USA > Ohio > Ashtabula County > History of Ashtabula County, Ohio > Part 31
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William Slade, of Vermont, a scholarly gentleman, not a leader, had served through the Twenty-fourth congress, and early at the regular session, presented the resolutions of his legislature and other memorials for the abolition of the slave trade at the capital. He proposed to refer themu to a committee, with instructions to report a bill for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. Legare solemnly entreated him to pause. Wise (Henry A.) called on the representatives from Virginia to withdraw from the house, and they went. Halsey called on the Georgians, who followed with Rhett, Gardner, and many delegations. A few southern leaders remained, when, amid great confusion, the house adjourned, one hundred and sixty-six to sixty-three. Colonel Benton, in his " Thirty Years," pronounces the opposition to an adjournmeut the most unfortunate feature of that sad day's work.
This was the first secession. Curiously enough, the recusants had to return to sveure an adjournment of the house. On the following morning they were all in their places, and offered a resolution that all petitions, memorials, and papers touching slavery, its abolition, buying or selling slaves in any State, distriet, or Territory, should be laid on the table without being debated, printed, read, or re- ferred, and that no action be taken thereon. Mr. Patten, the mover, solemnly spoke of the return of the south as an effort to save the Union, which they would persevere in, provided this resolution was adopted. On this condition it was passed, and they remained for the time,-thirty-eight northern men voting with " a solid south." It should be remembered that no Whig from a free State voted for it. Another clause of the constitution was thus annulled, and slavery become the Union. Strangely enough, the north was not quieted. Mr. Calhoun, who was a member of Mr. Monroe's cabinet, had deelared-in writing-that congress
had power to exclude slavery from all territory north of 36° 30', now produced in the senate his five resolutions, deelaring that each State retains its entire power over its domestic institutions; that the Federal government is the agent of the States to protect and support their institutions; that slavery is an institution of the southern States; to intermeddle with slavery in any of the States, Terri- tories, or the District of Columbia, on the ground that it is imiuoral or sinful, would be a direct and dangerous attaek upon the institutions of the slave States. In the debate no senator of the north denied the doetrines of these propositions, which were accepted as the voice of the senate, thirty-five to nine. On the assem- bling of the same congress, in December, 1838, when Mr. Giddings took his seat, Mr. Athertou presented the slavery-caucus platformn, supposed to be from the brain of Calhoun, declaring, among other libelous matters, that to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, the Territories of the United States, or interfere with the removal of slaves from State to State, was unconstitutional. The last clause of the fifth resolution was, in substance, the same adopted by the last session, and became the famous twenty-first rule, known as the " Atherton gag," and which alone perpetuates the name of the mover. Mr. Atherton made his speech, moved the previous question, and they were adopted,-the last and most vile, if there could be degrees where all were worst, by one hundred and seventy-three to twenty-six. Slavery had already become the Union. It was now the constitution. The church was the first to sueeumb. The press rapidly followed, and. save Mr. Adams and Mr. Slade in the house, and the growing insurrection at the north, the republic was, in its length and breadth, permeated and ruled by the spirit of slavery. When it is remembered that slavery and the south were synonymous,- that politically it was nominally divided between Whig and Democratic parties, and that it could always command their united support,-it is seen that slavery could compel the two parties to compete with each other for its aid, and from that moment the course of national polities was a race of servility between them. There never was much of fundamental principle in the issues dividing them. Questions of financial poliey alone were involved. These dwindled to things of mere expedieuey, a squabble for the mastery, a prize which slavery alone could award.
Mr. Giddings took his seat during this session of congress. He was a Whig by intelligence and temperament ; accepted the Whig policy and exposition of the constitution save on the question of slavery. Conversant with current politics, imbued with the principles of justice and liberty, on which the real foundations of the political fabrie rested, he sympathized profoundly with the aroused anti- slavery sentiment of the northern few ; but in the sense in which the word was then used, he never became an Abolitiouist. They found slavery barricaded by the con- stitution, protected by the Union. As was almost unavoidable in the way the organic law was warped, and the Union employed, they became odious to the lovers of justice. The enlightened Whigs construed and accepted the constitution as a pro-slavery instrument, aud so the Abolitionists accepted it. The Whigs revered and sustained, the Abolitionists derided and denounced it. The Whigs declared that the Union made slavery sacred from assault or approach. The Abolitionists also saw it standing between them and their abhorred foe, and they abhorred aud denounced it. For this they were not in fault. They accepted both the consti- tution and Union as what their worshipers declared them to be.
