LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Class 
 
THE LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS 
 
M 
 
THE LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE W. JULIAN 
 
 AUTHOR OF "POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS" 
 
 CHICAGO 
 A. C. McCLURG AND COMPANY 
 
 1892 
 
COPYRIGHT, 
 BY A. C. MCCLURG AND Co. 
 
 A. D. 1892. 
 
TO THE MEMORY OF 
 
 fflg TOe, 
 LAURA GIDDINGS JULIAN, 
 
 THIS LIFE OF HER FATHER 
 IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED. 
 
 226522 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 TN the following pages I have dealt with the chief 
 facts in the public life of JOSHUA R. GlDDiNGS. 
 Its importance centres entirely in his warfare against 
 Slavery. To this he dedicated himself with absolute 
 singleness of purpose and the whole strength of his 
 nature. It seems to have been his predestined work ; 
 for he was drawn to it by every fibre of his heart and 
 every prompting of his judgment and conscience. It 
 was this fervor of spirit and perfect concentration of 
 energy which armed him with his power, and enabled 
 him to link his name imperishably with a cause which 
 vitally involved the fortunes of the Republic and the 
 progress of liberty throughout the world. 
 
 That such a life should be fitly commemorated, will 
 not be disputed. Interesting sketches of his career 
 have been given to the public, but as yet no adequate 
 life of the man has appeared. Whether I have pro 
 duced this in the volume now submitted, I must 
 leave my readers to determine. I have made an 
 honest endeavor, and this was prompted by several 
 considerations. I was personally acquainted with Mr. 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 Giddings during the greater part of his public service, 
 and have long been familiar with his anti-slavery 
 labors; my relations to his family gave me free 
 access to his private correspondence and other papers 
 of interest and value in the preparation of such a 
 work; and it was the wish of his surviving relatives 
 and friends that I should undertake it. While I have 
 written i n sympathy with my subject, I trust it will be 
 found that I have not slighted the duty of discrimina 
 tion, or seriously failed in the endeavor to deal fairly 
 and impartially with the famous men and stirring 
 events of a grand epoch. 
 
 G. W. J. 
 IRVINGTON, IND., 
 
 January, 1892. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 Ancestry and Early Life. Pioneer Trials and Hardships. 
 
 Military Experience. Teaching School. Choice of 
 the Legal Profession. Marriage. Children . . . . n 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Success at the Bar. Sent to the Ohio Legislature. Part 
 nership with Benjamin F. Wade. Business Troubles 
 and Failing Health. Election to Congress. The 
 Slavery Question 27 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 DECEMBER, 1838, TO MARCH, 1839. 
 
 Personal Journal. Last Session of the Twenty-fifth Con 
 gress. Scenes and Incidents. Growing Domination 
 of Slavery. Development of Character 46 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MARCH, 1839, TO MARCH, 1841. 
 
 The "Amistad" Case. The Twenty-sixth Congress. The 
 Famous New Jersey Election Contest. The Slave- 
 ship "Enterprise." The Harrison Campaign. Nomi 
 nation of Birney. Speech on the Florida War ... 73 
 
vi CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MARCH, 1841, TO DECEMBER, 1842. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Meeting of the Twenty-seventh Congress. Trial of John 
 Quincy Adams. The Case of the " Creole," and Cen 
 sure of Giddings. Letters from Mr. Chase. The 
 " Pacificus " Papers. Weary of Public Life .... 102 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 DECEMBER, 1842, TO DECEMBER, 1844. 
 
 Second Session of the Twenty-seventh Congress. The 
 Twenty-first Rule. Southern Intolerance. Claim of 
 West Florida Slaveholders. Claim for Slaves lost 
 in the Coastwise Trade. Speech. Encounter with 
 a Southern Bully. Annexation of Texas. The 
 Twenty-eighth Congress. Presidential Canvass of 
 1844. Position of Mr. Clay. His Letters. Attitude 
 of Giddings. Friendship of Adams and Himself . . 140 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 DECEMBER, 1844, TO MARCH, 1847. 
 
 Last Session of the Twenty-eighth Congress. Repeal of 
 the Gag-rule. Insolence of Southern Members. 
 General Jessup as a Slave-trader. Mr. Calhoun s New 
 Argument for Annexation. The Measure consum 
 mated. First Session of the Twenty-ninth Congress. 
 The Oregon Question. The War with Mexico. 
 Minor Questions. Last Session of the Twenty-ninth 
 Congress 171 
 
CONTENTS. VI 1 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 MARCH, 1847, TO DECEMBER, 1848. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Novel State of Parties. Correspondence. Meeting of 
 the Thirtieth Congress. Struggle for the Speaker- 
 ship. Controversy with Winthrop. Other Ques 
 tions. Death of Mr. Adams. Speech on General 
 Politics. Escape of Slaves on the Schooner " Pearl." 
 Mob in Washington. Speech. Hope H. Slatter and 
 Rev. Mr. Slicer. The Claim of Hodges. Campaign 
 of 1848. Letter to Truman Smith. Effect of the 
 Free-Soil Movement 206 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 DECEMBER, 1848, TO MARCH, 1851. 
 
 Second Session of the Thirtieth Congress. Slavery and 
 the Slave-trade in the District of Columbia. The 
 Pacheco Case. The Ohio Senatorship. Address of 
 Southern Members. The Effort to establish Slavery 
 in California. Meeting of the Thirty-first Congress. 
 The Speakership. Defence of the Free Soilers. 
 Speeches. Work of this Congress 258 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 MARCH, 1851, TO MARCH, 1855. 
 
 Effect of the Compromise Measures. Meeting of the 
 Thirty-second Congress. Agitation to prevent Agita 
 tion. Encounter with Stanley. The Welcome of 
 Louis Kossuth. Death of Mr. Clay. Slave Claim of 
 Watson. Speech on the Compromise Measures. 
 Presidential Nominations of 1852. The Second Ses 
 sion of the Thirty-second Congress. Claim of William 
 
VI 11 CONTENTS. 
 
 Hazzard Wigg. Meeting of the Thirty-third Con 
 gress. The " Amistad" Case. Repeal of the Missouri 
 Compromise. The Case of the " Black Warrior." 
 Second Session of the Thirty-third Congress .... 286 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 MARCH, 1855, TO MARCH, 1859. 
 
 The Congressional Vacation. Meeting of the Thirty-fourth 
 Congress. State of Political Parties. The Speaker- 
 ship. Election of Banks. Birth of the Republican 
 Party. Letters from John Brown. Speech on the 
 Deficiency Bill; on the Assault on Sumner. The 
 Philadelphia Convention and its Platform. Last Ses 
 sion of this Congress. Speeches. Letters from John 
 P. Hale. The Dred Scott Decision. Work in Vaca 
 tion. First Session of the Thirty-fifth Congress. 
 The Lecompton Constitution and the Crittenden-Mont- 
 gomery Amendment. Diary of Giddings. The 
 English Bill. Speech on "American Infidelity." 
 On the African Slave-trade. Nomination of his Suc 
 cessor. Letters from Friends. Voice of the Press. 
 Second Session of the Thirty-fifth Congress. Farewell 
 Speech. Testimonials 320 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 MARCH, 1859, TO MAY, 1864. 
 
 The " Exiles of Florida." The John Brown Raid. The 
 Lecture Field. Scene in the Chicago Convention. 
 Campaign of 1860. Letter to Hon. Thomas Ewing. 
 Another Literary Venture. Appointed Consul-General 
 to Canada. Correspondence with Sumner. Life in 
 Montreal. The Reciprocity Treaty. Further Cor 
 respondence. Declining Health. "History of the 
 Rebellion." Death 365 
 
CONTENTS. ix 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 PACK 
 Personal Traits. Devotion to Family. Friendships. 
 
 Fondness for Athletic Sports. Religious Principles. 
 Political Foresight. Moral Earnestness. Practical 
 Qualities as a Reformer. His Place in History . . . 396 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 PACIFICUS : THE RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES OF THE SEV 
 ERAL STATES IN REGARD TO SLAVERY ; being a Series 
 of Essays published in the " Western Reserve Chron 
 icle" in 1842 415 
 
 INDEX 463 
 
MR, GIDDINGS, 
 
 AT THE AGE OF TWENTY-EIGHT 
 i, From an Old Portrait V 
 
THE LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Ancestry and Early Life. Pioneer Trials and Hardships. Military 
 Experience. Teaching School. Choice of the Legal Profession. 
 Marriage. Children. 
 
 ancestors of JOSHUA REED GlDDlNGS were 
 English, and their descendants are now to be found 
 in almost every section of the Union. They are indus 
 trious, enterprising, and thrifty, and their influence has 
 always been on the side of education and progress, and 
 of civil and religious liberty. They are noted for their 
 devotion to the principles of morality, and it is their 
 boast that no one of the name has brought disgrace 
 upon the family by violating any criminal statute. 
 They are generally found in the humbler walks of life ; 
 but their genealogy is honored by famous names, in 
 cluding those of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Rufus 
 Choate, 1 while several of the name have served their 
 country in the halls of Congress and other conspicu 
 ous positions. They are equally remarkable for their 
 patriotism, as shown by the record of their service in 
 the French and Indian wars, the American Revolu 
 tion, the War of 1812, and the late War for the Union. 
 
 1 The Giddings Family, by Minot S. Giddings, published in 1882. 
 
I2 1 T HE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 The family is not less noted for its pioneer spirit, 
 which brought its first emigrants from the Old World 
 to New England, and sent their descendants to the 
 western frontier, where they took the lead in planting 
 civilization in the wilderness. 
 
 The first of the name who came to this country was 
 George Giddings, who settled in Ipswich, Massachu 
 setts, in 1635. H G emigrated from St. Alban s, Hert 
 fordshire, and was a man of property and position. 
 From 1 66 1 to 1675 ne was selectman for the town, and 
 for a long time a ruling elder of the first church. He 
 had a strong will, as is shown by the record of a long 
 lawsuit, which he carried through all the courts for 
 the purpose of establishing a principle. Of his son 
 John and his grandson Thomas, through whom the 
 descent of Joshua R. is traced, very little is known. 
 The latter removed to Lyme, Connecticut, about the 
 year 1725. His son Joshua settled in Hartland, Con 
 necticut, in 1756. He was a man of influence, holding 
 many town offices, and was a prominent member of 
 the Congregational church. He had five sons, three 
 of whom served in the Revolution, Joshua, the fourth 
 son, being with Arnold on Lake Champlain. This last- 
 named Joshua removed in 1773 to Tioga Point, now 
 called Athens, Bradford County, Pennsylvania, where 
 he married Submit Jones, who died in 1785, leaving 
 three children. He afterwards married Elizabeth 
 Pease, of Enfield, Connecticut, a descendant of John 
 Pease, who settled on Martha s Vineyard in 1635. Of 
 this marriage there were four children, the youngest 
 of whom was Joshua Reed, born Oct. 6, 1795. Six 
 weeks after his birth his parents removed to Canandai- 
 gua, then near the western limit of civilization, and 
 afterwards holding its place as the chief town of west 
 ern New York. 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 13 
 
 In the winter of 1805 the elder Joshua resolved to 
 go farther west, and he and his eldest son visited 
 Wayne Township, in Ashtabula County, Ohio, in 
 search of a new home. Here he selected a large tract 
 of land, which he secured in exchange for his Canan- 
 daigua farm ; and having built a cabin, cleared a little 
 patch of ground, and planted a garden and small corn 
 field, he awaited the coming of his family in the spring 
 of 1806. The journey was toilsome and difficult, and 
 was made in a farm wagon, which also conveyed the 
 household goods, and was drawn by four oxen. On 
 June 1 6, just as they were crossing the Ohio and 
 Pennsylvania line, a total eclipse of the sun left them 
 in darkness and compelled them to camp in the 
 woods. They were several weeks on the way, but at 
 last reached the centre of Wayne Township, where 
 they found the cabin already prepared for them, and 
 were welcomed by the father and son. 
 
 Here the battle of life for young Giddings was to be 
 fought. Ohio had been admitted into the Union only 
 three years before. The country was a wilderness, in 
 habited by Indians and wild beasts ; but it was to be 
 the nursery and training-ground of Western Reserve 
 character and manhood. The story of his early years 
 strongly resembles that of Lincoln s, barring the differ 
 ence between life in Kentucky and on the Western Re 
 serve. It has been the fashion to dwell upon the 
 straitened circumstances which have so often dark 
 ened the early lives of public men, and thus to appeal 
 to popular sympathy while contrasting their famous 
 achievements with the obscurity of their early strug 
 gles. The people of fifty years ago were very familiar 
 with the story of " Corwin, the wagoner boy," and of 
 " Ewing, the salt-boiler of the Muskingum." A little 
 later, the admirers of Henry Clay appealed to the pop- 
 
14 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 ular heart by picturing him as " the mill-boy of the 
 slashes," while still later, Abraham Lincoln was 
 paraded as " the rail-splitter of Illinois." This style of 
 biography is now out of date ; and it never had any 
 better justification than the demands of campaign poli 
 tics. It is not probable that any of the famous men 
 referred to ever felt the need of sympathy in their 
 early struggles. Each formed a part of the pioneer 
 community in which his lot was cast, and simply did 
 his co-operative share in the work of the family, while 
 all were ready to face their trials and privations bravely, 
 if not joyfully. 
 
 But frontier life always has its charms, and these 
 were not lessened when New England Puritanism was 
 transplanted to the wilds of northeastern Ohio. It was 
 the birth of the Western Reserve, and the forerunner 
 of a broader and better type of humanity than that of 
 New England itself. The area of this famous Reserve 
 is about five thousand square miles, and its population 
 may now be estimated at six hundred thousand. " No 
 other five thousand square miles of territory in the 
 United States," says Hinsdale, " lying in a body out 
 side of New England, ever had, to begin with, so pure 
 a New England population," and " no similar territory 
 west of the Alleghany mountains has so impressed the 
 brain and conscience of the country." l This is due, 
 in part, to the fact that these pioneers emancipated 
 themselves from the religious dogmatism and invet 
 erate political conservatism in which they had been 
 reared. Congregationalism on the Reserve was no 
 longer an established religion, while Federalism grad 
 ually relaxed its hold upon the people. From the be 
 ginning the spirit of reform was in the air, and the 
 people gradually outgrew their provincialism, while 
 holding fast their fundamental principles. 
 1 The Old Northwest, p. 388. 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 15 
 
 The settlement of this region by such a community 
 marked an epoch in American civilization. " Puritan 
 ism," says Bancroft, " was religion struggling for the 
 people." These pioneer settlers brought with them 
 their love of liberty and respect for law. They be 
 lieved in the sacredness of human rights because they 
 accepted Christianity as " the root of all democracy." 
 They had no respect for any distinctions resting upon 
 property, color, or race. They had among them men 
 of education, who took the lead in founding common 
 schools, academies, town-libraries, and debating-clubs, 
 while churches sprang up in every direction, in evi 
 dence of the common zeal for religion. Through toil 
 and self-denial they sought the establishment of well- 
 ordered Christian homes, which they valued as the 
 basis of society and the foundation of the state. In 
 dustry, frugality, endurance, courage, and hardihood 
 were demanded by the situation, and these virtues 
 were never found wanting. Their lives were necessa 
 rily primitive. They were obliged to subdue the earth 
 and make the forests and streams tributary to their 
 wants, and this was literally a struggle for existence ; 
 but they were ready for it, and entered upon it with 
 strong will and irrepressible courage. Flax had to be 
 raised and hatchelled, and spinning-wheels and looms 
 constructed for its manufacture into clothing. Sheep 
 had to be introduced, and their wool spun and woven 
 into winter garments. Houses and barns had to be 
 provided, and roads and bridges constructed. Game 
 and fish had to be supplied in abundance while the 
 forests were being felled and the soil fitted for tillage. 
 Maple-sugar had to be manufactured, and nameless 
 miscellaneous drudgery performed. 
 
 In nearly all this work the boy of ten years did his 
 part. His training was physical and altogether prac- 
 
1 6 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 tical, and his naturally vigorous constitution became 
 thoroughly developed. He grew with the growth of 
 the community of which he was a member, and was 
 never found wanting in any task. In the use of the 
 axe he became an expert, and before he was grown he 
 could chop and put up six cords of wood in a day. 
 No man better understood the use of the shot-gun and 
 rifle. In the wrestling-match and the foot-race he was 
 second to none. He was a recognized athlete, growing 
 to the height of six feet two inches, broad-shouldered, 
 compact, and well-proportioned. It must not be un 
 derstood, however, that his moral training was neg 
 lected, for his father was a devout Presbyterian, who 
 thoroughly imbued his children with his own moral 
 and religious principles. 
 
 Nor was his education forgotten. He had learned 
 the alphabet in school in Canandaigua, and on begin 
 ning life in Ohio he soon taught himself to read and 
 write. No systematic education was then possible, 
 and his entire school attendance from first to last was 
 only a few weeks. He was obliged to learn what he 
 could in the little snatches of time which the constant 
 pressure of his active duties permitted. There were 
 no libraries, and books were exceedingly few; but his 
 appetite for reading was ravenous, and he devoured 
 every newspaper, pamphlet, or book he could lay his 
 hands on, no matter how ancient or dog-eared. He 
 read such books of travel, biography, poetry, fiction, 
 and theology as he could pick up, and his mental 
 digestion was as remarkable as his appetite. A copy 
 of Lindley Murray s Grammar which fell in his way 
 was thoroughly studied, and he also became interested 
 in mathematics. He studied late at night by the fire 
 light in his father s cabin, or at springtime by the blaz 
 ing light of the sugar-camp ; and yet in this desultory 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 17 
 
 and handicapped struggle for self-education he laid a 
 substantial foundation for the career which awaited 
 him. 
 
 But at the age of sixteen the regular course of his 
 life was suddenly interrupted by the War of 1812, which 
 startled the country and cast its shadow over the North 
 west. The settlers on the Western Reserve were in 
 a state of commotion. The Indians in that region left 
 their wigwams to join the enemy, whose ravages on the 
 Maumee were reported. General Hayes commanded 
 a regiment of soldiers composed of men residing in 
 Trumbull and Ashtabula counties. Giddings joined 
 this regiment, which marched to the Huron; and on 
 September 25 Major Frasier, with a detachment of 
 about one hundred and fifty men, was ordered to 
 proceed as far as Lower Sandusky. At that place 
 there had been a stockade erected for the defence of 
 the people dwelling there, which, having been deserted 
 upon the surrender of General Hull, remained unoccu 
 pied till Major Frasier took possession. It became 
 known as Fort Stephenson. From this point a scout- 
 ing-party was sent out upon the peninsula in quest of 
 provisions which had been left at Sandusky, and a 
 body of Indians, estimated at forty-seven, was discov 
 ered on the farm of one Ramsdell, at Two Harbors, 
 on the shore of the lake. The news of this discovery 
 found the forces at Camp Avery so reduced by ex 
 posure and sickness that they were able to muster but 
 two guards, consisting each of two relieves, so that 
 each man was actually compelled to stand at his post 
 one fourth of the time. Mr. Giddings was on duty at 
 the time the news reached camp, and in an account of 
 the situation he says : 
 
 " When relieved from my post at a little before sunset I found 
 them beating up for volunteers. I soon learned the cause, and 
 
1 8 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 without going to my quarters I joined the small party who were 
 following the music in front of the line of troops. According to 
 my recollection, there were in all sixty-four who volunteered to 
 share the clangers of the enterprise. We were dismissed for 
 thirty minutes to obtain our evening meal. It was between sun 
 set and dark when we again assembled at the beating of the 
 drum and prepared for our departure. Daylight had fully dis 
 appeared before we shook hands with our companions-in-arms 
 and marched forth in the silent darkness of the night." 
 
 The little company, under command of Captain Cot 
 ton, advanced by boats that night, steering for what 
 was then called the Middle Orchard, on the shore of 
 the bay, nearly opposite to Bull s Island, not far from 
 the point where the enemy had been discovered. Two 
 battles were fought that day, with the loss of twelve 
 men and their boats. The enemy stripped and scalped 
 two of our dead who were left on the field, and the 
 scalping-knife of the Indian chief Omick was found 
 plunged to the hilt in the breast of one of them. This 
 chief resided in Wayne township, and Giddings had 
 known him for years. The Indians now deserted the 
 peninsula, and these two battles, the first that were 
 fought in Ohio during the War of 1812, have been over 
 looked by all the historians of the war ; but Mr. Gid 
 dings himself wrote a detailed account of them in 1843, 
 which forms an important contribution to the history 
 of that war and to the annals of the Western Reserve. 
 His service lasted five months, at the end of which he 
 was mustered out and returned to his home. It tested 
 his strength and endurance on the march, his good 
 conduct in camp, and his courage in the face of dan 
 ger. It taught him the value of discipline and self- 
 reliance. It gave him a better knowledge of himself 
 and of human nature, and new ideas of life and incite 
 ments to thought. 
 
 During the progress of the war the Reserve was 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA . GIDDINGS. 19 
 
 several times menaced, but no other conflicts followed, 
 and there was no occasion for any further military 
 duty by Giddings. This was fortunate for his father, 
 who sorely needed his help ; for the title to the lands 
 in which he had invested his all failed, and the family 
 was again thrown upon its resources and obliged to 
 renew the hard struggle with poverty on another tract. 
 Giddings was the youngest of four brothers; and 
 while he manfully did his part in this struggle, he 
 availed himself of every possible opportunity to push 
 forward the work of self-education. He was now 
 nearly eighteen years old, and his thirst for knowl 
 edge constantly increased. In a fragment found 
 among his papers, referring to this period, he says 
 that from his childhood he had accustomed himself 
 to earnest thinking, and that at an early age he had 
 been led to study the idioms of our language and 
 the philosophy of arithmetical rules. As he found 
 his mind constantly enlarged by new ideas and in 
 creased knowledge, he determined to know more than 
 he could ever hope to do as a day laborer. He keenly 
 felt the shackles which bound him, and longed for 
 untrammelled liberty to think and act for himself. His 
 diligence in study was noticed by the people of his 
 neighborhood, and it soon became understood that he 
 was a scholar. He was known to be a student, and 
 they quite naturally took his scholarship for granted. 
 
 It was not surprising, therefore, that at the age of 
 nineteen he was called upon by his neighbors to teach 
 school. He frankly pleaded lack of qualification; but 
 the plea was not accepted, and he entered upon the 
 work. This was fortunate for the children of the vici 
 nage, who greatly needed instruction, and equally for 
 tunate for the teacher. He was stimulated in his work 
 by the desire to keep in advance of his scholars, while 
 
20 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 he constantly refreshed his memory of what he had 
 previously learned. He applied himself to his new 
 vocation with all the ardor that had marked his out 
 door labors. He resumed his study of mathematics, 
 besides more completely mastering the use of the Eng 
 lish language. His teaching, of course, was confined 
 to the winter months, for he held his place in all the 
 hard work of clearing the land and cultivating the soil 
 during the season ; but his work as a teacher seems to 
 have inspired him with a burning desire to pursue his 
 studies more systematically, and to master them more 
 thoroughly. 
 
 At this time the Rev. Harvey Coe was settled as 
 a minister at Vernon, in Trumbull County. He had 
 been liberally educated, and according to the custom 
 of that day, had a room appointed for the use of such 
 young men as desired to obtain the benefits of his in 
 struction. They boarded with him, or with neighbors 
 near by, and at stated hours visited him at his rooms. 
 Under the instructions of this country parson, Giddings 
 now devoted himself to mathematics and Latin, and 
 continued his studies nine months, when he resumed 
 the business of teaching, which he prosecuted during 
 the school season for four years, attending to his farm 
 duties in the summer. The education thus acquired 
 was necessarily fragmentary and unsystematic ; but his 
 strong grasp of mind, tireless industry, and unquench 
 able zeal gave a remarkable thoroughness to his work, 
 and increased confidence in himself as the time ap 
 proached when he must deal with the vexed question 
 of a business for life. 
 
 In the autumn of 1818 he returned to his home at 
 Williamsfield, and his friends and neighbors were 
 anxious to know his intentions and plans for the fu 
 ture. He told them frankly that he had decided upon 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 21 
 
 the study of the law. This was a great surprise to them. 
 He had lived with them from childhood, and toiled 
 with them in the fields. He had never enjoyed the 
 means of obtaining even a common-school education, 
 and they regarded his course as the effect of a vain 
 desire to defeat the designs of Providence, according 
 to which they believed that people born in humble life 
 should be content with their lot. They ridiculed his 
 theory that success and distinction in the profession 
 could be obtained by diligence. They told him he 
 could not make a lawyer, and that by changing his 
 habits he would lose his love of labor, while he could 
 not make a living by his profession. Only two of his 
 neighbors encouraged him in his ambition ; these 
 were his brother-in-law, Nathaniel Coleman, and Anson 
 Jones, who were both men of education, and regarded 
 as the most influential citizens of the township. 
 
 In spite of all dissuasions, Giddings was unwav 
 ering in his purpose; and seeing this, several of his 
 friends and two of his brothers offered him pecuniary 
 aid in prosecuting his studies. In December he left 
 his father s home on foot to begin the study of law 
 under Elisha Whittlesey, Esquire, of Canfield, in 
 Trumbull County. Mr. Whittlesey was a lawyer of 
 eminence, and several of the distinguished lawyers and 
 famous men of northern Ohio studied in his office. 
 He was subsequently a member of Congress sixteen 
 consecutive years, being the immediate predecessor of 
 Mr. Giddings; and he afterwards served many years 
 as First Comptroller of the Treasury. The distance 
 from Williamsfield to Canfield was forty miles, and 
 Giddings carried his own baggage, consisting of three 
 shirts, two pairs of stockings, four white neckcloths, 
 and two pocket-handkerchiefs. He had also sev 
 enteen dollars in cash. He had now defined to his 
 
22 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 own satisfaction his future course. He saw his pathway 
 unmistakably before him, and he determined to bend 
 all his energies to the accomplishment of his purpose. 
 
 In the village of Canfield he was a stranger to every 
 one but his preceptor, whom he had met before ; but 
 he soon became acquainted, and was greatly pleased 
 with the society of the village. He was invited to the 
 houses of the best citizens, and his temperate habits, 
 diligence in study, and correct deportment brought 
 him into general favor. He entered upon the study 
 of law with great spirit. At all hours of the day he 
 was to be found in the office, sweeping it out and 
 building the fire before sunrise, and continuing his 
 studies till late at night. 
 
 Soon after he came to the village, he made his first 
 essay in public speaking. The young men of the place 
 had formed a lyceum, at which important questions of 
 government and state policy were discussed. William 
 A. Whittlesey, a nephew of his preceptor and a grad 
 uate of Yale College, was a fellow-student of Giddings, 
 and they were both invited to join the lyceum, which 
 they did, and at the next meeting arrangements were 
 made for the two young men to take the lead in de 
 bate on opposite sides of the question. Whittlesey 
 held the decided advantage over his opponent in the 
 matter of educational qualifications ; but in the opinion 
 of the large audience who had assembled to hear the 
 debate, Giddings acquitted himself admirably, and the 
 two young men, who had had no previous intimacy, 
 now became attached friends. This friendship con 
 tinued during life, and they served together many 
 years later in the lower branch of Congress. 
 
 It was not long after this that these students began 
 to find employment in the small litigation at all times 
 carried on in country towns before sheriffs courts and 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 2$ 
 
 justices of the peace. They were generally on differ 
 ent sides, and often travelled many miles to attend 
 these courts, charging their clients five dollars, which 
 they found quite convenient in paying for their board 
 and supplying themselves with pocket-money. At 
 this time Elisha Whittlesey was engaged in an exten 
 sive business, and Giddings was often sent to different 
 counties to look after the affairs of his employer. This 
 enabled him to extend his acquaintance and make 
 friends among the people. During the second year of 
 his study he began to look forward to his admission to 
 the Bar, and his preceptor suggested to him that what 
 ever business might come to him from that time he 
 might enter in court in the name of Mr. Whittlesey, 
 and on his admission he could substitute his own name 
 as attorney and receive the fees. Of this kind offer he 
 gladly availed himself, and at the first term of the 
 court after his admission he entered a list of more 
 than thirty causes in his own name. 
 
 According to the custom of that day, the preceptor 
 was required to propose for the consideration of the 
 Bar the names of such young men as he desired to 
 have admitted to an examination, and secure their 
 unanimous consent to present these names to the 
 judges of the Supreme Court. In observance of this 
 custom, Mr. Whittlesey presented the names of Joshua 
 R. Giddings and William A. Whittlesey as candidates 
 for examination. Two objections to Giddings were 
 made, first, that he had not received the proper lit 
 erary training; and second, that the sphere in which 
 he had been reared was not such as to entitle him to 
 associate with members of the Bar. To these objec 
 tions the friends of Giddings replied that his literary 
 training would be tested by the examination proposed ; 
 and that as to association, it would have to be mutual, 
 
24 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 or it could not exist. They urged that the only ques 
 tion for the Bar to pass upon was his moral character 
 and legal knowledge, and not the sphere in which he 
 moved. The objections, however, were strongly urged 
 by two members of the Bar, who were quite aristocratic 
 in their feelings, and warm words were exchanged ; 
 but seventeen out of nineteen members voted for the 
 admission of Giddings to an examination, and Mr. 
 Whittlesey was instructed to give him the necessary 
 certificate. Of this opposition he was never informed 
 till after his admission. At the examination he ac 
 quitted himself to the entire satisfaction of the judges, 
 and by some of the oldest members he was pronounced 
 the best theoretical lawyer of the county at the time. 
 One week after his admission, which occurred in Feb 
 ruary, 1821, he appeared before the Court of Common 
 Pleas of Ashtabula with a list of cases which might 
 well have awakened the pride of a lawyer who had 
 been years in practice. 
 
 While yet a student, Giddings was married to Miss 
 Laura Waters, of Trumbull County, a young woman 
 of more than common intelligence and worth. She 
 was the daughter of Abner Waters, who had removed 
 from Granby, Connecticut, to Ohio in 1816. To the 
 eye of worldly prudence the wisdom of his marriage 
 at this time would have seemed at least debatable. 
 He had not yet entered the threshold of his profes 
 sion. Without the help of friends he could not buy a 
 library. If, during the first few years of his practice, 
 he could earn more than enough for his own support, 
 he would need it in preparing for the responsibilities 
 of marriage. Miss Waters was likewise poor, earning 
 her livelihood by teaching. But their marriage was 
 the special concern of nobody but themselves, and the 
 sequel vindicated their action. The practice of Gid- 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 2$ 
 
 dings proved remunerative from the beginning, and 
 his young wife contributed her earnings as a teacher 
 to the purchase of a law library. They began house 
 keeping in Wayne Township upon his father s farm, 
 and he built an office in the adjoining village of 
 Williamsfield, where he began his professional career. 
 
 Eight children were born to them, three of whom 
 died in infancy. Of the remaining five, the eldest was 
 Comfort Pease, who was born Jan. 7, 1820. He is a 
 farmer, and resides in the vicinity of Jefferson. 
 
 The second son, Joseph Addison, was born Feb. 
 17, 1822. He began life as a lawyer, and was sub 
 sequently elected judge of the Probate Court of his 
 county. For a number of years he edited " The 
 Ashtabula Sentinel," of which his father was corre 
 sponding editor during the greater part of his con 
 gressional term, and he was vice-consul at Montreal 
 at the time of his father s death. He resides on the 
 old homestead at Jefferson. 
 
 The eldest daughter, Lura Maria, was born Sept. 
 24, 1825, and died Aug. 23, 1871. She was among 
 the early workers in the anti-slavery reform, and 
 was thoroughly devoted to her father, whom she ac 
 companied to Washington during several sessions of 
 Congress. She was also with him in Montreal at the 
 
 o 
 
 time of his death. She was a woman of more than 
 ordinary endowments, and possessed admirable traits 
 of character; and during the last years of her life she 
 took the lead in the erection of a beautiful monument 
 to her father, which fitly commemorates a daughter s 
 devotion, and the public services of him whose like 
 ness it bears. 
 
 Grotius Reed, the youngest son, was born June 21, 
 1834, and died in 1867, on his thirty-third birthday. 
 He began the practice of law in 1860, but on the 
 
26 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G1DDINGS. 
 
 breaking out of the Rebellion he raised a company of 
 men for the war, and was unanimously elected captain. 
 He was soon afterwards appointed major in the Four 
 teenth Regiment of United States regulars, and as 
 sumed command at Fort Trumbull, Connecticut. He 
 was subsequently ordered to New Orleans as a general 
 mustering and disbursing officer, where he mustered in 
 the first two colored regiments raised in Louisiana. 
 From this position, at his own request, he was relieved 
 and ordered to the field, where he distinguished him 
 self for his bravery in the battles of Chancellorsville 
 and Gettysburg, for which conduct he was publicly 
 complimented. An injury received by the falling of his 
 horse while in command of the first brigade of regu 
 lars in the New York riots unfitted him for field 
 service during the remainder of the war, and he died 
 at Macon, Georgia, while in command of the military 
 post at Savannah. 
 
 The younger daughter, Laura, was born May 19, 
 1839. She was the favorite child of her father, and 
 largely inherited his qualities. Like her sister, she 
 shared his society in Washington during a portion of 
 his Congressional service, and in Montreal afterwards. 
 On Dec. 31, 1863, she was married to George W. 
 Julian, of Indiana, and died March 31, 1884, at her 
 home in Irvington, in that State. 
 
 The wife of Mr. Giddings was born Jan. 19, 1798, 
 and died Nov. 15, 1864, surviving her husband a little 
 less than five months. She was noted for her piety, 
 her complete consecration to the service of her hus 
 band and family, and her faithfulness to duty in all 
 the relations of life. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 Success at the Bar. Sent to the Ohio Legislature. Partnership with 
 Benjamin F. Wade. Business Troubles and Failing Health. 
 Election to Congress. The Slavery Question. 
 
 IN his famous speech on Conciliation with America, 
 in 1775, Burke says the study of law "renders 
 men acute, inquisitive, dexterous, prompt in action, 
 ready in debate, full of resources." Among the 
 causes which kept alive the spirit of independence in 
 the Colonies, he names their familiarity with English 
 law, which enabled them to " augur misgovernmerit 
 at a distance, and snuff the approach of tyranny in 
 every tainted breeze." The political career of Gid- 
 dings recalls these passages and aptly illustrates their 
 force. Whoever will read the Congressional debates 
 from 1838 to 1858, in which he took a considerable 
 part, will see how well his legal training served him 
 in discussing the constitutional relations of slavery 
 to the government, and with what admirable readiness 
 and skill he parried the assaults and exposed the 
 sophisms of the slaveocracy. It thus happened, quite 
 unwittingly to Giddings himself, that during the seven 
 teen years of his professional life, beginning with his 
 admission to the Bar in 1821, and closing with his 
 election to Congress in 1838, he was arming himself 
 for his great battle with the slave-masters, which ended 
 only with his retirement from public life in 1859. 
 
28 THE ZTFTi OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 His entry upon the work of his profession, as we 
 have seen, was singularly unpretentious. He was not 
 long, however, in finding out his mistake in locating 
 in Williamsfield, and the following year he established 
 himself in Jefferson, the shire town of the county, 
 where he resided during the remainder of his life. 
 It is difficult now to realize the condition of the 
 country and the state of society in northern Ohio 
 seventy years ago, when he entered the profession. 
 Ashtabula and the adjacent counties were sparsely 
 populated, and the courts were held in rough log- 
 houses. The people generally lived in rude huts or 
 cabins, and were nearly all poor. The whole aspect 
 of affairs in this border life was raw and aboriginal. 
 The vast litigation since created by our railway sys 
 tem and other forms of corporate property was not 
 dreamed of by the people of that generation. As 
 little did they dream of the marvellous increase of 
 wealth through commercial development which was 
 to open new fields for the lawyer, and offer him large 
 fees for his services in important causes. The Bar of 
 that day had to content itself with a country practice 
 and small fees, because cities and great causes were 
 unknown. 
 
 But such a country practice had its advantages. It 
 dealt with small cases, but with a great variety of ques 
 tions, while the lawyer of to-day usually devotes him 
 self to a special branch of his profession or to a 
 particular class of cases. The practice of Giddings 
 also brought him into contact with all classes of men, 
 and thus acquainted him with human nature and 
 broadened his mind. It is easy to see that in such 
 ways as these he constantly trained and invigorated his 
 faculties, and prepared himself for the leadership in 
 politics which awaited him. It must be understood, 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 29 
 
 too, that although his cases were comparatively un 
 important and his fees small, the legal principles in 
 volved were substantially the same as those arising in 
 controversies in which great interests are at stake. 
 The schooling thus acquired was of inestimable value, 
 giving him at once a ready familiarity with legal prin 
 ciples and a practical knowledge of men and their 
 affairs. 
 
 At this time the jurisdiction of the Court of Com 
 mon Pleas included five or six counties, in which its 
 sessions were held three times in each year. The Su 
 preme Court was composed of four judges, and was 
 also a Circuit Court, with a jury, sitting in each county 
 once a year, and reserving cases to be heard by the 
 four judges in bane. Giddings, with his chief profes 
 sional brethren of the county, joined the presiding 
 judge of the circuit in his journey on horseback to the 
 different courts, which were always largely attended 
 by the people. 
 
 Lawyers at that time commanded more genuine re 
 spect from the public than they now receive, and the 
 potency of oratory and personal magnetism was greater 
 than at present. To the people of that day there was 
 something fascinating and theatrical in a trial in court. 
 The stalwart form of Giddings and his great strength 
 singled him out for general observation and special 
 comment. He was not remarkable for volubility of 
 speech. He often hesitated for a word, and generally 
 waited for it; but sometimes he would persist in hav 
 ing it at once, when he would close his eyes very tight, 
 and compel it. 1 He had but one gesture in speaking, 
 and that was with both arms and clenched fists, as if 
 determined to hammer his ideas into his hearers ; but 
 with his clear common-sense, perfect mastery of the 
 i A. G. Riddle, in " Bart Ridgely." 
 
30 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 main points of his case, and his knowledge of the jury, 
 he was a formidable advocate, and had few, if any, 
 rivals at the bar. He studied his cases thoroughly, 
 and knew how to elicit the facts from the witnesses, 
 while his tact, perfect self-possession, and unfailing 
 good-nature did him excellent service, and tempered 
 the asperities of his professional work. 
 
 Early in his practice Giddings became connected 
 with some important cases which greatly aided his 
 reputation. One of these was the famous malpractice 
 case of Williams vs. Hawley, which attracted more at 
 tention than any ever litigated in Ashtabula County. 
 The wife of Williams was thrown from her horse and 
 her ankle dislocated, the outer bone of the leg pro 
 truding about half an inch. The surgeon, Dr. Hawley, 
 laid the bone open along the perpendicular line some 
 four inches, and then, prying the ligaments aside, sawed 
 off two and a half inches from the lower end of the 
 bone, thus rendering her a cripple for life. He was 
 a man of great wealth, high professional reputation, 
 and surrounded by influential friends ; while the hus 
 band of the woman was a poor farmer without the 
 means to carry on a lawsuit. Dr. Hawley had sued 
 him for his bill, which the farmer thought exorbitant, 
 and desired to reduce on the trial. Giddings, after 
 carefully acquainting himself with the case, advised 
 him to bring suit against the surgeon for damages for 
 malpractice. The professional reputation of Dr. Hawley 
 was thus involved, and he prepared himself for a most 
 resolute and stubborn fight. All the physicians of the 
 vicinity were his witnesses, and every possible effort 
 was made in his defence ; but the plaintiff obtained a 
 verdict for five hundred dollars. 
 
 The defendant appealed the case to the Supreme 
 Court, and in this second trial John C. Wright, of Cin- 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS, 3 I 
 
 cinnati, then famous as a lawyer, was retained for the 
 defendant, and the evidence of the most noted physi 
 cians of New York and Philadelphia was introduced. 
 The case was far more vigorously and elaborately con 
 tested on both sides than before, and the popular in 
 terest in it was lively and wide-spread. Mr. Wright 
 spoke five hours in behalf of his client, during which 
 the court, jury, and spectators were frequently con 
 vulsed with laughter by his wit, humor, and sarcasm, 
 while not a muscle of his solemn face was moved. The 
 tide seemed to be strongly in his favor. Giddings oc 
 cupied only two and a half hours in his closing speech. 
 The attempt to laugh his case out of court seemed to 
 inspire him with redoubled courage and fervor, and 
 throwing aside his notes, he devoted his argument to 
 the simple facts of the case, which he analyzed with 
 great skill. He made it perfectly clear from the testi 
 mony that Mrs. Williams had been made a cripple for 
 life by the professional misconduct or stupidity of the 
 defendant, and that he should be adequately punished 
 by a verdict for damages. He had the close attention 
 of the jury and all present from the beginning to the 
 end of his speech, and the absolute seriousness of the 
 discussion was in noted contrast with the effort of Mr. 
 Wright. The jury brought in a verdict of five hundred 
 and seventy-five dollars for the plaintiff, while the voci 
 ferous plaudits of the people aggravated the disap 
 pointment of the defendant and his counsel. 
 
 The defendant then prayed an appeal to the court 
 in bane, and made such representations touching the 
 popular feeling in the case in Ashtabula County, and 
 urged such technical grounds for setting aside the ver 
 dict, that it was done, and a change of venue was 
 ordered to Trumbull County. After a continuance of 
 one year it was again brought to trial; but this time 
 
32 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 there was no laughter or levity. The case was argued 
 at length, and after the retirement of the jury and a re 
 ported disagreement, involving the charge of bribery 
 of one of the jurors, they were discharged, and the 
 cause continued till the following term. At that term 
 the case was again argued before another jury, and the 
 plaintiff obtained a verdict for nine hundred dollars. 
 Judgment was entered upon this verdict, and the tri 
 umph of Giddings was complete. The litigation had 
 lasted six years, and it does not appear that he ever 
 received any compensation from the plaintiff; but the 
 value of his triumph was worth more to him than any 
 fee at that time would have been. 
 
 Giddings was more especially successful in criminal 
 cases, and his practice in such cases was quite as ex 
 tensive as that of any lawyer in northern Ohio. He 
 often declared that some of his clients were convicted 
 of crimes of which he thought them innocent, and that 
 in every such instance he believed he suffered more 
 mental anxiety during the trial than the victims who 
 sat by his side. 
 
 Soon after the trial in the civil suit just mentioned, 
 his moral courage and professional ability were sub 
 jected to a severe test. A young woman was mur 
 dered in the Kirtland woods, in Geauga County. A 
 man named Barnes, a pedler with a wagon, was seen 
 to enter the forest immediately after the girl on the 
 same road. The people of the vicinity were unani 
 mously of opinion that he was the murderer. Before 
 the examining court many circumstances conspired to 
 show his guilt. The friends of Barnes were anxious to 
 obtain the services of Giddings; but politicians declared 
 it would be fatal to the reputation of any man to de 
 fend one so obviously guilty. This determined his 
 course, for he declared he would not live in a com- 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 33 
 
 munity that believed him capable of being swayed by 
 such considerations. After consulting with Barnes, 
 Giddings came to the conclusion that he was innocent; 
 but on account of the highly exasperated feeling against 
 his client, he availed himself of his legal privilege of se 
 lecting the Supreme Court as the tribunal for the trial, 
 by which means it was postponed ten months. 
 
 When this court convened, however, the popular 
 feeling seemed to have increased, and the friends of 
 the murdered girl employed Hon. Sherlock J. Andrews, 
 a distinguished lawyer of Cleveland, to assist the 
 attorney for the State. Barnes was penniless ; and 
 although Giddings was now assigned for his defence, 
 the law at that time allowed him no compensation. 
 The trial proceeded, and after elaborate argument on 
 both sides, the jury rendered a verdict of Not guilty. 
 The friends of Barnes rushed from the crowd and 
 overwhelmed Giddings with their expressions of grati 
 tude, which he often declared was the richest reward 
 he ever received for defending any man. Barnes lived 
 several years afterwards, and it finally appeared by the 
 testimony of a convict in the penitentiary that he was 
 innocent; and Barnes himself on his death-bed, when 
 assured that his recovery was impossible, denied all 
 knowledge of the murder. 
 
 These cases were followed by important suits in Buf 
 falo and the western counties of New York and Pennsyl 
 vania, in one of which Millard Fillmore was the opposing 
 counsel. Large interests were involved in this case, and 
 Giddings succeeded by his tact and vigilance, greatly to 
 the mortification of Mr. Fillmore, who prided himself on 
 his skill and assiduity in the preparation of his cases. 
 
 While in the full tide of his professional success, Gid 
 dings was announced as a candidate for representative 
 in the Ohio Legislature. This was done without his 
 
 3 
 
34 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 consent or knowledge, and he had no disposition to be 
 drawn into politics at this time, as it would seriously in 
 terfere with his business. His friends, however, urged 
 him to make the race, and so did his relatives, except 
 his mother, who remonstrated against his entering into 
 political life. After much hesitation he determined to 
 enter the canvass, but with the public avowal that he 
 would not consent to another election. He engaged 
 in the contest with great zeal, and in his journal of that 
 date he relates that his anxiety for success completely 
 filled his mind till the election ; but that afterwards he 
 so felt the responsibility of his position that he would 
 have made almost any sacrifice % to escape it. He says 
 that the difficulties of travel were then such that it re 
 quired a week to reach Columbus from Jefferson. In 
 the organization of the House he was made chairman 
 of the Committee on Military Affairs. No exciting 
 questions came before the Legislature at this session, 
 and although he took an active part in urging certain 
 judicial reforms, the chief advantage of this brief legis 
 lative experience was the knowledge of parliamentary 
 law which it gave him. He declined a renomination, 
 but two years later he became a candidate for the 
 State Senate, and failed of an election, this being the 
 only time he was ever defeated at the polls. 
 
 In 1831 he formed a partnership with Benjamin F. 
 Wade, of Ashtabula County, then a young lawyer of 
 much promise, who, like himself, had studied under 
 Elisha Whittlesey. It was a profitable partnership for 
 both parties, and their business rapidly extended over 
 the counties of Ashtabula, Trumbull, and Geauga. 
 Mr. Wade had only recently been admitted, and his 
 lack of self-confidence for a time kept him in the office 
 in the preparation of cases, so that Giddings had the 
 management of business in the courts. Wade, however, 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 35 
 
 was not long in coming to the front, and the practice 
 of the firm became one of the largest in the State. 
 Their earnings far exceeded the demands of their sim 
 ple village life, and in an ill-fated moment both en 
 tered into large land purchases, principally in Toledo, 
 being carried away by the fever of town-lot specula 
 tions. Giddings counted himself so rich as to warrant 
 his retirement from practice, and in 1836 dissolved his 
 partnership with Wade, his place being filled by Rufus 
 P. Ranney, who had been a student in the office. 
 
 But his bright prospects were suddenly blighted by 
 the great financial panic which followed. The price of 
 land declined alarmingly, and purchasers were made 
 bankrupt. The result was that Giddings found himself 
 a poor man at the age of forty, while his troubles were 
 seriously aggravated by his failing health. A distress 
 ing form of dyspepsia and an irregular action of the 
 heart, which greatly troubled him in his later life, 
 made his condition wretched ; he believed his splendid 
 constitution was fatally undermined. Hypochondria 
 followed, and for months in succession he kept up 
 his fight with Giant Despair. His physician advised 
 him to travel, and he set out on horseback, pass 
 ing through the State of New York to Hartford 
 and Enfield in Connecticut, where he visited rela 
 tives of his mother by the name of Pease. On his 
 return he visited sundry points in the West, including 
 the then infant city of Chicago. In the light of subse 
 quent events the following extract from a letter to Mrs. 
 Giddings, dated Chicago, July 20, 1837, mav interest 
 the reader: 
 
 " I arrived here last evening. My health and spirits have im 
 proved in travelling. I find this to be much more of a city than 
 I had expected. There are said to be between seven and eight 
 thousand inhabitants now, whereas there were about one hundred 
 four years since. There are now large and spacious brick build- 
 
36 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 ings, for the accommodation of all kinds of business, where there 
 was not even a frame building four years since. There is a fine 
 harbor crowded with shipping, and the bustle of business con 
 stantly salutes the ears of the inhabitants. I have seen much of 
 the Western country, and certainly I have been highly pleased 
 with my present tour. Never until yesterday did I see a bound 
 less prairie, where in any one direction the eye cannot rest on hill 
 or mountain, forest-tree or shrub, or bush or water, where one 
 vast ocean of prairie, of unlimited extent, presented itself to view. 
 The prospect was boundless and cheerless. It seemed that by 
 some means Nature had been disrobed of her forest mantle, and 
 now lay reposing under a rich vesture of green herbage, dotted 
 and bespangled with innumerable flowers and blossoms of the 
 most gaudy hue. I wish you could have seen it ; it gave me a 
 feeling of solemnity. The view, though beautiful, was solitary. 
 Occasionally a lark or blackbird would start up before us, flitting 
 along and trying to find a limb or twig or fence to alight upon ; 
 but finding none, its weary wings would again guide it to the 
 bending grass. Now and then a prairie hen would start suddenly 
 from the ground, and whirring through the air for a distance, dive 
 amid the waves of green herbage and disappear from the view. 
 These winged creatures alone appeared to be at home amid this 
 lovely, this lonely, this majestic scene. 
 
 " Well, I have seen so much that I intend to see more. I assure 
 you that I have felt quite at home for two days past while eating 
 pone and pork in the woodman s shanty, and I never slept sounder 
 than the night before last, although I had neither bed nor mat 
 tress, pillow nor blanket. I would certainly like to spend one or 
 two months in rambling through the Western wilds, and I believe 
 nothing would be better for my health than to travel, live poorly, 
 and sleep on the floor or ground as occasion should require." 
 
 His travels so improved his health and spirits that 
 he returned to his practice, forming a partnership with 
 Flavel Sutliff, a clever young man whose promising 
 career was suddenly terminated two years later by 
 insanity. The retirement of Giddings from the Bar 
 for so short a time did not greatly interfere with his 
 business, and the new firm was at once overrun with 
 important cases. But his professional career was sud 
 denly cut short forever by unexpected events. Elisha 
 Whittlesey, who had served his district in Congress for 
 sixteen years, was appointed by President Van Buren 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 37 
 
 Fourth Auditor of the Treasury, and resigned his seat 
 in the Twenty-fifth Congress in the midst of his term. 
 For the place thus vacated, Giddings became a candi 
 date, his Whig competitors being Hon. Ralph Granger 
 and Hon. Horace Wilder. He received the nomina 
 tion, and as the Democrats were in a hopeless minority 
 in the district, his election was assured. Thus the way 
 was opened for his historic career in Congress and the 
 great work of his life. 
 
 Before attempting to follow Giddings in his anti- 
 slavery labors, it will be well to clear the way by a 
 brief summary of important preliminary facts. Slavery 
 in the American colonies was not of their seeking. It 
 was thrust upon them by a foreign hand, and was 
 utterly repugnant to their principles, and alien to their 
 spirit and policy. In all the colonies, unless we except 
 Georgia and South Carolina, the evil was endured, but 
 never embraced. It existed in Virginia forty years 
 before it received any legal recognition. Hostility to 
 slavery was manifested in Pennsylvania by some Ger 
 man Quakers as early as the year 1688. This was fol 
 lowed by the official condemnation of it by the Yearly 
 Meeting of Friends for the colonies of Pennsylvania 
 and New Jersey in 1696. The New England Quakers 
 took similar action against the slave trade in 1715. 
 Two prominent Quakers, Ralph Sandiford and Benja 
 min Lay, wrote against slavery in 1729 and 1737; and 
 they were followed by Anthony Benezett and John 
 Woolman, whose services largely aided the complete 
 emancipation of the Society of Friends from the evil in 
 the colonies in which they labored. A vigorous effort 
 was made to save the colony of Georgia from the 
 scourge of slavery by General Oglethorpe, who had 
 the co-operation of John Wesley; but slavery finally 
 triumphed. The stand taken by Wesley and Whitefield 
 
38 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 is well known, and Jonathan Edwards and Dr. Samuel 
 Hopkins belonged to the same class of thoroughgoing 
 abolitionists. 
 
 Hostility to slavery and the slave trade so increased 
 in the colonies that those of New England, New Jersey, 
 Pennsylvania, and Virginia petitioned the Throne for 
 the abolition of the foreign traffic, and their Legisla 
 tures passed laws against it; but the parent country 
 turned a deaf ear to their wishes. As the era of inde 
 pendence approached, the anti-slavery tide reached its 
 flood, as was shown by the non-importation resolves of 
 the Continental Congress of 1774, and the concurring 
 action of the separate colonies. In 1775, the year 
 before Thomas Paine electrified the country by his 
 " Common-Sense," he wrote an anti-slavery article 
 which appeared in Bradford s " Pennsylvania Journal," 
 in which he predicted the separation of America from 
 Britain, and expressed the hope that our gratitude for 
 the event might be shown by " an Act of continental 
 legislation which shall put a stop to the importation of 
 negroes, soften the hard fate of those already here, and 
 in time procure their freedom." During the Revolu 
 tionary War and up to the year 1789 slaves escaping 
 from one colony to another became legally free. 
 
 The champions of independence were the chief foes 
 of the slave trade and slavery, while the revolutionary 
 movement had its strongholds where the slave popula 
 tion was smallest and the institution was in a state of 
 decline. Indeed, it is safe to say that in a very impor 
 tant sense independence had its genesis in the anti- 
 slavery opinions and labors which preceded it ; and 
 this honor ought freely to be accorded to the aboli 
 tionism of the colonial period. It is true that the 
 struggle for independence was political ; but it is 
 equally true that its basis was the inborn rights of 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 39 
 
 man, or, as Madison phrased it after the struggle was 
 over, " the rights of human nature." It was the relig 
 ious conviction that liberty is the birthright of all men 
 which inspired the anti-slavery zeal of the colonists 
 and prepared them to rebel against the power which 
 asserted the right to bind them in all cases whatsoever. 
 This view is well supported by historic facts. In 
 the year 1774 the Pennsylvania Abolition Society was 
 formed, of which Benjamin Franklin was for years the 
 president. John Jay was the president of a similar 
 society in New York, organized a few years later. 
 Abolition societies were formed in Maryland, Virginia, 
 New Jersey, Delaware, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. 
 At the beginning of the Revolutionary struggle, and 
 during its continuance, the churches were all anti- 
 slavery. In 1784 the ordinance of Jefferson, prohibit 
 ing slavery after the year 1800 in all " the territories 
 ceded already or to be ceded by individual States to 
 the United States," only failed by an accident, while 
 three years later the famous ordinance forbidding the 
 introduction of slavery in all territory then under the 
 jurisdiction of the National Government was adopted 
 by the unanimous vote of the States then represented 
 in Congress, including Georgia and the Carolinas. At 
 that time slavery had already been abolished, or meas 
 ures were soon afterwards to be taken for its abolition, 
 in seven of the States, while in the six remaining it 
 was understood to be in course of inevitable decay. 
 The new Constitution provided for cutting off the for 
 eign supply, the source of its life, while private eman 
 cipations were going on in all the States under the 
 prevailing spirit of liberty, which had gathered new 
 life in the struggle for independence. The Constitu 
 tion made concessions to slavery. The foreign traffic 
 was not to be interdicted prior to 1808. Fugitive 
 
40 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 slaves were to be surrendered, and three fifths of the 
 slave population counted in the basis of representation. 
 
 With these qualifications, slavery was a State institu 
 tion with which it was neither the right nor the duty 
 of the National Government to intermeddle, either to 
 help or hinder it; and the concessions named, were 
 only agreed to because of the assurance everywhere 
 felt that the evil was to have only a transient suffer 
 ance, a brief hospitality pending the adoption of 
 measures for its peaceable but total extirpation ; and 
 this bargain with slavery never would have been made 
 if the framers of the Constitution could have foreseen 
 that the power thus abetted would treacherously de 
 mand perpetuity, and assert its absolute political su 
 premacy in the government. Mr. Madison declared it 
 to be wrong to admit in the Constitution " the idea 
 that there can be property in man ; " and on this ground 
 its framers studiously omitted the words " slave," "slav 
 ery," and " servitude " from its text. They referred to 
 slavery by circumlocution and innuendo, turning upon 
 it an averted face, and shying away from it as a pro 
 fane thing, while reluctantly granting it a temporary 
 tolerance. 
 
 The anti-slavery spirit of the times was so dominant 
 that in the year 1791 Granville Sharpe, the head and 
 front of English abolitionism, was made a doctor of 
 laws by the University of William and Mary in Vir 
 ginia. The cause of emancipation was then supported 
 by public opinion, and only opposed by a diminishing 
 fraction of society. It was as easy to be an abolitionist 
 then as to be in favor of prison reform or the improve 
 ment of the condition of the aborigines. Slavery had 
 not yet become a great political and moneyed power. 
 It was not supported by formidable ecclesiastical back 
 ing. It attempted no social outlawry. It was not pre- 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 41 
 
 eminently a respectable institution. The men who 
 sought its abolition were not obliged to encounter 
 brickbats and unmerchantable eggs. The age of mar 
 tyrdom was yet in the distance, and no one dreamed 
 of the dispensation which was to startle the civilized 
 world in the following century, and drench the land in 
 blood. 
 
 In the entire history of human progress it would be 
 difficult to find a more curious chapter than that which 
 records the complete miscarriage of the hopes and ex 
 pectations of the founders of the government touching 
 the fortunes of slavery in the United States. Its as 
 cendency finds a partial explanation in the invention 
 of Whitney s cotton-gin, in 1793, making the pro 
 duction of cotton exceedingly profitable, through the 
 breeding of slaves for its cultivation, and in the ac 
 quisition of Louisiana in 1803, opening to slavery an 
 immense area of fertile soil in latitudes remarkably 
 adapted to the growth of this plant. But slavery be 
 gan to play the master prior to these events. The 
 concessions made to it in the Constitution gave it a 
 new birth. In the debate in Congress in 1790 on the 
 anti-slavery petition headed by Dr. Franklin, Southern 
 members exhibited the same spirit of domination which 
 marked their discussions in later times ; and one of 
 them intimated that the lives of certain members who 
 favored the doctrines of the petition would be endan 
 gered should they happen to be found in certain Slave 
 States. In the same year a treaty was concluded with 
 the Cherokee Indians by which Georgia slaveholders 
 were enabled to recover their fugitive slaves who had 
 fled to the Spanish province of Florida, and providing 
 a perpetual annuity of fifteen hundred dollars as com 
 pensation to said Indians for their services in the re 
 capture of such fugitives. This treaty, negotiated by 
 
42 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA A . GIDDINGS. 
 
 Washington, and ratified by the Senate, was the first 
 exercise of the treaty-making power under the govern 
 ment; but it was unauthorized by the Constitution, 
 which made no provision for the recovery of fugitives 
 escaping into a foreign State. 
 
 The power of slavery was strikingly illustrated in 
 the passage of the Fugitive Slave law of 1793. It was 
 enacted in secret session. It is not known who intro 
 duced the measure, nor what reasons were urged in its 
 favor, nor whether it was debated. It was not author 
 ized by any express provision of the Constitution, and 
 so far as it imposed duties upon State magistrates it 
 was unconstitutional, and was afterwards so declared 
 by the Supreme Court of the United States. By its 
 perfectly unguarded provisions, the free colored people 
 of the Northern States were exposed to the Southern 
 kidnapper for nearly three quarters of a century, and 
 thousands of them were carried into bondage ; but it 
 passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 
 forty-eight to seven, and its repeal was impossible prior 
 to the Civil War. 
 
 In 1797 the Quakers of North Carolina emancipated 
 their slaves. The Legislature of the State passed an 
 Act authorizing their re-enslavement. The victims of 
 this outrage petitioned Congress for redress, and the 
 House of Representatives, by a vote of fifty to thirty- 
 three, refused to receive the petition. This question 
 gave rise to a debate in which, for the first time, threats 
 were made to dissolve the union if Congress should 
 persist in discussing the question of slavery. 
 
 When the District of Columbia was created by ces 
 sions from Virginia and Maryland, Congress acquired 
 the sole and exclusive jurisdiction over it, and in 1801 
 proceeded to re-enact the slave codes of those States 
 for its government, and thus nationalized slavery and 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 43 
 
 the traffic in slaves therein. Congress had no power 
 to do this, because the Constitution expressly provides 
 that no person (under Federal jurisdiction) shall be 
 deprived of life, liberty, or property without due pro 
 cess of law. 
 
 The Act of Congress of 1807, prohibiting the for 
 eign slave trade and branding it as piracy, made ample 
 provision for the coastwise trade between the border 
 States of the North and the cotton States of the South, 
 a traffic far more barbarous and cruel than the pirati 
 cal trade with Africa. The Constitution conferred no 
 power upon Congress thus to legislate for slavery. 
 
 The cases cited show the unmistakable trend of the 
 National Government towards slavery in the earlier 
 and better days of the Republic, and it steadily grew 
 stronger. Florida was purchased in the interest of 
 slavery, and received into the Union as a Slave State, 
 in palpable contravention of the anti-slavery policy of 
 the ordinance of 1787. Three large Slave States were 
 carved out of the Territory of Louisiana and admitted 
 into the Union, thus again stretching the compromises 
 of the Constitution over a large region which the 
 founders of the government believed they had no 
 right to acquire. The National Government assisted 
 in expelling the red man from seven or eight States 
 of the South at the cost of many millions, so that the 
 white man could enter with his peculiar institution 
 where otherwise it was forbidden. The Government 
 carried on two disgraceful Florida wars at the bidding 
 of the slave-catchers of Georgia and South Carolina, 
 and these national slave-hunts cost the country at least 
 forty millions of dollars. The Missouri struggle in 
 1820 plainly revealed the fact that slavery had become 
 a great political power, while the abolition societies, 
 once so flourishing, had been disbanded or had lost 
 
44 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 their spirit. Slavery expurgated our literature, muti 
 lated the school-books of our children, rifled the mails, 
 and trampled upon the right of petition and the free 
 dom of debate, while it controlled our foreign diplo 
 macy and all the departments of the government. 
 
 The startling political apostasy which had been 
 gradually nearing its climax was accompanied by a 
 like apostasy in the churches, which at last became 
 the bulwarks of the slave power ; and that power was 
 finally interwoven with the whole fabric of American 
 society and institutions. The church and the state 
 joined hands with it as the new trinity of the nation s 
 faith. It made and unmade politicians. To oppose 
 it was to confront mobs, persecution, and sometimes 
 death. It was to give up reputation, honor, ease, and 
 all the prizes of life which worldly prudence or ambi 
 tion could covet. It was to take up the heaviest cross 
 yet fashioned by this century as the test of Christian 
 character and heroism. Such was the appalling out 
 come of the concessions made to slavery as embodied 
 in the Constitution of 1789. Instead of opening the 
 way for " liberty throughout all the land to all the in 
 habitants thereof," as the fathers of the government 
 so confidently anticipated, these concessions, in the 
 words of John Quincy Adams, made "the propagation, 
 preservation, and perpetuation of slavery the vital and 
 animating spirit of the National Government." The 
 slaveholders so willed it, and they never intermitted 
 their purpose; and the Northern States acquiesced. 
 
 It was in this epoch of slave-holding arrogance on 
 the one hand, and Northern cowardice on the other, 
 that Joshua R. Giddings took his seat in the lower 
 branch of the Twenty-fifth Congress, in December, 
 1838. Slavery had not yet found its way into politics. 
 The Liberty party and the Free Soil party, which sue- 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDIA^GS. 45 
 
 ceeded .it, were not organized till years afterwards. 
 Giddings was a Whig, and his Whig constituents were 
 hostile to slavery ; but as yet they had formulated no 
 well-defined method of resisting its usurpations. The 
 Abolitionists were few, and everywhere misunderstood 
 and hounded by the mob. The people of the non- 
 slaveholding States were asleep, while the slave oli 
 garchy was meditating new schemes of aggression, 
 and stealthily plotting their complete subjugation. 
 The right of petition and the freedom of debate had 
 been stricken down in the House of Representatives 
 two years before. Lovejoy had been murdered in 
 Alton the year previous for refusing to surrender the 
 freedom of the Press to pro-slavery ruffians; Penn 
 sylvania Hall had been burned by a Philadelphia mob 
 only a few months before. 
 
 The same spirit of lawlessness had prostituted the 
 mail service of the United States as a means of silen 
 cing the voice of freedom. Up to this time Giddings 
 had devoted himself to his profession, and had not 
 seriously examined the relations of the Federal Gov 
 ernment to slavery, and the rights and duties of the 
 Free States respecting it ; but he had now become pro 
 foundly interested in the subject through the speeches 
 of Theodore D. Weld, one of the most eloquent of 
 the early Abolitionists, who had spoken at Jefferson 
 and other points in northern Ohio the year before. 
 -Under this awakening, Mr. Wade and himself had 
 taken the lead in forming an anti-slavery society, 
 which at first contained only four members. This 
 was the beginning of his warfare with slavery. He 
 was now to confront it on the floor of Congress, and 
 as an earnest, conscientious, and brave man to define 
 his position and maintain it. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 DECEMBER, 1838, TO MARCH, 1839. 
 
 Personal Journal. Last Session of the Twenty-fifth Congress. 
 Scenes and Incidents. Growing Domination of Slavery. De 
 velopment of Character. 
 
 DURING the first session of his congressional 
 service Giddings kept a private journal, in which 
 he made a daily record of his impressions about men 
 and affairs. It was intended only for the amusement 
 of his family and particular friends ; but there are pas 
 sages in it which properly belong to the story of his 
 political career, and they are all the more valuable be 
 cause they relate to the formative period of his public 
 life, and lay bare the real thoughts of the man. 
 
 He left his home for Washington on the 24th of 
 November, 1838. His journal describes the tedious 
 journey over the Alleghanies as it was made at that 
 time ; and after reaching Frederick City on the 29th, 
 we find this entry : 
 
 " This morning, soon after breakfast, we were joined by a num 
 ber of Members of Congress who had travelled night and day with 
 out any stopping except to eat their meals. Among them I was 
 introduced to a gentleman by the name of Crockett, a name 
 familiar to most of our American people, for I think few among 
 us are ignorant of the biography of David Crockett, his father. 
 The son appears to possess few of the leading traits of character 
 which distinguished his father. He seemed to be a modest, un 
 assuming man, and is said to be very amiable in his character 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 47 
 
 and disposition. He spoke with great veneration and affection 
 of his father. In company with him I was introduced to Mr. 
 Senator Smith, of Indiana, a man of plain, blunt manners, about 
 forty-five years of age, stoutly built, and with no attempt to play 
 the gentleman. He is a man of plain common-sense, and a 
 lawyer by profession. He somewhat distinguished himself in a 
 speech on the Sub-treasury bill two years since. Thomas Cor- 
 win, of Ohio, also formed one of the company. He is a man of 
 middle size, well built, with dark complexion and black eyes. 
 He was born in the lower walks of life, and up to the time he 
 was two-and- twenty, probably never thought of rising from ob 
 scurity. In 1812 he was a wagoner in the Northwestern army. 
 At that time, it is said, his unrivalled wit and the brilliancy of 
 his imagination used to draw around a lazy throng during the 
 long evenings, and he then prided himself as much probably on 
 attracting the notice and admiration of teamsters and soldiers 
 as he now does on standing forth as one of the most brilliant 
 orators in the councils of the nation." 
 
 Mr. Giddings gives the following description of 
 the ride over the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad to 
 Washington: 
 
 " At eleven o clock about one hundred and twenty passengers, 
 seated in three cars, carrying from forty to sixty passengers each, 
 started upon the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad for Washington. 
 The cars are well carpeted, and the seats cushioned. We had 
 also a stove in each car, which rendered them comfortably warm. 
 Thus seated, some conversing in groups, others reading news 
 papers, and some, from loss of sleep in travelling, sleeping in their 
 seats, we were swept along at the rate of fifteen miles per hour. 
 At the usual time our candles were lighted, and we presented the 
 appearance of three drawing-rooms filled with guests travelling 
 by land. At about seven o clock we arrived at Washington City. 
 The moment we stopped we were surrounded on every side with 
 runners, porters, hackmen, and servants, one calling to know if 
 you would go to Gadsby s, another if you would go to Brown s, 
 another if you would take a hack, etc. They are a source of 
 great annoyance, which the police ought to prevent." 
 
 On Saturday evening of December I Mr. Giddings 
 attended a caucus of the Whig members of the House, 
 of which he says : 
 
 " I was pleased with the talent, foresight, and acumen exhib 
 ited by the leaders of our party ; Sergeant of Pennsylvania, Bell 
 of Tennessee, and Evans of Maine are among the leaders." 
 
48 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 He was sworn in, with other members, Decem 
 ber 3, and in his entry of that evening we find the 
 following : 
 
 " I this day for the first time had an opportunity of observing 
 many of the distinguished men of the nation, and I confess I 
 was disappointed in their appearance. There was not that 
 dignity of carriage about them which I expected. Among them 
 was John Q. Adams, formerly President of the United States, 
 and now a Representative from Massachusetts. He was, strictly 
 speaking, educated a politician, and has continued in political 
 life from his youth up to this time. He is said to have spent 
 more than twenty-eight years of his life at foreign courts. He 
 has held many responsible offices under the government, and is 
 said always to have acquitted himself with honor. He is about 
 five feet eight inches in height, very bald, with low forehead, and 
 nothing about the shape of his head that indicates unusual 
 talent; yet his physiognomy has something of an intellectual 
 appearance. He is truly regarded as a venerable personage." 
 
 This sketch of Mr. Adams is noteworthy as the 
 prelude to a friendship between these men which was 
 to be as lasting as life. Adams was to be the mentor 
 and inspirer, and Giddings the faithful and trusted 
 disciple. Henceforward they were to stand side by 
 side and shoulder to shoulder in battling for the rights 
 of man. The influence of the elder over the younger 
 man was undoubtedly great, and his position in the 
 House was singularly unique and commanding. It is 
 safe to say that no other man in the nation could have 
 filled his place and done his work. His patriotism and 
 personal integrity were unquestioned and unquestion 
 able. His long and distinguished public service at 
 home and abroad gave him a prestige which no other 
 man of his time possessed. His great ability was 
 conceded, and his knowledge unsurpassed. His cour 
 age was perfect, and only equalled by his combative- 
 ness, while his power of invective was unrivalled. His 
 love of justice was a passion, and his hatred of slavery 
 inborn and heartfelt. He could not be seduced by 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSPIUA R. GIDDINGS. 49 
 
 popular applause, nor moved a jot by popular obloquy. 
 In politics Mr. Adams was absolutely independent. 
 He began his life in the Federal party ; but when he 
 found it taking a false position, he abandoned it, and 
 provoked the wrath of his old friends by accepting 
 office under Mr. Jefferson. Later in life, when the 
 Republican party, since called Democratic, swerved 
 from what he considered its true course, he allied 
 himself with the Whig party ; but he always defied 
 its discipline. He characterized Northern Democrats 
 as " the consistent Swiss guards of slavery," and North 
 ern Whigs as " the languid, compromising non-resist 
 ants of the North, afraid of answering a fool according 
 to his folly." To the Whig party he was a burden, 
 always putting himself in the way of harmony between 
 its Northern and Southern sections, while the W hig 
 Press of the Union, with rare exceptions, condemned 
 him. Such was the remarkable man raised up by 
 Providence to stand in the breach and bid defiance 
 to the slave-masters. He was now in the white heat 
 of his fight for the right of petition and the freedom 
 of debate. I believe any other man would have been 
 silenced, and that thus the ascendency of the slave 
 power would have been indefinitely prolonged. Gid- 
 dings caught his spirit, and valiantly seconded his 
 labors while he lived ; and when the old hero and 
 patriarch rested from his toils, his mantle fell upon 
 his beloved disciple. 
 
 Returning to the journal, we find the following entry 
 on December 4: - 
 
 " I also learned to-day that a resolution was passed at the last 
 session of the present Congress appropriating to each member 
 certain books, to the number of some sixty volumes, and of the 
 value of from five to ten hundred dollars ; and being a member 
 of this Congress, the question is now in my mind whether I ought 
 to take the books. In this way some forty to fifty thousand dol- 
 
 4 
 
50 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 lars of the public funds have been extracted from the public 
 treasury and given to members by way of perquisites over and 
 above their compensation. Now, if the pay of members is not 
 sufficient, I would raise it. If it be sufficient, why take more, 
 without letting the people know it ? But the members seem to 
 think it of little importance." 
 
 The entry for December 7 touches the same ques 
 tion of public economy. 
 
 " The House convened at the usual hour, and having been in 
 session twenty minutes, adjourned over to Monday, leaving two 
 whole days, in which much business might be transacted. It is, 
 however, said to be a custom which cannot be done away with. 
 But however long the custom may have existed, I think it ought 
 to be broken up. There are thousands of people who have 
 claims on the government, and who have spent much time and 
 money to obtain at the hands of Congress that which is their 
 just due, and are now pining in poverty, while Congress uni 
 formly says it has not time to attend to it. At the close of the 
 last session it is said that sixty bills were lost which had passed 
 the Senate, because the House had not time to pass them. And 
 yet we can throw away days at a time without doing anything." 
 
 In his entry of December 8, he describes a visit to 
 President Van Buren. 
 
 "On entering, we saw the President sitting at a circular table 
 engaged in conversation. On seeing us he arose, and inter 
 changing salutations with the other gentlemen, with whom he 
 was acquainted, I was then presented to him. He conducted 
 the whole ceremony with great politeness and ease, and inviting 
 us to seats, resumed his former situation and engaged in the most 
 familiar conversation with the whole company. During the con 
 versation I had an opportunity of viewing the phrenological con 
 formation of his head and features. He is small of stature, has a 
 low forehead, is very bald, with eyes sunk far back in his head. 
 His general appearance is not prepossessing. Indeed, to a casual 
 observer he would present the appearance of a man of ordinary 
 character ; nor do you see any evidence of extraordinary intellect 
 until you look him squarely in the face, when you are at once 
 impressed with his shrewdness and intelligence. He converses 
 fluently and rapidly. His room is fitted up in a plain and becom 
 ing style. A neat mahogany book-case, filled with miscellaneous 
 works, two circular mahogany tables, eighteen or twenty chairs, 
 with a large mirror over the mantelpiece, and a common sofa, 
 constitute the paraphernalia of his receiving apartment," 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 5 I 
 
 The reader who remembers the story of Mr. Van 
 Buren s White House extravagance, as circulated by 
 the Whigs in 1840 with such damaging effect, may be 
 surprised at these statements respecting his household 
 furniture. 
 
 In his diary of December n, Giddings refers to the 
 proceedings in the House on the introduction of Mr. 
 Atherton s gag resolutions. There was great excite 
 ment, but the rules were suspended for the purpose of 
 receiving them ; and Mr. Atherton, who rose to argue 
 them, demanded the previous question, which was 
 carried. The resolutions passed the next day by a 
 vote of 126 yeas to 73 nays. This was the first im 
 portant measure on which Giddings gave a vote. He 
 had no opportunity to speak, and it is not likely that 
 at this early stage of his congressional service he de 
 sired to enter into the discussion of a matter so mo 
 mentous. But the effect of these proceedings must 
 have been of service in preparing him for future 
 action. 
 
