice-fields of South Carolina and the sugar plantations of Louisiana will ultimately be tilled by free labor, and Charleston and New Orleans become marts for legitimate merchandise alone, or else the rye-fields and wheat-fields of Massachusetts and New York must again be surrendered by their farmers to slave culture and to the production of slaves, and Boston and New York become once more markets for trade in the bodies and souls of men.

If you read these paragraphs carefully, however, they are not necessarily as radical as the sound bite "irrepressible conflict" suggests. Seward is not saying that war is inevitable. He is asserting only that the two labor systems are incompatible, and that one system or the other must eventually predominate. In this, he was saying nothing more than Lincoln affirmed at the beginning of the latter's house divided speech, delivered June 16, 1858:

If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do, and how to do it. We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object, and confident promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. "A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved - I do not expect the house to fall - but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new - North as well as South.

But even if the "Irrepressible Conflict" speech is taken as a "radical" statement, other events and statements suggest a tendency toward conservatism and hesitation. There are, I think, several hints that Seward might have been a more cautious soul all along.

For one thing, Seward was no early adopter of the Republican party. One might have expected that Seward, as a "radical", would have led the charge to form a sectional anti-Nebraska party. In fact that was not the case. As Michael F. Holt explains, Seward and his patron, Thurlow Weed, began to plan their exit from the Whigs only in mid-1855, some time after most others had recognized that the party was moribund, and only when they realized that they had no other option:

Discomfited by their isolation from antislavery men elsewhere and aware after New England's spring [1855] elections that even hostility to slavery expansion could not preserve northern Whiggery, Seward, Weed, and their various lieutenants began to plot in May and June [1855] to merge their forces with New York's Free Soilers and anti-Nebraska Democrats in an anti-Know Nothing Republican party. Seward made no public statement until the fall, but the key decisions came in July.

There were extenuating circumstances, to be sure, that explain why Seward "stubbornly . . . shun[ned]" the Republicans until then: in February 1855, the New York legislature reelected Seward to the United States Senate. Weed and he pretty clearly calculated that retaining the Whig label would bolster Seward's chances. But even so, the fact that Seward made that calculation suggests that he was a politician with an instinct for caution and not simply an ideologue.

Next, consider this passage from a Senate speech delivered March 3, 1858, during the debates over the Lecompton Constitution. In it, Seward made the remarkable concession that, for Kansas at least, he would abandon the bedrock Republican doctrine of no slavery in the territories - essentially the Wilmot Proviso - for Popular Sovereignty - the monstrous doctrine embodied in the Kansas-Nebraska Act that created the Republican coalition:

But I shall not insist, now, on so radical a measure as the restoration of the Missouri prohibition. I know how difficult it is for power to relinquish even a pernicious and suicidal policy all at once. We may obtain the same result, in this particular case of Kansas, without going back so far. Go back only to the ground assumed in 1854 [in the Kansas-Nebraska Act], the ground of popular sovereignty. Happily for the authors of that measure, the zealous and energetic resistance of abuses practiced under it has so far been effective that popular sovereignty in Kansas may now be made a fact, and liberty there may be rescued from danger through its free exercise. Popular sovereignty is an epic of two parts. Part the first presents freedom in Kansas lost. Part the second, if you will so consent to write it, shall be freedom in Kansas regained. It is on this ground that I hail the eminent Senator from Illinois [Mr. DOUGLAS] and his associates . . .. The late Mr. Clay told us that Providence has many ways for saving nations. God forbid that I should consent to see freedom wounded, because my own lead, or even my own agency in saving it, should be rejected. I will cheerfully cooperate with these new defenders of this sacred cause in Kansas, and I will award them all due praise, when we shall have been successful, for their large share of merit in its deliverance.

Again, there were extenuating circumstances. In the speech, Seward maintained that the Wilmot Proviso approach was preferable. The context clearly supports James L. Huston's assertion that "Seward was obviously trying to tempt [Stephen A.] Douglas and his followers into the Republican coalition. After all, the slavery extension issue had cracked the Democratic Party twice before, in 1846-48 and in 1854, and one more time would seal the antislavery victory." But isn't that precisely the approach of a cautious and moderate politician - attempting to build a coalition with more "conservative" (for want of a better term) elements, rather than throwing down the gauntlet and taking a doctrinaire approach?

Two years later, on February 29, 1860, Seward delivered a major speech in the Senate on the admission of Kansas. Although Seward did not back down from his core conviction that slavery was wrong, the bulk of the speech was remarkably conciliatory to the South. At the outset, the discussion of slavery took on an abstract, almost academic tone, combining history, economics and sociology. The division over slavery, for example, was not between the North and the South, but between "capital States" and "labor States":

An economical question early arises out of the subject of slavery - labor either of freemen or of slaves is the cardinal necessity of society. . . . In the one case capital invested in slaves becomes a great political force, while in the other labor thus elevated and enfranchised, becomes the dominating political power. It thus happens that we may, for convenience sake, and not inaccurately, call slave States capital States, and free States labor States.

Seward also addressed the fact that, even then, people were hearing "menaces of disunion. louder, more distinct, more emphatic than ever, with the condition annexed, that they shall be executed the moment that a Republican Administration, though constitutionally elected, shall assume the Government." Again, his response was the soul of conciliation. Although secession was plainly "unconstitutional" "mad work", Seward pledged to listen to southern complaints:

Hitherto the Republic party has been content with one self-interrogatory - how many votes it can cast? These threats enforce another - has it determination enough to cast them? This latter question touches its spirit and pride. I am quite sure, however, that as it has hitherto practiced self-denial in so many other forms, it will in this emergency lay aside all impatience of temper, together with all ambition, and will consider these extraordinary declamations seriously and with a just moderation.

Even more surprising was Seward’s clumsy attempt to persuade southerners that Republicans shared their values. Denying the southern accusation that Republicans intended “to introduce negro equality among you,” Seward asserted that the free labor system promoted the very “equality of white men” that southerners held out as their ideal:

Suppose we had the power to change your social system; what warrant have you for supposing that we should carry negro equality among you? We know, and we will show you, if you will only give heed, that what our system of labor works out, wherever it works out anything, is the equality of white men. The laborer in the free States, no matter how humble his occupation, is a white man, and he is politically the equal of his employer. . . . Is it then in any . . . [of the free States] that negro equality offends the white man’s pride? . . . Did Washington, Jefferson, and Henry, when they implored you to relinquish your system and accept the one we have adopted, propose to sink you down to the level of the African, or was it their desire to exalt all white men to a common political elevation?

