Thirty Years' View (Vol. 2 of 2): or, A History of the Working of the American Government for Thirty Years, from 1820 to 1850Benton, Thomas Hart
History
Thirty Years' View (Vol. 2 of 2): or, A History of the Working of the American Government for Thirty Years, from 1820 to 1850
Benton, Thomas Hart
United States -- Politics and government -- 1815-1861
His expressed belief now was, that the measure was dangerous--he
does not say unconstitutional, but dangerous--and this corresponds
with the terms of his resolution then submitted; which makes the
intermeddling to abolish slavery in the District or territories, or
any act or measure of Congress to that effect, a "dangerous" attack
on the institutions of the slaveholding States. Certainly the idea
of the unconstitutionality of such legislation had not then entered
his head. The substitute resolve of Mr. Clay differed from that
of Mr. Calhoun, in changing the word "intermeddling" to that of
"interference;" and confining that word to the conduct of citizens,
and making the abolition or attempted abolition of slavery in the
District an injury to its own inhabitants as well as to the States;
and placing its protection under the faith implied in accepting its
cession from Maryland and Virginia. It was in these words:
"That the interference by the citizens of any of the States,
with the view to the abolition of slavery in this District,
is endangering the rights and security of the people of the
District; and that any act or measure of Congress, designed
to abolish slavery in this District, would be a violation of
the faith implied in the cessions by the States of Virginia
and Maryland--a just cause of alarm to the people of the
slaveholding States--and have a direct and inevitable tendency
to disturb and endanger the Union."
The vote on the final adoption of the resolution was:
"YEAS--Messrs. Allen, Bayard, Benton, Black, Brown, Buchanan,
Calhoun, Clay, of Alabama, Clay, of Kentucky, Thomas Clayton,
Crittenden, Cuthbert, Fulton, Grundy, Hubbard, King, Lumpkin, Lyon,
Nicholas, Niles, Norvell, Franklin Pierce, Preston, Rives, Roane,
Robinson, Sevier, Smith, of Connecticut, Strange, Tallmadge, Tipton,
Walker, White, Williams, Wright, Young.
"NAYS--Messrs. Davis, Knight, McKean, Morris, Prentiss, Smith, of
Indiana, Swift, Webster."
The second resolution of Mr. Clay applied to slavery in a territory
where it existed, and deprecated any attempt to abolish it in
such territory, as alarming to the slave States, and as violation
of faith towards its inhabitants, unless they asked it; and in
derogation of its right to decide the question of slavery for itself
when erected into a State. This resolution was intended to cover the
case of Florida, and ran thus:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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