USA > Alabama > Memorial record of Alabama. A concise account of the state's political, military, professional and industrial progress, together with the personal memoirs of many of its people. Volume I > Part 8
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 | Part 105 | Part 106 | Part 107 | Part 108 | Part 109 | Part 110 | Part 111 | Part 112 | Part 113 | Part 114 | Part 115 | Part 116 | Part 117 | Part 118 | Part 119 | Part 120 | Part 121 | Part 122 | Part 123 | Part 124 | Part 125 | Part 126 | Part 127 | Part 128 | Part 129 | Part 130 | Part 131
68
MEMORIAL RECORD OF ALABAMA.
form, continue to the present time. The one class was composed of those whose conceptions of a federal system were, in general terms, those which the original league embodied-a league in which the power of the state was everything, the power of the federal head practically nothing. The other class was composed of those who recognized the fact that the pres- ent constitution embodied a new creation which was not a league, but a commonwealth of commonwealths, claiming obedience of every citizen, and acting immediately upon him through its courts and executive officers. The greatest struggles of American politics have grown out of the refusal of the class first described to yield assent to the theory of nationality asserted by the second. From the beginning of our political life until the present time the league theory, with its correlative ideas, has been used as a weapon of political warfare against those who have attempted to assert and enforce the growing national idea. The disposition to use that weapon has not characterized any particular section of the union; it can no more be attributed as a reproach to South Carolina than to Massachu- setts. The history of our political struggles, from the adoption of the constitution down to the Civil war, show that whenever the federal or national power has been asserted in such a manner as to injuriously affect any particular section, resistance has been organized upon the league theory of the right of defiance within the league, or of the right of with- drawal from it. Hardly had the machinery of the new government been set in motion when the popular opposition in western Pennsylvania to the new excise law, which manifested itself in' 1794, gave rise to the threat that the insurgent district would secede from the union. and that any attempt at coercion upon the part of the federal government would justify such action. While Jefferson feared that the excise law would produce disunion, Wolcott expressed the hope that the insurgent district would be either coerced or expelled from the union. The active spirit of resistance thus manifested in Pennsylvania drew support and courage from the famous resolutions adopted by the Virginia and Kentucky legis- latures in 1789, in which Madison and Jefferson, as a counter blast to the alien and seditious laws, formulated the theory that the new government was nothing more than a league or "compact" between the states, and that the states which had made the compact had reserved to themselves the power to restrain their creature, the federal government, whenever it should attempt to pass the limits of its delegated authority. In the Vir- ginia resolutions Madison contended that the states "are in duty bound to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil," while in the Ken- tucky resolutions Jefferson contended "that a nullification by those sovereignties of all unauthorized acts done under color of that instrument is the rightful remedy." More vitally important, however, even than that declaration was the one which preceded it, "that the federal govern- ment was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the pow- ers delegated to itself." No man of his day was more opposed than
69
POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE STATE.
Jefferson to any recognition of the legitimate position and influence of the great federal court, whose powers were in embyro, and whose authority Marshall was to expound and define. No organ of our federal system is more distinctly a growth than the supreme court. With no prototype in history, there was no standard by which its possible powers could be measured, by which its possible usefulness could be estimated. Slowly and painfully the idea had to grow that the great aim and purpose of the new fabric was to create a central government subject to express and implied limitations-limitations of which its own supreme court should be the only final judge. Nothing did more, perhaps, to strengthen the growth of the new idea of nationality, which Jefferson had been so care- ful to oppose, than his own official action when, in 1803, he was con- fronted with the temptation held out to him by Napoleon to purchase Louisiana. Nothing could have been more obvious than the advantage which would arise out of the purchase, for a trifling sum, of a vast terri- tory which would not only double the then area of the United States, but also give to them control of all the great river systems of central North America. Under Jefferson's theory; the constituiton gave the federal government no power to buy and hold territory, but under the force of the great temptation he broadened his ideas, and won the great prize for his country, while he quieted his conscience by talking for a time of an amendment which would grant the necessary power. This Louisiana purchase opened up the great controversy between the north and the - south which was closed by the Civil war.