Seward attempted to blunt southern suspicions by going out of his way to vigorously condemn John Brown and his associates for their “unlawful” attempt “to subvert slavery in Virginia by conspiracy, ambush, invasion, and force.”

While generous and charitable natures will probably concede that John Brown and his associates acted on earnest though fatally erroneous convictions, yet all good citizens will nevertheless agree, that this attempt to execute an unlawful purpose in Virginia by invasion, involving servile war, was an act of sedition and treason, and criminal in just the extent that it affected the public peace and was destructive of human happiness and human life.

Finally, noting the shared heritage of (white) Americans, north and south (“We are of one race, language, liberty, and faith”), Seward laid out an oddly mechanical vision of the Constitution, which at least had the virtue of emphasizing its perpetuity:

Mr. President, we are perpetually forgetting this subtle and complex, yet obvious and natural, mechanism of our Constitution; and because we do forget it, we are continually wondering how it is that a Confederacy of thirty and more States, covering regions so vast, and regulating interests so various of so many millions of men, constituted and conditioned so diversely, works right on. We are continually looking to see it stop and stand still, or fall suddenly into pieces. But, in truth, it will not stop; it cannot stop; it was made not to stop, but to keep in motion – in motion always, and without force. For my own part . . . I expect that it will stand and work right on until men shall fear its failure no more than we now apprehend that the sun will cease to hold his eternal place in the heavens.

In the end, Seward maintained, the present “winds of controversy” would subside and the Union would stand more firm than ever:

The earth seems to be heaving beneath our feet, and the pillars of the noble fabric that protects us [seem] to be trembling before our eyes. But the appointed end of all this agitation comes at last, and always seasonably; the tumults of the people subside; the country becomes calm once more; and then we find that only our senses have been disturbed, and that they have betrayed us. The earth is firm as always before, and the wounded structure, for whose safety we have feared so anxiously, now more firmly fixed than ever, still stands unmoved, enduring, and immovable.

David M. Potter writes off Seward's February 29, 1860 speech as simply an attempt to shed his radical image and "convert[] himself into a moderate" in order to bolster his chances of being nominated for the presidency at the Republican convention that summer:

By 1860, it began to appear that these phrases ["a law higher than the Constitution" and "irrepressible conflict between freedom and slavery"] had succeeded too well [in establishing Seward as an antislavery leader], and on February 29, Seward delivered a major speech in the Senate appealing for "mutual toleration" and "fraternal spirit." Even the dualism of "free states" and "slave states" disappeared, and "labor states" and "capital states" replaced them. But Seward's conciliatory gestures were too patently opportunistic to win the confidence of the moderates. For more than a decade he had been building an image of himself as the antislavery leader. Southern fire-eaters, who had accepted the image literally, were not going to let him escape from it now. Almost the only people influenced by the speech were some of the radical antislavery men, who were antagonized.

Even so, I cannot help but wonder whether Seward's speech, however politically convenient, did not reflect a fundamental moderation underlying a radical veneer. Salmon P. Chase, for example, would never have delivered such a speech, no matter how advantageous it might have been. Certainly with the benefit of hindsight and knowledge of Seward's subsequent trajectory it is fair to see in the speech both political positioning and a tendency to draw back from the brink.

Now it is pretty well known that, shortly before and after he became President Lincoln's Secretary of State (basically from late February 1861 through Sumpter), Seward struggled desperately to hold Lincoln to a course that would keep the middle and upper South in the Union. But to end this post I'd like to focus on a less well known incident that demonstrates just how early in the Secession Crisis Seward displayed an extremely pacific stance.

On November 24, 1860 - fewer than three weeks after Lincoln's election, and well before even the most conservative Republicans began wondering whether they shouldn't propose some sort of conciliatory gesture to the South - Thurlow Weed, Seward's "alter ego", publicly advocated gutting the core tenet of the Republican party: no slavery in the territories. Russell McClintock tells the story in his fine book Lincoln and the Decision for War: The Northern Response to Secession:

But the earthquake that truly shook [Republican] party confidence came from an entirely unexpected quarter: Thurlow Weed, the undisputed ruler of the New York State organization and alter ego of Senator William H. Seward. On November 24 [,1860], Weed's Albany Evening Journal flouted Republican dogma by proposing not just a strengthening of the Fugitive Slave Law but also a re-extension of the old Missouri Compromise line . . .. Although it had been the Kansas-Nebraska Act's repeal of that line six years earlier that had led to the founding of the Republican coalition, from early on the party had rejected its reinstitution, insisting on nothing less than barring slavery from all federal territories. But now, Weed explained, the Republicans' accession to the White House marked the end of the controversy over slavery in the territories. There was no need to legislate against slavery in federal territories because the lands remaining would not support a slave-based economy anyway.

Shades of Stephen A. Douglas! Both Dr. McClintock and Kenneth M. Stampp emphasize how outraged mainstream Republicans were at this apostasy, deriding "Granny Weed" for his weakness. Kenneth M. Stampp describes the reaction as follows:

Most sensational was the "backing down" of Thurlow Weed, who began to advocate concessions, especially the restoration of the Missouri Compromise line, in his Albany Evening Journal. "Poor Weed," mocked a critic [identified in a footnote as the New York Herald]. "His glory has departed - his metal is broken - his pride is humbled - his self reliance is gone . . ." And the "knowing ones" had no trouble in finding the cause. "They easily traced the wonder to Wall Street. They found in the condition of the stock market a perfect means of explanation."

And here is Dr. McClintock surveying the Republican response:

The abandonment of the [Republican] party's central plank by the boss of its most important state organization and political manager of the party's most powerful national leader, came as a shock to Republicans across the country. It sparked a vehement reaction against the idea of concessions - especially concessions like Weed's, which struck at the very heart of Republicanism. "We dont take the Evening Journal or Times for our guide," a local party activist from western New York insisted. "We are here utterly opposed to have the principles of the Republican Party compromised away." Junior New York senator Preston King protested to Weed, "It cannot be done. You must abandon your position. . . . You and Seward should be among the foremost to brandish the lance and shout for war."