 " Thursday, December 13. An amusing incident occurred in 
 the House to-day. Ex-President Adams, who is a violent oppo 
 nent of the present administration, takes great delight occasion 
 ally in showing his want of respect for the officers of government. 
 The Yeas and Nays were ordered on a vote about to be taken, 
 and when his name was called, he arose and commenced an argu 
 ment. This was entirely out of order, and members from differ 
 ent parts of the House began to call him to order, as did the 
 Speaker also. The cries of Order ! became louder and more 
 boisterous. The Speaker called louder and louder for * Order ! 
 Order ! ORDER ! but Mr. Adams continued speaking, as though 
 a perfect silence existed around him. The uproar increased, and 
 the Speaker, rising from his chair, in great agitation and excite 
 ment, with stentorian voice called on the House to assist him in 
 enforcing the rules. Amid this tumult Mr. Adams suddenly 
 dropped into his chair, and the uproar instantly ceased, before 
 the Speaker had fully pronounced his desire for assistance. As 
 Mr. Adams sat down, convulsed with laughter, Waddy Thomp 
 son, from South Carolina, possessing much ready wit, and being 
 
52 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 himself willing to raise a laugh at the expense of the Speaker, 
 stepped up to where Mr. Adams sat, and with great shrewdness 
 of manner said, in reply to the Speaker s request : I am here, 
 Mr. Speaker; I am ready to help. What shall I do ? The 
 manner and tone of voice with which he spoke were perfectly 
 inimitable, and threw the whole House into a roar of laughter." 
 
 The entry of December 14 is a notable one. It 
 shows that Giddings had been at school, and that he 
 was rapidly getting his lesson. 
 
 "It is a fact, which every man of observation must see, by 
 spending a few days in the Representatives Hall, that there is a 
 vast difference in the character of the members from the North 
 and South. During this week every person present must have 
 witnessed the high and important bearing of the Southern men, 
 their confident and bold assertions, their self-important airs, their 
 overbearing manner ; while the Northern men, even on the sub 
 ject of slavery, are diffident, taciturn, and forbearing. I have 
 myself come to the honest conclusion that our Northern friends 
 are in fact afraid of these Southern bullies. I have bestowed 
 much thought upon the subject. I have made inquiry, and think 
 we have no Northern man who dares boldly and fearlessly de 
 clare his abhorrence of slavery and the slave-trade. This kind 
 of fear I never experienced, nor shall I submit to it now. When 
 I came here I had no thought of participating in debate at all, 
 but particularly this winter. But since I have seen our Northern 
 friends so backward and delicate, I have determined to express 
 my own views and declare my own sentiments, and risk the 
 effects. For that purpose I have drawn up a resolution calling 
 for information as to the slave-trade in the District of Columbia, 
 which, among other things, calls for the number of slaves who 
 have murdered themselves within said district within the last five 
 years after being sold for foreign markets, and the number of 
 children who have been murdered by their parents during said 
 time under the apprehension of immediate separation for sale at 
 a foreign market, and the amount of revenue collected on sale of 
 licenses to deal in human flesh and blood. I showed the resolu 
 tion to several friends, who advise me not to present it, on two 
 accounts : First, that it will enrage the Southern members ; and 
 secondly, that it will injure me at home. But I have determined 
 to risk both ; for I would rather lose my election at home than 
 suffer the insolence of these Southerners. Mr. Fletcher, of 
 Boston, is the only man that consents to my presenting the reso 
 lution. This morning a friend called on me to show me a scur- 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 53 
 
 rilous attack upon me in the government paper of to-day. I am 
 in some doubt whether to call the public attention to it or not. 
 However, it seems to render a full declaration of my sentiments 
 both necessary and proper." 
 
 Under date of December 16, he speaks of Wash 
 ington funerals. 
 
 " The respectability of the deceased is measured by the num 
 ber of hacks that follow the hearse. Of course, a great number 
 of empty hacks usually follows the procession. If a member of 
 Congress dies, the usual procession is constituted of all the hacks 
 in the city, which are employed to follow the hearse whether 
 they have any passengers in them or not. A monument costing 
 some three or four hundred dollars is also erected, and the whole 
 expense is paid from the public treasury, including a hundred and 
 fifty dollars to the landlord where the member dies. During the 
 last session a member from Baltimore died, and his body was 
 carried to Baltimore on the railroad for burial. All the cars 
 owned by the company were put in requisition, and the members 
 of the two Houses all took seats in the cars, followed the corpse 
 to Baltimore, stayed over night, had their dinners and wines, 
 lodging and breakfast, all at the expense of the nation. It was 
 thought that the whole expense was not less than four or five 
 thousand dollars. But if members can go to Baltimore at the 
 public expense, I do not see why they may not take a trip to 
 Philadelphia or New York, or even go to Boston, or west of the 
 mountains. . . . 
 
 "Tuesday, December 18. House met, and the subject of 
 moving a petition respecting Haytien independence occupied the 
 day. It is amusing and astonishing to see the views entertained 
 by most of the members on the subject of abolition. At the 
 South the general impression is that it is designed to create a 
 general rebellion among the slaves, and have them cut their 
 masters throats. At the North they have no definite idea of the 
 meaning of abolition, and Northern men appear afraid to come 
 out and declare their sentiments. They seem to feel great deli 
 cacy on the subject. Instead of stating the question of abolish 
 ing slavery in the District of Columbia and the slave-trade 
 between the States, they keep at a distance from the subject, and 
 as yet no one has come forth and with plainness set forth the 
 claims of the North, and all seem afraid to do so." 
 
 On the 2 ist, he sketches a speech by Mr. Wise, of 
 Virginia, on a resolution of inquiry into the frauds 
 committed by public officers in New York: 
 
54 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 " This was the first set speech I had ever listened to in Con 
 gress ; but it was a fair specimen, I am told, of all speeches of 
 that kind. Soon after he commenced, his political friends gath 
 ered around him, among whom were John Q. Adams, W. J. 
 Graves, S. S. Prentiss, Rice Garland, Stanly, Willams, and in 
 short, most of his personal and political friends, who took seats 
 or stood in groups near him. He spoke slowly and with great 
 composure, and would frequently stop to make inquiry of those 
 around him on matters of which he did not possess the requisite 
 intelligence. He was often happy in his satire, and during his 
 long periods was helped by information and good hits by those 
 around him, who, if they thought of a good idea, would remind 
 him of it at his next period. In this way they helped him much, 
 but did not disconcert him. He spoke of Secretary Woodbury 
 in terms of severe reproach, and also of the President, Speaker, 
 and nearly all the officers of the government. He spoke about 
 six hours. The Representatives generally dined from four to 
 five o clock, and returned to hear the conclusion of his remarks. 
 This is the way that most of the great speeches here are made, 
 as I am informed. I think most of our lawyers of ordinary in 
 dustry could do as well as these noted orators if they had the 
 chance. 
 
 " Monday, December 24. One of the candidates for the next 
 Presidency, a man whose name and character are identified with 
 the history of the nation, called to pay me the accustomed civil 
 ities observed in official life. His amiable manner and dignity 
 of carriage, and his elevated bearing, make you feel at once in 
 the presence of one who is your superior, while you feel perfectly 
 at ease, as much so as though you were visiting with your equals, 
 or those with whom you have long been familiar. He had but 
 barely left my room when the carrier entered with my letters, 
 among which was one from another candidate for the highest 
 office within the gift of the people. I have no doubt that either 
 will be willing to accept the office if elected." 
 
 The name of the first of these candidates is not 
 given, but the second was William Henry Harrison, 
 as the following letter will show : 
 
 NORTH BEND, Dec. 15, 1838. 
 
 DEAR SIR, ... In relation to the subject of the Presidency, 
 some surprise has been expressed by a few of Mr. Clay s friends 
 that I, who was so ardent and so long a supporter of his for the 
 chief magistracy of the Union, should consent to become his 
 rival. My answer to this is, that I never for one moment enter- 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 55 
 
 tained the idea of being a candidate for that office until I was 
 brought forward under circumstances which made it impossible 
 for me to decline. But there was and still exists another reason 
 why I should not decline ; viz., that I am in possession of facts 
 that were convincing to my mind that Mr. C., if he were the op 
 position candidate, would very probably be defeated, while I had 
 good grounds to believe that I would probably succeed. You 
 may perhaps smile at this remark, and say that it is an opinion 
 common to all candidates that their chance is the best, and not 
 more likely to be true in this instance than in all the others. 
 But as it is notorious that I never sought the office, more credit 
 may, I think, be given to me when I assert that my opinion is 
 founded upon facts, and not upon any vainglorious notion of the 
 merit of my pretensions. I will mention one or two circumstances 
 to give you an idea of the character of the information I possess 
 which has led to the formation of the opinion above expressed. 
 I am amongst the oldest and most extensively known of the 
 Western pioneers. I have stood in the relation to many thou 
 sands of our citizens either as their commander or brother 
 soldier. Now, it so happens that almost all of the pioneers and 
 old soldiers of the West were on the side of the administration, 
 brought over to that side by their attachment to General Jackson ; 
 and that attachment produced by his being himself one of the 
 class to which it was their boast to belong. He out of the way, 
 is there any difficulty in believing that they might be willing 
 again to give their support to another of the same class, although 
 of inferior pretensions, rather than to any one whose pursuits and 
 course of life had no resemblance to their own? If I were to dis 
 close the contents of some letters I have received, and some more 
 circuitous verbal communications from some of the leaders of our 
 opponents, it would surprise our friends and startle our enemies. 
 
 I am, very truly yours, 
 
 W. H. HARRISON. 
 Hon. J. R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 Only the political portion of this letter is given, 
 which shows how earnestly and plausibly the old gen 
 eral urged his claims. The tone of it towards Gid- 
 dings personally is most friendly, and in striking 
 contrast with that manifested a few years later, as 
 we shall see. 
 
 " Thursday, December 27. This morning on coming into the 
 hall it was evident that some unusual expectation had been 
 
56 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 excited. The galleries were crowded to overflowing, and all the 
 avenues to the hall were filled. Men and women, old and young, 
 rich and poor, had turned out to hear the Mississippi orator, and 
 no one who had obtained an eligible situation for hearing could 
 be induced to leave it. Mr. Prentiss is not more than thirty-five 
 years of age, and was born and educated in Maine. At the age 
 of two-and-twenty he emigrated to Cincinnati, where he read law 
 with Nathaniel Wright, Esq., of that city, after which he went to 
 Vicksburg, Mississippi, where he commenced the practice of law 
 and has since resided. He soon distinguished himself in his pro 
 fession, and was elected to Congress in 1836; and his seat being 
 contested, he then first brought himself into notice. He is truly 
 one of Nature s most gifted sons. He is a Whig; and as the 
 present system of the national administration was his theme 
 to-day, high expectations were entertained of the intellectual treat 
 he was to give the House and spectators. He did not disappoint 
 his friends. During the entire session he either chained the 
 audience in breathless silence, or convulsed them with laughter. 
 His irony was of the most bitter kind, his invective solemn and 
 impressive, and his eloquence lofty and commanding. For three 
 hours the partisans of the administration sat in tortures, and 
 writhed beneath his castigation. No one could, while hearing 
 him, entertain any other feelings towards them than those of pity. 
 When we returned for dinner we found our boarding-house in 
 total confusion. Women and girls, blacks and whites, master, 
 mistress, and servants, all had been to hear Prentiss, and all for 
 got that their boarders would want dinner until he closed his 
 remarks. 
 
 " Saturday, December 29. The subject of granting pensions 
 came up in debate. That being a subject on which I thought 
 myself possessed of tolerable information, and the attendance 
 being thin, I ventured for the first time to address the House. 
 I expected to be greatly embarrassed, and to have my voice 
 tremble ; but was surprised to find it full, and that I was able to 
 make myself heard through the whole hall. I spoke but a mo 
 ment, not intending to occupy time, but more for the purpose of 
 trying my voice. 
 
 "Monday, December^. I received a note from Mr. Gales, 
 requesting me to meet a few friends at his house at eight o clock, 
 but did not arrive till half-past eight. The company was com 
 posed of about one hundred Whig members of the two houses 
 of Congress, with some five or six distinguished gentlemen of 
 that party who happened to be in Washington. The company 
 was select and very social. 1 took the earliest opportunity to 
 engage in conversation with the venerable Ex-President Adams, 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 57 
 
 during which he referred to his youthful adventures during the 
 Revolutionary War, and stated that while going to France in 
 1778, at the age of thirteen years, on board an American frigate, 
 they were chased and fired upon by a British ship, and he 
 recounted the adventure with much glee and spirit. He said he 
 crossed the Atlantic twice afterwards in a French ship during 
 the war. He told me his age was seventy-two years in Sep 
 tember last. 
 
 " Wishing to see and become acquainted with the great men 
 of the nation, I was next introduced to Mr. Clay, of Kentucky. 
 I had met him in 1822, but he has changed in appearance much 
 since that time. He is very social and farmer-like in his conver 
 sation. I spent some half hour with him, during which we 
 passed over many commonplace subjects, and discussed the 
 advantages of Ohio and Kentucky, touching lightly on politics, 
 when I discovered much hidden feeling beneath a cool, dispas 
 sionate exterior. I left him with a higher admiration for the 
 man than I had previously entertained." 
 
 On New Year s Day Giddings joined the great 
 throng that attended the customary public reception 
 of the President, which he describes in detail. He 
 then says : 
 
 " Still one more call remained to be made. I had been invited 
 to call on our venerable ex-President, and to his residence I now 
 bent my way. In a retired mansion we found him and his lady 
 surrounded by some dozen friends, who showed by their counte 
 nances and conversation that they had called in reality to pay 
 their respects to this great man, whose name will hereafter fill 
 the brightest page of American history. Here we met and 
 saluted the aged statesman in a large and comfortable drawing- 
 room, with his matronly lady, his sister, a daughter-in-law, and 
 two grandchildren. We found him in the midst of a truly do 
 mestic circle. No noise or bustle interrupted that expression of 
 goodwill which we all felt towards him. His countenance glowed 
 with benevolence and kindness. We were introduced to the 
 members of his family, sat a while, and after some pleasant con 
 versation we left this interesting man, feeling that we had seen 
 a specimen of true greatness united with genuine republican 
 simplicity. Mr. Adams belongs to no local district, to no po 
 litical party, but to the nation and to the people. He is elected 
 by his district in Massachusetts, comes here with his family 
 during the session of Congress, and keeps house by himself. 
 While in the House he consults with no one, acts in concert with 
 
58 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 no one, and holds himself accountable to no one but the nation. 
 He belongs as much to the former age as to this, perhaps he 
 may be said to be the connecting link between the former gen 
 eration and the one now in active life." 
 
 On January 5, Giddings made his first regular 
 speech in the House. As this effort brought him at 
 once to the front as a man of courage and ability, it 
 will be worth while to give his own account of the 
 circumstances under which he made it: 
 
 " Friday, January 4. This day nothing occurred worthy of 
 notice, except as its transactions connected myself with proceed 
 ings which may hereafter bring my name before the public. Mr. 
 Jones, who claimed a seat here as delegate from Wisconsin, had 
 been elected in 1836, served two years, as limited by the organic 
 laws, and, at the expiration of his term, which was in October 
 last, again appeared in the field as a candidate and was defeated. 
 This defeat was mostly attributed to his connection with the duel 
 in which Mr. Cilley fell last winter in this city. After his defeat 
 he came here, and claimed to hold his seat in the House during 
 the present Congress, urging that his time did not commence 
 until December, 1837, and that the service and receiving pay in 
 1836 were all in his own wrong. I believe his object to be the 
 travel fees from Wisconsin and his per diem, which amount to 
 about two thousand dollars, and think he ought not thus to carry 
 off the national treasure. I have tried to get some older member 
 to introduce a resolution denying his right to compensation, 
 which I know he has already drawn. But as no older member 
 will do it, I have determined to take it upon myself, and thinking 
 that justice to him required me to apprise him of my design, 
 have written him a note stating my intention, and conveyed it 
 through the medium of the post-office. 
 
 " Saturday, January 5. I spent the whole morning in pre 
 paring to sustain the resolution which I intended to present to 
 the House. I had yet many misgivings as to my success be 
 fore that body, whether I should not be so much embarrassed 
 as to be unable to proceed. Mr. Jones is a professed duellist; 
 his conduct in the matter I considered disgraceful. If I spoke, 
 I knew 1 should speak my mind as soon as I should became 
 warmed with my subject. Many of the members I knew dared 
 not speak as they thought, on account of Mr. Jones s duelling 
 character. Of this I entertained not the slightest fear; all my 
 apprehensions were lest I should not succeed as well as I in- 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 59 
 
 tended in exposing what I deemed a gross abuse of the situation 
 he held. I went to the House with fear and trembling. I had 
 written Jones that I should bring forward the resolution, so now 
 I could not retreat. The House was called to order, and the 
 clerk was reading the journal. I had my resolution written, and 
 when the clerk had finished reading, was on my feet with my 
 resolution in my hand, and called the Speaker s name; but he 
 responded to the call of Mr. Mason, who sent to the Chair a 
 resolution almost in the very words of the one I held. I felt 
 relieved from my embarrassment, and when the resolution was 
 read, the Speaker remarked that he had a communication from 
 Mr. Jones. The reading was called for. In it Mr. Jones stated 
 that he had drawn his mileage and per diem; but on the evening 
 previous had received a note from Mr. Giddings, which he there 
 with transmitted to the Speaker, together with the funds he had 
 drawn from the treasury. 
 
 " When my name was mentioned, all eyes were turned upon 
 me ; I was a new member, and all seemed to look with aston 
 ishment at the course I had dared to take. Some of my friends 
 came to me and inquired why I had done as I did; others 
 appeared to think me too diffident to carry out what I had 
 commenced, and came to me to encourage and urge me forward. 
 General Mason took the floor, of course. While he was speak 
 ing, I was advised to withdraw, and let the older members man 
 age the matter. When General Mason was through, I tried to 
 get the floor, and failed. Mr. Bouldin, of Virginia, obtained it. 
 I soon saw that he had no correct view of the subject, and felt 
 somewhat emboldened. He spoke for half an hour, and when he 
 ceased, I strove for the floor again ; but Mr. Wise obtained it, and 
 I saw that Mr. Thomas, of Maryland, an old member, and one 
 who spoke often, was determined to get it next, and of course 
 I knew he would get it, as he is the leader of the Van Buren 
 party and a favorite of the Speaker. I went to him and requested 
 the privilege of speaking before he did ; this he refused, and 
 I determined that if I followed him, he should hereafter be 
 at least a little careful in throwing himself before me or in 
 my way. 
 
 " My friends now came and urged me to insist upon having 
 the floor; but, as I expected, Mr. Thomas obtained it. I took 
 notice of his argument, and when he sat down I succeeded in 
 getting the floor, and, to my utter surprise, found my voice full 
 and clear. I felt a little embarrassment, but cared nothing for 
 that while my voice should appear natural. Having made my 
 introduction, I proceeded to answer the argument of Mr. Bouldin. 
 I had hardly stated the position he had taken, when he saw the 
 
6O THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 light in which I was about to place him, and at once requested 
 the floor to explain. I yielded ; he explained. I proceeded in 
 my argument, but in less than five minutes Mr. Bouldin and Mr. 
 Wise were both on their feet, wishing to explain. Cries of No ! 
 No ! were heard, but I yielded. By this time I had thrown off 
 my embarrassment, and when they resumed their seats I let fall 
 a good-natured joke which drew forth a burst of laughter. I 
 proceeded to the argument of Thomas; he, too, was on the 
 floor, and I refused to yield it. I proceeded; he again solicited 
 the floor, and I yielded it. My friends now loudly remonstrated 
 against my yielding the floor any more. Thomas explained and 
 sat down. I proceeded, with a determination to scorch him for 
 his want of delicacy in not permitting me to precede him in the 
 argument. I took ample vengeance on him, and finally got 
 through the argument with tolerable satisfaction to myself, and, 
 I am told, to the satisfaction of my friends." 
 
 Commenting upon this speech, Giddings, on Janu 
 ary 7, says, 
 
 " A member of Congress, when he comes unknown to Wash 
 ington, attracts little attention among his fellow-members. With 
 citizens and officers of government, his official character is a 
 sufficient recommendation to command their respect and con 
 stant attention. But with his fellow-members he attracts no 
 attention whatever, until he makes some display of his powers, 
 tact, or political management. I have now fairly made my debut, 
 and to-day I fancied myself, on entering the hall, greeted more 
 warmly than heretofore; members who had previously barely 
 paid the passing salutation now came to my seat, with great 
 politeness inquired after my health, and many of them congratu 
 lated me upon the favorable reception of my speech. ... I now 
 felt that I had fairly entered upon the business of a member. I 
 felt myself entitled to express my views more freely than I had 
 heretofore done. Many of the most celebrated lawyers in the 
 House and of the nation took occasion to express their high 
 gratification at the manner in which I had used up (as they 
 said) the chairman of the Judiciary Committee." 
 
 This account of his first important appearance on 
 the floor of the House foreshadows his future course. 
 He had only been a member of Congress a little over 
 a month, but his diffidence was giving place to self- 
 confidence. He had become acquainted with mem- 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 6 1 
 
 bers, and by comparing himself with them had learned 
 to estimate himself. His strong individuality was re 
 vealing itself, and his associates must have perceived 
 that a man of his positive qualities would make him 
 self felt in behalf of whatever measure he might 
 espouse. 
 
 On January 21, Giddings makes an interesting refer 
 ence to Mr. Adams, who on that day addressed the 
 House, stating that he had for a long time been in re 
 ceipt of daily communications threatening his life, that 
 his position was not understood by the nation, and 
 that he wished the privilege of giving an expose of his 
 views. He says that Mr. Adams was evidently ill at 
 ease, and that his solemn manner and the tones of 
 his voice, now tremulous with age, so wrought upon 
 the House that leave was granted him to make his 
 explanation. 
 
 " His views as stated would compare with those of the Aboli 
 tionists generally, except that he declared himself not prepared 
 to vote for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. 
 He said that he was prepared to abolish the slave-trade between 
 the States, and to recognize the independence of Hayti. He 
 said he would vote for the removal of the seat of government to 
 some place where slavery did not exist, but he doubted whether 
 that would be constitutional. He assigned no reason for any of 
 his opinions, but stated generally that his opinion was not so fixed 
 but that it might be altered on argument. His speech occasioned 
 great sensation. It seemed to convince the South that he was 
 not so great an enemy to them as they had supposed, and some 
 of the Northern members appeared to think he was not so 
 strongly opposed to slavery as they thought him to be. Others 
 said that he had expressed the same views which they had always 
 understood him to possess. Mr. Slade, of Vermont, who is the 
 greatest Abolitionist in the House, seemed to be very apprehen 
 sive that the speech would have a bad influence on the subject of 
 abolition. He drew up interrogatives to Mr. Adams, for the pur 
 pose of drawing from him further explanations, and submitted 
 them to my inspection. This I considered useless, having no 
 hope that Mr. Adams would make further disclosures of his views 
 than he had made to the world. I am, however, fully of the 
 
62 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R GIDDINGS. 
 
 opinion, from the language used by Mr. Adams and the cautious 
 manner in which he expressed himself, that his want of reSdiness 
 to abolish slavery in the District is not owing to any doubt as to 
 the power of Congress to do so, nor to any other reason than a 
 question as to the policy of such action. 
 
 " The difficulty that has often presented itself to my mind is 
 that if Congress should pass a law to abolish slavery in the 
 District, before it could take effect the slaves would all be taken 
 out of the District, and the law would find none here to take 
 effect upon. But if Congress should first pass a law prohibiting 
 the taking of any slave out of the District, that would keep them 
 here, and a law to abolish slavery would liberate from nine to 
 ten thousand slaves. Of Mr. Adams s views, beyond what he 
 has publicly expressed, I know nothing; but these thoughts have 
 often run through my own mind, and I think them worthy of 
 serious reflection by the philanthropic." 
 
 Mr. Adams s position on this question was offensive 
 to some of the Abolitionists, and James G. Birney 
 branded him as the enemy of freedom. Congress 
 had legalized slavery and the slave traffic in the Dis 
 trict by an Act which was unwarranted by the Con 
 stitution ; for Congress had " no more power to make 
 a slave than to make a king." It had nationalized 
 these evils, which before were strictly local and sec 
 tional. The right of Congress to repeal its own legis 
 lation was constitutionally unquestionable, and the 
 duty to exercise that right was imperative. The 
 same government which had branded the foreign 
 slave-trade as piracy had created and was sustaining 
 in the capital of the Republic a more pitiless traffic 
 than that on the high seas. The hesitation of North 
 ern men to strike at this evil was one of the marvels 
 of slave-holding domination. When the District was 
 created by cessions from Maryland and Virginia, and 
 afterwards, in 1801, when Congress accepted the ces 
 sions, these States anticipated the total abolition of 
 slavery at no distant day. For forty-five years after 
 the formation of the government, no question was 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 63 
 
 raised as to the power of Congress to abolish the evil 
 in the District. As late as the Twenty-fourth Congress, 
 in 1834 and 1835, numerous petitions for its abolition 
 were received, referred, and debated. The perfect 
 union of the South on the basis of the sacredness and 
 perpetuity of slavery was the development of a later 
 time. 
 
 Six years after this speech of Mr. Adams he stated 
 his position somewhat more definitely in an address to 
 his constituents. He declared himself opposed to the 
 immediate abolition of slavery in the District, because 
 it would violate the principle of local self-government. 
 The people of the District were unrepresented in Con 
 gress, and an Act of emancipation therefore would be 
 " an Act of the most arbitrary and despotic character." 
 He raised the further point that it would be evaded 
 by the removal of the slaves pending its passage. 
 Both these difficulties could have been met by provid 
 ing compensation for slave-owners, as was done by 
 several of the Northern States, and thus ridding the 
 people of those States of their complicity with the 
 evil. Mr. Adams expressed the further opinion that 
 slavery in the District would die out of itself through 
 the voluntary action of the slaveholders, and that the 
 slave traffic would hasten the event. He thought that 
 in twenty, or perhaps ten, years not a slave would be 
 left in the District. He lived long enough to realize 
 his mistake. Like Abraham Lincoln, he found instruc 
 tion in the logic of events. Under the exasperating 
 stress and friction of a steadily increasing Southern 
 lawlessness during the last years of his life, he recon 
 sidered his earlier opinions, and was undoubtedly 
 ready to employ the whole constitutional power of 
 the government on the side of freedom. 
 
 On January 29, Giddings speaks of the latitude 
 
64 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDTNGS. 
 
 of debate allowed in Committee of the Whole, and 
 says : 
 
 " Seeing the wide range of debate, it struck me as a favorable 
 place to bring forward the subject of slavery, upon which debate 
 is prohibited in the House. For this purpose I digested and 
 reduced to paper a plan for commencing an attack on the slave- 
 trade in the District of Columbia." 
 
 He failed to obtain the floor, and was obliged to 
 defer his attack. 
 
 " Wednesday, January 30. This day Mr. Slade, of Vermont, 
 came to see me, with an expression of great anxiety in regard to 
 the exposition which Mr. Adams had made of his views concern 
 ing slavery. He appears to apprehend great results from these 
 disclosures. Not feeling any very serious apprehensions on the 
 subject, I told him that the opinions of Mr. Adams would pass 
 off like the opinions of any other man; that I intended to give 
 my own opinion as a counterbalance to that of Mr. Adams. He 
 desired to know how I should bring the matter forward, and I 
 told him. He was at first incredulous as to the feasibility of my 
 plan, but soon agreed that I was correct, and before he left, 
 promised to make an effort himself upon the same plan." 
 
 This is followed by the description of a scene well 
 calculated to arouse Mr. Giddings s indignation and 
 inspire him with renewed courage and zeal in the 
 fight upon which he had entered. 
 
 " This day a coffle of about sixty slaves, male and female, 
 passed through the streets of Washington, chained together, on 
 their way south. They were accompanied by a large wagon, in 
 which were placed the more feeble females and children of such 
 tender years as to be unable to walk. A being in the shape of 
 a man was on horseback, with a large whip in his hand, with 
 which he occasionally chastised those who, through fatigue or 
 indolence, were tardy in their movements. This was done in the 
 daytime, in public view of all who happened to be so situated as 
 to see the barbarous spectacle. 
 
 " Monday, February 4. This being petition day, I had de 
 termined on raising a question as to the abolition of slavery in 
 the District of Columbia. This I communicated to my friend 
 Fletcher, who was incredulous as to getting up the question, but 
 pledged himself to sustain me, provided I would get the subject 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 65 
 
 before the House. At about three o clock the State of Ohio 
 was called for petitions. I obtained the floor, and after present 
 ing some others on various subjects, I brought forward one for 
 the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and moved 
 that it be referred to the committee on said District. The Chair, 
 at this time occupied by Mr. Briggs of Massachusetts, decided 
 that the petition must lie on the table. From this decision I 
 appealed; and the Chair having stated the appeal, -I obtained 
 the floor and proceeded to argue the question of the prohibition 
 of the petition by the resolutions of nth and I2th of December. 
 Mr. Garland, of Louisiana, called me to order. There was much 
 uneasiness apparent among the members. The Speaker, Mr. 
 Polk, resumed the chair, and desired me to state distinctly the 
 motion I had made. This I did, when he pronounced me in 
 order. I then proceeded with my remarks. I went on, men 
 tioned the resolutions, and showed that they did not extend to 
 the petition under consideration. After this, I pronounced the 
 resolutions opposed to the Constitution, and ipso facto void, and 
 proceeded to demonstrate that position." 
 
 Upon being reminded by the Speaker that he was 
 out of order, and finding it impossible to proceed in 
 the face of constant interruptions, Giddings withdrew 
 his appeal, having accomplished his purpose in pro 
 testing against the gag rules of the House. 
 
 On the /th of February Mr. Clay made his famous 
 speech against the Abolitionists, in which he declared 
 that " that is property which the law declares to be 
 property," and that "two hundred years of legisla 
 tion have sanctioned and sanctified negro slaves as 
 property." It was one of the unfortunate speeches 
 of his life ; but he was looking forward to the Presi 
 dency, and had yielded to the persuasions. of his Whig 
 friends, who thought it necessary that he should clear 
 himself of all suspicion of sympathy with the Aboli 
 tionists. The speech pleased Calhoun and his friends, 
 but offended many of the best men in the Northern 
 States. Giddings had been one of Mr. Clay s ad 
 mirers, and would gladly have followed his fortunes ; 
 
 5 
 
66 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 but this now seemed morally impossible. In his jour 
 nal of this date he says : 
 
 " This afternoon, while I was engaged in the House, intelli 
 gence was brought to me that Mr. Clay had made an attack 
 upon the Abolitionists ; that he had made a long speech in which 
 he had attacked them without mercy. Many Van Buren men 
 came to me and endeavored to tantalize me about the attack Mr. 
 Clay had made upon a large portion of the electors of my dis 
 trict. It was known among many Whigs that I had stepped 
 forward to bring about a reconciliation between the Abolitionists 
 and the friends of Mr. Clay. My friend Fletcher came to me 
 and gave me a description of the speech. He stated that Mr. 
 Clay had said substantially that Congress had no right to abolish 
 slavery in the District of Columbia, unless it were necessary for 
 the accommodation of Congress or the benefit of the people of 
 the District. This was different from what I had before under 
 stood, and I knew would disappoint the expectations of the 
 people I represent. I had publicly avowed my adherence to 
 Mr. Clay for President in preference to Mr. Van Buren, and I 
 felt that the speech would place me at home in an attitude unex 
 pected by me and my friends. Before I left my seat, therefore, 
 I despatched a note to Mr. Clay, demanding distinctly whether 
 he believed Congress to possess the right of abolishing slavery 
 in this District when no other reason existed for it than mere 
 benevolence to the human family. 1 1 
 
 The friends of Clay endeavored to induce Giddings 
 to withdraw this note ; but he refused, declaring that 
 Mr. Clay had been very indiscreet, and had disap 
 pointed the expectation of his friends in Ohio, and 
 injured himself. A zealous friend of Clay censured 
 Giddings for thus criticising such a man, to which 
 Giddings replied that he would allow no man, either 
 Mr. Clay or any other, to ridicule or misrepresent his 
 constituents, and that he should feel it his duty, on 
 the first occasion which should offer, to disabuse 
 the public mind of the false impression conveyed. 
 The result was that Clay called to see Giddings in 
 person, and finding him absent, repeated his call on 
 February 12. 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 6? 
 
 " Mr. Clay called upon me while in my seat to-day. I retired 
 to the lobby with him. He spoke of the letter, and said he 
 thought his speech was a sufficient answer to it. I called his 
 attention to the one distinct point set forth in the letter, which 
 did not appear in the speech. The conversation became dull, 
 and with a cold invitation to call and see him, he left me." 
 
 On the 1 3th of February Giddings made his first 
 anti-slavery speech. The occasion was a timely one. 
 A bill had been introduced in the House providing for 
 an appropriation of thirty thousand dollars to build a 
 bridge over the east branch of the Potomac ; and this 
 was accompanied by sundry memorials of citizens of 
 the District praying that no notice be taken of the 
 anti-slavery petitions which had been presented to the 
 House, and that such petitions be not received. These 
 memorialists termed the petitioners " fanatics," and 
 their petitions " seditious memorials." Here was an 
 opportunity to strike a blow at slavery and the slave- 
 trade in the District, and Giddings moved to strike out 
 the enacting clause of the bill, giving his reasons there 
 for. He spoke in the midst of constant interruptions, 
 and was finally compelled by the rulings of the Speaker 
 to take his seat; but what he was permitted to say 
 may properly be quoted here. 
 
 " But, sir, I will assign my reasons for believing that the seat 
 of government will be removed. It is known, sir, that the slave- 
 trade in its worst and most abhorrent forms is being carried on 
 here to an alarming extent. [Here Mr. Giddings was called to 
 order, but the Chair decided that he was in order.] We are told 
 by some honorable gentlemen that the subject of its continuance 
 cannot be discussed in the House ; that a dissolution of the 
 Union would follow as the inevitable consequence of any inter 
 ference with the traffic on the part of Congress. On the other 
 hand, I have come to the conclusion that Northern men, who 
 have from their infancy been bred in the love of liberty, where 
 every precept impressed upon their youthful minds, every principle 
 of their matured years, has habituated them to think of the slave- 
 trade with disgust and abhorrence, to contemplate it as only ex 
 isting among barbarians and uncivilized nations, to look upon it 
 
68 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 with horror, I say, sir, that it is my opinion that such men can 
 never consent to continue the seat of government in the midst of 
 a magnificent slave-market. I say it distinctly to the committee, 
 to the nation, and to the world, that Northern men will not con 
 sent to the continuance of our national councils where their ears 
 are assailed while coming to the Capitol by the voice of the 
 auctioneer publicly proclaiming the sale of human, of intelligent 
 beings. [Several gentlemen here called Mr. Giddings to order, 
 and he was again sustained by the Chair.] 
 
 " I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your cool and impartial deci 
 sion of the question of order. I will remark that I was assigning 
 my own reasons, not those of any other gentleman. I say dis 
 tinctly that I have not commenced these remarks with feelings of 
 unkindness to any man, or to any part of this nation. I have 
 been induced to embrace the present opportunity by a deep and 
 solemn sense of justice, which I think is due to the district which 
 I represent, and to a large part of the Northern States. They, 
 sir, feeling an honest abhorrence of the slave-trade, have sent in 
 their petitions against it. I have myself presented the petitions 
 of many thousands of Northern freemen on the subject; but their 
 petitions have been disregarded, and the voice of American free 
 men in favor of liberty has been silenced. Their representative, 
 sent here with authority to act for them, to speak their views, to 
 express their wishes, has been bound, hand and foot, with a sort 
 of legislative strait-jacket, so far as the subject of this slave- 
 trade is concerned, and his lips have been hermetically sealed, to 
 prevent him from a declaration of their views, and from demand 
 ing their rights. Sir, upon this floor I have heard gentlemen 
 honorable gentlemen say that those citizens who have thus 
 petitioned this House, would be hanged if found in Southern 
 States. 
 
 " I pass any such remarks; they were made under feelings of 
 excitement, and did not express the real sentiments of their 
 authors. But, sir, while the voices of Northern freemen are 
 silenced upon this floor, and their representatives here are not 
 permitted to declare the sentiments of those who sent them, we 
 are called upon to make heavy appropriations of their money for 
 the benefit of this District. Many thousands of our people have 
 endeavored to express to this House their views of the slave-trade 
 as carried on here. We refuse to hear them ; we treat their peti 
 tions with contempt ; but in answer say, Your money shall be 
 taken for the improvement of this city, although it be a slave- 
 market ; we will not hear your objections to the slave-trade, but 
 we will tax you to build a slave-market. This, sir, is wrong ; it 
 is palpably wrong. 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 69 
 
 "But, sir, I was saying that the appropriation was for the 
 benefit of this District principally ; it is to be made for the bene 
 fit of the people of this District : and what is their language to 
 those whose funds are now sought to be appropriated ? The 
 language of the people of this District is expressed in their me 
 morials, lately presented to both houses of Congress. In those 
 memorials the free and independent citizens who petition us in 
 regard to the slave-trade of this District are termed a band of 
 fanatics ; their petitions are termed seditious memorials ; their 
 efforts to stop the inhuman and barbarous practice of selling 
 men, women, and children are termed foul and unnatural. 
 Congress is prayed, not only to refuse a reading or reference of 
 these petitions, but we are requested not to receive such petitions. 
 
 " This, sir, is the language of the people of this District towards 
 those whom I am supposed to represent, whose sentiments on 
 this subject of the slave-trade I openly and unequivocally avow. 
 I, sir, have been honored with the high trust of representing the 
 people thus stigmatized, and I would deem myself unworthy of 
 the trust if I permitted such language to pass unnoticed. Hon 
 orable gentlemen have presented the memorials of the people 
 here in both houses of Congress, and have advocated the prin 
 ciples, repeated and enlarged upon the language used. Sir, under 
 all this abuse I am asked now to contribute from the funds of 
 the people thus abused, to the improvement of this city and for 
 the benefit of those who thus assail their motives and stigmatize 
 their acts. I object to the appropriation under these circum 
 stances. I protest against it, and I repeat that while this state 
 of things remains, I shall be opposed to all appropriations in this 
 District not necessary for the convenience of government. I 
 take my stand here. I now avow my firm determination to give 
 my vote for no further appropriations for this District until the 
 voice of these petitioners be heard and acted upon, and their 
 prayers granted or refused. I say no appropriations except such 
 as are really necessary for the comfortable continuance of the 
 government. 
 
 " I want to be understood, and not misrepresented. It is the 
 slave-trade to which I now allude, not to slavery. That is an 
 other subject. On that I may at some other time give my views ; 
 but let no man accuse me of now saying anything in regard to 
 his right of holding his fellow-man as property, or of now saying 
 anything concerning it. What I have said, and what I intend to 
 say, will refer to nothing but the slave-trade. I intend to disarm 
 my opponents of all cause in regard to the constitutional right or 
 the power of Congress over the subject. I am aware of the feel 
 ing which gentlemen have on this subject, and I assure them of 
 
70 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 my intention not to say anything offensive to them, further than 
 duty requires. I hope that, whoever may become excited, I may 
 speak and act from the convictions of sober judgment. I once 
 alluded to the statement of honorable gentlemen that we cannot 
 interfere with the slave-trade in this District without a dissolution 
 of the Union. This threat, sir, I beg leave to say, I disregard. 
 I will leave that question to be discussed by those who deem the 
 slave-trade in this District of more importance than the con 
 tinuance of the Union. But should a dissolution take place, 
 the appropriation now in question would surely be of little 
 importance. 
 
 " I, sir, have alluded to the fact that, on the beautiful avenue 
 in front of the Capitol, members of Congress, while on their way 
 to the Capitol, during this session, have heard the harsh voice of 
 the inhuman auctioneer publicly selling human beings. They 
 have also been compelled to turn aside from their path to permit 
 a coffle of slaves, males and females, chained to each other by 
 their necks, to pass on their way to this national slave-market." 
 
 Here the speech of Giddings was cut short by the 
 ruling of the Chair, as related in his diary. 
 
 "After I had spoken a few moments, Mr. Howard said he 
 would call me to order. I demanded the question to be reduced 
 to writing. The Chair decided that I had the right to have it so 
 reduced, and from this decision Mr. Howard appealed. Much 
 debate and confusion followed, several members speaking at the 
 same time, each calling the other to order, and each insisting 
 that he was right. Much excitement prevailed, and the House 
 became a scene of perfect confusion and uproar. Some ap 
 peared to enjoy this much ; among these the venerable ex-President 
 laughed most heartily, and coming to my seat, advised me to 
 insist upon my rights, not to be intimidated by the course taken 
 by the Southern men. This confusion lasted about one hour; 
 and, as I suppose, for the purpose of restoring order, the chair 
 man, without taking the vote of the committee on the appeal, 
 decided that I was out of order. ... A vote was then taken on 
 my motion and carried, the enacting clause of the bill being 
 stricken out." 
 
 Giddings was now fairly launched on the angry sea 
 of anti-slavery politics ; he had entered upon his life- 
 work ; and although the Southern men had in this in 
 stance silenced him by their clamor, they saw clearly 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. ?l 
 
 that he could not be subdued. His journal shows 
 that several of the leading men of the South endeav 
 ored to insult him while in his seat ; but he refused to 
 have any altercation with them. Henceforth he was 
 to encounter the wrath and scorn of the slave-barons 
 and their Northern allies, and to come under the ban 
 of social outlawry; but this only armed him with 
 fresh courage and roused the spirit of defiance. His 
 course had won the hearts of the best men in the 
 House, and secured for him a recognition that com 
 pelled the respect even of his enemies. 
 
 Giddings s journal refers to occasional incidents 
 which no doubt served as aids to his anti-slavery 
 education. One of these is the following: 
 
 " Thursday, February 14. In the evening we were alarmed 
 by a thrilling cry of distress which continued for some minutes. 
 It proved to be the outcry of a slave who was undergoing the 
 chastisement of his master ; and fearing he would die in the 
 operation, broke from him and ran. He was pursued, knocked 
 down, and pounded by the master and son till he appeared life 
 less ; and the spectators, interfering, were told that he was the 
 property of his master, who had the right to kill him if he 
 pleased. The master and his son then took him and dragged 
 him through the street as they would have done a dead hog, to 
 a stable, and there left him." 
 
 I give one further entry, dated March 2, which 
 shows his native kindness of heart. 
 
 " An incident occurred, in my view, that illustrates the difficulty 
 of obtaining justice from the government. A man named Nye 
 has claimed about six thousand dollars from the government 
 for several years, and has himself personally pressed the matter 
 for some sessions past. During the last session Mr. Whittle- 
 sey, chairman of the Committee on Claims, reported against it, 
 although the Senate had reported in favor of it. Mr. Whittlesey 
 was looked upon as infallible authority on the subject of claims. 
 Nye was put in jail for want of money, and suffered much. His 
 claim again passed the Senate, and was referred to the House 
 Committee on Claims. Nye himself wrote an able review of 
 Whittlesey s report, and pointed out its errors ; but many things 
 
72 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 intervened to prevent the committee from passing on it until 
 to-day. I agreed with two or three others that we would get 
 together and pass upon this claim, provided that it were possible 
 to get a quorum to the committee-room. This we effected, and 
 agreed to report the bill giving him his whole claim. This was 
 done as late as two o clock p. M. When we left the room, I 
 was in front, and Nye was at the door. I told him we had 
 agreed to report his bill for the amount claimed. He attempted 
 to thank me, but tears choked his utterance, and I felt deeply 
 myself, so much so that I found tears running down my own 
 cheeks ; and unwilling that my weakness should be discovered, 
 I averted my face to disguise my feelings from those passing 
 by me in front. As I turned my face, my eye rested upon Mr. 
 Chambers, our chairman, who, though a man of rough exterior, 
 and who has been through many a bloody battle, was so wrought 
 upon by Nye s feeling that he wept profusely." 
 
 At the close of this session the diary came to an 
 end, and was not resumed till ten years later, and 
 then only temporarily. This is deeply to be regret 
 ted, for if he had continued it during his long public 
 service, it would have proved an interesting autobiog 
 raphy and a valuable contribution to the history of 
 the anti-slavery conflict. As it was limited to the first 
 session of his Congressional service, I have deemed it 
 proper to make liberal extracts from it, as a revela 
 tion of the spirit, character, and purpose of the man. 
 It anticipates his further achievements in the work of 
 reform, and gives the key-note to his public life. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MARCH, 1839, TO MARCH, 1841. 
 
 The " Amistad " Case. The Twenty-sixth Congress. The Famous 
 New Jersey Election Contest. The Slave Ship "Enterprise." 
 The Harrison Campaign. Nomination of Birney. Speech on the 
 Florida War. 
 
 THE growing rapacity of slavery furnished the 
 Abolitionists with a new object-lesson in the 
 summer of 1839. A Cuban slave-ship landed her 
 cargo of Africans at Havana, in June, and after their 
 imprisonment for a short time in the barracoons of 
 that city, forty-nine of them were purchased by 
 I. Ruiz, and three others by P. Montez, slave-deal 
 ers. A pass for these fifty-two persons was obtained 
 from the governor by paying him the usual fee, which 
 constituted a portion of his official perquisites, for 
 permitting the foreign slave-trade to be carried on in 
 that island. This pass was merely a license to Mon 
 tez and Ruiz to transport certain ladinos, or legal 
 slaves, naming them, from Havana to Principe, on the 
 south of the island. The legality of their slavery 
 was assumed, and as they had been thrown into prison 
 on their arrival in Havana, they had no opportunity 
 to speak in their own behalf. But as they had been 
 stolen in Africa and brought to Cuba in violation of 
 Spanish law and treaty stipulations, they were legally 
 free. The negroes, however, were shipped on board 
 the schooner "Amistad" about the ist of July, and 
 
74 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 she sailed at once for her port of destination. The 
 crew consisted of the captain, mate, and three sailors, 
 and there were three passengers besides Montez and 
 Ruiz and the negroes claimed by them. 
 
 When four or five days out, the Africans suddenly 
 rose upon their oppressors, slew the captain and cook, 
 and wounded two of the crew. The others surren 
 dered, and the negroes took possession of the ship, 
 holding Ruiz and Montez in subjection, who were 
 now obliged to obey the men they had so recently 
 called their "property." The crew and passengers 
 were sent on shore, and Ruiz and Montez directed 
 to guide the ship to Africa, whence their victims had 
 been torn by slave-holding cupidity. The Spaniards, 
 however, took advantage of the foggy weather and 
 the darkness of the night, and heading the ship north 
 wardly, came to anchor on the coast of Connecticut. 
 Lieutenant Gedney, of the schooner "Washington," 
 engaged on the coast-survey, took possession of the 
 "Amistad" and cargo, claiming salvage on the ne 
 groes, whom he regarded as "property," while he 
 permitted Montez and Ruiz to go at liberty. The 
 slave-trade was thus brought home to the shores of 
 New England and unveiled to the public view; while 
 the love of liberty exhibited in the heroism with 
 which these barbarians had obtained possession of 
 the ship seems to have been totally unrecognized. 
 
 The Spanish minister demanded that these Afri 
 cans should be sent back to Cuba and delivered up to 
 the authorities of that island, to be punished for thus 
 regaining their freedom; and the President of the 
 United States took sides with the slave-dealers, and 
 instead of setting the negroes free, ordered them to 
 be seized and imprisoned under the authority of the 
 United States, at the instance of the Spanish min- 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 75 
 
 ister. The United States district attorney accord 
 ingly appeared on behalf of Montez and Ruiz, as well 
 as of the Spanish minister, and the proceedings were 
 had before the United States District Court for the 
 State of Connecticut, while the friends of the negroes 
 engaged eminent counsel in their behalf. Southern 
 politicians now became excited and alarmed. The 
 trial of this case before any slave-holding tribunal 
 w T ould have given them no concern; but its adjudica 
 tion before a Connecticut court and jury was to be 
 dreaded, although the President was anxious that 
 the court should in some manner obtain a conviction 
 of the Africans. This he demonstrated by sending 
 an armed vessel to New Haven, pending the trial, 
 with orders to carry these Africans to Cuba as soon 
 as they should be delivered to the captain on board, 
 sending secret directions at the same time to the 
 attorney and marshal of the district to hurry the 
 prisoners on board the ship as rapidly as possible 
 after the decision of the court against them, without 
 giving time to their counsel or friends to take an 
 appeal. Mr. Adams, in the mean time, introduced 
 resolutions in the House of Representatives calling 
 on the President to inform Congress by what au 
 thority these persons, charged with no crime, were 
 held in prison. 
 
 The knowledge of this transaction had now reached 
 the public through the newspapers in every section 
 of the Union, and the decision of the court was 
 awaited with great interest and anxiety. After a 
 patient investigation, judgment was given in favor 
 of the prisoners, declaring that by the laws of God 
 and man they were free. 
 
 This decision disappointed the Administration, 
 and the district attorney appealed to the Circuit 
 
76 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 Court; but failing here, the case was brought before 
 the Supreme Court of the United States, and to the 
 action of this tribunal the attention of the whole 
 country was now directed. The " Amistad " case in 
 all its details thus became the study of the people. 
 The Administration dealt with the matter as a party 
 question, while the opponents of slavery rallied to 
 the work of rescuing these imperilled Africans from 
 the clutches of pirates, and saving the country from 
 public disgrace. The majority of the judges on the 
 Supreme Bench were then slave-holders, and Baldwin, 
 one of the judges from the Free States, was warmly in 
 sympathy with slavery. With great unanimity the 
 anti-slavery men of the country turned to Mr. Adams 
 as the man to argue this cause before the Supreme 
 Court. Every one conceded his ability, but it was 
 especially desirable to have his great moral influence 
 in the argument of such a cause before the court and 
 the country. Notwithstanding his great age and the 
 burdens of his long public service, he consented to 
 defend these negroes. He did so with great reluc 
 tance, saying, " Oh, how shall I do justice to this 
 case and to these men?" It was a great occasion 
 and a great opportunity. The legislative branch of 
 the government had become the instrument of slav 
 ery. The Executive had openly and actively espoused 
 the claim of Ruiz and Montez, and had even endeav 
 ored to deprive their victims of the right to appeal to 
 this tribunal. Giddings said, - 
 
 " The question was one which struck at the very existence of 
 slavery. Were these degraded, ignorant, superstitious heathen 
 entitled to life and liberty ? Had the Creator endowed them 
 with these prerogatives? These questions constituted the mo 
 mentous issue to be tried. The court, clad in judicial robes ; the 
 distinguished Attorney-General and numerous members of the 
 Bar; Governor Baldwin, acting as prisoner s counsel for the Afri- 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. JJ 
 
 cans, associated with Mr. Adams, who had long since left the 
 Presidential chair with the honors and blessings of a nation ; the 
 vast audience, the solemn bearing and dignity of the court and 
 officers, all conspired to render the proceeding one of high 
 moral sublimity." 
 
 Mr. Adams proved himself equal to his work. The 
 great cause inspired him/with unwonted strength, and 
 there was perfect silence during his argument of eight 
 hours duration. His effort was honorable alike to his 
 humanity and his patriotism. He had fought a good 
 fight; and when, after full deliberation, the court pro 
 nounced his clients legally free, the measure of his 
 satisfaction was complete. The decision was a severe 
 blow to Van Buren s Administration and to the oli 
 garchy he had so crouchingly served; but to have 
 decided otherwise would have been a legal mon 
 strosity, it would have been the open espousal of a 
 traffic which the nation had branded as piracy. And 
 yet Charles J. Ingersoll, of Pennsylvania, Chairman 
 of the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the House 
 of Representatives, afterwards introduced a bill ap 
 propriating seventy thousand dollars for the payment 
 of the piratical claim of Ruiz and Montez. The bill 
 was accompanied by an elaborate report; but both 
 received their quietus, after a masterly speech by 
 Mr. Giddings, exposing the illegality and baseness 
 of the claim. 
 
 When the Twenty-sixth Congress met, on the 2d 
 of December, 1839, party spirit was rampant, party 
 lines were strictly drawn, and the caucus was king. 
 No member was expected to avow any doctrine or 
 policy without its approval. The Democrats con 
 trolled all the departments of the government; but 
 their ascendency in the House at this session was 
 rendered uncertain by a contest of the seats of five 
 members from New Jersey, who brought with them 
 
78 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 the regular gubernatorial certificate of their election. 
 The clerk of the House, according to custom, called 
 the members to order and began the roll-call. When 
 he reached New Jersey, he called the name of one 
 member from that State, and then said there were 
 five other seats which were contested, and that not 
 feeling authorized to decide the dispute, he would 
 pass over the names of the New Jersey members, and 
 proceed with the roll till the House should be organ 
 ized, when the question could be decided. This 
 apparent fairness was really an unwarranted assump 
 tion of power. It was his sole business to call the 
 names of those persons who presented the customary 
 formal credentials, having no right to take cognizance 
 of the fact that the seats of such persons might be 
 the subject of a contest. He was undoubtedly the 
 servant of his party in this proceeding, for so evenly 
 was the House divided that the admission or exclu 
 sion of these five members in the first instance would 
 determine the political complexion of the body. The 
 members holding the certificates were Whigs, and if 
 the clerk could keep them out until the organization of 
 the House should be completed, the Democrats would 
 elect their Speaker and make up the committees. 
 
 This proceeding raised a fearful storm. The clerk 
 said he could put no question, not even of adjourn 
 ment, till the House should be formed, while his own 
 election as clerk depended upon his course. The 
 wrangle continued till the 5th of December, and 
 threatened serious consequences, but was at last 
 ended by the sudden consent of all parties that Mr. 
 Adams should come to their relief. He accordingly 
 addressed the House, and offered a resolution "or 
 dering the clerk to call the members from New Jersey 
 possessing the credentials from the governor of that 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 79 
 
 State." The question was now raised: "How shall 
 the question be put? " " I intend to put the question 
 myself," said Adams. Rhett, of South Carolina, op 
 posed this, and offered a resolution that Williams, 
 of North Carolina, be appointed chairman of the 
 meeting; but Williams objected, and the name of 
 Adams was substituted. There was nearly a uni 
 versal shout in the affirmative, and Rhett and Wil 
 liams conducted Adams to the chair. His service 
 was difficult and stormy, and did not terminate till 
 the i6th of December, when Hunter, of Virginia, 
 was chosen Speaker. 
 
 This incident fairly indicates the spirit in which 
 both parties entered upon the work of this session, 
 and the reason why the question of slavery was less 
 engrossing than during the previous Congress. Party 
 was paramount in all things. The Presidential elec 
 tion was approaching, and members of both parties 
 had an eye single to the struggle. On the subject of 
 slavery the South acted as a unit, while Northern 
 members of both parties deferred to their Southern 
 brethren, who thus ruled their respective organiza 
 tions. Mr. Adams was nominally a Whig, but in 
 fact an Independent. Mr. Slade, of Vermont, was 
 a Whig, had held office in the State Department 
 during the Administration of Adams, and was an 
 ardent supporter of his party; but he was an anti- 
 slavery man from conviction, and generally a follower 
 of Adams. Giddings had served only one session, 
 and was regarded as a Whig of doubtful character, 
 on account of his anti-slavery action. Another mem 
 ber now entered Congress as an avowed supporter of 
 human rights. This was Seth M. Gates, of Genesee 
 County, New York, a lawyer of reputation, of high 
 moral character, and an unflinching supporter of 
 
80 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 what he believed to be right. These four members 
 stood aloof from political parties when subjects in 
 volving moral principle or the rights of humanity 
 were in issue. Many Northern Whigs sympathized 
 with them, but none were ready to sustain them at 
 the sacrifice of party allegiance. 
 
 At no time in the history of the government had 
 the supremacy of slavery been so unquestioned as 
 during this first session of the Twenty-sixth Con 
 gress. As soon as the committees of the House 
 were announced, Mr. Wise moved a resolution de 
 claring that whenever any petition, resolution, or 
 paper should be presented touching the abolition of 
 slavery or the slave-trade in the District of Colum 
 bia or in the Territories of the United States, the 
 question of reception should be made, and that ques 
 tion laid on the table. This resolution was adopted 
 by the House, and the right of petition and freedom 
 of debate on the subject of slavery thus again sup 
 pressed. The Democrats charged the Whigs with 
 favoring Abolitionism ; and to counteract these efforts 
 Mr. Clay again addressed the Senate on the subject 
 in defence of his party against this charge, and was 
 again complimented by Calhoun. In the Florida 
 War, which was then in progress, bloodhounds from 
 Cuba had been imported and employed by the Gov 
 ernment in the work of capturing fugitive Indians 
 and slaves. The Whigs denounced this, in the hope 
 of making party capital out of it, but not upon anti- 
 slavery grounds. Garrett Davis of Kentucky offered 
 resolutions calling on the Executive to open negotia 
 tions with the British Government, and if possible 
 obtain a treaty by which fugitive slaves should be 
 surrendered, or their value paid to the master by the 
 Government of England. The domestic slave-trade 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 8 1 
 
 was becoming more profitable, and the vigilance of 
 Mr. Calhoun was now shown in a case which invites 
 particular attention in following the march of the 
 slaveocracy towards supremacy. 
 
 A ship called the "Enterprise," built for the trans 
 portation of slaves from the District of Columbia to 
 New Orleans and other ports far south, cleared from 
 the port of Alexandria on the 22d of January, 1835, 
 for the port of Charleston, with a cargo of slaves 
 collected principally in the District of Columbia. 
 Encountering severe storms, she was driven out of 
 her course, and having suffered severely in her rig 
 ging, put into Port Hamilton, Bermuda, for repairs. 
 According to the law of nations, the jurisdiction of 
 every independent government is co-extensive with 
 its own territory, and reaches a marine league into 
 the sea. If a ship comes into the port of another 
 nation she is boarded by the health-officer of the port 
 long before reaching the shore; licensed pilots and 
 revenue officers enter on board, call for bills of 
 health, manifests, and information as to her cargo. 
 The persons on board are amenable to the local 
 laws. And such was the case with the slaves on 
 board the " Enterprise " when they entered Port 
 Hamilton. They were no longer subject to the 
 local law of slavery, but under the protection of 
 British laws, and were therefore free. The captain 
 demanded of the local authorities their help in hold 
 ing them in bondage; but as British laws recog 
 nized no such distinction as master and slave, no 
 such help could be granted. 
 
 The slave-merchants returned to Washington and 
 laid their complaints before General Jackson, who at 
 once espoused their cause and demanded of the Brit 
 ish Government compensation for the loss. To this 
 
 6 
 
82 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 demand the British minister replied that by the law 
 of nations the ship, on entering Port Hamilton, be 
 came subject to British laws, and that there was in 
 that port no law of slavery, and no British officer 
 could recognize the right of one man to hold another 
 as property. Smarting under this fling at the bar 
 barism of slavery, Calhoun presented to the Senate 
 three propositions, declaratory, as he said, of the 
 law of nations. 
 
 The first asserted that " a ship or vessel on the high 
 seas in time of peace, engaged in a lawful voyage, is, 
 by the law of nations, under the exclusive jurisdic 
 tion of the State to which her flag belongs." 
 
 The second declared that " should such a ship be 
 forced, by stress of weather or other unavoidable acci 
 dent, into a friendly port, she would lose none of her 
 rights pertaining to her on the high seas. On the 
 contrary, she and her cargo, and the persons on board, 
 with their property, and all the rights belonging to 
 their personal relations as established by the laws of 
 the State to which they belong, would be under the 
 protection which the law of nations extends to the 
 unfortunate under such circumstances." 
 
 The third asserted that "the brig Enterprise, 
 which was unavoidably forced by stress of weather 
 into Port Hamilton, Bermuda, while on a lawful 
 voyage on the high seas from one port of the United 
 States to another, comes within the principles of the 
 foregoing resolution, and that the seizure and deten 
 tion of the negroes by the local authorities of that 
 island was an act in violation of the laws of nations, 
 and highly unjust to our citizens, to whom they 
 belonged." 
 
 These propositions were briefly debated, and then 
 referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs; and 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA JR. G ID DINGS. 83 
 
 in a few days reported back favorably, with slight 
 amendments, by Mr. Buchanan. The report says, 
 among other things, that " wherever the flag goes, the 
 country is. In whatever distant seas or foreign ports, 
 wherever the national flag floats, there is the nation." 
 This was a deliberate attempt to change the law 
 of nations by resolution of the Senate, and the de 
 clared purpose was to nationalize an institution local 
 to the States in which it existed, and borrowing its 
 life from State laws. The resolutions were advo 
 cated by Calhoun, Clay, and Benton, who spoke of 
 the claims of slavery in tones of injured innocence, 
 and with an assumption which fairly implied that 
 these novel and revolutionary doctrines were self- 
 evident truths. They were opposed only by Mr. 
 Porter, of Michigan, who had just taken his seat in 
 the Senate. He was a lawyer by profession, and a 
 man of character, but had attained no distinction as 
 a statesman. He spoke well, but timidly, as if con 
 scious that he stood alone, and suspected the sound 
 ness of his own opinions in confronting the united 
 wisdom of so many eminent men. He moved to lay 
 the resolutions on the table, and he alone voted for 
 the motion, while every Senator from the Slave States, 
 and Messrs. Allen and Tappan, of Ohio; Buchanan 
 and Sturgeon, of Pennsylvania; Dixon, of Rhode 
 Island; Hubbard and Pierce, of New Hampshire; 
 Robinson and Young, of Illinois; Williams and 
 Powell, of Maine, voted with the slave-holders; and 
 Webster and Davis, of Massachusetts; Southard and 
 Wall, of New Jersey; Wright and Tallmage, of New 
 York; Ruggles, of Maine; Smith and White, of 
 Indiana; and Knight, of Rhode Island, declined 
 voting. The Senate was divided as follows : for the 
 resolutions, 33; against them, i; neither for nor 
 
84 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 against them, 10, with one vacancy and five absent. 
 The resolutions were then adopted by 33 yeas, none 
 voting in the negative. 
 
 Such was the humiliating record made by the 
 Senate of the United States on the I5th of April, 
 1840. It will be read with amazement by coming 
 generations. If any legal principle could then be 
 regarded as absolutely settled, settled by the law 
 of nations, the common law, and the whole current 
 of English and American decisions, it was that 
 slavery is the creature of positive law, and is confined 
 to the territorial jurisdiction in which it exists. But 
 the habit of submission to its demands had become 
 so chronic, and it had so long fed upon the virtue of 
 our public men, that the Senate, without one dis 
 senting vote, repudiated this principle. But there 
 were men in the lower branch of Congress who re 
 fused to wear the shackles of slavery, and did not 
 spare the wretched sophistry of these Senate resolu 
 tions. In the admirable speech of Giddings already 
 referred to, he thus deals with the logic of Calhoun 
 and his retainers: 
 
 " By the laws of Cuba the master may flog his slave, may sell 
 him. Would the authorities of New York look on and see a 
 Spanish slave-holder flog his slaves, or commit violence upon 
 them ? Would they listen to the shrieks of the slave in such a 
 case, and remain silent? Is New York liable to be converted 
 into a slave-market in that way ? If the slave resist the violence 
 of the master in Cuba, the master may shoot him down. If he 
 do it at the wharf in New York, would the people there look on, 
 with their arms folded, saying, It is done under the Spanish 
 laws ; or would they say, in the words of this report, The act 
 was committed in Spain, for Spain is at our wharf? 
 
 " Agreeably to this doctrine, a Brazilian slave-ship fastens to a 
 wharf in New York. The people of that city go on board, find 
 the decks stowed full of emaciated, starving Africans, suffering 
 all the horrors incident to that disgusting traffic. Those who 
 appear too far gone to be regarded as profitable stock are thrown 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 85 
 
 overboard while yet in life ; those who exhibit signs of discontent 
 are flogged ; and those who resist are shot down, or murdered 
 with a bowie-knife or cutlass. This is all done at the wharf, in 
 plain view of the people. But the Brazilian flag floats at the 
 mast. Brazil is there, and Brazilian laws are in force, and the 
 people must permit these much-abused slave-dealers to be guided 
 by their own sense of justice. 
 
 " Sir, suppose a slave-ship from South Carolina, or any other 
 sister State, were to enter the port of Boston, from stress of 
 weather, would the laws of Massachusetts lend their protection 
 to the slave-dealers ? If the slaves should rise in a body and 
 come on shore in pursuit of their freedom, would the officers of 
 that State, or the people of Boston, be bound to pursue such fugi 
 tives through the streets of that city ? Or, if in pursuit of freedom 
 they were to seek sanctuary in Faneuil Hall, that old cradle of 
 liberty, would the good people of that patriotic Commonwealth 
 seize them and drag them forth, replace them on board the slave- 
 ships, and deliver them over to the tender mercies of piratical 
 dealers in human flesh ? If they were to lend their protection to 
 the personal relations of those on board, as established by the 
 laws of South Carolina, they must do this ; yet I cannot believe 
 that any slave-holding Senator, who gave his vote in favor of these 
 resolutions, would advocate such doctrine before the country. 
 Nor do I believe that any Northern Senator, who sat in silence 
 when that vote was taken, would now publicly admit the correct 
 ness of such doctrines. It was a most unfortunate attempt of 
 the Senate to change the law of nations. They overstepped 
 the bounds of their power and of their influence. They will re 
 gret the vote. Their descendants, in coming time, will blush 
 when they read the record of that act." 
 
 The Harrison campaign of 1840 was chiefly remark 
 able for its indescribable drollery and grotesqueness. 
 Its talisman was "hard times" and "hard cider," and 
 its rallying cry "Tippecanoe and Tyler too." It was 
 a huge national frolic. The Whig candidate, sin 
 gularly enough, was not a Whig, but was nominated 
 solely on the ground of his availability. His fol 
 lowers avowed no principles whatever, and they ten 
 dered but one issue, and that was the necessity for 
 a change of the national administration. The de 
 mand for this change was well founded, for the spoils 
 
86 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 system, inaugurated by Jackson, was completely in 
 the ascendant, and the corruptions and defalcations 
 of Van Buren s Administration called loudly for re 
 form. But the mistake of the Whigs was in assum 
 ing that a change would be equivalent to a cure, thus 
 begging the very question on which some satisfactory 
 assurance was required. They did not perceive that 
 a mere change of men, without any change of sys 
 tem, would be fruitless, and that the superior virtue 
 and patriotism of the Whigs could not be taken for 
 granted. But the cry of " hard times " had a won 
 derful potency, while the working-classes were con 
 stantly comforted by the promise of "two dollars a 
 day and roast beef," if Harrison should be elected. 
 
 In the political whirlwind which swept over the 
 country during this struggle, the question of slavery 
 had little chance to be heard; and yet the logic of 
 the situation called for the organized political action 
 of anti-slavery men against the candidates of both 
 parties, who were alike untrustworthy. Van Buren, as 
 we have seen, had attempted to shelter the slave-trade 
 under the national flag. He had taken sides with the 
 enemies of the right of petition and the freedom of 
 debate, in order to conciliate the South. He had 
 stood by Jackson in his lawless interference with the 
 mails at the bidding of slave-holders. He had fairly 
 illustrated his character as "a Northern man with 
 Southern principles." 
 
 General Harrison, on the other hand, was a pro- 
 slavery Virginian. While Governor of Indiana Ter 
 ritory, he had repeatedly sought the introduction of 
 slavery into that region through the suspension of the 
 ordinance of 1787. He had joined hands with the 
 South in 1820 on the Missouri question. He had no 
 sympathy with the struggle of Adams and his asso- 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 8/ 
 
 elates against the gag and for the right of petition, 
 and regarded the discussion of the slavery question 
 as unconstitutional. He had declared that "the 
 schemes of the Abolitionists were fraught with hor 
 rors upon which an incarnate devil only could look 
 with approbation." 
 
 With such candidates it was easy to see why well- 
 informed anti-slavery men could not support them, 
 and why they should insist upon inaugurating the 
 movement which was finally to triumph at the ballot- 
 box. Indeed, political action against slavery had 
 been clearly contemplated and provided for by the 
 American Anti-slavery Society at its historic con 
 vention in Philadelphia, in December, 1833. Its 
 platform declared that Congress " is solemnly bound 
 to suppress the domestic slave-trade between the 
 several States, and to abolish slavery in those por 
 tions of our territory which the Constitution has 
 placed under its exclusive jurisdiction." Of course 
 this would require the agencies of politics. 
 
 But the anti-slavery men of the country now di 
 vided upon the question of forming a political anti- 
 slavery party. A large division of them, under the 
 lead of Mr. Garrison, argued that such a party would 
 compromise the moral power of the cause by entan 
 gling it with the evils of place-seeking and demagog- 
 ism. The reply to this argument was that it proved 
 too much. The logic of it condemned popular gov 
 ernment itself, and thus sought to cure the vices of 
 politics by abjuring political action altogether. It 
 was further urged that moral power alone could not 
 destroy slavery, and that other and diverse agencies 
 were necessary, including the use of the ballot both 
 as a duty and a necessity. If existing parties de 
 clined this duty, a third party seemed to be the only 
 
88 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 alternative, and could not be disowned on the plea 
 that it would fall under the control of political mer 
 cenaries. It was an absurdity to suppose that in a 
 government carried on by the ballot, slavery could 
 be destroyed without political action. 
 
 The voting Abolitionists, accordingly, nominated 
 for the Presidency Hon. James G. Birney, of Ken 
 tucky, a lawyer and a man of high moral character, 
 who had emancipated his own bondmen, and openly 
 avowed his hostility to the institution. There was, 
 however, some disagreement respecting the timeli 
 ness of this nomination. A considerable number 
 divided their votes between the regular candidates, 
 the greater portion giving their support to General 
 Harrison. This is explained by the fact that the 
 record of the party candidates was not then under 
 stood as it is to-day, and that the overshadowing 
 power of slavery strangely darkened the minds of 
 men. The issue of slavery was a new one in our 
 politics, and anti-slavery men themselves were often 
 obliged to grope their way in the bewilderment of 
 the times. The situation was fairly indicated by 
 two letters to Giddings from prominent and repre 
 sentative anti-slavery men belonging to different sec 
 tions of the Union. The first is from Dr. Gamaliel 
 Bailey, editor of the "Philanthropist," at Cincinnati, 
 and better known afterwards as the editor and pub 
 lisher of the "National Era" at Washington, D. C. 
 He was singularly well informed, conscientious, and 
 clear-sighted, and few men rendered more effective 
 service to the anti-slavery cause than did he during 
 his labors of more than forty years. His lettter is 
 dated Jan. 15, 1840, in which he says, 
 
 " Much anxiety is expressed respecting the course we may 
 think proper to take in regard to the nomination of General Har- 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 89 
 
 rison. So far I have kept silence ; but I shall be compelled, I fore 
 see, to say something. I think, on the whole, a tolerably fair case 
 may be made out for the General. I had the pleasure of a visit 
 from him the other day. He was in fine health and good spirits. 
 I am inclined to think a defeat would not break his heart. He 
 seems to be fully aware that the action of Abolitionists may to a 
 great extent determine the result of the election. The interview, 
 on the whole, made an impression on me favorable to the Gen 
 eral s views on the great question of human rights. I hardly 
 think that he would suffer himself, if elected, to be used by the 
 slaveholding interest. However, he would require good advisers. 
 " As to the project of a separate political party, I think it will 
 fail. Myron Holley s paper has been discontinued for want of 
 support ; so that the only papers now which advocate the measure 
 are the Emancipator and Massachusetts Abolitionist. Lewis 
 Tappan wrote to me that my article on the subject had given 
 general satisfaction in New York. ... I hope you will continue 
 to furnish me with everything interesting connected with our 
 cause." 
 
 This letter, like the one from General Harrison, of 
 December, 1838, already quoted, reveals a strong dis 
 position on his part to make fair weather with the 
 Abolitionists, notwithstanding his intense hostility to 
 their principles. He seems to have been conquering 
 his prejudices, while at the same time conquering 
 the prejudices of Dr. Bailey. 
 
 The other letter is from Lewis Tappan, of New 
 York, and dated Feb. 17, 1840. As a pioneer and 
 leader in the anti-slavery cause he was quite as 
 well known as Dr. Bailey, and his equal in sagacity, 
 courage, and fidelity to principle. He was a mem 
 ber of the executive committee of the American Anti- 
 slavery Society, of which his brother, Arthur Tappan, 
 was the first president. Among other things, he 
 says, 
 
 " It is quite possible the Abolitionists are inattentive to some 
 of the signs of the times. They know well that Mr. Van Buren 
 has pledged himself to the pro-slavery side of the question, and 
 that the leading supporters of his Administration act in accordance 
 with his base subserviency to the South. He acts upon the 
 
90 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA P. GIDDINGS. 
 
 principle, many years ago avowed, that, by uniting the Democ 
 racy of the South with the Democracy of the North, or a portion 
 of both, he could maintain his ascendency. The largest portion 
 of his party, including some who have professed to be Aboli 
 tionists, are base enough to imitate him. This is one sign. An 
 other is that the Whigs, though professing to be the friends of 
 freedom of discussion, the right of petition, the cause of universal 
 liberty, yet will not jeopard the principles of their party when 
 they and abolition come in collision. The Whigs, it is true, op 
 posed Johnson s execrable resolution, and so have the Van Buren 
 men in the Legislature of this State ; their constituents forced 
 them to do it. But, my dear sir, if the Whigs are resolute for 
 human rights, why did they nominate for President General Har 
 rison, who has declared his opposition to such principles in un 
 equivocal language ? Why have they not rebuked Mr. Monroe, 
 of this city, for his infamous speech on abolition? Why has 
 Mr. Clay been suffered to denounce the friends of human rights 
 in his place unrebuked ? Why have Webster and Davis been 
 dumb when liberty has been cloven down in the Senate ? In a 
 word, why has not the Whig party come out manfully in favor of 
 the anti-slavery cause, sink or swim ? Oh, it is because they exe 
 crate the cause, that is, many of the leading papers and poli 
 ticians. Look at the leading Whig papers in this city, for example. 
 I have no more confidence in one party than in another on this 
 question, although I acknowledge that the Whigs have been 
 more friendly to us than the Van Buren men. If the union of 
 the North on this subject is inevitable, as you think, why do not 
 the leading men of the party openly and fearlessly announce the 
 fact? If they do not speedily, a new political party will be 
 formed, and that soon. I have done all I could to prevent it ; 
 but the tendency that way is strong, and perhaps irresistible. I 
 fully believe that if the Whigs should honestly and courageously 
 take this ground, they would have great accessions ; but if they 
 do not, they are ruined. 
 
 " I have thus very hastily given you my views, as you desired. 
 It is a long time since I have been in the harness of party, and 
 perhaps you may think I reason very foolishly. But I trust they 
 are the reflections of an honest man, one who is straightforward ; 
 for principles rather than men ; for moral principles at all hazards, 
 and for considering all other questions as subsidiary. If slavery 
 continues, we are a ruined people. Destroy that, and there is 
 some chance that we shall be a righteous and happy people." 
 
 It is not surprising that the votes of anti-slavery 
 men throughout the country were divided and scat- 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 91 
 
 tered in this canvass, when their leaders were unable 
 to agree. It was a season of political chaos, pro 
 phetic of new formations out of which the truth was 
 slowly to be evolved. This correspondence shows 
 that Giddings was seriously considering the question 
 of duty in the excitement and uproar of this memor 
 able canvass; but, like his anti-slavery colleagues in 
 the House, and the great body of his Whig constitu 
 ents, he gave his support to General Harrison, who 
 was elected by an overwhelming majority, and whose 
 attitude towards the anti-slavery men, with whom he 
 had been holding dalliance, was soon to be tested. 
 Mr. Birney received only seven thousand votes. It 
 was a small beginning, but it filled the slaveholders 
 with alarm. They saw that it inaugurated abolition 
 ism as a working force in our politics, and that it had 
 come to stay ; and whatever may be said in criticism 
 of the mistakes or shortcomings of the Liberty party, 
 or of the larger parties which succeeded it, the preg 
 nant fact remains that the steadily growing power 
 of organized political action at last drove the slave 
 oligarchy into the madness of rebellion and self- 
 destruction. 
 