When in November, 1777, the articles of confederation were submitted by congress to the states for adoption, they were promptly signed by all except Delaware, New Jersey and Maryland, who refused to enter into the confederacy until the controversy should be settled as to the ultimate ownership of the great western territory of which France had been dis- possessed. Delaware and New Jersey finally, withdrew from the contro- versy and signed the articles, but Maryland held out to the last. She claimed that this western territory "should be considered as common prop- erty, subject to be parceled out by congress into free, convenient, and independent governments, in such manner and at such times as the wisdom of that assembly shall hereafter direct." Not until that claim had been fully admitted by both Virginia and New York did Maryland complete the first constitution by her assent to it on March 1, 1781. In that way the new government became the sovereign possessor of the northwestern territory, embracing the area of the great states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio (excepting the Connecticut reserve), an area which under the articles of confederation it had no express right either to hold or govern. The preliminary plan for the government of this ter- ritory was reported to congress, April 23, 1784, by a committee of which Jefferson was chairman-a plan which contemplated the creation of sev- enteen states in which, "after the year 1800 there shall be neither
70
MEMORIAL RECORD OF ALABAMA.
slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the said states, other than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly con- victed." Although Jefferson's plan failed of adoption, a final plan was reported in 1787, by a committee of which Dane of Massachusetts was chairman, in which the prohibition of slavery was made perpetual, and a fugitive slave clause embodied. Thus by the great ordinance of 1787 was the question of slavery settled in the vast territory north of the Ohio. When, by the Louisiana purchase, a very much larger area was added to the United States. no stipulation was made excluding slavery from the new territory. As an institution it already existed there; it was estab- lished by custom and recognized by both French and Spanish law. Con- gress did not attempt to interfere with the existence of such laws, and in 1812 Louisiana was admitted to the union as a slave state. The admission of Louisiana was followed by that of Indiana in 1816, by that of Missis- sippi in 1817, by that of Illinois in 1818 and by that of Alabama in 1819. Then came the memorable struggle over the admission of Missouri, the second state to be carved out of the Louisiana purchase, when she applied under a constitution in which slavery was recognized. The opposition to her admission came from the north and west, whose numerical superi- ority in the house of representatives was marked, while the compact southern vote, with one or two northern allies, dominated in the senate. The struggle ended at last in what is known as the Missouri compromise of 1820, whereby it was agreed that both Missouri and Maine should be admitted; that the former should be admitted as a slave state, subject to the understanding that slavery should be forever prohibited throughout the rest of the Louisiana purchase north of latitude 36° 30', the main southern boundary of Missouri. Although no express agreement was made as to the territory south of the compromise line, it was understood that any state created south of that line could adopt slavery if it so deter- mined. The consequences of the Louisiana purchase, which were thus compromised for the moment, had been clearly foreseen from the begin- ning by northern statesmen, who protested at the time against the pur- chase itself. Josiah Quincy of Massachusetts declared from his seat in congress that if the bill for the purchase of Louisiana should become a law that it would amount to a virtual dissolution of the union, and that it would become the duty of some to prepare for a separation, amicably if they could, violently if they must. The cry for disunion thus raised by Massachusetts was soon heard again when the New England states, oppressed by the consequences of the war of 1812, sent delegates to the Hartford convention, in which it was declared that "when 'emergencies occur, which are either beyond the reach of judicial tribunals, or too pressing to admit of delay incident to their forms, states which have no common umpire must be their own judges and execute their own decisions." This league doctrine, drawn by New England from the reso- lutions of 1789, was repeated in still stronger tones by South Carolina
71
POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE STATE.
when in 1830-32, by opposing the tariff. she broke the peace between the sections which for a decade the Missouri compromise had secured. During this controversy it was that Mr. Calhoun, as a counter blast to the exercise of the power of federal taxation formally announced the mon- strous doctrine of "nullification," which took definite form in the ordi- nance adopted by the convention of his state, wherein it was declared that the tariff of May 19, 1828, and that of July '24, 1832, were null and void, and in which the legislature was instructed to pass laws looking to the resistance of the federal tax collectors. At the same time the convention announced the more plausible doctrine of secession, in the declaration that any attempt to coerce the state would be regarded "as inconsistent with the longer continuance of South Carolina in the union." The inher- ent weakness and absurdity of the doctrine of nullification was almost as generally recognized at the south as elsewhere. It was never counte- nanced by southern statesmen as a class; and it passed away with the emergency which evolved it from the metaphysical brain of its over-acute author. But while nullification passed away secession remained, as the practical outcome of the league theory, to be used by the south against the north in the bitter controversy over slavery which was yet to come.
With the admission of Texas, the last slave state ever received into the union, the final and real struggle between the north and south over the question of abolition began in earnest. The great ordinance of 1787 had settled once and forever the question of slavery so far as the northwestern territory was concerned; the constitution had settled it so far as the states were concerned; and the Missouri compromise of 1820 had settled it so far as the Louisiana purchase was concerned. But the difficulty was that, with every new acquisition of territory, the subject was re-opened, the irrepressible question recurred whether or no the new territory was to be dedicated to slavery or to freedom. As early as 1833 the National Anti-Slavery society had been formed, and its branches had multiplied rapidly. The fruit of its work was seen in numberless petitions to con- gress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, and in the mass of incendiary literature with which the mails were flooded. The demand for immediate abolition was now being made, and the south felt that she was threatened. The line of defense which the southern leaders adopted rested upon the determination to preserve sufficient influence over the administration of the federal government to defeat any action hostile to slavery through the agency of congress. Not until that policy should fail was an effort to be made to withdraw from the union. As the more rapid growth of population in the north and west had turned the scale against the south in the composition of the house, her only hope was to preserve herself in the senate, where, down to 1850, by balancing the admission of every free state by the admission of a slave state, she, with the aid of a few northern allies, had preserved her preponderance. In support of that policy, upon which her whole hope depended, the south of course
72
MEMORIAL RECORD OF ALABAMA.