Such were not the views of Mr. Giddings. He was now forty-four years of age, at the maturity of his remarkable faculties. Cool, wary, sagacious, with his iugenious aud naturally subtle intelleet rendered acute and niee in its powers of analysis and discrimination in that best of schools for that purpose, a study of the distinctions and a mastery of the reasoning and spirit of the common law. He will distinguish between what is coustitution and what is institution, between slavery and the Union, and find a way to war on the great foe without injuring a fibre of the constitution, and of bringing safety to Union from the latent perils which threatened it. His head is large, his grasp tenacious. He will, with the aid of others,-mainly aloue,-patiently turn over and deal with the hard problems submitted to him till they yield up their own solutions. To trace, as rapidly as clearness will permit, his career on this life mission is the labor that remains of this too brief sketeh.
Mr. Giddings, new in his seat, to all about him, sat with silent lips, as the hand of slavery sealed them to the utterances of freedom. Soon after his arrival at the capital he witnessed a spectacle which gave edge to his perceptions of the charms of slavery and intensified his determination to war against it. A coffle of slaves, some thirty quen in the lead, in double files, cach fastened by the wrist to a chain which passed between them from front to rear, followed by as many women, in the same order, uuchained. A mule-wagon accompanied them, carrying the small children of the womeu. Gathered up in Maryland, on their way to quarket, headed for the southwest, that land of blood, lust, malaria, and piracy, attended by the merchant on horseback, armed with pistols and knife, and flourish- iug the regulation whip. No man who has not experienced them can form the
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HISTORY OF ASHTABULA COUNTY, OHIO.
faintest conceptions of the emotions of one of northern rearing who for the first time beholds such an cpitome of slavery. The coffle halted in front of the capitol, under its dome and the two flags, for the strengthening of the Union. Mr. Slade offered a fitting resolution on the subject in the house. Duncan, of Ohio, charged the Whigs with the crime of encouraging abolition. Stanley, of North Carolina, retorted, aud it ran on. The squabble over this matter was the young representative's initiation. For the rest, he was placed at the liead of the committee of claims,-the old position of Mr. Whittlesey. He studicd its duties, the rules of the house, made the acquaintance of his fellows, observed the lions, became intimate with Mr. Adams, whose friendship he soon acquired. Always in his seat, atteutive and alert, he soon apprehended the gen- eral scope of the rules of the house, more artificial and complex than those of any other body professing to be governed by law. Few comprehend, no man ever mastered them.
The resolution of Mr. Slade met the Atherton charm, and vanished in darkness and silence, as did all of a similar character. Mr. Clay was to be brought forward for the presidency. In the Kentucky legislature he had, in the ardor and impru- dence of youth, breathed the aspirations of liberty, and confounded negroes with men, and an opportunity must be made to repair this crime of his early years. A petition, numerously signed by the citizens of Washington, praying for the pro- tection of slavery and its trade at the capital, addressed to the senate, was placed in his hands. Mr. Mendenhall, a Quaker, had before that time, in the most re- spectful way, sent a petition to Mr. Clay to liberate his own slaves. With these in his hands, he made the unfortunate spcech of his life. Mr. Calhoun thanked him. The Intelligencer praised him. Mr. Giddings wrote him a note. To this the great man replicd in person. Mr. Giddings asked him what he meant. Mr. Clay quite appreciated the new representative, and hastened, with the won- derful charm of his best manner, to assure Mr. Giddings that he made the speech at the request of the northern Whigs, who desired that he should denounce the Abolitionists. Mr. Giddings discussed the whole subject with such spirit and ability as to win his respect and esteem, and he went away with the assurance that he would tone down his printed speech as much as self-respect would permit, which he did. Mr. Morris, of Ohio, replied to Mr. Clay, in the senate, won the heart and confidence of the anti-slavery men, and disappeared from public life soon after.