 The second session of the Twenty-sixth Congress 
 assembled under novel circumstances. The Demo 
 crats, who had long been in power, were soon to 
 retire, and the responsibilities of the government 
 were to devolve upon the Whigs. The question of 
 slavery had not been an issue in the late national 
 struggle, but there was still some feeling of curiosity 
 as to the position which the incoming President 
 might choose to occupy. Mr. Adams, on the first 
 day of the session, gave notice of his intention to 
 move a repeal of the "gag resolution," which was 
 now known as the 2ist rule of the House; but this 
 
92 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 was not accomplished. The continued suppression 
 of the freedom of debate was keenly felt by Giddings 
 and his associates during this session, and on Feb. 
 8, 1841, he proposed to test the extent to which they 
 would be permitted to discuss subjects collaterally 
 involving the question of slavery. He selected the 
 Florida War as his subject, and so prepared his re 
 marks as to give them a direct bearing upon a bill 
 just introduced by Mr. Thompson of South Carolina, 
 appropriating one hundred thousand dollars for the 
 removal of certain Seminole chiefs and warriors west 
 of the Mississippi. 
 
 Giddings obtained the floor after Thompson had 
 spoken, and at once proceeded to develop the cause 
 of the war, and the object of its continuance. He 
 quoted the authority of Mr. Thompson, the Indian 
 agent, to show that the Seminoles refused to go west, 
 lest the negroes, who had so long resided with them, 
 should be seized and enslaved by the Creeks; that 
 the object of constraining the Seminoles to emigrate 
 was to enslave them ; and that to effect this piratical 
 object the nation had been plunged into war. He de 
 nied that the Government was endeavoring to remove 
 these Indians for the purpose of occupying their lands, 
 and quoted the authority of General Jessup for the 
 statement that "these lands would not pay for the 
 medicines used by our troops while employed against 
 the Indians." 
 
 These facts had never before been brought to the 
 attention of the public, and they were very offen 
 sive to Southern members. Mr. Warren of Georgia 
 called Giddings to order; but the chairman, Mr. 
 Clifford, a Democrat from Maine, declared the re 
 marks to be strictly in order. This gave him confi 
 dence, and Mr. Adams showed his interest in the 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 93 
 
 discussion by leaving his seat and taking a position 
 in front of the clerk s desk, where he watched every 
 movement of Southern members, now gathered around 
 Giddings, who proceeded to read further documents 
 sustaining his position that the Florida War had 
 been waged by the Government to aid the slave 
 holders in the capture of runaway slaves, and for 
 the enslavement of Indians and negroes who were 
 free. He showed that a large portion of the fugi 
 tives from Georgia, who fled prior to 1802, inter 
 married with the Seminoles, or Southern Creek 
 Indians, and that the Government, by treaty in 1821, 
 compelled the Creeks to pay for these fugitives; that 
 the Creeks, supposing they had thus acquired a good 
 title to them from the United States, claimed the 
 wives and children of the Seminoles, who, however, 
 finally refused to remove west, preferring to remain 
 and fight the whites rather than hazard the loss of 
 their wives and children by becoming again incor 
 porated with the Creeks; and that the interests of 
 the Florida slaveholders required that the Seminoles 
 should be compelled to emigrate, which the United 
 States undertook to accomplish. He further proved, 
 by official documents, that $141,000, which rightfully 
 belonged to the Indians, was paid to the slaveholders 
 by the Government as compensation for the children of 
 fugitive slaves who would have been born to their 
 masters if their parents had remained in servitude. 
 
 Mr. Habersham of Georgia called him to order, 
 on the ground that his remarks were not relevant to 
 the bill. Giddings explained that he had no inten 
 tion of discussing the question of slavery; that he 
 did not expect to examine its merits or demerits, nor 
 even to pronounce it right or wrong; and that he only 
 intended to show that it constituted the cause of the 
 
94 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 Florida War, while neither Congress nor the Federal 
 Government had any authority under the Constitu 
 tion to involve the people of the nation in a bloody 
 war to support the institution. 
 
 He then read reports of the Indian agent to show 
 that persons residing with the Seminoles, though 
 born free, had been seized and enslaved by desperate 
 men from Columbus, Georgia; that a number of 
 men, headed by one Douglass, who kept a pack of 
 bloodhounds, had invaded the Indian plantation, 
 seized whole families of free colored persons, car 
 ried them to Georgia, and sold them as slaves. In 
 reference to this he said, - 
 
 " Our army was put in motion to capture negroes and slaves. 
 Our officers and soldiers became slave-catchers, companions of 
 the most degraded class of human beings who disgrace that 
 slave-cursed region. With the assistance of bloodhounds they 
 tracked the flying bondman over hill and dale, through swamp 
 and everglade, until his weary limbs could sustain him no longer. 
 Then they seized him, and for the bounty of twenty dollars he 
 was usually delivered over to the first white man who claimed 
 him. Our troops became expert in this business of hunting and 
 enslaving mankind. I doubt whether the Spanish pirates, en 
 gaged in the same employment on the African coast, are more 
 perfect masters of their vocation. Nor was our army alone 
 engaged in this war upon human rights. They merely followed 
 the example of a class of land-pirates who are ever ready to rob 
 or murder when they can do so with impunity." 
 
 Giddings proceeded to show by documentary evi 
 dence that the people of Florida understood the great 
 object of the war to be the capture of fugitive slaves, 
 and that the Government had lent itself to their ser 
 vices. He quoted an order issued by General Jessup 
 declaring that "all Indian property captured from 
 this date will belong to the corps or detachment 
 making it," and showed by a letter from the gen 
 eral, written a few days later, that the word "prop 
 erty," as used in said order, meant "negroes, cattle, 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 95 
 
 and horses." This order bears date Aug. 3, 1837. In 
 reference to it Giddings said, - 
 
 " I think that history will record this as the first general order 
 issued by the commander of an American army in which the 
 catching of slaves is held out as an incentive to military duty. 
 I mention this fact, and bring it to the consideration of the 
 committee, with feelings of deep mortification. As an Ameri 
 can I feel humbled at this act, which cannot be viewed by the 
 civilized world otherwise than as dishonorable to our arms and 
 nation. That this officer, intrusted with the command of our 
 army and the honor of our flag, should appeal to the cupidity, 
 the desire of plunder, and the worst of human passions, in order 
 to stimulate his men to effort, is, I think, to be regretted by 
 men of all parties in all sections of our country. Our national 
 flag, which floated in proud triumph at Saratoga, which was 
 enveloped in a blaze of glory at Monmouth and Yorktown, 
 seems to have been prostituted in Florida to the base purpose 
 of leading on an organized company of negro-catchers. Sir, 
 no longer is our country the battle-cry of our army in their 
 advance to victory, but slaves has become the watchword to 
 inspire them to effort. No longer does the war-worn veteran, 
 amid the battle s rage, think of his country s glory and nerve 
 his arm in behalf of freedom, but with eagle eye he watches 
 the wavering ranks of the enemy, and as they flee before our 
 advancing columns, he plunges among them to seize the sable 
 foe, and make him his future slave." 
 
 Giddings next refers to another order of General 
 Jessup, dated Sept. 6, 1837, declaring that "Semi- 
 nole negroes captured by the army will be taken on 
 account of Government and held subject to the order 
 of the Secretary of War," and that the sum of twenty 
 dollars from the public funds will be allowed to the 
 captor of each fugitive. This order was approved by 
 the Secretary of War on the 7th of October follow 
 ing. The people of the United States, through the 
 efforts of their accredited officers, thus became the 
 purchasers and holders of slaves, and the nation a 
 slaveholding nation. Said Giddings, 
 
 "In this manner we have been led on by slaveholding influ 
 ences, step by step, until we find our government and nation 
 
96 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 involved in the crime of holding slaves. The people have been 
 kept ignorant of these facts. No solitary voice has been raised 
 to inform them of these violations of their rights, of the rights 
 of humanity and of the Constitution, of this stain upon our 
 nation s honor. It further appears that the people of the United 
 States, the laborers of Ohio and other free States, have been 
 compelled to contribute of their hard earnings to pay a bounty 
 of twenty dollars for each negro captured and delivered to the 
 white people as a slave." 
 
 In this connection he refers to the alacrity with 
 which the commanding general entered into the busi 
 ness of slave-catching, as shown by his letter of May 
 25, 1837, directed to Lieutenant-Colonel Harney: 
 
 " If you see Powell [Osceola], tell him I shall send out and 
 take all the negroes who belong to the white people; and he 
 must not allow the Indian negroes to mix with them. Tell him 
 I am sending to Cuba for bloodhounds to trail them ; and I 
 intend to hang every one of them who does not come in." 
 
 Of this letter Giddings says, 
 
 " If the negroes had quietly suffered themselves to be trailed 
 with bloodhounds, or supinely permitted themselves to be hanged 
 for their love of liberty, they would have deserved the name of 
 slaves. The expenditure of five thousand dollars for blood 
 hounds in Cuba was not, as has been supposed, for the purpose 
 of trailing Indians. In this letter we have it officially announced 
 that they were sent for and obtained for the purpose of catching 
 fugitive slaves. I desire the people of this nation to understand 
 distinctly that they are taxed for the purpose of maintaining and 
 supporting slavery in the Slave States ; that their treasure has 
 been appropriated directly and publicly to that purpose; that 
 our army many of whose officers and soldiers were bred in 
 the Free States and in the love of liberty has been employed, 
 by order of the commanding general, in pursuing and capturing 
 fugitive slaves. Nor is that all. The freemen of the North are 
 taxed for the purchase of bloodhounds to act in concert with 
 our army in this disgraceful and disgusting mode of conducting 
 the war." 
 
 This speech proved exceedingly exasperating to 
 Southern members, and Giddings was frequently 
 interrupted by questions of order and incidental 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 97 
 
 debate, which consumed three hours ; but he finally 
 concluded what he desired to say. In his diary of 
 this date, Mr. Adams says Giddings "proceeded 
 step by step, citing his documentary proof as he went 
 along, to the exquisite torture of the Southern duel 
 lists and slave-mongers, Georgians, Carolinians, and 
 Virginians." Mr. Cooper of Georgia replied, saying 
 that he regarded the speech as altogether aimed at 
 slavery. He spoke of abolition as a "moral pesti 
 lence," to be condemned by all good men. He re 
 ferred to Adams and Giddings as leaders in the 
 Abolition ranks, while they were encouraged and 
 cheered on by the Whig party; and he particularly 
 charged General Harrison with encouraging Abolition 
 ists, and thus involving the Whig party of Georgia 
 in the odium of supporting the right of all men to 
 liberty. He alluded to the case of a vessel from 
 Maine that had carried a slave from Georgia, when 
 the Chair called him to order. 
 
 Mr. Black of Georgia insisted that Giddings had 
 made an anti-slavery speech, and that Mr. Cooper 
 ought to be allowed to reply. Mr. Adams also in 
 terposed, saying the gentleman had made a pointed 
 allusion to him, and he hoped to enjoy the privi 
 lege of replying. Mr. Wise of Virginia sustained 
 Black, and on an appeal the House sustained him, 
 and Cooper proceeded to arraign the authorities of 
 Maine as Abolitionists. Black next obtained the 
 floor, and at once arraigned Ohio for her cruelty to 
 the colored people. He was called to order, decided 
 to be out of order, but permitted by a vote of the 
 House to proceed. He was nervously excited, de 
 claring that he intended to be personally offensive to 
 Giddings, and holding a copy of the Bible in his 
 hand, read : " Thou hypocrite, first cast the beam out 
 
 7 
 
98 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 of thine own eye," as he pointed his finger directly 
 at the object of his wrath. He assured the House 
 that if the member from Ohio (Giddings) should come 
 to Georgia, he would be hanged. 
 
 Mr. Downing, the delegate from Florida, next 
 obtained the floor, and out-rivalled Black in vulgar 
 assaults upon Giddings. Mr. Thompson of South 
 Carolina was more refined in his language, declar 
 ing that the Whig party was not responsible for the 
 course pursued by " the very obscurest of the obscure 
 individuals belonging to that party." Giddings re 
 plied that every member of Congress would select 
 the position which he chose to occupy before the 
 people; and he would inform the gentleman from 
 South Carolina that he did not possess the power to 
 designate the position which other members should 
 fill in the public mind, although he must choose his 
 own. He said he well understood the insult offered 
 by the gentleman from South Carolina, but he could 
 not resent it in the manner common among Southern 
 gentlemen, as the people of the Free States would 
 not permit their public servants to practise that bar 
 barous mode of settling difficulties ; and if they would, 
 his own conscience would not permit it. But he 
 would say to the gentleman, in the language of a 
 military veteran who, after meeting the enemy in a 
 hundred battles, happened to offend a young officer, 
 who spat in his face, expecting to call out a chal 
 lenge: "Could I as easily wipe the stain of your 
 blood from my soul [wiping the spittle from his face 
 with his handkerchief], you should not live an hour." 
 Mr. Alford of Georgia sprang from his seat, utter 
 ing profuse threats, and rushed towards Giddings 
 with apparently hostile intentions; but when he ar 
 rived within a few feet of him, Governor Briggs of 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 99 
 
 Massachusetts stopped him, and persuaded him to 
 return to his seat. To Mr. Downing no reply could 
 be made consistent with self-respect ; but when that 
 gentleman next approached him with the ordinary 
 salutation of friends, Giddings refused to give him 
 his hand, assuring him that he was at liberty to 
 address him on official business, but on no other 
 pretence whatever. 
 
 This speech proved an invaluable agency in the 
 political education of the people. It breathed a new 
 life into the anti-slavery cause. The startling facts 
 it embodied were for the first time dragged to light 
 from their hiding-place among musty executive docu 
 ments, and put on public duty. The curtain was 
 lifted upon a frightful spectacle of maladministra 
 tion, showing that the Federal Government, which 
 was established to secure the blessings of liberty, 
 had long been prostituted to the base purpose of 
 upholding and perpetuating the curses of slavery. 
 While it maddened the slaveholders by uncovering 
 the record of their lawlessness and calling them to 
 their reckoning, the people of the Free States were 
 astounded at their own supineness in thus tamely 
 submitting to Southern usurpation. They saw that 
 custom and the insidious policy of gradual encroach 
 ment had made slavery their master, and that Jackson 
 and Van Buren had only conformed to the fashion 
 of the times in allowing it to dictate the entire policy 
 of the Government respecting the Florida War. The 
 speech was published in large editions, liberally scat 
 tered over the country, and could not fail to become 
 a potent auxiliary in the cause of reform. Hence 
 forward it was certain that the slaveocracy would be 
 watched, while Giddings earned the gratitude of his 
 country and of coming generations by this timely 
 
IOO THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R, GID DINGS, 
 
 public service. It called forth the following letter 
 from the venerable William Jay : 
 
 NEW YORK, 623 Broadway, Feb. 22, 1841. 
 
 SIR, I had the honor of receiving your letter at Bedford, 
 West Chester County, the place of my residence, it having been 
 forwarded to me from this city ; but the document mentioned in 
 it did not accompany it. The next day I left home for this 
 place, where I expect to remain some weeks. I beg you to ac 
 cept my thanks, not merely for your polite attention to myself, 
 but also for your fearless exposure on the floor of Congress of 
 the iniquities connected with the war in Florida. 
 
 May I ask the favor of you, sir, to forward to my present 
 address another copy of the document in question, together with 
 a report of your speech and of the debate to which it gave rise. 
 Our New York papers seem indisposed to give the public full 
 information on the subject. 
 
 I have the honor to be, sir, with very great respect, 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 WILLIAM JAY. 
 The HON. MR. GIDDINGS. 
 
 General Harrison reached Washington on the day 
 of this memorable debate, and when he heard of it ex 
 pressed great dissatisfaction, declaring that he would 
 relieve the Whig party of all odium brought upon it 
 by the action of Giddings. When the latter called 
 on the President-elect, on the following day, he met 
 with such evidence of displeasure that he never after 
 wards repeated the call, although he had labored ear 
 nestly for the Whig cause in the previous canvass. 
 Mr. Thompson, who had publicly insulted Giddings 
 for maintaining the freedom of speech, was rewarded 
 with a mission to Mexico, although South Carolina 
 had given no vote for General Harrison. Giddings 
 and his anti-slavery colleagues in the House were 
 still further disappointed by the inaugural address 
 of the President, the original draft of which was so 
 offensive to the advocates of the right of petition and 
 the freedom of debate that even Mr. Clay protested 
 
THE Z777i OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. IOI 
 
 against it, and prevailed on the General so to modify 
 it that it meant nothing, and was of course inoffen 
 sive. Such was the outcome of anti-slavery hopes 
 and expectations touching the action of the new 
 President. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 MARCH, 1841, TO DECEMBER, 1842. 
 
 Meeting of the Twenty-seventh Congress. Trial of John Quincy 
 Adams. The Case of the "Creole" and Censure of Giddings. 
 Letters from Mr. Chase. The " Pacificus " Papers. Weary of 
 Public Life. 
 
 THE Twenty-seventh Congress was convened in 
 special session on the 3ist of May, 1841. There 
 was a Whig majority of forty in the House, and seven 
 in the Senate ; but as no principles had been avowed 
 in the preceding canvass, and as John Tyler, who had 
 now become President, had been chosen by the Whigs 
 solely on the ground of his availability as a Southern 
 man, it was not strange that the party now became 
 divided into warring factions. John White of Ken 
 tucky was chosen Speaker, and after the House was 
 organized, Mr. Adams renewed his efforts to abrogate 
 the 2 ist, or gag, rule; but failed, as heretofore. He, 
 however, was made chairman of the Committee on 
 Foreign Affairs, while Giddings was placed at the 
 head of the Committee on Claims. Mr. Wise com 
 plained of this, and said that Giddings would never 
 report a bill to pay a master for the loss of his slave, 
 if killed in the public service. Several members, 
 seeing Giddings present, asked Wise to question him 
 on the subject. "I will," said Mr. Wise; and turn 
 ing to Giddings, said : " I will ask the chairman if 
 he would report a bill to pay a master for the loss 
 of a slave killed in the public service." Giddings 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 103 
 
 replied : " I cannot say what the committee might do, 
 but I should myself follow the precedents, which are 
 uniform from the commencement of the government." 
 Mr. Wise said he was aware that the precedents were 
 against such payment, but they were wrong, and he 
 was anxious to correct the error. 
 
 During this special session and the regular session 
 which followed in December, Southern members be 
 came more and more irritable, and their Northern 
 sympathizers more uneasy. The social relations of 
 members were seriously disturbed, and the Florida 
 War speech had so embittered the feeling towards 
 Giddings that there were not probably a dozen slave- 
 holding members who recognized him on the street 
 or in the Hall of Representatives. This feeling 
 extended in a less degree to Slade and Gates; but 
 the position of Mr. Adams placed him beyond the 
 reach of these puerile attempts, and he quietly de 
 voted himself to the work of presenting anti-slavery 
 petitions. They were of various kinds, and each 
 provoked renewed hostility. One after another was 
 laid on the table on motion of some Southern mem 
 ber; but he stood at his desk and patiently applied 
 himself to his task, showing no sign of retiring from 
 the conflict. Slade, Gates, and Giddings usually sat 
 near him on these occasions, deeply concerned in 
 what was passing; while Wise, Gilmer, Holmes, and 
 others were on either hand, watching him with in 
 tense interest. 
 
 At length, on the 25th of January, 1842, he took 
 from the file of papers before him the memorial of 
 Benjamin Emerson and forty-five other citizens of 
 Haverhill, in the State of Massachusetts, praying 
 Congress to adopt immediate measures for the peace 
 ful dissolution of the Union of these States, first, 
 
104 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS, 
 
 because no union can be agreeable or permanent 
 which does not present prospects of reciprocal bene 
 fits; second, because a vast proportion of the re 
 sources of one section of the Union is annually 
 drained to sustain the views and course of another; 
 third, because, judging from the history of past 
 nations, if the present course be persisted in, it will 
 overwhelm the nation in utter destruction." Mr. 
 Adams moved the reference of this petition to a 
 select committee of nine members, with instructions 
 to report an answer to the petitioners, showing the 
 reasons why the prayer of their petition cannot be 
 granted. 
 
 The utter madness of Southern members in deal 
 ing with this petition can be most perfectly realized 
 by keeping in mind a few significant facts. In the 
 first place, Mr. Adams declared himself opposed to 
 the object of the petition, and moved the appoint 
 ment of a committee to report adversely, with their 
 reasons therefor. In the next place, as Congress has 
 power to propose amendments to the Constitution, it 
 was perfectly legitimate for these petitioners to ask 
 Congress to take measures for the peaceful recon 
 struction of the government as a means of escaping 
 what they considered intolerable evils. In the third 
 place, the howl which was set up against the intro 
 duction of this petition came from men who had 
 repeatedly threatened to dissolve the Union, in order 
 to redress their grievances, not peaceably, as pro 
 posed in the petition presented by Mr. Adams, but 
 by revolution and violence. Finally, the petition 
 in this case was an exact copy of one presented some 
 years before by South Carolina disunionists. 
 
 Mr. Hopkins of Virginia obtained the floor, and 
 inquired of the Speaker if it would be in order to 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 105 
 
 burn the petition in the presence of the House. 
 Wise and Gilmer demanded that Mr. Adams should 
 be formally censured, and Gilmer offered a resolu 
 tion to that effect. 
 
 Southern members were completely carried away 
 by the frenzy of their passions, and before the House 
 adjourned, a caucus was called for that evening, to 
 take measures looking to the trial and punishment 
 of Mr. Adams. An effort was made to secure a meet 
 ing of Northern members who were willing to stand 
 by him ; but Northern Whigs generally replied that 
 "it would look like a sectional quarrel." A few 
 members friendly to him, however, convened that 
 night at the room of Giddings. These were Slade 
 and Young of Vermont, Calhoun of Massachusetts, 
 Henry, Lawrence, and Simonton of Pennsylvania, 
 and Gates and Chittenden of New York. Rev. 
 Joshua Leavitt, of Boston, and Theodore D. Weld, 
 of New Jersey, also attended, though they were not 
 members, but zealous friends of Mr. Adams. These 
 two gentlemen were appointed a committee to wait on 
 him and inform him that they and the members con 
 vened would tender him any assistance in their power. 
 At a late hour they repaired to his residence and 
 stated the object of their visit. The old patriot lis 
 tened attentively, and for a time was unable to reply, 
 being apparently much affected. At length he stated 
 that the voice of friendship was so unusual to his ears 
 that he could not express his gratitude; but he 
 would feel thankful if they would examine certain 
 points to be found in the authors of which he gave 
 them a list, and have the books placed on his desk 
 at the hour of meeting the next day. 
 
 At that time Mr. Marshall of Kentucky, who had 
 been selected by the Southern caucus to take the lead 
 
106 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 in the fight against Mr. Adams, introduced a series of 
 resolutions, preceded by a long preamble, setting forth 
 the "perjury and treason" to which Congress was in 
 vited by the petition. The last resolution declared 
 " that the aforesaid John Quincy Adams for this insult, 
 the first of the kind ever offered to the government, and 
 for the wound he has permitted to be aimed, through 
 his instrumentality, at the Constitution and exist 
 ence of his country, the peace, security, and liberty 
 of the people of these States, might well be held 
 to merit expulsion from the national counsels; and 
 the House deem it an act of grace and mercy when 
 they only inflict upon him their severest censures for 
 conduct so utterly unworthy of his own past relations 
 to the State and his present position; this they here 
 by do, for the maintenance of their own purity and 
 dignity; for the rest, they turn him over to his own 
 conscience and the indignation of all true American 
 citizens." 
 
 After a preliminary speech by Mr. Marshall, pre 
 tending to great moderation and fairness, Mr. Adams 
 spoke briefly, causing to be read those passages in 
 the Declaration of Independence which speak of the 
 right of the people to alter or abolish their govern 
 ment when it becomes an insupportable burden, and 
 reminding the slaveholders of their acts of usurpa 
 tion threatening the liberties of the people. " If you 
 had not violated the right of petition," said he, "you 
 would never have seen this petition." Wise took the 
 floor in reply, and was eager for the fight. He sent 
 out the challenge, " Come on, Macduff, and damned 
 be he who first cries, Hold, enough ! " He spoke 
 of Mr. Adams as "a white-haired hypocrite," and 
 charged him with forsaking the friends of his father, 
 and trampling on the ashes of the dead. He re- 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. IO/ 
 
 ferred to him as one who, " in the fury of his apos 
 tate zeal, could prey upon the dead like the vampire." 
 He declared that he was "dead as Burr, dead as Ar 
 nold," and that "the people would look upon him 
 with wonder, would shudder, and retire." Mr. Mar 
 shall followed in an elaborate and able speech, but 
 equally savage and remorseless in its spirit. Mr. 
 Adams declined to enter upon his defence until the 
 House determined whether it would consider the 
 charges against him, which it decided to do by a 
 vote of 118 to 75. 
 
 He now became the accuser, and arraigned the 
 slaveholders at the bar of the nation for endeavoring 
 to destroy the right of habeas corpus, of trial by jury, 
 the freedom of the post-office, the liberty of speech, 
 of the Press, and of petition. For the purpose of 
 effecting these objects, he charged that they had 
 formed a coalition with the Northern Democrats, and 
 that if the rights of the Free States could not be 
 otherwise protected, the petitioners were justified in 
 asking for a dissolution of the Union. He charged 
 South Carolina and other Slave States with seizing 
 and enslaving free colored citizens of the Northern 
 States, in violation of the Constitution. He exposed 
 the effects of slavery upon the pecuniary interests of 
 the country, comparing New York with Virginia, and 
 contrasting the educational institutions of the Em 
 pire State with those of the Old Dominion; while he 
 also contrasted the internal improvements, industry, 
 and thrift of New York with the miserable highways, 
 deserted plantations, dilapidated dwellings, and gen 
 eral poverty of Virginia. And he charged that a 
 systematic effort was being made by the slaveholders 
 to force the country into a war with England in order 
 to maintain the African slave-trade. 
 
IO8 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 "His manner," according to Giddings, "was calm 
 and self-possessed; his voice clear and firm; his 
 words measured; his venerable form erect under the 
 weight of more than seventy years. There he stood, 
 confronting a power which for more than half a cen 
 tury had controlled the councils of the nation." At 
 times he was impassioned, and his invective unrivalled. 
 He made no reply to Mr. Hopkins, who had sug 
 gested the burning of the petition, merely referring 
 to him as "the combustible gentleman from Vir 
 ginia." In reply to Wise, he referred to his connec 
 tion with the duel in which Cilley of Maine had 
 fallen, and pronounced him far more guilty than the 
 man who pulled the trigger by which a brother mem 
 ber had been sent to find judgment. He declared 
 that Wise had come to the House with his hands 
 dripping with blood, and his face smeared with hu 
 man gore; and that, with these evidences of murder 
 upon his person, he had attempted to read moral 
 lectures to members of the House. Giddings, in his 
 account of the trial, says he was sitting near W T ise 
 at this time, and saw from his countenance the feel 
 ings which tortured him. 
 
 When Mr. Adams came to Marshall and his charge 
 of high treason in presenting a petition, he suggested 
 the propriety of his returning to Kentucky to commence 
 the study of law. He made an allusion to his habits 
 of immorality, and expressed an earnest desire that 
 he might reform. He then proceeded to the work 
 of torture. As he continued his remarks, he became 
 more and more aroused, and drawing one arrow after 
 another from his well-stored quiver, he sent them 
 with unerring aim into the flesh of his victim, with 
 no other apparent object than to see him writhe 
 under the infliction. His eloquence became more 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 109 
 
 glowing and his invective more impassioned, until 
 his assailant was utterly demolished, and then he re 
 sumed his seat. A painful silence ensued. Marshall 
 had been standing some thirty feet from Mr. Adams, 
 his arms folded across his breast ; but no effort could 
 disguise the evidences of his humiliation. His cheeks 
 were pale with emotion, and the whole contour of his 
 face gave an expression of deep mortification. He 
 declared afterwards that he would rather have suffered 
 death than the torment to which he had been subjected. 
 It was a chastisement as terrible as it was deserved, 
 and it was not possible that he could ever forget it. 
 On a subsequent occasion, when he entered the hall 
 and found Mr. Adams replying with some severity to 
 an attack by a member from Pennsylvania, Marshall, 
 on learning the facts, replied, "Well, if he has fallen 
 into Adams s hands, all I can say is, May God have 
 mercy on his soul ! " The trial continued from clay to 
 day, and the manifest strength and determination of 
 Mr. Adams gave no promise of its speedy conclusion; 
 while in answer to inquiries as to the time he would 
 require to complete his defence, he intimated that it 
 would be about ninety days. 1 
 
 The slaveholders, seeing the tide turning against 
 them under this arraignment of their own lawless 
 ness, became weary of the spectacle and anxious to 
 end it; and Mr. Gilmer proposed a compromise, by 
 which further proceedings were to be abandoned, 
 if Mr. Adams would withdraw the petition he had 
 presented. This was indignantly refused. He defied 
 the House, and spurned the proffered capitulation. 
 He continued his defence, or rather his prosecution 
 of the slaveholders, till the 7th of February, when, 
 on motion of Mr. Botts of Virginia, the whole sub- 
 
 1 Address of Mr. Giddings on the trial of John Q. Adams. 
 
HO THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 ject was laid on the table, by a vote of 106 to 93. 
 Mr. Adams then proceeded to dispose of a budget 
 of two hundred anti-slavery petitions, after which the 
 House adjourned. On the 2d of March following, 
 Giddings presented a petition from Austinburg, in 
 Ohio, praying for a dissolution of the Union; but 
 not a word was heard about censuring him, or the 
 disgrace of the House, or the perjury or high trea 
 son involved in his act. The triumph of Mr. Adams 
 was complete. 
 
 The interest in this famous duel between Mr. 
 Adams and the slave-power seems to be heightened 
 by time. That power was then lord of the ascendant, 
 and Mr. Adams was dealt with as a felon and an out 
 law ; but he is now glorified as a hero and revered as 
 a prophet. Slavery and its champions in 1842 have 
 gone to their reckoning, and we survey their exploits 
 from a new mount of vision. In the clear perspec 
 tive of the past, the story of this outrage possesses 
 more than the fascination of a romance. The follow 
 ing letter from Giddings to his wife, written while 
 the trial was in progress, may therefore prove inter 
 esting to the reader. It is dated Feb. 6, 1842: 
 
 " Never in my life have I felt that the welfare of this mighty 
 nation depended so much upon the efforts, courage, and deter 
 mination of the friends of liberty as I have for the past week. 
 Mr. Adams has spoken three days. He has won the friendship 
 of the entire Whig party of the North, disarmed the Loco-focos 
 of a portion of their hatred, conciliated the feelings of many, 
 and has shown up the manner in which the slave interest has 
 insidiously crept into our whole policy, subsidized our papers, 
 poisoned our literature, invaded the sanctity of the post-office, 
 degraded our patriotism, taxed the free labor of the North, 
 frightened our statesmen, and controlled the nation. He is, I 
 believe, the most extraordinary man living ; but I cannot attempt 
 a description either of him or his speech. Suffice it to say that 
 he has made the entire South tremble before him. I have with 
 my own eyes seen the slaveholders literally shake and tremble 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. \ \ \ 
 
 through every nerve and joint while he arrayed before them their 
 political and moral sins. The power of his eloquence has ex 
 ceeded any conception which I have heretofore had of the force 
 of words or logic. He has, in my opinion, opened a new era in 
 our political history. I entertain not the least doubt that a 
 moral revolution in this nation will take its date from this ses 
 sion of Congress. I am confident that the charm of the slave- 
 power is now broken. I may be too sanguine, quite likely I 
 am, but such are my candid sentiments. The slaveholders 
 naturally tremble lest their efforts shall raise a political revolu 
 tion at once. Indeed, if the tone of some of the Eastern papers 
 be taken as a criterion, they may well fear. Poor Marshall is 
 literally used up, and Wise acts like a maniac. Oaths and 
 imprecations are thrown out by him constantly. The trial has 
 excited such intense interest that the Senate has for a day or 
 two been almost deserted. Senators sit in the hall during the 
 whole day, listening to Mr. Adams. Lord Morpeth has been 
 steadily there since the commencement of the conflict, a silent 
 but interested listener during each day." 
 
 Few will now question the judgment of Giddings 
 as to the effect of this triumph of the right of peti 
 tion and the freedom of speech. It was the precon 
 certed and deliberate purpose of the slave-masters to 
 make an example of the great ringleader of political 
 Abolitionism. They meant to humiliate and crush 
 him, and they did not doubt their ability to do this. 
 Had they succeeded, the efforts of smaller and less 
 famous men would have been fearfully crippled, if 
 not fatally paralyzed. In the end freedom would 
 have won; but the victory was gloriously anticipated 
 by the matchless courage and resources of John 
 Quincy Adams. 
 
 But the failure of this conspiracy against Mr. 
 Adams was followed by a still more flagrant out 
 rage. The champions of slavery were in no mood to 
 profit by their experience, and this time their chosen 
 victim was Giddings. The case concerned the for 
 eign policy of the Government, and calls for some 
 fullness of treatment. The Federal Constitution 
 
1 1 2 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 expressly grants to the General Government all juris 
 diction over the subjects of commerce and navigation 
 upon the high seas, and the power to define and pun 
 ish felonies thereon. The States were thus denied 
 any jurisdiction over these subjects, while every ship 
 sailed under the national flag. In 1807 Congress 
 passed a law regulating the coastwise slave-trade in 
 vessels of over forty tons burden, prescribing mi 
 nutely the manifests, forms of entry at the custom 
 house, and specifications to be made by the masters 
 of such vessels. This law for the protection and en 
 couragement of the traffic in slaves between the slave- 
 breeding and slave-buying States was unauthorized 
 by the Constitution. The Federal Government had 
 nothing to do with slavery save in the matters of 
 taxation, representation, and the return of fugitive 
 slaves, and this coastwise traffic had no reference to 
 these subjects. The slaveholders had the right to 
 drive or transport their slaves inland from one State 
 to another, but they had no right to ask Congress for 
 facilities of shipment by sea. This legislation, how 
 ever, as we shall see, involved the nation in serious 
 difficulties and complications. By the Treaty of 
 Ghent, the British and American Governments pledged 
 themselves to the Christian world to use their en 
 deavors totally to abolish the traffic in slaves. They 
 made no exceptions or reservations, and therefore 
 the treaty fairly covered the traffic on our coast, as 
 well as the foreign trade which had been declared 
 piracy by England and the United States. Indeed, 
 our domestic traffic was more inhuman and revolt 
 ing than the foreign, inasmuch as its victims were 
 comparatively civilized and Christianized men and 
 women. 
 
 In passing around the peninsula of Florida, our 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. \ \ 3 
 
 slave-ships were sometimes wrecked on British 
 islands, and the slaves, by virtue of English law, 
 became free. In these cases the slaveholder sought 
 the co-operation of the English Government, notwith 
 standing its obligations under the Treaty of Ghent, 
 and the subject was brought before Congress. In the 
 year 1830 the ship "Comet" sailed from Alexandria, 
 in the District of Columbia, with a cargo of slaves 
 bound for New Orleans. She was wrecked on the 
 false keys of the Bahama Islands, and the passengers 
 and slaves carried by the wreckers to Nassau, in the 
 island of New Providence, where the slaves asserted 
 their liberty under British laws. The ship " Enco 
 mium," sailing, in 1834, from Charleston, South Caro 
 lina, with a number of slaves for New Orleans, was 
 stranded near the same place, and the slaves became 
 free. The ship "Hermosa," which sailed from Rich 
 mond, Virginia, in 1840, was wrecked on the British 
 island of Abacco, whence the slaves were taken to 
 Nassau, where they asserted their liberty. 
 
 Jackson and Van Buren zealously espoused the 
 cause of the slaveholders in the two cases first 
 named, and Mr. Stevenson, of Virginia, then repre 
 senting our Government at the British court, asserted 
 in his official correspondence that there is no distinc 
 tion between property in " persons" and property in 
 "things." He declared that our Government had 
 " in the most solemn manner determined that slaves 
 killed in the public service of the United States 
 were to be regarded as property, and paid for as 
 such." This statement was totally unwarranted by 
 facts, and contradicted both by history and the rec 
 ords of the nation; but by these misrepresentations 
 the British Ministry was led to pay for the slaves lost 
 on board the "Comet" and the "Encomium," as they 
 
 8 
 
114 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 were stranded prior to the emancipation of the West 
 Indian slaves. The Ministry, however, as we have 
 seen, refused to pay for the slaves lost on board the ship 
 " Enterprise," heretofore referred to, which ran into 
 Port Hamilton, Bermuda, through stress of weather, 
 in 1835, after the abolition of British slavery. This re 
 fusal was exceedingly offensive to the slaveocracy, and 
 its hostility was still further stimulated by the loss 
 of slaves on board the " Hermosa, "already mentioned. 
 
 Senator Barrow of Louisiana presented the peti 
 tion of certain insurance companies in that State, 
 praying Congress to take measures for obtaining com 
 pensation from the British Government for the loss 
 of the slaves on board the last-mentioned ship. He 
 stated explicitly that the case might present the ques 
 tion of peace or war with Great Britain; and he de 
 clared that the people of the Southern States would 
 be the last to submit to the principles of international 
 law as construed by the authorities of the British 
 Islands, and that if they continued to interefere with 
 our commerce our navy would bombard their towns. 
 Mr. Calhoun and other Senators concurred in the 
 views of Mr. Barrow, but advised the parties con 
 cerned to await the action of the British Government 
 in the case of the " Creole." 
 
 This ship had sailed from Hampton Roads on the 
 27th of October, 1841, with one hundred and thirty 
 slaves on board, bound for New Orleans. On the 
 7th of November, the slaves rose against the officers 
 and crew, and declared their right to freedom, taking 
 possession of the deck of the ship at the same time. 
 The alarm being heard below, one of the slave-dealers 
 named Hewell, in attempting to shoot one of the men 
 as he came on deck, was struck with a hand-spike and 
 killed. The other slave-dealers, captain and crew, 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDIA T GS. \ \ 5 
 
 surrendered, and the people called " chattels " were 
 thus suddenly transformed into free men and women, 
 while the slave-dealers were as suddenly subjected to 
 the power of their former bondmen. The mate was 
 now ordered to steer the ship to Liberia; but being 
 assured that their provisions and water would not 
 last them half way, they consented to enter the port 
 of Nassau, where, under British laws, they were free. 
 They were, however, arrested and imprisoned. The 
 captain of the "Creole " demanded them as criminals, 
 to be brought back to the United States for punish 
 ment ; but the authorities of the island refused until 
 they should consult the Government at London. The 
 slaves demanded their baggage ; but the master of the 
 ship declared that they had no baggage, that they were 
 themselves the property of their masters, and of 
 course could hold no property; but the British author 
 ities compelled him to deliver to each negro his 
 blanket and such clothing as he had possessed while 
 on board. 
 
 The slave-dealers returned to the United States, 
 and at once called on President Tyler for the inter 
 position of the Government in obtaining compensation 
 for their loss. The case was well calculated to test 
 the principles and policy of both Governments. There 
 was no law of the United States which authorized 
 these traffickers in human flesh to hold their victims 
 in subjection, and if there had been, it would not have 
 imposed on these victims any natural or moral obliga 
 tion to submit to being thus carried to the barracoons 
 of New Orleans. The American and British Govern 
 ments were bound by their solemn pledge in the 
 Treaty of Ghent to abolish the traffic in slaves, and 
 this pledge clearly enured to the benefit of the men 
 who had been made free by English law. 
 
Il6 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 The subject excited much interest on both sides of 
 the Atlantic, and the Senate, by resolution, called 
 on the President for the correspondence between our 
 Government and that of England respecting the mat 
 ter. In answer, the Executive transmitted to that 
 body a copy of the instructions sent by Mr. Webster, 
 our Secretary of State, to Mr. Everett, our minister 
 at London. Says Mr. Webster, 
 
 "The British Government cannot but see that this case, as 
 presented in these papers, is one calling loudly for redress. The 
 Creole was passing from one port in the United States to an 
 other on a voyage perfectly lawful, with merchandise on board, 
 and also with slaves, or persons bound to service, natives of 
 America, and belonging to American citizens, and which are 
 recognized as property by the Constitution of the United States 
 in those States in which slavery exists. 
 
 "In the course of the voyage some of the slaves rose upon 
 the master and crew, subdued them, murdered one man, and 
 caused the vessel to be carried to Nassau. The vessel was thus 
 taken to a British port, not voluntarily by those who had the law 
 ful authority over her, but forcibly and violently, against the 
 master s will, and with the consent of nobody but the mutineers 
 and murderers. 
 
 " Under these circumstances, it would seem to have been the 
 plain and obvious duty of the authorities at Nassau, the port of 
 a friendly power, to assist the American consul in putting an end 
 to the captivity of the master and crew, restoring to them the 
 control of the vessel, and enabling them to resume their voyage 
 and to take the mutineers and murderers to their own country 
 to answer for their crimes before the proper tribunal." 
 
 These efforts of the Senate and Executive to shel 
 ter the slave-trade under the national flag struck Gid- 
 dings with the most profound astonishment. Senators 
 had openly declared that the question might become 
 one of peace or war with Great Britain if she did not 
 consent to sustain this commerce in mankind in her 
 ports. In the case of the "Enterprise," which came 
 before the Senate in March, 1840, that body, by 
 unanimous vote, had affirmed the principles now 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS, \ I 7 
 
 declared by Mr. Webster, who quoted that action of 
 the Senate in support of his present position, and was 
 complimented by Calhoun. No voice was raised in 
 the Senate against this monstrous effort to nation 
 alize slavery, while General Cass, our minister to 
 France, was vehemently denying the right of Eng 
 land to visit American ships for the purpose of 
 ascertaining whether slaveholding pirates were prose 
 cuting their nefarious business under the shield of 
 our flag. 
 
 And the case was aggravated by the wretched pre 
 texts on which Mr. Webster sought to justify his 
 cringing servility to the South. He declared that 
 slaves "are recognized as property by the Constitu 
 tion of the United States in those States in which 
 slavery exists." No one better knew than himself 
 that this is not true. In every instance the Consti 
 tution refers to them as "persons," and its framers 
 unitedly acquiesced in the opinion of Mr. Madison, 
 who "thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution 
 the idea that there could be property in man." But 
 if we concede that the Constitution does recognize 
 slaves as property " in those States in which slavery 
 exists," it certainly does not follow that they are so 
 recognized outside of those States, and in countries in 
 which it is forbidden. 
 
 Equally sophistical is the statement that the voy 
 age of the " Creole" " was perfectly lawful. " The for 
 eign slave-trade was made piracy by both England 
 and the United States; and although Congress had 
 undertaken to regulate the traffic on our coast, it did 
 not and could not legalize it on the high seas, or ex 
 tend the law of slavery beyond the jurisdiction of the 
 Slave States. But if the voyage had been perfectly 
 lawful, it could not have affected the situation in the 
 
1 1 8 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 smallest degree. The ship might have been landed 
 in Massachusetts, but the slaves would undoubtedly 
 have been free, for the simple reason that slavery is 
 always confined to the jurisdiction in which it exists. 
 
 Equally unwarranted was Mr. Webster s reference 
 to these slaves as "mutineers and murderers." A 
 mutineer is one in lawful subjection to superior au 
 thority who disobeys it. The slaves were free men 
 under English law, and had a perfect right to defend 
 their liberty; and they were not murderers, because 
 they had an equal right to take life in self-defence. 
 
 All this is now perfectly understood ; but in 1842 
 it was not allowed to reach the public. The Senate 
 was a unit in the service of slavery, and in the House 
 of Representatives all debate on the subject was 
 prohibited by the 2ist rule. Nothing could be done 
 for the country, unless some way could be opened for 
 the popular agitation of the question, and Mr. Adams 
 was pre-eminently the man for the emergency. But 
 he was exhausted by the labor and excitement of his 
 protracted trial, while the committee of which he was 
 the head was utterly hostile to his principles. Gid- 
 dings, therefore, after conferring with his particular 
 friends, prepared the following resolutions, which he 
 hoped in some form to make available: 
 
 " Resolved, That prior to the adoption of the Federal Consti 
 tution each of the several States composing thisJUnion exercised 
 full and exclusive jurisdiction over the subject of slavery within 
 its own territory, and possessed full power to continue or abolish 
 it at pleasure. 
 
 " Second. That by adopting the Constitution, no part of the 
 aforesaid powers were delegated to the Federal Government, but 
 were reserved by and still pertain to each of the several States. 
 
 " Third. That by the eighth section of the first article of the 
 Federal Constitution each of the several States surrendered to 
 the Federal Government all jurisdiction over the subjects of com 
 merce and navigation upon the high seas. 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. BIDDINGS. 119 
 
 " Fourth. That slavery, being an abridgment of the natural 
 rights of man, can exist only by force of positive municipal law, 
 and is necessarily confined to the jurisdiction of the power creat 
 ing it. 
 
 " Fifth. That when a ship belonging to citizens of any State 
 of this Union leaves the waters and territory of such State and 
 enters upon the high seas, the persons on board cease to be sub 
 ject to the laws of such States, and thenceforth are governed in 
 their relations to each other by, and are amenable to, the laws of 
 the United States. 
 
 " Sixth. That when the brig Creole, on her late passage for 
 New Orleans, left the jurisdiction of Virginia, the slave-laws of 
 that State ceased to have jurisdiction over the persons on board, 
 and they became amenable only to the laws of the United States. 
 
 " Seventh. That the persons on board said ship, in resuming 
 their natural rights to liberty, violated no law of the United 
 States, incurred no legal penalties, and are justly liable to no 
 punishment. 
 
 Eighth. That all attempts to regain possession of or to 
 re-enslave said persons are unauthorized by the Constitution or 
 laws of the United States, and are incompatible with our national 
 honor. 
 
 " Ninth. That all attempts to exert our national influence in 
 favor of the coastwise slave-trade, or to place this nation in the 
 attitude of maintaining a commerce in human beings, are subver 
 sive of the rights and injurious to the feelings and interests of 
 the people of the Free States, are unauthorized by the Constitu 
 tion, and prejudicial to our national character." 
 
 These resolutions were submitted to Mr. Adams 
 for his approval. He was perfectly frank in saying 
 that he could not support the one which denied the 
 right of the Federal Government to abolish slavery 
 in the States, while he held the principle that in 
 case of insurrection or war, the Federal Government 
 might, under the war power, abolish it. To this Gid- 
 dings replied that the resolutions, being presented 
 in time of peace -, and having evident relation to a state 
 of peace, would not be regarded as applicable to a state 
 of war, which operated to suspend the laws of the 
 country and subject the people to despotic rule, in 
 order to save the nation, and that making exceptions 
 
I2O THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GWDINGS. 
 
 as to a state of war might obscure the doctrines and 
 weaken the force of the several distinct propositions. 
 To this Mr. Adams rejoined that the friends of sla 
 very in future years and during times of war would 
 quote these resolutions as denying the right of the 
 Federal power to interfere with slavery even amidst 
 domestic insurrection or foreign invasion; but he 
 added, " I will cheerfully sustain all but that which 
 denies this right of the Federal Government." 
 
 The resolutions, it will be seen, were in direct 
 conflict with those presented by Mr. Calhoun in the 
 case of the "Enterprise," and with the doctrine 
 avowed by the Executive in the cases of the " Comet " 
 and "Encomium," as well as that now asserted by 
 Mr. Webster. 
 
 On the 2 ist of March, the State of Ohio was 
 called, under the rules of the House, for resolutions. 
 Giddings obtained the floor, and stated that he had 
 prepared a series of resolutions in relation to a sub 
 ject which had called forth some interest in the other 
 end of the Capitol and in the country, and that he de 
 sired to submit them to the House for consideration, 
 and would call them up for action upon the next day 
 which should be devoted to the consideration of reso 
 lutions. He sent them to the Clerk s desk, to be 
 read, with the expectation that they would be pub 
 lished in the newspapers and carefully considered by 
 members, with a view to their action upon them the 
 following week. 
 
 The reading attracted general attention, and a 
 second reading was called for, during which they re 
 ceived the most profound attention. General Ward 
 of New York inquired whether it was in order to 
 demand the previous question. The Speaker replied 
 in the affirmative, when Mr. Everett of Vermont 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 121 
 
 moved to lay them on the table. His motion was re 
 jected. Mr. Holmes of South Carolina, under great 
 excitement, remarked: "There are certain topics, 
 like certain places, of which it might be said, 
 
 " Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. " 
 
 The demand for the previous question was sec 
 onded. Mr. Everett asked to be excused from voting, 
 but took occasion to express his "utter abhorrence of 
 the firebrand course of the gentleman from Ohio." 
 Mr. Fessenden of Maine, and Mr. Floyd of New 
 York, opposed any immediate vote upon the resolu 
 tions, while Mr. Gushing of Massachusetts, after 
 reading them at the clerk s table, said: "They appear 
 to be a British argument on a great question between 
 the British and American governments, and consti 
 tute an approximation to treason on which I intend 
 to vote no." 
 
 Mr. Fillmore of New York inquired if it was in 
 order to ask Mr. Giddings to withdraw the resolu 
 tions. The latter did not desire to see members, in 
 the excitement of the moment, commit themselves 
 against principles which he believed \vould meet 
 their approval in moments of cool reflection, and he 
 withdrew the resolutions, saying he had only in 
 tended, on this occasion, to call attention to the sub 
 ject, and ask a vote at some future day. Nothing 
 could well have been more considerate or more stu 
 diously respectful than this action of Giddings; but 
 Mr. Botts of Virginia at once obtained the floor, 
 saying the withdrawal of the resolutions did not ex 
 cuse their presentation, and he moved a suspension 
 of the rules for the purpose of offering the following 
 preamble and resolution: 
 
 " Whereas, The Hon. Joshua R. Giddings, the member from 
 the Sixteenth Congressional District of Ohio, has this day pre- 
 
122 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 sented to this House a series of resolutions touching the most 
 important interest connected with a large portion of the Union, 
 now a subject of negotiation between the United States and 
 Great Britain, of the most delicate nature, the result of which 
 may involve those nations, AND PERHAPS THE CIVILIZED WORLD, 
 
 IN WAR. 
 
 -And whereas, It is the duty of every good citizen, and par 
 ticularly of every selected agent and representative of the people, 
 to discountenance all efforts to create excitement and dissatisfac 
 tion and division among the people of the United States, at such 
 time and under such circumstances, which is the only effect to be 
 accomplished by the introduction of sentiments before the legis 
 lative body of the country hostile to the grounds assumed by the 
 high functionary having in charge this important and delicate 
 trust ; 
 
 " And whereas, Mutiny and murder are therein justified and 
 approved in terms shocking to all sense of law, order, and hu 
 manity ; therefore, 
 
 " Resolved, That this House hold the conduct of said member 
 is altogether unwarranted and unwarrantable, and deserving the 
 severest condemnation of the people of this country, and of this 
 body in particular." 
 
 The rules were not suspended, and Mr. Weller, a 
 Democrat from Ohio, then offered the resolutions as 
 his own, and demanded the previous question. There 
 was much excitement in the hall, and in answer to 
 an inquiry of Mr. Holmes the Speaker stated that the 
 previous question would not cut off Mr. Giddings 
 from the right to be heard in his own defence. From 
 this decision Mr. Fillmore of New York took an 
 appeal, and the decision was overruled by a vote of 
 118 to 64. The House then adjourned. 
 
 Fully believing that he would be permitted to de 
 fend himself, Giddings spent the entire night in 
 preparation, and before the meeting of the House on 
 the next day he visited Mr. Adams for consultation. 
 He found him greatly depressed. Mr. Adams told 
 Giddings the House would not permit any defence to 
 be made, that the vote would be taken without debate, 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G1D DINGS. 123 
 
 and that appearances indicated the passage of the 
 resolution of censure. Giddings replied that he had 
 supposed the reflections of the night would convince 
 members of the impropriety of condemning a man 
 unheard. Mr. Adams answered : " You are not as 
 familiar with the slaveholding character as I am. 
 Slaveholders act from impulse, not from reflection; 
 they act together from interest, and have no dread of 
 the displeasure of their constituents when they act 
 for slavery. " 
 
 On the meeting of the House Mr. Weller proposed 
 to withdraw his demand for the previous question, 
 provided Giddings would at once proceed in his de 
 fence, with the general understanding that the pre 
 vious question should be called at its conclusion. 
 Giddings refused to make any terms for the purchase 
 of his constitutional rights, and asked for a postpone 
 ment of the question for the purpose of enabling him 
 to prepare his defence; but the vote was taken on 
 seconding the demand for the previous question, 
 which stood 77 in the affirmative to 70 in the nega 
 tive. Weller now moved a suspension of the rules 
 to enable Giddings to be heard; but the Speaker 
 decided that as the House had ordered the previous 
 question, it must be put before any other motion could 
 be entertained. A proposition was now made to hear 
 him by common consent ; but as he was proceeding 
 to speak, Mr. Cooper of Georgia objected, and he 
 resumed his seat. 
 
 The champions of slavery were thus completely 
 caught in the toils of their own violence. They re 
 coiled at the shameless outrage in which they had too 
 hastily involved themselves. The policy now urged 
 by the whole force of parliamentary law to an im 
 mediate conclusion was to inflict a gross wrong upon 
 
124 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA K. G ID DINGS. 
 
 a representative without permitting him throughout 
 the proceedings of two days to utter a single word in 
 defence or explanation of his course. By the appli 
 cation of the previous question, preceded by the 
 reversal of the Speaker s decision, they had even 
 deprived themselves of the liberty of permitting Gid- 
 dings to speak before the execution of their sentence. 
 As the truth dawned upon them they were frightened 
 and confounded ; but they saw no way by which they 
 could extricate themselves. They had locked them 
 selves in, and thrown away the key to their deliver 
 ance. By their own votes all the screws of parlia 
 mentary law had been tightened upon them while 
 they still struggled in vain to escape. Mr. Triplett 
 of Kentucky moved to suspend the rules to permit 
 Giddings to speak; but the Speaker correctly decided 
 that under the law of the House, confirmed by usage 
 and repeated decisions, no such motion, nor any mo 
 tion whatever, except to lay on the table or to adjourn, 
 could be entertained. This he made so clear that, 
 furious as they were in their dilemma, they sustained 
 the Speaker s decision by a large majority. Mr. A. 
 H. H. Stuart of Virginia then moved to reconsider 
 the vote by which the previous question had been 
 carried, in order to permit the House to retrace its 
 steps; but this, too, the Speaker declared to be out 
 of order, and the House again felt obliged to sustain 
 him. After a motion by Mr. Adams to lay on the 
 table had been negatived, the resolutions of censure 
 were passed by a vote of 125 to 69. 
 
 In the mean time Giddings, while sitting at his 
 desk, wrote the following note : 
 
 To the Reporter of the Intelligencer : 
 
 When I rose so often during the confusion of business in the 
 House this day, and was so often called to order, the last time by 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 12$ 
 
 Hon. Mark A. Cooper of Georgia, I had written out and desired 
 to have stated to the House what follows : 
 
 " Mr. Speaker, I stand before the House in a peculiar posi 
 tion. It is proposed to pass a vote of censure upon me, sub 
 stantially for the reason that I differ in opinion from a majority 
 of the members. The vote is about to be taken, without giving 
 me an opportunity to be heard. It were idle for me to say that 
 I am ignorant of the disposition of a majority of the members to 
 pass the resolution of censure. I have been violently assailed in 
 a personal manner, but have had no opportunity of being heard 
 in reply; nor do I now ask for any favor at the hands of gentle 
 men, but in the name of an insulted constituency, in behalf of 
 one of the States of this Union, in behalf of the people of these 
 States and of our Federal Constitution, I demand a hearing in the 
 ordinary mode of proceeding. I accept no other privilege ; I 
 will receive no other courtesy." 
 
 This note appeared the next morning in the current 
 proceedings of the House. 
 
 When the Speaker declared the resolutions carried, 
 Mr. Giddings rose, and taking formal leave of the 
 Speaker and officers of the House, of his colleagues, 
 of Mr. Adams, and a few other personal friends, 
 passed out of the hall. As he reached the front 
 door he found Senators Clay and Crittenden, who had 
 been spectators of the scene just described. As Mr. 
 Clay extended his hand he thanked Giddings for the 
 firmness with which he had met the outrage perpe 
 trated upon him, declaring that no man would ever 
 doubt his perfect right to state his own views against 
 the slave-trade, particularly while the Executive and 
 the Senate were expressing theirs in favor of it. 
 After resigning his office as a representative, Gid 
 dings left the city for his home. 
 
 Up to this date, nothing in the history of the 
 government had so clearly illustrated the autocratic 
 power of slavery over the nation as this action of the 
 House of Representatives upon these resolutions of 
 Giddings. The principles they affirm are simple 
 
126 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 truisms. No one now disputes them, and no one 
 then ventured to controvert them. Mr. Botts, in 
 deed, condemned them as ill-timed, while the ques 
 tion to which they related was the subject of nego 
 tiation between England and the United States, and 
 some of the newspapers which warmly supported Gid- 
 dings made the same objection, which, oddly enough, 
 is also urged by Mr. Schouler, in his " History of the 
 United States." 1 The objection utterly vanishes in 
 the light of a few obvious facts. While the papers 
 relating to the negotiation pending between the 
 United States and Great Britain remained in the 
 Executive archives, and no one knew what doc 
 trine the President had advanced, or what demands 
 he had made, neither Congress nor the people could 
 discuss the questions involved, for the simple reason 
 that they were ignorant as to what the official cor 
 respondence contained. It is equally true that the 
 President was under no obligation to promulgate his 
 views while in his opinion the interests of the coun 
 try would be prejudiced by their discussion. All 
 calls upon the President for information in such 
 cases are made subject to his discretion ; but if com 
 municated and published, it becomes the legitimate 
 subject of discussion by every American citizen. 
 The people are the source of power, and their repre 
 sentatives have a perfect right to discuss all questions 
 involved in the negotiations of the Government from 
 the moment of their publication. 
 
 It was in accordance with this principle that Cal- 
 houn, on the 4th of March, 1840, offered a series of 
 resolutions affirming the duty of the government to 
 protect the slave-trade, the negotiations touching the 
 matter having previously been furnished by Mr. Van 
 
 1 Vol. iv. p. 427. 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 127 
 
 Buren, in response to a call of the Senate. Nobody 
 proposed to censure him for introducing his resolu 
 tions pending the negotiations. They were fully 
 discussed, and adopted by unanimous vote of the 
 Senate. During the same session a member of the 
 House of Representatives from South Carolina, as 
 chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, 
 made a report in which he alluded to the refusal of 
 Great Britain to make compensation for the slaves 
 who had been liberated from on board American 
 vessels engaged in the slave-trade, as a cause of war. 
 The matter was a subject of negotiation between the 
 British Government and our own, and yet no one 
 raised any question as to the propriety of his act. 
 The subject of our Northeastern boundary was a mat 
 ter of negotiation for many years, and during almost 
 every session of Congress covering this period it was 
 discussed, while no one questioned the propriety of 
 such discussion. The plain truth is that this com 
 plaint of the untimeliness of the resolutions of Mr. 
 Giddings was inspired by the fact that in the opinion 
 of his accusers they were offered on the wrong side. 
 No one can doubt that if he had taken sides with 
 Webster and Calhoun, he would have been thanked 
 for the timeliness as well as the wisdom of his 
 action. The slaveocracy was publicly making the 
 threat of war with England if she did not consent 
 to co-operate with the United States in support of 
 the traffic in slaves; and if, under such circum 
 stances, the representatives of the people could be 
 gagged, our system of government would have been 
 ready for its epitaph. 
 
 The proceedings of the House in this case proved 
 of great value in awakening the people to a con 
 sciousness of their danger. The anti-slavery Press 
 
128 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 published them in full, while many of the party 
 papers noticed them. Public meetings were held 
 in the principal cities of the Free States, which 
 asserted the right of members of Congress freely to 
 express their views, while the constituents of Gid- 
 dings manifested their indignation in large public 
 meetings, which fully indorsed his action and asked 
 him to become a candidate for re-election. He was 
 chosen by an overwhelming majority, and instructed 
 to re-assert and maintain his doctrines. Within five 
 weeks from the date of his censure, he resumed his 
 seat in the House. His feelings at this time may be 
 gathered from the following extract from a letter to 
 his son, dated the 8th of May : 
 
 " I arrived here on Wednesday evening, and was soon sur 
 rounded by friends, who certainly appeared glad to see me back. 
 They had suffered greater anxiety than I had been sensible of. 
 Father Adams said that it had the effect to improve his health as 
 soon as he heard I was in the city, and that was not long after 
 I arrived, for there were enough to go with the intelligence, as all 
 seemed to know that he felt extremely anxious on the subject. 
 Andrews, of Cleveland, introduced me to the House. Many 
 looked up with smiling faces, while others appeared to be per 
 fectly dumfounded. I received many long and hearty greetings 
 from those who had opposed my censure, and from some who 
 voted against me. Governor Wallace, of Indiana, in particular, 
 seized me by the hand, and in the most feeling manner acknowl 
 edged his error in voting to censure me, and assured me of his 
 most heartfelt satisfaction at seeing me again in my place. 
 Greetings and conversation occupied the whole of my time dur 
 ing the day." 
 
 The Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Senate, 
 to whom the message of the President on the subject 
 of the " Creole " and Mr. Webster s letter to our min 
 ister in London were committed, made no report 
 upon those important state papers, and Mr. Calhoun 
 ceased to call the attention of the country to these 
 claims for slaves. The Senate forbore all further 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 129 
 
 discussion of the subject, and neither the Secretary 
 of State, nor President Tyler, nor his successor, Mr. 
 Polk, took any further action respecting it. They 
 seemed to have been silenced by the effort to silence 
 Giddings. The case of the " Creole " also attracted 
 
 o 
 
 attention in England, and the English Press re-pub 
 lished the proceedings in the House of Representa 
 tives, while the British ministry refused indemnity 
 to the slave-dealers before the news of the censure 
 of Giddings reached that country. In the mean time, 
 Lord Ashburton was appointed Envoy and Minister 
 Plenipotentiary for the purpose of settling existing 
 international questions, except those arising from the 
 release of slaves on British islands, including the 
 case of the "Creole," as to which he was authorized 
 to hold no correspondence. Such were some of the 
 fruits of this latest crusade of the slaveholders against 
 the freedom of debate. 
 
 But the vanquished party were not yet ready to 
 give up the fight. They knew that Giddings was 
 instructed to re-offer his resolutions, and that if thus 
 presented, the House must adopt or reject them. But 
 they could only be presented when the States were 
 called for resolutions, which was on each alternate 
 Monday, so that the men who had voted for his cen 
 sure were able to control the business of the House 
 and on each resolution day to carry a motion to pro 
 ceed to other business. This they did during the 
 remainder of the session and the whole of the last 
 session of the Twenty-seventh Congress. Giddings 
 therefore seized upon the first opportunity to vindi 
 cate in a public speech the doctrines avowed in his 
 resolutions. Although he spoke with much plainness 
 respecting the slave-trade and the officials who had 
 encouraged that commerce, he was not called to order, 
 
 9 
 
130 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 but was listened to with respectful attention while 
 reasserting the doctrines for which he had been 
 censured sixty days before. The freedom of debate 
 was substantially regained, although the Twenty-first 
 Rule continued to hold its place in the manual for 
 over two years afterwards. 
 
 While engrossed with the labors of this session, 
 the question of organized anti-slavery action against 
 both the Whig and Democratic parties was again 
 pressed upon the attention of Giddings. The ques 
 tion was important, though it related only to the 
 method of serving the great cause. During the pre 
 vious year, Salmon P. Chase, then at the threshold 
 of his political career, had taken the lead in organiz 
 ing the Liberty party in Ohio, as a preliminary to 
 the formation of a national party. This led to a 
 correspondence between him and Giddings, in which 
 the former, as will be seen, expressed himself with 
 the clearness and vigor which marked his later utter 
 ances. On the 2 ist of January, 1842, he wrote, 
 
 HON. J. R. GIDDINGS : 
 
 DEAR SIR, I am much indebted to you for your prompt 
 answer to my letter. I do not wonder at your hesitation in re 
 gard to political action. The Liberty party is so small now, 
 and there are so many circumstances calculated to discourage 
 the hope of political action on principle by the masses of either 
 party, that I am rather surprised that any men of distinguished 
 political position should be willing to unite their destinies to 
 those of the new party, than that so few should. And yet, 
 when I reflect that the principles of this party are, incontes- 
 tably, the precise principles of American liberty, and that unless 
 they prevail, the country itself must perish, I cannot suppress 
 the faith that a sure, though perhaps remote, triumph awaits it. 
 I firmly believe also that if we can and what is there to pre 
 vent this ? secure the balance of power in the Legislatures of 
 the Free States and in Congress, we shall be able to accomplish 
 immense good for the country, by checking the ruinous meas 
 ures of one party, and aiding in carrying the beneficial propo- 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. \ 3 I 
 
 sitions of another, without any bias in favor of either except 
 what the measures proposed should from time to time produce. 
 This of itself would do much to destroy the baneful spirit of 
 partyism now so visible in all that is done in our State or 
 national legislature. . . . 
 
 What good is to be gained by cleaving to the Whig party ? 
 I never expected it would hang together a year after General 
 Harrison s election, and it is split up sooner and more irrecon 
 cilably than I anticipated. I do not believe that it is possible 
 for any man, not even for Corwin, to be elected governor by the 
 Whig party in this State next fall. And if we must be in a 
 minority, why not be in a minority of our own, rather than in 
 a minority of men who despise us or affect to do so ? For my 
 own part, I am more and more satisfied with the course I have 
 taken and the position I have assumed. I feel satisfied that I 
 am in the right, and that the expedient and the right are one. 
 
 You have no doubt seen, and I hope approve, of the ad 
 dress of the convention. You will see that it presents a broad 
 platform on which all can stand, of both parties, who desire the 
 deliverance of the country from the slave-power. You will 
 notice also a resolution offered by Mr. Morris, calling for a 
 national convention of the Liberty party. The reason why this 
 was adopted was that some dissatisfaction is felt here in the 
 West with the nominations of the national convention at New 
 York, because that convention is regarded rather as a meeting 
 of the national Anti-slavery Society than as a convention of the 
 Liberty party. Besides this, it is thought that if Mr. Adams or 
 Governor Seward would accept the nomination, great additional 
 strength might be gained for the party. What do you think of 
 this? Would either of those gentlemen accept? Would it be 
 advisable to offer the nomination to either of them if they 
 would? I suppose both of them are anti-slavery men to the 
 extent of this address. Mr. Leavitt seems to apprehend danger 
 from disturbing the present nominations. My fears, I confess, 
 have an opposite direction. I fear it will be difficult to persuade 
 any considerable body of the people to unite in the support of 
 one so little known as Mr. Birney is, and who has seen so little 
 of public service. Governor Seward, on the contrary, is for his 
 age one of the first statesmen in the country, and Mr. Adams is 
 perhaps the very first. . . . 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 S. P. CHASE. 
 
 On the 1 5th of February following, Mr. Chase again 
 wrote, and more earnestly than before, urging the 
 
132 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 claims of the Liberty party, and the duty of anti- 
 slavery men to rally to its support. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, I thank you for your two last very interest 
 ing letters. The nation is greatly indebted to you and other 
 friends of freedom for the noble stand taken by you in regard 
 to the right of petition. The country is beginning to awaken at 
 length to the danger of slaveholding encroachments, and the 
 time is rapidly drawing on, I trust, when the champions of free 
 dom will have the place which of right belongs to them in the 
 confidence and favor of a long deceived and oppressed, but now 
 awakening, people. 
 
 I think, however, that it will be necessary to go to the bot 
 tom, and plant ourselves upon the rock of fundamental principles. 
 It will not do to compromise any more. The principle must be 
 established and acquiesced in, that the government is a non- 
 slaveholding government ; that the nation is a non-slaveholding 
 nation ; that slavery is a creature of State law, local, not to 
 be extended or favored, but to be confined within the States 
 which admit and sanction it. I hardly think the Whigs, as a 
 party, are prepared to take this ground. The most they will 
 do is to tolerate liberty. They will, in this quarter, hardly do 
 that. They will not do it at all unless attachment to liberty is 
 made subservient to party ends, and secondary to party obliga 
 tions. There has been something said of nominating Judge 
 King by the Whig party. I do not expect it, though he has been 
 a distinguished, able, and influential Whig. Nor, to say truth, 
 do I desire it. For such is the feeling of opposition to anti- 
 slavery principles with many of the Whig party that thousands 
 would vote for Shannon in preference to him ; while many of the 
 Democrats, who would otherwise support him, would be per 
 suaded that the nomination is a Whig manoeuvre, and would fall 
 back into their party ranks. I should prefer, for one, to go into 
 the battle with our own strength. We may be defeated now, 
 but at the next election parties must divide on principle, and 
 then we must triumph. 
 
 I will send, under cover, to your address a number of copies 
 of our Liberty address, directed to various gentlemen in Wash 
 ington, to whom I will thank you to have them delivered. Why 
 cannot the members from Vermont, who accord in principle 
 with the Liberty convention, go home and plant the standard of 
 liberty upon the Green Mountains ? I feel confident that the 
 State would at once rally under it. Why submit any longer to 
 the degradations so long endured ? Why consent at all that the 
 principles and rights of the Free States, of the nation, indeed, 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 133 
 
 shall be trampled upon, or, if recognized at all, recognized as 
 a matter of grace and favor? I am tired of the cap-in-hand 
 policy. I am unwilling to feel myself and my opinions to be 
 contraband articles in my political party, only tolerated be 
 cause not safely to be dispensed with. I cannot but think that 
 you and they share these sentiments. Why not, then, act upon 
 them? 
 
 Excuse me if I seem too earnest. It seems to me that there 
 is now a glorious opportunity to restore the government to its 
 original principles, and I cannot but hope that before the Con 
 gress rises, you and others will feel free to take the position of 
 leaders of the Liberty party, and issue an address to the people 
 which will be responded to throughout the land. I verily believe 
 there are multitudes, even in Slave States, who would hail such a 
 movement with joy. If Mr. Adams could be induced to take 
 a part in it, how could his illustrious life be more brightened 
 towards its close ? 
 
 I have written him a letter, which I enclose. It is some 
 years since I have seen him, and he has possibly forgotten me. 
 He knew, however, my uncle, formerly Senator from Vermont, 
 and perhaps also my uncle, the Bishop of Illinois, well. I want 
 you to vouch for me, and to get for me, if possible, an early 
 answer to my letter. It is principally upon the subject of sla 
 very in the District, and the fundamental principles of the Lib 
 erty party. It does not, however, support any action such as 
 is referred to above. It would not be fit for me to suggest 
 a course to him. You can converse with him on the subject 
 with propriety. I shall be glad to have you read my letter to 
 him. 
 
 We are organizing our Liberty clubs in this county, and 
 expect to make a respectable rally. Faithfully yours, 
 
 S. P. CHASE. 
 
 The letters of Giddings have not been preserved, 
 but he disagreed with Chase as to the wisdom of this 
 third-party movement, as the letters quoted imply, 
 and he dealt with it fully, in concluding a series of 
 essays prepared in the summer and autumn of this 
 year, which he devoted to a patient and critical ex 
 amination of the rights and privileges of the several 
 States in regard to slavery. His purpose was to for 
 mulate a working theory of political action against 
 the evil, while fully according to the Slave States 
 
134 THE LIFE OF 7 SHUA R > GIDDINGS. 
 
 their Constitutional rights. These timely and valu 
 able essays first appeared in the "Western Reserve 
 Chronicle" over the signature of "Pacificus." 
 
 The starting-point and fundamental idea of his 
 exposition was that slavery is the concern of the 
 States in which it exists, with which the Federal 
 Government has no Constitutional right to interfere 
 in any way. This was no new doctrine, for it had 
 been held by the people of all parties for half a cen 
 tury. It was not a sectional doctrine, for both the 
 North and South had espoused it ; and it was not an 
 anti-slavery doctrine, because the slaveholding States 
 affirmed it. 
 
 Giddings laid hold of this principle as the basis 
 and complete justification of his warfare against slav 
 ery, and he proposed to hold the slaveholding States 
 to the strict logic of their own position. If the Fed 
 eral Government had no constitutional right to abol 
 ish slavery, it had no constitutional right to support 
 it. If the people of the slaveholding States had the 
 right to be perfectly exempt from Federal interfer 
 ence with their peculiar institution, the people of 
 the non-slaveholding States had the right to be en 
 tirely exempt from the guilt and expense of its sup 
 port through Federal agency. If Congress had no 
 more power to abolish slavery in South Carolina than 
 it had to abolish free schools in Massachusetts, then 
 South Carolina had no more right to ask Congress 
 to legislate for slavery than it had to ask the Govern 
 ment of Brazil. There is absolute reciprocity of 
 rights as between the slaveholding and non-slave- 
 holding States ; and the question is not at all affected 
 by the compromises of the Constitution. The Free 
 States agreed that three fifths of the slaves should 
 be counted in the basis of representation, and that 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 135 
 
 fugitive slaves should be delivered up. Beyond these 
 concessions to slavery they had no duty to perform. 
 They had no right to assert against it except the 
 right to be let alone. Planting himself upon the Dec 
 laration of Independence, and the clause in the Pre 
 amble of the Constitution which declares that one 
 of the purposes for which it was ordained was "to 
 secure the blessings of liberty," Giddings summoned 
 the people of all parties to the work of administer 
 ing the government in accordance with the principle 
 on which they professed to be agreed. 
 
 After setting forth with remarkable clearness the 
 rights and duties of the people of the Free States 
 touching the recapture of fugitive slaves, and the 
 suppression of "domestic violence," he proceeds to 
 point out in detail the multiplied instances in which 
 the Federal Government, from its very beginning, 
 had been prostituted to the service of slavery. He 
 refers to the Act of Congress of 1801 legalizing 
 slavery and the slave-trade in the District of Colum 
 bia, which it had no constitutional right to do; to 
 the Act, equally unauthorized, regulating the coast 
 wise slave-trade ; to the espousal of the foreign slave- 
 trade by the Federal Government, and its recognition 
 of slavery as a national interest by compensating 
 slaveholders for the loss of slaves made free under 
 British laws; to the espousal of slavery by the Fed 
 eral Government in lending itself to the recovery of 
 fugitive slaves made free by Spanish law, and in 
 compensating slave-claimants for their loss; to the 
 prosecution of the Florida War, which had its origin 
 in the unconstitutional interference of the Federal 
 Government in behalf of slavery; and to the estab 
 lishment of slavery and the slave-trade in Florida and 
 other Territories of the United States, in violation 
 
136 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 of the Constitution, which makes free all places under 
 the exclusive jurisdiction of the Government. 
 
 It is needless to follow Mr. Giddings in this branch 
 of his subject, which he thoroughly explored, laying 
 bare a mass of facts with which the country is now 
 familiar, but which were then novel and startling. 
 
 The faithful and consistent application of this 
 principle of Federal non-intervention with slavery 
 was the controlling aim of his public life; and his 
 interpretation of it invested it with the interest of a 
 political discovery. In reply to those Abolitionists 
 who sought the freedom of the slave through the 
 dissolution of the Union, he said, 
 
 " The very existence of slavery depends, not upon the Consti 
 tution, but upon its violation ; not upon the support which our 
 people are bound by the Constitution to lend it, but upon the 
 support which has been extorted from them by violation of the 
 Constitution. When the day shall arrive when Northern men 
 will insist upon their rights, and refuse to contribute the sub 
 stance acquired by their toil for the maintenance of Southern 
 slavery, that scourge of our land will cease." 
 
 Giddings was right. He had found the clew to the 
 riddle which had hitherto baffled solution. The de 
 struction of slavery wherever found outside of the 
 Slave States under Federal sanction, would have been 
 fatal to its existence in those States; and as the 
 slaveocracy was not content with its constitutional 
 rights, but was determined to nationalize and eter 
 nize the curse, he proposed to defeat its baleful 
 purpose by the weapons of the Constitution which 
 it defied. 
 