Senator King assumed that Seward was complicit in Weed's shocking retreat - and correctly so. Dr. McClintock reports that Seward was convinced that concessions were necessary but knew that they "would challenge party orthodoxy." Weed and Seward therefore decided jointly "that Weed would publish a compromise proposal as a sort of trial balloon." When "Republicans reacted harshly to Weed's editorials," Seward was able to "den[y] that he had any part in them."

So where does this leave me? I'm not sure. As this post suggests, I guess I'm inclined to see more continuity than disjunction - more conservatism and caution underlying a radical image from fairly early on. Most people become more conservative as they grow older, but the change tends to be moderate and evolutionary. The evidence, however, is fairly thin and ambiguous, and there's always the concern that I'm reading more in earlier events because I know what will come later. Your thoughts are welcome.

About the first illustration, entitled A Big Blue Bottle Fly in the Web:

Another swipe at Whig candidate Winfield Scott's manipulation by antislavery Whigs Seward and Greeley. Here, Scott is a fly caught in a large web, spun by spiders Greeley (left) and Seward (right). Scott exclaims, "I think I've got myself into a hobble!" Greeley, hanging from a thread, decides, "I must hurry up & cover him with our slime as fast as possible!" Seward adds, "I hope he won't break through before I get him secured!" At lower left, Massachusetts Whig Daniel Webster and New York editor James Watson Webb look on. Webster remarks, "What an extraordinary web, Webb!" Webb replies, "Yes it's one of that crafty old spider Seward's and he has caught a large fly who wont get out Scot free--Can't you stir it up a little, Webster!"

About the second illustration, entitled A Magnificent Offer to a Magnificent Officer:

A cartoon ridiculing Whig nominee Winfield Scott as the pawn of New York antislavery senator William Seward. A member of the "Whig Committee" kneels before Scott and offers him a crown and a bag of money marked "50,000,000." The man says, "Behold us at your feet great General, tired of the insolence of our democratic rabble, we, the Whig Party, have made a Coup d'etat, proclaimed an Empire and herewith offer you the Crown, and with the Crown $50,000,000 per annum!! Long live the Emperor!!! Huzza!!" Scott, holding his plumed hat and sword, leans against Seward. He asks his supporter, "Why thats a magnificent offer Seward, shall I accept it?" Sharpening his quill, Seward replies, "Certainly! by all means, you take the Crown and I'll take the $50,000,000 and the Pickings and the Stealings." In the right background stand other members of the "Whig Committee." On the left is Seward's writing table.

Sean Wilentz Falls Down on the Job

I've got a serious bone to pick with Sean Wilentz, the editor of the American Presidents Series. According to the list on their site, they have now published biographies of thirty-three presidents. Additional volumes scheduled to be released through the beginning of next year have apparently been announced. Amazon, for example, lists a volume on Andrew Johnson that is not scheduled to be released until January 18, 2011.

Amid this welter of releases the obscure as well the iconic have been celebrated. For God's sake, they've published a volume on James Garfield, who effectively served as president for all of four months, from the beginning of March 1881 until he was shot on July 2 of that year. (True, it took a couple of months for the doctors to finish him off after that, but I don't think he was doing much governing during the period.)

Who's missing? You guessed it: Millard Fillmore. No volume on our thirteen president has been released or, so far as I can determine, even been scheduled for release at this point. Shameful.

The Original Meaning of the Recess Appointments Clause

Talk about an issue I didn't even know existed. In The Original Meaning of the Recess Appointments Clause, Lawprof Michael B. Rappaport (who's also a contributor to The Right Coast blog) argues that two aspects of the present interpretation of the Recess Appointments Clause are inconsistent with the original understanding of the Clause:

First, I maintain that the original meaning permits recess appointments to be made only for an office that becomes vacant during the recess when the recess appointment is to be made. If an office becomes vacant while the Senate is in session, or if it becomes vacant during an earlier recess and remains vacant during the Senate session, the President is not permitted to make a recess appointment to that office. In essence, if an office is vacant while the Senate is in session, the Constitution expects the President to make an advice and consent appointment at that time. By contrast, under the current interpretation, the President can make a recess appointment for any office that happens to be vacant during the recess, irrespective of whether the office was ever vacant while the Senate was in session. Consequently, the current interpretation allows the President to make a recess appointment to an office that had first become vacant several years before the recess. The President could also recess appoint an individual who has been nominated for an advice and consent appointment, but who now seems unlikely to secure senatorial consent.

The second issue on which the current interpretation departs from the original meaning is the definition of a recess. The Congress has traditionally held one legislative session per year, which is followed by a recess that lasts until the next session. This recess between the legislative sessions is called an intersession recess. By contrast, Congress also holds recesses during the legislative session, which are called intrasession recesses. I argue that the original meaning allows recess appointments to be made only during intersession recesses. In the early years under the Constitution, intersession recesses typically lasted between 6 and 9 months and therefore recess appointments were needed to prevent important offices from remaining unfilled during these long recesses. The current interpretations of the Clause, however, allow recess appointments during intrasession recess. These intrasession recesses are often extremely short, although there is a disagreement over whether recess appointments should be available during all intrasession recesses or only those that last a minimum time, such as two weeks. In either case, though, the current interpretation would allow recess appointments to be made during recesses that seem far too brief to justify bypassing the Senate.

I haven't read Prof. Rappaport's paper yet, but it looks like an interesting subject.

H/T Ramesh Ponnuru at The Corner.

"If all men are created equal, that is final"

I wasn't planning to publish another post on Independence Day, but I ran across a post by Lawprof David Kopel at Volokh on a speech delivered by President Calvin Coolidge on the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The speech includes this remarkable paragraph:

About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.

Aaron Copland

For me, the music of Aaron Copland is the music of America, and Independence Day is not complete without a healthy dose of it. The Copland Collection will sound forth from the stereo as soon as the rest of the house wakes up.

How about you?

Presidential Scholars on Crack

In a post yesterday, I highlighted a newly-released list of presidential rankings based on the opinions of "238 presidential scholars." I'd like to take a closer look at the components that led those alleged experts to the moronic conclusion that that Millard Fillmore was our sixth worst present.