favored the admission of Texas, which had been settled by her own peo- ple. From the time of the secession of Texas from Mexico in 1835, the south hoped by her admission into the union to widen the area of slave territory, and by the ultimate division of her broad expanse to add mate- rially to the southern forces in the senate. In the teeth of the opposition from the north, which this plan naturally excited, in 1845 Texas, as a slave state, was admitted into the union. Not content with this, the Polk administration, which went into office in 1844, desired to make further acquisitions from Mexico. The opportunity for this soon arose, when, to settle the dispute as to the undefined western boundary of Texas, Polk directed Taylor, the American commander in Texas, to cross the Nueces river and seize the disputed territory. The first bloodshed which resulted from this movement was followed by a declaration of war against Mexico, which was ended in 1848, after her overthrow, by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Under this treaty the soil of California, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico passed to the United States. The vast area thus acquired, as the south claimed mainly through her valor, afforded a new and tempting field for the old controversy. As the Mexican law had forbidden slavery n the new territory, the free soil party of the north claimed that con- gress should not permit its introduction. On the other hand, the south maintained that any attempt in that direction by congress would be an unwarranted assumption. As a practical settlement of the difficulty, the democrats of the North now brought forward the expedient known as "squatter sovereignty," a doctrine under which congress could permit the people of each territory to settle the question of slavery for themselves through the agency of its territorial legislature. Prior to the suggestion of that expedient, when in August, 1846, the president had asked con- gress to appropriate money for the purchase of Mexican territory, Wil- mot, a democrat of Pennsylvania, offered a proviso, that any newly acquired territory should be subject to the provision of the ordinance of 1787, which declared that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any part of said territory, except for crime, whereof the party shall first be duly convicted." While these counter proposi- tions, embodied in "squatter sovereignty," and in the Wilmot proviso, were the subjects of discussion, the territory of California, to which the discovery of gold had caused a sudden influx of population, formed a constitution in which slavery was forbidden, and applied for admission into the union. To settle the difficulty thus presented was devised what is known as the compromise of 1850, in which was agreed that California should be admitted with her free constitution; that the rest of the Mexi- can cession should be divided into the territories of Utah and New Mexico without mention of slavery; that the slave trade, but not slavery, should be forbidden in the District of Columbia; and that a fugitive slave law should be passed, whose administration should be committed to United States commissioners and marshals.
73
POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE STATE.
As the time for compromise had passed, the peace brought about by the understanding of 1850 was only established to be broken. The en- forcement of the new fugitive slave law intensified the anti-slavery feel- ing at the north, a fact which clearly manifested itself when, in 1854, the act was passed by congress authorizing the organization of the territories of Nebraska and Kansas. If the Missouri compromise was still in force, the soil of these territories was to be free forever. But the idea was now advanced that the compromise of 1820 had been superseded and set aside by the compromise of 1850, and that under the latter all territory, even that north of the Missouri compromise line of 36° 30' was subject to the new doctrine of "squatter sovereignty." Infatuated by this theory Douglas, who hoped by the aid of the southern vote to win the presi- dency, brought forward an amendment to the bill providing for the or- ganization of Kansas, which declared that, "when admitted as a state or states, the said territory, or any portion of the same, shall be received into the union with or without slavery, as their constitution may pro- vide at the time of their admission." Thus was the oldest of the com- promises roughly set aside, and the whole question of slavery in the territories reopened to fresh and angry discussion. Kansas now became the battle ground, and upon her soil took place the memorable struggle in which the vital question involved was whether she should apply for admission to the union under a free or a slave constitution. In the heat of this struggle, which assumed at times the form of civil war, took place the presidential election of 1856. Early in that year the "anti- Nebraska men," the men who held, in oppostion to "squatter sovereignty," that the federal government had the power to control slavery in the territories, appeared as the republican party, and nominated Fremont as their candidate. The remnant of the whig party, including the know- nothings of the north, and those southern men who deprecated a further discussion of slavery, nominated Fillmore. The democrats, who re affirmed the principle of "squatter sovereignty" asserted in the Kansas- Nebraska act nominated and elected Buchanan The last stage of the struggle was now near at hand. The democratic party, which stood as the only bulwark between the south and the bold and aggressive repub lican organizaion of the north, which openly declared its purpose to destroy her favorite institution, was soon to be broken and divided by those who should have been most eager to preserve is unity and cohesion intact.