 These essays were extensively published in the 
 newspapers of the day, and in the following year 
 were printed in pamphlet form and widely scattered 
 over the Free States, under the frank of members of 
 Congress. They undoubtedly exerted great influence 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID > DINGS. 137 
 
 in the creation of an anti-slavery public opinion in the 
 Northern States, while they paved the way for the 
 organized movement which triumphed in 1860; and 
 they are worthy of preservation as an important con 
 tribution to the permanent literature of the anti- 
 slavery conflict. 1 The debatable point in them was 
 the conclusion, in which Giddings exhorts the oppo 
 nents of slavery to rally under the banner of the 
 Whig party, as the chosen instrument of reform. 
 This was a mistake, and he himself acknowledged 
 it a few years later, when that party perished in the 
 shameful attempt to outdo its Democratic rival in 
 the abjectness of its servility to the South. This 
 mistake, however, was by no means generally appar 
 ent in 1842. The Liberty party failed to rally the 
 people or to arrest public attention. Its doctrines 
 were not clearly denned, and were generally misun 
 derstood. The Whig party was extensively credited 
 with anti- slavery tendencies, while the Democratic 
 party was notoriously in sympathy with slavery. A 
 party was needed which would marshal the intelli 
 gence and conscience of the country on that single 
 question ; but the formation of such a party was not 
 the work of a day, nor could it be created by a few 
 men. It had to grow, and was obliged to wait on 
 the teaching of events. 
 
 In August of this year Giddings determined to 
 retire from public life. He was weary of the strife 
 which his attitude on the slavery question made in 
 evitable. His natural love of peace and kindness of 
 heart made him long for the rest and quiet of his 
 own home, and he accordingly addressed the follow 
 ing note to his devoted friend, Henry Fassett, editor 
 of the " Ashtabula Sentinel." 
 
 1 See Appendix. 
 
1 38 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 MR. FASSETT : 
 
 Please say to the electors of our Congressional District that it 
 is not my intention to be a candidate for re-election. I have de 
 layed answering many inquiries upon that subject, as I intended 
 addressing the people of our district through the medium of the 
 Press on my return from the present session of Congress ; but 
 that time has been so long delayed that I think duty requires me 
 to inform our people of my determination. 
 
 This was a surprise and a disappointment to Mr. 
 Fassett; he at once called about him a number of the 
 most intelligent and faithful friends of Giddings, who 
 earnestly and unitedly protested against his retire 
 ment, and finally prevailed upon him to reconsider 
 his determination. But the subject was not dis 
 missed from his mind, as will appear from a letter 
 to Mrs. Giddings a few months later, in which he 
 endeavored to persuade himself that he had already 
 rendered service enough to justify his retirement. 
 The absolute frankness of this letter, which was in 
 tended only for his own household, will interest the 
 reader. He does not disguise the satisfaction he 
 feels in referring to his achievements, while the gen 
 eral tone is that of a tired man longing for rest. It 
 is a revelation of himself. I quote the following- 
 extract : 
 
 " My opposers need not say, Oh that mine enemy had writ 
 ten a book ! for they have my views on slavery pretty fully ex 
 pressed. Taking my speech on the Bridge question in 1838-39, 
 my speech on the Florida War, my resolutions on the * Creole, 
 my speech on the Army Bill, on the bill for the relief of the 
 people of West Florida, and that on the bill for the relief of the 
 owners of slaves on board the Comet and Encomium, and 
 Pacificus, and the world may understand my views tolerably 
 well. This I have been anxious to bring about, and that object 
 is now effected ; so that, should I die to-morrow, or never again 
 appear before the public in any way, I can lay my hand on my 
 heart and say that in this respect I have endeavored to do my duty. 
 
 " It is therefore a great satisfaction to me now to look back 
 over the scenes through which I have passed. They have surely 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA A . GIDDINGS. 139 
 
 been scenes of trial, of severe trial. My reputation and character 
 at times I really apprehended would be trampled in the dust 
 before the almost irresistible influence of slavery. Indeed, my 
 life has been sought on account of my adherence to truth and 
 justice. But I have been sustained and protected by that kind 
 Providence which has always been round about me, and I now 
 look forward to the time when I may lay aside the cares and 
 responsibilities of public life, and making my bow to the people, 
 I may be allowed to retire from the arena of strife and danger 
 to the bosom of my family." 
 
 But he was again prevailed upon by friends to 
 remain at his post of duty, and he perhaps yielded 
 to their wishes the more readily from the fact that at 
 this time he was receiving resolutions of thanks and 
 congratulatory addresses from public meetings and 
 societies in nearly every Free State, warmly com 
 mending the doctrines he had avowed in Congress, 
 and the steadfastness with which he had maintained 
 them. He saw that his labors, to which he had re 
 ferred in the foregoing letter, were appreciated, and 
 that the cause of freedom was advancing. He was 
 no longer to stand alone. Eloquent lecturers were 
 travelling and speaking in all the Free States, while 
 such papers as "The Emancipator," "The Liberator," 
 and " The Philanthropist " were doing excellent work 
 for the cause. The time to lay aside his armor had 
 not come, for he was in the midst of his fight. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 DECEMBER, 1842, TO DECEMBER, 1844. 
 
 Second Session of the Twenty-seventh Congress. The Twenty-first 
 Rule. Southern Intolerance. Claim of West Florida Slavehold 
 ers. Claim for Slaves lost in the Coastwise Trade. Speech. 
 Encounter with a Southern Bully. Annexation of Texas. The 
 Twenty-eighth Congress. Presidential Canvass of 1844. Position 
 of Mr. Clay. His Letters. Attitude of Giddings. Friendship 
 of Adams and Himself. 
 
 A 
 
 T the beginning of this session Mr. Adams intro 
 duced a resolution repealing the Twenty-first 
 Rule of the House, and called for the previous ques 
 tion. The House seconded the demand, but refused 
 to order the main question, and the subject was post 
 poned from day to day for some time, when it was laid 
 on the table by a bare majority. All parties saw that 
 the gag-rule was doomed. An attempt was made at 
 this session by the Southern members of the Com 
 mittee on Claims to deprive Giddings of his chair 
 manship of that committee, on account of his action 
 in the "Creole" case; but as the Speaker of the 
 House was friendly to him, and as he also shared the 
 warm friendship of Mr. Clay, the project was finally 
 abandoned. Southern members, however, became 
 more insolent and overbearing during this session 
 than at any previous time, while the little group 
 of men who defied them and dared to claim their 
 souls as their own had grown no larger. And yet 
 the spirit of liberty was gradually extending among 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 141 
 
 the better class of men throughout the Northern 
 States. The labors and sacrifices of Adams and 
 Giddings had not been in vain. The constitutional 
 doctrines of the " Pacificus " papers were spreading, 
 while the growing madness of the slaveocracy was 
 itself a sign of promise to its foes. 
 
 On the 1 4th of January, 1843, the question of prop 
 erty in human beings was brought before the House 
 in a very offensive form. When General Jackson 
 invaded West Florida in 1814, his camp-followers 
 took with them, on leaving the Territory, more than 
 a hundred slaves ; and when he again invaded it, four 
 years later, he took from the inhabitants a consider 
 able amount of provisions. By the ninth article of 
 our treaty with Spain, in 1820, it was stipulated "that 
 the Spanish inhabitants shall receive compensation 
 for any losses they may have sustained by reason of 
 the operations of the late American army within that 
 territory." Under this treaty all claims arising from 
 the operations of the army in 1818 were adjusted; but 
 those who had lost slaves during the invasion of 1814 
 now claimed indemnity. Mr. Crawford, at that time 
 Secretary of the Treasury, rejected the claims. They 
 were then sent to Congress, where they were also 
 rejected. But the claimants presented them to the 
 following Congress; and Mr. Everett, Chairman of 
 the Committee on Foreign Affairs, to whom the 
 claims were referred, reported in favor of payment. 
 The House, however, did not sanction his report. 
 Mr. Woodbury, who succeeded Mr. Crawford as Sec 
 retary of the Treasury, and to whom the claims were 
 now referred, paid some thousands of dollars on their 
 liquidation, but on learning the action of his prede 
 cessor, he refused further payment. The claimants 
 again applied to Congress, and at the next session 
 
142 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 the case was referred to the Committee on Territo 
 ries, of which the Hon. James Cooper of Pennsyl 
 vania was chairman, who reported a bill for the 
 payment. As Mr. Slade was in declining health and 
 Mr. Gates was unwilling to take the lead in debate, 
 Adams and Giddings alone had to face the hungry 
 and importunate demands of the slaveholders. 
 
 Mr. Adams spoke with great earnestness and effect. 
 He carried the members with him as he progressed 
 with his argument, and the fate of the bill was dis 
 tinctly foreshadowed on the countenances of mem 
 bers. Giddings, like Adams, dwelt chiefly upon the 
 moral character of slavery, and insisted that nothing 
 which man could do could make one human being 
 the property of another. Mr. Howard of Michigan 
 said "a bill of sale from the Almighty" would do it; 
 to which Giddings promptly replied that in such a 
 case he would deny the handwriting. Holmes of 
 South Carolina called him to order, but he was 
 allowed to proceed with his argument. The dele 
 gate from Florida made a feeble speech in reply, 
 after which the vote was taken on the bill, only 
 thirty-six members giving it their support. 
 
 On the I4th of February another claim for the 
 value of lost slaves came before the House. It re 
 lated to the slave-ships "Comet" and "Encomium," 
 which were wrecked near the British West India 
 Islands, and the slaves made free by coming under the 
 jurisdiction of British law, as stated in a previous 
 chapter. The claim was first asserted under Presi 
 dent Jackson, and on the false representation of Mr. 
 Stevenson, our minister to England, that this Gov 
 ernment had been in the habit of recognizing slaves 
 as property, the British Ministry consented to pay 
 some seventy-five thousand dollars for the benefit 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 143 
 
 of slave-dealers. Without consulting Congress, the 
 President paid out all but nine thousand dollars, for 
 which no claimants appeared. When about to retire 
 from office, President Van Buren paid over this bal 
 ance to the Treasurer of the United States, who, 
 however, refused to pay it to the claimants now ask 
 ing it, without an Act of Congress authorizing him to 
 do so. They therefore applied to Congress, and their 
 petition was referred to the Committee on Ways and 
 Means, which reported a bill authorizing the Treas 
 urer to pay over the money to the claimants. 
 
 Giddings proposed to Stanly of North Carolina, 
 who had the matter in charge as the representative 
 of the claimants, who were his constituents, that the 
 bill should simply authorize the Treasurer to replace 
 the money in the hands of the Executive, which 
 would answer every practical purpose, and relieve 
 Congress of the odium of taxing the people for the 
 support of the slave-trade. Stanly agreed to this, 
 and at his request Giddings drew up a bill which 
 Stanly accepted as a substitute for the original bill, 
 and which was passed by the House. When it was 
 taken up in the Senate, the original bill reported 
 by the committee was substituted by the House bill, 
 and came back in that form. Giddings was aston 
 ished at the apparent treachery of Stanly, who de 
 clined to make any explanation; and having charge 
 of it, he was awarded the floor, and demanded the 
 previous question. Giddings asked him to withdraw 
 the demand; but he refused, and the question on con 
 curring in the Senate s substitute was put and carried. 
 
 Giddings was of course indignant, and having 
 voted in the affirmative for the purpose, he now 
 moved to reconsider the vote, and entered into a 
 thorough discussion of the policy of the Government 
 
144 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G1DDINGS. 
 
 respecting the traffic in slaves. He exposed the 
 shameless falsehood of our minister to England, 
 through which he prevailed on the British Ministry 
 to allow these claims. He referred to our coastwise 
 slave-trade, under the operation of which the slaves 
 in this case became free by passing beyond the terri 
 torial jurisdiction of slavery, and to the readiness of 
 the Government to aid the slave-dealer, while it 
 gagged the men who would denounce his crimes. He 
 reprobated the unauthorized action of Jackson and 
 Van Buren in espousing the interests of these claim 
 ants without consulting Congress, thus making them 
 selves the agents and solicitors of piratical slave- 
 dealers. He pointed to the inconsistency of the 
 Government in hanging men as pirates for trafficking 
 in slaves on the African coast and keeping an expensive 
 squadron there to guard it, while supporting a more 
 execrable traffic at home. In conclusion, he said : 
 
 " Sir, place this subject in whatever attitude you please, throw 
 around it whatever sophistry the human intellect is capable of 
 calling into exercise, yet the disgusting fact will stand portrayed 
 to the world in coming time that in the year 1843 this American 
 Congress sat gravely legislating in aid of this traffic in human 
 flesh. Let it go upon the record. Let the archives of this body 
 bear to coming generations the proof that two hundred and forty- 
 two American statesmen were on this day engaged in granting 
 relief and encouragement to persons engaged in that execrable 
 commerce which Mr. Jefferson declared had rendered us the 
 scoff of infidel nations. But let not my name be found among 
 its advocates. Let not my descendants in future years be called 
 to blush for their ancestor on reading the record of this day s 
 proceeding. Sooner, far sooner, would I have it erased from the 
 records of this House, yea, sooner would I have it blotted from 
 existence, than see it placed on record in favor of the bill 
 before us." 
 
 The motion of Giddings to reconsider the bill was 
 laid on the table, after which he rose to a question 
 of privilege touching an occurrence which had taken 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 145 
 
 place during the proceedings. He said that while 
 speaking he had noticed several persons standing in 
 front of the clerk s desk, one of whom was Mr. Daw- 
 son of Louisiana; that the moment he closed his 
 remarks he was violently pushed by what appeared 
 to be the elbow of a man pressing against his side, 
 while at the same instant Mr. Dawson passed him, 
 on his way from the outside towards the clerk s desk; 
 that he approached from behind, and was neither 
 heard nor seen until this manifestation of his dis 
 pleasure; that recognizing Dawson as he passed, he 
 spoke in an undertone, but so loud as to be heard, 
 saying, " Dawson ! " when that member turned around 
 and seized the handle of a bowie-knife, which par 
 tially protruded from his bosom, and immediately 
 advanced towards Giddings until within striking dis 
 tance, when, looking him in the eye, Giddings said, 
 "Did you push me in that rude manner?" He an 
 swered, " Yes." " For the purpose of insulting me? " 
 "Yes," said Dawson, as he partially removed the 
 knife from the scabbard. Giddings rejoined: "No 
 gentleman will wantonly insult another. I have no 
 more to say to you, but turn you over to public con 
 tempt, as incapable of insulting an honorable man." 
 
 By this time Mr. Moore of Louisanna and other 
 members, seized Dawson and took him from the 
 hall. Giddings stated to the House that he felt it 
 due to the members of the body to lay these facts 
 before them, wishing it distinctly understood that 
 he asked no protection from the House, but left that 
 body to protect its own dignity. Mr. Calhoun of 
 Massachusetts insisted on reading the manual re 
 lating to privileges of members, and Mr. Adams 
 inquired whether Dawson threatened to cut Mr. 
 Giddings throat from ear to ear, as he had that of the 
 
 10 
 
146 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 gentleman from Tennessee a few days before, when 
 Mr. Arnold said something unpleasant to Dawson. 
 The matter of privilege was dropped at this point. 
 Dawson had doubtless acted with the approbation 
 of several members, who probably desired to try the 
 experiment of threatening personal violence, to deter 
 members from the expression of their views. It was 
 generally believed that Dawson intended to provoke 
 a blow from Giddings, which would have served as 
 an excuse for assassination. The exhibition aroused 
 in the public mind a feeling of disgust at the grow 
 ing insolence of slaveholding members. 
 
 The question of annexing Texas to the Union was 
 now coming to the front as a vital and overshadowing 
 issue. The slaveocracy was secretly plotting for an 
 nexation, but the great body of the people of the 
 Northern States were as yet ignorant of this con 
 spiracy to bring them into political partnership with 
 a new slaveholding State. It was Mr. Adams who 
 sounded the alarm, and his character and sources of 
 information were such that his words made a power 
 ful impression on the public opinion of the country. 
 On the 3d of March, twenty members of Congress 
 united in an address to the people of the Free States, 
 assuring them that the annexation of Texas had been 
 resolved upon by the statesmen and politicians of the 
 South; that the object was to extend and perpetu 
 ate the institution of slavery; that it must involve 
 us in a war with Mexico for its support ; that no act 
 could be more dangerous than for the Government 
 to enter upon the conquest of territory to enlarge 
 its power; and that a dissolution of the Union 
 would not only result from the policy, but the act 
 itself would be an abandonment of the Union then 
 enjoyed and the formation of a new one with foreign 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 147 
 
 slaveholders. The address further declared that no 
 act of the Executive, or of Congress, or of all the 
 departments of the Government could impose upon 
 the people of the Free States any constitutional obli 
 gation to submit to such a transfer, or to become 
 subservient in any degree to the foreign slaveholders 
 of Texas. This address was written by Seth M. Gates, 
 and was signed by John Quincy Adams, Seth M. 
 Gates, William Slade, Wm. B. Calhoun, Joshua R. 
 Giddings, Sherlock J. Andrews, Nathaniel B. Borden, 
 Thomas C. Chittenden, John Mattocks, Christopher 
 Morgan, Jacob M. Howard, Victory Birdseye, Thomas 
 Tomlinson, Staley N. Clarke, Charles Hudson, Archi 
 bald L. Linn, Thomas W. Williams, Truman Smith, 
 David Bronson, and Geo. N. Briggs. It was pub 
 lished at the close of the session in the " National 
 Intelligencer," and was generally copied by the Whig 
 papers of the North. 
 
 The project was now fairly launched. This ad 
 dress called the attention of the Mexican Govern 
 ment to the conspiracy then on foot in the United 
 States to dismember that Republic, and the Mexican 
 Executive notified the President that Texas was a 
 revolted province which the Government of Mexico 
 was endeavoring tQ bring back to its allegiance, and 
 that its annexation to the United States would neces 
 sarily involve a state of hostilities between the two 
 countries. The President entered upon the work of 
 negotiating a treaty of annexation, while the fact that 
 Lord Brougham had declared in the House of Lords 
 that "the abolition of slavery in Texas would cut off 
 the market for slaves now sent from the slave-breed 
 ing States of the Union to Texas, and thereby tend 
 to the abolition of slavery in the States," was referred 
 to as an incident of an "alarming character." 
 
148 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 When the Twenty-eighth Congress assembled, in 
 December, 1843, two of the anti-slavery colleagues 
 of Giddings, Messrs. Gates and Slade, had retired 
 from public life, and their seats were filled by new 
 and untried members. Mr. Adams alone, now sev 
 enty-six years of age, remained. His hand was un 
 steady and his voice feeble, but his mind was 
 unimpaired, and although much discouraged, he was 
 fully resolved to continue at his post of duty so long 
 as his strength would permit. His age and historic 
 position partially shielded him from the violence of 
 his Southern assailants; but with Giddings the case 
 was different. He was contemptuously denounced 
 as an "Abolitionist" and an "agitator." It was the 
 fashion of Democratic papers everywhere to assail 
 him, while public meetings of the party singled him 
 out for denunciation. The Press of his own party 
 did not sustain him, and the common civilities usually 
 extended to members of Congress were denied him. 
 He exchanged cards with but few, and wholly 
 abstained from making calls of ceremony. After 
 having long served as Chairman of the Committee 
 on Claims, he was now removed from that post, and 
 assigned to the seventh position in the Committee 
 on Revolutionary Pensions, which had no business 
 and did not meet. Such were the circumstances 
 under which he resumed his public duties. But he 
 accepted the situation without flinching, and girded 
 himself for the conflict. 
 
 At this session Mr. Adams succeeded in having a 
 committee appointed, of which he was chairman, to re 
 port a code of rules for the government of the House. 
 He made a report omitting the Twenty-first Rule, and 
 the debate upon it during the morning hour was con 
 tinued for several weeks, when it was laid on the table 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 149 
 
 by a small majority. Giddings relates that during 
 the progress of this debate, on entering the hall one 
 morning, he found Mr. Adams greatly burdened in 
 mind. His appearance indicated the loss of sleep. 
 He declared that our government had become the 
 most perfect despotism of the Christian world; that 
 he was physically disqualified to contend longer for 
 the floor; and that he must leave the vindication of 
 his report to Giddings, as duty to himself forbade 
 further attempt on his part. He said he had in 
 dulged the hope of living to see the gag-rule abro 
 gated, but he now considered this doubtful. Giddings 
 was touched by this appeal, and on obtaining the floor 
 on the 2d of February following, he made a vigor 
 ous argument against the rule, which hastened its 
 approaching overthrow. 
 
 On the 28th of December, a colored man named 
 William Jones, who had been imprisoned in the 
 Washington jail on suspicion that he was a fugitive, 
 found means to send a petition to Giddings, stating 
 that he was a free citizen of the United States, born 
 in Virginia, and while residing in Washington, with 
 out any charge of crime or offence, he had been seized 
 and imprisoned, and after considerable expense had 
 been incurred, which he was unable to pay, he was ad 
 vertised for sale to meet the costs of this proceeding. 
 He asserted that he had no owner but God, and he 
 prayed Congress to protect him in the enjoyment of 
 his liberty. Giddings presented his petition, and 
 moved its reference to a select committee. The 
 presentation of this petition from one presumed by 
 Southern laws to be a slave created some sensation, 
 but there was no display of ruffianism, and no motion 
 to censure the member presenting it. The petition 
 was respectfully received, but the debate upon it was 
 
150 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 postponed until the following day, when Mr. Saun- 
 ders of North Carolina declared that the law in all 
 Slave States, and in the District of Columbia, pre 
 sumed every colored person a slave who could not 
 prove his freedom, and that respect for this law de 
 manded the instant rejection of the petition. To 
 this it was replied that no such presumption could 
 be just or reasonable, or in accordance with the 
 Constitution, and that it was neither more nor less 
 than a mode of enslaving free persons, and was pi 
 ratical in its character. The subject was debated at 
 some length, after which the petition was referred 
 to the Committee on the Judiciary, which never made 
 any report. 
 
 In the course of the debate Mr. Adams referred to 
 the fact that in the preceding Congress, when a citi 
 zen of Louisiana was shown to be illegally impris 
 oned in the Washington jail, the House promptly 
 suspended the rules in order to pass a bill for his 
 relief, and within a half hour from its introduction 
 the bill reached the Senate. But the wronged man 
 in this case was white. 
 
 On the same day the vigilance of Giddings found 
 further employment in dealing with our home squad 
 ron. The subject was brought before the House by 
 a resolution of Mr. Hale, of New Hampshire, calling 
 for certain information respecting this establishment. 
 Its ostensible purpose was the protection of American 
 commerce; but Giddings joined Adams in warning the 
 public that the interests of slavery were chiefly con 
 cerned in its operations. He referred to the fact that 
 a lieutenant in command of one of our national vessels 
 had prostituted the flag of his country to the base pur 
 pose of catching fugitive slaves on the coast of Flor 
 ida. He declared that the coastwise slave-trade was 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. I 5 I 
 
 no part of American commerce, as the Supreme Court 
 had decided, and he was opposed to the use of the 
 navy for the relief of slave-ships employed in trans 
 porting human cargoes around the peninsula of Flor 
 ida to the New Orleans market. The agitation of 
 this question seemed to be very distasteful to South 
 ern members, and after a brief debate they managed 
 to suppress it. 
 
 It was in the latter part of December that Mr. 
 Adams introduced the memorial of the Massachu 
 setts Legislature, praying an amendment of that fea 
 ture of the Constitution which allowed three fifths 
 of the slaves to be counted in the basis of represen 
 tation. It gave rise to a memorable debate, and was 
 referred to a select committee of nine members, con 
 sisting of Adams of Massachusetts, Rhett of South 
 Carolina, J. R. Ingersoll of Pennsylvania, Gilmer 
 of Virginia, Davis of Kentucky, Burke of New 
 Hampshire, Morse of Maine, Sample of Indiana, 
 and Giddings of Ohio. The question involved was 
 seriously argued in committee, after which a resolu 
 tion was unanimously adopted, declaring it inexpe 
 dient at that time for the House to recommend such 
 an amendment of the Constitution, and the chairman, 
 Mr. Adams, was directed to prepare a report to that 
 effect. It was not ready till April, 1844, when every 
 member was present to hear it read. It declared 
 that the provision of the Constitution giving the 
 enslavers of men superior power and influence in 
 the government over non-slaveholders " is opposed 
 to the vital principles of Republican representation; 
 to the self-evident truths of the Declaration of Inde 
 pendence ; to the letter and spirit of the Constitution 
 itself; to the letter and spirit of the Constitutions of 
 almost all the States of the Union; to the liberties 
 
152 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 of the whole people of the Free States, and to all 
 that portion of the people of the Slave States other 
 than the owners of slaves; that this is its essential 
 and inextinguishable character in principle; and 
 that its fruits, in its entire practical operation upon 
 the government, correspond with that character." 
 The report further declared that "the Declaration 
 of Independence constituted a sacred pledge in the 
 name of God, solemnly given by each State, to abol 
 ish slavery as soon as practicable, and to substitute 
 freedom in its place;" and that "slavery is opposed 
 to all the teachings of the gospel, is at war with God s 
 attribute of justice, and should be eradicated from 
 the earth." 
 
 While this report conceded that the time for rec 
 ommending the proposed change of the Constitution 
 had not yet arrived, the doctrines it enunciated were 
 well calculated to arouse in the American people a 
 spirit of liberty that would hasten the day of total 
 emancipation. It was such an arraignment of the 
 viciousness of slave representation as John Quincy 
 Adams alone could make, and its influence upon 
 public opinion was inestimable. Adams and Gid- 
 dings alone signed this report, while the other mem 
 bers of the committee agreed upon three special 
 reports, drawn to meet the views of the members 
 who signed them. The memorial and resolves of the 
 Legislature of Massachusetts were presented in the 
 Senate, where they were denounced as "resolutions 
 to dissolve the Union," and were laid on the table; 
 but the motion to print t/icm was rejected. A few 
 days later, Mr. Berrien of Georgia presented resolu 
 tions from that State in opposition to the change 
 of the Constitution prayed for by Massachusetts. 
 These resolutions were respectfully laid on the table, 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 153 
 
 and ordered to be printed. So craven was the Senate 
 that this insult to Massachusetts and discrimination 
 in favor of the barbarism of slavery was suffered to 
 go unrebuked by any voice in that body. 
 
 On the 1 8th of April Giddings addressed the 
 House on the claim of the Spanish pirates, Montez 
 and Ruiz, for compensation for the loss of the ne 
 groes on board the "Amistad." This claim, as we 
 have seen, had been declared void by the Supreme 
 Court of the United States ; but it was now brought 
 before Congress in a bill from the Committee on 
 Foreign Affairs, accompanied by an elaborate report 
 from its chairman, Hon. Charles J. Ingersoll of 
 Pennsylvania, who moved to print ten thousand extra 
 copies. 
 
 The speech of Giddings has been referred to in a 
 preceding chapter; but it does so much honor both 
 to his head and his heart that some further mention of 
 it is demanded. In his opening remarks he said, 
 
 " The proposition goes one degree beyond any other ever 
 made to this body. We have been called on to sustain our own 
 coastwise slave-trade, but never were we asked to support the 
 African slave-trade, until the presentation of the report under 
 consideration. We have been called on, as the House is aware, 
 to legislate for the encouragement of our own slave-merchants ; 
 but never, until this report came before us, were we asked to 
 sustain the slave-dealers of Cuba. We have surely entered upon 
 a new era in our national legislation. The people of the Free 
 States should certainly understand the burdens we are about to 
 place upon them. 
 
 " The advocates of oppression are desirous of preparing the 
 public mind to receive the insult about to be tendered the people 
 of the North. Hence the necessity of sending out this extraordi 
 nary number of the report, which is perhaps the ablest vindi 
 cation of the foreign slave-trade that has emanated from any 
 legislative body during the present century. And it is hoped 
 that this argument will have the effect of reconciling our people 
 of the North to the degradation of becoming involved in the 
 guilt of sustaining this commerce. 
 
154 THR LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 " The author of the report is entitled to much credit for the 
 boldness of his positions. To stand forth upon the records of 
 our nation as the advocate of Spanish slave-merchants, to espouse 
 the cause of foreign slave-dealers, and to denounce those who 
 oppose that execrable commerce, requires at this day no small 
 portion of moral courage. The report in question, with great 
 gravity, proposes to review and re-examine the solemn decision 
 of the highest judicial tribunal known to our laws. It goes on 
 to point out the supposed errors, and proposes that we shall cor 
 rect them. 
 
 " This, I believe, is the first proposition of the kind ever 
 brought before this body. A new precedent is sought to be 
 established. We are to erect ourselves into a court for the cor 
 rection of errors committed in the judicial branch of government. 
 How far the precedent is to extend, I know not; nor am I able 
 to say whether this supervisory power is also to extend over the 
 executive department or not. We have generally found much 
 more business than we have been able to transact while we con 
 fined ourselves to the legitimate subjects of legislation. But if, 
 to these ordinary duties, we add that of a court for the correction 
 of errors, it will become necessary to have another department 
 formed, whose duty it shall be to legislate for the nation. And 
 what, I ask, is the occasion which demands of us thus to assume 
 new duties unknown to the Constitution ? Why, sir, it is nothing 
 less than to pay a sum of money from the public treasury to 
 these slave-traders, in a case where the law will not give it ; where 
 respect for ourselves, for our own consistency, and for the char 
 acter of the nation forbid it ; where justice, humanity, and the 
 Constitution forbid it. 
 
 " We appropriate a million of dollars annually to suppress the 
 African slave-trade and to hang our own people who engage in 
 it ; and we are now asked to pay a large sum to the Spanish 
 slave-dealers to encourage them to persevere in their accursed 
 vocation. How many gentlemen who placed their names on 
 record but a few days since in favor of so large an appropriation 
 of money to suppress this African slave-trade, are now willing to 
 record their names in favor of an appropriation of seventy thou 
 sand dollars to promote it? How many are prepared to vote for 
 that trade to-day who voted against it yesterday ? " 
 
 Giddings argued the case at length and with great 
 thoroughness, presenting the legal and moral aspects 
 of the question with much clearness and force. He 
 concluded, 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 155 
 
 " We have been called to legislate in favor of the slave-dealers 
 of our own land. We have been asked to pay them for slaves 
 lost and for slaves stolen ; but never, until this report was made, 
 has Congress been called on to pay foreigners for their losses 
 while dealing in human flesh. I have felt it my duty to meet 
 this proposition at the threshold, and to oppose it with what 
 energy and influence I possess. I have done so, knowing the 
 feeling arrayed against me ; but the country, the people of this 
 widespread Republic, now and hereafter, will pronounce judg 
 ment upon those attempts to prostitute our powers to the support 
 of a commerce in our own species." 
 
 At the conclusion of his speech the motion to print 
 was laid on the table, and neither the bill nor the re 
 port was ever called up for consideration afterwards. 
 
 On the following day Giddings wrote, - 
 
 MY DEAR DAUGHTER, ... You will see by the " Intelligencer " 
 of this morning that yesterday brought me in contact with the 
 famous C. J. Ingersoll, of Philadelphia. He had prepared a dis 
 graceful report and bill to take seventy thousand dollars from the 
 public treasury to pay to the Spanish slave-dealers on board the 
 " Amistad." I felt indignant on reading the report. Ingersoll 
 moved to print ten thousand copies for distribution. I broke 
 forth and spoke as I felt. He felt my thrusts, for he constantly 
 interrupted me, and each interruption placed him in a more unen 
 viable situation than before. I used up my hour, and when I took 
 my seat, my old and venerable friend Mr. Adams came to my seat 
 and thanked me with great feeling, and added, " You have told us 
 God s truth." Other friends assured me that I made a better 
 speech than I ever made before. I expected that Ingersoll would 
 be down upon me this morning with great power; but after 
 examining my positions he submitted to have the motion laid 
 on the table, and this is an end of it. You see by the " Intelli 
 gencer " a short sketch of my remarks ; but it is meagre. The 
 short passages at arms between us gave much amusement to 
 members, who several times cheered me loudly, while the slave 
 holders sat around me in silent sadness. You must excuse me for 
 not correcting what I have written ; I have no time to do so. 
 God bless you ! 
 
 J. R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 On the 2 ist of May, Giddings addressed the House 
 on the question of annexation. Many speeches had 
 
156 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 been made in favor of the project, but this was the 
 first in opposition. Referring to the argument that 
 the acquisition of Texas was necessary to the security 
 of slavery, and that, therefore, the guarantees of the 
 Constitution required it, he said, 
 
 " Sir, this senseless jargon, this eternal repetition concerning 
 the guarantees of slavery, is daily sounding in our ears. It is 
 put forth by men of character and those high in office. Sir, the 
 idea that the Constitution contains a guarantee of slavery is an 
 impeachment both of the sincerity and the judgment of the 
 framers of that charter of American liberty ; and I take this 
 occasion to repeat my assertion that no such stipulation exists, 
 or ever did exist, in that instrument. And standing here, in the 
 presence of so many learned and able statesmen of the South, 
 many of whom have repeated the unfounded assumption, I call 
 upon any one or all of them to refer me to any such covenant or 
 stipulation in the Constitution. 
 
 " Mr. BRENGLE of Maryland stated that at the formation of the 
 Constitution slavery existed in most of the States, and that slaves 
 were regarded as property, and, in that light, were the subject 
 of protection as much as any other property. 
 
 " Mr. GIDDINGS. Will the gentleman point me to the section 
 in which I may find this guarantee ? 
 
 " Mr. BRENGLE. I don t refer to any section in particular, but 
 to the whole instrument. [A laugh.] 
 
 " Mr. GIDDINGS. Well, Mr. Chairman, I have finally chased 
 this notable guarantee into the region of Southern abstrac 
 tions; but I declare I never came so near finding it before. 
 [Laughter.] . . . 
 
 " But I ask, where is the power to annex territory to the Union 
 for the purpose of sustaining slavery in a foreign state ? To 
 open up new slave-markets ? To assume the war of a foreign 
 state ? To use the army and navy, and violate our treaties with 
 other governments, for the purpose of perpetuating an institution 
 which we detest? I denounce all these efforts to plunge us into 
 a war, to pour out the treasure and the blood of a nation that 
 slavery and the slave-trade may flourish, as violations of the Con 
 stitution and of the dearest rights of the people. 
 
 " I discard the idea of interfering with the institution in any of 
 the States. I admit their power to hold slaves, independent of 
 Congress or of the Federal Government. Sir, I admit your legal 
 right, under the laws of Virginia, to hold your fellow-man in 
 bondage. I cannot interfere with that privilege. But while I do 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 157 
 
 this, I demand an equal respect for the rights and privileges of 
 the people of my State. Ohio has an indisputable right to be 
 free and exempt from the support of slavery." 
 
 Returning to the question of power, Giddings said : 
 
 " Sir, the President, in seeking to sustain slavery in Texas, 
 proposes to annex that government to this Union. Those who 
 oppose this policy deny the constitutional power to associate a 
 foreign people with us in the administration of government. To 
 this the gentleman from Alabama [Mr. Belser] replied rather 
 sneeringly, as I thought, that there was a class of public men who 
 deny the constitutional power of the Federal Government to 
 annex Texas to this Union. He then went on to say that such 
 were the views of the Abolitionists, and that their candidate for 
 President [James G. Birney] had started this doctrine. Now, I 
 beg leave to differ with that gentleman as to the authorship of 
 this doctrine. It had been put forth long before Mr. Birney s 
 letter was written. It was put forth by a greater abolitionist 
 than Mr. Birney, by a man whom I have always regarded 
 as a far greater man, and to whose opinions I have, from my 
 youth up, been taught to pay the highest respect. [Cries, Who 
 is it? Who is it? ] He was the author of the first abolition 
 tract ever published in the United States, and, in my opinion, the 
 best ever put forth. [Cries, Name him ! Name him ! ] I bor 
 rowed my own abolition sentiments from his writings, and have 
 cherished them, and shall continue to do so, from respect to his 
 memory, if from no other motive. His name was Thomas Jeffer 
 son. [A laugh.] And his abolition tract was called the Decla 
 ration of Independence [great laughter]." 
 
 The question of annexation now completely occu 
 pied the public mind in every section of the Union. 
 In furtherance of the scheme, Mr. Webster had been 
 retired from the State Department, and Mr. Upshur, 
 a disciple of Calhoun, succeeded him. On Upshur s 
 death Calhoun himself was made Secretary of State. 
 Pending the negotiation of a treaty of annexation, the 
 question found its way into our party politics and 
 dictated the Presidential nomination. Mr. Clay was 
 nominated by the Whigs, on the 1st of May, and his 
 position on this question had been clearly defined in 
 his letter to the "National Intelligencer " of the i/th 
 
158 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 of April, in which he declared that annexation and 
 war with Mexico were identical, and placed himself 
 squarely against it, except upon conditions named, 
 which would make the project of immediate an 
 nexation impossible. On the slavery question he 
 had not yet seriously offended the anti-slavery ele 
 ment in his own party, and was even trusted by 
 some of the voting Abolitionists. In his speech at 
 Raleigh, in April of this year, he declared it to be 
 the duty of each State to sustain its own domestic 
 institutions. He had publicly said that the General 
 Government had nothing to do with slavery save in 
 the matters of taxation, representation, and the re- 
 turn of fugitive slaves; and he had condemned the 
 censure of Giddings, in 1842, as an outrage, and 
 indorsed the principles laid down in his papers 
 signed "Pacificus." 
 
 James K. Polk was nominated by the Democrats, 
 on the 2/th of May, solely on the ground that he 
 was unequivocally committed to the policy of imme 
 diate annexation, and because Mr. Van Buren, in the 
 face of a great temptation, had written his manly and 
 statesmanlike letter in disapproval of the project. 
 The Liberty party had nominated James G. Birney 
 in August of the previous year, so that there were 
 now three Presidential candidates, all chosen with 
 special reference to the same great question. 
 
 The cordial friendship existing between Clay and 
 Giddings at this time is shown in a letter to Mrs. 
 Giddings, dated April 28, from which I quote: 
 
 " Mr. Clay came to the city on Friday. I called to pay my 
 respects and to introduce my colleagues. He is in fine health, 
 and appeared glad to see me. Although many Southern men of 
 high standing were present, he complimented me on the course I 
 had taken in public life, and declared my views to be correct. 
 By the way, while in North Carolina he avowed my principles, 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 159 
 
 without, however, making any allusion to me. It is not un 
 likely that I felt flattered by the compliment he paid me ; and 
 I certainly felt a high gratification when I read his remarks at 
 Raleigh, in which he set forth, in a short and lucid manner, the 
 entire doctrines of Pacificus. " 
 
 The confidence of Giddings in the anti-slavery 
 character of Henry Clay is one of the remarkable 
 facts of his public life. It may be partially ac 
 counted for by his admiration for the great leader, 
 which he shared with all his fellow Whigs, and by 
 the indescribable power of Clay s personal magnet 
 ism, which was even more potent in the social circle 
 than in his public speeches. In the speech from 
 which I have just quoted, he says, 
 
 " I verily believe that Mr. Clay will administer the govern 
 ment, if elected, with a strict regard to the constitutional rights 
 of all the States. This he stands pledged to do ; and a long life 
 of public service has given me and the public satisfactory evi 
 dence that he will wipe out the foul disgrace already brought 
 upon our national character by attempting to make slavery and 
 the slave-trade subjects of national support." 
 
 And yet in his famous speech in the Senate against 
 the Abolitionists, in 1839, Clay had declared himself 
 against the abolition of slavery and the slave-trade 
 in the District of Columbia. He had justified the 
 action of Congress in behalf of the coastwise slave- 
 trade by referring it to the power of Congress to 
 regulate commerce between the States. He had 
 opposed the prohibition of slavery in the Territory 
 of Florida. He had declared that " that is property 
 which the law makes to be property," and that "two 
 hundred years of legislation have sanctioned and 
 sanctified negro slaves as property," doctrines which 
 Giddings and all the Abolitionists on both sides of 
 the Atlantic utterly repudiated. He had repeated the 
 current accusation that the Abolitionists had tight- 
 

 160 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA A. G ID DINGS. 
 
 ened the chains of slavery and postponed indefinitely 
 the work of emancipation, while he declared that as 
 a citizen of any one of the planting States, he would 
 oppose "any scheme of emancipation whatever, grad 
 ual or immediate." It should be remembered, too, 
 that in the Senate, in 1840, he joined Calhoun in the 
 effort to nationalize slavery and the traffic in slaves, 
 by supporting the resolutions of the latter touching 
 the slave-ship "Enterprise." Indeed, it was Clay s 
 offensive record on the slavery question which armed 
 the Liberty party with its power, and exposed Gid- 
 dings to the hot shot of the followers of Birney on 
 the one hand, and the equally galling fire of the 
 annexationists on the other. It is quite evident, 
 therefore, that when Clay declared it to be the duty 
 of each State to sustain its own domestic institu 
 tions, and indorsed "the entire doctrines of Pacifi- 
 cus, " he meant one thing, while Giddings meant 
 a totally different thing. 
 
 But the issue in this canvass involved other con 
 siderations than the attitude of Mr. Clay on the 
 slavery question. Giddings was a Whig, and thus 
 far his Whig constituents had sustained him. In 
 Congress the Whigs from the Northern States, as a 
 rule, had stood by him in his fight over the " Creole " 
 resolutions, his struggle for the right of petition, and 
 his effort to denationalize slavery. Quite naturally 
 he looked to the Whig party as the instrumentality 
 through which he could best hope to give practical 
 effect to his anti-slavery principles. In common 
 with other Whigs, he believed that in this canvass 
 the best elements of society, in a very large measure, 
 stood behind Clay, the men of intelligence, high 
 character, public spirit, and uprightness in every 
 walk of life; while Polk was backed by Southern 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 161 
 
 fire-eaters, slavery extensionists, and nullifiers, who 
 were ready to subordinate the Constitution itself to 
 their zeal for their peculiar institution, and who were 
 reinforced by nearly the solid foreign vote, and the 
 vicious and criminal classes in all the great cities of 
 the North and in New Orleans. 
 
 To Giddings the question of duty seemed perfectly 
 clear. On the vital issue of annexation Clay had 
 clearly defined his position in the papers already 
 mentioned. Giddings firmly believed that his elec 
 tion would avert the calamities of war and the fatal 
 ascendancy of slavery which would follow the acqui 
 sition of Texas. The slaveocracy agreed with him. 
 Its champions believed the restriction of slavery fore 
 shadowed its destruction, and their zeal for annexa 
 tion proved the sincerity of this opinion. The issue 
 could not be mistaken, nor could its magnitude be 
 overstated. The duty of the hour was not to pro 
 mulgate a creed and organize a new party, but to 
 meet a fearful national emergency. An opportunity 
 was now offered to strike at the life of slavery by 
 strangling the only project through which it could 
 hope to extend its dominion; and no member of the 
 Liberty party could have labored more zealously and 
 conscientiously for his candidate than did Giddings 
 for the idolized leader of the Whigs. 
 
 The canvass, however, brought with it much anx 
 iety to the Whigs, and this was chiefly caused by the 
 action of Mr. Clay himself. On the 6th of July 
 Giddings addressed to him the following confidential 
 letter :- 
 
 DEAR SIR, On my return from Washington I found our 
 people as much engaged in the coming contest as I had ex 
 pected. Our Fourth of July passed off in a manner highly 
 flattering to our cause. Our people, of all political parties, re 
 gard the great questions to be, Whether the nation shall assume 
 
 II 
 
1 62 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 upon itself the support of slavery in the States ? Whether the 
 people of the Free States shall be involved in the expense of its 
 maintenance ? These questions, you are aware, are pressed 
 upon our attention in the official correspondence accompanying 
 the Texas treaty ; and we regard them as important, and even 
 vital, to our institutions. We are therefore rallying upon that 
 issue. From your Texas letter, and the analysis of Whig doc 
 trines given in your speech at Raleigh, we regarded you as 
 opposed to these propositions. In the ninth article of the Whig 
 faith, as given in your published remarks, you state " the main 
 tenance exclusively by the several States of their own local and 
 peculiar institutions " to be a fundamental doctrine of the Whig 
 party. On the 4th instant the " National Intelligencer " ar 
 rived, with your Raleigh speech as written out by yourself. In 
 it we find no allusion to the above doctrine. This has led many 
 to apprehend that we have mistaken your views on this all- 
 important point. Indeed, the absence of all allusion to it in 
 your speech as written by yourself has created great appre 
 hension in the minds of many of your friends. I regard it as 
 important that we should be informed on the subject. Indeed, 
 our people feel that they have the right to understand your senti 
 ments in respect to this important question now pressed upon us 
 by the opposition party. 
 
 I would, therefore most respectfully suggest that you cause 
 your views on this point to be made public in such way as your 
 judgment may dictate. The importance of such a step can only 
 be appreciated by those who understand the deep feeling which 
 now pervades the minds of a portion of the people of all the 
 Free States against all participation in the support of the institu 
 tion of slavery. If I have myself mistaken your views, I beg 
 you will inform me at your earliest leisure. 
 With great respect, 
 
 Your ob t servant, 
 
 J. R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 To this letter Giddings received the following 
 
 confidential reply : 
 
 ASHLAND, July 19, 1844. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, I received, and thank you for, your friendly 
 letter of the 6th instant, and I am extremely happy to receive 
 the encouraging accounts which it communicates of the progress 
 of the Whig cause. I had before received, from other sources, 
 highly gratifying information of the zeal and ability with which 
 you were sustaining it. The omission in my Raleigh speech, as 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 163 
 
 published, of the principle of " the maintenance exclusively by 
 the several States of their own local and peculiar institutions," 
 was altogether accidental and without any design. I adhere 
 faithfully to that principle, which I have on various occasions 
 announced. The declaration of that principle by me once is as 
 good as a thousand times ; for I hope all men will do me the 
 justice to suppose that I intend faithfully to execute, as far as I 
 can, every public pledge or promise or assurance I may make. 
 The Raleigh speech, as corrected by me, was written out by 
 the aid of notes taken by a stenographer at the time it was 
 delivered, and there are other omissions of what I said in the 
 delivery of it unintentionally made. Your own experience in the 
 preparation for the Press of speeches previously delivered, will 
 have suggested to you how impracticable it is to write them out 
 exactly as they were delivered. I have great repugnance to 
 appearing before the public without an urgent necessity. You 
 will understand and appreciate my motives. But if a suitable 
 occasion shall occur I will take pleasure in complying with your 
 request again to announce the principle, the omission of which 
 in the Raleigh speech has occasioned your regret. 
 
 I offer you cordial congratulations upon our success in Lou 
 isiana. I consider that State as certain for us in November as 
 any State in the Union; and I am happy to be able to add that 
 the Whig cause will sustain no prejudice from the Texas question 
 anywhere at the South or Southwest. 
 
 I am your friend and obedient servant, 
 
 H. CLAY. 
 To HON. JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 The omitted passage in the Raleigh speech was 
 repeated in a letter from Clay published in the "Lex 
 ington Observer" of September 2; but his troubles 
 were only fairly begun. His Southern supporters 
 began to show signs of discontent respecting his 
 attitude on the question of annexation, and in a mo 
 ment of weakness he wrote his unfortunate "Alabama 
 letters." In the letter of the 2/th of July he said: 
 "I do not think that the subject of slavery ought to 
 affect the question one way or the other. Whether 
 Texas be independent or incorporated into the United 
 States, I do not believe it will prolong or shorten the 
 
1 64 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 duration of that institution." He also declared that 
 he " would be glad to see it [the annexation of Texas] 
 without dishonor, without war, with the common 
 consent of the Union, and upon just and fair terms." 
 These words were most chilling to Giddings and his 
 anti-slavery supporters, who were utterly opposed to 
 annexation on any terms, because the power of sla 
 very would thus inevitably be extended and strength 
 ened in the Union. The letter was a disastrous mis 
 take, and grew out of Clay s besetting tendency to 
 mediate between opposing policies, instead of plant 
 ing his feet on the solid ground of principle and 
 bravely accepting the consequences. 
 
 Giddings was sorely troubled, and he gave earnest 
 expression to his feelings in a letter to Clay, which 
 has not been preserved, but to which the latter 
 replied as follows : 
 
 [Confidential.] 
 
 ASHLAND, Sept. u, 1844. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, Your friendly letter of the 4th instant, 
 which I have just received, affords me a good opportunity of 
 writing to you, which I very much desired. I am extremely 
 sorry that my letters to Alabama should have produced any un 
 favorable impressions in your portion of Ohio. It was not my 
 intention, in those letters, to vary the ground in the smallest 
 degree which I had assumed in my Raleigh speech. It had been 
 represented to me that in that speech I had displayed a deter 
 mined opposition to the annexation of Texas to the United 
 States, although the whole Union might be in favor of it, and 
 it could be peacefully and honorably effected upon fair and just 
 terms. It was my purpose, in those Alabama letters, to say that 
 no personal or private motives prompted me to oppose annexa 
 tion, but that my opinion in opposition to it was founded solely 
 upon public and general considerations. I therefore said that if 
 by common consent of the Union, without national dishonor, with 
 out war, and upon just conditions, the object of annexation could 
 be accomplished, I did not wish to be considered as standing in 
 opposition to the wishes of the whole confederacy, but on the 
 supposition stated would be glad to see those wishes gratified. 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS, 165 
 
 Could I say less? Can it be expected that I should put 
 myself in opposition to the concurrent will of the whole nation, 
 if such should be its will ? You appear to have rightly con 
 ceived me ; and I think any one who will take a fair and candid 
 view of all my letters together, must be satisfied with their 
 import, and perfectly convinced of my entire consistency. But, 
 my dear sir, as I had learned from Pittsburg that my last Alaba 
 ma letter was operating mischievously there, I have addressed a 
 letter to James Dunlap, Esq., and others, in which I reaffirmed 
 all the sentiments and opinions which I expressed in my Raleigh 
 speech, and go the length of saying that if three such States as 
 Ohio, Massachusetts, and Vermont were to manifest a decided 
 opposition to the annexation of Texas, it ought not to be an 
 nexed to the United States. That letter will be published, will 
 probably reach you by the time that this does, and I confidently 
 anticipate will be satisfactory. 
 
 My position is very singular. Whilst at the South I am 
 represented as a Liberty man, at the North I am decried as an 
 ultra supporter of slavery; when in fact I am neither one nor 
 the other. This peculiarity of position exposes me to a cross-fire 
 from opposite directions, and rendered it indispensably necessary 
 that I should come out a few days ago with a note in relation to a 
 letter of Cassius M. Clay, Esq., first published in the "Tribune." 
 That letter, although I have no doubt it was written with the 
 best intentions, was doing great mischief to the Whig cause 
 even here in Kentucky, and there was much reason to apprehend 
 that it would be much more extensively prejudicial in the States 
 of Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, and Louisiana, upon 
 whose vote we have strong reason for counting. You, I trust, 
 will be satisfied with the position taken in my note, that the 
 existence, maintenance, and continuance of the institution of 
 slavery depend exclusively upon State power and authority. As 
 you had expressed regret that my Raleigh speech should have 
 omitted that principle, I thought the occasion a suitable one for 
 reasserting it. I shall be very sorry if Mr. Clay should be at 
 all wounded by my note. Such was not my intention, and if he 
 had been here, he would have felt the imperative necessity for it. 
 I am, with great respect, 
 
 Your friend and obedient servant, 
 
 H. CLAY. 
 The HON. MR. GIDDINGS. 
 
 These letters are given in full, because they clearly 
 reveal the complications in which Mr. Clay need 
 lessly involved himself by his anxiety to succeed. 
 
1 66 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 He threw away his advantages when victory was 
 within his grasp, and thus grievously disappointed 
 and mortified his devoted friends in both sections 
 of the Union. His mistake was irreparable; for al 
 though his partisans still kept up the fight, he had 
 alienated thousands of anti-slavery voters, whose 
 help would have carried him safely through the con 
 test if he had possessed sufficient courage and cool 
 ness to rest his cause on his Raleigh speech. His 
 foolish attempt to explain his position showed vacil 
 lation and weakness in dealing with a great question, 
 and necessarily invited the result he had so anxiously 
 sought to avert. 
 
 Giddings, however, did not slacken his labors for 
 the Whig cause. Clay was unquestionably right in 
 saying that annexation and war were identical; and 
 although, on the slavery question he might be feared 
 as a compromiser, there was no valid reason to doubt 
 that if elected he would resist the annexation scheme, 
 except upon conditions already stated, which could 
 not fail to defeat it as a present danger, and avoid 
 the calamities of a foreign war. The struggle, as it 
 proceeded, became angry and bitter to the last de 
 gree. Nearly all the young Whigs of the District 
 had joined the Liberty party, and hundreds of the 
 most devoted friends of Giddings in previous years 
 were now fighting him. Crimination and recrimina 
 tion became the order of the day between the Whigs 
 and the Liberty men ; but the man who had withstood 
 the power of slavery in Congress for so many years 
 was not to be silenced by his new assailants, who 
 found that blows were to be received as well as 
 given. Some of the leaders of the Liberty party 
 charged Giddings with having sold himself to Henry 
 Clay. In their hearts they did not believe this, and 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 167 
 
 were only grieved and vexed that he would not see 
 with their eyes. They asserted that he was more in 
 the way of the progress of the Liberty party than any 
 other man ; to which he replied that the Liberty party 
 was more in the way of the anti-slavery cause than 
 all its members would be if they were openly sup 
 porting the Democratic ticket. He and the follow 
 ers of Birney were substantially agreed in principle, 
 and differed only as to the method of serving a com 
 mon cause; but controversies are never more bitter 
 than when the difference between the disputants is 
 very small. It has been aptly said that if you want 
 to see the true white heat of controversial passion, 
 you should look at controversialists who do not differ 
 at a!/, but who have adopted different words to ex 
 press the same opinion. 
 
 Party animosities increased till the State election 
 in October, when the vote was found so close that 
 it depended upon the Whig majority in Ashtabula 
 County. The returns were slow in reaching the 
 capital, those from Ashtabula being among the last, 
 and for a time the Democrats felt so sure of the 
 State that in several localities they began to cele 
 brate their victory by the firing of cannon, and other 
 demonstrations ; but when the returns from Ashtabula 
 were received, an unprecedented party majority was 
 shown, which gave the State to the Whigs. Mr. 
 Clay and his friends in Lexington felt so grateful to 
 Giddings for his indefatigable labors in this canvass 
 that they sent a delegation to present a beautiful 
 silk banner to the Whigs of the county for their 
 efforts in this remarkable struggle. All this was 
 sufficiently exasperating to the zealous supporters of 
 Mr. Birney. 
 
 But Clay was defeated. Folk s Kane letter on the 
 
1 68 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 tariff was so marvellously utilized as to give him the 
 State of Pennsylvania. Nativism, which had just 
 broken out in the great cities, so alarmed our foreign- 
 born citizens as to throw them almost unanimously 
 against the Whigs. The Plaquemine frauds in Lou 
 isiana, which were engineered by John Slidell, and 
 accomplished through the shipment of roughs and 
 scoundrels from New Orleans to Plaquemine, un 
 doubtedly gave that State to the Democrats, while 
 New York was lost to Clay on account of his trim 
 ming on the question of annexation, which drove 
 from him a sufficient number of anti-slavery men to 
 accomplish his defeat. Such was the ill-fated result 
 of this memorable struggle. Looking back to the 
 strifes of that time, and judging them by the light of 
 subsequent events, we see clearly that Giddings and 
 those of his Whig friends who supported Clay as an 
 anti-slavery man in any honest sense of the term 
 were mistaken. They were not less mistaken in 
 looking forward to the Whig party as a trustworthy 
 agency in confronting the aggressions of the South, 
 while it should be admitted with equal frankness that 
 Texas would have been annexed at no distant time 
 if Clay had been made President. The poison of 
 slavery had so entered into the life of the people that 
 the triumph of Polk and immediate annexation only 
 quickened the march of events towards the final 
 catastrophe of civil war, which the supineness of 
 the people of the Northern States had already made 
 unavoidable. 
 
 In previous chapters the mutual friendship of 
 Adams and Giddings has been repeatedly referred 
 to. It steadily grew stronger with time, and ri 
 pened into affection. In his later years Mr. Adams 
 led a solitary life. His open hostility to slavery had 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 169 
 
 greatly multiplied his enemies in both sections of 
 the Union, and severely tried his faith in humanity. 
 His intimate and trusted friends were few. While 
 in age, acquirements, intellectual training, experi 
 ence, and social advantages, he and Giddings were 
 the opposites of each other, yet their relations were 
 as kindly and dutiful as those of father and son. 
 Each loved the other for the enemies he had made 
 in battling for the rights of man. Their bond of 
 union was the heroic service of a great cause, for 
 which each was ready to suffer. Their friendship 
 had in it the qualities of a religion. It was during 
 this year, when Mr. Adams was nearly seventy-eight 
 years old, that he gave expression to this warmth of 
 his feelings towards his friend in the following Ifnes, 
 written in a trembling hand, in an autograph album 
 kept by Giddings at that time : 
 
 TO JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS, 
 OF JEFFERSON, ASHTABULA Co., OHIO. 
 
 When first together here we meet, 
 
 Askance each other we behold, 
 The bitter mingling with the sweet, 
 
 The warm attempered by the cold. 
 
 We seek with searching ken to find 
 
 A soul congenial to our own ; 
 For mind, in sympathy with mind, 
 
 Instinctive dreads to walk alone. 
 
 And here, from regions wide apart, 
 
 We came, our purpose to pursue, 
 Each with a warm and honest heart, 
 
 Each with a spirit firm and true. 
 
 Intent, with anxious aim to learn, 
 
 Each other s character we scan, 
 And soon the difference discern 
 
 Between the fair and faithless man. 
 
1 70 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 And here, with scrutinizing eye, 
 
 A kindred soul with mine to see, 
 And longing bosom to descry, 
 
 I sought, and found at last in thee. 
 
 Farewell, my friend ! and if once more 
 
 We meet within this hall again, 
 Be ours the blessing to restore 
 
 Our country s and the rights of men. 
 
 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, 
 
 Of Quincy, Massachusetts. 
 H. R. U. S., WASHINGTON, 17 June, 1844, 
 
 Anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 DECEMBER, 1844, TO MARCH, 1847. 
 
 Last Session of the Twenty-eighth Congress. Repeal of the Gag- 
 rule. Insolence of Southern Members. General Jessup as a 
 Slave-trader. Mr. Calhoun s New Argument for Annexation. 
 The Measure consummated. First Session of the Twenty-ninth 
 Congress. The Oregon Question. The War with Mexico. 
 Minor Questions. Last Session of the Twenty-ninth Congress. 
 
 EARLY in this session, which convened on the 
 2d of December, 1844, Mr. Adams renewed his 
 customary attack upon the gag-rule. Against all 
 odds, and in the face of a furious opposition, he had 
 kept up this fight for ten years, and at last his mo 
 tion to strike the rule from the manual was carried 
 by a vote of 108 to 80. The ranks of its supporters 
 had been growing thinner year by year, until now 
 only fourteen members from the Free States voted 
 against rescinding it, while four members from the 
 Slave States voted for its repeal. It was a great vic 
 tory; but while the right of petition was restored to 
 the people, it was practically nullified by the Speaker, 
 who so formed the committees that petitions in re 
 gard to slavery were retained by them until the close 
 of the session, when they found their final resting- 
 place among the archives of the House. 
 
 The signal triumph of slavery in the recent elec 
 tion inspired Southern members with renewed cour 
 age and zeal, and rendered them less tolerant of 
 opposition. This was illustrated on the 6th of Feb- 
 
1^2 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 ruary, 1845, when Giddings addressed the committee 
 of the whole on the bill making appropriations to 
 carry out our treaty stipulations with the Indian 
 tribes. He discussed the subject in its relations to 
 slavery, and among other things referred to the claim 
 of certain Georgia slaveholders who, after receiving 
 $109,000 as a compensation for their fugitive slaves, 
 demanded of the Government, and were allowed, 
 $141,000 more as a compensation for the slaves 
 which the females would have borne to their masters, 
 had they remained in bondage. 
 
 Mr. Black of Georgia obtained the floor to reply, 
 and was immediately surrounded by Southern mem 
 bers. His abuse was too grossly personal and vulgar 
 to be reported in full. He referred to the charge 
 that Giddings was interested in the horses which one 
 Torrey lost when attempting to aid slaves to escape 
 in Maryland. He said that Torrey had died in the 
 Penitentiary, and that Giddings ought to be there, 
 and would be sent at once if the House could decide 
 the question. He declared that Giddings had vio 
 lated the law by franking through the post-office a 
 calico dress to his wife; and he closed by advising 
 him to return to his constituents and ascertain if he 
 had a character, for Black asserted before Heaven 
 he had none in that hall. 
 
 Giddings replied that as to the story about his 
 connection with Torrey and his horses, which had 
 been referred to a year before by the gentleman from 
 Alabama (Mr. Payne) and denied, he knew nothing 
 but what he had seen in the newspapers, and that he 
 made this statement for the benefit of gentlemen, of 
 men who understood the decencies of life, and not for 
 that of the member from Alabama, or his less wor 
 thy confrere from Georgia, to whom he owed no other 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 173 
 
 respect than that which parliamentary law constrained 
 him to observe. In regard to the charge of franking 
 a calico dress, he knew nothing, and could only say 
 that it was an unmitigated falsehood. 1 He said the 
 member from Georgia was less responsible for his con 
 duct than were the respectable members who stood 
 around him while speaking, and prompted his coarse 
 ness and brutality; that in treating of the institution 
 of slavery he had confined himself to matters of fact 
 which were authenticated by official documents, and 
 which the member from Georgia did not deny; and 
 that he represented an intelligent constituency, who 
 a few months before had indorsed his action in Con 
 gress by a fourth election, while Mr. Black had been 
 discarded after one election as unworthy to hold a 
 place among honorable men. 
 
 The scene which followed was described by the 
 newspapers of the time and by Mr. Adams in his 
 diary. While Mr. Giddings was speaking, Black 
 passed through the lobby behind the Speaker s 
 chair, and entered the small aisle on the right of 
 Giddings, and raising a large cane which he held in 
 his hand, said : " If you repeat those words, I will 
 knock you down." Giddings, under the impulse of 
 the moment, repeated the language he had used, in 
 order to test the courage of Black, whose friends, 
 seeing the position in which he had placed himself, 
 now took charge of him. Mr. Adams says : " As he 
 pressed on, with a face convulsed and the look of a 
 coward fiend, Mr. Hammet threw his arms around 
 
 1 A note addressed by Mr Giddings to Mr. Wickliffe, then Post 
 master-General, led to the development of some interesting facts. The 
 supposed calico dress was a shawl franked by a Democratic member of 
 Congress from northern Ohio to his wife. Mr. Wickliffe and the mem 
 ber called on Giddings, and entreated him so urgently to take no further 
 action in the matter that he reluctantly consented. 
 
1/4 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 him and carried him away as he would a woman 
 from a fire." 
 
 Giddings continued his remarks, when Mr. Daw- 
 son of Louisiana, who had assaulted him on a pre 
 vious occasion, came across the hall within a few 
 yards of him, and placing his hand in his pocket, 
 said, "I 11 shoot him, by G d! I 11 shoot him ! " at 
 the same time taking care to cock his pistol so as to 
 have the click heard by those around him. Mr. Cau- 
 sin, a Whig from Maryland, instantly took his posi 
 tion in front of Giddings and directly between him 
 and Dawson, folding his arms across his breast, with 
 his right hand apparently resting upon the handle of 
 his weapon, while Mr. Slidell of Louisiana, and Mr. 
 Stiles of Georgia, with two other Democratic mem 
 bers, at the same moment took their positions near 
 Dawson. At the same time Kenneth Raynor, a 
 North Carolina Whig, fully armed, took his place on 
 the left of Giddings, while Mr. Hudson of Massa 
 chusetts placed himself on his right, and Mr. Foot 
 of Vermont at the entrance of the aisle through 
 which Black had made his exit. With armed foes 
 in front and friends on either hand, Giddings con 
 tinued his remarks; but the slaveholders in front 
 began to realize the awkwardness of their position, 
 and quietly returned to their seats, except Dawson, 
 who remained until Giddings closed his speech, with 
 Causin firmly facing him. The business of legisla 
 tion was then resumed. Giddings, in his "History 
 of the Rebellion," says that this was the last effort 
 made to silence a member of the House by threats of 
 personal violence during his service in Congress. 
 
 The hostility of Southern members of Congress 
 towards Giddings cannot be regarded as surprising. 
 From the beginning of the government they had been 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 175 
 
 accustomed to have their own way in its administra 
 tion as well as on their plantations, and it maddened 
 them to have their supremacy questioned. Giddings 
 made it his mission to watch the encroachments of 
 slavery upon the rights of the people of the Free 
 States, and to hold the slave-masters strictly to their 
 own avowed principle, that the existence and con 
 tinuance of slavery depended solely on the authority 
 of the States in which it existed. Wherever he saw 
 this principle violated, he felt it to be his duty to 
 lift up his voice in its defence; and, accordingly, 
 only two days after the scene just described, he took 
 occasion to expose the extraordinary character of a 
 claim brought before Congress at its previous ses 
 sion, and now pending in the form of a bill providing 
 for its payment. 
 
 Soon after General Jessup assumed command of 
 our army in Florida, in 1836, he entered into a writ 
 ten contract with certain chiefs and warriors of the 
 Creek tribe of Indians, by which they agreed to fur 
 nish two battalions, of not less than six hundred men 
 each, to serve one year against the Seminoles; for 
 which they were to receive ten thousand dollars, and 
 such plunder as they might capture from the enemy. 
 The law had provided the mode of enlisting troops, 
 and determined the amount to be paid to each soldier; 
 yet General Jessup did not appear to know that he 
 was violating the law by entering into this contract. 
 But the Executive and the War Department approved 
 his action, and the Creek warriors entered upon the 
 stipulated service. The Cherokees refused to furnish 
 warriors for such a purpose, and their principal chief, 
 John Ross, in an able letter to the Secretary of War, 
 violently protested against the employment of Pagan 
 warriors to fight the battles of a Christian nation. 
 
176 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 The Creek warriors during the year captured more 
 than one hundred negroes, who were claimed by the 
 Indians as plunder under the contract, and were en 
 slaved by their captors. General Jessup and the 
 Secretary of War concurred in this action, and the 
 practice of enslaving prisoners captured in war, which 
 had long been abandoned by all Christian nations, 
 was now revived by the American Government under 
 the Administration of Jackson. But provisions being 
 scarce, General Jessup published an order directing 
 eight thousand dollars to be paid to the Indians as 
 a compensation for these enslaved negroes, whom he 
 ordered to be sent to Fort Pike, below New Orleans, 
 as the property of the Government, which approved of 
 these proceedings. The Commissioner of Indian 
 Affairs, however, in an official communication, sug 
 gested that it was doubtful whether Congress would 
 not hesitate in appropriating the money to carry out 
 this arrangement. He did not appear to doubt the 
 propriety of enslaving men in Florida, as well as on 
 the African coast, but the novelty of these proceed 
 ings seems to have made an unfavorable impression 
 upon his mind. 
 
 A solution of the difficulty was found. A rich 
 slave-dealer from Georgia, James C. Watson, hap 
 pened to be in Washington, and to him the whole 
 subject was explained. A proposition was made for 
 him to take these negroes, receive a bill of sale from 
 the Creek Indians, to whom he should pay fifteen 
 thousand dollars; and as the negroes were held by 
 officers of the American army, the Secretary of War 
 should issue an order to the officer having them in 
 charge, directing their delivery to the slave-dealer. 
 
 But our military officers refused to respect the 
 order of the Secretary of War. General Taylor 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 177 
 
 positively declined to interfere in the matter, and 
 General Gaines made vigorous efforts to save the 
 negroes from Watson, who, after many disappoint 
 ments and much expense, failed to obtain any of the 
 negroes ; and having paid his money for them at the 
 request of our public officers, petitioned Congress for 
 the refunding of the same, with interest and expenses. 
 As already stated, Giddings had been removed from 
 his place at the head of the Committee on Claims, 
 and ex-Governor Vance, of Ohio, succeeded him. As 
 he was without experience in his new duties, Howell 
 Cobb of Georgia was added to the committee, with 
 special reference to this claim, and he reported a bill 
 to compensate Watson. Mr. Giddings tried in vain 
 to get his Whig brethren interested in the case, and 
 when it came before the House, he recited the facts 
 already given, and gave his reasons for opposing the 
 bill. He insisted that when General Jessup entered 
 into a compact by which innocent women and chil 
 dren were to be captured and enslaved, he entered 
 into a covenant for the commission of crime which 
 we as a nation had declared piracy when committed 
 on the African coast; that the place of committing 
 such crimes could not alter their character; that both 
 General Jessup and the Creek Indians deserved pun 
 ishment for their conspiracy to deprive the Seminoles 
 of the sacred rights which God had given them ; that 
 the Secretary of War, who sanctioned the contract, 
 simply made himself a party to the crime, while the 
 President was equally guilty; that the Constitution 
 provides that "no person shall be deprived of life, 
 liberty, or property without due process of law," 
 that is, without trial and conviction in a court of 
 competent jurisdiction; and that Watson, who had 
 attempted to make merchandise of human souls, cer- 
 
 12 
 
1/8 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 tainly had no claim upon the people of the Northern 
 States because he had failed to consummate the crime 
 he had attempted. 
 
 Cobb and Stephens of Georgia, and Bclser of 
 Alabama, spoke in favor of the claim, after which 
 Mr. Adams urged that all who participated in this 
 attempt to enslave innocent people were criminals, 
 and he moved to lay the bill on the table. Mr. 
 Hammet of Mississippi, not being willing to risk 
 a vote, moved an adjournment, and the bill was not 
 again heard of during that Congress. 
 
 Mr. Calhoun s treaty for the annexation of Texas 
 had been rejected on the 8th of June, 1844, and early 
 in this session came before Congress for its action. 
 Massachusetts and Connecticut had protested against 
 the measure, and many remonstrances from the peo 
 ple of the Free States were submitted for the con 
 sideration of Congress. A new phase of the question 
 was now presented by the instructions of Mr. Calhoun 
 to our ministers at London and Paris, in which he 
 argued that slavery is a humane institution, and ad 
 vantageous to both master and slave. This new 
 challenge of the slaveocracy was at once accepted 
 by Giddings, and on the 22d of January, 1845, he 
 addressed the House at length, and with much thor 
 oughness and force, upon the economical and moral 
 bearings of slavery upon the people of the South, 
 both bond and free, and the constitutional powers of 
 the Federal Government in dealing with it. He be 
 gan by referring to the action of England, France, 
 and Denmark against slavery, and said that 
 
 " Even semi-barbarous nations are at this day lustrating them 
 selves from its moral contagion. The Bey of Tripoli, in his 
 decree prohibiting the slave-trade, which our honorable Secretary 
 of State is so anxious to maintain, declared that he did it for 
 the honor of man and the glory of God. But while the Bey of 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 179 
 
 Tripoli and the Pasha of Egypt are extending the enjoyment of 
 civil liberty, this government is openly engaged in endeavoring to 
 extend the institution of slavery. While we ourselves are sending 
 one fleet to suppress the slave-trade on the African coast, we are 
 sending another to support the same traffic on the American 
 coast. While we have entered into solemn treaty with England 
 to exert our utmost effort to suppress this trade in human flesh, 
 our Secretary of State is calling upon the king of France to 
 assist us in extending and maintaining it. While we as a nation 
 are professing to be lovers of liberty, our high officers of govern 
 ment are exerting our national influence to increase and extend 
 slavery. ... Of all the civilized nations of the earth, ours alone 
 now stands as the advocate of negro slavery. The spectacle is 
 humiliating ; but so it is that the Executive of this nation is now 
 remonstrating with European potentates against their efforts to 
 promote human liberty, and using all the skill and intrigue of 
 diplomacy to prevent the extension of human freedom." 
 
 Speaking of the economical bearings of slavery, 
 as presented by Mr. Calhoun, Giddings said, 
 
 " He urges upon Mr. King and the French Government that 
 the abolition of slavery has diminished the exports of the British 
 West India Islands, and he infers that it would have the same 
 effect in this country if our slaves were to follow their example 
 in respect to emancipation. Now, sir, the argument is not legiti 
 mate. It places pecuniary profit in the scale against the nat 
 ural rights of man, and gives preponderance to the former. Go 
 to the thief, who lives and thrives by his midnight larcenies; 
 remonstrate with him ; tell him that the property of his neighbors 
 of right belongs to them, and that he ought not feloniously to 
 take it, he may turn round, and, in the language of our honorable 
 Secretary, say to you that were he to adopt your idea of justice, 
 and cease his thefts, his exports would be diminished. Go to 
 the pirate, who robs the merchant-vessel of its rich lading, and, 
 in order to destroy all evidence of his crimes, murders the crew 
 and sinks the ship. Tell him that his practice is criminal, and 
 that he ought to cease from further outrages ; and he will reply, 
 in the language of American diplomacy, that his exports would 
 be diminished. Still, we should regard him as a pirate, and hope 
 that justice would overtake him. His excuse would not mitigate 
 his crimes, nay, it would aggravate his guilt. So with our Sec 
 retary s argument. If slavery be opposed to the natural rights of 
 men, if it be a self-evident truth that man is born free and has 
 received from his God the right to enjoy his liberty, then it is 
 
ISO THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 wrong ; it is a crime for us to rob him of his God-given rights, 
 although it may thereby increase our exports." 
 
 Giddings referred to slavery as an element of 
 weakness. 
 
 " They [the slaves] are acquainted with the habits of their 
 masters, with their roads and streams, their arsenals and fortifi 
 cations ; in short, with all the circumstances with which they are 
 surrounded. Now, sir, let an invading army of a hundred thou 
 sand men land in our Southern States, with the material for two 
 hundred thousand, and let it proclaim freedom to such slaves as 
 will unite with them, and as the slaves reach their encampment 
 let them be armed and drilled, and sent out to liberate their wives 
 and children and those who have been oppressed with them. 
 Could more efficient troops be employed ? Stimulated by a re 
 collection of the wrongs which they had suffered, they would 
 become desperate, and the consequences I will not attempt to 
 describe ! Sir, in case of invasion the master will not dare to 
 send his servant abroad, or to the field, unless he is watched. If 
 he does, the servant will not be likely to return. At night, too, 
 they must be watched, and the family must be guarded against 
 the domestics. Thus they detract from the ability of a nation to 
 defend itself. In 1779 the authorities of South Carolina sent a spe 
 cial messenger to Congress to inform that body that their State 
 could furnish no troops to repel the invasion then making upon 
 them, as it required all their forces to remain at home in order to 
 protect their families against their slaves. . . . 
 
 " I desire that Southern gentlemen will understand me as 
 making these remarks strictly in answer to the doctrine advanced 
 by Mr. Calhoun and others, and not with any desire to call up 
 unpleasant feelings in the minds of any Southern man. General 
 Jackson and others say that it is necessary that we should have 
 Texas as a means of national defence. I reply, that every addi 
 tion of slave territory renders us weaker, and places a heavier 
 burden upon the Free States. This extension of slavery at the 
 expense of our Free States is what the honorable Secretary regards 
 as economy." 
 