I am not going to go into turgid detail explaining the events of Millard's presidency to which I refer in the discussion below. For more detail on most of the events, go to this post and follow the links.

Background (Family, Education, Experience): 40 out of 43. Total rubbish. Millard grew up dirt poor, pulled himself up by his bootstraps and became a lawyer and leading citizen of the then-thriving port town of Buffalo, NY. As I've remarked before, his family background and educational attainment are remarkably similar to that of Abe Lincoln. Millard had more legislative and executive experience. Abe is ranked 28th. Bias anyone?

Party Leadership: 41. Since Millard was unexpectedly elevated to the presidency on the death of Zachary Taylor, he's a bit hampered on this one. Because he tackled and solved issues that had split both parties by region, his ability to lead the Whigs suffered, and he was denied nomination for another term in 1852. Millard is in effect being penalized because he placed country over party. Would the experts have preferred it otherwise?

Communication Ability (Speak, Write): 40. Millard served in an era when presidents did not give many speeches. Basically, their inaugural addresses were about it, and an occasional Gettysburg Address. Millard didn't start a war, so he didn't have that opportunity. Not too many people deliver great speeches on compromises. But on the written side, Millard shone. His August 6, 1850 message to Congress on Texas is one of the most effective communications ever sent to that body. By putting the Texas-New Mexico issue front and center Fillmore paved the way for resolution of the Crisis of 1850.

Relationship with Congress: 38. I suppose it depends on what "relationship" means. Millard effectively dealt with tough issues that divided Congress and both parties. As a result, compromisers hailed him and radicals, both north and south, vilified him. So what? I'm amused to see that Andy Jackson is ranked no. 14 in this category.

Court Appointments: 35. Millard had the opportunity to nominate only one Supreme Court Justice. His pick was one of the finest ever made: Benjamin Robbins Curtis of Massachusetts, who wrote a brilliant dissent in the Dred Scott case.

Handling of US Economy: 33. Not sure what to do with this one. Presidents before the Civil War really didn't have the power to "handle" the economy. In addition, the economy hummed along just fine throughout Millard's presidency, so there was nothing to "handle" except to leave it alone.

Luck: 25. Here I'd disagree because the rating is too high. Millard was unexpectedly elevated to the presidency in the middle of the greatest crisis the country had ever faced. He'd been largely frozen out the previous administration and disagreed with its approach. You call that lucky? It was Branch Rickey, I think, who said luck was the residue of design. Millard helped resolve the Crisis of 1850 through good appointments (Daniel Webster, see below), intelligent planning, and effective execution. He wasn't lucky, he was good.

Ability to Compromise: 25. 25! For God's sake, the man was a principal facilitator of the Compromise of 1850! Lincoln, who led the country into civil war, is rated no. 1. Are these people on crack?

Willing to take Risks: 37. More nonsense. The experts hear "compromise" and apparently assume no risk was involved. Every decision that Millard made was fraught with risk.

Executive Appointments: 35. One of Millard's first decisions was to nominate Daniel Webster as Secretary of State. Need I say more?

Overall Ability: 38. Let's see. After two months in office Millard had had a substantial part in resolving the greatest crisis the country had ever experienced. He opened Japan to the West. He "handled" the economy just fine by leaving it alone. Clearly the bottom of the barrel. Idiots.

Imagination: 36. Resolution of the crisis brought on by the Mexican War and the Wilmot Proviso eluded two prior presidents and the Great Triumvirate. Millard helped resolve it in two months by shifting the focus from California to Texas and New Mexico. Imagine that.

Domestic Accomplishments: 35. So utterly stupid I am left speechless.

Integrity: 36. Ludicrous. Before, during and after his presidency, Millard was integrity personified. Even his political enemies realized that. Not a breath of a scandal ever attached itself to him or his administration.

Executive Ability: 38. In the context of the time, it's hard to know what to make of this category. On top of it, Millard was a Whig, and the Whigs prided themselves on legislative primacy. That said, Millard's appointment of Daniel Webster as Secretary of State, his ability to redirect the deliberations of Congress from California to Texas, and his willingness to throw down the gauntlet to Texas mark him as a first-rate executive.

Foreign Policy Accomplishments: 33. Japan's not bad.

Leadership Ability: 39. I can only shake my head. No, Millard did not lead in the style of Teddy Roosevelt. But his understated yet firm style fit perfectly the tenor of the time and the delicate situation in which he unexpectedly found himself.

Intelligence: 39. Again, I'd liken Millard to Abe. Both were smart enough to raise themselves out of rural poverty and establish themselves as leading men in their communities. There isn't a reason in the world that the intelligence ratings of the two men (Abe is rated no. 3) couldn't be reversed.

Avoid Crucial Mistakes: 30. His second-highest ranking, but still absurd. What mistakes did Millard make?

The famed historian David M. Potter concluded (and I have quoted this before) that "Fillmore settled a very inflamed crisis . . . with such adroitness and seeming ease that history has scarcely recognized the magnitude of his achievement." Unfortunately, these farcical presidential rankings suggest that Millard's skill does not fully explain his obscurity.

It's pretty clear that these rankings are deductive. The alleged experts decide up front who they like and who they don't - FDR great, for example. They then back into their conclusions by making up individual category rankings that even someone strung out on acid would recognize are insane - let's give FDR a "1" for his "Handling of U.S. Economy"!

In Millard's case, my guess is that it boils down to a visceral dislike of compromise and the Compromise of 1850 in particular. Millard shouldn't have compromised, he should have led the country into war and wiped slavery off the map! I've discussed before why we should be grateful that Millard was not so rash. The advantage of being an expert is that you don't have to worry about such subtleties.

Independence Day

Do our country a favor and observe the Fourth of July by teaching just one person the basics about America's founding.

More Proof That Most "Presidential Scholars" Are Idiots

Not that any is needed.

Professors rank President Obama 15th best president:

A new poll of leading presidential scholars ranks Barack Obama as the 15th best president of the United States, just below Bill Clinton but ahead of Ronald Reagan.

The Siena College poll, which surveyed 238 presidential scholars at U.S. colleges and universities, asked scholars to rate the nation’s 43 chief executives on 20 attributes ranging from legislative accomplishments to integrity and imagination.