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On the 4th of February, Moore, of New York, presented in the house petitions of the people of the District of Columbia asking the exclusion of all memorials for the abolition of slavery and the slave-trade, which were received under the rules. Mr. Giddings' opportunity came soon after. On the 13th of February the house, in committee of the whole, had under consideration a bill to appropriate thirty thousand dollars to build a bridge over the Anacosta, eastern branch of the Potomac, and the boundary of Washington city. Mr. Giddings moved to strike out the enacting clause, and gave his reasons. He would oppose every appropria- tion for the district so long as its people sustained the slave-trade. They had just asked that the petitions of his constituents be rejected by the house. He would not repay such insults by taxing his people to build up a slave-mart. The representatives had witnessed a recent manifestation of that commerce. On their way to the house they had been compelled to give place for a herd of chained chattels going to market. This well-considered, well-delivered opening was a bolt, falling in the midst of the masters where they were most the masters. They sprang up as if in doubt of what they heard. They approached and gathered about the new tribune to sce what manner of man he was as well. When recov- ered of their surprise, Rives, of Virginia, called him to order. Mr. Giddings said he was merely giving his reasons for his motion. A slave-holder in the chair decided he was in order. Mr. Giddings attempted to go on, was again called to order, but was permitted to procced. He said the people of the north were anxious to beautify and adorn the capital, to build up schools and institu- tions that would render it worthy of a free nation, when he was again called to order. When the general disorder subsided, so that he could resume, Howard, of Maryland, would ask a question. The chair directed him to put it in writing. Howard appealed. Pending the appeal, Glasscock, of Georgia, said if such argu- ments were permitted the Union would perish. Mr. Giddings responded that such threats implied that the Union was based on the slave-trade. Glasscock rejoined, " You are a d-d liar!" Great commotion. Mr. Adams and Mr. Slade came forward to Mr. Giddings' side. The chair became alarmed, decided that such arguments were out of order, and Mr. Giddings had to resume his seat. Of course, if slavery dictates measures it should also the arguments by which they might be sustained or opposed. But the motion to strike out was carried, and the bill defeated. The papers assailed Mr. Giddings the next morn- ing, declaring that the price of real estate in the city had fallen one-half,-did not state the effect on the price of colored personal property. Mr. Giddings was at once doomed to social ostracism at the capital, and consecrated to hatred at
the south and odium at the north, and so his entrance upon his mission was signalized. Exit the Twenty-fifth congress and enter the Twenty-sixth.
The characteristic of the new congress was devotion to party,-properly ren- dercd, subserviency to slavery,-and it was engaged in shaping the next presi- dency. Seth M. Gates, of Genesee, New York, was a member of this congress, of profound anti-slavery convictions, and completed the quartette,-Adams, Slade, Giddings, Gates. Many northern Whigs sympathized, but none stood by or voted with them on slavery issues. Public morals were at a low cbb. Pcculation and defalcation marked the civil service as never before nor since, as we now know. Mr. Smith, of South Carolina, in 1817, proclaimed in the senate that govern- ments were not bound by moral law. This had been reaffirmed by Calhoun, and was illustrated by the course of men in office. The Democrats charged the Whigs with affiliation with abolition, and pointed to the four gentlemen named above as of their party. To parry this, Mr. Clay, in the senate, claimed that the leading writers in defense of slavery were Whigs, and cited a work exposing the fallacy of abolition, the review of Channing, "Abolition a Sedition, Thoughts on Domestic Slavery," and other valuable aids to human progress. Again he re- ceived the fatal commendation of Mr. Calhoun. The Florida war lingcred. The Maroons found shelter in the unconstitutional Everglades. The United States entered into alliance with the blood-hounds of Cuba, and American soldiers were led by dogs. Petitions against this mode of warfare could not penetrate the moral atmosphere of the house. They accumulated in the senate, and the Whigs scored one against Mr. Van Buren. On June 30 the ship " Enterprise" cleared from Alexandria, District of Columbia, with a cargo of " persons owing service," for Charleston, encountered abolition winds, and took refuge in Bermuda, and the British liberated the slaves. General Jackson demanded compensation. The reply was that by entering free territory slaves become free. There could be no property in man. Mr. Calhoun, in three propositions, claimed this was a violation of the laws of nations. Mr. Morris had lost his scat, and Porter, of Michigan, was the only man in that body who opposed them. They were adopted by thirty-three to one. Mr. Rhett brought the " Enterprise" to the notice of the house, and Mr. Adams retorted a resolution of inquiry into the mental, moral, and physical status of our Cuba allics,-their powers of discrimination between races, etc.
In the great contest of 1840, Mr. Giddings lent most efficient aid to the Whigs. For this course he received the anathemas of the Abolitionists, who nominated J. G. Birney and Thomas Morris. The Whigs at the North, restive under the suppression of the right of petition and debate in the house, and the employment of hounds in the Florida war, successfully assailed the Democrats, and by this course gave rather the hope of a future promise than the promise itself, of resistance to slave rule, and thus for years retained in their ranks many thousands of ardent young men, and the Abolitionists justly regarded the pres- ence of Mr. Giddings in their camp a great hindrance to their own growth. The question of slavery had not been directly involved between the two great parties, but it was generally expected at the north that the success of the Whigs would recover the lost rights of the people in the hall of their own representatives. Pending these events, the " Amistad" case had arisen, to give new aspects and interests to the question of slavery.