 Mr. Giddings next referred to the economical bear 
 ings of slavery in connection with the Post-Office 
 department, the navy, the public lands, and the 
 cost of the Florida War; and then proceeded to con 
 trast the condition of the leading Free and Slave 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. igl 
 
 States. Turning next to Mr. Calhoun s position, 
 that slavery is a moral institution, he said, 
 
 " Gentlemen here become pathetic upon the sufferings to 
 which the people of Texas have been subjected during their war 
 with Mexico. They speak in melting terms of the predatory 
 warfare heretofore carried on against Texas, and they ask the 
 people of our Free States to relieve them from Mexican barbarity. 
 Why, sir, there is more human suffering in this city every year, 
 by reason of the slave-trade, than has been endured by the whole 
 people of Texas during their entire revolution of eight years. 
 The consumption of human life attendant and consequent upon 
 the slave-trade in this district is greater every year than it has 
 been in Texas during any period of their war with Mexico. It 
 should be borne in mind that this slave-trade is authorized and 
 maintained by Act of Congress, which the advocates of annexation 
 refuse to repeal. The scenes which I have described and the 
 sufferings I have mentioned are authorized by our laws, passed 
 by this body, which we now keep in force. Gentlemen on this 
 floor, who, by supporting the gag-rule, have for years voted to 
 continue those laws and the scenes to which I have made refer 
 ence, whose hearts are unmoved by all the sufferings of the 
 slave population here, and by all the blood that is annually shed 
 in this district, become eloquent upon the sufferings endured by 
 the people of Texas. They are willing to spend the national 
 treasure and pour out American blood to protect the Texans, 
 while they authorize by law all those crimes and outrages and all 
 the violence and bloodshed attendant upon the slave-trade in 
 this district. Indeed, they are striving to extend and perpetuate 
 those crimes in Texas, under the plea of extending the area of 
 freedom" 
 
 Of the suffering and sacrifice of life among the 
 slaves of the South, Giddings said, 
 
 " Upon the cotton plantations they purchase none but full- 
 grown slaves. The average life of the slaves thus purchased, 
 after entering upon the plantations, is only seven years. I speak 
 upon the authority of extensive cotton-growers, whose long expe 
 rience and observation enable them to form correct opinions. It 
 is regarded by cotton-growers as more profitable to drive their 
 slaves so hard that the intensity of their labor shall produce 
 death in seven years, and then to supply their places by fresh 
 purchases, than it is to treat them more leniently ; thus whole 
 gangs of slaves, consisting of many hundreds on each cotton 
 plantation, are consigned to their graves once in seven years. 
 
1 82 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 The driver s lash impels them to excessive effort, and really 
 causes their death as much as the knife or the pistol of the mur 
 derer causes the death of his victim. . . . 
 
 " The pirate thinks it more profitable for him to sacrifice the 
 lives of his captives within an hour after he takes possession of 
 them. The cotton planter regards it as more conducive to his 
 interest to hold his slaves, under the torture of the overseer s 
 whip, for seven years. 
 
 " Upon sugar plantations, however, the slaves are worked still 
 harder, and the average life of slaves on sugar estates is computed 
 at five years ; that is, the planters on those estates regard it as 
 more profitable to work their hands so severely as to cause their 
 death in five years, and then to replace them by fresh purchases, 
 than it would be to use them more leniently. The precise number 
 of slaves thus sacrificed annually cannot be ascertained. . . . 
 This tide of human gore is constantly flowing, and we are called 
 upon to lend our official aid to increase and extend it. In order 
 to effect this object, the honorable Secretary of State has urged 
 upon us to consider the humane and moral bearings of slavery. 
 It is therefore due to him that we examine them. 
 
 " Do we believe there is a Power above us who will visit na 
 tional sins and crimes with national judgments ? That He will 
 visit upon this great people the just penalty due to us for the suf 
 fering we have inflicted, the blood we have shed, and the murders 
 that have been committed under our laws ? I am one of those 
 who solemnly believe that transgression and punishment are in 
 separably connected by the inscrutable wisdom of God s provi 
 dence. With this impression, I feel as confident that chastisement 
 and retribution for the offences which we have committed against 
 the down-trodden sons of Africa, await this people, as I do that 
 justice controls the destinies of nations or guides the power of 
 Omnipotence." 
 
 The project of annexation by treaty having failed, 
 the question was brought before both houses of Con 
 gress early in December, in the form of various 
 propositions for annexation by joint resolution. The 
 proposition offered in the House by Milton Brown 
 of Tennessee was adopted by that body on the 2$th 
 of February, 1845, by a vote of 120 to 98. This 
 resolution was amended in the Senate on the motion 
 of Mr. Walker of Mississippi, by giving the Presi 
 dent power to conclude a treaty under certain condi- 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 183 
 
 tions if he should deem it advisable. This amend 
 ment, and the positive promise of the incoming 
 President that he would act upon it, secured for the 
 measure the support of Mr. Benton and others who 
 had opposed it as clearly unconstitutional. The reso 
 lution as amended passed the Senate on the 28th of 
 February by a vote of 27 to 25, and on the same day 
 the House concurred in it by a vote of 132 to 76. 
 President Polk violated his promise and deceived the 
 friends who had confided in him ; but the success of 
 the measure was thus secured, although the leading 
 jurists of the country and a majority of both Houses 
 of Congress denied the constitutional power of the 
 Government to annex Texas by joint resolution. 
 Giddings thus records his impressions at the time : 
 
 " It was eight o clock in the evening when the final vote was 
 taken. No sooner had the Speaker announced the result, than 
 cannon upon the terrace west of the Capitol sounded forth the 
 triumph. Immediately bonfires lighted up the city, and the sound 
 of revelry and drunkenness was heard in its various localities. 
 Northern Democrats and Southern slaveholders rejoiced at a 
 result which they believed would place them in undisputed con 
 trol of the government. Members from the slaveholding States 
 were rejoicing in the anticipated profits which they expected to 
 reap from the increased price of human flesh. Pensively and 
 alone, the writer walked to his lodgings. Never before had he 
 viewed his country as he then saw it. The exultation of slave- 
 breeders and slave-dealers at thus controlling the Congress of 
 the United States constituted a spectacle that he had not ex 
 pected to witness. The barbarous war, the bloodshed, the de 
 vastation, the corruption, the civil war which resulted from this 
 triumph of the slave power, were at no subsequent period of his 
 life more vividly before his mind than they were that evening 
 while alone in his room, contemplating the results which would 
 naturally follow the action of Congress on that sad day." 
 
 Early in this session Mr. Duncan of Ohio intro 
 duced a bill to organize a territorial government for 
 Oregon, covering all that portion of country which 
 was then in the joint occupation of Great Britain and 
 
1 84 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 the United States. An amendment excluding slav 
 ery from the Territory was adopted by a vote of 131 
 to 69. The bill also authorized the President to give 
 notice to the British Government terminating the 
 joint occupation of the Territory, and it passed the 
 House by a vote of 140 to 59. About the same time 
 a bill was introduced into the Senate authorizing the 
 President to take possession of the whole of Oregon 
 up to 54 40 : but no vote was taken upon it. On 
 the 4th of March Mr. Polk was inaugurated as Presi 
 dent, and in his inaugural address he assured the 
 country that "our title to the whole of Oregon is 
 clear and unquestionable." At this time the Demo 
 cratic party seemed to be quite as ready to extend 
 our national domain in this direction as it had been 
 to acquire Texas, and quite as indifferent about the 
 consequences. 
 
 Near the close of this session Florida and Iowa, 
 which had been yoked together in their application 
 for admission into the Union, were both admitted. 
 The constitution of Florida prohibited free negroes 
 from coming into the State, and prohibited the Legis 
 lature of the State from abolishing slavery. It was 
 in the discussion of this question that Mr. Douglas 
 of Illinois first asserted the doctrine of popular sov 
 ereignty, which he maintained so earnestly in later 
 years. He argued that the people of a Territory have 
 the right, in framing a constitution, to establish 
 slavery if they choose, and that his own State could 
 at any time do the same thing by changing its con 
 stitution. In thus denying the principles proclaimed 
 by the fathers of the Constitution, that governments 
 are instituted to secure men in the enjoyment of life 
 and liberty, he remained steadfast and consistent to 
 the end of his life. 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 185 
 
 President Polk, in his annual message to the 
 Twenty-ninth Congress, in December, 1845, in 
 formed that body that all attempts to settle the Ore 
 gon question had failed, and called on Congress to 
 make the necessary provision for maintaining our 
 rights to the whole of the disputed territory. Early 
 in the session General Cass offered resolutions in 
 structing the Committees on Military and Naval 
 Affairs to inquire into the condition of our forti 
 fications on the sea-board, and our naval supplies. 
 Joint resolutions were also introduced directing the 
 President to give notice of the termination of the 
 joint occupancy of the Territory of Oregon. These 
 resolutions were adopted by the Senate and sent to 
 the House, where they were referred to the Com 
 mittee on Foreign Affairs, which reported them back 
 with a recommendation of concurrence. 
 
 The danger of an immediate war with England was 
 now regarded as imminent. The business interests 
 of the country were seriously threatened, and there 
 was a wide-spread feeling of alarm. Our title to 
 the whole of Oregon was, to say the least, exceed 
 ingly debatable, but it was quite as " clear and un 
 questionable " as our title to the whole of Texas, as 
 claimed by herself, for the assertion of which the 
 Government was about to plunge the nation into a 
 war with Mexico. England and the United States had 
 each taken a definite and positive position, and there 
 seemed to be no reason to suppose that either would 
 yield. The President had the united support of his 
 party, which seemed to be eager for the great conflict ; 
 and yet the Administration made no adequate prepa 
 rations for the struggle. In the opinion of those who 
 had most carefully studied the designs of the slave- 
 ocracy, he was playing a cowardly game of diplomacy. 
 
1 86 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDD2NGS. 
 
 Giddings, in a speech in the House on the 5th of 
 January, 1846, reminded the slaveholders of some 
 exceedingly disagreeable facts, lie said, 
 
 " It is the annexation of Texas that has rendered the whole of 
 Oregon necessary to restore that balance of power. By the an 
 nexation of Texas the Slave States now have a majority in the 
 Senate. They will continue to retain that majority unless we 
 add territory to our northwestern border. By the annexation 
 of Texas the protection of the free labor of the North has been 
 surrendered to the control of the slave-power. Our constitu 
 tional rights and the honor of our Free States are delivered 
 over to the keeping of slaveholders. . . . No, Mr. Speaker, it 
 becomes us to act like men, to look our difficulties in the face, and 
 to pursue the best mode of retrieving the advantages that have 
 been thrown away. That can only be done by restoring the 
 balance of power by adding new States at the West and North 
 west. To admit new States on that border, we must have the 
 territory out of which such States may be formed. 
 
 " But Southern gentlemen whose voices at the last session 
 were heard, loud and long, in favor of Texas and the whole of 
 Oregon now see a lion in the way. They were then chivalrous ; 
 now they are all for peace. Then they waxed valiant ; now 
 they roar you as gently as any sucking dove. But a year ago 
 their motto was now or never;" 1 at this time a masterly inac 
 tivity is their maxim. Last year they spoke in strains of fervid 
 eloquence of the glory of extending the American sway over 
 new territory, and of adding new States to our brilliant constel 
 lation; now they call upon their Northern friends to stop this 
 mad career of extending the power of our Government, and to 
 leave the political control of the nation in their hands for a few 
 years, until Great Britain shall quietly give up her claims to that 
 territory. They have suddenly called to mind the declaration of 
 British statesmen that a war with the United States will be a 
 war of emancipation. They see in prospect the black regi 
 ments of the British West India islands landing among them, 
 and their slaves flocking to the enemy s standard. Servile in 
 surrections torment their imaginations. Rapine, blood, and mur 
 der dance before their affrighted vision. They are now seen in 
 every part of the hall, calling on Whigs and Democrats to save 
 them from the dreadful consequences of their own policy. Well, 
 sir, I reply to them, this is your policy, not ours; you have forced 
 us into it against our will and our utmost opposition ; you have 
 prepared the poisoned chalice, and we will press it to your lips 
 until you swallow the very dregs." 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 187 
 
 After arguing that one of the consequences of a 
 war with England would be the acquisition of Can 
 ada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, he thus refers 
 to the President: 
 
 " It is most obvious to my judgment that he cannot be driven 
 into a war with England. As I have already stated, a war with 
 that nation must prove the total overthrow of slavery. Every 
 reflecting statesman must see this as clearly as any event can be 
 foretold by human perception. I do not think the slaveholding 
 portion of the Democratic party were aware that the carrying 
 out of their Baltimore resolutions would sacrifice that institution. 
 They rather believed that by obtaining Texas, the price of human 
 riesh would be enhanced, and slavery supported. The conse 
 quences of seizing upon the whole of Oregon were not considered. 
 Mr. Polk, in his inaugural address and in his annual message, 
 evidently overlooked the momentous effect which his twice-de 
 clared policy would produce upon the slave interest, to which he 
 is indissolubly wedded. He and his cabinet and his party have 
 made a fatal blunder. They will soon discover their error, and 
 will recede from their position. With the same degree of confi 
 dence that I have in my own existence, I declare that they will, 
 before the nation and the world, recede from their avowed policy, 
 and will surrender up all that portion of Oregon north of the 
 forty-ninth parallel of latitude, or let the subject remain as it 
 now is. I wish to place this prediction on record for future 
 reference." 
 
 These extracts sufficiently indicate the character 
 of the speech. It was most timely and effective, 
 whatever the real attitude of the slaveocracy might 
 prove to be touching the question of war. If the 
 President and his Southern brethren were indeed 
 consumed by the desire for a war with England, the 
 speech was an admirable counter-irritant, which could 
 scarcely fail to bring relief. If, however, they were 
 playing a game of duplicity and treachery, through 
 which the interests of the people of the North and 
 Northwest were to be sacrificed to the greed of sla 
 very, then the chastisement administered by Giddings 
 was exactly the thing called for by the situation. 
 
1 88 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 No utterances could have been more opportune, and 
 probably no congressional speech ever exerted a 
 stronger or more decisive influence upon the settle 
 ment of a great question involving the preservation 
 of the public peace. It struck the key-note of en 
 lightened public opinion in every section of the 
 Union, while it exposed the selfishness and rapacity 
 of the slave interest to the gaze of the world. 
 
 But Giddings did not stand alone in the views 
 expressed in his speech. A few days before its de 
 livery, a veteran journalist and a master spirit in the 
 arts of practical politics wrote him, 
 
 DEAR SIR, If the President in his message plays the 
 game of war, why not out-trump him ? Wars are sometimes 
 national blessings, though generally the reverse. But are there 
 not worse things than war ? If war with England would give 
 us a tariff, Canada, and freedom, shall we refuse it ? But it has 
 another aspect, the duplicity of the Administration. Were 
 you to take this ground in one of your strong, vigorous fifteen- 
 minute-speeches, it would blow the war and the Administration 
 sky-high. Very truly yours, 
 
 THURLOW WEED. 
 
 On the i6th of January J. A. Briggs, a prominent 
 Whig politician of Cleveland, Ohio, wrote Giddings : 
 
 " I think you have settled the Oregon question, for, believe me, 
 your speech will have more influence in the South than all that 
 Calhoun can say, or President Polk can write. The fact is, you 
 spoke the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth ; and 
 spoke, too, as ninety-nine out of every one hundred Northern 
 men feel, but will not all speak out so boldly as yourself. I am 
 glad you made the speech, although you may expect to be 
 abused like a pickpocket and thief for it. But abuse you are 
 used to, and it will not hurt you. It takes well here. Even 
 Allen said it was good talk, and would frighten the South out 
 of Oregon and settle the question." 
 
 On the Qth of February, Dr. Bowditch, of Boston, 
 wrote : 
 
 " Please to accept my hearty thanks for your manly, noble 
 speech on the Oregon question. Thanks, as an Abolitionist, for 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 189 
 
 the utterance of such sentiments. Would that Northern slaves 
 and Southern lords more frequently heard such speeches. If 
 anything will avail to wake up the so-called freemen of the North 
 from their deadly apathy, speeches like this will do it. But what 
 a farce it is to speak of freemen of the North ! If to be free 
 men we must be bound hand and foot, if we must be so besotted 
 as to hug our very chains as our greatest blessing, then indeed 
 are we freemen ; but not otherwise." 
 
 A few months later, when time had closed all con 
 troversy respecting the policy of the Administration, 
 his old friend Governor Slade, of Vermont, wrote 
 Giddings, 
 
 " Great events have crowded so thick upon each other for the 
 past few months as to hold me in almost breathless astonish 
 ment. Your prediction in regard to Folk s disposition to snatch 
 at a peace notwithstanding all his blustering, has been verified. 
 I think the Aliens and Hannegans and Casses must feel cheap ; 
 but they should have expected nothing better from their coalition 
 with slavery. It is false to everything but the instinct of its own 
 preservation. When will the North learn this ? " 
 
 Two clays after the delivery of this speech Mr. 
 Adams addressed the House on the same subject. 
 In an elaborate argument he supported the claim 
 of the Administration to the whole of Oregon, but 
 did not admit that the assertion of our title would 
 involve the country in a war with England. He, 
 however, agreed with Giddings as to the disastrous 
 effects such a war would have upon the institution 
 of slavery, and joined him in the prediction that the 
 Administration would surrender its belligerent posi 
 tion. In the mean time, Mr. Calhoun had re-entered 
 the Senate on the 22d of December, and surprised 
 his friends by throwing his whole weight against his 
 party on this question. He saw as clearly as Adams 
 and Giddings the effect of such a conflict upon the 
 interests of the South, and vigorously urged the 
 policy of concession. On the i6th of March he 
 said, 
 
190 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 " Once settle the question of Oregon, and we may then settle 
 the question of Mexico; but till then, Mexico will calculate the 
 chances of a rupture between us and Great Britain ; and if she 
 sees any chance of a war against us, she will go over to the power 
 which makes war upon us. Remove those chances, put an end to 
 such a hope, and Mexico will speedily settle every pending ques 
 tion between her and the United States." 
 
 For weeks and months longer the debate upon the 
 question continued in both Houses, while the Presi 
 dent and his party followers still claimed the whole 
 of Oregon, and the Democratic newspapers made 
 "fifty-four forty or fight," the party shibboleth. 
 When it was rumored that the President proposed 
 to settle the question on the line of forty-nine de 
 grees, Senator Hannegan of Indiana made his mem 
 orable speech, in which he declared that " so long as 
 one human eye remains to linger on the page of his 
 tory, the story of his abasement will be read, sending 
 him and his name together to an infamy so profound, 
 a damnation so deep, that the hand of resurrection 
 will never drag him forth. . . . He who is a traitor 
 to his country can never have forgiveness of God, 
 and cannot ask mercy of man." 
 
 Meanwhile, the men who agreed with Adams and 
 Giddings were rapidly multiplying, and the suspicion 
 was steadily growing stronger that the difficulty would 
 be adjusted without war. Finally, on the loth of 
 June, the President asked the advice of the Senate 
 on the subject of a settlement which would surrender 
 the whole of the vast territory lying north of forty- 
 nine degrees. That body promptly advised him to 
 accept such a settlement, and accordingly, on the 
 1 5th of June, a treaty to that effect was ratified; and 
 thus ended the campaign of bluster which had so 
 long been prosecuted under the leadership of Cass, 
 Allen, Hannegan, and Douglas, with the treacherous 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 191 
 
 connivance of Southern Democrats. Hannegan was 
 forgiven by President Polk, who nominated him as 
 minister to Russia, at the close of his senatorial 
 term. Harmony in the Democratic party was re 
 stored. The power of slavery over the people of the 
 Northern States had never before been so shamefully 
 illustrated as in the obsequious and humiliating sub 
 mission of the leaders, who for a year and a half 
 had kept the nation in a ferment by their windy talk 
 about war. 
 
 The Oregon trouble was now disposed of, but our 
 relations with Mexico were yet unsettled. 
 
 Texas having accepted the conditions of annexa 
 tion, Congress, by an Act which passed the Senate 
 on December 22, 1845, by a vote of 31 to 14, and 
 the House, on December 16, by 141 to 57, consum 
 mated the work. As early as August, 1845, General 
 Taylor had been ordered by President Polk to Corpus 
 Christi, situated at the mouth of the Nueces, on the 
 boundary between Texas and Mexico. In March of 
 the following year, in pursuance of further orders, 
 his army took its position on the east bank of the 
 Rio Grande, opposite Matamoras, at least one hun 
 dred miles beyond the boundary of Texas, and of 
 course on the soil of Mexico. Hostilities followed, 
 as predicted by the opponents of annexation, and 
 after two battles the President, in his message to 
 Congress of May n, declared that "Mexico has in 
 vaded our territory and shed American blood upon 
 the American soil." The message, with the accom 
 panying papers, was referred to the Committee on 
 Military Affairs, which reported a bill, the preamble 
 of which declared that "by the act of the Republic of 
 Mexico a state of war exists between that Govern 
 ment and the United States." The bill appropriated 
 
I Q2 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 ten million dollars and provided for calling out fifty 
 thousand men, and it passed the House of Represen 
 tatives with only fourteen dissenting votes. The men 
 who cast these votes, of whom it has been fitly said 
 that they " looked rather to the day of judgment than 
 to the day of election," were the following: John 
 Quincy Adams, George Ashmun, Joseph Grinnell, 
 Charles Hudson, and Daniel P. King of Massachu 
 setts; Henry T. Cranston of Rhode Island; Erastus 
 D. Culver of New York; Luther Severance of 
 Maine; John Strahan of Pennsylvania; and Colum 
 bus Delano, Joseph M. Root, Daniel R. Tilden, 
 Joseph Vance, and Joshua R. Giddings of Ohio. The 
 bill passed the Senate the next day, with only two 
 dissenting votes, those of Thomas Clayton of Dela 
 ware, and John Davis of Massachusetts. 
 
 On the passage of the bill no opportunity to debate 
 it was granted. The documents accompanying the 
 President s message were not allowed to be read. 
 Not a word of explanation or argument was per 
 mitted, nor was any member even suffered to enter 
 his protest against the bill or its preamble. At 
 every stage of the proceeding the previous question 
 silenced all opposition. 
 
 The champions of slavery now regarded their as 
 cendency as complete and unquestionable. They 
 compared those who voted against the war with the 
 Federalists, who voted against that of 1812. They 
 assumed that to oppose the war was to oppose the 
 Government, and they spoke of all who condemned 
 it as traitors to the honor of the nation. It was the 
 cowardice of the Whigs which led the great body of 
 them to vote for the War Bill, with its lying pream 
 ble. They feared they might be charged at the coming 
 elections with betraying the cause of their country; 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 193 
 
 and to save themselves from this danger they voted 
 to raise ten millions of money and fifty thousand 
 men, to carry on a war which they denounced as a 
 war of aggression and conquest. They tried to ex 
 cuse themselves on the plea that General Taylor 
 and his army were in danger of being destroyed or 
 captured by the enemy; but the very despatch in 
 which Taylor announced that hostilities had begun, 
 demonstrated his perfect security. He was then 
 making preparations for advancing into Mexico, and 
 seven days after the fifty thousand men had been 
 voted, Taylor, without waiting for the force he had 
 asked for, entered the city of Matamoras in triumph. 
 Moreover, the Whigs knew that if Taylor had been 
 in danger, his fate would be decided long before any 
 force raised under the Act could reach him, and that 
 he had already been authorized by the President to 
 call for and accept volunteers from no less than six 
 of the nearest States. They also knew that the 
 Democrats were strong enough to pass the War Bill 
 without a single Whig vote. 
 
 But if any valid or even plausible excuse could be 
 urged for voting for this declaration of war, there 
 could be none for indorsing the glaring falsehood 
 that Mexico was the aggressor. By voting against 
 this falsehood, the Whigs knew that the country 
 could not suffer, for the grant of money and troops 
 was sure to be made, irrespective of their action. 
 Their vote, therefore, was a perfectly gratuitous ex 
 hibition of moral cowardice, and placed them on the 
 same level with the President and his supporters. It 
 was utterly unworthy of the followers of Henry Clay, 
 who said in a public speech in Kentucky, "No earthly 
 consideration would ever have tempted me to vote for 
 a bill with a palpable falsehood stamped on its face." 
 
 13 
 
IQ4 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 Yet these Whigs denounced the President for 
 bringing on this war, as if they had not joined him 
 in the act. Their inconsistency was only matched by 
 their effrontery. Says Dr. Von Hoist, 
 
 " The Whigs always spoke of Folk s war. It is true that 
 Polk had purposely brought on the war ; but both Houses of 
 Congress had declared it superfluous to read even the documents 
 that had been voluntarily sent them by the President, in order to 
 form an independent judgment of the question how hostilities 
 with Mexico had been brought on. Certainly, Polk had sinned 
 deeply against the spirit of the Constitution when, behind the 
 back of the assembled Congress, and under no necessity, he 
 had deliberately worked to bring about an encounter on the Rio 
 Grande, in order to win by a war California and New Mexico, 
 which he had been unable to buy; but both Houses of Congress 
 had sanctioned his conduct without any investigation. It was 
 certain that Polk had done, by indirect and devious ways, what 
 Congress alone could rightfully do ; but both Houses of Con 
 gress had given their approval. Certainly, Folk s assertion that 
 the United States and Mexico were at war was not true ; but 
 both Houses of Congress, by their confirmation, made the state 
 ment a fact. Certainly, Polk had treated Congress with an in 
 sulting want of respect, and certain it was that this criminal 
 playing with the spirit of the Constitution would inevitably bear 
 bitter fruit ; but the two Houses of Congress had vied with each 
 other in putting the gag into their own mouths, and in lowering 
 themselves to mere tools of the President in a still greater degree 
 than he had required of them. Certainly, Folk s message, with its 
 disingenuousness, involved half-truths, and its intentional reser 
 vations, was an unworthy web of deceit; but both Houses of 
 Congress, under no compulsion whatever, and with the exercise 
 of a most disgraceful pressure on the minority, had set the seal 
 of their approbation upon it. The war was, indeed, originally 
 * Folk s war, but Congress was responsible for the fact that the 
 Union had to carry on Folk s war; and if the true and the 
 official history of the origin of the war were so related to each 
 other that, as Stephens maintained, Polk deserved the appella 
 tion of the mendacious, then the same disgraceful word was 
 branded on the forehead of the Congress, for it had voluntarily 
 and deliberately pledged itself to the truth of the official history 
 of the origin of the war, had repeated the lie, and formally made 
 it its own." J 
 
 1 Constitutional History of the United States, ii. 252-254. 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 195 
 
 The day following the passage of the War Bill in 
 the House, Giddings, in Committee of the Whole, 
 took occasion to express his views on the subject. 
 His speech was a masterly examination of our rela 
 tions with Mexico, growing out of the annexation of 
 Texas. He exposed the false pretences of the Presi 
 dent respecting the boundaries of Texas, and laid 
 bare the mingled sophistry and knavery by which 
 he attempted to defend his action and put Mexico 
 in the wrong. He made the President himself a 
 witness to the fact that the war was one of naked 
 aggression and conquest, in which he was as com 
 pletely the instrument of the slaveocracy as he had 
 shown himself in his cowardly surrender of our claim 
 to Oregon. I quote a single extract : 
 
 " The rights of the several States and of the people now 
 depend upon the arbitrary will of an irresponsible majority, who 
 are themselves controlled by a weak but ambitious Executive. 
 Am I asked for the evidence of this assertion ? I point you to 
 the invasion of Mexico by order of the Executive while Con 
 gress was in session; to the blockade of Matamoras; to those 
 acts which have involved us in all the evils of actual war, with 
 out even deigning to consult Congress on the subject. When all 
 this was effected, the majority of this House placed at his dis 
 posal the whole military and naval force of the nation, with ten 
 millions of treasure, for the conquest of Mexico, and then in 
 dorsed his flagrant misrepresentation by declaring that war 
 exists by the act of Mexico? Thus has Congress surrendered 
 its honor, its independence, and become the mere instrument of 
 the Executive, and been made to indorse this Presidential false 
 hood. This invasion of a sister republic, this usurpation of 
 imperial powers, this most despotic act of making war, has been 
 sanctioned by this body, and in a manner, too, which fully illus 
 trates the disregard of Constitutional restraints entertained by 
 this House. 
 
 " Sir, on this great and momentous subject of peace and war, 
 involving the lives of thousands of our fellow-citizens and the 
 welfare of two mighty nations, we were not permitted to speak, 
 to deliberate, or to compare our views. No member was allowed 
 to express his dissent, or state his objections to an act which is 
 
196 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 to tell upon the future destiny of civilized man. With indecent 
 haste, with unbecoming levity, under the gag of the previous 
 question, our nation is plunged into a bloody war for the purpose 
 of conquest and the extension of slavery." 
 
 Giddings, however, did not allow the questions of 
 Oregon and Texas to divert his mind from the tactics 
 of slavery respecting matters of smaller moment. On 
 the 1 8th of February, 1846, he addressed the House 
 on the Indian Appropriation Bill, providing for the 
 payment of forty thousand dollars, under our treaty 
 with the Creek and Seminole Indians, concluded in 
 1845. He had explained the facts connected with 
 this treaty in his speech of the 6th of February of 
 the previous year, and he now made it clear that this 
 appropriation was asked for in pursuance of the long- 
 continued policy of the Government in making itself 
 the agent of slaveholders in the recapture of fugitive 
 slaves, or in compensating them for their loss. He 
 showed that this treaty had never been published, 
 and that Congress had been called on to vote appro 
 priations under it without any knowledge of the facts 
 and circumstances which led to it. " From the time 
 of its approval to this hour," said he, "it has been 
 entombed in the Executive archives, and kept from 
 the view of gentlemen who are now called to act 
 officially under it." He repeated the essential facts 
 set forth in his speech on the Florida War in 1841, 
 and called attention to the remarkable fact that 
 under this treaty the President of the United States 
 is to sit as arbitrator between slaveholders and sav 
 ages in determining the pretended rights of property 
 of the former to Seminole Indians who were, in fact 
 and in law, free. He continued, 
 
 " And now the question is distinctly before us. Shall we 
 thrust our hands into the pockets of our constituents, and take 
 this money, and pass it over to a slave-dealing President, to be 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 197 
 
 expended in paying for the bodies of husbands and wives and 
 children? Are the representatives from the Free States pre 
 pared to enter into the business of huckstering in human flesh ? 
 Shall we involve our constituents in this deep and damning 
 crime of trading in the image of our God? Our votes must 
 answer these questions." 
 
 Reverting to his favorite theory that the existence 
 of slavery in the South depends exclusively upon the 
 authority of the States in which it exists, he said : 
 
 "To appropriate the moneys proposed in this bill to pay 
 for these slaves will be as clearly in violation of the Federal 
 compact as it would be for us to abolish slavery in Georgia, or 
 establish it in Massachusetts. If this Government possesses the 
 power to deal in slaves, we may establish a slave-market in 
 Boston or in New York, and set up business on Government 
 account at any other point we please. If we possess the power 
 to tax the people of the Free States to the amount of two hun 
 dred thousand dollars, to be expended in payment of slaves, as 
 contemplated by this treaty, we may tax them two hundred mil 
 lions for the same purpose. The question before us is one of 
 principle, and not of amount. Had our Government entered 
 into a treaty with those Indians, and agreed to pay them two 
 hundred thousand dollars for assisting the slaves of Georgia to 
 escape from bondage, we should all of us have pronounced such 
 a treaty unconstitutional ; and I do not believe that a member of 
 this body would have voted to appropriate a single dollar in pur 
 suance of it. Yet the unconstitutionality of such a treaty would 
 have been no more obvious than is that of the treaty before us. 
 It is a perfectly clear proposition that if the Government has 
 power to restore slaves, it has the same power to entice them 
 away ; and if it has the power to pay out the money of the 
 people for one purpose, it has equal power to pay it out for the 
 other." 
 
 In affirming these propositions, Giddings chal 
 lenged members to controvert them; but no one 
 attempted to do so. 
 
 In the latter part of July, in compliance with the 
 earnest wishes of Whig members of the House from 
 New England, he addressed a series of public meet 
 ings in Maine. This was a novel experience to him, 
 
198 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 and he enjoyed it greatly. He gives this account of it 
 in a letter written on his way back to Washington : 
 
 NEW YORK, July 26, 1846. 
 
 MY DEAR WIFE, On reaching Boston, on my return from 
 Maine, I found letters requesting my immediate return to Wash 
 ington, thinking that the Tariff Bill may be returned to the 
 House with amendments. I reached here this morning a little 
 after daylight, and after spending the day intend to take the cars 
 for Washington, so as to reach there tomorrow at 1 1 A. M. 
 
 I have had a most delightful trip, one well calculated to 
 please and to flatter my vanity. The respect and attention with 
 which I was received everywhere was gratifying. All classes 
 and all political parties appeared to extend to me a most cordial 
 welcome. I t was received with open arms and unlimited confi 
 dence by both Whigs and Liberty men, and I trust I have 
 effected the object of my mission. The cordial respect be 
 stowed upon me at some places rather overcame my feelings, 
 and in some instances I found myself unable to respond to the 
 grateful outpourings of gratitude with which I was received. I 
 addressed large meetings at the cities of Bangor, Augusta, and 
 Portland; and after spending six days in that State, I left it, 
 much more to the regret of the people, I think, than I should 
 have done if I had come away the day after I entered it. At 
 Boston I was urged to stay and address the people, but could 
 not. . . . Affectionately, 
 
 J. R. GlDDINGS. 
 
 When the second session of this Congress assem 
 bled, the varying fortunes of the war entirely en 
 grossed the attention of the House. The weakness 
 and recklessness of the President s message were 
 severely criticised, and his call for an additional 
 military force in the work of subjugating Mexico 
 aroused a formidable opposition, especially in the 
 Senate, where Mr. Calhoun took the lead. Our 
 army in Mexico was suffering from sickness, and 
 the war had become so unpopular that several mem 
 bers who had voted for it made propositions looking 
 to the restoration of peace without the acquisition of 
 territory. The resolutions offered by Mr. Stephens 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS, 199 
 
 of Georgia, to this effect, on the 22d of January, 1847, 
 received an affirmative vote of 76, to 88 in the nega 
 tive. The anti-war feeling of the country found a far 
 more startling echo in Mr. Corwin s great speech in 
 the Senate on the nth of February. It electrified 
 both Houses of Congress and the people of the 
 Northern States. In a letter to Charles Sumner, 
 written on the day of its delivery, Giddings said: 
 
 " I take pleasure in saying that Corwin has spoken, and 
 retires this night in the proudest attitude of any man in the 
 nation. I listened to most of his speech. In substance he has 
 met my expectations. As to manner, he was evidently embar 
 rassed. Strangers did not notice it, though it was most evident 
 to all who had heard him before. Mr. Root informed me that 
 before I entered the hall he made Mr. Webster look pale, by one 
 of his inimitable appeals, which no man can appreciate who 
 never heard him. His grounds are. that the war was com 
 menced without cause ; that we had long abused and insulted 
 Mexico ; that the President s message was a base fabrication ; 
 that the war will be fruitless of good; that the Mexicans will 
 not yield, and that our army must be withdrawn ; that it is right 
 and proper to withhold supplies, etc. In short, I think he main 
 tains every position the Young Whigs occupy. He declared that 
 the people of the North will never yield ; and that they will be 
 burned at the stake, and their fingers shall blaze like candles, 
 before they will permit further slave territory to be added to the 
 United States. But you will see a better sketch than I can give 
 you in the morning papers. His manner added much force to his 
 speech ; but the Young Whigs appeared to be in fine spirits, and 
 some of them declared that it was the finest effort ever made by 
 Mr. Corwin. They now regard him as their man for President. 1 
 
 On the 22d of February Charles Francis Adams 
 wrote, 
 
 HON. J. R. GIDDINGS, Washington, D. C. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, I find, by all the information I can gather, 
 that Mr. Corwin by his late speech has given an impetus to 
 opinion, the force of which he did not in all probability himself 
 foresee. A very large part of the people is ready to rally round 
 him at once. He must revise his speech with care for publica 
 tion, as it will probably be a marking point in the country s 
 
200 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 history. People will look back to it and say here was the first 
 glimmer and blaze of truth and right in the Senate chamber 
 upon the Mexican war. 
 
 We are now all of us anxious that he should only go straight 
 forward in the same path as it respects the other questions in the 
 Senate chamber. Will he speak again upon the Wilmot Proviso 
 and Mr. Calhoun s manifesto ? If Mr. Webster should falter or 
 equivocate, whom have we to look to but him. Can you do 
 nothing with him ? Tell him that there has not been in America 
 since the Revolution such a chance for a man to make an ever 
 lasting reputation as is now before him. In comparison with that, 
 all mere offices are contemptible objects to a true statesman. 
 
 I now half regret that I did not call to see Mr. Corwin when 
 I was in Washington. But I have such an aversion to appear 
 ing to pump anybody for sentiments of a particular kind that I 
 would rather forego any satisfaction to my own mind which I 
 might get from a conversation, than to attempt it. 
 
 I think the country is becoming fairly roused to the issues 
 before us. Firmness and moderation must be our policy. We 
 believe the public is growing more and more sensible, how 
 much it owes to you ! Yours very truly, 
 
 C. F. A. 
 
 This speech at once brought Corwin to the front 
 as a Presidential candidate, while it awakened gen 
 eral alarm among the champions of slavery. 
 
 Giddings was not silent during this session. On 
 the 1 5th of December he made an elaborate and un 
 usually vigorous arraignment of the war policy of 
 the Administration, as defined in the President s mes 
 sage. His exposure of his mendacity was unsparing 
 and unanswerable, and in speaking of his demand 
 for further supplies of men and money, Giddings 
 reiterated his purpose to vote for neither. On this 
 subject he greatly annoyed his Whig brethren who 
 voted for the war, by vindicating the action of those 
 members who had refused to join in that vote and 
 to grant supplies for its prosecution. This he did by 
 citing distinguished British precedents. When a 
 war of aggression and conquest was waged against 
 the American colonies by the British king, Gid- 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 2OI 
 
 dings showed that Lord Chatham and Fox and 
 Burke, and other distinguished friends of the colo 
 nies, refused to vote supplies for its prosecution, 
 and demanded the withdrawal of the English armies 
 from their work of conquest and rapine. They went 
 farther, and even refused to vote thanks to General 
 Clinton and others for their military services in Amer 
 ica, because they regarded the war in which these 
 services were rendered as unjust and indefensible. 
 
 On the 8th of January, Mr. Winthrop attempted 
 a reply. He denied the applicability to the govern 
 ment of the United States of the English precedents 
 cited by Giddings. He said: 
 
 " I am not ready to admit that there is any close analogy 
 between the struggle of the American colonies in 1776 and that 
 of the Mexicans now. Still less analogy is there between a vote 
 of the British House of Commons and a vote of the American 
 House of Representatives. A refusal of supplies in the Parlia 
 ment of Great Britain is, generally speaking, equivalent to a 
 change of Administration. No British Ministry can hold their 
 places in defiance of such a vote. A successful opposition to 
 supplies in time of war is thus almost certain to result in bringing 
 forthwith into power a Ministry opposed to its further prosecu 
 tion; and the kingdom is not left to encounter the dangers which 
 might result from a conflict upon such a subject between the 
 executive and legislative powers. It is not so here. No vote of 
 Congress can change our Administration. If it could, the present 
 Administration would have expired on Saturday last, when a tax, 
 which they had solemnly declared was essential to furnish them 
 with the sinews of war, was so emphatically denied. If it could, 
 the present Administration would have gone out on Tuesday last, 
 when their demand for a Lieutenant-General was so uncere 
 moniously laid on the table. No British Ministry, in these days, 
 could have survived for an hour two such signal defeats. 
 
 " But our Executive is elected for a term of years, and his 
 cabinet are quite independent of our votes. A refusal of all sup 
 plies might hamper and embarrass an Executive, and give an 
 enemy the advantage of divided counsels, but could hardly en 
 force a change of policy, or secure a concerted action in favor of 
 peace. Certainly it does not seem to be the mode contemplated 
 by our Constitution for putting an end to a war when it has once 
 
202 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA A . GID DINGS. 
 
 been commenced. The people alone can apply the potent styptic, 
 the magical Brocchieri, for stopping the effusion of blood, if it 
 be the Executive will that it shall continue to flow. It is their 
 prerogative to change the Administration ; and the day is coming, 
 though farther off than some of us might wish, when they will 
 have the opportunity of exercising it." 
 
 Winthrop based a further reply to Giddings upon 
 a letter quoted from John Jay to Timothy Pickering, 
 dated November i, 1814, in which, speaking of the 
 War of 1812, he said: "We cannot be too perfectly 
 united in a determination to defend our country." 
 
 The friends of Giddings, both in Congress and 
 throughout the country, desired him to reply to these 
 views and expose their fallacy, and he was anxious 
 to do so ; but he had already addressed the House at 
 length, while many members who had not spoken 
 were struggling for the floor. On the I5th of Jan 
 uary, Mr. Sumner wrote : 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, I am glad that you will reply to Winthrop. 
 I hope you will unmask his perversion of John Jay. Invoke 
 John Jay in a war of offence, or in an implied sanction of our 
 country, right or wrong ! It seems to me that the contrast, the 
 antagonism, the world-wide difference between defence and offence 
 might be elaborated with effect. . . . 
 
 The comment of Winthrop on the British statesmen seemed 
 like an attempt to take advantage of the House. It is a juggle. 
 The principle of duty which animated Fox and Chatham ought 
 to animate the American Congress. Would to God that their 
 spirit would descend upon the House ! But because the minority 
 went out on sustaining a defeat, and they do not go out here, 
 does any conclusion follow ? Clearly not. If any, it is one that 
 should make us more vigilant in checking their course. They 
 should be held to strict accountability at every step. . . . 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 CHARLES SUMNER. 
 
 On the following day he made a further reference 
 to the same subject: 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, I cannot forbear writing a line to-day to 
 say that President Adams expressed particular pleasure when I 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 203 
 
 told him that you proposed to reply to Winthrop s criticism on 
 the English authorities. The President said that they were pre 
 cisely in point ; that the circumstance adduced by Winthrop did 
 not affect their authority in our Congress. They denied the 
 justice of the war in which their country was engaged, and 
 therefore refused to sanction it, and called upon their country 
 to retreat, not from any enemy of human force, but from 
 wrong-doing. . . . Yours faithfully, 
 
 CHARLES SUMNER. 
 
 P. S. I hope you will save John Jay from the imputation 
 thrown upon him by Winthrop s speech. How puerile to discuss 
 the phraseology of the message, or the conduct of the Executive, 
 and spare the great crime of unjust, unnecessary, and murderous 
 war ! 
 
 On the ist of February Giddings wrote to Sumner: 
 
 " I have some apprehension that I shall not be able to speak 
 again at this session on the war. There are many who have not 
 spoken, and who are yet desirous of speaking. Under these cir 
 cumstances, I have imparted my views to my colleague, Mr. 
 Delano, so far as regards my intended reply to Mr. Winthrop. I 
 have also placed in his hands the extract from the Madison papers, 
 giving Mr. Gorham s views in the convention that framed the 
 Constitution, on the subject of controlling the Executive by with 
 holding supplies in time of war." 
 
 Mr. Delano obtained the floor on the following 
 day, and made it clear that the object in withholding 
 supplies, whether in England or America, is to stop 
 the Administration in a career of mischief and law 
 lessness; that in both countries the withholding of 
 supplies compels the government to change its pol 
 icy; that the resignation of the Ministry in England 
 does not give the right to refuse supplies, but is 
 simply a consequence of defeat ; while in both Eng 
 land and America the end to be obtained is the same, 
 and that the fact that our Executive is elected for 
 a term of years does not make him independent of 
 Congress during that time. On this point Mr. 
 Delano said, - 
 
 "But if thus independent, may the President involve the 
 country in a war, unconstitutional in its origin, expensive in its 
 
204 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 prosecution, wicked in its objects, and dangerous in its conse 
 quences ? And is there no mode contemplated by our Con 
 stitution for putting an end to such a war when it has been 
 commenced ? Is there no way in our government to stop the 
 effusion of blood in such a war if it be the Executive will that it 
 shall continue to flow, except to let it flow on during the period 
 for which the Executive was elected, and then let the people 
 apply the potent styptic ? 
 
 " I am unwilling to sanction, even by silence, a doctrine which 
 puts this country, for a period of four years, so entirely, abso 
 lutely, at the mercy of one man, a doctrine which proposes, in 
 time of war, when necessarily and inevitably the power and patron 
 age of the President are increased, to make him and his cabinet 
 independent of Congress ; which throws at once the reins of 
 government upon the neck of executive power, and gives the 
 steed full license to trample upon the liberties and lives of the 
 people. The framers of the Constitution never looked for such 
 an interpretation of it. They expressly reserved to Congress the 
 right to declare war; they knew that money was necessary to 
 wage war ; and they supposed that as long as the power to grant 
 and withhold supplies remained with Congress, the President, by 
 a judicious exercise of this power, would be restrained from 
 prosecuting any war longer than shall be necessary and proper." 
 
 In support of these views he cited the debates in 
 the convention which framed the Constitution, and 
 he disposed of Mr. Winthrop s quotation from John 
 Jay by reminding the House that the War of 1812 was 
 a war of defence, and that when Jay s letter was writ 
 ten, our Capitol at Washington had been burned, our 
 frontiers were occupied by British troops, and our 
 commerce was exposed to a British navy. The letter 
 had no relevancy whatever to a war of conquest like 
 that waged by the British Crown against the colonies 
 in 1776, or our war with Mexico, which was wantonly 
 and unconstitutionally begun by the President. De 
 lano s reply to Winthrop was complete; and this 
 radical difference of views between Giddings and 
 Winthrop is here referred to, because of its bearing 
 upon further matters of controversy between them 
 which I shall hereafter have occasion to notice. 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 2O$ 
 
 On the 2d of March, 1847, tne Civil and Diplomatic 
 Appropriation Bill was returned from the Senate to 
 the House with an amendment granting to the claim 
 ants of slaves on board the "Amistad" fifty thousand 
 dollars. In a letter to Sumner of that date, Giddings 
 says, 
 
 " You will recollect the story. I saw that our opponents in 
 tended to get out of committee without discussing that amend 
 ment, for the very purpose of stopping the debate. I obtained 
 the floor, and called the attention of the House to this amend 
 ment, and stated the facts. After I was through, the chairman of 
 the Committee of Ways and Means called for the reading of a 
 letter from the Secretary of State urging Congress to make the 
 appropriation, and declaring the claim to be just and valid. 
 This was more than the old man eloquent could withstand, and 
 he broke out, notwithstanding the weakness of his voice and 
 health. It would have done your heart good to see the members 
 gather around him in a dense mass and listen to him in breath 
 less attention. He spoke only to one point, and only about fifteen 
 minutes ; but it was regarded as probably his last speech in this 
 hall, and was received with profound respect. There were only 
 twenty-eight who voted for the appropriation in committee." 
 
 In the House it failed by a vote of 40 to 112. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 MARCH, 1847, TO DECEMBER, 1848. 
 
 Novel State of Parties. Correspondence. Meeting of the Thirtieth 
 Congress. Struggle for the Speakership. Controversy with Win- 
 throp. Other Questions. Death of Mr. Adams. Speech on 
 General Politics. Escape of Slaves on the Schooner " Pearl. "- 
 Mob in Washington. Speech. Hope H. Slatter and Rev. Mr. 
 Slicer. The Claim of Hodges. Campaign of 1848. Letter to 
 Truman Smith. Effect of the Free-Soil Movement. 
 
 DURING the Congressional vacation the growth 
 of anti-slavery opinion throughout the North 
 ern States was unmistakable. The success of our 
 armies in Mexico rendered the acquisition of terri 
 tory certain, and made the prohibition of slavery 
 therein a vital issue. On this question and that of 
 voting supplies for the prosecution of the war the 
 Whig party was threatened with disruption. In Mas 
 sachusetts it was divided into "Conscience Whigs," 
 who were earnest and outspoken anti-slavery men, 
 and "Cotton Wliigs," or conservatives, who subordi 
 nated the slavery issue to the unity of the party. 
 The leaders of the former were Charles F. Adams, 
 John G. Palfrey, Charles Sumner, Stephen C. Phil 
 lips, Henry Wilson, Charles Allen, Samuel and 
 E. R. Hoar, and Richard H. Dana, Jr. ; of the latter, 
 Robert C. Winthrop, J. T. Stevenson, George Ash- 
 mun, and Levi Lincoln. Both parties were uncom 
 promising and thoroughly in earnest. In the West 
 a similar division revealed itself, with Mr. Giddings 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA K. GIDDINGS. 2O? 
 
 and Salmon P. Chase as the most conspicuous rep 
 resentatives of the liberal element. 
 
 The Democratic party was likewise threatened with 
 serious division on the slavery question, particularly 
 in New York, where the defeat of Van Buren, in 
 1844, for writing his anti-Texas letter, had paved the 
 way for the formidable revolt which followed a little 
 later. The political complications were still further 
 aggravated by the victories of General Taylor, which 
 brought him before the people as a prospective Whig 
 candidate for the Presidency, while the anti-slavery 
 men of the country, of different types and antece 
 dents, began to talk about the formation of a new 
 party on the issue of slavery, and to discuss the 
 claims of Corwin, Webster, Judge McLean, and 
 Martin Van Buren as Presidential candidates. The 
 Liberty party was still in the field, with John P. Hale 
 as its Presidential favorite; but it gave no promise 
 of rallying to its support the mass of anti-slavery 
 men who were ready to secede from the old parties. 
 A considerable body of Whigs still looked to Clay 
 as their great leader, and dwelt upon his opposition 
 to the annexation of Texas, and his fulfilled prophecy 
 that annexation would be followed by war. 
 
 At this season of political uncertainty and confu 
 sion which preceded the Free-Soil revolt of the 
 following year and prepared the way for it, the cor 
 respondence of Mr. Giddings possesses a peculiar 
 interest. His position at Washington gave him im 
 portant advantages in surveying the field of politics. 
 He was the active and uncompromising representa 
 tive of the anti-slavery cause in Congress. His 
 exceptional knowledge of the slavery issue in all its 
 aspects was unquestioned, while his age and political 
 experience also conspired to invest his opinions and 
 
208 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 counsel with authority. We can now read his cor 
 respondence in the light of accomplished facts, and 
 are able to assign to his views their proper value. 
 
 Among his most intimate and trusted friends at 
 this time were Charles F. Adams and Charles Sum 
 ner, with whom he was in frequent communication on 
 political topics, and who often sought his opinions 
 respecting public men and measures. But little of 
 his correspondence with the former has been pre 
 served, but Sumner carefully filed his letters from 
 Giddings, nearly all of which were written from 1846 
 to 1851, when Sumner entered the Senate from Mas 
 sachusetts. The friendship which ripened between 
 him and Giddings was as perfect as that which had 
 so long existed between the latter and ex-President 
 Adams. On June 2, Giddings wrote to Sumner, 
 
 " I was aware that Mr. Peters was partial to Judge McLean. 
 I object to no man if his principles are right and his character 
 suited to the place. On these points I fear Judge McLean. I 
 think his political views nearly the same as they were when he 
 left Jackson s cabinet. That he will call around him the * Old 
 Hunkers of our party I entertain no doubt. Men of the old 
 school will be his advisers on the subject of slavery, and his 
 administration will be a continuation of the practice of uncondi 
 tional submission to the slave-power. He is doubtless in favor 
 of granting men and money to carry on the war." 
 
 Giddings did not agree with the Whigs who desired 
 the nomination of Mr. Clay, though still warmly at 
 tached to him. This will appear from the following 
 letter, which also contains other matters of interest : 
 
 [Confidential.] 
 
 ASHLAND, Oct. 6, 1847. 
 
 I received, my dear sir, your friendly letter in all the spirit of 
 kindness and amity in which it was dictated, and I answer it in 
 the same spirit. 
 
 I am thankful for your friendship, which I cordially recipro 
 cate. I hope that it will continue to be mutual between us, what 
 ever may be the political events of the future. 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 2OQ 
 
 You tell me that it is possible that I may be again a candi 
 date for the Presidency by the nomination of the Whig conven 
 tion, and, with honorable candor, add that you are not favorable 
 to my nomination. 
 
 After the disastrous termination of the last contest, I never 
 expected to be again a candidate. I do not now expect it, nor 
 have I determined in my own mind that I would accept the nomi 
 nation if it were offered me. It probably never will be necessary 
 for me to decide that question ; but if it should be, I should de 
 liberately consider the circumstances which ought to influence 
 my judgment. 
 
 I am not surprised at the progress of the anti-slavery feeling 
 which you describe in the Free States. The annexation of Texas, 
 this most unnecessary and horrible war with Mexico, and the 
 overthrow of the tariff of 1842, were well calculated to produce 
 that effect. But you, perhaps, ought to reflect that these meas 
 ures could not have been carried without large Northern support; 
 and perhaps justice would also require that it should not be for 
 gotten that some of us were most decidedly adverse to them. 
 
 You kindly refer to the subject of the slaves I hold, and tell 
 me what would be the good consequences of my emancipating 
 them. 
 
 I regret as much as any one does the existence of slavery in 
 our country, and wish to God there was not a single slave in the 
 United States, or in the whole world. But here the unfortunate 
 institution is, and a most delicate and difficult affair is it to deal 
 with. 
 
 I have during my life emancipated some eight or ten, under 
 circumstances which appeared to me to admit of their emancipa 
 tion. The last was Charles, and I am not sure that he is bene 
 fited by his freedom. Of the remainder (some fifty odd), what I 
 ought to do with them, and how, and when, is a matter of grave 
 and serious consideration often with me. I am perfectly sure 
 that to emancipate them forthwith would be an act of great in 
 humanity and extreme cruelty. I wish you would come and see 
 me and them. Do come. You would behold among them aged 
 and decrepit men and women and helpless children, utterly un 
 able to gain a livelihood or support in the world. They would 
 perish if I sent them forth in the world. 
 
 Alas, alas! my good friend, I fear you have a very inad 
 equate idea of the duties, obligations, and relations which exist 
 between my poor slaves and me. 
 
 But whatever I may or might do tdwards them must be 
 wholly independent of all political motives or considerations ; it 
 must rest exclusively with my own sense of duty and propriety. 
 
 14 
 
2IO THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 Nor do I believe that if it were possible for me to be influ 
 enced by the motive of my own political advancement in the 
 emancipation of my slaves, at this time, it would tend in the 
 smallest degree to the promotion of that end. My object and 
 purpose would be alike assailed by the ultras on both sides, if not 
 by others. I remain, very truly, 
 
 Your friend and obedient servant, H. CLAY. 
 
 The Hon. Mr. GIDDINGS. 
 
 In a letter to Mr. Giddings dated October i, Mr. 
 Sumner gave him an account of the Massachusetts 
 State Whig convention, held at Springfield on the 
 29th of September, in which Mr. Webster was nomi 
 nated for the Presidency, and declared himself in 
 favor of the Wilmot Proviso. Giddings replied, 
 October 8, - 
 
 "Your favor of the ist instant is received. I am astonished 
 that Mr. Webster should have made so bold a push for the nomi 
 nation. I am, however, delighted with the expression of his 
 views in regard to the withdrawal of our troops and in favor of 
 the Wilmot Proviso. It must have given you and Messrs. 
 Adams, Palfrey, and Phillips great pleasure to find him acting 
 with you ; but I regret that you had not learned the fact at an 
 earlier day. Looking at the doings of your convention, so far as 
 I am informed, I think the developments were, on the whole, 
 favorable to the progress of correct principle. Even the nomi 
 nation of Mr. Webster, under the circumstances, tells strongly in 
 favor of the Young Whigs. I am gratified to see Mr. Palfrey 
 standing forward as he did in your convention. He will enter 
 Congress with no doubtful character, and I feel assured that 
 he will not begin to play dark after he gets before the nation. 
 I assure you that I anticipate much pleasure at seeing him as 
 sume a portion of the responsibility that has so long rested upon 
 a few of us. 
 
 "As to Corwin, I know not that I can give you any informa 
 tion. I have written him very fully, and when I get his answer 
 will know more about his speech and his views. I have put to 
 him such questions as I think will draw out his real sentiments. 
 I had supposed that I knew his views upon the subject of slavery. 
 In 1844 I was with him on the stump. At Cadiz, in the county 
 of Harrison, at a very large convention, among whom were many 
 slaveholders from Virginia, and some from Kentucky, among 
 them Gen. Leslie Combs, I spoke my views freely and fully on 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 2 1 1 
 
 the subject of slavery, the more so because there were also many 
 Liberty men present who had asserted that I would say nothing 
 in regard to slavery when slaveholders were present. 
 
 " Corwin followed me, and indorsed and confirmed my doctrines, 
 and avowed them as his own. He also did the same on other 
 occasions. Last winter we talked the subject over again, and he 
 appeared to have no delicacy in the matter, but said he should 
 not hesitate to declare his views at a proper time. I have cau 
 tioned him on this point since we returned from the last session. 
 This is all I can say at present. It is certain that in his speech 
 there was an intimation that I did not approve. Here the matter 
 rests so far as I am concerned. If he shows the doughface, we 
 shall cast him off without hesitation. Whatever Mr. Winthrop 
 and others think in regard to voting for the best slaveholder, we 
 of northern Ohio will sustain no doughface, were he a brother or 
 a son. Corwin understands this now, and will understand it more 
 fully when he shall have read the papers from the Reserve. He 
 is and has long been the favorite of northern Ohio, much more 
 than of the southern portion of the State ; but we shall not again 
 be Tylerized by any man." 
 
 The attitude of Corwin continued to engross the 
 attention of anti-slavery Whigs both in New Eng 
 land and the West. On the 1 8th of October Gid- 
 dings wrote to Sumner, 
 
 " When Henry Clay s Alabama letter appeared in 1844, my 
 former partner * swore he would favor a candidate at the next 
 Presidential election who could neither read nor write. I doubt 
 whether he should not include those who make speeches. I 
 think, however, that the whole difficulty with Corwin has arisen 
 from two causes, first, he said more in regard to the dangers 
 of the Wilmot Proviso than he should have said ; second, what 
 he did say was misrepresented. He is exceedingly vexed at the 
 misrepresentations, and avows the same sentiments on the subject 
 of extending slavery which you and I hold. In short, I think our 
 friend Adams formed a very accurate opinion when he said Corwin 
 had shown less boldness on the subject than became a man in his 
 situation. I yet believe he will come up to that point as boldly 
 as he did on the war. If he does not, however, we here shall 
 feel under no obligation to support him." 
 
 On the ist of November Sumner replied to 
 
 Giddings. - 
 
 1 B. F. Wade. 
 
212 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 "Your favor of the iSth was duly received. Since then I 
 have received a letter from Mr. Corwin, in which he shows some 
 anxiety on account of the report of the Carthage speech. I 
 regret that speech very much. The passage with Mr. Chase was 
 unfortunate. It has undoubtedly disaffected the Abolitionists, 
 who already inclined to Mr. Corwin. His shrinking from the 
 Wilmot Proviso as a dangerous question was another mistake. 
 That question, when rightly understood, is a source of safety. 
 It is the beginning of a rally against the slave-power which will 
 save the Union. I wish Mr. Corwin could see this as we do. I 
 had begun to feel a personal attachment for him, and shall be un 
 happy if we cannot act under him. The courage which he showed 
 against the war ought to inspire him to active demonstrations 
 against slavery. Meanwhile, the Democrats in New York are in 
 motion. I have assurances on which I rely that they are in 
 earnest. Preston King says he does not care whether the Presi 
 dential candidate is a Whig or a Democrat, but he must be a 
 Wilmot Proviso man. I may say, confidentially, that a letter 
 has been received here from Albany inquiring if J. Q. Adams 
 will join with Martin Van Buren and others in a call for an anti- 
 slavery convention to nominate a Northern candidate. Mr. 
 Adams was asked yesterday if he would do it. He expressed 
 great pleasure in the plan, but pleaded that he was so old and 
 infirm that he could not do what might be justly expected of him 
 if he were to sign such a call. 
 
 "It seems that the continuance of the war will prevent such a 
 call immediately ; but when that ceases, nothing can prevent the 
 coalition of the two anti-slavery sections. Let us try to prepare 
 the way. 
 
 " I regret J. P. Hale s acceptance of the Liberty nomination. 
 I urged him in vain to a contrary course. 
 
 "Your anticipation with regard to Palfrey will be fulfilled. 
 He is true as steel. As a new member, of marked opinions, he 
 will be exposed to trials. I know he may count upon your 
 friendship and sympathy. I see that the Whigs will continue to 
 vote supplies. Before going into caucus on the Speakership, 
 should you not understand their proposed course ? " 
 
 To this letter Giddings replied, November 8, - 
 
 " I rejoice at the proposition made to Mr. Adams. It shows 
 advance on the part of the Van Burens more rapidly than I had 
 expected, although I had strong assurances of their intentions to 
 stand by the principles of the Wilmot Proviso; and from some I 
 have the promise that they will go for a total and perfect separa 
 tion of the Federal Government from all support of slavery. This 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 213 
 
 I think is the line which we should draw, and on which we should 
 stand. Let us repeal all laws of Congress which now exist for 
 the support of slavery, wash our hands entirely of it, and leave it 
 altogether with the States in which it is situated. I am fully of 
 the opinion that we shall affix the Wilmot Proviso to the first ap 
 propriation bill that passes ; for although I have hopes that the 
 army may be recalled, yet I make all calculations that Southern 
 Whigs are to go for supplies. . . . 
 
 " Mr. Corwin can expect the anti-slavery Whigs to support him 
 for President on no other ground than that of maintaining our 
 doctrines and policy. He has during vacation been surrounded 
 by timid doughfaces, who have felt that he was injuring himself 
 and party. That influence has doubtless had an effect upon him. 
 The papers speak much of Mr. Schenck s course in opposing the 
 war, when in fact he voted for it, and, to the best of my recol 
 lection, has at all times either dodged the question, or voted for 
 supplies, while it is true he has spoken against the war. Mr. 
 Schenck has been much with Corwin, and I fear has had quite 
 too much influence with, him ; yet I have confidence that he will 
 come up to the work when he gets back to the Senate." 
 
 A little later, Charles Francis Adams wrote, 
 
 BOSTON, Nov. 28, 1847. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, ... I have concluded not to go to Wash 
 ington at present. You have doubtless seen the base attack of 
 the " Atlas " upon us, which was designed to curry favor for Win- 
 throp with the Carolinians. The effort to manufacture public 
 opinion is going on with great industry, and I suspect our Con 
 gressmen will be overawed. But I know nothing of them, not 
 even of my father or Mr. Palfrey. If I were to go to Washing 
 ton, the inference would immediately be that I was going in order 
 to defeat him [Winthrop]. 
 
 Mr. Clay s speech seems to be throwing the party into confu 
 sion. I suspect the Taylor movement will now begin in earnest, 
 and that Winthrop will secretly favor it. He will not easily for 
 give Clay, whom he never loved overmuch. 
 
 What is to be done ? I am very tired of the equivocations of 
 the Whigs, and so far as I am concerned, am fully prepared for 
 any movement which may be made from any quarter, resting 
 upon the ground which you suggested in your last. But I will 
 not start until I see my way not to embarrass you. What will 
 the Democrats do? Are they going after the wild-goose project 
 of trying Mr. Van Buren ? 
 
 What we now want is union, and to understand each other. 
 Cannot this be done at once ? 
 
214 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 Mr. Palfrey has been very unwell, and it is not certain that he 
 can get on in season for Monday. He is true as steel. 
 
 After all, I have little confidence in anybody at Washington 
 excepting in Palfrey and yourself. My father, of course, is not 
 active. You two must sustain our cause. My own impression is 
 that bold measures will be wisest, union with other parties 
 without scruple, wherever they act honestly in the support of the 
 only principles now in question, and if possible a total defeat of 
 any intrigue which shall attempt to stifle the slavery question in 
 the delusion of no more territory. 
 
 What say you ? Let me know early, so that I may bring the 
 paper well out. I have been talking very gently of late. 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 C. F. ADAMS. 
 
 On December I, Sumner wrote, 
 
 " I find that the person who wrote to ascertain whether Mr. 
 Adams would unite with the Van Burens and others in the call 
 of an anti-slavery convention was not authorized to speak for the 
 latter. He saw Mr. Van Buren, who said that he was in favor of 
 the Wilmot Proviso, but that he must keep himself aloof from the 
 agitation of that question. Old fox ! " 
 
 Giddings, like Sumner and Adams, was reluctant 
 to surrender his faith in Corwin. He clung to him as 
 he had clung to Clay in 1844. Indeed, his hopeful 
 ness was one of the most perfectly defined traits in 
 his character. He believed in humanity, and though 
 often disappointed in his favorable estimate of men, 
 he never lost his faith. To this quality of his mind 
 he was doubtless largely indebted for the constancy 
 and zeal which enabled him to prosecute his labors 
 in the face of the most threatening forms of opposi 
 tion and discouragement. 
 
 Respecting the course of Mr. Corwin, his anti- 
 slavery friends were not long kept in suspense. 
 They soon discovered that he had taken fright at 
 the display of his own courage or at the plaudits 
 of the Abolitionists, and that he lacked the moral 
 nerve and steadfastness of purpose which would have 
 fitted him for the leadership of a great movement. 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 21$ 
 
 He was witty, eloquent, versatile, sympathetic, and 
 full of generous impulses. His oratory was as cap 
 tivating as it was inimitable, and his geniality as 
 abounding as his love of fun. These qualities made 
 him the idol of the people, but they did not supply 
 him with convictions. He had caught a glimpse of 
 the truth which beckoned him forward as the prophet 
 of the people, but having faltered in the supreme 
 moment of his public life, he turned again to the 
 beggarly work of party politics, took the stump for 
 General Taylor, and by easy stages of descent 
 reached the position of Secretary of the Treasury 
 under Millard Fillmore, and defender of the Com 
 promise measures of 1850. Henceforward till his 
 death he was the despair of the men who had longed 
 to fight the battle of freedom under his banner. 
 
 As the time drew near for the meeting of the 
 Thirtieth Congress, the question of the Speakership 
 of the House was discussed with increasing interest. 
 The choice of a Speaker always involves grave con 
 siderations, but the condition of public affairs at that 
 time made it pre-eminently momentous. We have 
 seen that Sumner referred to it in his last letter; but 
 Giddings had seriously pondered the question much 
 earlier. In a letter to Horace Greeley, of Septem 
 ber 7, he had stated, with great clearness and force, the 
 attitude of the Whig party on the subject of annexa 
 tion and war, the verified prophecies of the Whig 
 leaders that war would follow annexation, and the 
 undisguised hostility of the party to its further prose 
 cution. I quote from this letter: 
 
 " The Whig party has never ceased to condemn the war. 
 Their disgust for it was never stronger than at present, and it is 
 gaining strength every day. With these circumstances surround 
 ing them, the Whig members of Congress will assemble. The 
 first duty that will devolve upon them will be the election of a 
 
2l6 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 Speaker. That officer exerts more influence over the destinies 
 of the nation than any other member of the government except 
 the President. He arranges the committees to suit his own 
 views. If a Whig in favor of prosecuting the war be elected 
 Speaker, he will so arrange the committees as to secure reports in 
 favor of continuing our conquests in Mexico. If he be opposed 
 to the war, he will so arrange them as to have reports in favor 
 of withdrawing our troops. Which course will the Whig party in 
 the House of Representatives pursue ? A more momentous ques 
 tion was never presented to the Whig party. Should they elect 
 an anti-war candidate, and the Committee of Ways and Means 
 should be so constituted as to report against the further conquest 
 of Mexico, it is quite possible that Whigs enough would vote 
 with the Democrats to reverse the reports of committees, and to 
 make the necessary appropriations to carry on hostilities. But 
 such an act of a few individuals would not involve the party, 
 and we may escape the odium and responsibility of such act. 
 We should in such event remain upon the ground which we have 
 long maintained, and the responsibility of the war will remain 
 with those who brought it upon us. On the other hand, should 
 they elect a Speaker in favor of carrying on the war, there will 
 be a union between the parties in regard to it ; and the distinctive 
 principles on which the Whig party has hitherto stood will be 
 surrendered. When we as a party shall thus desert our doc 
 trines, and obliterate the lines that have hitherto separated the 
 two parties, and make this a Whig war, and assume its crimes 
 and disgrace, its final overthrow will not be far distant. Now, 
 sir, I wish to avoid such a state of things. I am aware that our 
 friends desire to see a Whig Speaker and a Whig clerk elected ; 
 but I submit whether it would not be a thousand times better for 
 the Whig party to maintain its integrity and principles than to 
 surrender them for the paltry advantages of electing a Speaker 
 and clerk. If we are contending for great and holy principles, 
 let us stand by our professions ; but if we are fighting for office 
 and power merely, why then the sooner we disband the better." 
 
 The significance of these views was soon to be 
 practically illustrated. Their value was to be tested 
 in the nomination and election of Robert C. Win- 
 throp, of Massachusetts, as Speaker of the next 
 House, while Mr. Giddings was to be brought face 
 to face with one of the greatest trials of his public 
 life. On December 4, he wrote to Sumner, 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 217 
 
 " Mr. Palfrey has arrived in the same cars that brought me 
 your favor of the ist instant. His health is improving. I was 
 most happy to see him. I thank God that I have one man on 
 whom I can lean. Our party is now in caucus (10 o clock at night) 
 to nominate a Speaker. There are very few members absent. 
 They entirely refused to state any principle on which our future 
 action shall be based, and I refused to meet in caucus, as I might 
 by some be considered as bound in honor to vote for the Whig 
 nominee. I determined that no circumstances should induce me 
 to vote for any man who is not pledged to arrange the commit 
 tees so as to secure the withdrawal of the army, and reports 
 upon Abolition petitions. I shall be set upon by the blood 
 hounds of the party, but that I am accustomed to. Winthrop 
 has satisfied Hudson and others who felt somewhat on the sub 
 ject of the war, and they will vote for him if nominated. Yet 
 Mr. Palfrey and myself will probably hold his election in our 
 hands. I therefore intend that our power shall be exerted and 
 felt ;LS far as we can make it tell upon humanity. Mr. Adams 
 will vote for Mr. Winthrop, and I was compelled to take the 
 stand at the dictation of my own judgment against the remon 
 strance of personal and political friends. But since Mr. Palfrey 
 has arrived, I have stated the whole case to him, and he concurs 
 with me in opinion, and approves my course. My only fears are 
 that we may, by thus partially separating from our party, lose 
 influence ; but I hope not. I am sure that my absence from the 
 meeting will cause inquiry, and think they will discover that I 
 hold important cards in my hand. 
 
 " Half-past eleven. The meeting has adjourned ; Winthrop 
 is nominated for Speaker, and Campbell of Tennessee for clerk. 
 Thus you see the subject has assumed a tangible shape. And 
 now, my dear sir, though accustomed to meet responsibility in 
 various ways, I frankly say that I feel some indecision as to the 
 course I may hereafter adopt. I have no doubt that if King 
 and Palfrey stand firm, we may yet defeat Winthrop and break 
 up the present dynasty of our Whig party ; while we may, I 
 think, secure the committees in our favor by voting for him. 
 Reflection is necessary. I would like to see you, and Mr. Adams, 
 and Mr. Phillips for an hour or two on the subject; but we must 
 decide for ourselves." 
 
 The dilemma in which Giddings was now placed 
 was a painful one, but it was certainly not of his 
 seeking. He had been actuated by no factious spirit 
 in refusing to co-operate with his Whig brethren. 
 
2l8 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 He was very reluctant to part company with his 
 venerated friend Adams upon a question which he 
 believed vitally concerned the national honor and 
 peace. He was sorry to feel obliged to withstand 
 the protests and entreaties of friends with whom he 
 had been in accord for many years. He would gladly 
 have avoided a step which threatened to separate 
 him from the party with which he had acted since 
 its organization. He had hitherto been loyal to all 
 its reasonable demands, and had incurred the hostile 
 criticism of many good men, and lost the support of 
 many of his most devoted friends, by refusing to join 
 the Liberty party in 1844. 
 
 But the political record of Winthrop left him but 
 one alternative. Personally, he was unobjection 
 able. He belonged to one of the historic families 
 of Massachusetts. He was a man of ability, and his 
 patriotism was unquestioned. His parliamentary 
 qualifications were conceded, and he was eloquent, 
 scholarly, and accomplished. But by temperament 
 he was conservative. He had an instinctive horror 
 of what he called "ultraism," and boasted that he 
 was no "agitator," and had no sympathy with "fa 
 natics." He prided himself upon his political mod 
 eration. He belonged, naturally, to the school of 
 conciliation and compromise, and was singularly 
 wanting in the qualities which would have fitted 
 him for leadership in wrestling with the thick-com 
 ing aggressions of the slave-power. 
 
 At a public meeting in Faneuil Hall, on July 4, 
 1845, before the annexation of Texas had been con 
 summated, and when the leading statesmen of the 
 country in both sections of the Union denied the 
 constitutional power of annexation by joint resolu 
 tion of Congress, he offered his famous toast, embody- 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 219 
 
 ing the sentiment," Our country, however bounded," 
 which won him the favor of the South, rallied the 
 conservatives and capitalists of New England to his 
 standard as their leader, and brought sorrow and 
 disappointment to thousands in the Northern States, 
 who yet clung to the hope that the country might be 
 saved from this concubinage with the slavery of a 
 foreign territory. On the 25th of September, 1846, 
 when an earnest and vigorous effort was made by the 
 Whigs of Massachusetts in a State convention held at 
 the same place to commit the party to a well-defined 
 anti-slavery policy, Winthrop took the lead in op 
 posing it, and was chiefly instrumental in balking 
 the rising spirit of the people. On September 29, 
 1847, at another Whig convention in Massachusetts, 
 when Mr. Palfrey moved a resolution pledging the 
 party to support no men for President or Vice-Presi- 
 dent who were not committed by their acts or avowed 
 opinions to the principle of the Wilmot Proviso, Mr. 
 Winthrop opposed the resolution, for the obvious 
 purpose of leaving the way clear for the nomination 
 of General Taylor. On May n, 1846, he voted for 
 the war bill, with what Mr. Clay called "a palpable 
 falsehood stamped on its face;" and this action was 
 afterwards seconded by other votes in favor of men 
 and money in aid of this scheme of slaveholding 
 vandalism. 
 
 In the light of these facts, Giddings had no dis 
 cretion. Events had so predestined his course of 
 action that it had become logically and morally un 
 avoidable, however painful it might prove. He had 
 voted against the war, and against supplies to carry 
 it on. His hostility to slavery in general, and par 
 ticularly to its further extension, had long been well 
 known. He could not belie his convictions and his 
 
22O THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 record. He saw, however, one possible way of 
 escape from his embarrassment, and that has been 
 indicated in his letter to Sumner. If Winthrop 
 himself would give satisfactory assurances respect 
 ing the formation of the various committees of the 
 House, he might support him; and fortunately a way 
 now opened to test this question through the inter 
 vention of John G. Palfrey, who had just taken his 
 seat as a representative from Massachusetts. 
 
 Mr. Palfrey was not a politician by training, but 
 a statesman in the best sense of the term. He was 
 also honorably known as a Christian minister, a 
 scholar, and a philanthropist. He had emancipated 
 a large number of slaves who had descended to him 
 on the death of his father, who resided in the South. 
 His hostility to slavery was not a sentiment merely, 
 but a profound moral conviction. He was no fanatic, 
 but a trained thinker, who saw clearly that the war 
 fare against the peculiar institution must be prose 
 cuted by constitutional methods; and he firmly be 
 lieved that such warfare, if courageously waged, 
 would drive the curse from the Republic. No man 
 ever more completely possessed the courage of his 
 convictions, while he held a high rank in the lit 
 erature of New England, and his ability and irre 
 proachable life were unchallenged. Dr. Andrew P. 
 Peabody, who knew him thoroughly, has recently 
 described him as "a man who would have defied all 
 the powers of earth and hell in pursuit of what he 
 deemed right, and who never failed to have heaven 
 on his side." When he made his first speech in the 
 House in the following month, which fully justified 
 the expectation of his friends, Mr. Adams exclaimed : 
 "Thank God, the seal is broken! Massachusetts 
 speaks ! " 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 22 I 
 
 Giddings, as his letter to Sumner shows, welcomed 
 his new ally, who agreed with him respecting Win- 
 throp s record, and deemed it his duty to address an 
 inquiry to his colleague touching his intentions in the 
 formation of the committees of the House. Under 
 the circumstances this certainly could not be re 
 garded as unreasonable. Would he, if elected, so 
 constitute the Committee of Ways and Means as to 
 secure a report against granting further supplies for 
 the prosecution of the war? Would he so constitute 
 the Committee on Territories that it would urge the 
 adoption of the Wilmot Proviso ? Would he so form 
 the Committee on the District of Columbia as to 
 secure a vote of the House on the abolition of the 
 slave-traffic, if not of slavery itself, in the District? 
 Would he so form the Judiciary Committee that 
 action would be taken on the question of granting 
 a trial by jury to fugitive slaves, and of protecting the 
 citizens of Massachusetts against outrages inflicted 
 by South Carolina? 
 