In the overall ranking, Obama rated two places below Clinton, who was 13th best, and three better than Reagan, who is ranked as the 18th best.

***

Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, was ranked at number 23 in 2002 — the last time Siena’s presidential expert poll was conducted — but has since dropped to number 39, qualifying him as one of the five worst presidents. Bush came in at number 42 — second to last — on issues such as handling the U.S. economy, foreign policy accomplishments and intelligence. (Warren G. Harding was rated the least intelligent president).

Bush joins Harding, Andrew Johnson, James Buchanan and Franklin Pierce, all of whom have consistently ranked as the worst presidents since the poll started, in the bottom five.

The chart showing the ccmplete rankings is here (pdf).

Confirming their utter cluelessness, the "238 presidential scholars" ranked Millard Fillmore no. 38 - ahead of only Andrew Johnson, James Buchanan, Warren Harding, Franklin Pierce and Dubya.

I'll Give You My Bacon Cheeseburger When You Pry It From My Cold, Dead Hands

"You sit upon your side, silent and gloomy . . ."

Sir, disguise the fact as you will, there is an enmity between the northern and southern people that is deep and enduring, and you never can eradicate it - never! Look at the spectacle exhibited on this floor. How is it? There are the Republican northern Senators upon that side. Here are the southern Senators on this side. How much social intercourse is there between us? You sit upon your side, silent and gloomy; we sit upon ours with knit brows and portentous scowls. Yesterday, I observed that there was not a solitary man on that side of the Chamber came over here even to extend the civilities and courtesies of life; nor did any of us go over there. Here are two hostile bodies on this floor; and it is but a type of the feeling that exists between the two sections. We are enemies as much as if we were hostile States. I believe that the northern people hate the South worse than ever the English people hated France; and I can tell my brethren over there that there is no love lost upon the part of the South.

Georgia Senator Alfred Iverson, December 5, 1860.

Lewis Cass's Nicholson Letter

In December 1847, Michigan Senator Lewis Cass wrote a letter to one A.P.O. Nicholson of Nashville, Tennessee concerning the Mexican War, the Wilmot Proviso and the issue of slavery in the territories. The letter, dated December 24, 1847, was intended to launch Cass's ultimately successful campaign for the 1848 Democratic nomination for the presidency. It was made public and published, originally in the December 30, 1847 edition of the Washington Union.

The letter gained attention and is most famous today as one of the earliest articulations of Popular Sovereignty, the idea that the people of the territories should decide whether or not to permit slavery there. The great benefit of this idea, as Cass himself admitted, was that it would remove the contentious debate over slavery in the territories from the halls of Congress.

Scholars have repeatedly pointed out that Popular Sovereignty also contained a crucial - and highly beneficial, although potentially dangerous - ambiguity as to when during the territorial process residents could address slavery. Northern politicians attempting to convince their constituents that Popular Sovereignty would, as a practical matter, bar slavery from the territories, argued, or at least suggested, that territorial legislatures could forbid slavery at any time after their creation. Southerners, on the other hand, maintained that territories could bar slavery only in the final stage of their existence, when territorial representatives met in convention to draft a proposed state constitution.

While Cass's Nicholson letter is vague on this issue, the most interesting part of the letter to me is the discussion of Congress's power over the territories. He adopts the odd (and I would maintain clearly erroneous) position that Congress did not have the power to pass laws that generally regulated the affairs of citizens within the territories (what he elsewhere calls the "police"). The language contained in Article IV, Section 3 ("The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States") "fairly construed, relates to the public lands, as such, to arsenals, dock-yards, forts, ships, and all the various kinds of property, which the United States may and must possess." It "does not extend to the unlimited power of legislation; to the passage of all laws, in the most general acceptation of the word; which [word], by the by, is carefully excluded from the sentence."

As Cass tacitly admits, the Northwest Ordinance - passed without controversy by the Founding Generation - makes something of a hash out of his position. He retreats to an uneasy solution. Based on the principle that government power "should not be carried beyond the necessary implication which produces it," Cass concludes that Congressional authority over the territories "should be limited to the creation of proper governments for new countries, acquired or settled, and to the necessary provision for their eventual admission into the Union; leaving, in the meantime, to the people inhabiting them, to regulate their internal concerns in their own way."

Here is the complete letter. Judge for yourselves:

Dear Sir: I have received your letter, and shall answer it as frankly as it is written.

You ask me whether I am in favor of the acquisition of Mexican territory, and what are my sentiments with regard to the Wilmot Proviso?

I have so often and so explicitly stated my views of the first question, in the Senate, that it seems almost unnecessary to repeat them here. As you request it, however, I shall briefly give them.

I think, then, that no peace should be granted to Mexico, till a reasonable indemnity is obtained for the injuries which she has done us. The territorial extent of this indemnity is, in the first instance, a subject of Executive consideration. There the Constitution has placed it, and there I am willing to leave it; not only because I have full confidence in its judicious exercise, but because, in the ever-varying circumstances of a war, it would be indiscreet, by a public declaration, to commit the country to any line of indemnity, which might otherwise be enlarged, as the obstinate injustice of the enemy prolongs the contest, with its loss of blood and treasure.

It appears to me that the kind of metaphysical magnanimity, which would reject all indemnity at the close of a bloody and expensive war, brought on by a direct attack upon our troops by the enemy, and preceded by a succession of unjust acts for a series of years, is as unworthy of the age in which we live, as it is revolting to the common sense and practice of mankind. It would conduce but little to our future security, or, indeed to our present reputation, to declare that we repudiate all expectation of compensation from the Mexican government, and are fighting, not for any practical result, but for some vague, perhaps philanthropic object, which escapes my penetration, and must be defined by those who assume this new principle of national intercommunication. All wars are to be deprecated, as well by the statesman, as by the philanthropist. They are great evils; but there are greater evils than these, and submission to injustice is among them. The nation which should refuse to defend its rights and its honor, when assailed, would soon have neither to defend; and when driven to war, it is not by professions of disinterestedness and declarations of magnanimity, that its rational objects can be best obtained, or other nations taught a lesson of forbearance – the strongest security for permanent peace. We are at war with Mexico, and its vigorous prosecution is the surest means of its speedy termination, and ample indemnity the surest guaranty against the recurrence of such injustice as provoked it.