In July, 1839, the " Amistad," with a small invoice of freshly-imported chattels, owned by Montez and Rinz, left Havana for the south side of Cuba. Four days out, the Africans, without the least regard for the American Union, arose, killed the captain, some of the crew, and overcame the rest, with the new purchasers. The captors set the residue of the crew on shore, and ordered Montez and Rinz to steer for Africa. The Spaniards, in the foggy weather, headed the ship north, which finally made the east end of Long Island, in the State of Connecticut. Lieutenant Gedney, of the coast survey, took possession of the " Amistad," and libeled ship and cargo for salvage, as property, in the United States courts, and Montez and Rinz were liberated. The Spanish minister demanded the Africans as criminals. The President favored the claim. The negroes were imprisoned by the United States marshal, and their alleged owners claimed them as property. Hitherto all captured slavers had been carried into southern ports and tried by their pcers, and nobody hanged for piracy. Here was to be a trial before freemen, where the pirates were the prosecutors. Counsel were employed for the Africans, and the result looked for with intense anxiety. While the trial was in progress the President sent an armed vessel to New Haven, with orders the moment the court should decide against the Africans, as was its duty, they should be hurricd on board and shipped to Cuba, ere their counsel and friends could sccure an appeal.
Mr. Adams offered a resolution in the house calling on the President to know why thesc persons, charged with no crime, were committed and held in prisou ? This alarmed the advocates of slavery, and it was rejected. After a patient trial the court declared the uegroes free men. The libelants appealed to the supreme
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HISTORY OF ASHTABULA COUNTY, OHIO.
court, where Mr. Adams appeared as their counsel. The judgment of the court below was sustained, on the ground that these Africans had never been legally reduced to slavery .- as if free men could undergo that transformation. Such was the state of public opinion at that time, that even this was hailed by the lovers of justice as a real triumph. And it was.
Mr. Giddings was now anxious to put forth a constitutional platforin for the basis of a political party that should antagonize the pro-slavery party. Mr. Gates agreed with him. Mr. Adams opposed political organization for that purpose, and Mr. Shade evineided with him.
In February, 1841, a bill came up in committee of the whole to appropriate money for the Florida war, to be expended by the secretary of war for the benefit of such Seminole chiefs and warriors as would surrender and " go west." Mr. Giddings took the floor and set forth the cause of the war and objeets of its con- tinuance. He showed from the reports of the Indian agent that they refused to migrate lest the negroes and their children, long a part of the tribe, should be seized by the ('reeks. That to capture and to enslave them was the sole cause of the war and the only purpose of the proposed removal. Ile was called to order under the twenty-first rule. The chairman, Mr. Clifford (now supreme judge), pronounced him in order, and he sustained his position by documents. Was called to order for irrelevaney, but sustained by the chair. He said he did not undertake to discuss slavery, but only to show that it caused the war, and that the United States could not wage a war in its interest. He proved that men born free had, by systematie forays frou Georgia, been seized and reduced to slavery. Cooper and Black, of Georgia, becaque greatly excited. Mr. Giddings had made himself master of the whole subject. His exposition was thorough and exhaustive. It had a wide circulation, and contributed largely to the educa- tion of the people of the north. It is the first in the editiou of his speeches published in London in 1853.
Cooper and Black, also Downing, of Florida, under pretense of replying, made abusive assaults on the Abolitionists, Mr. Giddings and Mr. Adams, the States they represented, the Whig party, and President elect. Mr. Thompson, a Whig from South Carolina, rescued his party, and declared it could not be held re- sponsible for the sayings "of the obscurest of the obscure individuals in its ranks." Mr. Giddings rejoined that it was not in the power of Mr. Thompson to assign him a place. It would be quite all he could do to choose his own. That the gentleman knew very well that neither Mr. Giddings' constituents, nor his own conscience, would permit him to seek redress for insults after the bar- barous fashion of the south, and quoted the saying of a veteran in the service of his country, who, grossly insulted by another for the purpose of being challenged, as he wiped his enemy's spittle from his face, replied, " Could I as easily wipe your blood from my soul, you should not live an hour." Mr. Alford, of Georgia, rushed upon Mr. Giddings, but was arrested by Governor Briggs. Mr. Thompson, in reply, assured the house that he spoke the sentiments of Whigs north and south.