 These were the questions propounded, not for the 
 purpose of obtaining a public pledge, or a pledge of 
 any sort, from Winthrop, but simply such indications 
 of his intentions as would enable Palfrey and his 
 friends to vote intelligently. Winthrop replied that 
 if he should occupy the Speaker s chair, he must go 
 to it without pledges of any sort, and that his policy 
 in organizing the House must be sought for in his 
 general conduct and character as a public man, stat 
 ing that his votes were on record and his speeches in 
 print. This, in substance, was an answer to all the 
 questions in the negative; for his conduct as a public 
 man and his votes and speeches had made these ques 
 tions necessary. I do not see how Winthrop could 
 honorably have answered otherwise in the light of his 
 
222 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 public record and his well-known conservative opin 
 ions. I cannot believe that Palfrey anticipated a 
 different answer; but it became an authentic fact for 
 his consideration in deciding the question of duty. 
 Of course Giddings and Palfrey refused to give him 
 their support. Winthrop, however, was elected by a 
 majority of one, and was indebted for his success to 
 P. W. Tompkins, a Democrat from Mississippi, and 
 to Isaac E. Holmes, a disunion Democrat from South 
 Carolina, who withheld their votes from the nominee 
 of their own party for the avowed reason that Win 
 throp was an anti-Wilmot Proviso Whig; while Mr. 
 Adams joined them in his support. Such a combina 
 tion of political extremes has rarely been witnessed. 
 The contest was peculiarly exciting, and in referring 
 to it in a letter to Sumner, of December 26, Giddings 
 said, 
 
 " I have constantly felt that we should be more vulnerable on 
 account of Mr. Adams voting for Mr. Winthrop. I conversed 
 with him about it beforehand, and knew how he would vote. 
 Mr. Winthrop s father, I think, was an early and steadfast friend 
 of Mr. Adams, and the recollection of former scenes constrained 
 him to take that course. Perhaps you may not know that when 
 we were about to take the third ballot, Mr. Adams sent a request 
 to Mr. Palfrey that he would not vote. Mr. Palfrey, I thought, 
 was somewhat embarrassed by the request. He told me of it. 
 I assured him that by the aid of Southern Democrats Mr. Win 
 throp would be elected on that trial. He replied that if I were 
 confident of that result, he would maintain his position as before. 
 I was very desirous that he should, and went so far as to express 
 my wish to that effect. He again voted, and as I then thought, 
 exhibited as much firmness as any man I had ever seen under 
 such circumstances." 
 
 Unmeasured abuse and denunciation were now 
 lavished upon Giddings and Palfrey by the Whigs. 
 In Massachusetts the latter had to face the party 
 rancor and exasperation of Winthrop s friends, whose 
 vituperation and venom had free course; but Gid- 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDD1NGS. 22$ 
 
 dings, who had been long in the public service, was 
 singled out in every section of the country for spe 
 cial chastisement. The Whig Press and politicians 
 branded him as an apostate and an ingrate whose past 
 services to the party were completely cancelled by 
 this single act of insubordination, and who was to 
 be made an example and a warning to others. It is 
 impossible now to realize the extent and bitterness 
 of this warfare as we find it attested by the Whig 
 newspapers of that time. Giddings, however, was not 
 a non-resistant, and in self-defence he deemed it his 
 duty to make some reply to his assailants. One of 
 the most formidable of these was the " Cleveland 
 Daily Herald," to which he addressed a public letter; 
 and on account of the importance of the controversy 
 which grew out of its publication, I think it due to 
 Giddings to quote the essential part of it. 
 
 " You do not charge me with having violated any principle of 
 Whig faith or any moral obligation, but you insist that I was 
 bound to vote for certain individuals to office. You have not set 
 forth any peculiar merit in them over the men for whom I voted. 
 Were they better Whigs ? You do not pretend that they were. 
 Were they more capable ? You make no such assertion. The 
 only reason assigned by you is that they were selected as suitable 
 candidates by other men, in my absence and against my wish. 
 In other words, they were the caucus candidates. Much has 
 heretofore been said by our party of collar men and of the 
 servile submission to party dictation which has controlled the 
 members of the Loco-Foco party ; but I had not expected to see 
 a Whig, or a Whig Press, attempt to establish those doctrines on 
 the Western Reserve. 
 
 " You insist that I was bound to vote for those men, although 
 in my own judgment they were disqualified. This is substantially 
 your charge, though not in words. I have not so understood the 
 duty of a representative. Nor do I think you would have prac 
 tised on such a principle had you been in my situation. I felt 
 myself bound to act for the best good of my constituents and my 
 country, and particularly to the extent of my power to preserve 
 from further desecration the Constitution which I had sworn to 
 support. For me to have voted for men who I verily believed 
 
224 THE LIFE OF J OSHUA R > GID DINGS. 
 
 would not sustain the Constitution, would have brought upon 
 myself the guilt of moral perjury. To God and my conscience 
 my first obligations were due. No man or set of men could relieve 
 me from the moral responsibility under which I was placed by 
 deciding upon the candidate for whom I should vote. 
 
 "At a meeting of the Whig members of the House of Repre 
 sentatives held on the morning on which our present war with 
 Mexico was declared, Mr. Winthrop made a speech urging the 
 whole party to vote for the war. While the bill was pending in 
 the House, he went among his colleagues and personally urged 
 them to sustain the bill, containing, as it did, one of the most fla 
 grant falsehoods ever uttered by a deliberative body. He himself 
 voted for it. He united with the opposite party, and voted with 
 them to carry out the base designs of an arrant usurper. His 
 vote and influence were lent to strike the most fatal blow ever 
 aimed at American liberty. His name will descend to posterity 
 as one who aided in plunging this nation into a war of conquest, 
 rapine, and slaughter, a war which has already deluged a 
 sister republic in Wood, and if not soon arrested, must bury in 
 oblivion the last vestiges of our Constitution. This was not a 
 mere hasty act of Mr. Winthrop, of which he repented upon ma 
 ture reflection. On the contrary, he subsequently, in his public 
 speeches, attempted an elaborate justification of these acts, and 
 continued his official support of the war up to the day on which 
 I was called to vote for him for the responsible office of Speaker. 
 
 " With these facts before me, had I voted for him should I not 
 thereby have sanctioned his course on this subject? Destructive 
 of the Constitution as I considered his acts, could I with any 
 regard to the oath I had taken, vote for him ? Let a candid and 
 unbiassed people judge. Should I not by supporting him have 
 approved of his course on this subject of the war ? Should I not 
 by voting for him tacitly have said to the world that his policy 
 was right and his course meritorious ? I may be in error, but I 
 feel that I should have lent my sanction to a continuance of this 
 war while I was conscious that his official influence would be 
 lent in favor of continuing the work of bloodshed in Mexico. 
 That I could not do. The blood of those who shall hereafter 
 perish in this unholy crusade against the rights of man shall 
 never stain my garments. No part of the moral guilt of this war 
 shall rest upon my constituents by any act of their present repre 
 sentative. Those were my feelings at the time, and I frankly 
 expressed them to my friends. 
 
 " But I was told that Mr. Winthrop had changed his views in 
 relation to supporting this war. After mature reflection and con 
 sultation with others who entertained views similar to my own, 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS, 22$ 
 
 and for the purpose, if possible, of gaining such information as 
 would in good faith enable us to vote for Mr. Winthrop, my hon 
 orable friend from Massachusetts (Mr. Palfrey) addressed to him 
 most respectful inquiries on this subject as well as some others. 
 He distinctly asked Mr. Winthrop whether it was his intention, 
 if elected Speaker, so to arrange the Committee of Ways and 
 Means and that on the Judiciary as to insure reports in favor of 
 arresting the existing war. To this Mr. Winthrop gave no direct 
 answer, but referred us to his votes for an indication of the course 
 he should pursue. This reference was saying in direct language 
 that he should so arrange said committees as to have reports in 
 favor of continuing the war ; for such had been the votes to 
 which he referred. Mr. Palfrey further inquired whether it was 
 Mr. Winthrop s intention so to arrange the Committee on the 
 District of Columbia as to have reports in favor of repealing the 
 laws of Congress which involve the people of the Free States in 
 supporting the slave-trade now carried on in this district. On 
 this point he gave no direct answer, but referred to his former 
 votes and acts. 
 
 "Having thus exhausted every means of convincing myself 
 that the influence of Mr. Winthrop, if elected, would be in favor 
 of arresting the effusion of human blood now going on in Mexico, 
 and to restore to the people of Ohio and of the Free States their 
 constitutional rights of being exempt from the support of that traf 
 fic in human flesh which now disgraces the nation, and believing 
 before Heaven that if elected he would so arrange those com 
 mittees as to continue the war and the slave-trade, I had no alter 
 native left but to surrender the dictates of my conscience and 
 judgment, my independence as a representative, and, indeed, my 
 own self-respect, to the dictates of my party friends, and vote for 
 Mr. Winthrop, or I must oppose his election. 
 
 " The duty was painful. I saw before me the attacks which 
 were then threatened, and which have since followed. I was 
 perfectly aware that the bloodhounds of party would be let loose 
 upon me; but had I faltered in my course on that account, I 
 should have forfeited your confidence and the respect of all good 
 men. Nothing short of stern necessity could have induced me 
 on that occasion to separate from so many personal and political 
 friends. They, however, felt confident that Mr. Winthrop would 
 so constitute the committees I have mentioned as to insure re 
 ports in favor of arresting the war ; otherwise they would not 
 have supported him, nor could he have been elected. On this 
 point we separated. Upon those worthy friends I cast no impu 
 tation. They are as sincere and as patriotic as I profess to be. 
 I could not interfere in the discharge of their duties, nor could I 
 
 15 
 
226 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 permit them to control my action ; and it is but an act of justice 
 that I should say they manifested no desire to do so. To our 
 own masters we must each stand or fall. We honestly differed 
 on a matter of evidence. Time will soon disclose which of us 
 was correct, and which in error. I pray Heaven that the error 
 may be found to rest on me, and that my friends may show them 
 selves to have formed correct expectations of Mr. Winthrop s 
 course. I would not be understood as saying anything in dero 
 gation of his personal character. He is a gentleman of the first 
 order of talents and of highly cultivated mind. To me, and so 
 far as I know to all others, he has ever shown himself kind and 
 courteous. My objections were only to his political views and 
 official acts, nor would I have spoken of them had not duty to 
 myself compelled me to it." 
 
 The tone of this defence of himself is singularly 
 unimpassioned and kindly, considering the many 
 provocations to harshness of speech which he had 
 received. He decidedly condemns the political 
 course of Winthrop, but speaks of him personally 
 in terms of respect and friendship. He does not 
 call in question his motives, nor those of his Whig 
 supporters, but simply vindicates himself by a plain 
 statement of facts ; and yet the publication of this 
 statement instantly kindled the ire of Winthrop s 
 friends, and opened the way for a controversy be 
 tween him and Giddings which lasted for years, and 
 was only terminated by the final retirement of Win 
 throp from public life. He did not himself take the 
 lead in this contest, but his special organ and repre 
 sentative, the "Boston Atlas," espoused his quarrel 
 with an animosity which completely surprised Gid 
 dings and his friends. The passage in the letter of 
 Giddings which gave deadly offence to the "Atlas" 
 was the following: 
 
 " At a meeting of the Whig members of the House of Rep 
 resentatives, held on the morning on which our present war with 
 Mexico was declared, Mr. Winthrop made a speech urging the 
 whole party to vote for the war. While the bill was pending in 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 227 
 
 the House he went among his colleagues and personally urged 
 them to sustain the bill, containing as it did one of the most 
 flagrant falsehoods ever uttered by a deliberative body." 
 
 The "Atlas," on January 27, denied these state 
 ments in the following words: 
 
 " We state, and we do it without fear of contradiction from 
 any quarter, that Mr. Winthrop never attended such a meeting 
 as is here spoken of ; he never made a speech such as is here 
 spoken of, or anything having any resemblance to it anywhere. 
 And we further state that no such meeting was ever held." 
 
 The surprise of Giddings at these denials is shown 
 by a letter to Sumner of January 28. 
 
 " I can scarcely credit the report that he denies being at the 
 meeting of the Whigs. Yet I am assured here that he says he 
 has no recollection of it. I felt it due to myself to make some 
 inquiry, and was not a little astonished to find that the scenes of 
 that morning, which I regarded as the most important of my 
 political life, had made such slight impression upon the recollec 
 tion of gentlemen whom I knew to have been present. Some 
 have forgotten the meeting altogether ; some have a slight recol 
 lection of it, but can t tell who spoke at it. Others have a 
 knowledge of facts, and know that Mr, Winthrop was there and 
 spoke, and can give other particttlars. In the mean time it is 
 due to Mr. Winthrop that I should say, after conversing with 
 others who were present, and finding them so entirely incapable 
 of stating the facts, that I must suppose him to have forgotten 
 what transpired at that meeting. When I penned my letter I 
 could not have believed that an individual who was there could 
 have failed to recollect all that passed. If, however, he denies 
 the accuracy of my statement, 1 shall have but one course left 
 to pursue." 
 
 Winthrop, however, had made no denial, and Gid 
 dings of course could not engage in any newspaper 
 controversy to which Winthrop was a party if he 
 chose to stand aloof in dignified disdain and appar 
 ent indifference. Giddings therefore addressed a let 
 ter to him, dated February 7, asking whether he had 
 authorized the editor of the "Atlas" to make the 
 denial which purported to be by his authority. Win- 
 
228 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA K. GIDDINGS. 
 
 throp replied on the same day, charging Giddings 
 with having made unwarrantable statements respect 
 ing his course in Congress, and particularly in rela 
 tion to the Mexican War, and declining to be drawn 
 into any controversy on the subject. This placed 
 Giddings in a somewhat embarrassing situation, and 
 he felt obliged to confer freely with his friends and to 
 avoid hasty action. Among the letters he received 
 pending the consideration of the matter was the fol 
 lowing from Charles Francis Adams: 
 
 BOSTON, Feb. 17, 1848. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, My judgment remains unchanged that 
 you had better keep back your proof until you have all in your 
 hands that you can reasonably expect to procure, and then to 
 deal if possible only with Winthrop himself. 
 
 Every day makes it more necessary that this gentleman should 
 act. We have driven up the " Atlas " so hard that it has ceased 
 for a day or two to answer. 
 
 But a new and more responsible champion has appeared in 
 the person of Mr. George T. Curtis, who writes an article for the 
 " Daily Advertiser," which you will get from Mr. Palfrey. This 
 Mr. Curtis is the same man who made the only defence of Mr. 
 Winthrop during the canvass that was made ; and this justified 
 his vote. This calls out our reply this morning, which will move 
 Winthrop to the point of answering in some shape or other, if 
 anything can. But even if it do not, you will gain something in 
 transferring your notice to a more responsible and respectable 
 man and paper. 
 
 I deeply regret all this business, because it will make perma 
 nent enmities here, to last us all through life. But there is no 
 help for it. Winthrop s ambition has pushed him into it, and 
 the folly of his friends has done the rest. They chose to irritate 
 and to defy us ; and the accidental success resulting from the 
 voluntary secession of the Democrats from the polls, in order to 
 help him at his election, elated them to the point of extrava 
 gance, of arrogant denunciation. Had they treated us with or 
 dinary civility, and conceded to us the right of exercising our 
 judgment in perfect freedom, the painful part of the inevitable 
 difference would have been saved. As it is, I feel more encour 
 aged in the belief that we shall ultimately save Massachusetts, 
 than I have been at any time. Things are rapidly coming to an 
 issue, and the feeling on our side in the Legislature grows firmer. 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 22Q 
 
 There is one thing to be considered, and that is that all 
 minor questions will be merged in the great one of the Presi 
 dential question. The more I think of it, the more am I con 
 vinced that the Whigs, when once convinced that General 
 Taylor never surrenders, will surrender to him, first haggling 
 about conditions, perhaps, but giving up at last, if they shall 
 be refused. 
 
 But I have no time to write more. I see the " Atlas " to-day 
 replies to the " True Democrat " in regular blackguard style, de 
 termined to brazen out a falsehood 
 
 I think we have this morning placed you in the right position 
 to come forward whenever you please. The " Advertiser " is a 
 responsible paper, and if it do not now withdraw, may be re 
 garded as speaking for Mr. Winthrop. Wait and see what will 
 come of it. Very truly, C. F. A. 
 
 The "Atlas," on the 3d of February, had declared 
 that it spoke by Winthrop s authority in its denial of 
 the statements of Giddings ; and as this authority had 
 not been disclaimed by Winthrop, Giddings deemed it 
 his duty to prepare his proofs and make his defence, 
 which appeared in the "Boston Whig" on March 18, 
 and in the "Atlas" on the iQth. These proofs, be 
 sides the clear and vivid recollection of Giddings 
 himself, consisted of statements made by Luther 
 Severance of Maine, A. R. Mcllvaine of Pennsyl 
 vania, Columbus Delano and Robert C. Schenck of 
 Ohio, and E. D. Culver of New York, fellow-mem 
 bers of the House of Representatives. Applying 
 this proof to the statement of Giddings that a meet 
 ing of Whig members was held on May 1 1 to take 
 action on the subject of the Mexican War, Mr. 
 Severance said. 
 
 " You know we had caucuses frequently, and I have always 
 had the impression that we had one that morning. I recollect 
 most distinctly that I was notified to attend the caucus. That a 
 caucus was called I have no manner of doubt." 
 
 Mr. Mcllvaine said, 
 
 " I have to say there was such a meeting in the Capitol on 
 that morning ; I was at it." 
 
230 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 Mr. Delano said, - 
 
 " I was at the meeting of a part of the Whig members of 
 Congress on the morning of the day that the House passed the 
 bill that has brought the country into its present calamitous 
 position." 
 
 Mr. Schenck said, - 
 
 " I remember that there was such a meeting of the Whig 
 members of the House of Representatives in one of the com 
 mittee-rooms on the morning of that day. My colleague, Gov 
 ernor Vance, I think, was chairman of the meeting. I was 
 present." 
 
 Mr. Culver said, 
 
 " I would state that I was at the Whig caucus in the northeast 
 corner of the Capitol on the morning of the nth May, 1846." 
 
 The positive denial of the "Atlas" that such a 
 meeting was ever held, made "without fear of con 
 tradiction," is thus completely overthrown, and it 
 naturally awakens distrust as to the truth of other 
 denials made with the same positiveness. 
 
 On the question whether Mr. Winthrop attended 
 this caucus and made the remarks attributed to him, 
 Mr. Mcllvaine said, 
 
 " My impression is that Mr. Winthrop was there." 
 
 Mr. Delano said, - 
 
 " I cannot say that I saw Mr. Winthrop at the meeting. I 
 have an impression that he was there." 
 
 Mr. Schenck said, - 
 
 " My impression is that Mr. Winthrop was there. I cannot 
 clearly remember whether he spoke, or who did." 
 
 Mr. Culver said, 
 
 " I think Mr. Winthrop, Mr. Vinton, Mr. Hunt, and yourself 
 [Mr. Giddings] and others were present and spoke. The precise 
 sentiments advanced by Mr. Winthrop I cannot call to mind; 
 but the purport, the general scope, of his remarks was that we 
 (the Whigs) must not oppose the measure; that policy would 
 require us to support it." 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 2$ I 
 
 This evidence is corroborated by the positive state 
 ment of Giddings himself, made from his distinct 
 recollection that Winthrop was present, and made 
 a speech urging the whole party to vote for the war. 
 The weight of this evidence is not materially affected 
 by the fact that others who were present did not see 
 Winthrop, or hear him speak, since positive state 
 ments, where the witnesses are equally trustworthy, 
 must prevail over negative ones. 
 
 Concerning the statement that Mr. Winthrop went 
 among his colleagues and urged them to vote for the 
 bill, Mr. Severance said, - 
 
 " You are unquestionably correct in saying that Mr. Winthrop 
 advised his Whig friends to vote for the bill." 
 
 Mr. Mcllvaine said, 
 
 " I sat beside Mr. Abbott, and while the bill was pending, Mr. 
 Winthrop came to him and held conversation with him at his 
 seat. He then went to Mr. Grinnell, who sat near me, and con 
 versed with him. Mr. Abbott did not vote when his name was 
 first called, but afterwards voted for the bill. He was much 
 embarrassed by his position, and on the same day gave me 
 distinctly to understand that he had been influenced by his 
 colleague, Mr. Winthrop. He also spoke of it on subsequent 
 occasions during the session." 
 
 Mr. Culver said, 
 
 " After we entered the hall, and while the Ayes and Noes were 
 being called, I think some of the Massachusetts delegation 
 remarked to me that Mr. Winthrop was going for the bill, and 
 was endeavoring to persuade others of the delegation to do 
 
 the same." 
 
 Mr. Delano said, 
 
 " Just before the bill above alluded to was put upon its pas 
 sage, 1 saw Mr. Winthrop go to the seats of several of the Mas 
 sachusetts members. Mr. Hudson sat by me, and Mr. Marsh, of 
 Vermont, before us. Mr. Winthrop stopped in the aisle opposite 
 our seat, and a conversation ensued, in which Mr. Winthrop 
 urged the necessity of voting for the bill. I did not participate 
 in the conversation, because I felt that my opinion could not, 
 
232 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 and ought not, to have influence with either of the distinguished 
 gentlemen who were holding the conversation. I very well re 
 member, however, that Mr. Winthrop used arguments in favor 
 of voting for the bill, and I am quite certain he alluded to the 
 fate of those who opposed the War of 1812 as a reason for his 
 then opinions." 
 
 It will be seen that this third statement of Mr. 
 Giddings is fully sustained by the evidence he pro 
 duced, and, in fact, it was never denied by Mr. Win 
 throp or his friends. The two other statements, so 
 positively denied by the "Atlas," are supported by 
 evidence which in any court of justice would fairly 
 warrant the favorable verdict of a jury. 
 
 The " Atlas " reviewed this evidence, and affected 
 to treat it with contempt. In the mean time, other 
 parties had become involved in the controversy. The 
 "Boston Whig," then edited by Charles Francis 
 Adams, espoused the side of Giddings, while Sum- 
 ner occasionally lent a hand in the same service. 
 This exasperated the "Atlas," and it became as en 
 venomed against them as it had shown itself in 
 dealing with Giddings. The feelings of Winthrop 
 towards them were forcibly expressed in a speech 
 relative to this controversy delivered in the House 
 of Representatives two years later, in which he said : 
 "There is a little nest of vipers , sir, in my own im 
 mediate district and vicinity [Sumner, Adams, and 
 Palfrey], who have been biting a file for some three or 
 four years past, and who, having fairly used up their 
 own teeth, have evidently enlisted in their service 
 the fresher fangs of some honorable members of this 
 House " (Giddings and others). 
 
 The most remarkable fact about this warfare of 
 Winthrop and the "Atlas" was that it raged around 
 purely incidental and perfectly immaterial points. 
 The facts stated by Giddings, which provoked it, 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 233 
 
 were side issues, which might be affirmed or denied 
 without touching the real question, which was Win- 
 throp* s support of the war. As already stated, he had 
 voted for the War Bill preamble and all on the 
 I ith of May, 1846, providing for ten millions of money 
 and fifty thousand men for the invasion of Mexico. 
 On the following day he voted to raise " a company 
 of sappers, miners, and pontoniers," in addition to 
 the fifty thousand men already provided for. On the 
 i Qth of May he voted for the Army Bill, making large 
 appropriations for military operations in Mexico. On 
 the 1 5th of June he voted for the bill making appro 
 priations for the naval service for the year ending 
 June 30, 1847, embracing large sums in aid of the 
 war. On the bill passed by the House on the i6th 
 of July "for the support of volunteers and troops 
 authorized to be employed in the prosecution of the 
 war with Mexico," he did not vote either way; but 
 as a member of the Committee of Ways and Means 
 he had voted to commend it to the House. On the 
 8th of January, 1847, he voted against the appoint 
 ment of a Lieutenant-General to supersede General 
 Scott; but this was purely a political movement, 
 having no bearing whatever on the prosecution of 
 the war, and was opposed by many Democrats. He 
 voted against the Ten Regiment Bill on January n, 
 1847; but less than half the fifty thousand volunteers 
 already provided for had been called into service, and 
 the only question involved was the policy of employ 
 ing regulars instead of volunteers, and thus increas 
 ing the patronage of the President. It did not in 
 any way involve the question of continuing the war, 
 but merely the manner of doing it. The sole war 
 measure he ever opposed was the Army Bill, which 
 passed the House on the 23d of February; but he 
 
234 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 had given it his sanction as a member of the Com 
 mittee of Ways and Means, which reported it, and he 
 only voted against it after it had been amended in 
 the House. That his action in this case did not 
 prove his opposition to the war is shown by his vote 
 four days later to increase the pay of the army, which 
 was strictly a war measure. 
 
 Such is the record; and in thus supporting the 
 President in the prosecution of a war of conquest 
 wantonly begun by himself, it must be said that Mr. 
 Winthrop was consistent. He held, as we have seen 
 in the last chapter, that the British Parliament may 
 rightfully withhold supplies in the case of an unjust 
 war, because it works a change of Administration and 
 thus affords a prompt correction of executive usurpa 
 tion; but that in the United States, where the Presi 
 dent holds his office for a fixed term of years, execu 
 tive lawlessness must be endured until the people 
 themselves can find a remedy by electing a new 
 President. 
 
 The facts I have cited are shown by the Congres 
 sional Records, and they constitute Winthrop s "offi 
 cial support of the war," and the declared reason why 
 Giddings could not favor him for Speaker without 
 some assurance that he would change his course. 
 Winthrop did not deny these facts, nor authorize the 
 "Atlas " to do so, but rushed into an embittered con 
 troversy about the question whether he had attended 
 a Whig caucus on the day the War Bill passed the 
 House, and spoken in its favor, and whether he had 
 urged his colleagues to join him. If he was right in 
 supporting the war, he was right in making speeches 
 in its favor and in urging his colleagues to vote for 
 it. If he could not deny the fact that he voted for 
 it, an angry controversy about the question whether 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 235 
 
 he had been an accessory to it before the fact was 
 simply a waste of temper and of words. 
 
 It is difficult to account for all this except upon 
 the supposition that Winthrop secretly regretted his 
 course and became morbidly sensitive to criticism. 
 The "Atlas," it is true, insisted that there was "a 
 question of veracity" between Giddings and Win 
 throp ; but there was no such question. It was a 
 question of fact as to occurrences more than a year 
 and a half before, and which rested upon the recol 
 lections of men who were supposed to have informa 
 tion on the subject. It was a question of memory; 
 and when Winthrop, in his speech of February 21, 
 1850, produced sundry letters from members showing 
 that certain persons were not present at the Whig 
 caucus who were mentioned by Mr. Culver as having 
 attended it, he simply showed the difference of re 
 collection among persons equally trustworthy, and 
 the fallibility of human memory. There is no ques 
 tion of veracity involved between them, or between 
 Winthrop and Giddings. No one can read the letter 
 of the latter to Sumner, already quoted, and doubt 
 for a moment his perfect good faith in the statements 
 he made concerning Winthrop, who should have been 
 as ready to acquit him of any intentional misstate- 
 ment as the latter was to account for Winthrop s 
 positive denial on the score of his having forgotten 
 the fact which Giddings distinctly remembered. 
 
 In dealing with this controversy it has not been 
 my purpose to treat Mr. Winthrop with the slightest 
 unfairness. My sole object has been to do justice to 
 Giddings as an honest man and a brave and faithful 
 public servant. He was not only completely justified 
 in refusing to vote for Winthrop on account of his 
 support of the Mexican War, but his action was vin- 
 
236 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 dicated by time. His predictions respecting Win- 
 throp s formation of the committees were verified. 
 If there was any anti-war and anti-slavery committee 
 in the House in the Thirtieth Congress, it was the 
 Committee on Territories; and that committee only 
 reported a Wilmot-Proviso Bill after it had been in 
 structed to do so by the House. I think Giddings 
 was right in saying, in one of his letters to Sumner, 
 that the Committees on the District of Columbia and 
 the Judiciary were so arranged that no favorable 
 reports on the petitions to repeal the laws of Con 
 gress establishing slavery and the slave-trade there 
 were allowed to be made, and that they were as mani 
 festly slaveholding in their character as they had been 
 under slaveholding Speakers. This was equally true 
 of the Committee on Ways and Means, which re 
 ported bills appropriating all the money demanded 
 by the President to enable the army and navy to pro 
 secute the war against Mexico; while the Committee 
 on Foreign Relations did nothing to indicate its 
 sympathy with the anti-war and anti-slavery feeling 
 of the country. 
 
 It is true that a gentleman no less distinguished 
 than Horace Mann did not believe that Winthrop had 
 shown himself faithless to freedom in the formation 
 of these committees; but the character of the com 
 mittees, as established by the authentic record of 
 what they actually did and failed to do, settles the 
 question against him. Indeed, he would not have 
 been Winthrop if he had constituted them other 
 wise. His action was prompted by his strong con 
 servative instincts. In placing Giddings on the 
 Committee on Indian Affairs, and Palfrey on the 
 Committee on Agriculture, he was true to himself 
 and faithful to duty as he saw it; for he did not 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 237 
 
 believe in the leadership of men whom he regarded 
 as mischievous agitators and fanatics. No other ex 
 planation of his course is reconcilable with the facts 
 which define it. 
 
 To all this it may properly be added that Winthrop 
 still further vindicated the course of Giddings by the 
 acts of his later life. His intense hostility to the 
 Free-Soil movement has already been shown. He 
 was among the early and zealous champions of Gen 
 eral Taylor for the Presidency. Under the pressure 
 of his Administration he declined to vote for the 
 Wilmot Proviso on the 4th day of February, 1850, 
 and a few weeks later openly espoused the Presi 
 dent s policy of Congressional " non-action" with 
 slavery in the Territories, which the Whig party 
 had combated as a Democratic heresy in 1848, under 
 the name of "non-intervention." In his speech in 
 the House of Representatives of May 8, 1850, he 
 argued that the extension of slavery over our Terri 
 tories would not increase the number of slaves nor 
 strengthen the institution. When the Republican 
 party was organized, in 1856, he opposed it in public 
 speeches, and voted for Fillmore against Fremont. 
 He opposed the election of Lincoln in 1860, giving his 
 vote for John Bell, and in 1864 he spoke and voted 
 for General McClellan. I do not refer to these facts 
 as matters of reproach, but merely to indicate how 
 well Giddings divined his character and political ten 
 dencies when he refused to support him for Speaker 
 in December, 1847. 
 
 It will not suffice to argue, as Winthrop did in 
 his speech of Feb. 21, 1850, that extreme men in 
 both sections of the Union condemned him on 
 directly opposite grounds, and thus defended his 
 action. If this fact proved anything, it proved his 
 
238 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 neutrality; and neutrality is not statesmanship. Nor 
 will it do to say that he was chosen by the entire 
 Whig party, consisting of Southern as well as North 
 ern members, and that he could not be expected to 
 discriminate, but to hold the balance fairly between 
 these conflicting forces. " No man can serve two 
 masters ;" and it is equally true that in struggling 
 for a great principle " he that is not for us is against 
 us." When Winthrop was a candidate for Speaker, 
 a fearful crisis was at hand, which the Mexican War 
 and the greed for more slave territory had precipi 
 tated. The hour had struck for the people of the 
 Free States to take their stand. In refusing to 
 stand with them and represent their earnest wishes, 
 he necessarily espoused the cause of slavery. No 
 middle ground was morally possible. Neutrality at 
 such a time was treachery to liberty; and although 
 his patriotism is not questioned, the refusal of Gid- 
 dings and Palfrey, in the face of caucus dictation, to 
 support him, was as righteous as it was manly. 
 
 During this session Giddings continued to oppose 
 every movement tending to make slavery a national 
 concern. On Jan. 17, 1848, he offered a resolution 
 for the appointment of a select committee to inquire 
 into the facts of a recent outrage in Washington by 
 slave-traders, and the propriety of repealing all laws 
 for the support of the slave-trade in the District. 
 After debate the resolution was laid on the table by 
 a vote of 94 yeas to 88 nays. On January 31 he 
 offered a similar resolution, which gave rise to de 
 bate, and was laid over under the rule. On Feb 
 ruary 7 he voted, alone, against thanking Generals 
 Scott and Taylor for their victories in Mexico. John 
 P. Hale stood alone in giving the same vote on this 
 question in the Senate. 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 239 
 
 This action called for the highest courage. It was 
 sure to be misunderstood and misrepresented; but no 
 other honest and consistent course was possible for 
 those who had condemned the war in all its stages. 
 And they could plead the high authority of Chatham, 
 Burke, and Fox, who refused to vote thanks to the 
 commanders of the British army for their services in 
 America in our revolutionary struggle, because the 
 war against the colonies was unprovoked and unjust. 
 These great men and exalted patriots made an ob 
 vious distinction between thanks and praise. They 
 were ready to admire and applaud valor and military 
 genius, but they saw clearly that gratitude for the 
 display of these qualities in an unholy war is both 
 unnatural and undeserved. The world honors their 
 heroism, as it will honor that of the brave men who 
 dared to follow in their footsteps on a question in 
 volving precisely the same principle. 
 
 On February 21, the country was startled by the 
 news that Mr. Adams had been stricken down by an at 
 tack of apoplexy. On the morning of that day he was 
 in his seat at the usual hour, and when Giddings made 
 his customary inquiry about his health, Mr. Adams 
 shook hands with his usual cordiality, while a faint 
 smile lighted up his face. When the House pro 
 ceeded to business he took up his pen, and had com 
 menced an apostrophe to the genius of history, which 
 was represented by the recording angel sitting on 
 the clock of time, at the front entrance of the hall, 
 when he suddenly fell from his seat, and was carried 
 to the rotunda in an apparently unconscious state, 
 and laid upon a sofa. He was soon afterwards re 
 moved to the Speaker s room, where he remained till 
 death came to his relief on the evening of the 23d. 
 Both Houses of Congress, speaking through their 
 
240 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 representative men from every section of the Union, 
 honored his memory by glowing eulogies, while the 
 entire Press of the country, of all parties and shades 
 of opinion, joined in unmeasured praise of the great 
 patriot. A committee of one member from each 
 State was appointed to accompany his body to its 
 final resting-place. 
 
 Giddings was at that time the oldest member in 
 the Ohio delegation, both in years and service. He 
 had long been associated with Mr. Adams in the 
 great work of redeeming the government from slave- 
 holding domination, while they were bound to each 
 other by the strong ties of friendship and affection. 
 Giddings naturally desired to accompany the remains 
 to the tomb, and his selection as a member of the 
 committee was anticipated; but the Speaker ap 
 pointed another member from Ohio, who, however, 
 declined to serve. The chairman of the committee 
 then called on Giddings to inquire if he would serve 
 on the committee if appointed. Giddings told him 
 that under the circumstances he could not refuse, 
 as such refusal might subject him to the charge of 
 subordinating his respect for Mr. Adams to the ex 
 pression of his feelings towards Winthrop for not 
 appointing him in the first instance. Giddings, 
 however, was not appointed, and did not then expect 
 to be ; but he was inexpressibly pained. A reference 
 to the matter is found among his private papers, in 
 which he says he longed to accompany the remains 
 of his venerated friend to the tomb, and "drop a 
 friendly tear at parting from them forever," and 
 speaks of the action of Speaker Winthrop as "one 
 thing I would forget if I could." He, however, 
 attended the funeral at Quincy. 
 
 On February 28, Giddings addressed the House in 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 241 
 
 a speech in which he reviewed the state of political 
 parties, and reiterated his views on the questions of 
 slavery and the Mexican War. He predicted the 
 disbandment of the Whig party, and said : " I now 
 hazard the declaration that on this principle of op 
 posing all attempts of the Federal Government to 
 extend and uphold slavery beyond that which is pro 
 vided for in the Constitution is now based a party, 
 or the germ of a party, that will at no distant day be 
 come dominant in this nation." He justified his op 
 position to the war and his vote against thanking its 
 generals for their achievements, while he referred to 
 the formation of the committees of the House in vin 
 dication of his vote against Winthrop for Speaker. 
 He ridiculed the claims of General Taylor as a Whig, 
 while refusing to make known his opinions on any 
 of the doctrines of the party, and declared that " both 
 Whigs and Democrats are in favor of General Taylor, 
 not because they know his political sentiments to be 
 right, but because they don t know whether they are 
 right or wrong. They support him, not because they 
 know his views, but because they don t know them." 
 His speech clearly foreshadowed the disintegration 
 of parties which followed. 
 
 On April 13, some eighty slaves attempted to 
 escape from the District of Columbia on the schooner 
 "Pearl," lying at the wharf south of Washington, 
 under the command of Captain Drayton and his 
 mate, Sayres. They were pursued and captured, 
 and brought back to the city, where they were con 
 fined in the District jail. A mob gathered about 
 the wharf when they landed, and followed them to 
 the prison, threatening vengeance against Drayton 
 and Sayres, who were afraid of being lynched, while 
 Giddings received several notes warning him of per- 
 
 16 
 
242 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 sonal danger. When the House met, on the follow 
 ing day, he asked leave to present a preamble and 
 resolution, setting forth the imprisonment of the per 
 sons who had been captured on board the schooner, 
 and thrown into the United States jail for the Dis 
 trict, without being charged with any crime other 
 than an attempt to secure their liberty, and asking 
 that a select committee of five members be appointed 
 to inquire and report by what authority said prison 
 was used for the confinement of such persons. Mr. 
 Holmes of South Carolina proposed an inquiry 
 whether " the scoundrels who induced the slaves to 
 escape ought not to be hanged." Leave to intro 
 duce the resolution was not granted, and such was 
 the timidity of members that Giddings could not 
 obtain the yeas and nays on the question. 
 
 In the evening the mob gathered around the office 
 of the "National Era," and entered upon acts of 
 violence; but the editor behaved with great firm 
 ness, and by his coolness prevented bloodshed. 
 Mr. Giddings determined to visit the jail and re 
 lieve the distress of Drayton and Sayres by assur 
 ing them that the mob would not be allowed to harm 
 them, and that they should have a fair trial. Hon. 
 Lawrence Brainerd, one of the Senators from Ver 
 mont, and Hon. E. S. Hamlin, of Ohio, formerly a 
 member of the House, accompanied him. They 
 found their way through the mob into the hall into 
 which the cells of Drayton and Sayres opened, and 
 spoke to them through the grated doors. At this 
 time the mob obtained the key to the lower gate, 
 ascended the stairway, and called on Giddings to 
 retire immediately, at the peril of his life. He told 
 them he would soon be through with his business, and 
 would then accompany them downstairs. The jailer 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 243 
 
 induced the mob to return to the vestibule below, but 
 hesitated in permitting Mr. Giddings and his friends 
 to pass through the gate into the presence and power 
 of the mob. He was requested, however, to do so, and 
 they passed safely out through the enraged masses, 
 who saluted them with threats and imprecations. 
 
 On his return to the House, he related the inci 
 dents of his visit to the prison, and Mr. Palfrey 
 offered a preamble and resolution, referring to the 
 mob which had assembled on the two preceding 
 nights, and set at defiance the authorities of the 
 United States, and asking the appointment of a se 
 lect committee of five members to inquire into the 
 facts referred to and report their opinion whether 
 further legislation was necessary in the premises. 
 The resolution involved a question of privilege, and 
 an exciting debate followed. Southern members ap 
 peared to be sincere in the opinion that the fugitive 
 slaves had committed a grievous wrong in leaving 
 their masters, and that those who had aided them in 
 their attempt to escape were guilty of a high crime. 
 They thought that Giddings in visiting the prison 
 was guilty of a violation of law, and Mr. Haskell of 
 Tennessee inquired whether he believed it morally 
 right for a slave to leave the service of his master. 
 
 Giddings replied that he believed, with Jefferson, 
 that all men hold from the Creator equal rights to 
 life and liberty; that whenever an individual steps 
 between God and his fellow-men to deprive them of 
 those rights, he does it at his peril ; that it was not 
 only the right of the oppressed to obtain their liberty 
 if they could do so, even by slaying their oppressors, 
 but it was their unquestioned duty, even to the tak 
 ing of the life of every man who opposed them. 
 Haskell replied that Giddings "ought to be hanged 
 
244 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 as high as Haman, but that his effrontery was so 
 much beyond his own conception that he would in 
 terrogate him no further." Giddings closed the de 
 bate. The presence of a pro-slavery mob in the city, 
 and the personal assaults of members, had armed him 
 with perfect courage and qualified him for his task. 
 His speech was at once timely and incisive. It was 
 inspired by righteous indignation, and breathed the 
 spirit of absolute defiance. He did not deal in in 
 nuendoes, or mince the honest truth. Never before 
 had the slave-masters been treated to such an entertain 
 ment. It was a brave and manly speech, and gave 
 the country a new definition of the freedom of debate. 
 
 In the Senate Mr. Hale asked leave to introduce 
 a bill to prevent riots and unlawful assemblages in 
 the city of Washington, which gave rise to a debate 
 there not less exciting than that in the House. Mr. 
 Davis of Mississippi spoke of Hale s bill as "a bill 
 to protect incendiaries and kidnappers; and Mr. 
 Foote uttered his famous saying that if Hale would 
 visit Mississippi, "he should be hanged by a mob to 
 the first convenient tree." 
 
 While this debate was progressing, one Hope H. 
 Slatter, a Baltimore slave-dealer, having purchased 
 some fifty of the slaves who had attempted to escape, 
 marched them from the jail to Pennsylvania Avenue, 
 and thence to the railroad depot. The scene was 
 described by those who saw it as heart-rending. 
 Giddings relates that the Rev. Henry Slicer, then 
 chaplain of the House, entered the car which con 
 tained the slaves, and walking between the agonized 
 victims, greeted Slatter cordially, and then turned 
 aside to reprove one of the men sitting near him, 
 and a member of his church, for having attempted to 
 regain his liberty. On the following day, when the 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 245 
 
 House was called to order, and the chaplain ascended 
 the desk and spread his hands in the attitude of 
 prayer, one of the members, 1 putting on his hat 
 preparatory to retiring from the hall, began to swear 
 as Slicer began to pray; and while the latter invoked 
 the blessing of God upon members, the former called 
 on the same Almighty Being to damn such preachers; 
 and a goodly number of those present appeared to 
 feel that the prayer of the one and the curses of the 
 other were about equally efficacious. 
 
 In the latter part of June, the particular friends of 
 Giddings in Massachusetts urged him to address a 
 series of public meetings in that State. This seemed 
 to him a questionable venture. He had not been 
 accustomed to speak to the cultivated audiences of 
 New England, who were privileged to hear such ora 
 tors as Charles Sumner and Wendell Phillips, and 
 he feared his efforts would fail to satisfy the people. 
 Mr. Sumner, however, insisted on his coming. On 
 the 23d of June he wrote, - 
 
 " There is an intense desire to see and welcome you in Massa 
 chusetts. Let me exhort you to renounce all those compunctions 
 to which you refer, and to speak to us from your heart. Give us 
 your views on slavery and the duty of the North. Say what 
 you would say in Ohio." 
 
 Giddings finally consented, and the following letter 
 to his wife will show how gratified and delighted he 
 was by his welcome among the anti-slavery people 
 who had so long watched his course in Congress as 
 the champion of their cause in the West, and the 
 faithful ally of John Quincy Adams : 
 
 SPRINGFIELD, July 2, 1848. 
 
 MY DEAR WIFE, Here I am, in the old Bay State ! I 
 have been to hear the venerable Dr. Osgood to-day, as he 
 came to hear me yesterday. Last night I thought they had 
 
 1 Hon. J. M. Root of Ohio. 
 
246 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 pretty much used me up, but after a night s rest I begin to feel 
 like myself again. Well, I have seen these Yankees as they are. 
 I have met their hearty greetings, their loud shouts of ; praise. 
 I have stood before the assembled thousands while their deafen 
 ing plaudits seemed to rend the very heavens as they shouted in 
 praise of Giddings ; I have listened to their songs composed in 
 honor of my name ; I have seen the big tears roll down their 
 manly cheeks as they have grasped me by the hand, tendering 
 their thanks for my labors in behalf of humanity. Their hospi 
 tality has been showered upon me in unstinted profusion ; their 
 State and County conventions have passed resolutions of thanks 
 for my efforts in behalf of our country ; I have seen the founda 
 tions of the great deep of public sentiment broken up, and party 
 names discarded, and thousands of good and virtuous citizens, 
 throwing aside party prejudices, declare for freedom and hu 
 manity. When I have witnessed these things for the last four 
 days, I have shed many a tear of gratitude and joy. I could 
 not restrain my emotions. I have at times surrendered to the 
 impulse of feeling, and suffered myself to be carried along in 
 sympathy with the vast crowds around me. ... I have lived very 
 fast during the past week. I have been amply compensated 
 for all the toil and anxiety which I have suffered during my 
 public life. 
 
 I spoke at Worcester on Wednesday, at Lowell on Thurs 
 day, at Lynn in the afternoon of Friday, at the Tremont Temple 
 in Boston in the evening of that day, and at this place last eve 
 ning. At Worcester and Lowell I spoke in the open air ; no 
 building would contain the audience. At Lynn and Boston and 
 this place it rained, and we were obliged to meet under cover. 
 Tremont Temple was the finest place I ever spoke in, and the 
 audience there the finest I ever addressed ; three thousand per 
 sons were said to have been assembled there. Every aisle was 
 crowded, and every step and seat in the spacious galleries was 
 filled. I don t know what the audience thought of me. I 
 was pleased with them, however, and my friends assured me 
 that I sustained myself. I believe a spirit of liberty is aroused 
 in the old Bay State which will not be allayed until we shall be 
 relieved from the dominion of the slave-power. 
 
 It has been a hard labor; on each night when I retired my 
 clothing has been about as wet as it would have been had I been 
 swimming with it on. 
 
 I leave this place in the morning, but may stop at Hartford. 
 I want to set the bail rolling there as it is now going forward 
 here. I shall then go to Washington. Give my love to all the 
 family. Affectionately, J. R. GIDDINGS. 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 247 
 
 Of these meetings Mr. Sumner wrote to a friend in 
 the West, - 
 
 " I cannot forbear letting you know the good work that has 
 been done by Mr. Giddings in Massachusetts. He attended the 
 Free Soil Convention held at Worcester on the 28th June. The 
 greatest interest was felt in seeing and hearing this champion of 
 Freedom. When he rose to address the Convention, which was 
 assembled in a beautiful grove, the air rang with shouts ; cheer 
 followed upon cheer. The vast audience numbering, it is sup 
 posed, seven thousand were profoundly moved with gratitude 
 to one who had rendered such signal service to our great cause ; 
 and as he proceeded in his clear and careful development of his 
 views, they hung with constant interest upon his lips. The 
 papers will inform you of the labors of the Convention. They 
 have responded to the call of the Columbus Convention, and 
 have put forth an address and resolutions pledging themselves 
 against any candidate who is not known by his acts or declared 
 opinions to be opposed to the extension of slavery. 
 
 "Mr. Giddings has spoken to large audiences in Lowell, the 
 city of factories ; in Lynn, famous for its Quakers and shoe 
 makers; and in Boston. In all these places he produced a 
 marked impression. I was present when he spoke in Boston. 
 The Tremont Temple, which is our largest hall, was crowded to 
 suffocation ; and yet this immense audience was held in breath 
 less attention. The Taylorism of Boston received a strong blow 
 on that evening. 
 
 " This new movement touches the hearts of the people. It is 
 popular in its character. It takes hold of all who have souls 
 and sympathies. I cannot doubt now that it will extend through 
 out all the Free States. It must be triumphant. 
 
 " We are all awaiting the action of the Buffalo Convention, 
 which is to assemble August 9. Its nominee we shall support. 
 I think Massachusetts may be counted as certain for him." 
 
 Giddings was evidently gaining in popular favor, 
 and he had now become a recognized authority on all 
 matters pertaining to slavery. This is illustrated in 
 the following letters: 
 
 BEDFORD, WEST CHESTER Co., N. Y., 
 
 March 25, 1848. 
 
 DEAR SIR, I am preparing for the press a review of the 
 causes and consequences of the Mexican War. There are three 
 points on which I want information ; and knowing both your habits 
 
2^8 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 of investigation, and the facilities afforded by your present posi 
 tion, I venture to solicit your friendly assistance. I wish to 
 ascertain, (i) The whole number of troops of every kind that 
 have entered Mexico since the commencement of the war. I 
 had estimated them at eighty thousand, but have been assured 
 the estimate was too small. (2) The whole amount of appro 
 priations made by Congress for prosecuting the war. (3) The 
 quantity of land given by law to soldiers serving in Mexico. 
 
 Could you, without too much trouble to yourself, enlighten 
 me on these points, you will enhance the obligations I already 
 feel to you for your Christian, patriotic, and CONSISTENT op 
 position to this accursed war, waged for plunder and human 
 bondage. 
 
 I am, my dear sir, with most sincere respect, 
 
 Yours faithfully, WILLIAM JAY. 
 
 J. R. GIDDINGS, Esq. 
 
 BOSTON, April 12, 1848. 
 
 DEAR SIR, I hope you will excuse one who is a stranger to 
 your person for troubling you with this note. I say to your 
 person : to yourself I do not feel a stranger. I wish to ask some 
 questions about your late friend, Mr. J. Q. Adams, which your 
 long acquaintance with him will enable you readily to answer. 
 
 1. Had he many personal friends, men who loved him, 
 not for his learning, or \&s>fame, or because he could help them, 
 but for himself, and because they could not help loving him ? It 
 has seemed to me that he had none such, or an exceedingly small 
 number. 
 
 2. Was he animated by any hostility towards the South 
 other than that which came incidentally, on account of their 
 attachment to slavery ? That has been often alleged, but I have 
 found no proof of it, and not many signs thereof. 
 
 3. When he was Secretary of State, I have seen it stated 
 that he wrote the Mexican Government on occasion of the abo 
 lition of slavery by the Mexicans, and considered that abolition 
 an act unfriendly to the United States. Is that a fact? If 
 so, where are the papers published ? Again, it is said that he 
 tried to induce the Mexican and Spanish Governments to con 
 sent to restore o\a fugitive slaves. But I have found no proof of 
 this, though I have not seen all the papers which passed between 
 the several Governments on the occasions referred to. 
 
 When he was President, I know the course he pursued in 
 the matter of Hayti, Cuba, and the congress of Panama. In 
 negotiating the Treaty of Ghent, he contended that the British 
 should pay for the fugitive slaves that took refuge on their fleet. 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 249 
 
 I suppose he had orders from home to do so. Am I right ? for I 
 cannot suppose that he took that step on his own authority. 
 
 I venture to write this note, and ask the favor of an answer, 
 because I intend to write a little paper on Mr. Adams, and I wish 
 to &Q justice all round. If you will favor me with a reply, you 
 will do me a substantial service, and oblige, 
 
 Very respectfully and truly yours, THEO. PARKER. 
 
 Hon. MR. GIDDINGS. 
 
 P. S. One thing I have forgotten above ; namely, what 
 were Mr. Adams s motives in claiming the whole of Oregon? 
 Did he think we had a right to it, or only wish to force men into 
 certain measures ? 
 
 WEST ROXBURY, near BOSTON, June 17, 1848. 
 HONORED AND DEAR SIR, A writer in the " Boston Post" 
 of June 14 (I send the paper) denies a statement I have made 
 on page 40 of my " Letter to the People of the United States 
 touching the Matter of Slavery," namely, " that General Jackson 
 was a dealer in slaves, and so late as 1811 bought a come and 
 drove them to Louisiana for sale." I want to know, i. If 
 General Jackson ever sold a slave or slaves ? 2. If he was 
 ever engaged in the internal slave-trade? 3. If he conducted 
 a " coffle" to Louisiana in 1811, for sale. I am not at all 
 anxious to prove myself in the right, but only to ascertain the 
 truth. If you can aid me. you will do me a real service, and 
 I shall be grateful to you for a special reason, as I have long 
 been for your general services to the nation and the cause of 
 mankind. 
 
 Very respectfully and truly yours, THEO. PARKER. 
 
 Hon. J. R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 The replies to these letters are not in my possession, 
 but the information asked for was doubtless made avail 
 able, and found its way into the anti-slavery literature 
 of the time, to which William Jay and Theodore 
 Parker made large and valuable contributions. 
 
 Near the close of this session another question 
 engaged the attention of Mr. Giddings. In the 
 protracted controversy between the United States 
 and England concerning deported slaves under the 
 treaty of Ghent, a list of slaves claimed to have been 
 lost was made out and presented to the British Min- 
 
250 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 istry. Although this list was afterwards found to 
 be fraudulent, containing the names of imaginary 
 slaves, it was made the basis of negotiations, and 
 our Government was thus used as the instrument of 
 slavery. A Mr. Hodges, of Maryland, now peti 
 tioned Congress for indemnity for a slave who left 
 the country on board a British ship in 1814. The 
 petitioner had not filed his claim under the treaty, 
 but he called on Congress to pay him the value of his 
 lost chattel. The petition was referred to the Com 
 mittee on Foreign Affairs, which had been appointed 
 by a Whig Speaker, and consisted of six members 
 from the Free States and three from the Slave States, 
 with Truman Smith, of Connecticut, as its chair 
 man. This committee, apparently without a dis 
 senting voice, reported a bill to pay for this slave. 
 
 Giddings made an exhaustive speech upon the ques 
 tion, referring to the several stipulations of the treaty, 
 which he quoted, and overhauling from the beginning 
 the congressional precedents on the question of pay 
 ing for slaves by the Federal Government. He 
 showed that the petitioner in this case had not 
 brought himself within the provisions of the treaty, 
 and had no claim whatever upon the Government; 
 that the treaty-making power could impose no obli 
 gation upon Congress to interfere with slavery either 
 to support or abolish it ; that slaves are not recog 
 nized as property by the Constitution, and that Con 
 gress had no power to pay for them or to assess their 
 value as such ; and that all such legislation was dis 
 honorable and disgraceful to the United States. In 
 the course of this speech he said, 
 
 " I wish to address some inquiries to the honorable chairman 
 of the committee who reported this bill [Mr. Smith]. He ap 
 pears to have united in this extraordinary report, which estimates 
 the value of this man at precisely two hundred and eighty dollars. 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 2$l 
 
 That gentleman is from Connecticut, from the very county in 
 which my parents long resided. I should like to inquire of him the 
 price current of humanity in that land of steady habits. By what 
 rule does he arrive at the value of men? Is he governed by the 
 brilliancy of their virtue, by their intellectual endowments ? 
 Does he estimate men by their religious devotion, or by their 
 learning? Is he guided by their complexion? If so, which is 
 the more valuable, black or white? Or is a mixture of blood to 
 be preferred ? What price in gold and silver does he place upon 
 his constituents? How would he sell them? Sir, I feel humbled 
 when I see Northern representatives consent to enter upon this 
 slave-dealing legislation, and become the instruments of the slave- 
 power to strike down the honor, the dignity and independence 
 of the Northern States." 
 
 The bill, however, was sanctioned by the com 
 mittee of the whole, and when it was reported to the 
 House its opponents could not muster votes enough 
 to secure the ayes and nays, and it passed without leav 
 ing any record showing who voted for or against it. 
 
 While both Houses of Congress, during this ses 
 sion, \vere absorbed in the slavery question as they 
 never had been before, the state of political parties 
 throughout the country was equally novel and un 
 precedented. The sacrifice of Van Buren in 1844 
 because of his manly letter on the annexation of 
 Texas, led to a division of the Democratic party in 
 New York, and threatened revolt in other States. 
 The favorite candidate of the party was General 
 Cass, who was nominated by the Baltimore National 
 Convention on May 22, 1848. His "Nicholson let 
 ters," in favor of the policy of non-intervention with 
 slavery in the Territories, did not satisfy the South ; 
 but with General Cass as its expounder, it was cheer 
 fully accepted; for among all the leading Democrats 
 of the Northern States he was perhaps the most ob 
 sequious and crouching to the slave-power. New 
 York had two sets of delegates in this convention, 
 both of which were admitted as a compromise; 
 
252 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 but the Van Buren, or Free-Soil, wing refused to 
 take their seats, holding themselves in reserve for 
 such independent action as might afterwards seem 
 advisable. 
 
 The Whig National Convention met in Philadel 
 phia on June 7. The party was in search of "an 
 available candidate," and inspired by the miserable 
 policy of expediency which had been so barren of 
 results in 1840. General Taylor had been growing 
 into favor with the party for more than a year, and 
 was now a formidable candidate. But he had never 
 identified himself in any way with the Whig party. 
 He had spent his life on the frontier as a soldier, and 
 had never voted. He said frankly that he had not 
 made up his mind on the questions which divided the 
 parties. He was a very large slave-owner, and his 
 active supporters were chiefly from the slaveholding 
 States and those Free States which had generally 
 given Democratic majorities; but he could not be 
 induced to define his position on the Wilmot Proviso, 
 while the Whigs from the Free States vouched for 
 his soundness on the slavery issue. The spectacle 
 was a melancholy one, since it demonstrated the 
 readiness of this once respectable old party to make 
 complete shipwreck of everything wearing the sem 
 blance of principle, for the sake of success. His 
 nomination, moreover, was accomplished by the 
 treachery of the Whig managers to Mr. Clay, which 
 exceeded that which had sacrificed him at the Har- 
 risburg Convention of 1839. No platform of prin 
 ciples was adopted, and Horace Greeley branded the 
 convention as "the slaughter-house of Whig princi 
 ples." Charles Allen, Henry Wilson, and other 
 prominent Whigs of Massachusetts left the conven 
 tion in disgust. 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 253 
 
 A new party was now inevitable. The followers 
 of Mr. Van Buren, in New York and other States, 
 longed for the opportunity to make themselves felt 
 in avenging the wrong done to their chief, and were 
 quite ready to strike hands with the members of the 
 Liberty party. The latter were generally ready to 
 withdraw their candidate for President and unite with 
 the anti-slavery Whigs and Democrats of the North 
 ern States, if an honorable basis of action could be 
 agreed upon. The Conscience Whigs of Massachu 
 setts, and thousands of Whigs in other States, who 
 regarded the freedom of our Territories as a vital 
 issue, were equally ready to fuse with the other 
 elements of political discontent and make their 
 voices heard in a new and independent organiza 
 tion. In response to these indications a call was 
 issued for a national Free-Soil Convention at Buffalo 
 on August 9. 
 
 The convention was one of the largest political 
 gatherings ever assembled in the country, and ani 
 mated by unbounded earnestness and enthusiasm. 
 Its leading spirits were among the foremost men in 
 New York, Ohio, and other States, representing the 
 Barnburners, the Conscience Whigs, the Liberty 
 party, the Land Reformers, and many of the ad 
 mirers of Henry Clay, who now declared themselves 
 for " liberty and revenge." The platform was a most 
 admirable and timely declaration of principles, affirm 
 ing, among other things, that "Congress has no more 
 power to make a slave than to make a king/ and 
 that " it is the duty of the Federal Government to 
 relieve itself from all responsibility for the existence 
 or continuance of slavery wherever that Government 
 possesses authority to legislate and is thus responsi 
 ble for its existence." The Whigs in this convention, 
 
254 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 and many members of the Liberty party, in the be 
 ginning could not endure the thought of nominating 
 Van Buren ; but on mingling freely with men of dif 
 ferent opinions, and catching the spirit of the move 
 ment, they yielded up their prejudices and cordially 
 acquiesced. Mr. Van Buren had certainly gone con 
 siderable lengths as the servant of the slave-power; 
 but there was one great and vital issue to freedom on 
 which he had taken the right side, and maintained it 
 without flinching, in the presence of a great tempta 
 tion; and for this he had been anathematized by the 
 South, and driven into retirement. It has been aptly 
 said of him that he was the only one of the living 
 statesmen of that period who was man enough to turn 
 from the error of his way and assume the thankless 
 and thorny championship of the right. Moreover, 
 the whole country had been so demoralized by slavery 
 that it was not easy to find any public man of emi 
 nence whose record had been spotless. Van Buren s 
 nomination undoubtedly meant the freedom of our 
 Territories and the denationalization of slavery. 
 There was no element of compromise in the move 
 ment which he represented, and it was wholly un 
 hampered by a Southern wing. 
 
 The most remarkable feature of this campaign was 
 the bitterness of the Whigs towards the Free-Soilers, 
 and especially those who had deserted from the Whig 
 ranks. Mr. Webster claimed Free Soil as a distinc 
 tive Whig doctrine, and lost his temper because the 
 new movement, as he declared, had stolen his "thun 
 der." The Whigs were not content with claiming 
 the complete monopoly of anti-slavery virtue and pa 
 rading it before the country. Their spiteful gabble 
 about "renegades" and "apostates" was as abound 
 ing as it was ceaseless. The hostility of the Whig 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 255 
 
 leaders was relentless. They seemed to believe that 
 all opposition to their party was sacrilege. The 
 worst passions of humanity were set on fire among 
 them by this provoking insurrection against their 
 party as the mere tool of slavery, while animosities 
 were engendered that still survive, and which many 
 men have carried to their graves. 
 
 Giddings entered into this canvass with his whole 
 heart. It was in large measure the outcome of his long 
 and patient labors, and directly connected with the 
 strife about the Speakership at the beginning of the 
 session. Indeed, his refusal to support Winthrop was 
 the first act in a succession of events which destroyed 
 the Whig party and organized the forces of freedom 
 for their final victory. I first met him in the Buffalo 
 Convention, where he addressed an immense audience 
 in the great tent in which the people assembled ; and 
 I well remember the indescribable earnestness which 
 was depicted in his face while he spoke of " carrying 
 the war into Africa," if the slaveholders should per 
 sist in scoffing at the reasonable demands of the Free 
 States. From that time till the election he was on 
 the stump, smiting his assailants right and left, who 
 seemed bent upon crushing him utterly for deserting 
 the Whig party. In Ohio he encountered his old 
 friends, Corwin and Evving, who were denouncing Van 
 Buren for his servility to slavery; and he replied to 
 them effectively by exposing their own more vulner 
 able political records. So rampant \vas party feeling 
 that his old preceptor, Elisha Whittlesey, entered the 
 lists against him in a printed circular charging him 
 with taking illegal mileage. This circular was scat 
 tered in every school district in the four counties 
 represented by Giddings ; and it was put on duty for 
 years afterwards, and only finally silenced by his 
 
256 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 speech in Congress in 1853, completely vindicating 
 his action. Even his old partner, Benjamin F. Wade, 
 still clinging to the Whig party, joined in this war 
 fare. Near the close of the canvass Truman Smith, of 
 Connecticut, joined these Whig assailants in a pub 
 lic letter in the "National Intelligencer," abounding 
 in gross personal abuse of Giddings, and malicious 
 accusations. Smith was understood to be seeking a 
 cabinet position in General Taylor s Administra 
 tion, and had openly repudiated the policy of the 
 Wilmot Proviso ; and he was now smarting under the 
 uncomplimentary allusion to him by Giddings in dis 
 cussing the claim, already referred to, of Hodges for 
 compensation for a slave. He also complained in 
 this letter that Giddings had "reviled" him in a 
 public speech. On November 16, Giddings replied 
 to Smith in a public letter, from which I quote: 
 
 " You say that I reviled you for the opinions which you enter 
 tained of General Taylor. It is very extraordinary that you 
 should allege that I reviled you, without letting your readers 
 know what I said. You must have been wrongly informed. I 
 stated very distinctly, and with feelings of sincere regret, that 
 your views in regard to the constitutional rights of the people of 
 the Free States were radically different from mine. I held that 
 Congress had no constitutional power to involve the people of 
 Ohio in the expense, the disgrace, or the turpitude of sustaining 
 the slave-trade or slavery ; while you held that we were bound to 
 contribute to their support, to share in their disgrace, and to par 
 ticipate in their guilt. As evidence of these facts I stated to the 
 audience that in the last Congress you were a member of the 
 Committee on Foreign Affairs which reported a bill to pay from 
 the Treasury seventy thousand dollars to Spanish slave-merchants 
 who pretended to own the people on board the Amistad ; that 
 the records thus show you to be in favor of supporting the 
 Spanish slave-trade at the expense of the people of Connecticut 
 and Ohio. I thus referred to the official documents of the nation 
 showing your public acts ; and this you seem to regard as a 
 reproach upon your character. 
 
 " I also stated to the audience that in the present Congress 
 you were chairman of the same committee, which, during the late 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 session, reported bills to pay over certain moneys to slaveholders 
 in Maryland, as a compensation for slaves who, during the late 
 war with England, escaped from their masters in that State on 
 board the British fleet ; that you held it to be your constitu 
 tional duty, as a representative in Congress, to legislate upon the 
 price of human flesh and blood and bones and sinews ; while I 
 regarded such legislation as subversive of the rights of the people 
 of the Free States, and disgraceful to the representatives of free 
 men. You voted for those bills. There stand your official acts 
 upon the records of the country. If they constitute a reproach, 
 the fault is yours, not mine. I spoke and voted against those 
 bills. There you and myself were placed in direct opposition to 
 each other. It was therefore quite natural that you should sup 
 port a candidate for President who would be willing thus to in 
 volve the people of Ohio in the disgrace and turpitude of slavery, 
 while I, with my views of the Constitution and of our rights under 
 it, could sustain no man who held such doctrine." 
 
 The effect of the Free-Soil movement, though it 
 did not carry the electoral vote of a single State, was 
 most remarkable. It placed Chase in the United 
 States Senate from Ohio, and sent to the lower 
 branch of Congress a sufficient number of anti-sla 
 very men to hold the balance of power in that body. 
 Its influence was savingly felt in Congress in July 
 of this year on the vote by which Oregon, with a 
 territory nearly equal to that of the thirteen original 
 States, was saved from the curse of slavery ; it 
 launched the policy of cheap postage for the people, 
 and the freedom of the public lands for actual set 
 tlers, and speeded the final triumph of these meas 
 ures ; its power was felt in creating the public 
 opinion which compelled the admission of California 
 as a Free State ; and it was the prophecy and parent 
 of the larger movement which rallied under Fremont 
 in 1856, elected Lincoln in 1860, and played its 
 grand part in saving the nation from destruction by 
 the armed insurgents whom it had vanquished at the 
 ballot-box. 
 
 17 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 DECEMBER, 1848, TO MARCH, 1851. 
 
 Second Session of the Thirtieth Congress. Slavery and the Slave- 
 trade in the District of Columbia. The Pacheco Case. The 
 Ohio Senatorship. Address of Southern Members. The Effort 
 to establish Slavery in California. Meeting of the Thirty-first 
 Congress. The Speakership. Defence of the Free Soilers. 
 Speeches. Work of this Congress. 
 
 THE courage and uniform hopefulness of Gid- 
 dings were put to the test on the meeting of 
 the second session of the Thirtieth Congress. Mr. 
 Adams was no longer with him, and he was cut off 
 from the friendly companionship of the Whigs, who 
 were exulting in the triumph of General Taylor. 
 After long and faithful service in the party, he was 
 now dealt with as a renegade, and obliged to face 
 a new experience in social outlawry at the hands of 
 his old friends. Of all the members of the House he 
 alone was not invited to Speaker Winthrop s parties. 
 But recruits were soon to be added to the ranks of 
 freedom. A little later Mr. Sumner wrote, 
 
 " I cannot forbear writing to express my joy in the triumph 
 of Judge Allen, so peculiar and marked, against a most powerful 
 personal opposition. It will have important influences. He will 
 join your holy alliance at Washington. His courage, nerve, tact, 
 and determination will give him great influence over some of our 
 weak brethren. Then there is Preston King. Verily, next year 
 you will be strong. If you can prevent mischief during the 
 present session, I do not fear the next. I observe that the signal 
 has been given to attack you and other friends at Washington. 
 The Whigs are now in full cry upon you. No matter; they 
 cannot harm you. 1 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 259 
 
 On the 1 3th of December Mr. Palfrey asked leave 
 to introduce a bill to repeal all Acts of Congress and 
 parts of Acts authorizing the existence or support of 
 slavery or the slave-trade in the District of Columbia. 
 Leave was refused by a vote of yeas 69 against nays 
 82. On the 1 8th, Giddings asked leave to introduce 
 a bill authorizing the people of the District to ex 
 press by ballot their desire as to the abolition of 
 slavery therein. Leave was granted, and the bill 
 passed its first and second reading; but on the ques 
 tion of engrossment Mr. Thompson of Mississippi 
 moved to lay it on the table, and the motion pre 
 vailed by a vote of 106 yeas to 79 nays. The object 
 of these movements was to place before the country 
 the fact that both the Whig and Democratic parties 
 were committed to the support of slavery and the 
 slave-trade in the District. To this end Mr. Gott 
 of New York, on December 21, introduced the fol 
 lowing preamble and resolution : 
 
 " Whereas, The traffic now prosecuted in the metropolis of 
 this Republic, in human beings as chattels, is contrary to justice 
 and the fundamental principles of our political system, and a 
 serious hindrance to the progress of republican liberty among 
 the nations of the earth ; therefore, 
 
 " Resolved, That the Committee on the Judiciary be instructed 
 to report a bill as soon as practicable, prohibiting the slave-trade 
 in said District." 
 
 Gott demanded the previous question. Haralson 
 of Georgia moved to lay the resolution on the table; 
 but Venable of North Carolina declared that he 
 wished to see Northern Whigs and Northern Demo 
 crats constrained to show their hands, to let the 
 country see how they voted. The motion to lay the 
 resolution on the table was negatived, and the demand 
 for the previous question sustained. This brought 
 the House to a direct vote, and produced consterna- 
 
260 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 tion among Northern conservatives, while it was 
 exceedingly gratifying to Giddings and his associ 
 ates. Ninety-four votes for the abolition of the 
 slave-traffic were cast by the Free States, and but 
 fifteen in favor of continuing it. The vote stood 
 94 in the affirmative, and 88 in the negative, while 
 nearly fifty members declined to vote, including Tru 
 man Smith of Connecticut and Caleb B. Smith of 
 Indiana, who were in their seats. The result alarmed 
 the politicians, and Stuart of Michigan moved a 
 reconsideration, and this motion finally prevailed by 
 119 yeas to 81 nays. This was accomplished by 
 slaveholding influence, which led many members 
 who had failed to vote on adopting the resolution, 
 and sundry others who had voted for it, to unite in 
 voting to reconsider. The resolution was never 
 heard from afterwards. 
 
 On the following day, Giddings wrote to Sumner: 
 
 " Permit me to call your attention to the conduct of Messrs. 
 Abbott, Ashmun, Hale, and Grinnell yesterday. When Mr. 
 Gott s resolution was presented, the first question was on a motion 
 to lay it on the table. If this had been carried, it would have 
 saved all responsibility of the party and of individuals. To vote 
 for it would have been regarded as a direct support of the slave- 
 trade. This, few Northern men were willing to do. They 
 therefore dodged the vote, as you see they were present at the 
 next call of the yeas and nays. The vote was in effect a censure 
 upon the Speaker. There is the committee which he appointed. 
 Thousands of petitions are before them, yet they refuse to speak 
 on the subject. This was the first time we have ever been able 
 to get a vote directly on this subject of the slave-trade in this 
 District Indeed, eleven years since, when in debate I referred 
 to that traffic, it caused such commotion and excitement in the 
 House that many Northern men actually turned pale. Now the 
 sense of the House is clearly in favor of the entire abolition of 
 this disgrace of our nation. Our Taylor friends are thrown into 
 the most perfect consternation. C. B. Smith, so strong in his 
 abolition last year, did not vote, although he was in the House 
 during the whole day. He is a candidate for Postmaster-General, 
 it is said. My particular friend Truman Smith voted against the 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 26 1 
 
 previous question, which was equivalent to a vote to give the 
 subject the go-by. Such, too, was the case with Vinton of Ohio ; 
 but when the trial came, he was constrained to vote for the reso 
 lution. It was a curious spectacle to look at the members and 
 witness their various emotions. Some were cursing, some looked 
 daggers, some left the hall in disgust, and some were laughing. 
 Holmes of South Carolina moved that all Southern men leave 
 the hall, and then he gravely walked out." 
 
 The action of the House on this resolution was a 
 surprise to all parties. The Free-Soil members were 
 greatly encouraged, because they saw that their la 
 bors were bearing fruit ; the Northern champions 
 of General Taylor were sorely tried, being anxious 
 to make fair weather with the incoming Administra 
 tion without offending their anti-slavery constituents; 
 and Southern members were exasperated at the evi 
 dent growth of anti-slavery opinion in the Free 
 States. Among the other surprises revealed by this 
 vote, as it will appear to this generation, is the fact 
 that Abraham Lincoln, then a member of the House, 
 voted to lay the resolution on the table, voted against 
 its adoption, and then voted for the successful motion 
 to reconsider the vote on its passage, which finally 
 disposed of the question. Unlike several of his 
 Northern brethren, he showed no disposition to dodge 
 the question, but placed himself squarely on the side 
 of the South. He was a moderate Wilmot Proviso 
 man, but his anti-slavery education had scarcely be 
 gun ; and this was true of the great body of the 
 Whigs of the Free States at that time. 
 
 The refusal of some Northern members to vote for 
 this resolution because its preamble was offensive to 
 the South was a despicable subterfuge. The pream 
 ble told the simple truth, and the slaveholders, who 
 had united with the North in branding the foreign 
 traffic as piracy, had no right to be offended when 
 
262 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 our home piracy, which was still more un-Christian 
 and inhuman, was fitly characterized. 
 
 A few days later, another and more vital question 
 came before the House. It grew out of the action of 
 the Government in the conduct of the Florida War. 
 In 1835 one Antonio Pacheco, then residing in 
 Florida, claimed a negro man named Louis as his 
 slave. Louis was very intelligent, speaking four lan 
 guages with facility, and the master hired him to an 
 officer of the United States as a guide to the troops 
 under the command of Major Dade, for which he was 
 to receive twenty-five dollars per month. After the 
 surprise and massacre of Dade and his troops by the 
 Seminole Indians on the 28th of December, 1835, 
 Louis deserted to them or was captured by them, re 
 maining with them in their depredations against the 
 whites until 1837, when General Jessup says he was 
 captured by a detachment of troops under his com 
 mand ; that he [Jessup] regarded him as a dangerous 
 man ; that he was supposed to have kept up a corre 
 spondence with the enemy from the time he joined 
 Major Dade until his defeat ; and that to insure the 
 public safety, Jessup ordered him sent West with the 
 Indians, which was done. Pacheco presented his pe 
 tition to Congress, asking for one thousand dollars as 
 the value of his slave. 
 