The Wilmot proviso has been before the country some time. It has been repeatedly discussed in Congress, and by the public press. I am strongly impressed with the opinion, that a great change has been going on in the public mind upon this subject – in my own as well as others; and that doubts are resolving themselves into convictions, that the principle it involves should be kept out of the National Legislature, and left to the people of the confederacy in their respective local governments.

The whole subject is a comprehensive one, and fruitful of important consequences. It would be ill-timed to discuss it here. I shall not assume that responsible task, but shall confine myself to such general views as are necessary to the fair exhibition of my opinions.

We may well regret the existence of slavery in the southern States, and wish they had been saved from its introduction. But there it is, and not by the act of the present generation; and we must deal with it as a great practical question, involving the most momentous consequences. We have neither the right nor the power to touch it where it exists; and if we had both, their exercise, by any means heretofore suggested, might lead to results which no wise man would willingly encounter, and which no good man could contemplate without anxiety.

The theory of our Government presupposes that its various members have reserved to themselves the regulation of all subjects relating to what may be termed their internal police. They are sovereign within their boundaries, except in those cases where they have surrendered to the General Government a portion of their rights, in order to give effect to the objects of the Union, whether these concern foreign nations or the several States themselves. Local institutions, if I may so speak, whether they have reference to slavery, or to any other relations, domestic or public, are left to local authority, either original or derivative. Congress has no right to say that there shall be slavery in New York, or that there shall be no slavery in Georgia; nor is there any other human power but the people of those States, respectively, which can change the relations existing therein; and they can say, if they will, We will have slavery in the former, and we will abolish it in the latter.

In various respects the Territories differ from the States. Some of their rights are inchoate, and they do not possess the peculiar attributes of sovereignty. Their relation to the General Government is very imperfectly defined by the Constitution; and it will be found, upon examination, that in that instrument the only grant of power concerning them is conveyed in the phrase, “Congress shall have the power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory and other property belonging to the United States." Certainly this phraseology is very loose, if it were designed to include in the grant the whole power of legislation over persons, as well as things. The expression, the "territory and other property," fairly construed, relates to the public lands, as such, to arsenals, dock-yards, forts, ships, and all the various kinds of property, which the United States may and must possess.

But surely the simple authority to dispose of and regulate these, does not extend to the unlimited power of legislation; to the passage of all laws, in the most general acceptation of the word; which, by the by, is carefully excluded from the sentence. And, indeed, if this were so, it would render unnecessary another provision of the Constitution, which grants to Congress the power to legislate, with the consent of the States, respectively, over all places purchased for the "erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dock-yards," &c. These being the "property" of the United States, if the power to make "needful rules and regulations concerning" them includes the general power of legislation, then the grant of authority to regulate "the territory and other property of the United States" is unlimited, wherever subjects are found for its operation, and its exercise needed no auxiliary provision. If, on the other hand, it does not include such power of legislation over the "other property" of the United States, then it does not include it over their "territory;" for the same terms which grant the one, grant the other. "Territory" is here classed with property, and treated as such; and the object was evidently to enable the General Government, as a property-holder – which, from necessity, it must be – to manage, preserve, and "dispose of" such property as it might possess, and which authority is essential almost to its being. But the lives and persons of our citizens, with the vast variety of objects connected with them, cannot be controlled by an authority which is merely called into existence for the purpose of making rules and regulations for the disposition and management of property.

Such, it appears to me, would be the construction put upon this provision of the Constitution, were this question now first presented for consideration, and not controlled by imperious circumstances. The original ordinance of the Congress of the Confederation, passed in 1787, and which was the only act upon this subject in force at the adoption of the Constitution, provided a complete frame of government for the country north of the Ohio, while in a territorial condition, and for its eventual admission in separate States into the Union. And the persuasion, that this ordinance contained within itself all the necessary means of execution, probably prevented any direct reference to the subject in the constitution, further than vesting in Congress the right to admit the States formed under it into the Union. However, circumstances arose which required legislation, as well over the territory north of the Ohio, as over other territory, both within and without the original Union, ceded to the General Government; and, at various times, a more enlarged power has been exercised over the Territories – meaning thereby the different Territorial Governments – than is conveyed by the limited grant referred to. How far an existing necessity may have operated in producing this legislation, and thus extending, by rather a violent implication, powers not directly given, I know not. But certain it is, that the principle of interference should not be carried beyond the necessary implication which produces it. It should be limited to the creation of proper governments for new countries, acquired or settled, and to the necessary provision for their eventual admission into the Union; leaving, in the meantime, to the people inhabiting them, to regulate their internal concerns in their own way. They are just as capable of doing so as the people of the States; and they can do so, at any rate, as soon as their political independence is recognized by admission into the Union. During this temporary condition, it is hardly expedient to call into exercise a doubtful and invidious authority, which questions the intelligence of a respectable portion of our citizens, and whose limitation, whatever it may be, will be rapidly approaching its termination – an authority which would give to Congress despotic power, uncontrolled by the Constitution, over most important sections of our common country. For, if the relation of master and servant may be regulated or annihilated by its legislation, so may the relation of husband and wife, of parent and child, and of any other condition which our institutions and the habits of our society recognize. What would be thought if Congress should undertake to prescribe the terms of marriage in New York, or to regulate the authority of parents over their children in Pennsylvania? And yet it would be as vain to seek one justifying the interference of the National Legislature in the cases referred to in the original States of the Union. I speak here of the inherent power of Congress, and do not touch the question of such contracts as may be formed with new States when admitted into the Confederacy.

Of all the questions that can agitate us, those which are merely sectional in their character are the most dangerous, and the most to be deprecated. The warning voice of him who, from his character, and services, and virtue, had the best right to warn us, proclaimed to his countrymen, in his Farewell Address – that monument of wisdom for him, as I hope it will be of safety for them – how much we had to apprehend from measures peculiarly affecting geographical portions of our country. The grave circumstances in which we are now placed make these words, words of safety; for I am satisfied from all I have seen and heard here, that a successful attempt to ingraft the principles of the Wilmot proviso upon the legislation of this Government, and to apply them to new territory, should new territory be acquired, would seriously affect our tranquillity. 1 do not suffer myself to foresee or to foretell the consequences that would ensue; for I trust and believe there is good sense and good feeling enough in the country to avoid them, by avoiding all occasions which might lead to them.