Mr. Downing was so abusive that Mr. Giddings did not notice him. He had business before the committee of which Mr. Giddings was chairman, and under- took to approach him in the presence of others as is usual among gentlemen. MIr. Giddings refused to recognize him, and told him never to approach him save on official business, an injunetion he was careful to observe. The President elect, that sad anachronism, was then in Washington. The occurrences in the com- mittee were reported to him. He was greatly dissatisfied with Mr. Giddings, and said he would relieve the Whigs of the odium brought on them by Mr. Giddings' efforts in favor of free discussion. A day or two after, the representative, who had greatly contributed to his election, called to pay his respects, when he was re- ceived in a manner that precluded his calling again, while Mr. Thompson, who had deliberately insulted him, was given the mission to Mexico. In his inaugu- ral. General Harrison had inserted a paragraph highly offensive to those by whom the right of petition was cherished. Mr. Clay was perinitted to change it so that, if it queant anything, no oue could tell what it was; while Mr. Webster boasted that with his own hand he put to death the seventeen Roman pro-consuls eneamped within it.
President Harrison called an extra session of the Twenty-seventh congress, was called away himself, and the evil days came upon his party. The Whigs began with forty majority in the house and seven in the senate. Its highest objeets were a high tariff, a national bank, and the distribution of the proceeds of the publie lands among the States. Before the end of the first sessiou the party split into factions, and real power departed from them. On the reassembling of the house, Mr. Wise moved the adoption of the old rules. Mr. Adaus moved the exception of the twenty-first, which prevailed. A motion to reconsider led to much debate, in which Wise said Mr. Giddings, chainuan of the claims coul- mittee, would never report a bill to pay a master for a slave killed in the publie service. " Ask hiu! ask him !" resounded from the hall, and he did. "I cannot
answer for the committee," said Mr. Giddings. " I shall follow the precedents, which have been uniform from the commencement of the government." Mr. Wise was dissatisfied. "The chairman had dodged the question." When told that a slave killed in the public service had never been paid for, he said the precedents were wrong. The feeling over the question of petitions and freedom of debate became bitter and personal, especially towards Mr. Giddings, and not a dozen southern men afterwards recognized him. This extended somewhat to Messrs. Slade and Gates. Mr. Adams was beyond their reach.
A rain of petitions, ingeniously devised to avoid the twenty-first rule, were rained by the pitiless Adams on the devoted heads of the slave-inasters, and gave rise to acrimonious debate. Each shower called forth expressions of increased bitterness. On the 21st of January, 1842, he presented a petition from citizens of Georgia full of admiration of his many good qualities, but deelaring that he was a monomaniac, and asked for his removal from the head of the committee of foreign relations. Ile wished to defend himself against it. It was decided to be a question of privilege. He was soon called to order from all parts of the hall. The speaker was firm. Mr. Adams bore himself well. He could at no time utter half a dozen sentences. No such heat had before been shown. The storm finally drowned his voice. The subject was laid on the table, leaving Mr. Adams on the floor, who continued to present petitions, which went into the silent cavern of the twenty-first rule. Towards evening, with Giddings, Slade, and Gates sup- porting, and Wise, Gilmer, Holues, and others confronting him, exhibiting a paper, he said, " I hold in my hand the memorial of Benjamin Emerson and forty-five citizens of Massachusetts, praying for the peaceful dissolution of the union of these States." At these words ominous silence fell on the house. He went on to state the reasons for it-a condensed indictment of the south-in cour- teous language, and evading the fatal rule. Amid the most intense excitement he moved its reference to a committee of nine, with instructions to answer it, showing why the petition could not be granted, and resumed his seat. Ilalf a hundred men were on their feet, clamoring for the floor. Hopkins, of Virginia, in a rage, demanded that the paper be burnt in the presence of the house. Wise wanted to know if a resolution of eensure was in order. MIr. Adams thought that it was. A motion to adjourn. Mr. Adams said if a vote of censure was to pass it had better be done that day. Mr. Gilmer offered a resolution of censure. A question of reception was made. Mr. Adams hoped it would be received. He expected what had so long been denied-a day for brave speech on such a resolution. The house adjourned without further action. Men with elenched fists and knitted brows eursed the abolitionists; others exulted that Mr. Adams was now in the hands of the Democrats, as the southern Whigs would act with them. A meet- ing of the south and allies was held that night. An effort was made by Mr. Giddings to convene such men of the north as would stand by Mr. Adams. Seem- ingly the day of long-pent wrath had come. To the request to convene the northern Whigs, it was coldly replied, " That it would look like a sectional quarrel." Slade and Young, of Vermont ; Calhoun, of Massachusetts; Henry, Lawrence, and Simonton, of Pennsylvania ; Gates and Chittenden, of New York, alone re- sponded, and met at the room of Mr. Giddings. Dr. Leavitt and Theodore Weld were also there. Mr. Adams was sent for. So long unused to kindness and sympathy was he that the message overcame him. He indicated some points on which he wished authorities, and dismissed the committee.
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