 The case was referred to the Committee on Mili 
 tary Affairs, and Mr. Burt of South Carolina, the 
 chairman of the committee, reported a bill for the 
 payment of the claim. He frankly stated that 
 the only question involved was whether slaves are to 
 be regarded as property under the Constitution of the 
 United States. It was not a new question. Similar 
 claims had been presented at different times and 
 uniformly rejected; but Southern members persisted 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 263 
 
 in urging them. Giddings was determined to meet 
 them. He saw that if slaves are property under the 
 Constitution, the slaveocracy could not be resisted. 
 The Wilmot Proviso would be unconstitutional, and 
 the demand for a slave code for the Territories would 
 be justified. Slavery in the District of Columbia 
 and the coastwise slave-trade could not be right 
 fully assailed. Toombs of Georgia would be right 
 in declaring that the Constitution protects slavery 
 "wherever our flag floats." It was the dispute about 
 this pregnant question which led the slaveholding 
 States to secede from the Union; and it was because 
 Giddings fully grasped its significance that his tire 
 less vigilance never permitted it to escape him. So 
 deeply was he interested in this case that he pre 
 vailed on the minority of the Military Committee to 
 make an elaborate adverse report, which by request 
 was prepared and drawn by himself, and submitted 
 by Mr. Dickey of Pennsylvania. 
 
 After debate in committee of the whole, the bill 
 was favorably reported to the House by a vote of 70 
 against 40, and a motion to lay it on the table failed 
 then by a vote of 85 against 66. This was a sur 
 prise to Giddings; and having made himself thor 
 oughly familiar with the subject, he now voted in 
 the affirmative on the question of engrossment, so 
 that he might be heard on a motion to reconsider. 
 At this stage of the case I prefer to let him speak 
 for himself. In his long-neglected diary, which he 
 resumed during this session of Congress, he makes 
 the following record on the 3d day of January, 1849: 
 
 " The ordinary business of legislation was resumed to-day. 
 Several members called on me to assure me that the bill for the 
 relief of Pacheco will pass, and that I am wrong in entertaining 
 the doctrine that there is no property in man. Among those who 
 appeared thus determined to adhere to cherished errors was 
 Horace Greeley, of the New York Tribune. 
 
264 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 " Jamiary 4. My motion to reconsider the report upon the 
 engrossment of the bill to pay Antonio Pacheco for a slave, 
 came up to-day in order, but I postponed it to give oppor 
 tunity to pass the bill to establish a board of private claims. 
 From different parts of the country the papers teem with 
 abuse of myself, and it is quite evident that the doughfaces here 
 are trying to prepare themselves and others to sustain the bill 
 of Pacheco against my opposition. The subject rests with so 
 much weight on my mind that I cannot sleep at night, and it 
 is visibly affecting my health. I have prepared the argument 
 with much labor, and never entered upon a case with better 
 preparation. My friend Horace Mann of Massachusetts ad 
 vises me to pass over the Constitutional arguments, and make 
 a strictly legal effort. Mr. Palfrey advises me to go into a 
 Constitutional investigation. I feel that I am to speak to the 
 country, and I shall therefore address the reader of my speech 
 rather than the hearer, posterity rather than the House of 
 Representatives. 
 
 "January 6. The first business in order this day was my 
 motion to reconsider the vote on the Pacheco bill. I went to 
 the House trembling with fear of failure. My health was poor. 
 Mr. Rockwell of Connecticut appealed to me to postpone the 
 matter. I could not do so without endangering my health, and 
 hence I proceeded with my speech. I soon saw that I had the 
 ear of the House. Certain slaveholders and some doughfaces 
 attempted to keep up conversation and laughter for a while, but 
 I soon saw the deep-seated feeling that worked in their breasts. 
 I had no lack of words or of thoughts, and the appearance of 
 the House indicated that my argument told. When I sat down, 
 I felt that I had never made a more effective speech. . . . Some 
 friends came to me and said that I had surpassed all expectation, 
 and had undoubtedly killed the bill. Some members who had 
 not spoken to me for weeks, came to my seat and congratulated 
 me on my effort. The slaveholders looked solemn and per 
 plexed. In order to save time and test the full effect of my 
 remarks, I withdrew my motion to reconsider, and took the vote 
 on the passage of the bill. The scene that followed I will not 
 attempt to describe, but leave it to the newspapers ; but when I 
 saw the Speaker constrained to give a vote on the bill, the 
 House being divided, eighty-nine to ninety, I rejoiced greatly, 
 and really now think those among the happiest moments of my 
 life. . . . At evening I met our Free-Soil friends at Dr. Palfrey s. 
 They all congratulated me upon the manner in which I had 
 acquitted myself, and were united in the opinion that it had been 
 a great day for freedom." 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 26$ 
 
 These confidences of Giddings, which were in 
 tended for his own family, are quoted because they 
 best reveal his real personality. With unreserved 
 frankness and the simplicity of a child, he tells the 
 story of his struggle against this latest attempt to na 
 tionalize slavery; and while it is charmingly flavored 
 with his native diffidence and his growing self-appre 
 ciation, every sentence bears witness to his supreme 
 devotion to the great cause which he believed him 
 self commissioned to serve. He was proud of his 
 speech, and he had good reason to be; for it was one 
 of the best and most effective of all his public efforts. 
 He proved by citations from Madison, Sherman, and 
 Gerry that the idea of property in man was studi 
 ously and by common consent excluded from the Con 
 stitution by its framers. He cited the authority of 
 the Supreme Court of the United States to the same 
 effect. He reviewed all the cases that had been 
 brought before Congress from the beginning of the 
 government in which the claim of property in man 
 was asserted, and showed that they had been uni 
 formly rejected. Assuming for the sake of the argu 
 ment that the slave Louis in this case was property 
 under the Federal Constitution, he showed that the 
 Government could not be required to pay for him, 
 because his master hired him out at the rate of 
 twenty-five dollars per month, and the bailment 
 ended with his capture by the enemy. He showed 
 that when General Jessup afterwards took him as a 
 prisoner of war and sent him west for the public 
 safety, the liability of the Government, if any existed, 
 ceased, and that it made no difference whether the 
 act of General Jessup was authorized or not. He 
 pointed out the mockery of justice as well as law 
 involved in the claim of Pacheco for the value of a 
 
266 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 slave who for years had been a public enemy, and 
 was sent out of the country for the protection of the 
 claimant himself, in common with other citizens, 
 against his outrages. Finally, he showed that there 
 was nothing to hinder Pacheco from pursuing and 
 retaking Louis, if so disposed, and that that was his 
 only remedy. 
 
 At the close of the speech of Giddings the vote 
 was taken on the passage of the bill, and it was de 
 feated by yeas 89, nays 91. The slaveholding mem 
 bers and their allies were disappointed and mortified 
 by this result, and the friends of freedom greatly 
 rejoiced. A motion was made, however, to recon 
 sider the vote, and after searching the city, one 
 hundred and five members were found who were 
 persuaded to vote for the bill, while only ninety- 
 five opposed it. But the opposition to the measure 
 was now found so formidable that its friends never 
 brought it before the Senate for action, and the 
 claim was abandoned. 
 
 During this winter a Senator from Ohio was to 
 be chosen, and Giddings and Chase were brought 
 forward by their particular friends as candidates. 
 Two Free-Soil members of the Legislature held the 
 balance of power between the old parties. These were 
 Townsend, a representative from Lorain County, who 
 had been a Democrat, and Morse, from Lake County, 
 who had been a Whig. It was thus possible to elect 
 either of the candidates by a coalition with one or the 
 other of the old parties. The contest was a pro 
 tracted and exciting one, and the result depended 
 upon skilful leadership, in which Chase had the ad 
 vantage, being on the ground. The relations of the 
 candidates, however, continued most friendly, as their 
 correspondence during the struggle shows ; but Chase 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 267 
 
 had a further advantage. He had not been identified 
 with the strifes of the old parties, while Giddings 
 had to face the furious hostility of the Whigs, which 
 he had incurred by deserting them. It required the 
 vote of the Free-Soil members and all the Whigs to 
 elect him, as the Democrats were united on Chase. 
 In his journal of January 24, Giddings writes, 
 
 " By the mail of this evening I received several letters from 
 Columbus which speak cheerfully of my prospects for the Senate. 
 One from Dr. Townsend gives me some little hope of election, 
 for which, however, I do not feel anxious, as I think I can do 
 more good in the House, where I have established an influence, 
 than I can in the Senate, where I should meet with intellects of 
 a higher order, men of nerve, experience, and of far greater 
 intelligence. But the moral effect of my election would be great, 
 and on that account I feel a desire to succeed to that office." 
 
 The Whig members of the Legislature from Cuya- 
 hoga County could not be induced to vote for Gid 
 dings under any circumstances, and Chase was finally 
 elected by a coalition with the Democrats. On the 
 3d of February, Giddings wrote in his journal, 
 
 " In the Intelligencer of this morning I found the news of 
 Mr. Chase s election to the Senate. I was so far from being 
 mortified at this result that I may truly say it gave me pleasure. 
 I felt that it would probably promote the cause more than my 
 own elevation to that office. Mr. Palfrey seemed to feel some 
 degree of mortification, and expressed regrets at my failure. 
 This gave me more pain than I felt at the defeat of my election." 
 
 The triumph of Chase was very distasteful to the 
 Whigs and to a portion of the Free Soilers, on ac 
 count of his known Democratic sympathies, and ef 
 forts were made to persuade Giddings that Townsend 
 and Morse, whose votes elected Chase, were governed 
 by corrupt influences. Giddings would not listen to 
 this. He wrote to Mr. Sumner, 
 
 " From the bitter attacks made on Messrs. Morse and Town- 
 send for their support of Mr. Chase, you may suppose I am dis- 
 
268 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 satisfied with them. Such is not the case. They both acted by 
 my advice in that election. The reasons which you mention had 
 from the first been strongly on my mind in favor of Mr. Chase. 
 I felt neither mortification nor disappointment at his success 
 over me. On the contrary, I regarded his election as a great 
 victory. Not that I was by any means insensible to the honor of 
 holding a seat in the Senate; nor did I lightly esteem the gratifi 
 cation which I might have derived from a vindication of my 
 course ; but I felt forcibly the reasons which you suggest, and I 
 could not disguise the fact that his election would carry convic 
 tion to the doubting portion of the community that our cause was 
 rapidly advancing, and that in the end he might do more in that 
 body than I could." 
 
 During this session twenty Southern members of 
 Congress united in an address to the people of the 
 South, which appeared on the 28th of January. It 
 was prepared by Mr. Calhoun, and it complained that 
 the people of the Free States refused to assist in the 
 re-capture of fugitive slaves, that they regarded the 
 institution of slavery and the slave-trade as sinful, 
 and that they were endeavoring to abolish both in 
 the District of Columbia, and to prohibit the latter 
 as carried on upon our Southern coast. Giddings 
 thought that this address should be answered by a 
 counter address from an equal number of Northern 
 members; but this idea was not favored, nor could he 
 persuade any Northern member that any reply was 
 called for. He therefore sought the floor himself, 
 and on the i/th of February proceeded to discuss the 
 several complaints mentioned, and to re-state in differ 
 ent forms his well-known views on the relations of the 
 Federal Government to slavery. He believed in " line 
 upon line," and "precept upon precept." He had 
 no fear of superfluity of speech on the great question 
 which formed the burden of his public life; and while 
 he proposed only constitutional methods in dealing 
 with the unconstitutional pretensions of slavery, he 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 269 
 
 felt it to be his duty to meet those pretensions just 
 as often as they were asserted by representative men 
 of the South. 
 
 One more subject demanded the attention of Gid- 
 dings near the close of this session, and that was the 
 question of admitting California and New Mexico as 
 Slave States. Charles Francis Adams, in a letter to 
 Mr. Palfrey, had warned the Free-Soil members that 
 an effort would probably be made, at the close of the 
 session, to secure the territorial extension of slavery. 
 When this attempt was made, on the 2d of March, in 
 the form of a clause of the Civil and Diplomatic Bill, 
 Giddings and his little band of heroic associates 
 were prepared for it, and resolved, at all hazards, to 
 defeat it. 
 
 In his journal of this date he wrote, 
 
 " This has been a day of intense anxiety. At the assembling 
 of the House this morning I was told that the President-elect 
 had been electioneering with the members to sustain the amend 
 ment of the Civil and Diplomatic Bill, which in effect extends 
 slavery into California. Soon after the House was called to 
 order, the Committee on Ways and Means reported an amend 
 ment to the Senate amendment. This I much regretted, as it 
 admitted the correctness of placing this important measure in an 
 appropriation bill. When the vote was taken in committee of 
 the whole, on a question of order, I obtained a decision which 
 strikes out the Senate amendment entirely. This brought down 
 upon me the censure of the whole Whig party, who raised the 
 cry that I had defeated the whole object of the committee ; but 
 the vote of the House showed my correctness. We rejected the 
 amendment by 114 to 100. It was a trying time, and but one 
 man appeared unmoved amid the general excitement, and that 
 was my colleague, Mr. Root. . . . The House adjourned at twelve 
 o clock, having appointed a committee of conference on the sub 
 ject of a government for California." 
 
 On the 3d of March Giddings continues, 
 
 " When we met this morning, we learned that the committee 
 of conference had failed to agree. The doubt which hung over 
 the subject became painful. Men became excited, and forgot 
 
270 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 other business. The House proceeded in the ordinary course of 
 legislation. The committee of conference reported their dis 
 agreement at about three o clock p. M. At this point great 
 excitement was manifested in all parts of the House. The gal 
 leries were filled to suffocation, and every part of the hall was 
 crowded, while a contest ensued for the purpose of obtaining a 
 parliamentary advantage. The House receded from its former 
 amendment, and then proceeded to amend the Senate s amend 
 ment, by providing for the continuance in force of the Mexican 
 laws. At this point the excitement became intense. Several 
 gentlemen had abandoned their former position and voted with 
 the South. Southern men were boisterous; many Northern men 
 were so excited that they appeared to know little what was going 
 
 on. My friend Mr. of Illinois came over to the Whig 
 
 side of the House, where I was sitting, and told me that if vio 
 lence occurred on their side of the House, I must not forget them, 
 nor leave my friends there to suffer. . . . 
 
 " The vote was finally taken, and an amendment to the Senate 
 amendment was adopted. By it the laws of Mexico were to 
 continue in force until July 4, 1850. Under this state of things 
 the bill was returned to the Senate. The Southern men ap 
 peared in exceedingly ill humor, and about two o clock an affray 
 between Mr. Johnson of Arkansas and Mr. Ficklin of Illinois 
 occurred, in which many blows were exchanged and some blood 
 was shed. 
 
 " I then visited the Senate Chamber. Several members of 
 that body were greatly intoxicated, too much to appear in 
 public. A long discussion on the amendment took place, which 
 lasted until five o clock on Sunday, March 4, when they receded 
 from their amendment, and the bill was sent to the President for 
 his signature." 
 
 The plot to make California a Slave State was thus 
 defeated, while the exasperation of Southern mem 
 bers showed how perfectly they realized the conse 
 quences of their failure. 
 
 The prohibition of slavery in our national Terri 
 tories was the overshadowing question which con 
 fronted the Thirty-first Congress when it assembled 
 on the 3d day of December. That question had al 
 ready disorganized and defeated the Democratic 
 party. The Whig party, although it had elected 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 2/1 
 
 General Taylor, was also seriously divided and de 
 moralized. The last hopes of Mr. Clay and his wor 
 shippers had perished forever in the nomination of 
 the hero of the Mexican War and the owner of two 
 hundred slaves ; while the devotees of Mr. Van Buren 
 had found their coveted revenge in the defeat of 
 General Cass. Party insubordination quite natu 
 rally led to formidable party coalitions, which still 
 further complicated the situation. One of these, as 
 already stated, made Salmon P. Chase a Senator of 
 the United States from Ohio, as John P. Hale had 
 been chosen from New Hampshire some time be 
 fore, and Charles Sumner came in a little later 
 from Massachusetts; while the House of Repre 
 sentatives now contained nine distinctively anti- 
 slavery men, chosen from different States by kindred 
 combinations, who had renounced their allegiance 
 to the old parties, and held the balance of power in 
 that body. These were David Wilmot and John W. 
 Howe of Pennsylvania, Preston King of New York, 
 Joseph M. Root and Joshua R. Giddings of Ohio, 
 Charles Allen of Massachusetts, Charles Durkee of 
 Wisconsin, George W. Julian of Indiana, and Amos 
 Tuck of New Hampshire. 
 
 The little party of three in the preceding Con 
 gress had thus grown to nine; and as neither of the 
 old parties was strong enough to organize the House 
 without their votes, the slavery question had to be 
 met at once, and in a new and peculiarly aggravating 
 form. It was involved in the election of a Speaker; 
 and no question could more completely have pre 
 sented the entire controversy between the Free and 
 Slave States, which had so stirred the country during 
 the previous eighteen months. In view of the well- 
 nigh autocratic power of the Speaker over legislative 
 
2/2 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 measures, these Free Sellers could not vote for a 
 candidate who was not known to be trustworthy on 
 the great issue. The Democratic candidate was 
 Howell Cobb of Georgia, and of course they could 
 not vote for him. The nominee of the Whigs was 
 Robert C. Winthrop, and they could not vote for 
 him, because Giddings, Palfrey, and others had 
 shown that he was wholly unreliable in facing the 
 rugged issue of slavery. They therefore united 
 in the determination to vote for neither of these 
 candidates. 
 
 The struggle was prolonged till the 22d of Decem 
 ber, when Cobb was chosen on the sixty-third ballot. 
 The result was effected by adopting, at the instiga 
 tion of the Whigs, what was called the "plurality 
 rule," the operation of which enabled a minority to 
 choose the Speaker. The Whigs, when they entered 
 upon this proceeding, well knew that the Free Soil- 
 ers were willing and anxious to vote for Thaddeus 
 Stevens or any other reliable member of the party, 
 and that they would not vote for Winthrop under 
 any circumstances, for excellent reasons, which they 
 announced. They also well knew that without Free- 
 Soil votes Cobb would certainly be chosen under 
 their plurality rule; and yet the cry was raised 
 by the Whigs in Congress and throughout the 
 Northern States that the Free Soilers had elected 
 a slaveholder Speaker of the House. For a time 
 the ridiculous charge made some impression upon 
 the country; but the masterly refutation of it by 
 Giddings, and the subsequent career of Winthrop 
 himself, finally and entirely vindicated the action 
 of the men whose resolute opposition had stood in 
 his way. 
 
 But the abuse of these Free Soilers by the Whigs 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 273 
 
 was not confined to their opposition to Winthrop. 
 The thirty-eighth ballot showed that William J. 
 Brown, a Democrat from Indiana, had received 109 
 votes out of 226, being a larger vote than any candi 
 date had received. Winthrop thereupon withdrew 
 from the contest ; and during the evening the Free- 
 Soil members learned that Mr. Brown was ready to 
 pledge himself so to arrange the committees as to 
 secure reports upon petitions concerning slavery. 
 They had constantly assured the other parties that 
 whenever either of them would select a candidate 
 pledged to arrange the committees of the House so 
 as to secure the right of petition they would vote for 
 him. I was not then in the House, being detained 
 at home by sickness ; but if I had been present I 
 would not have supported him, because I knew him 
 to be as inflexibly true to slavery as any man in Con 
 gress, and that no pledge with such a man behind 
 it could have the least value. The other Free-Soil 
 members, however, with the exception of Mr. Root, 
 were in favor of giving him their votes if he would 
 make the required pledge, and Messrs. Wilmot and 
 King were appointed a committee to wait on him 
 and obtain such pledge in writing. Mr. Brown 
 replied as follows : 
 
 WASHINGTON CITY, Dec. 15, 1849. 
 
 DEAR SIR, In answer to yours of this date I will state that 
 should I be elected Speaker of the House of Representatives I 
 will constitute the committees on the District of Columbia, on 
 the Territories, and on the Judiciary in such manner as shall be 
 satisfactory to yourself and your friends. I am a representative 
 of a Free State, and have always been opposed to the extension 
 of slavery, and believe that the Federal Government should be 
 relieved from the responsibility for slavery where they have the 
 constitutional power to abolish it. 
 
 W. J. BROWN. 
 Hon. DAVID WILMOT. 
 
 18 
 
2/4 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 When the House met the next morning there was 
 an evident uneasiness among the Whigs, and as the 
 balloting for Speaker was resumed and the name of 
 Charles Allen was called, who answered "William J. 
 Brown," a sensation was caused, which was renewed 
 when Charles Durkee made the same response; but 
 when the letter " G " was reached, and Joshua R. Gid- 
 dings responded in the same way, the interest in the 
 contest was intensified, and the Whigs seemed to be 
 greatly astonished. Southern Democrats were not 
 less astonished, and several of them changed their 
 votes when they found the Free Soilers supporting 
 Brown, in consequence of which he lacked two votes 
 of an election. The novelty of the situation gave 
 birth to the suspicion that some secret arrangement 
 had been made between Brown and the Free-Soil 
 members; and after the balloting, while Mr. Bayly 
 of Virginia was on the floor, Mr. Ashmun of Mas 
 sachusetts asked him whether a secret correspon 
 dence had not taken place between some member of 
 the Free-Soil party and Mr. Brown, by which the 
 latter had agreed to constitute the committees on 
 the Judiciary, on Territories, and on the District of 
 Columbia in a manner satisfactory to that party. 
 Mr. Bayly scouted the idea, and asked Mr. Ashmun 
 what authority he had for the statement. Ashmun 
 replied, "Common rumor;" to which Mr. Bayly re 
 joined, " Does not the gentleman know that common 
 rumor is a common liar?" Turning to Brown, he 
 said, " Has any such correspondence taken place ? " 
 Brown shook his head, and Mr. Bayly became more 
 emphatic than ever in his denial. 
 
 But the fever was now up, and Southern members 
 scented treason. Brown found himself in a very try 
 ing dilemma with his Southern friends, while the 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 2?$ 
 
 Free Soilers who had supported him were also placed 
 in a peculiar predicament. In the course of a long 
 and exciting debate the fact of the correspondence 
 between Wilmot and Brown was finally revealed, 
 when the disappointment and rage of Southern mem 
 bers compelled Brown to withdraw from the con 
 test; and the catastrophe of his secret manoeuvre 
 was so unspeakably humiliating that even his enemies 
 pitied him. I regretted this affair most sincerely; 
 but the action of the Free Soilers was generally 
 approved by anti-slavery men. On the 22d of Decem 
 ber, the Rev. Joshua Leavitt, of New York, wrote to 
 Giddings, 
 
 " I must snatch a minute to tell you that, for an old dog, you 
 hold on well. Congress screams at the top of its voice in the 
 ears of the nation in a monotone such as I have heard when the 
 whole population of our streets joins in the cry of Fire ! But 
 the cry is Slavery ! Slavery ! Slavery ! No chance now to cry 
 1 Loco-foco ! or Tariff ! or Bank ! or Harbors ! That one 
 word fills the ear of the nation, and there is no power to change 
 the key, or stop the cry, or alter the word, or deceive the 
 people. 
 
 " I rejoice that you voted for Brown. Not that he is a fa 
 vorite of mine, as you know. But he had put himself plainly 
 and handsomely in the position which we demanded, and you 
 were right in meeting him. He answered your questions in a 
 handsome manner; and you voted for him, as the papers say, 
 with a full and distinct voice, so as to leave no mistake ; and I 
 dare say you did just so. Now, I want you to help the poor fel 
 low a little ; heap some coals on his head, to make him think of 
 his past sins. He made a bad blunder, but it was owing to his 
 bringing up. His mistake consisted in supposing that it was just 
 as innocent and lawful and honorable to play a game of double- 
 dealing with the interests of slavery as has always been played 
 by himself and others with those of freedom. He has found the 
 difference to his cost. Slavery is too sacred to be thus trifled 
 with. Will the grindstone ever cut away to the quick, so that 
 our Northern Taylor and Cass men will see how degradingly 
 they are treated by their slaveholding confederates ? Turn 
 away at the crank ; I see by the speeches that there is some 
 sensibility." 
 
2/6 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 The defeat of Mr. Winthrop was a great disap 
 pointment to the Whigs, and they charged it entirely 
 to the Free-Soil members, and dealt with it as an un 
 pardonable sin. They had evidently hoped to drive 
 them back to their party allegiance by forcing upon 
 them the alternative of choosing between a slave 
 holder and the Whig candidate; and when this hope 
 failed, the abuse of these "disorganizes " by the 
 Whig Press of the Northern States was rancorous and 
 unmeasured. Giddings felt it to be his duty to 
 defend himself and his associates, and to this end 
 he obtained the floor on the 27th of December. He 
 reminded the Whigs that they were in a minority in 
 the House, and that without the aid of Free-Soil 
 votes they could not have elected Winthrop ; that if 
 the Free Soilers had disbanded and voted according 
 to their former party affiliations, Cobb would still 
 have been chosen; that as the parties were divided, 
 however, he could not have been elected without 
 Whig votes ; that the plurality rule, fathered by the 
 Whigs, providing that after three ineffectual ballot- 
 ings the candidate having the highest vote on the fol 
 lowing ballot would be declared Speaker, opened the 
 way for the election of Cobb, which was accomplished 
 by the passage of a resolution to that effect, in which 
 the great body of Whigs and Democrats united ; and 
 that to prevent the choice of a Speaker who would 
 fairly represent the sentiment of the Free States, 
 both the old parties thus joined hands as the ser 
 vants of the slave-interest. In the course of his 
 speech he was interrupted by Schenck and Vinton of 
 Ohio, by Rockwell, Winthrop, and Ashmun of Mas 
 sachusetts, and others, and a running debate followed 
 which compelled him to re-open his old controversy 
 with Winthrop, and justify his action respecting the 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 277 
 
 Speakership in the preceding Congress. In speak 
 ing of the influence of General Taylor s Administra 
 tion over the Whigs of the Free States as shown in 
 the formation, of the committees of the House in the 
 last Congress, and the action of members on Mr. 
 Gott s resolution against the slave-trade in the Dis 
 trict of Columbia, Giddings said, - 
 
 " I will not say that the gentlemen voted to uphold that traffic 
 under the promise or expectation of reward ; I have not the 
 record evidence on which to base the assertion. Yet one of 
 those gentlemen who voted thus to protect the slave-trade [Mr. 
 Smith of Connecticut], received the offer of a seat in the Cabi 
 net, but for some reason did not accept it; another [Mr. Preston 
 of Virginia] is now a cabinet officer ; another [Mr. Collamer of 
 Vermont], who did not vote at that time either for or against the 
 slave-trade, also holds a seat in the Executive Cabinet ; another 
 [Mr. Barringer of North Carolina] represents this nation at the 
 court of Madrid; another [Mr. Marsh of Vermont] is our Min 
 ister to the Grand Sultan of Turkey; another [Mr. Caleb Smith 
 of Indiana] is Commissioner of Mexican Claims ; another [Mr. 
 Alexander Irvin] is Marshal of the Western District of Pennsyl 
 vania; another [Mr. Edwards of Ohio] is a General Superintendent 
 or Examiner of Hospitals in the United States ; and the son-in-law 
 of another [Mr. Vinton of Ohio] is Chief Clerk in the Depart 
 ment of the Interior. I repeat that I cannot say these offices 
 were conferred as rewards for the votes given on the occasion 
 referred to ; but it is a remarkable coincidence that not one of 
 those gentlemen who opposed the slave-trade on that important 
 vote has, so far as my information extends, received any favor 
 whatever from the Executive." 
 
 This speech was very timely and telling. There 
 was a sting in it, but it was called for by the relent 
 less and savage attacks of his Whig assailants through 
 out the Northern States, who were made to feel the 
 weight of his sturdy and well-directed blows. Re 
 specting this effort, Mr. Sumner wrote him, 
 
 " I ought sooner to have thanked you for the satisfaction I 
 have derived from your speech. Like everything from you, it is 
 solid in matter, and in style also. It is a contribution of real 
 value to our cause. Your vote against Winthrop is completely 
 
2/8 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA K, G ID DINGS. 
 
 vindicated. Your explanation with regard to the Territorial 
 Committee shows the lukewarmness of that committee. The con 
 duct on Gott s resolution is admirably exposed, and Winthrop s 
 management of the District of Columbia Committee also. . . . 
 
 " I cannot close this letter without expressing my indignation 
 at the manner in which you have been pursued by the Whig 
 Press. I cannot disguise the expression of the deep regard and 
 reverence with which your unselfish devotion to high principles 
 has filled me." 
 
 Charles F. Adams, in a letter dated Jan. 27, 1850, 
 wrote, 
 
 " I have to acknowledge the reception of a copy of your 
 speech, which I had already read in the Republican with great 
 satisfaction. If your vote for Speaker needed any justification 
 from the history of the past, I think you have supplied it. What 
 they may have wanted from the futurity of the Whig party has 
 already come, in part, from the message of General Taylor. To 
 my mind it is clear as demonstration that nobody is entitled to 
 the name of leader of that party so fully as General Cass, inas 
 much as he supplies all of the position on the most difficult 
 public questions which it pretends to take. If non-intervention 
 be indeed the right doctrine, surely he can prove the fact of prior 
 discovery. 
 
 " Of course we look to you as one of the veterans who teach 
 the youthful soldiers how to stand fire. Much may be done by 
 you in the course of the present session to mark the backward 
 course of those from whom we ought to expect better things. 
 Nowhere is a worse influence at work than here. We shall do 
 what we can to counteract it, but we shall need all the aid that 
 an exposure of facts at the seat of government can give us. 
 Pray let us have it whenever you can." 
 
 The indignation of Mr. Sumner at the course of 
 the Whig Press did him honor. Its tide of personal 
 abuse and political defamation had now reached its 
 flood. Two years before, when Giddings refused to 
 support Winthrop for Speaker, the party lash was 
 applied unsparingly as a means of discipline; he, 
 however, was now no longer a Whig, but branded as a 
 deserter, and the party Press pursued him with the 
 ferocity of a sleuth-hound. No one can ever know 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 279 
 
 what it cost him to withstand his foes in this crisis. 
 He was a good fighter. There was not a drop of the 
 coward s blood in his veins. When the interests of 
 freedom were involved, he would allow nothing to 
 stand in his way. But it would be a great mistake 
 to suppose that he enjoyed the fierce turmoil of his 
 public life. His disposition was not combative. His 
 nature was sensitive, and he felt keenly the cruel as 
 saults of his old friends. He loved the approbation 
 of his fellow-men, and deeply deplored the course of 
 events which made his life a continuing battle. This 
 will be seen in the following private letter to his 
 friend Henry Fassett, dated Jan. 5, 1850:- 
 
 " I do not think there has ever been such an extensive plan 
 concerted and put in action to crush a poor individual in this 
 government as that brought to operate upon your humble servant. 
 You may think this rather blowing myself into importance, but 
 I speak it to a friend, to one who I am sure sympathizes with 
 me. I would not say it to the public, nor am I permitted in any 
 way to complain or ask for sympathy. No, I have but one 
 course ; and that is, to stand up, to face my enemies, to meet 
 them in open combat, to trust to truth and the power of our 
 cause to bear me through the calumnies, the vituperation and 
 detraction with which I am assailed. No human being here 
 seems to suspect that I feel these attacks. They coolly compli 
 ment me on my tact, my boldness, my independence, etc., and 
 laugh about the assaults making upon me through the entire 
 Whig Press, from the National Intelligencer and Republic 
 down to the Telegraph and Reporter. 
 
 " But, sir, I sigh and long for peaceful retirement, for the quiet 
 of domestic life, to step aside and leave the stage for younger 
 and more able managers. Twelve years of turmoil, strife, and 
 bitter persecution have prepared my mind for rest and repose ; 
 but the difficulty is, and long has been, for me to retreat under 
 the hot fire of my enemies." 
 
 It was during this session that the charge was 
 made against him undoubtedly inspired by party 
 animosity that he had purloined papers from the 
 General Post-Office. It was published simultane- 
 
2 SO THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 ously in the leading Whig papers of Cleveland, 
 Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, and was first 
 brought to the notice of Giddings in this way. He 
 promptly demanded an investigation; but such was 
 the feeling of the House that a committee to inquire 
 into the case was refused. One of the Assistant 
 Postmasters-General, being a Whig, sent to the 
 House a reiteration of the charge, to which Gid 
 dings promptly responded that that officer was guilty 
 of falsehood and a violation of official duty, and that 
 he pledged himself to show those facts if the House 
 would grant a committee. The Speaker, a slave 
 holder, thereupon appointed a committee, composed 
 of members neither personally nor politically friendly 
 to Giddings. The first witness examined was the As 
 sistant Postmaster-General, who had reiterated the 
 charges; but after a cross-examination he asked the 
 committee to place on their journal the fact that he 
 then withdrew all imputation against the accused. 
 To this Giddings responded that the charge had been 
 made, and could not be recalled, and that he there 
 fore desired to disprove every circumstance alleged. 
 The committee consented to this, sent to Ohio and 
 Boston for witnesses, and having taken the testi 
 mony, reported the charges to have been made with 
 out any foundation in truth; and this attempt to 
 destroy his reputation recoiled with effect upon the 
 party it was intended to serve. 
 
 Probably no member of either branch of this Con 
 gress displayed more activity and zeal in the public 
 service than did Giddings. Respecting the great 
 question which had so long and so completely en 
 grossed his public life he was never idle, and his 
 vigilance was never intermitted. On the 2ist of 
 February, Winthrop addressed the House at length 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 281 
 
 in an elaborate defence of himself against the attacks 
 of Giddings, Palfrey, Root, and their political asso 
 ciates. It was an eloquent outpouring of the hoarded 
 animosity of years, but not a vindication of his 
 course; for vituperation is not argument, however 
 embellished by the graces of rhetoric. He devoted 
 a liberal portion of this speech to the subject of his 
 controversy with Giddings, and was exceedingly per 
 sonal. On the 1 8th of March the latter replied; and 
 although his speech was brief, it was a sufficient re 
 sponse to the attack. He reiterated his former 
 charges, and reproduced his proofs; and he again 
 fortified them by referring to the actual character 
 and performances of the committees appointed by 
 Winthrop, and his open abandonment of the policy 
 of the Wilmot Proviso. 
 
 On the same day Giddings addressed the House 
 on the President s message transmitting the Con 
 stitution of California. His speech was in reply to 
 Mr. Toombs of Georgia, who on the 2/th of Febru 
 ary had argued that under the compromises of the 
 Constitution "we are bound to maintain the domin 
 ion of the slaveholder over his slave with our 
 blood, and to carry slavery wherever our flag floats." 
 The speech of Giddings was a careful review of 
 the positions of Toombs, and clearly exposed their 
 fallacy. 
 
 On the 1 2th of August Mr. Giddings spoke on the 
 Texas Boundary Bill, and the change of policy which 
 followed the death of General Taylor and the ap 
 pointment of Mr. Webster as Secretary of State. He 
 showed that the passage of this bill was accomplished 
 by trampling under foot the well-settled principles 
 of parliamentary law; that the payment by the Gov 
 ernment of ten million dollars to Texas for territory 
 
282 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G1D DINGS. 
 
 which she never owned was a naked and monstrous 
 robbery of the national treasury ; and that the 
 measure was carried by the bluster of Texas slave 
 holders and the bribery of Northern members of 
 Congress. It was in this speech that he took occa 
 sion to define his position respecting the right of 
 secession. "I would not," said he, "compel them 
 [the Slave States] to remain with us by force of 
 arms. I do not believe in a government of bayo 
 nets and of gunpowder, in this age of the world. 
 The people of each State must govern themselves; 
 or if they see fit to leave the Union, I would say, 
 * Go in peace, and may the blessing of God rest 
 upon you. He was not alone in this opinion, and 
 ten years later, when the slaveholding States se 
 ceded from the Union, and asserted their right to 
 do so by arms, men no less famous than Winfield 
 Scott and Horace Greeley were in favor of letting the 
 "wayward sisters" go in peace. It is perhaps need 
 less to add that Giddings then changed his opinion, 
 and assisted one of his own sons in organizing a 
 regiment which rendered distinguished service in 
 the war for the Union. 
 
 During the summer of this year, Giddings was urged 
 by leading philanthropists and reformers on both 
 sides of the Atlantic to attend the Peace Congress 
 which was to assemble at Frankfort-on-the-Main in 
 the following autumn. They offered to pay the ex 
 pense of his journey, in order to secure the presence 
 of so distinguished a representative of his country in 
 this World s Parliament of Peace. Mr. Sumner was 
 particularly desirous that he should go, while Elihu 
 Burritt, in a letter from Germany, begged him to 
 come, and to accept the office of Vice-President of 
 the Congress. Although Giddings was a well-known 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 283 
 
 advocate of peace and of the policy of international 
 arbitration, and was most anxious to attend this gath 
 ering, yet in view of the great questions then pend 
 ing in Congress which demanded his presence, he 
 reluctantly abandoned the project. 
 
 Giddings again addressed the House, on the Qth of 
 December, on the President s annual message, ex 
 posing the apostasy of Mr. Fillmore from his anti- 
 slavery faith, and denouncing and defying the new 
 Fugitive Slave Law. 
 
 On the 26th of February, 1851, Giddings spoke at 
 length on " the agitation of the slavery question. " He 
 exposed the systematic efforts of Whigs and Demo 
 crats to make the compromise measures a "finality," 
 by suppressing all discussion of this question. He 
 replied sharply to the speech of Mr. Clay in the 
 Senate, in which he denounced the mob of colored 
 men in Boston who had defeated the execution of 
 the Fugitive Slave Law in the case of the slave 
 Shadrach. He defended the action of Charles Allen 
 of Massachusetts in charging Mr. Webster with hav 
 ing accepted office under the promise of pecuniary 
 assistance from financial men in New York and 
 Boston, while he defended his Free-Soil friends 
 against the assaults of Mr. Ashmun of Massachu 
 setts and Mr. Levin of Pennsylvania; and he op 
 posed the increase of our army for what he declared 
 to be the manifest purpose of enforcing the Fugitive 
 Slave Law, which he again denounced as unconstitu 
 tional and disgraceful to the nation. 
 
 The Thirty-first Congress was remarkable for the 
 eminent men who shared in its labors. In the Senate 
 the great triumvirate of Calhoun, Clay, and Webster 
 appeared for the last time. Associated with them 
 were Benton, Cass, Douglas, Seward, Chase, Bell, 
 
284 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 Hale, Ewing, Corwin, and Jefferson Davis. In the 
 House were Thaddeus Stevens, Winthrop, McDowell, 
 Alexander H. Stephens, Ashmun, Giddings, Schenck, 
 and others equally well known. 
 
 But this Congress was still more remarkable for 
 its work. It abandoned the early policy of the gov 
 ernment, which protected our Territories from sla 
 very by positive prohibition, and provided that new 
 States might be admitted from our Mexican acquisi 
 tions either with or without slavery, as their people 
 might determine. This implied condemnation of 
 the Missouri Compromise line as a violation of the 
 principle of " popular sovereignty " was sure to breed 
 the mischief which followed four years later. The 
 Texas Boundary Bill, in recognizing the right of 
 Texas to a vast territory which did not belong to 
 her, and paying her millions of dollars therefor, was 
 a fit companion-piece to the surrender of the Wilmot 
 Proviso. But the new Fugitive Slave Law was still 
 more atrocious; for it made the ex-parte y interested 
 oath of the slave-hunter final and conclusive evidence 
 of the fact of escape and of the identity of the party 
 pursued, while the simplest duties of humanity were 
 punishable as felonies. 
 
 These several enactments were called a "compro 
 mise " and "final settlement " of the slavery question, 
 and they constitute one of the great land-marks in 
 the history of slaveholding aggression. The par 
 ties which joined hands in this shameless surrender 
 to slavery were not content with their triumph. 
 They did their best to silence the further agitation 
 of the question; and in this mad attempt to gag the 
 people they were aided by the Press and by powerful 
 ecclesiastical backing. Giddings and his associates 
 were anathematized as pestilent fanatics and distur- 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS, 285 
 
 bers of the peace. They were placed under the ban 
 of social excommunication, and dealt with as "out 
 side of any healthy political organization." Their 
 position was offensive, because it rebuked the recre 
 ancy of famous men in Church and State, and men 
 aced their ascendancy. But they had the courage of 
 their opinions, and the satisfaction which accom 
 panies manliness of character. Nor were they en 
 tirely exiled from society; for they were solaced by 
 delightful gatherings, which met weekly at the resi 
 dence of Dr. Bailey, where they met reformers, phi 
 lanthropists, and literary notables. Of the-Free Soil 
 leaders of 1848 one only remains. Their names, so 
 familiar to the public in their day, are now seldom 
 mentioned; but what they wrought endures. The 
 question which so stirred their blood and kindled 
 the wrath of their opponents is now lifted out of 
 the tangle and jargon of debate into the clear light 
 of accomplished facts. History will take care of 
 their memory; while the political graves of recreant 
 statesmen are eloquent with warnings against their 
 mistakes. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 MARCH, 1851, TO MARCH, 1855. 
 
 Effect of the Compromise Measures. Meeting of the Thirty-second 
 Congress. Agitation to prevent Agitation. Encounter with Stan 
 ley. The Welcome of Louis Kossuth. Death of Mr. Clay. 
 
 Slave Claim of Watson. Speech on the Compromise Measures. 
 Presidential Nominations of 1852. The Second Session of the 
 Thirty-second Congress. Claim of William Hazzard Wigg. 
 Meeting of the Thirty-third Congress. The " Amistad " Case. 
 Repeal of the Missouri Compromise. The Case of the "Black 
 Warrior." Second Session of the Thirty-third Congress. 
 
 THE passage of the compromise measures of 1850 
 was followed by vigorous efforts of both Whigs 
 and Democrats to suppress the further discussion of 
 the slavery question. Great meetings were held in 
 Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and other cities, 
 which pledged themselves to discountenance anti- 
 slavery agitation; and these efforts were seconded by 
 leading clergymen and doctors of divinity, whose 
 sermons were plentifully scattered over the land. 
 The power of the Press was put forth in the same 
 service, while the Executive and Judicial depart 
 ments of the government insisted that resistance to 
 the Fugitive Slave Law was a " levying of war against 
 the United States." It was a wonderful reaction 
 against the anti-slavery tide of 1848, and seemed to 
 promise the complete re-establishment of the time- 
 honored rule of the slaveocracy. 
 
 But these appearances were misleading. The 
 growth of anti-slavery opinion was promoted by the 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 287 
 
 extraordinary schemes employed to suppress it, and 
 anti-slavery men were therefore encouraged. The 
 election of Sumner as a Senator from Massachusetts 
 inspired the friends of freedom everywhere with fresh 
 courage. This was accompanied by important Free- 
 Soil accessions in the House of Representatives. 
 Another sign of promise was the election of Ben 
 jamin F. Wade to the United States Senate from 
 Ohio. He was a new and formidable accession from 
 the Whig party, and a fellow-townsman of Giddings, 
 who on the i/th of March, 1852, wrote Sumner, 
 
 " Our Free Soilers took up Mr. Wade as their candidate for 
 Senator, believing him to be perfectly reliable. I think I know 
 the man. He read law with me, was a partner in business eight 
 years, residing in my family most of that time, and has since 
 lived in our little village. He is a man of talents, a very power 
 ful declaimer, and a hater of slavery. He was among the earliest 
 Abolitionists of our State, and took bold ground in our Senate in 
 1838. He was defeated in 1839 on account of his abolitionism, 
 but succeeded in 1850. 
 
 " He was ambitious. I stood in his way, and in 1848 he went 
 for Taylor and opposed the Free Soilers. When, in March of 
 last year, Mr. Webster made his servile speech, Mr. Wade de 
 nounced both him and the speech ; and when he was appointed 
 Secretary of State, Mr. Wade denounced the Administration in 
 the most scathing language, and has continued to do so up to 
 this time. It was this bold position which he has thus main 
 tained for the last six months that induced our Free Soilers to 
 go for him. I take this early opportunity of giving you his 
 character." 
 
 The opening of the Thirty-second Congress, in 
 December, 1851, was signalized by the rivalry of 
 Whigs and Democrats in their zeal for the compro 
 mise measures. A regular system of agitation to 
 prevent agitation was inaugurated, and the awkward 
 ness of this performance by the men who trium 
 phantly claimed to have made a "final settlement" 
 of the slavery question was effectively exposed and 
 
288 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 ridiculed by Mr. Hale in the Senate. Senator Jones 
 of Iowa presented resolutions of the Legislature of 
 that State laudatory of the Fugitive Slave Law, 
 and referred to it as wise, just, and in all respects 
 proper. Mr. Jackson of Georgia offered resolutions 
 declaring the compromise measures of the Thirty- 
 first Congress, including the Fugitive Slave Act, to 
 be just, constitutional, and obligatory upon all the 
 States and upon the citizens of each State. Sena 
 tor Miller of New Jersey presented resolutions of 
 the Legislature of his State, similar to those pre 
 sented from the State of Iowa; and Senator Foote 
 of Mississippi presented resolutions of the same 
 character from his State. In the mean time the 
 business of the House had been so ordered that the 
 customary discussion of public questions in com 
 mittee of the whole on the President s message was 
 suppressed. This was done to prevent anti-slavery 
 speeches, while the champions of the compromise 
 measures were heard in the way of these laudatory 
 resolutions of State Legislatures. Giddings com 
 plained of this. If the agitation of the slavery 
 question was to be continued, he desired to share in 
 it. Accordingly, when the resolutions from New 
 Jersey were reported, on the nth of February, 1852, 
 having obtained the floor on the motion to print, he 
 expressed his opinions with his customary frankness 
 and force. After referring to the slave-trade and 
 slave-prisons of the District of Columbia, which were 
 sustained by the laws of Congress, and the coast 
 wise slave-trade carried on under the flag of the 
 United States, he addressed himself to the Fugitive 
 Slave Law. He said, 
 
 " The State of New Jersey, by her Legislature, may proclaim 
 that it is our duty to take upon ourselves the appointment of 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 289 
 
 officers to run after and seize your slaves for you, but I deny 
 that position altogether. We have no constitutional authority 
 thus to degrade Northern men. Let me say to Southern men : 
 It is your privilege to catch your own slaves, if any one catches 
 them. It is not our duty to play the bloodhound for you; it is 
 your duty to meet the expense of it, and not ours. We tax our 
 constituents, our laboring-men, to defray the expense of chasing 
 down and securing your fugitives. Catch them yourselves, you 
 have a constitutional right to do it ; but we will not turn out and 
 play the bloodhound for you. When you ask us to pay the ex 
 pense of arresting your slaves, or to give the President authority 
 to appoint officers to do that dirty work, give them power to com 
 pel our people to give chase to the panting bondman, you over 
 step the bounds of the Constitution ; and there we meet you, and 
 there we stand, and there we shall remain. We shall protest 
 against such indignity ; we shall proclaim our abhorrence of such 
 a law. Nor can you seal or silence our voices." 
 
 This open defiance of the attempt of the slaveoc- 
 racy and its Northern allies to suppress anti-slavery 
 agitation provoked a reply which had no precedent 
 in the debates of Congress. The slaveholders were 
 quite willing to talk about their "final settlement" 
 of the slavery question, and the duty of good citi 
 zens to abide by it ; but this display of the freedom 
 of speech was intolerable. The reply to Giddings 
 came from Mr. Stanly of North Carolina, and it 
 was a surprise both to Congress and the country. 
 As a Southern Whig he had won quite a reputation 
 for ability, fair-mindedness, and moderation of opin 
 ion. He was regarded as liberal, manly, and chiv- 
 alric, and had never been understood as belonging to 
 the type of men who had been put forward on pre 
 vious occasions to assail anti-slavery members; but 
 he now appeared in a new role. He tried his hand 
 in the arts of ribaldry and billingsgate, and was emi 
 nently successful. What he said is unfit to be quoted 
 or printed ; but whoever will read it in the " Con 
 gressional Globe" must be convinced that he was 
 
2 QO THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 chosen for this particular service by the leaders of 
 the slaveocracy. He was their mouthpiece ; for Gid- 
 dings had not assailed him, nor even alluded to him 
 in any way. He poured forth his tirade without any 
 personal provocation. The sole offence of Giddings 
 was the expression of his opposition to the compro 
 mise measures ; but it so stung the champions of these 
 measures that they determined upon this method of 
 chastisement. 
 
 The pro-slavery Press and politicians of the North 
 ern States were delighted with Stanly s exhibition of 
 himself. The " New York Tribune, " strangely enough, 
 condemned both Stanly and Giddings as equally 
 culpable, although the latter gave no provocation, 
 and simply attempted to defend himself against the 
 brutal assaults of the former. The " New York 
 Express" said, 
 
 "The severe scorching and lashing Mr. Stanly of North 
 Carolina gave that arch-demagogue, Mr. Giddings of Ohio, de 
 lighted the Hoiise and men of all parties. It was terribly severe, 
 and its terrible truth made it seem unmerciful, as Stanly laid 
 on the blows ; and as Giddings winced, pity was mingled with 
 the sense of justice that Giddings deserved it all." 
 
 To this Henry J. Raymond, of the "New York 
 Times," replied, 
 
 " Of course such billingsgate as that by which Mr. Stanly 
 disgraced himself delighted the House. The taste of that dig 
 nified body has been for a long time established, and when Mr. 
 Stanly went on to call Mr. Giddings a dead dog, and to talk 
 about his having eaten oysters with negroes, and to boast of hav 
 ing cut him up in a dissecting-room, etc., he knew perfectly well 
 how to hit the sense of the House and delight men of all parties. 
 If he had used such language in a respectable bar-room, he would 
 have been set down as a voluble blackguard. If he had used 
 it in a gentleman s parlor, he would have been kicked out. But 
 as he was only talking in Congress, as a matter of course he 
 delighted the House. " 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 29 1 
 
 This rebuke of Stanly s speech and of the House 
 which tolerated it was accepted as just by all decent 
 men throughout the Northern States. Even the 
 champions of slavery must have felt that the sup 
 pression of anti-slavery agitation by such methods 
 would be accomplished at too great a cost, while 
 Stanly never regained the honorable position he had 
 lost by this prostitution of his manhood and self- 
 respect. 
 
 Early in this session, Senator Foote of Missis 
 sippi introduced a joint resolution in honor of Louis 
 Kossuth, who had fled from Austrian despotism and 
 been invited by the President to visit the United 
 States. Other Senators from the South seemed 
 equally willing to join in honoring this great de 
 fender of liberty; but they faltered a little when 
 Charles Sumner eloquently espoused his cause. 
 They scented danger, and so did their Northern al 
 lies. When the resolution came before the House, 
 Mr. Brooks of New T York took occasion to say what 
 he meant by voting for it, taking particular pains to 
 declare that he had no sympathy with the views of 
 Giddings and his associates. The speech is inter 
 esting as a revelation of the vigilance of slaveholders 
 and their readiness to find in the most innocent facts 
 the proof of some deadly plot of abolitionism in 
 disguise. 
 
 Mr. Brooks said, - 
 
 " I stand, as a Northern man, upon one ground, upon one 
 political principle, that is, non-interference with other people s 
 affairs ; and upon that breakwater alone can I defend myself 
 from the surges which rise up around me, and which seek to 
 deluge portions of this country, as well as other Governments over 
 the sea. If once this Washington principle of non-intervention 
 or non-interference with other Governments can be broken down, 
 I see no land ahead, nay, nothing but a dark and stormy sea be- 
 
292 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R G ID DINGS. 
 
 fore me. If interference with other states or other people is ever 
 to become the rule, or a leading principle, in this government, has 
 it never occurred to gentlemen that it will not stop in Europe, 
 but begin on this continent, and perhaps first in this country, in 
 intermeddling with and revolutionizing the peculiar organization 
 and institutions of a portion of our complex society ? I am quite 
 sure the thought has occurred at least to one gentleman I see 
 before me, the shrewd, keen-eyed gentleman from Ohio, whose 
 zeal and whose energy to-day, though a member of the Peace So 
 ciety, in the general cause of war, can only be accounted for by 
 his determination to break down the barrier of non-intervention 
 and non-interference that stands between him and the society 
 and governments of large portions of this country. While preach 
 ing peace, bringing peace propositions within this hall, denoun 
 cing all of us who will not vote against armies, and clamoring 
 against all of us who are ever for war, even for just war, I 
 see him anxious to-day, with others of his class, to sally forth 
 upon the general principle of intervention and war bella, hor- 
 rida bella, with universal creation. 
 
 " I protect myself from the surges of social and domestic in 
 tervention which that gentleman and those who act with him 
 would raise about me when they are clamoring for the principle 
 of universal liberty, liberty for all races, all colors, and all 
 breeds, by saying that it is my duty, as a peaceful citizen, liv 
 ing within my own government, to attend to my own business 
 and concerns, and let other people attend to theirs. I am no 
 Peter the Hermit. I have no chivalrous mission to go forth and 
 enlighten the whole earth. I will not take my little candle and 
 walk among the powder-magazines of all mankind and set those 
 magazines on fire, and then rejoice at the general and glorious 
 explosion. I defend myself from that gentleman and his associates 
 when they assail our own State governments, and clamor for uni 
 versal liberty, by the general declaration that it is none of my 
 business what is done in other State governments than my own, 
 that I am opposed to intervention of all sorts. Attend to your 
 own concerns, mind your own business, take care of your own 
 household affairs, is the primary duty of a nation as well as a 
 family or individual. 
 
 " This, I am sure, is the duty of a good citizen and a good 
 legislator. If we once lay down and establish the principle that 
 this Government has a right to interfere and intervene and take 
 up arms against slavery in Hungary, or any other portion of the 
 continent of Europe, there stand in my own State more than a 
 million who cry, There is no slavery on God s earth so horrible 
 as the chattel slavery of the Southern States, and that our first 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 293 
 
 duty, before we arm ourselves against European despots, is to 
 seize the cannon, the musket, the torch, and the firebrand, go 
 across the Potomac, and set fire to the whole Southern country 
 at once. I do not stop to discuss this question with such people 
 theologically or economically ; but, constitutionally, I say South 
 ern slavery is none of your business, you have no authority over 
 or right to interfere with it. If ever, then, this principle of non 
 intervention in the affairs of other people is broken down, it is in 
 vain for me and those who act with me to attempt to resist the 
 universal crusade which will sweep us, not towards Europe, but 
 across the Potomac, into the whole Southern country." 
 
 Giddings replied, - 
 
 " I am astonished at the excitability of gentlemen on this 
 floor. It would appear that no subject whatever can be intro 
 duced here but some minds will seize upon it and give it a con 
 nection with matters which are not legitimately connected with it. 
 Most heartily do I concur with the gentleman from New York 
 [Mr. Brooks] in paying the tribute of my respect to this distin 
 guished foreigner. I shall do it most cheerfully. The act is one 
 simple in its character and obvious in its tendency. But, sir, what 
 right has the gentleman upon the present occasion to drag my 
 name in and attempt to arraign me before this House and before 
 the nation ? Why attempt to charge me with a design of involv 
 ing the nation in war ? I have not uttered a word upon that ques 
 tion. I sat here in silence, without the remotest idea of mingling 
 in this debate ; and had I taken upon myself to address the com 
 mittee, it would never have entered into my mind to connect this 
 resolution with the question of slavery, as the gentleman has 
 done, or connect it with war, as the gentleman has wantonly ac 
 cused me of doing. Far, far from my thoughts would have been 
 such an idea, and I deny the right of that gentleman, or any other, 
 before I have spoken, to anticipate the positions which I should 
 take, and arraign me before the House and before the country 
 for those positions. Have I ever at any time hesitated to ex 
 press my views openly, with perfect frankness, on any and on 
 every question that has been presented to this body since I have 
 had the honor of a seat in this hall ? I appeal with confidence 
 to those who have served with me, to the country who have read 
 my remarks and votes on every subject brought before us, against 
 this unfounded, this ungenerous, charge of the gentleman. My 
 whole political life bears testimony in contradiction of it. When 
 ever a proper occasion shall present itself, I shall not hesitate to 
 express my opinion on the subject of peace with other nations, 
 and among all nations, in favor of universal peace. 
 
294 TUE LI1 R OF JOSHUA A . G HIDINGS. 
 
 " But I cannot be dragged into discussion of those principles 
 on a subject so unsuitable as that now before us. What author 
 ity had the gentleman from New York to charge rne with incon 
 sistency in relation to my avowed principles of peace ? Certainly 
 from nothing which 1 have said, nor from any vote which I have 
 ever given. There is something most wanton in his charges. I 
 surely had not provoked it at his hands. To him 1 would say : 
 Your charge is unfounded and false ; you have travelled out of 
 your way to assail me ; on those charges I will meet you most 
 cheerfully at the proper time, or whenever the proper occasion 
 shall arrive. The gentleman has spoken of popular sentiment, of 
 which he appears to stand in great dread. I have no such fears. 
 The popular mind is lighted by the intelligence of the people, and 
 it will mete out justice, and no more than justice, to the gentle 
 man and to myself. However much he may shrink from it, he 
 must meet it. The gentleman appears now to tremble in view of 
 the penalty of that higher law written upon the hearts of men 
 by the finger of God. This law he has contemned and ridi 
 culed. For the subversion of this law he has sent so many thou 
 sands of lower law sermons 1 broadcast throughout the Free 
 States. He must, however, meet the penalties of the popular 
 will ; he may fear and tremble and turn pale at its approach. 
 It must come; he cannot avoid this supreme, law, before which 
 we must all bow. It is already inflicting its penalties upon him, 
 and ere long will consign him to the charnel-house of political 
 apostates." 
 
 A few days after this, Mr. Stanly of North Caro 
 lina followed Mr. Brooks in the same vein, referring 
 to the presence of Giddings at a recent meeting of 
 the Pennsylvania Anti-slavery Society which adopted 
 a resolution expressive of sympathy with Kossuth, 
 and of hope that his labors would conduce. to the 
 overthrow of oppression, not in Hungary alone, but 
 in the United States. Giddings made a brief and 
 dignified reply to these references to himself, but 
 declined to be drawn into the discussion of his anti- 
 slavery opinions in debating the foreign policy of 
 the Government. He thus refers to this debate and 
 to his speeches in Pennsylvania in a letter to his 
 son : 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSIfl A A\ G/DP/.\\;s. 295 
 
 " You ask why I don t write about my journey to IVnnsyl- 
 vania amoni; the Ouakers. \Yhy. 1 \vish you could sec the 
 piles of letters before me. My absence brought me behind, ami 
 1 have not yet i;ot up with my business. 1 hail to attend to at 
 tacks in the House, as you see. luit 1 had a tine time at I hila 
 delphia. It \vas a fine gathering, and 1 think 1 made one of my 
 happiest hits. The broad-brims and straight-coats stamped and 
 clapped their hands and shouted in i;rcat style, l.ucretia Molt 
 said it was the noisiest meeting she ever saw amon^ that class 
 of people. 
 
 "At \Yest I hester. the next week. 1 met a tremendous gather- 
 inii . Francis James, formerly a member of Congress, lives their. 
 but the Ouakcrs said he was too timid to attend ; but I knew he 
 would be theie, although 1 had not seen him lor eit;ht years. 
 
 1 le was the lirst man on hand, and 1 greeted him warmly, 
 and in the course of ten minutes he asked the privilege to intro 
 duce me to the meeting, lie did so. and while 1 was at break- 
 last next morning he called to see me. and did not leave me until 
 1 left the city, lie entered warmly into the subject, and 1 under 
 stand there is now quite an awakcnin:; there. 
 
 " As to my course here, you of course see the attacks of 
 Hrooks and Stanly and Taylor. The latter 1 have not yet 
 answered, as 1 could not <;et the lloor ; shall do so soon. brooks 
 has left us. and has not been here since the day following his 
 attack. I hail the feelings of the whole Mouse with me." 
 
 Oil the jSlh of January he addressed the Mouse at 
 length on Kossuth s doctrine of foreign intci vent ion. 
 anil he showed that that doctrine is by no means new 
 to the Government of the I nitevl States; that that 
 (iovernment intervened in behalf of the South Ameri 
 can Republics when they proclaimed their iiulcpon 
 donee and assumed their position in the brotherhood 
 of nations; that in the year iS..\> President Monroe 
 declared in his annual message that " \vc eonhl not 
 view any interposition lor the purpose 4 ol oppressing 
 them, or eont rolling in any ot her manner their ilest iny 
 by an Kuropcan jnnver, in any otluM lirjit than as a 
 manifest at ion of an unfriendly disposit ion towards t lie 
 United States;" that the same policy was assorted 
 by Mr. Clay when Secretary of State in his instrnc- 
 
2Q6 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 tions to our commissioners to the Congress of Pan 
 ama; and that the same principle was asserted by 
 him in 1826 in a letter to our minister at St. Peters 
 burg, directing him to solicit the intervention of 
 Russia to put an end to the war between Spain and 
 her colonies on this continent. Coming down to 
 later precedents, Giddings referred to the case of some 
 Texans who in 1842 had gone to Santa Fe for the pur 
 pose of conquest, and were captured by the troops of 
 Mexico and cruelly treated by the Mexican authori 
 ties. Mr. Webster, then Secretary of State, said : 
 
 " It is therefore that the Government of the United States 
 protests against the hardships and cruelties to which the Santa 
 Fe prisoners have been subjected. It protests against this treat 
 ment in the name of humanity and the laws of nations, in the 
 name of all Christian States, in the name of civilization and the 
 spirit of the age, in the name of all republics, in the name of 
 Liberty herself, enfeebled and dishonored by all cruelty and all 
 excess." 
 
 Giddings insisted that the same protest should be 
 made " in the name of humanity and the laws of na 
 tions " against Russian outrages in Hungary, and he 
 complained that the Government, speaking through 
 Mr. Webster, declined to follow its own precedents. 
 Referring to the recent public utterances of the latter, 
 Giddings said, 
 
 "He was willing to see popular meetings and resolutions and 
 public dinners and speeches in favor of Hungarian freedom and 
 Hungarian independence. He avowed his willingness to let these 
 demonstrations go forth to the world, to let them be borne on 
 the winds of heaven to the uttermost parts of the earth ; but he 
 carefully avoided all reference to the duties of this Government 
 to speak officially on the subject, to enter its solemn protest 
 against the intervention of Russia to crush the spirit of liberty 
 in Hungary, to subject twelve millions of people to the despotism 
 of Austria." 
 
 But Giddings cited another precedent which still 
 more glaringly exposed the inconsistencies of the 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 297 
 
 Government in dealing with the question of foreign 
 intervention, and the recreancy of the Administra 
 tion to its own avowed principles. The champions 
 of slavery, North and South, who were snuffing dis 
 aster in the mission of Kossuth to the United States, 
 must have felt the force of this capital home-thrust : 
 
 " But no Government on earth, perhaps, has gone farther in 
 practical intervention than ours. When Texas was struggling 
 for independence, and Mexico continued the war, we sent our 
 army and assumed the responsibility of intervention, forcible 
 and armed intervention. I well recollect the time when the ques 
 tion came up in this hall ; and of the whole number of votes then 
 present, only fourteen were cast against that kind of intervention. 
 I opposed it for the reason that Texas had constituted one of the 
 Mexican States ; that she and Mexico constituted but one people, 
 and that we ought not to interfere in their domestic strife. But 
 I was overruled, and the people of the United States expended 
 two hundred millions of dollars to carry out the practice of inter 
 vention by force of arms, and that, too, between parties in a do 
 mestic strife. The case was beyond that now presented, dissimilar, 
 and can have no other bearing upon the present question than to 
 show the inconsistency of those who supported that kind of inter 
 vention, and oppose all efforts at this time to maintain the law of 
 nations, urging that it has been our established policy not to in 
 terfere in controversies between other Governments." 
 
 It should be remembered that the principle so 
 eloquently pleaded for by Kossuth was not interven 
 tion against the wrong-doing of one nation by the 
 physical power of other nations, but only the exer 
 cise of their moral power in the form of a solemn 
 official protest in the name of humanity and the law 
 of nations. It was moral intervention for the rights 
 of man ; and when Giddings found the Administra 
 tion opposing it, after having openly espoused the 
 principle of forcible intervention in Mexico for the 
 extension of slavery, he impaled it as a spectacle 
 before the nation. Probably Brooks and Stanly 
 did not relish the entertainment, but they had now 
 succeeded in getting Giddings to define his position, 
 
298 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 and they had no right to complain if in doing so he 
 took occasion also to define their own. 
 
 Giddings was equally happy in dealing with the 
 subject of "entangling alliances" with other nations, 
 which gave him still further opportunity to refer to 
 the painful attitude of the slaveocracy and its allies. 
 He- said, 
 
 " I know that a gentleman standing high in the nation, a can 
 didate for the Presidency [Mr. Douglas], on a late public occa 
 sion said he would not unite with England in a protest while she 
 withheld justice from O Brien and his Irish associates. If Eng 
 land will unite her influence with ours in maintaining the law of 
 nations, surely we ought not to refuse protection to the people 
 of Hungary because we cannot give protection at the same time 
 to those individuals of Ireland. Why, sir, suppose when we 
 solicit Great Britain to unite with us in this national duty she 
 should turn around and say to us, No, let the people of Hun 
 gary suffer, let despotic oppression weigh them down, until your 
 Government shall relieve your American serfs, until justice be 
 done to the Africans of your own land Would not such lan 
 guage be offensive to that gentleman? Why, sir, it would be 
 our duty to unite with all the civilized nations of the earth, 
 whether Mohammedan or Christian, in this work of maintaining 
 the law of nations and the rights of humanity. 
 
 " I am aware that objections are constantly made to any alli 
 ance with Great Britain for the purpose of maintaining the law 
 of nations. But this is a novel objection. We now are in alli 
 ance with that nation, and have been for many years. The ob 
 ject of that alliance is the protection of the people of Africa. By 
 that alliance we are bound to keep up constantly a naval force 
 on the African coast, at an expense of about two million dollars 
 annually, to maintain the law of nations there. Yet no gentle 
 man objects to this alliance on account of the injustice of Eng 
 land towards Ireland, nor does any one quote Washington s 
 Farewell Address against entangling alliances, for that pur 
 pose. And are the people of Hungary less entitled to the pro 
 tection of the law of nations than are those of Africa ? I am 
 constrained to say that it is difficult for me to discover the con 
 sistency of gentlemen who are so sensitive in regard to our 
 uniting with Great Britain in a protest against the intervention 
 of Russia, while we are in strict alliance with that nation for 
 the protection of Africa." 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 299 
 
 After a lingering illness Mr. Clay died at the 
 National Hotel in Washington on the 2/th of Jan 
 uary, 1852. Giddings visited him a short time before 
 his death, and found him sitting in an easy-chair, 
 and able to converse in a low tone of voice. Mr. 
 Clay alluded at once to the friendship that had ex 
 isted between them, the fidelity with which Giddings 
 had supported him for the Presidency in 1844, and 
 the coldness which had subsequently grown out of 
 the question of slavery. He said he had no doubt 
 that his own feelings had been too strong; and Gid 
 dings responded in the same tone, assuring him that 
 he could retain no feelings but those of kindness 
 under the circumstances in which they had met. 
 Mr. Clay said he had no unkind feelings towards 
 any one, and the conversation turned upon the future, 
 on which his thoughts appeared to dwell. 
 
 In a previous chapter I have given an account of a 
 claim brought before Congress by J. C. Watson for 
 the loss of one hundred slaves whom he had pur 
 chased of certain chiefs of the Creek Indians in 
 1837. They were captured under the orders of Gen 
 eral Jessup, as plunder, but without any warrant of 
 law, and Watson bought them as property of the 
 United States. The negroes, however, were sent 
 west by order of General Gaines, and Watson filed 
 his claim in the Twenty-eighth Congress for com 
 pensation for his loss. The matter was debated at 
 length, but opposed so vigorously that Watson s 
 friends did not feel safe in pressing it to a vote. 
 In view of the prevalent feeling in the two pro-slavery 
 parties since the passage of the compromise meas 
 ures, Watson now renewed the claim. Of course 
 every Southern member voted for it, and twenty-five 
 members from the Free States joined them, the vote 
 
300 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 standing 75 yeas to 53 nays; and thus, after years of 
 effort, Watson obtained indemnity for his loss, though 
 in flagrant disregard of law. 
 
 On the 1 6th of March Giddings addressed the 
 House at length on the compromise measures. Up 
 to this time no Free-Soil member of the House had 
 taken any part in the general debate on these meas 
 ures, which had been continued by their advocates 
 almost constantly from the beginning of the session. 
 Mr. Hillyer of Georgia, in a speech expressing his 
 horror of anti-slavery agitation, had referred to Gid 
 dings, assuring him that notwithstanding all the ef 
 forts of anti-slavery men, negroes brought as high a 
 price at the South as they had done at any previous 
 time. Giddings reminded him that his language 
 " would have been better fitted to the quarter-deck of 
 an African slaver, or to the barracoons of the African 
 coast." He ridiculed the notion that any final settle 
 ment of the slavery question had been made, or that 
 its agitation could be suppressed. He said, - 
 
 " I am aware that men in high official stations have an 
 nounced to the country that the slave-questions are settled, 
 that all agitation has ceased ; but what are the facts ? We see 
 and know that discussion has increased and extended more rap 
 idly since the enactment of those laws than at any former period. 
 Our elections are very generally made to depend on the slave- 
 question. It has placed new and able members in the Senate, 
 and it has driven others into retirement. It has occasioned great 
 changes in this body. Where now are the Northern members 
 who advocated these compromise measures ? Gone, sir, most of 
 them, to the land of political forgetfuiness, from which they will 
 never return. And while on this point, I would ask what has 
 blasted and withered the last political hope of the present Secre 
 tary of State ? Every man knows that it is this very question of 
 slavery. While he has been writing letters and making speeches 
 to demonstrate that the slave agitation has ceased, it was operat 
 ing in the popular mind, was silently stealing his political breath, 
 and has now pronounced the sentence of death to his political 
 hopes." 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 30! 
 
 The burden of this speech was the diabolism of the 
 compromise measures and the guilt of the Whig and 
 Democratic parties in upholding them as a finality. 
 He declared that 
 
 " When a man, either here or elsewhere, avows himself in 
 favor of the compromise measures, he in substance and fact 
 avows himself in favor of breeding men and women for market 
 in this District and in our Territories, and of prostituting our 
 tiag in the protection of a commerce in human flesh. I would 
 be as willing to traffic in God s image as I would to sustain the 
 owner of yonder slave-prison in his accursed vocation, by up 
 holding the law which authorizes him to pursue it. I would as 
 soon vote for Williams, the slave-dealer and owner of yonder 
 barracoon, for the office of President, as I would for any man 
 who sustains him in his execrable commerce." 
 
 Referring to the Fugitive Slave Act, he said, 
 
 " This law, which takes from the laboring-men of the North a 
 portion of their earnings to pay for catching and returning fugi 
 tive slaves, is a thousand times more repugnant to their feelings 
 than was the Stamp Act or the tax on tea. Under this law they 
 are involved in the support of an institution which they detest, 
 compelled to contribute to the commission of crimes abhorrent 
 to humanity. This oppression, this violation of conscience and 
 of their constitutional rights, this tyranny they feel and deprecate. 
 It is impossible that an intelligent, a patriotic people, can long 
 be subjected to such violations of their rights and the rights of 
 humanity." 
 
 Giddings next addressed the House on the 23d of 
 June. The old parties had then selected their Presi 
 dential candidates and adopted their platforms. The 
 Whig National Convention met on the i6th of June, 
 and nominated Gen. Winfield Scott as its candidate. 
 The platform of the convention proclaimed the ac 
 quiescence of the party in the Compromise Acts of 
 1850 "as a final settlement, in principle and sub 
 stance, of the subjects to which they relate;" and it 
 deprecated " all further agitation of the questions thus 
 settled, as dangerous to our peace," and pledged the 
 party "to discountenance all efforts to continue or 
 
302 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 renew such agitation, whenever, wherever, or how 
 ever made." 1 This action was the natural outcome 
 of the submission of the party to the nomination of 
 General Taylor, and the still further demoralization 
 which followed the accession of Fillmore to the Presi 
 dency. Indeed, the old party had gone astray too far 
 to return, and now determined to seek its fortunes 
 in the desperate effort to outdo the Democrats in 
 cringing servility to the South. It had completely 
 surrendered its integrity, and verified all that had been 
 said by Free Soilers as to its treachery to freedom. 
 
 The Democratic National Convention assembled on 
 the ist of June, and nominated Franklin Pierce as its 
 candidate. The platform adopted pronounced the 
 Fugitive Slave Act equally sacred with the Consti 
 tution, and pledged the party to "resist all attempts 
 at renewing, in Congress or out of it, the agitation of 
 the slavery question, under whatever shape or color 
 the attempt may be made. " It thus became a recog 
 nized and authoritative principle of American democ 
 racy to muzzle the Press and crush out the freedom 
 of speech as the means of upholding and perpetuating 
 its power. The only issue of the canvass was thus 
 declared by both parties to be slavery, and on this 
 they were perfectly agreed ; while in their common 
 struggle for the spoils of office each sought to surpass 
 the other in the damning proof of its treason to hu 
 manity and its contempt for the fundamental truths of 
 republican government. 
 
 Giddings in the following speech addressed himself 
 to the platforms of these parties. He said, 
 
 "We, sir, the Free Democracy, will agitate the subject of 
 slavery and its correlative, freedom. Here, sir, is an issue 
 
 1 Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts, and Justin S. Morrill of 
 Vermont, now members of the United States Senate, voted for 
 these resolutions. 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 303 
 
 formed between us. I, sir, am about to agitate this question. 
 I intend to speak plainly of slavery, of its most revolting fea 
 tures. I will endeavor to use no offensive language, but I will 
 talk of the practice followed by men in this District, of purchas 
 ing slave-women, and then selling their own children into bond 
 age. Now, when I do this, the Democrats are bound to resist, 
 and the Whigs to discountenance, my efforts. In order that we 
 may start with a perfect understanding of this conflict, I desire 
 to learn the manner in which the Democrats will manifest their 
 resistance. I am now agitating this subject, and what will you 
 do about it ? Now, I hope gentlemen will not feel any particular 
 delicacy in showing their resistance. Do not be alarmed ; just 
 stand up here and now before the country. Show your resist 
 ance. Be not afraid, gentlemen ; I am less than the stripling of 
 Israel who went forth to meet Goliath. You stand pledged to 
 resist God s truth, to silence the tongues of freemen. I meet 
 you, and hurl defiance at your infamous attempts to stifle the free 
 dom of speech. And now, who speaks for the carrying out of 
 this resolution ? 
 
 " Mr. Chairman, we may call spirits from the vasty deep, 
 but they will not come. I repeat to the Democrats : I want to 
 know what you are going to do. You are pledged to resist. 
 The Whigs, in their convention, also resolved that they will 
 discountenance all efforts to continue or renew such agitation, 
 whenever, wherever, and however the attempt may be made. 
 The language of this resolution differs from that of the Democ 
 racy, but its spirit and object are the same. They intend to sup 
 press the freedom of speech here and among the people. On 
 this point the two great parties of the nation have cordially 
 united. A coalition for a more odious purpose could not have 
 been formed. Duty to myself, to this body, and the country, 
 demands an exposure of this conspiracy against the Constitution, 
 against the rights of members here, against the people. . . . 
 
 " Agitation is not only to be put down here, but among the 
 people : they are to have no more anti-slavery meetings : no 
 more Free-Soil conventions ; no more sermons in favor of God s 
 law ; no more prayers to Heaven for the oppressed of our land. 
 The Declaration of Independence is to be burned, our printing 
 establishments broken up, and our social circles are to speak no 
 more of the rights of all men to enjoy life and liberty. A new 
 political police is to be established, and the American people 
 placed under slaveholding surveillance. But I am paying unde 
 served attention to these base, these puerile attempts to stifle dis 
 cussion on the subject of humanity. I hold these resolutions in 
 unutterable contempt ; I trample them under my feet." 
 