Briefly, then, I am opposed to the exercise of any jurisdiction by Congress over this matter; and I am in favor of leaving to the people of any territory, which may be hereafter acquired, the right to regulate it for themselves, under the general principles of the Constitution. Because –

1. I do not see in the Constitution any grant of the requisite power to Congress; and I am not disposed to extend a doubtful precedent beyond its necessity – the establishment of Territorial Governments when needed – leaving to the inhabitants all the rights compatible with the relations they bear to the Confederation.

2. Because I believe this measure, if adopted, would weaken, if not impair, the Union of the States; and would sow the seeds of future discord, which would grow up and ripen into an abundant harvest of calamity.

3. Because I believe a general conviction, that such a proposition would succeed, would lead to an immediate withholding of the supplies, and thus to a dishonorable termination of the war. I think no dispassionate observer at the seat of government can doubt this result.

4. If, however, in this I am under a misapprehension, I am under none in the practical operation of this restriction, if adopted by Congress, upon a treaty of peace making any acquisition of Mexican territory. Such a treaty would be rejected just as certainly as presented to the Senate. More than one-third of that body would vole against it, viewing such a principle as an exclusion of the citizens of the slave holding states from a participation in the benefits acquired by the treasure and exertions of all, and which should be common to all. I am repeating – neither advancing nor defending these views. That branch of the subject does not lie in my way, and I shall not turn aside to seek it.
In this aspect of the matter, the people of the United States must choose between this restriction and the extension of their territorial limits. They cannot have both; and which they will surrender must depend upon their representatives first, and then, if these fail them, upon themselves.

5. But, after all, it seems to be generally conceded, that this restriction, if carried into effect, .could not operate upon any state to be formed from newly-acquired territory. The well-known attributes of sovereignty, recognized by us as belonging to the state governments, would sweep before them any such barrier, and would leave the people to express and exert their will at pleasure. Is the object, then, of temporary exclusion for so short a period as the duration of the territorial governments, worth the price at which it would be purchased? - worth the discord it would engender, the trial to which it would expose our Union, and the evils that would be the certain consequence, let that trial result as it might? As to the course, which has been intimated rather than proposed, of ingrafting such a restriction upon any treaty of acquisition, I persuade myself it would find but little favor in any portion of this country. Such an arrangement would render Mexico a party, having a right to interfere in our internal institutions in questions left by the Constitution to the state governments, and would inflict a serious blow upon our fundamental principles. Few, indeed, I trust, there are among us who would thus grant to a foreign power the right to inquire into the constitution and conduct of the sovereign states of this Union; and if there are any, I am not among them, and never shall be. To the people of this country, under God, now and hereafter, are its destinies committed; and we want no foreign power to interrogate us, treaty in hand, and to say, Why have you done this, or why. have you left that undone? Our own dignity and the principles of the national independence unite to repel such a proposition.

But there is another important consideration, which ought not to be lost sight of, in the investigation of this subject. The question that presents itself is not a question of the increase, but of the diffusion of slavery. Whether its sphere be stationary or progressive, its amount will be the same. The rejection of this restriction will not add one to the class of servitude, nor will its adoption give freedom to a single being who is now placed therein. The same numbers will be spread over greater territory; and so far as compression, with less abundance of the necessaries of life, is an evil, so far will that evil be mitigated by transporting slaves to a new country, and giving them a larger space to occupy.

I say this in the event of the extension of slavery over any new acquisition. But can it go there? This may well be doubted. All the descriptions, which reach us of the condition of the Californias and of New Mexico, to the acquisition of which our efforts seem at present directed, unite in representing those countries as agricultural regions, similar in their products to our Middle States, and generally unfit for the production of the great staples, which can alone render slave labor valuable. If we are not grossly deceived – and it is difficult to conceive how we can be – the inhabitants of those regions, whether they depend upon their ploughs or their herds, cannot be slave holders. Involuntary labor, requiring the investment of large capital, can only be profitable when employed in the production of a few favored articles confined by nature to special districts, and paying larger returns than the usual agricultural products spread over more considerable portions of the earth.

In the able letter of Mr. Buchanan upon this subject, not long since given to the public, he presents similar considerations with great force. "Neither," says this distinguished writer, "the soil, the climate, nor the productions of California south of thirty-six.degrees thirty minutes, nor indeed of any portion of it, north or south, is adapted to slave labor; and besides, every facility would be there afforded for the slave to escape from his master. Such property would be entirely insecure in any part of California. It is morally impossible, therefore, that a majority of the emigrants to that portion of the territory south of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes, which will be chiefly composed of our citizens, will ever re-establish slavery within its limits.

“In regard to New Mexico, east of the Rio Grande, the question has already been settled by the admission of Texas into the Union.

"Should we acquire territory beyond the Rio Grande and east of the Rocky mountains, it is still more impossible that a majority of the people would consent to re-establish slavery. They are themselves a colored population, and among them the negro does not belong socially to a degraded race."

With this last remark Mr. Walker fully coincides in his letter written in 1844, upon the annexation of Texas, and which everywhere produced so favorable an impression upon the public mind, as to have conduced very materially to the accomplishment of that great measure. "Beyond the Del Norte," says Mr. Walker, "slavery will not pass; not only because it is forbidden by law, but because the colored race there preponderates in the ratio of ten to one over the whites: and holding, as they do, the government and most of the offices in their possession, they will not permit the enslavement of any portion of the colored race, which makes and executes the laws of the country."

The question, it will be therefore seen on examination, does not regard the exclusion of slavery from a region where it now exists, but a prohibition against its introduction where it does not exist, and where, from the feelings of the inhabitants and the laws of nature, "it is morally impossible," as Mr. Buchanan says, that it can ever re-establish itself.