At this time there lived at the capital of Alabama a man who did far more than any other to disrupt the democratic party, and to precipitate the events which ended with the secession of the southern states. William L. Yancey, who was born in South Carolina, and who had in- herited the political ideas peculiar to his state as his birthright, had for a long time been a leading figure in the Montgomery district, which he had more than once represented in the lower house of congress.
74
MEMORIAL RECORD OF ALABAMA.
Although he had won distinction at the bar, it was as a political agita- tor, as a tribunician orator of the very highest order, that he had im- pressed himself upon public attention. By virtue of his great endow- ments, and by virtue of his advocacy of the tenets of the states' rights school, the disciple of Calhoun became his successor as the acknowledged leader of the states'-rights wing of the democratic party. When the commercial convention met in Montgomery in May, 1858, we find Mr. Yancey a member of that body; and in his utterances made it is possible to ascertain just what were his political plans and motives upon the eve of the impending conflict. In his address of welcome in behalf of the mayor and council of Montgomery, he said: "I must be allowed, at least on my own behalf, to welcome you, too, as but the foreshadowing of that far more important body, important as you evidently will be, that, if injustice and wrong shall still continue to rule the hour and councils of the dominant section of this country, must, ere long, assemble upon southern soil, for the purpose of devising some measures by which not only your industrial, but your social and political relations shall be placed upon the basis of an independent sovereignty, which will have within itself a unity of cli- mate, a unity of soil, a unity of production, and a unity of social rela- tions; that unity which alone can be the basis of a successful and perma- nent government." As the work of the convention progressed a report was made which ended with the recommendation that certain resolutions be adopted, among which was the following: "That it is expedient and proper the foreign slave trade should be reopened, and that the con- vention will lend its influence to any legitimate measure to that end." During an exciting debate which took place, upon the adoption of that resolution, between Mr. Yancey and Mr. Pryor of Virginia, the former made a separate report which concluded with the following resolution : "Resolved, That the laws of congress prohibiting the foreign slave trade ought to be repealed." As to Mr. Yancey's political views at this time there can be neither doubt nor question. He denied the binding force of the compromise in the constitution by which the slave trade, after 1808, was to come to an end; he denied the validity of the restriction upon slavery contained in the Missouri compromise of 1820; he denied the doctrine of "squatter sovereignty," which was a part of the compromise of 1850, upon the ground that congress, in establishing rules and regulations for the government of a territory, had no power to exclude slavery there- from, or to empower its agent, the territorial legislature. to enact such exclusion. Mr. Calhoun had taken that position in a series of resolu- tions presented to the senate in 1847; and Mr. Yancey repeated the idea in a series of resolutions presented to the democratic state conven- tion which met at Montgomery in 1848. The second of his resolutions provided "that those who hold that such restrictions may be enforced, should not be recognized as democrats." This extreme doctrine, which the democrats of the north, who were advocating "squatter sovereignty"
75
POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE STATE.
as the last hope of peace, could not possibly accept, was the apple of discord which Mr. Yancey took with him to the Charleston convention. And here should be noted a circumstance which pointedly illustrates the willingness of all inen, in political warfare, to use any weapon which may come to their hands, no matter how emphatically they may have con- demned its legitimacy. The leading tenet of the states' rights school had ever been that each state was the ultimate judge of every infraction of the constitution, and that the federal supreme court could not be con- sidered as the final arbiter in political questions which involved a con- struction of the constitution. But it so happened that two days after Mr. Buchanan's inauguration that court had rendered its opinion in the case of Dred Scott vs. Sanford (19 Howard, p. 393), in the course of which it had clearly indicated that the federal government could not interfere with the possession of slave property in a slave territory, and could not authorize the local government to do so, and that it was the duty of the government to protect such property there. Forgetting in a moment his prejudices against the supreme court, as an arbiter in constitutional ques- tons, Mr. Yancey at once seized upon this declaration, which his adver- saries denounced as a mere dictum, as conclusive of his views; and in his memorable speech before the convention he bore the aged Chief Justice Taney away to heaven in a perfect apotheosis. For the moment he even surpassed Mr. Webster himself in his recognition of the supreme court as the real and legitimate arbiter of all constitutional questions. In the democratic state convention which met at Montgomery in January, 1860, Mr. Yancey, who was its leading spirit, carefully prepared for the part which he was soon to play in the larger body which was to meet in Charleston in April. Under his influence a series of resoluions was adopted which reasserted the extreme views as to the impotency of con- gress to deal with slavery in the territories, which had been asserted in the Calhoun resolution of 1847, and which it was now claimed had re- ceived the sanction of the supreme court in the Dred Scott case. These views the delegates to the approaching national convention at Charles- ton were instructed to present for adoption; and in the event of a refusal they were directed to withdraw.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.