It augurs well for tho permanence of our confederation, that during more than half a century, which had elapsed since the establishment of this government, many serious questions, and some of the highest importance, have agitated the public mind, and more than once threatened the gravest consequences; but that they have all in succession passed away, leaving our institutions unscathed, and our country advancing in numbers, power, and wealth, and in all the other elements of national prosperity, with a rapidity unknown in ancient or in modern days. In times of political excitement, when difficult and delicate questions present themselves for solution, there is one ark of safety for us; and that is, an honest appeal to the fundamental principles of our Union, and a stern determination to abide their dictates. This course of proceeding has carried us in safety through many a trouble, and I trust will carry us safely through many more, should many more be destined to assail us. The Wilmot Proviso seeks to take from its legitimate tribunal a question of domestic policy, having no relation to the Union, as such, and to transfer it to another created by the people for a special purpose, and foreign to the subject-matter involved in this issue. By going back to our true principles, we go back to the road of peace and safety. Leave to the people, who will be affected by this question, to adjust it upon their own responsibility, and in their own manner, and we shall render another tribute to the original principles of our government, and furnish another guarantee for its permanence and prosperity.

I am, dear sir, respectfully, your obedient servant,

LEWIS CASS.

A.O.P. Nicholson, Esq., Nashville, Tenn.

About the first illustration, entitled The Democratic Funeral of 1848:

Foreseeing political death for the Democrats in the election, the artist imagines a funeral of the party's standard-bearers with a procession of the faithful. Democratic senators (left to right) Sam Houston of Texas, Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, (obscured unidentified man), and South Carolina's John Calhoun carry a litter bearing the bodies of Van Buren, as a fox, and Lewis Cass, as a gas balloon (an unflattering play on his last name). Cass expels clouds of gas from his mouth. Benton carries a slip of paper with the words, "Last of the Family Reign." Calhoun carries an iron collar or manacle labeled "Slavery." They are followed by a second group of pallbearers: Ohio Senator William Allen, former Van Buren advisor Amos Kendall, New Hampshire Democratic leader Levi Woodbury, and former general William Worth, who carry a stretcher bearing retiring President Polk (with cloven hoofs and a devil's tail). Kendall also carries a document labeled "Latest Despatch" while Worth holds his "Military Comi--- [Commission?]," possibly alluding to his role in the Scott-Pillow controversy. (See "Self-Inflating Pillow," no. 1848-2.) An empty "Sub Treasury" box lies open next to Polk on the stretcher. The Independent or "Sub Treasury" bill was a widely criticized measure passed by the Polk administration in August 1846. All of the mourners wear clerical robes. A tombstone for the newspaper "Washington Union" is at left and a monument "To the Memory of Democracy" at right.

About the second illustration, entitled Cass & His Cabinet in 1849:

The satire imputes to the Democrats of 1848, led by candidate Lewis Cass, the corrupt practices of the Van Buren-era party. The artist also criticizes Whig repudiation of stalwart party leader Henry Clay in favor of the independent Zachary Taylor in its 1848 presidential nomination. Cass stands at the head of a table before a paper marked "Democratic Platform," addressing his "Cabinet" composed of old-line Democrats including (left to right) Van Buren's postmaster general Amos Kendall, his treasury secretary Levi Woodbury, former Van Buren Senate allies John Calhoun and Thomas Hart Benton, and Democratic senators Sam Houston and William Allen. Cass: "Gentlemen, we stand on the Democratic "Platform," that is, to "Reward our Friends," rewarding of enemies & deserting of Friends is what caused the breaking up of the Whig Party." Kendall, with a document "Post-Office Reform" before him: "Mr. President, I think you had better state to the gentlemen present what our Principles are & what we intend to carry out." Woodbury, holding a rolled document titled "New Hampshire" says: "The Whig Party ought to be broke up for ever, for putting aside "Clay" & sticking a man in his place that has no principle or Party." South Carolina Senator Calhoun, writing a paper "Free Trade S.C." comments: "I think after all the northern "Dough Faces" must feel rather "flat," to think we won't go their "bastard whig ticket." rather green that." Benton adds: "Feel "flat," why they are used to that, they always have their own way, Except upon "Election day!'" "Houston, with "Missouri Claims," agrees: "Yes, & the day after the "Election" they say it was a dam'd "Locofoco cheat, &" that the Irish & Dutch "both Voted against them." "Senator Allen concludes: "Gentleman, I agree with you all, we must turn out every man that does not stand on the "Platform," it will not do to have any spies in our camp."

About the third illustration, entitled A Correct Chart of Salt River:

"Salt River," the fictitious river of political doom, is charted here as a meandering stream of Democratic misfortunes. The chart was purportedly "prepared by Father Ritchie," i.e., Democratic editor and Polk administration spokesman Thomas Ritchie. Swipes are taken at the Tariff of 1846, Polk's Vice President George M. Dallas, Martin Van Buren, and 1848 Democratic presidential nominee Lewis Cass. The river winds upward from the Ohio River (Ohio was a Democratic stronghold in 1848) to the Lake of Oblivion with an island on which sits the "Mansion of Despair." The "Fast Sailing Steamer Free Trade," captained by Lewis Cass and piloted by Ritchie, sets out on the "Slough of Despond" below (one of the landmarks in John Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress&1). The ship approaches a fork, from which the "Old Fox Branch" on the right leads to "Cabbage Point" and the home of Martin Van Buren. Van Buren can be seen sitting in a rowboat on the river complaining, "Hard work this all; your fault 'John,' with your D--d Free Trade." His son John, a Free Soil party leader and campaigner, encouraged Van Buren's bid for the party's presidential nomination in 1848. On the left Salt River continues past the "Sub Treasury Bluffs," "Noise and Confusion Shoals," "Two Face Points," and "Irish Relief Shoal" (a reference to Democratic support for anti-British insurgents in Ireland), to another fork, "Prince John's Creek." Here John Van Buren walks along the shore and calls, "Good bye Dad! We could not Gull the People." The main branch of the river continues to "Pillow's Cemetery" (named after Gen. Gideon Pillow, conspirator against popular Mexican War commander Winfield Scott and a friend of James K. Polk), "One Seal Island" (?), "Casting Vote Point," and "St Anna Pass." The last is named after Mexican president and commander Santa Anna, whom the Polk administration returned from exile only to see him lead the war against the Americans. On Lake Oblivion is a small ferry boat heads toward the shore at upper right where it will connect with a train named "Tariff [of 18]42," bound for Washington. On the left is a funerary monument "In Memory of Dallas," a memorial to Vice President and former Pennsylvania senator George M. Dallas. Many of Dallas's fellow Pennsylvanians viewed him as a traitor to the state's interests in his support of the Tariff of 1846, which supplanted the popular 1842 tariff.