304 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 Referring to the proposition of a leading Whig 
 editor to pay for fugitive slaves with the funds of the 
 nation, he said, 
 
 " When the barbarians of Algiers seized and enslaved our 
 people we sent an armed force there and slew them, holding 
 them unworthy of a place upon God s footstool. No, sir, by 
 all the hallowed associations which cluster around the memory 
 of English and American patriots, I avow that I would sooner 
 see every slaveholder of the nation hanged than to witness the 
 subjugation of Northern freemen to such a humiliating condition. 
 Sir, when it comes to that, I, for one, shall be prepared for the 
 dernier ressort, an appeal to the God of battles. I am a man 
 of peace, but am no non-resistant ; and I would sooner have the 
 ashes of my own hearth slaked in my own blood and the blood 
 of my children than submit to such degradation. And here I 
 will take occasion to say that if this law continues to be enforced, 
 civil war is inevitable. The people will not submit to it. Why, 
 sir, civil war already exists. At Christiana, civil war, with all 
 the circumstances of force under color of law, resistance in de 
 fence of natural right, bloodshed, and death took place. In 
 my own State a similar transaction occurred, and I assure gen 
 tlemen that other instances will occur, if attempts be made to 
 enforce that law. In my own district are many fugitives who 
 have informed their masters where they may be found. These 
 men have become desperate. They desire to see the slave-catch 
 ers. They pant for an opportunity to make their oppressors 
 bite the dust. " 
 
 His arraignment of the old party with which he 
 had so long acted was perfectly justified by the facts. 
 He said, - 
 
 " The doctrines of the Whig party, as I have shown, pledge 
 them and their candidate to maintain slavery ; the breeding of 
 slaves for market; the sale of women in this District and in the 
 Territories ; to uphold the Fugitive Slave Law in all coming 
 time ; to admit as many Slave States as shall apply, from New 
 Mexico and Utah; and to silence discussion on all these subjects. 
 This is as far, I think, as human depravity can go. If the Demo 
 cratic party has dived deeper into moral and political putridity, 
 some archangel fallen must have penned their confession of faith." 
 
 I quote the concluding paragraph of this remark 
 able speech, which struck the key-note of a rapidly 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 305 
 
 growing anti-slavery opinion, and was extensively 
 published and applauded throughout the North: 
 
 " Sir, we are in the midst of a revolution. The two great 
 parties are striving to convert this free government into a slave- 
 holding, a slave-breeding republic. Those powers which were 
 delegated to liberty, are now exerted to overthrow freedom and 
 the Constitution. It becomes every patriot, every lover of free 
 dom, ever Christian, every man, to stand forth in defence of 
 popular rights, in defence of the rights of the Free States, of the 
 institutions under which we live, in defence of our national char 
 acter. Sir, I am growing old ; the infirmities of age are coming 
 upon me ; I must soon leave the scenes with which I am sur 
 rounded ; it is uncertain whether I shall again address this body. 
 But one thing I ask, that friends and foes, here and elsewhere, 
 in this and in coming time, shall understand that whether in 
 public or in private, by the wayside or the fireside, in life or in 
 death, I oppose, denounce, and repudiate the efforts now put 
 forth to involve the people of the Free States in the support of 
 slavery, of the slave-trade, and their attendant crimes." 1 
 
 The result of the Presidential election of this year 
 was a surprise to men of all parties. The triumph 
 of the Democrats was far more signal than the most 
 sanguine men among them anticipated. Pierce re 
 ceived 254 electoral votes, and Scott only 42, repre 
 senting only four States of the Union. The defeat 
 of the Whigs was overwhelming, and the party- was 
 
 1 The speech called forth the following sonnet from a young poet of 
 the West : 
 
 THE MORAL HERO. 
 
 The thirst of fame inspires the soul-lit page, 
 
 And bids the canvas glow, the marble breathe ; 
 
 Immortality ! thy burning wreath 
 Hath lured the human soul through every age. 
 Nor vain the hope, even in this earthly stage; 
 
 Nor aught, even here, save virtue, gives the crown! 
 
 Twas twined for Phocion, Cato, neath the frown 
 Of fortune, and the fickle people s rage, 
 And brighter blooms while sculpture falls to dust. 
 
 Even thus, O GIDDINGS ! shall it deck thy brow, 
 Whi 1 e all earth s marble piles betray their trust ; 
 
 Yon " Modern Capitol " to time must bow, 
 But bravely, sternly, " obstinately just," 
 
 A victor of the immortal heights art thou ! 
 20 
 
306 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 buried forever in the grave it had dug for itself. 
 John P. Hale, the Free-Soil candidate, received 
 only a little more than 156,000 votes, being about 
 one twentieth of the entire popular vote cast at this 
 election. Senator Dix, the Van Burens, David Dud 
 ley Field, Samuel J. Tilden, and a host of others, 
 including even Robert Rantoul and Preston King, 
 had given their support to Pierce, while the " New 
 York Evening Post" and the "New York Tribune" 
 cravenly joined in this anti-slavery retreat. These 
 were very discouraging facts, and were naturally in 
 terpreted by the victorious party everywhere as 
 foreshadowing the complete triumph of the final 
 settlement made by Congress in 1850. 
 
 But the Free Soilers were undismayed. They 
 took courage from the very fact that the Whig party 
 had been annihilated. They saw clearly that what 
 slavery needed was two pretty evenly divided parties 
 pitted against each other upon economic issues, so 
 that under cover of their strife it could be allowed 
 to have its way. A new movement was now prac 
 ticable, basing its action upon moral grounds, and 
 gathering into its ranks the unshackled conscience 
 and intelligence of the Northern States. The small 
 vote for Hale was by no means discouraging, for it 
 represented the bona fide strength of the Free Soil 
 movement after the elimination of the Van Buren 
 element, which had been inspired largely by per 
 sonal devotion to Mr. Van Buren and hatred of 
 General Cass. 
 
 An extraordinary effort was made to defeat the 
 re-election of Giddings in the canvass of this year. 
 Through the management of men in the Legislature 
 of Ohio who were hostile to his anti-slavery prin 
 ciples, the State was re-districted during the pre- 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 307 
 
 ceding year with an eye single to this result. He 
 was thrown into the Twentieth District, composed of 
 the counties of Ashtabula, Trumbull, and Mahoning, 
 and his enemies were confident of his defeat. The 
 counties of Cuyahoga, Geauga, and Lake were now 
 known as the Sixteenth District; and one of the re 
 sults of the gerrymander was the election of Edward 
 Wade, a brother of B. F. Wade and a thorough anti- 
 slavery man, to represent this district, while Giddings 
 was triumphantly chosen in the new and hostile dis 
 trict, receiving 5,752 votes as the Free-Soil candi 
 date, against 4,428 for Woods, the Democratic can 
 didate, and 4,169 for Newton, the Whig candidate. 
 A great dinner was given at Painesville in celebra 
 tion of this triumph, to which many famous men were 
 invited, while the friends of Giddings in every sec 
 tion of the country rejoiced in his victory and the 
 humiliation of his foes. 
 
 Giddings was a member of the Committee on Terri 
 tories which reported a bill for the organization of a 
 government for Nebraska, early in February, 1853. 
 Hon. John W. Howe of Pennsylvania publicly in 
 quired of him why there was no prohibition of 
 slavery in it. Giddings replied that by the eighth 
 section of the Act admitting Missouri, slavery had 
 been prohibited in all the territory ceded by France 
 to the United States in what was called the Louisiana 
 purchase, north of 36 30 . Mr. Howe was satisfied 
 with this explanation; and the incident shows that at 
 that time no one thought of disturbing the Missouri 
 Compromise. The bill passed the House without de 
 bate, and was transmitted to the Senate, where it was 
 retained without action upon it during the session. 
 Mr. Douglas made an earnest effort to secure its 
 passage near the close of the session, and declared 
 
308 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 that he had been pressing it for eight years; and 
 even Mr. Atchison then favored it, though depre 
 cating the prohibition of slavery by the Missouri 
 Compromise, which had settled that question. The 
 motion to take up the bill, however, was laid on the 
 table, and the slaveocracy thus gained time to in 
 cubate the great conspiracy which the passage of the 
 House bill would have made impossible. 
 
 On the last night of this session a motion was 
 made to suspend the rules of the House in order to 
 take up a bill from the Senate providing for the 
 adjustment of the claim of William Hazzard Wigg, 
 who had been a prominent and zealous South Caro 
 lina patriot in the Revolutionary War, and had 
 sustained heavy losses, chiefly in slaves, by the 
 depredations of the British. Such claims had uni 
 formly been rejected. It was simply impossible for 
 Congress to give relief to the thousands of citizens, 
 North and South, who had been ruined by the wan 
 ton acts of the enemy in this struggle. But it was 
 insisted that this claim was an exception to the gen 
 eral rule, and that Wigg had been held as a hostage 
 while the depredations upon his property were com 
 mitted, and was thus entitled to indemnity as such un 
 der the law of nations. The truth, however, was that 
 he had been merely a prisoner of war, and not a hos 
 tage in any other sense than are all such prisoners. 
 
 The real facts of the case seem to have eluded 
 the vigilance of the anti-slavery members of the Sen 
 ate, and when it reached the House Giddings, who 
 had watched its progress and understood its char 
 acter, went among Northern members and warned 
 them of the action of the Senate, and that an 
 effort would be made during the last hours of the 
 session to pass the bill without any opportunity to 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 309 
 
 debate it. As predicted, the measure was called up 
 at eleven o clock. Mr. Skelton of New Jersey said, 
 "I object; the bill ought not to be passed; it intro 
 duces Cries of "Order, order," were heard from 
 slaveholding members. Mr. Duncan of Massachu 
 setts said, " I object, and I wish to state the reasons 
 for my objections." Cries of Order, order," were 
 again made. Mr. Colcock of North Carolina then 
 moved to suspend the rules, and Mr. Walsh of New 
 York said, " I hope the bill will be taken up and 
 passed." The vote was taken, and the rules were 
 suspended by a vote of yeas 122 to nays 46. Mr. 
 Colcock then demanded the previous question on the 
 passage of the bill, which was seconded, and the bill 
 became a law. On the motion to suspend the rules 
 in order to pass the bill, fifty-one members from the 
 Free States voted in the affirmative, and the South 
 thus secured another victory for the compromise 
 measures. 
 
 When the Thirty-third Congress convened in De 
 cember, 1853, the Democratic party controlled the 
 majority in each House and the Legislatures of nearly 
 all the States of the Union. President Pierce in his 
 annual messages lauded the compromise measures, 
 and declared that the repose which they had brought 
 to the country should receive no shock during his 
 term of office if he could avert it. 
 
 In his message he recommended the prompt adjust 
 ment of the old Spanish claim for compensation for 
 the negroes who had asserted their right to freedom 
 on board the ship " Amistad. " This claim has been 
 noticed in previous chapters, and its rejection by 
 Congress and condemnation by the Supreme Court 
 of the United States will be remembered; but the 
 slave-power was now in the ascendant, and the claim- 
 
310 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 ants deemed it a favorable time to renew it. The 
 part of the President s message recommending it was 
 referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, of 
 which Mr. Bayly of Virginia was chairman, who 
 avowed his purpose to demand action upon it. Gid- 
 dings believed that a systematic and vigorous effort 
 would be made to carry the measure, and he there 
 fore determined upon a thorough exposure of the 
 character of the claim. He was the only member 
 of the House whose public life had been contempora 
 neous with it, and on the 2ist of December, on the 
 usual motion to refer the message to the appropriate 
 committees, he addressed the House on the subject, 
 going fully into the history of the claim, and demon 
 strating its monstrous injustice and inhumanity by 
 referring to the law and the facts of the case. Mr. 
 Bayly attempted no reply, but promised to do so at 
 the first opportunity, and afterwards repeated the 
 promise when challenged by Giddings to face the 
 country in the attempt to vindicate the justice of 
 the measure. But he never made the attempt, and 
 the claim was tacitly abandoned, while the Demo 
 cratic Press and politicians denounced Giddings for 
 agitating the slavery question. 
 
 But a question of far greater moment now de 
 manded attention. The immense region north and 
 west of Missouri was ready for organized territorial 
 governments, and it had been secured to freedom by 
 the Missouri Compromise of 1820. California had 
 been made free, and the slaveholders recoiled from 
 the prospect of additional Free States in the north 
 west. To avert this was no easy task; but after some 
 hesitation and a good deal of legislative diplomacy 
 the repeal of the Missouri Compromise was resolved 
 upon, and Mr. Douglas of Illinois chosen as the 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 3 1 1 
 
 champion of the measure. This movement belonged 
 to the logic of slavery, which made every concession 
 to its demands the occasion for further exactions. 
 It required no gift of prophecy to foresee that if 
 freedom and slavery were to have equal rights in 
 New Mexico and Utah, the same principle of non 
 intervention by Congress would be asserted for the 
 Territories north of 36 30 , and this line regarded 
 as a rock of offence to be removed. This idea was 
 illustrated by the famous bill of Mr. Douglas, which 
 declared the Missouri restriction to be inoperative 
 and void, because " inconsistent with the principle of 
 non-intervention by Congress with slavery in the 
 States and Territories as recognized by the compro 
 mise measures of 1850." It is true that those meas 
 ures had not abrogated that line, and related only to 
 our Mexican acquisitions; but they affirmed a prin 
 ciple, and if that principle was sound, the Missouri 
 Compromise should never have been made. The 
 Abolitionists were therefore right in declaring the 
 measure of Mr. Douglas to be a sprout from the 
 grave of the Wilmot Proviso. 
 
 On the i Qth of January, 1854, the Free-Soil mem 
 bers of this Congress sent forth a paper touching the 
 proposition of Mr. Douglas entitled an "Appeal of 
 the Independent Democrats in Congress to the People 
 of the United States." It was signed by S. P. Chase, 
 Charles Sumner, J. R. Giddings, Edward Wade, Ger- 
 rit Smith, and Alexander DeWitt. Giddings made 
 the first draft of this address, which was revised and 
 rewritten by Mr. Chase. It was then submitted to 
 Mr. Smith, who made some verbal changes, and re 
 ferred it to Mr. Sumner, who made a further revi 
 sion, after which it went to the Press. The appeal 
 says, 
 
312 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 " We arraign this bill as a gross violation of a sacred pledge, 
 as a criminal betrayal of precious rights, as part and parcel of 
 an atrocious plot to exclude from a vast unoccupied region im 
 migrants from the Old World and free laborers from our own 
 States, and convert it into a dreary region of despotism inhabited 
 by masters and slaves." 
 
 The style of this address was admirable, and no 
 paper called forth by the crisis analyzed with more 
 clearness and vigor this atrocious conspiracy for the 
 spread of slavery over the continent. It implored 
 the people of the Free States and Christians and 
 Christian ministers not to "submit to become agents 
 in extending legalized oppression and systematized 
 injustice over a vast territory yet exempt from those 
 terrible evils ; " and it concluded, 
 
 " For ourselves, we shall resist it by speech and vote, and 
 with all the abilities which God has given us. Even if overcome 
 in the impending struggle, we shall not submit. We shall go 
 home to our constituents, erect anew the standard of freedom, 
 and call on the people to come to the rescue of the country from 
 the domination of slavery. We will not despair, for the cause of 
 human freedom is the cause of God. 
 
 This address was widely published in the Whig 
 and Free-Soil papers of the Northern States, and it 
 played no inconsiderable part in creating a sound 
 public opinion. Mr. Douglas felt it keenly, and a 
 few days later made a personal attack upon its sign 
 ers, to which Mr. Chase replied with decided force 
 and effect. Mr. Douglas reiterated his personalities 
 instead of defending the doctrines and policy of his 
 bill, and Mr. Sumner answered with deserved se 
 verity, referring to his bill as "a soulless, eyeless 
 monster, horrid, unshapely, and vast." After a de 
 bate of four months the bill became law, receiving 
 forty votes from the Free States in the House, and 
 twelve in the Senate ; thus opening the way for the 
 organized border-ruffianism through which the slave- 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 313 
 
 ocracy sought to establish its ascendancy in Kansas 
 and Nebraska, and the organized resistance of these 
 outrages by the people of the Free States. 
 
 On the i/th of May Giddings addressed the House 
 in a vigorous speech on the bill organizing territorial 
 governments in Kansas and Nebraska. He referred 
 to the character of slavery as defined in the slave 
 codes of the South, and argued against its extension 
 on both economic and humanitarian grounds. He 
 gave particular attention to the theory of popular 
 sovereignty in the Territories, and ridiculed the no 
 tion that any such theory can be reconciled with the 
 rights of a portion of the people to enslave another 
 portion, or with the sovereignty of Congress over 
 them, and the appointment by the President of their 
 chief officers. 
 
 In speaking of the asserted right of slaveholders 
 to take their slaves into the Territories as property, 
 and of the Northern members of Congress who 
 adopted that idea, he said, 
 
 " But perhaps the views of gentlemen ought not to be com 
 mented on with too much severity ; for if reports be true, some 
 of these members have sold themselves at prices perhaps be 
 low that often paid for Southern negroes. I could tell of some 
 rare conversions to the support of this measure ; some quite as 
 sudden, if not as miraculous, as that of Saint Paul. But I prefer 
 to withhold names until the vote shall be given and the Execu 
 tive appointments made ; these names will then be published. I 
 speak of it at this time, that Northern members who voted for 
 this bill may understand that the eye of the public is upon them. 
 It is time that this slave-trade now carried on in the bodies of 
 members of Congress should be prohibited. Why, sir, for the 
 first time in the history of our government, the President has 
 come out, through the columns of his organ, the * Union, of this 
 city, and advertised for the purchase of members of Congress. 
 I refer to an article in that paper some weeks since, stating, in 
 substance, that if Northern members, by sustaining this bill, in 
 curred the displeasure of their constitutents, the President would 
 sustain them by Executive favors. This was the substance of 
 
314 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 a long article, in which Executive appointments were unblush- 
 ingly tendered, through the public Press, to buy up Northern 
 doughfaces, to purchase the very men who now designate their 
 fellow-men as property. I do not wonder that they entertain 
 low opinions of mankind, and term their brethren property. 
 But they should remember that no colored man ever degraded 
 his race by selling himself. 1 1 
 
 Giddings never lost an opportunity to strike a blow 
 for freedom or to resent a wrong to the colored race. 
 In a debate on the Homestead Bill on the 28th of 
 February, Mr. Wright of Pennsylvania offered an 
 amendment confining its benefits to "free white" 
 persons. Giddings, for the purpose of making the 
 amendment ridiculous, moved to amend it by insert 
 ing before the word " white " the words "more than 
 one half." He reminded the gentleman from Penn 
 sylvania that in his State negroes had been voters 
 only a few years before; that they had served their 
 country upon the battle-fields of the Revolution, as 
 they had also under General Jackson at New Orleans ; 
 that some of the best citizens of Ohio had colored 
 blood in their veins; and that it would be a mon 
 strous injustice to deny them the right to settle on 
 our public lands and establish homes for themselves 
 and their children. 
 
 In watching the drift of public affairs under this 
 Administration the attention of Giddings was invited 
 to a significant event. In the month of February a 
 steamer called the " Black Warrior " cleared from Mo 
 bile for New York by way of Havana, and on arriving 
 at that place was reported by the captain as "in bal 
 last, while she really had four or five hundred bales of 
 cotton on board that were not mentioned in her mani 
 fest. When these facts became known to the proper 
 officers the steamer was of course seized and held for 
 trial. It was generally understood at this time that 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 3 1 5 
 
 the Administration was anxious to acquire Cuba, and 
 that the leaders of the Democratic party would wel 
 come a war with Spain for the purpose of obtaining 
 that island. On the loth of March Mr. Phillips 
 of Alabama presented resolutions calling upon the 
 President to communicate to the House such infor 
 mation as he might deem proper relative to the 
 seizure of the " Black Warrior " and the confiscation 
 of her cargo. The resolution was adopted, and a 
 few days later the President sent to the House full 
 information on the subject. In doing this he per 
 formed his whole duty, for there was nothing unusual 
 in the seizure of the ship under the circumstances. 
 It was an ordinary transaction in the commerce be 
 tween nations, and afforded no provocation whatever 
 to the United States. But the President took advan 
 tage of this opportunity to say, 
 
 " There have been in the course of a few years past many 
 other instances of aggression upon our commerce violations 
 of the rights of American citizens, and insults to the national 
 flag by the Spanish authorities in Cuba; and all attempts to 
 obtain redress have been protracted by fruitless negotiations. 
 The documents in these cases have been voluminous, and when 
 prepared will be sent to Congress." 
 
 The House had not called for these statements, 
 and the President went out of his way and tran 
 scended his authority in thrusting them upon that 
 body. But he still further revealed his burning de 
 sire to stir up strife with Spain and play into the 
 hands of his Southern masters : 
 
 " In view of the position of Cuba, its proximity to our coast, 
 the relations which it must ever bear to our commercial and other 
 interests, it is in vain to expect that a series of unfriendly acts 
 infringing our commercial rights, and the adoption of a policy 
 threatening the honor and security of these States, can long con 
 sist with peaceful relations." 
 
3l6 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 The message was lauded by Mr. Bayly of Virginia, 
 the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, 
 who had moved its reference to that committee. The 
 motion prevailed, and the slaveocracy was pleased ; 
 but the next morning, March 16, Giddings moved 
 to reconsider this reference, and made the extracts 
 quoted the text of an hour s speech. It was in his 
 best style, and the cry of danger was never sounded 
 more opportunely. He did not wait for a convenient 
 season to talk about the designs of the Administration 
 upon Cuba, but seized the very moment when those 
 designs were officially foreshadowed, and laid them 
 bare before the eyes of the nation. He began by 
 rebuking the President s assumption and audacity. 
 
 " Neither the Constitution nor usage justifies this attempt to 
 excite in us unfriendly feeling towards a neighboring Govern 
 ment. We come from the people ; we hold our commissions 
 from them ; they are our masters ; and when they speak we are 
 bound to listen with respect. We are not dependent on the 
 Executive ; he is our servant, bound to execute our laws, to obey 
 our directions, and not to read lectures to tell us that we have 
 silently borne insults from her Christian Majesty of Spain. Does 
 he attempt to excite our indignation, and through this body to 
 stir up the people to war? That is the obvious tendency of 
 these charges. Why, sir, the Government of Spain is at this 
 moment as unconscious of these complaints as it is of matters 
 now transpiring in this body. No complaint has been made by 
 the Executive to her Majesty, nor to her ministers. The Presi 
 dent is unable to say whether that Government will or will not do 
 us perfect and complete justice. . . . Why then does the Presi 
 dent send these complaints to us before he presents them to 
 Spain ? Why charge her with insulting our flag before he de 
 mands the proper apology from her Majesty? It would hardly 
 be courteous to say that the President wishes to make this House 
 the forum from which to harangue the people who are his politi 
 cal creators. No; we will suppose he intended his message for 
 ourselves. Still, however supine and neglectful he may regard 
 us, we are unwilling to admit ourselves so oblivious to the public 
 interest as to need lectures from a co-ordinate branch of govern 
 ment. We possess powers of thought as well as the President, 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 3 I / 
 
 though perhaps not to the same extent. Still, when we want 
 information from him relative to the past history of our gov 
 ernment, we will call on him for it; or if we desire an essay 
 on Spanish encroachments, we surely will invite it." 
 
 The reference of Giddings to the question of a war 
 with Spain was equally timely, and it recalls his 
 speech on the Oregon question in 1846, which so 
 mollified the rampant spirit of the slaveocracy re 
 specting a war with England. He said, 
 
 " Nor will a war for the conquest of Cuba prove any child s 
 play. The combined navies of England and France will present 
 to us a force not to be despised. They will surround Cuba 
 with a wall of iron and a sheet of flame. They will prove them 
 selves worthy of our steel. Once relieved from their European 
 employment, they will have an army which may be easily thrown 
 upon our Southern coast wherever they may deem it most assail 
 able. They will doubtless strike at our weakest points. They 
 may bring the war into this American Africa, and rear the stand 
 ard of freedom on our own soil, while our army shall be fighting 
 for slavery in Cuba. It is right that Southern gentlemen should 
 look at this subject in all its aspects. If they go to war under 
 the black flag of oppression, they should count the cost. If they 
 should find an army of twenty thousand British and French troops 
 in South Carolina or Georgia, rearing the standard of liberty, 
 and the slaves flocking to it, they must understand that our 
 Northern militia will comprehend the cause of such war. They 
 may not hasten as rapidly to mingle in the fight with slaves 
 armed with foreign muskets and commanded by foreign officers, 
 as men would who feel a deep interest in the prosperity of the 
 peculiar institution." 
 
 In referring to the war power of the Government, 
 he said, - 
 
 " It is acknowledged on all sides that when such war shall 
 exist, this Government may interpose terms of peace, even at the 
 price of liberating every slave in the nation. I announce these 
 facts to Northern men to inspirit them to deeds of manly bearing, 
 that no one may despond, though war shall actually come. . . . 
 Thus, sir, I can easily imagine that this war which the President 
 invokes may prove the overthrow of slavery in Cuba as well as 
 in our own land. Such results would best accord with the feel 
 ings, the desires, of the Free States and of the whole Christian 
 world." 
 
3 1 8 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 Giddings concluded this speech by reminding 
 Southern members of the war with Mexico, waged 
 for the extension of slavery at the cost of two hun 
 dred millions of dollars and eighty thousand human 
 lives, which had given us a Free State on the Pacific 
 and extended free institutions on the continent; and 
 he warned them that similar results would follow a 
 war with Spain. 
 
 During the Congressional vacation he devoted him 
 self to his regular biennial canvass for re-election. 
 The political situation was new. Within the pre 
 ceding year the old Whig party had been routed and 
 dispersed, and a new movement, called the Know- 
 Nothing party, had appeared. It was a secret, oath- 
 bound political order, and the basis of its policy 
 was the proscription of Catholics and a probation of 
 twenty-one years for foreigners as a qualification for 
 the suffrage. It was composed of bolters from all 
 the other parties, but the Whig element predomi 
 nated. The growth of this movement was marvel 
 lous, but its control by demagogues, whose animating 
 spirit was greed for office, soon revealed itself. 
 Like the Whig and Democratic parties, it was soon 
 found ready to subordinate the slavery issue to the 
 propagation of its narrow and bigoted dogmas and to 
 political success. Of course Giddings had no sym 
 pathy with this movement ; and he had quite as little 
 with the popular rallying cry of "the restoration 
 of the Missouri Compromise." He opposed slavery 
 upon principle, and irrespective of any bargain or 
 compact concerning geographical lines. He believed 
 that to restore this compromise would be to propi 
 tiate the spirit of compromise. It would re-affirm 
 the binding obligation of a compact which should 
 never have been made, and from which we now had 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 319 
 
 the opportunity of deliverance. It was openly urged 
 by many of its advocates as a retreat to the compro 
 mise measures of 1850, and the finality platform of 
 1852. The repeal of this compromise was only a 
 single link in a chain of measures aiming at the ab 
 solute supremacy of slavery in the government, and 
 thus inviting a resistance commensurate with that 
 policy. Giddings demanded the dedication of all 
 our national Territories to freedom, and the total 
 denationalization of slavery. 
 
 During the second session of the Thirty-third Con 
 gress the question of slavery was not much debated, 
 and only incidentally. On the iQth of December, 1854, 
 when a bill was before the House granting additional 
 powers to the corporation of Washington, Giddings 
 proposed an amendment that no person shall be im 
 prisoned unless charged with crime. This was aimed 
 at the law authorizing the arrest, imprisonment, and 
 sale into slavery of colored men found in the District 
 who were unable to prove their freedom, and provid 
 ing that even after such proof they might be sold un 
 less they were able to pay the costs and expenses of 
 their imprisonment. The amendment was rejected. 
 On the 4th of January, 1855, in committee of the 
 whole on the bill graduating the price of public 
 lands, he discussed the slavery question in its rela 
 tions to the Know-Nothing party. On February 6, 
 in the general debate on the bill providing for the 
 payment of Texas creditors, he spoke at length on 
 the action of the Government in dealing with Texas, 
 and its duties pertaining thereto. These are a few 
 only of the matters which enlisted his attention dur 
 ing this session; and at no previous session of Con 
 gress had his vigilance in the matter of slavery been 
 more constant and remarkable. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 MARCH, 1855, TO MARCH, 1859. 
 
 The Congressional Vacation. Meeting of the Thirty-fourth Con 
 gress. State of Political Parties. The Speakership. Election 
 of Banks. Birth of the Republican Party. Letters from John 
 Brown. Speech on the Deficiency Bill; on the Assault on Sum- 
 ner. The Philadelphia Convention and its Platform. Last Ses 
 sion of this Congress. Speeches. Letters from John P. Hale. 
 The Dred Scott Decision. Work in Vacation. First Session of 
 the Thirty-fifth Congress. The Lecompton Constitution and the 
 Crittenden-Montgomery Amendment. Diary of Giddings. The 
 English Bill. Speech on " American Infidelity ;" on the African 
 Slave-trade. Nomination of his Successor. Letters from Friends. 
 Voice of the Press. Second Session of the Thirty-fifth Con 
 gress. Farewell Speech. Testimonials. 
 
 THE effort to plant slavery in Kansas by organized 
 vandalism was unremitted during the Congres 
 sional vacation. This naturally fired the hearts of the 
 people of the Free States and rapidly multiplied anti- 
 slavery men ; but there was no organization of their 
 forces against the common enemy. The members of 
 the Free-Soil party were so cheered by the tokens of 
 formidable accessions to their cause that they did not 
 deem it wise to press the claims of their organization. 
 The Whig party was disbanded, but its scattered mem 
 bers had too long worn the collar of slavery and de 
 nounced its outspoken enerrres to be ready to join 
 them. They generally favored the restoration of the 
 Missouri Compromise and the freedom of Kansas and 
 Nebraska; but beyond this they declined to com- 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 321 
 
 mit themselves. The position of the bolters from 
 the Democratic party was substantially the same. 
 The Know-Nothing party divided on the slavery is 
 sue in 1855; but even the members of the Northern 
 division declined to take any higher ground than that 
 occupied by their Whig and Democratic allies. As 
 early as the summer of 1854 these forces had met in 
 State convention in Michigan, and organized them 
 selves into a Republican party. This action was 
 followed by kindred movements in Wisconsin and 
 Vermont, but in New York the Whigs refused to 
 disband, and the attempt to form a new party failed. 
 The same was true of Massachusetts and Ohio, in 
 which conservative Whiggery and Know-Nothingism 
 blocked the way of progress. The outlook as to the 
 formation of a triumphant anti-slavery party was by 
 no means assuring, while all could see how much 
 easier it was to break up old party organizations than 
 to organize their fragments into a new party on a 
 just basis. 
 
 Under these circumstances the Thirty-fourth Con 
 gress assembled in December, 1855. The Democrats 
 were in a minority in the House, and this was due in 
 part to the Know-Nothing movement, which had sur 
 prised the whole country by its phenomenal success, 
 and now desired to subordinate the slavery issue to 
 the personal and party interests of its members. The 
 situation was painfully complicated, while the great 
 question of the Speakership completely engrossed 
 the thoughts of men of all parties, and involved far 
 more momentous interests than ever before. Gid- 
 dings had not forgotten the position which he and 
 his friend Palfrey had taken nine years before, and 
 which time and events had fully vindicated. On 
 the Friday preceding the meeting of the House a 
 
 21 
 
322 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDIA r GS. 
 
 conference of Republicans and Free Soilers was held 
 for the purpose of taking into consideration the 
 choice of a Speaker. About forty members were 
 present, with a number of Know-Nothings. Gid- 
 dings submitted the following resolution : 
 
 Resolved, That we will support no man for Speaker who is 
 not pledged to carry out the parliamentary law, by giving to each 
 proposed measure ordered by the House to be committed, a ma 
 jority of such special committee ; and to organize the standing 
 committees of the House by placing on each a majority of the 
 friends of freedom who are favorable to making reports on all 
 petitions committed to them." 
 
 The resolution was unanimously adopted, being 
 supported by seventy members ; and when the House 
 met on the following Monday, the balloting for 
 Speaker began. William A. Richardson was the 
 Democratic candidate, Lewis D. Campbell the Know- 
 Nothing candidate, Humphrey Marshall the Southern 
 Know-Nothing candidate, and Nathaniel P. Banks 
 the Republican candidate. On the twenty-third bal 
 lot Mr. Campbell withdrew his name ; but the strug 
 gle continued, with every indication that it would 
 be indefinitely prolonged. The work of the House, 
 however, alternated between balloting for Speaker 
 and a lively running debate, which sometimes ex 
 tended through successive days. One of these oc 
 curred on the 1 8th of December, in the course of 
 which Mr. Letcher of Virginia referred to the reso 
 lution just quoted, and asked Giddings if he wrote 
 it, and whether it was adopted by the meeting to 
 which it was submitted. Giddings answered the 
 question in the affirmative, explaining that among 
 men who had heretofore belonged to different parties 
 it was necessary to find some common ground on 
 which they could stand, and that the resolution was 
 necessary in order to restore to the people of the 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA X. G ID DINGS. 323 
 
 Free States the right of petition, which for twenty- 
 three years had been trampled under foot by the 
 Speaker. He added, - 
 
 " Let me say to gentlemen, we are each of us now writing 
 our biography with more rapidity than we generally imagine. 
 Coming generations, looking back upon this time, .and seeing 
 these principles adopted |by the American people, will rejoice, 
 and their hearts swell with thankfulness, that there were men at 
 this day who stood forth so proudly and firmly in favor of these 
 principles of justice, liberty, and the Constitution. And now, 
 gentlemen, I will come to a more minute part of my subject, if 
 my friend from Virginia [Mr. Letcher] has got through asking 
 questions. 
 
 " MR. LETCHER. I have got all I want to go to my section of 
 the country with. 
 
 " MR. GIDDINGS. Oh, my friend, with what emotions I hear 
 that word section ! Instead of looking to the good and for the 
 approval of coming generations, men are always looking over 
 their shoulders t<? see if the devil is not coming after them. 
 [Laughter.] When will men learn that we are not sent here to 
 cavil on mere sectional issues ? Gentlemen of the Democratic 
 party, I say again, in your attempt to extend this sectional insti 
 tution- you hav called down the vengeance of the American 
 people upon your heads. The handwriting upon the wall has 
 been seen and read of all men. Your history is written, and 
 your doom is sealed ; the sentence pronounced against you, De 
 part, ye cursed. [Laughter.] You need not trouble yourselves 
 about our petty difficulties. We will take care of them ; you 
 cannot help us. We can do without you. We have a working 
 majority in this House against you. When organized, we shall 
 raise the standard of united opposition to your party. Indeed, 
 whether we elect a Speaker or not, we shall unite in opposition 
 to your Kansas-Nebraska bill and to its principles." 
 
 This reminder must have been as surprising to the 
 slaveocracy as it was unwelcome. Giddings had long 
 been a member of a small and despised minority, and 
 had been treated by Southern members as a fanatic 
 and a castaway. But he now gave notice that he was 
 an active working force in the movement which con 
 trolled the House and was soon to dominate the gov 
 ernment. He evidently felt that the country had 
 
324 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 entered upon a new political dispensation, and he 
 did not disguise his pleasant emotions in referring to 
 the fact. Continuing his remarks, and alluding to 
 the question of disunion, he said, 
 
 " We at the North will stand by the Union. And let me say 
 to timid gentlemen from the North, be not anxious about the 
 Union. We do not intend to dissolve the Union, and we do not 
 intend to let you do it. [Laughter.] Understand that. We 
 mean what we say ; we will not only maintain the Union, but we 
 will tell Southern traitors who threaten it that they shall not dis 
 solve it. It has been cemented by the blood of our fathers, who 
 fought for its establishment. We are bound to maintain it 
 by all the obligations which bind men, and we mean to do it. 
 Threaten its dissolution, reiterate the threat as often as you 
 please, and we meet you with a stern front and unwavering reso 
 lution that such a traitorous object shall not be reached. I speak 
 in all kindness. We have already got this House. Next year, 
 with God s blessing, we shall have the President; and in two 
 years we shall have the Senate. Then the Executive and Legis 
 lative branches of the government will be in our power. Then 
 those who threaten disunion had better look out." 
 
 This speech produced quite a sensation among 
 Southern members. It was not now the speech of 
 a hated fanatic, but of a recognized leader of a pow 
 erful movement which he had done more than any 
 living public man in the nation to create. Mr. 
 McMullen of Virginia replied with great bitter 
 ness, declaring that should the party with which 
 Mr. Giddings acted obtain the control of the govern 
 ment and restore the Missouri Compromise or repeal 
 the Fugitive Slave Law, the South would dissolve 
 the Union. 
 
 During this tedious struggle over the Speakership 
 no member of the House was more alert and active 
 than Giddings. On the 3ist of December he joined 
 in the general debate on the question of receiving the 
 President s message before the House had been or 
 ganized. On the nth of January, 1856, he spoke on 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 325 
 
 Mr. Zollicoffer s resolution, declaring it to be the 
 duty of all candidates for political position frankly 
 and fully to avow their opinions upon important 
 political questions. On the i8th of January he 
 spoke at length on the plurality rule, under which 
 the Speaker was finally chosen, as he had been in 
 December, 1849, after a similar struggle. He was 
 equally active in the debates on minor questions, and 
 especially where the issue of slavery was in any 
 degree involved. The struggle for Speaker finally 
 closed with the election of Mr. Banks, on the one 
 hundred and thirty-third ballot, on the 2d of Febru 
 ary, having continued through nine weeks. This was 
 the first victory of the Free States over the power of 
 the South, and it was largely due to the repeal of the 
 Missouri Compromise and the border-ruffian outrages 
 in Kansas which followed. 
 
 After the Speaker had been conducted to the chair, 
 and had delivered an appropriate address, the clerk 
 of the House called on Giddings, as its oldest mem 
 ber, to administer the oath of office. As the Father 
 of the House, with his large physical frame and sil 
 very white hair, walked forward into the area in front 
 of the Speaker s chair, the galleries at once recog 
 nized him, and recalling his long and faithful labors 
 in the cause which had finally triumphed, a hearty 
 cheer was given in his honor. The oath was admin 
 istered according to the form used in New England 
 from the time of the Pilgrims, and the words were 
 pronounced in a loud voice and in tones full of ear 
 nestness and emotion. Soon after this victory Gid 
 dings wrote to his friends at home, 
 
 "The 2d of February, 1856, will mark an important era 
 in the history of Congress. On that day a man who dared de 
 clare that he held, with the early fathers of our Republic, that 
 
326 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 all men are endowed by their Creator with the inalienable right 
 to life and liberty, was elected Speaker of the House of Repre 
 sentatives. He stood firmly on this rock of truth. The shafts 
 of slaveholding calumny and vituperation were hurled at him ; 
 but he looked his opponents in the face, bade defiance to their 
 impotent assaults, and triumphed. He was elected upon the 
 identical doctrine for the utterance of which I was driven from 
 this body fourteen years since. ... I have labored for the re- 
 establishment of those principles for which our Revolutionary 
 fathers contended. I have lived to see them recognized by a 
 majority of the popular branch of Congress. I regard myself 
 among the most fortunate of public men. I have attained the 
 highest point of my ambition. / am satisfied. 1 
 
 Pending these proceedings in Congress and the 
 progress of slaveholding violence and outrage in 
 Kansas, measures were taken by representative men 
 in Ohio, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and 
 Wisconsin for calling a National Republican Conven 
 tion at Pittsburg, on the 22d of February, for the 
 purpose of organizing a national Republican party. 
 This convention was largely attended and full of 
 enthusiasm, and it provided for the holding of a 
 convention at Philadelphia, on the i/th of June, to 
 nominate candidates for President and Vice-Presi- 
 dent. In the Pittsburg convention the two most 
 attractive personalities were Horace Greeley and 
 Mr. Giddings. The moment the former was seen 
 in the audience, he was vociferously called for, and 
 responded briefly, saying that he had been in Wash 
 ington several weeks, and that friends there " coun 
 selled extreme caution in our movements." This 
 was the burden of his exhortation. At the close of 
 his speech Giddings was tumultuously called for, and 
 replied to Greeley that Washington was the last place 
 in the world to look for counsel or redress. He illus 
 trated his meaning by an amusing anecdote, and then 
 introduced Owen Lovejoy of Illinois. There was an 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 327 
 
 element of conservatism and Know-Nothingism in 
 this convention, but the hearts of the masses in at 
 tendance were with Giddings. The men who were 
 profoundly in earnest in their opposition to slavery 
 everywhere looked to him for counsel. This was 
 illustrated in the following letter from the city of 
 Weston, Missouri, dated Jan. 27, 1856. 
 
 HON. J. R. GIDDINGS, Washington City : 
 
 DEAR SIR, I presume an apology is unnecessary in ad 
 dressing a letter to one so warmly interested as yourself in the 
 great question of the day, namely, the freeing of this great 
 country from the curse of slavery. Sir, six months ago I left 
 my native State, York, for a home in Kansas. I settled, on my 
 arrival in the Territory, about four miles from Lawrence, and 
 built me a good house, where I resided until the border ruffians 
 invaded the Territory. They, knowing my adherence to the 
 cause of freedom, and my being a Northern man, took me a 
 prisoner and kept me as such for four days, treating me worse 
 than one of their slaves. After my release, they told me I must 
 leave the country. I did not do it, but went to Eaton, and re 
 mained there quietly till last Friday week, the day of the election. 
 They then sent their minions out to disturb our election, which 
 they did. They killed two men for us. How long are we to be 
 treated like dogs ? General Pomeroy promised us men and means 
 to carry on the war. Sir, are we to have them, or are we to be 
 driven from the Territory after all the sacrifices of time and 
 money we have made ? Will you, sir, inform me if we are to 
 have the means to drive the last B. R. from the country? I, for 
 one, am ready to stay if we are. If we do not have them soon, 
 we shall be driven from the land. Answer requested immediately. 
 I must close for fear of interruption. 
 
 Respectfully yours, 
 
 JOHN BROWN. 
 
 The following letter is still more impassioned. 
 
 OSAWATOMIE, KANSAS TERRITORY, Feb. 20, 1856. 
 HON. JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS, Washington, D. C. : 
 
 DEAR SIR, I write to say that a number of United States 
 soldiers are quartered in this vicinity, for the ostensible purpose 
 of removing intruders from certain Indian lands. It is, however, 
 believed that the Administration has no thought of removing the 
 Missourians from the Indian lands, but that the real object is to 
 
328 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 have the men in readiness to act in enforcement of the hellish 
 enactments of the [so-called] Kansas Legislature, absolutely 
 abominated by a great majority of the inhabitants of the Terri 
 tory, and spurned by them up to this time. I confidently believe 
 that the next movement on the part of the Administration and 
 its pro-slavery masters will be either to drive the people here to 
 submit to those infernal enactments, or to assume what will be 
 termed treasonable grounds, by shooting down the poor soldiers 
 of the country, with whom they have no quarrel whatever. I 
 ask in the name of Almighty God, I ask in the name of our 
 venerated forefathers, I ask in the name of all that good or true 
 men ever held dear, will Congress suffer us to be driven to such 
 " dire extremities " ? Will anything be done ? Please send me a 
 few lines at this place. Long acquaintance with your public life, 
 and a slight personal acquaintance, incline and embolden me to 
 make this appeal to yourself. Everything is still on the surface 
 just now. Circumstances are, however, of a most suspicious 
 character. Very respectfully yours, 
 
 JOHN BROWN. 
 
 One of the most manly speeches delivered in this 
 Congress was that of Giddings on the Senate amend 
 ments to the Deficiency Bill, on the 8th of May. 
 These amendments had been repeatedly rejected by 
 the House, but the Senate still urged them ; and Gid 
 dings now stated the reasons why the House should 
 adhere to its position. He first opposed the item in 
 the deficiency appropriations for the Judiciary which 
 covered the amount of twenty-seven thousand dollars 
 expended by the marshal of the southern district of 
 Ohio in arresting and returning to Kentucky the 
 slaves of Mr. Gaines, including the mother, who 
 took the life of her own child to prevent its being 
 sent into slavery. This was the famous " Margaret 
 Garner case," which so stirred the country at the 
 time. Between four and five hundred deputy mar 
 shals were appointed for this service, and " if we 
 agree to this appropriation," said Giddings, "we 
 shall be told by our constituents that we have made 
 appropriations to assist the Administration to corrupt 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 329 
 
 the very fountains of political action, and by fraud to 
 induce beings who bear the forms of men to assume 
 the nature of bloodhounds, to hunt down fugitive 
 slaves." 
 
 Giddings next opposed the Senate amendment ap 
 propriating three hundred thousand dollars for sup 
 pressing Indian hostilities in Oregon. In this speech, 
 as in several earlier ones, he showed himself as true 
 a friend of the Indian as he was of the negro. " For 
 many years," said he, "I have felt a deep interest in 
 the policy which guides our intercourse with these 
 sons of the forest. We have driven them from the 
 Atlantic coast, from their hunting-grounds, from the 
 graves of their fathers, step by step, until they are 
 now confined to the far West." Referring to the 
 Oregon Indians in 1808, when Lewis and Clark vis 
 ited that region, and the friendly treatment those 
 pioneer explorers received from these savages, he 
 said, 
 
 " Since that day we have become a mighty nation, with twenty- 
 five millions of people and boundless resources ; we have pushed 
 our settlements to the Pacific, and the doom of the savage tribes 
 now stands plainly written in the book of fate, and is as clearly 
 understood by them as it is by us. We are a Christian people ; 
 they, like the Athenians, worship the unknown God. Yet here 
 in this hall, and in the western region, efforts are put forth to 
 hasten the extermination of these comparatively defenceless 
 tribes ; and this appropriation is intended to hasten the consum 
 mation of that policy." 
 
 The humanity of the following passage recalls 
 the opinions repeatedly expressed by General Harney 
 many years ago, and the recent utterances of General 
 Miles respecting our latest Indian war: 
 
 " Mr. Speaker, every man acquainted with the Indian char 
 acter is aware that two, and only two, incentives operate upon 
 the Indian mind to excite him to war. These are revenge and 
 want. Treat them kindly, and there will be no cause for re- 
 
330 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 venge ; feed them, and there will be no inducement for them to 
 commit depredations upon our people. Why, sir, if the money 
 expended in Oregon within the past three years had been ex 
 pended in provisions, and those provisions distributed to the 
 Indians, it would have secured our frontiers, from the Mexican 
 line to the British possessions, against all savage depredations 
 for twenty years. But I grieve to say that the conduct of our 
 friends in Oregon does not commend this appropriation to my 
 judgment. I can only notice a paragraph from the letter of Gen 
 eral Wool read to us yesterday. In that we are informed that 
 one of the most powerful chiefs met the volunteers of that Ter 
 ritory with a flag of truce, suing for peace. Our troops refused 
 to treat for peace on any terms, but advised him to return to his 
 people and fight. Sir, what a spectacle ! A savage asking 
 peace, and Christians denying it ! But, what was far worse, they 
 sent him and his four companions to the rear of the army, safely 
 guarded, and then commenced the work of death upon his people. 
 The Indians resisted, and the next day our civilized troops, in 
 cold blood, slew this chief and his companions. The white flag, 
 which for centuries has been regarded by all civilized and semi- 
 barbarous nations as consecrated to friendship, the emblem of 
 peace, was spattered and stained by the blood of those who 
 bore it." 
 
 The last Senate amendment which Giddings op 
 posed was that appropriating fifteen hundred thou 
 sand dollars for the support of the army. He charged 
 that this item was intended to cover the expense of 
 compelling the people of Kansas to submit to the 
 laws enacted for their subjugation by the border ruf 
 fians of Missouri. The fact of this invasion of Kan 
 sas by the ruffians of that State, and their government 
 of the Territory by laws in the enactment of which 
 her people had no voice, was perfectly notorious 
 and unquestionable. In referring to this subject, 
 Giddings said, 
 
 " This embodied force, with arms in their hands, moving upon 
 Kansas for the very purpose of violating the laws just quoted, 
 and the actual invasion of that Territory and usurpation of the 
 government, was attended by every circumstance necessary in 
 law to constitute treason. It was a levying war against the 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 331 
 
 United States ; and every man concerned in the movement con 
 summated that crime, and is now guilty : and long ere this should 
 have been suspended from the gallows if not made the subject of 
 Executive pardon. No sophistry, no pretence that they went 
 there to prevent voters from giving illegal votes, can evade or 
 modify this important, this prominent fact. Gentlemen on this 
 rioor, and the Executive of the United States, may uphold and 
 encourage this treason. This House may encourage it by voting 
 the appropriations before us ; but I will repudiate it by my vote 
 and by my voice." 
 
 Giddings referred to the slave code of Kansas, 
 making it a felony punishable at hard labor for not less 
 than two years for any person by speech or writing to 
 deny the right to hold slaves in the Territory, and to 
 the further provision making it a felony, to be pun 
 ished by imprisonment at hard labor for not less than 
 five years, for any person to print or circulate any 
 opinions or doctrines "calculated to promote disor 
 derly, dangerous, or rebellious disaffection among 
 the slaves of this Territory." He denounced this 
 conspiracy to force slavery upon the people of Kan 
 sas and compel the people of the Northern States to 
 pay the expense of the proceeding. He said, - 
 
 " The people, through their representatives, may withhold alt 
 appropriations, may effectually block the wheels of government, 
 ay, sir, and roll them back upon the desecrated bodies of un 
 faithful rulers. It is a great primal truth, lying at the very foun 
 dation of our institutions, that whenever this government becomes 
 destructive of the rights of the people, it will be their right and 
 their duty to alter or abolish it. And, sir, I would far rather see 
 this government dissolved than see the humblest citizen of Kan 
 sas murdered for refusing obedience to the infamous enactments 
 alluded to, and such murder effected by means of appropriations 
 made in this body. ... At this moment the army of the United 
 States like the Swiss guards in Paris are encamped in Law 
 rence, ready to shoot down the first man who raises his voice for 
 freedom. American citizens are held in subjection by military 
 force. The voice of liberty is hushed into silence by the display 
 of swords and bayonets. For any man in Kansas to assert that 
 governments are constituted to secure liberty to all men under 
 
332 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 our exclusive dominion, would render him a felon under the laws 
 now in force there by military rule ; and this sad, this humiliating 
 fact is to go down to posterity as existing in this age, while you 
 and I hold seats in this hall. Our names are to be associated 
 with those who submit to such tyranny, or with those who stand 
 firmly in the cause of freedom." 
 
 The cruel and cowardly assault upon Senator 
 Sumner by Preston S. Brooks of South Carolina 
 awakened a thrill of horror throughout the North 
 ern States. It was the natural counterpart of slave- 
 holding ruffianism in Kansas; but as an attempt to 
 strengthen the power of slavery and silence the free 
 dom of speech it was utterly disastrous to those who 
 made it. Giddings took part in the debate on the 
 resolution for the expulsion of Brooks, and his speech 
 on the nth of July was singularly dispassionate; it 
 was marked by earnestness, moderation, and strong 
 common-sense. In reply to the argument of South 
 ern members that the House had no power to punish 
 Brooks without an enactment denning his offence 
 and prescribing its penalty, Giddings reminded them 
 of the trial of John Quincy Adams, in 1842, for pre 
 senting a petition praying for the dissolution of the 
 Union, which he asked to have referred to a select 
 committee, with instructions to report adversely, with 
 the reasons therefor. He had violated no statute, but 
 simply performed his constitutional duty as a repre 
 sentative of his State. Giddings said, - 
 
 "The friends of Mr. Adams often inquired wherein that gen 
 tlemen had offended. Why, sir, he had offended the slave- 
 power ; and the representatives of the slave-interest felt that they 
 had an excuse, a fact on which they could found an effort 
 to strike down his influence, to destroy his fair fame, to deprive 
 freedom of its sternest advocate. They sought for no rules or 
 law defining the offence, or declaring the penalty attached to it ; 
 but they assailed him in every way which hatred could invent or 
 malice express. He was charged with treason to our govern 
 ment, with moral perjury, and with almost every crime found in 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 333 
 
 the catalogue of offences. There he sat, in the seat now occu 
 pied by his successor, a man venerable for his age, for his 
 great learning, for his exalted patriotism ; venerable for his 
 services to his country ; around his brow clustered all the honors 
 which a faithful, upright, and wise administration of the highest 
 office known to mortals could confer. Yet, sir, for thirteen days 
 he was subjected to these assaults. During that time the waves 
 of slaveholding invective, detraction, and calumny rolled and 
 dashed around him in wild confusion, until the raging elements 
 had spent their force ; while, from the first introduction of the 
 resolution to its final disposition, not one word was uttered by a 
 Southern Democrat indicating the want of full constitutional 
 powers to act on the subject, without any rule or law prescribing 
 the -penalty* Then, sir, Massachusetts was on trial, and slave 
 holders were the prosecutors. Now, sir, a son of South Carolina 
 is on trial for a wrong, a crime, perpetrated against the sovereign 
 right of Massachusetts. This change of position by slave 
 holders is very remarkable." 
 
 Giddings also referred to the case in which he 
 himself had been censured and driven from his seat 
 in the House for offering resolutions denying the 
 power of Congress under the Constitution to involve 
 the people of the Free States in the support of sla 
 very and the slave-trade on the high seas. No one 
 attempted to controvert the principles affirmed by 
 these resolutions, but they were offensive to slave 
 holders, and therefore could not be tolerated. He 
 said, 
 
 " Gentlemen from the Slave States did not wait to inquire for 
 the prescribed rule or statiite declaring the penalty attached to 
 the crime of presenting resolutions. So far from that, they voted 
 at once to seal my own lips and those of my friends ; and with 
 out permitting me or any friend of free speech to say a word 
 in my defence, the resolution was adopted by a vote of one hun 
 dred and twenty-three to sixty-nine. I was condemned unheard, 
 and driven from my seat. Sir, I spurned the tyranny and 
 appealed to the people. They hurled contempt at the efforts 
 of the slave-power to strike down the freedom of speech, to 
 extinguish the lamp of liberty, which was then flickering in its 
 socket, casting but a dim light upon the legislation of Congress. 
 They ordered me back to my post, and directed me to maintain 
 
334 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 the freedom of debate; AND AS THE LORD LIVETH, AND AS 
 
 MY SOUL LIVETH, I WILL NEVER SURRENDER IT." 
 
 Giddings argued with clearness and force the points 
 involved in the pretended defence of Brooks, and con 
 cluded by contrasting the manners and habits of the 
 people of the Free States with those of the South, as 
 illustrated by this latest and desperate attempt of the 
 slave-power to stamp out the freedom of debate. 
 
 On the 24th of July Giddings wrote from Washing 
 ton the following letter to Sumner, who was then at 
 Cape May, 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, When the attack on you was made, I 
 was on my way home. I reached this city on Monday follow 
 ing. I found our friends here in a state of great excitement. 
 Much was said about fighting, and I was told that Wade and 
 Wilson were disposed to fight. I went to those gentlemen and 
 told them plainly that our cause was one of high moral char 
 acter, appealing to the conscience, the judgment, and Christianity 
 of the age, and not to the violence and bloodshed of a barbarous 
 and darker period. I insisted that if either of those gentlemen 
 should go out and slay his man, the political death of the victor 
 would be as certain as the physical death of the other; and this 
 view I endeavored to inculcate with all our friends. 
 
 With Mr. Burlingame I had a long conversation, in which I 
 stated these views. It is, however, due to him that I should say, 
 while he approved my plan, he intimated that he had made up his 
 mind to a different course. When, on Monday morning, I read 
 his card, I was aware that a hostile meeting must ordinarily 
 occur. I ^was not ignorant of the practice of the British Parlia 
 ment, and that it has in one instance been followed by our House ; 
 but in others it has been rejected. I felt perfectly conscious that 
 no effectual measure could be adopted by our House as it is now 
 constituted. 
 
 Some gentlemen consulted with me as to the measures for 
 preventing the meeting by an application to the police. That 
 was, however, too late to arrest Mr. Burlingame, who had put out 
 that evening. Brooks was arrested in the morning, but Burlin 
 game had started for Canada. 
 
 That our cause has gained nothing by Mr. B. s coming down 
 to Brooks s level is very evident. The customs of South Caro 
 lina ought not to be copied by Massachusetts men. 
 
 I endeavored to express my views of the different state of 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 335 
 
 civilization in the Free States from that of the Slave States in 
 my House speech on Brooks s trial, a copy of which I herewith 
 mail to your address. 
 
 I greatly sorrow at the length of your indisposition, and could 
 not avoid an expression of my own views in reply to taunts 
 thrown out by Brooks s friends, which I trust you will pardon 
 under the circumstances. 
 
 Most truly, J. R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 Giddings was a delegate to the first nominating 
 convention of the Republican party, which assem 
 bled in Philadelphia on the I7th of June and nomi 
 nated John C. Fremont for President. He was also 
 a member of the Committee on Resolutions which 
 prepared the platform afterwards unanimously adopted 
 by the convention. He took an active part in the 
 proceedings, and was especially prompt and decisive 
 in opposing any alliance or negotiation with Know- 
 Nothingism, which had now become a vanishing side 
 issue. By far the most important part of the plat 
 form was written by Giddings in his library at Jeffer 
 son, and is here copied : 
 
 "Resolved, That, with our republican fathers, we hold it to-be 
 a self-evident truth that all men are endowed with the unalien- 
 able rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that 
 the primary object and ulterior design of our Federal Govern 
 ment was to secure these rights to all persons within its exclusive 
 jurisdiction ; that as our republican fathers, when they had abol 
 ished slavery in all our national territory, ordained that no person 
 should be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process 
 of law, it becomes our duty to maintain this provision of the 
 Constitution against all attempts to violate it for the purpose of 
 establishing slavery in any Territory of the United States, by 
 positive legislation, prohibiting its existence or extension therein. 
 That we deny the authority of Congress, of a Territorial legis 
 lature, of any individual or association of individuals, to give 
 legal existence to slavery in any Territory of the United States, 
 while the present Constitution shall be maintained." 
 
 Nothing could have been more opportune than the 
 adoption of this resolution as the basis of the new 
 
336 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 party. It had become the fashion of Southern poli 
 ticians and a growing number of Northern ones to 
 treat the self-evident truths of the Declaration of 
 Independence with ridicule and contempt. They 
 were branded as "self-evident lies," as "glittering 
 generalities," or declared to be applicable only to 
 superior races of men. The logic of slavery made 
 this necessary, and it became equally necessary to 
 re-affirm these truths in laying the foundations of a 
 great national party. The action of the convention 
 in dealing with the territorial question was not less 
 admirable. The Northern wing of the Democratic 
 party, with Douglas as its leader, affirmed the right 
 of the people of a Territory to establish slavery 
 therein if they so desired, while the Democracy of 
 the South maintained that slaves are recognized as 
 property by the Federal Constitution, and demanded 
 a slave code for the protection of such property in all 
 our national Territories. These issues were accepted 
 by positively denying "the constitutional authority 
 of Congress, of a territorial legislature, or of any 
 individual or association of individuals, to give legal 
 existence to slavery in any Territory of the United 
 States." 
 
 Giddings rejoiced at the approval of these princi 
 ples, which he had unflinchingly advocated during his 
 public life. He rejoiced especially at the indorsement 
 of the self-evident truths of the great Declaration. 
 He had made them the burden of his public speeches 
 for more than twenty years. They constituted his 
 religious, not less than his political, faith. They 
 had never before been incorporated into the creed of 
 any political party, and he was now quite as jubilant 
 as he had been at the election of Banks as Speaker. 
 
 The first session of the Thirty-fourth Congress 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 337 
 
 adjourned on the i8th of August; but an extra ses 
 sion was immediately called in order to provide for 
 the support of the army, which had become necessary 
 in consequence of the failure of the regular session 
 to make provision therefor. On the 3Oth of August 
 the special session adjourned, and Giddings entered 
 upon the canvass of his district for re-election, de 
 voting a portion of his time to the general canvass 
 outside of his district and State. Buchanan had been 
 unanimously nominated for President by the Demo 
 crats on the 2d of June. The platform adopted was 
 satisfactory to the South, and the issues were now 
 joined with the Republican party. Fillmore had 
 been nominated for the Presidency by the Know- 
 Nothings; but the contest was between Buchanan 
 and Fremont, and it was pre-eminently a conflict of 
 principles. It was a struggle between two civiliza 
 tions, between reason and brute force, between the 
 principles of Democracy and the creed of absolutism. 
 Giddings entered into it with his whole heart, and 
 never intermitted his labors till its close. The tri 
 umph of Buchanan was largely due to the baleful 
 intervention of Know-Nothingism ; but the country 
 was not yet fully ripe for a victory over the slave- 
 power. The canvass for Fremont did a great work in 
 the education of the people. He received a popular 
 vote of 1,341,264, carrying n States and 114 electoral 
 votes. This was an immense gain on the vote of 
 John P. Hale, four years before, and was confidently 
 interpreted as the prophecy of success in 1860. 
 
 The President s message and the troubles in Kansas 
 constituted the chief topics of discussion in the third 
 session of this Congress. On the loth of December 
 Giddings spoke at length on the Kansas policy of 
 the President, the principles of the Republican party, 
 
 22 
 
338 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 and the position of the Democrats. Of this speech 
 Joseph Medill, editor of the "Chicago Tribune," 
 wrote him, 
 
 " We are much delighted with your bold, cogent talk to the 
 doughfaces, Pierce, and the Oligarchy. That is the only course 
 to pursue. Pitch the rocks right into them. Every man that 
 voted for Fremont sustains you, and thousands who supported 
 Fillmore and Buchanan admire your candor and manhood. The 
 people are ready for stronger meat than the politicians suppose." 
 
 In this speech Giddings also referred to the ar 
 gument of Mr. Stephens of Georgia that slavery is 
 sanctioned by the Almighty, and that Abraham was 
 a slaveholder and a slave-dealer. He said, 
 
 " At the same time another distinguished individual is pro 
 claiming in the far West, among the mountains of Deseret, that 
 polygamy was also an institution of God. Brigham Young, with 
 his retinue of threescore wives, vindicated his doctrines by pre 
 cisely the same arguments ; he referred to Abraham also. Both 
 he and the gentleman from Georgia, with great gusto, appealed 
 to the civilized world, saying, Have we not Abraham to our 
 father? [Laughter.] If Abraham be good authority in one 
 case, he ought to be in the other." 
 
 On the i /th of January, 1857, while earnestly dis 
 cussing a private claim, Giddings was suddenly pros 
 trated by a serious heart-trouble to which he was 
 liable under excitement or overwork, and for a time 
 life appeared to be extinct. But he slowly rallied, 
 and was able soon afterwards to return to his home. 
 This circumstance called forth the following letter, 
 which fairly indicated the feelings of his many de 
 voted friends : 
 
 WASHINGTON, Jan. 25, 1857. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, I cannot permit you to leave this place 
 for your home under the existing circumstances, without express 
 ing to you, in this emphatic manner, the very great satisfaction I 
 have enjoyed in your acquaintance and friendship for so many 
 years, and the admiration and respect I entertain for the patience, 
 courage, fidelity, and ability with which you have, through your 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 339 
 
 Congressional life, maintained a just but an unpopular cause. 
 There are very painful considerations connected with the neces 
 sity, which at this time compels a suspension, if not a final ter 
 mination, of your very valuable labors in the House, but they are 
 not all so. There is a pleasant and cheerful aspect which it pre 
 sents ; you or myself do not believe that accidents, strictly speak 
 ing, ever occur, but that the minutest incidents in the physical 
 world are parts of that chain of events by which the natural and 
 spiritual worlds are connected, and that what men blindly call 
 accidents are the results of laws fixed and unerring as those by 
 which the universe moves in its course through the illimitable 
 regions of space. 
 
 In the light of such a faith the highest wisdom is to learn 
 the teachings of every event. And what, my dear sir, is the 
 palpable instruction of the severe teaching you have just had ? 
 Is it not manifestly this, that God has just now no more work 
 for you to do in the particular field in which you have so long 
 labored, but that you are to be transferred to another and less 
 exciting, but not less profitable, sphere of action ? And if there 
 has ever lived, since Paul, a man who, without arrogance, might 
 appropriate to himself the words of the apostle when he de 
 clares, " I have fought a good fight, I have kept the faith," I 
 believe you are the one. I hope and trust that many years of 
 physical and mental vigor may be added to your life ; but 
 whether your future years be few or many, whether they be years 
 of feebleness or strength, I have no doubt that you will ever en 
 joy the affection of many friends, the respect of your opponents, 
 and the prayers and blessings of the unfortunate and oppressed, 
 in whose behalf you have done so much. But whatever the future 
 may have in store for you, your success in life is no longer a prob 
 lem. You have succeeded ; for 
 
 " They never fail who die 
 
 In a good cause; the block may lick their gore, 
 
 Their heads may sodden in the sun, their limbs 
 
 Be strung to city gates and castle walls, 
 
 But still their spirits walk abroad, though years 
 
 Elapse, and others share as dark a doom ; 
 
 They hut augment the deep and sweeping thoughts 
 
 Which overpower all others, and conduct 
 
 The world at last to freedom." 
 
 Very sincerely, your friend, 
 
 JOHN P. HALE. 
 
 On the second day after the inauguration of Presi 
 dent Buchanan the Dred Scott decision opened a new 
 
340 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 chapter in the struggle of the slave-power for absolute 
 supremacy. This decision affirmed that Congress had 
 no power to prohibit slavery in the Territories, and 
 that inferentially, at least, the Constitution carried 
 with it the right to hold slaves there, even against 
 the will of their people. It fully indorsed, in sub 
 stance, the principles of the Democratic platform, 
 and utterly repudiated both the letter and spirit of 
 the self-evident truths of the Declaration of Inde 
 pendence as a guide in the administration of the 
 government. The political significance of this deci 
 sion was clearly indicated by the fact that a com 
 mittee of the Senate at once printed large editions of 
 it for circulation, which were scattered by thousands 
 throughout the Northern States under the frank of 
 Democratic members. All the departments of the 
 government had now openly joined hands in the con 
 spiracy to stay the rising tide of freedom and nation 
 alize the curse of slavery. 
 
 Giddings was not idle during this Congressional 
 vacation. He prepared and published a series of 
 vigorous and well-written letters to Chief-Justice 
 Taney, in which he exposed the legal sophistry as 
 well as the inhumanity of this decision. These let 
 ters are largely historical, and embody much valu 
 able information touching the rights of free persons 
 of color under English and Colonial law, and the 
 legislation of the States after the adoption of the 
 Constitution. He wrote articles on the Church and 
 its relations to freedom. He delivered occasional 
 speeches on current anti-slavery topics, and wrote 
 various communications for the Press in exposition 
 of his views. In the mean time, the struggle to plant 
 slavery in Kansas went forward as the practical coun 
 terpart of the Dred Scott decision. The Legislature 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 341 
 
 of the Territory, which had been chosen by the ruf 
 fians of Missouri, provided for holding a convention 
 at Lecompton for the formation of a constitution, 
 with a view to the admission of Kansas as a State; 
 and the constitution framed by this convention pro 
 vided that " the right of property is before and higher 
 than any constitutional sanction, and the right of the 
 owner of a slave to such slave and his increase is the 
 same and as inviolable as the right to any other prop 
 erty. " No provision was made for the submission of 
 the constitution to the people, who would thus be 
 obliged to accept it if approved by Congress. It was 
 forwarded on the 7th of November to the President, 
 who transmitted it to Congress on the 20th of Jan 
 uary, 1858. On the 2d of February he sent a mes 
 sage to Congress fully committing himself to the 
 Lecompton project, and declaring that Kansas was 
 as much a Slave State as South Carolina or Georgia. 
 
 The bill for the admission of Kansas into the 
 Union, with this constitution, was called up for ac 
 tion in the Senate on the 23d of March, when Mr. 
 Crittenden offered a substitute, providing for the 
 submission of the constitution to the people of the 
 Territory, and that if adopted, the President was 
 immediately to announce the admission of Kansas 
 by proclamation; but that if rejected, they might 
 choose delegates to a new constitutional convention. 
 The amendment was rejected by yeas 24 to nays 34, 
 every Republican in the Senate voting for it, save 
 Durkee of Wisconsin. The bill was then passed by 
 yeas 33 to nays 25. 
 
 In the House, on the 1st of April, Giddings moved 
 to reject the bill; but the motion was negatived by 
 a majority of 42. A crisis had now been reached in 
 this momentous struggle. A very exciting debate 
 
342 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 upon the question had been carried on for four 
 months, during which the feeling on both sides had 
 steadily increased in intensity. The danger of ad 
 mitting Kansas with her Lecompton constitution 
 was now regarded by Republicans as imminent. 
 Douglas and his friends, however, had rebelled 
 against the attempt of the Administration to force 
 Kansas into the Union against the will of her peo 
 ple, and there were now twenty-three of his followers 
 in the House, and six slaveholding members who be 
 longed to the Southern Know-Nothing party, who 
 were willing to oppose the Lecompton Bill, unless 
 the people of Kansas were allowed to pass upon it. 
 Under these circumstances Mr. Montgomery of 
 Pennsylvania proposed a substitute for the Lecomp 
 ton Bill, which afterwards became known as the 
 Crittenden-Montgomery Amendment, and was sub 
 stantially identical with the substitute offered by 
 Mr. Crittenden in the Senate. This opened the way 
 for the possible defeat of the Lecompton Bill, inas 
 much as the Senate had already rejected the Critten 
 den Amendment, and a coalition of the Republicans, 
 Douglas Democrats, and Southern Know-Nothings 
 would be strong enough to carry it. The last, 
 however, demanded of the Republicans a pledge to 
 support the bill on its final passage. This was ex 
 ceedingly objectionable, and seriously complicated 
 the question. 
 
 The situation was a novel one, and to the Repub 
 licans exceedingly perplexing. They were quite 
 ready for any manoeuvre which promised the defeat 
 of the Lecompton Bill without compromising their 
 well-known principles; but many of them hesitated 
 about becoming the followers of Southern Know- 
 Nothings and Douglas Democrats, and surrendering 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 343 
 
 their hostility to the principle of popular sovereignty 
 in the Territories. The Senate might concur in the 
 action of the House on this question, and then the 
 same system of fraud and outrage which had thwarted 
 the will of the people of Kansas before might be 
 repeated. Could Republicans afford to assume such 
 a responsibility? Moreover, the strife about Kansas 
 was only a single fact in the grand struggle between 
 slavery and freedom. Mr. Lincoln declared that " If 
 the earth had swallowed up all Kansas, and with it 
 all remembrance of the contest over it, the struggle 
 would still have to go on without interruption, be 
 cause the slavery question could disappear only with 
 slavery." The defeat of the Lecompton Bill would 
 simply be the repulse of the enemy at a single point, 
 while the fight all along the line would have to be 
 maintained; and to many Republicans it seemed a 
 fatal mistake so to magnify a local and incidental 
 struggle as to confound it with the great cause whose 
 principles they had no right to betray. They had a 
 still further danger to encounter in entering into the 
 proposed coalition, and that was that some of its 
 members might be swerved from their integrity by 
 the power of Federal patronage. 
 
 The Republicans of the House, however, finally 
 made the required pledge, and the Douglas Democrats 
 also solemnly bound themselves to stand by the Crit- 
 tenden-Montgomery Bill to the end. The history of 
 this struggle constitutes one of the most curious and 
 interesting chapters in the anti-slavery legislation of 
 Congress. Giddings was sorely tried in facing the 
 tangled question of duty which now confronted him ; 
 and in a diary which he kept during the latter part 
 of March a graphic account is given of his own ex 
 perience and of the situation in the House at this 
 
344 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 time. The importance of the subject will justify me 
 in quoting his entries : 
 
 " March 28. An accurate history of current events is due to 
 the people. We have reached an important period in the pro 
 gress of our cause. Just at this particular juncture, when the 
 contending hosts of slavery and freedom are brought face to face 
 upon the battle-field, we find various opinions prevailing among 
 the Republicans. These different views of policy, of principle, 
 and of duty have been developed within the past week. 
 
 " The Republicans at Philadelphia demanded the immediate 
 admission of Kansas as a Free State, and arraigned the Presi 
 dent, his advisers, agents, supporters, apologists, and accessories, 
 either before or after the facts, for the crimes committed in Kan 
 sas for the purpose of establishing slavery therein ; and they 
 avowed their fixed purpose to bring the perpetrators to a sure 
 and condign punishment. 
 
 " This solemn and all-important issue Mr. Crittenden proposed 
 to compromise and settle by sending this heathenish constitution, 
 which declares the right of property in human flesh to be superior 
 to human legislation, back to Kansas ; and if the people there 
 should vote for it, or indeed if the border ruffians of Missouri, 
 aided by the votes of the United States army, shall by fraud, 
 intimidation, and violence, obtain a reaffirmance of it, the Presi 
 dent shall declare it a member of the sisterhood of States. 
 
 " All our Republican Senators but one voted for this compro 
 mise as an amendment to the original bill ; but the amendment 
 failed, and Messrs. Bell and Crittenden voted with the Republi 
 cans against the passage of the bill. 
 
 " After Messrs. Bell and Crittenden had so voted, we were 
 told that six slaveholders in the House, called South Ameri 
 cans, would now vote with us to lay the bill on the table. This 
 cheered the Republicans, and for the first time many of us enter 
 tained the expectation of defeating this Lecompton swindle. 
 
 " I think it was Tuesday, the 23d of March, we were asked 
 if Republican members of the House would vote for substi 
 tuting Crittenden s amendment for the original bill. Some at 
 first said they would not ; but on consultation they gave up their 
 objections, as the proposed amendment was less objectionable 
 than the original bill, and it was stated and understood that all 
 the Republicans would vote for the amendment and compel the 
 Democrats to pass the bill thus amended, or kill their own mea 
 sure. Thus far everything promised success to our cause. 
 
 " On Wednesday, however, we were told that the South Ameri 
 cans would only vote for placing Crittenden s amendment upon 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R, GIDDINGS. 345 
 
 the bill on condition that the Republicans would pledge them 
 selves to vote for the bill thus amended, upon its final passage. 
 
 " Many Republicans at once in the most emphatic language 
 spurned the proposition. Others treated it with more respect, 
 and urged upon their friends a calm and dispassionate considera 
 tion, expressing the opinion that we should exercise the utmost 
 forbearance and kindness towards each other. 
 
 " At this point the arguments pro and con commenced. Some 
 urged the necessity of forming a national party, declaring that 
 we never should succeed until we could get a party in the Slave 
 States. Others insisted that we must unite the American party 
 with the Republicans in order to obtain success. Others insisted 
 that we ought to regard no platform, no avowal of principles here 
 tofore put forth, if we could by the proposed union make a Free 
 State of Kansas and defeat the Administration. Others argued 
 that no general principle could or ought to guide our votes, but 
 we ought to meet each question as it shall be presented ; while 
 others insisted that the Republican party had been founded upon 
 great and undying principles, always to be kept in view, and never 
 to be departed from ; that these principles were fixed and eternal, 
 embracing all men, in all countries, under all forms of govern 
 ment; that the real work of the Republican party was to edu 
 cate the popular mind and bring it up to the maintenance of 
 these doctrines; that the question of slavery in Kansas consti 
 tuted a mere incident in the progress of our cause ; that the mere 
 political squabbles which constitute the highest thoughts of the 
 Democratic party are as far below the great moral enterprise of 
 converting our nation and the world to the support of truth and 
 justice, as pandemonium is below heaven. 
 
 " I do not mention individuals. All of these subdivisions of 
 the Republican party appeared equally honest, equally sincere. 
 Those who sought an alliance with the South Americans were 
 sincere, and appeared to regard such alliance as a most impor 
 tant object. Others surely regarded the repudiation of plat 
 forms as important. In short, I must say all were kind and 
 conciliatory. 
 
 " On Friday, 26th, there was much excitement among Republi 
 can members. Probably three fourths of the entire party were 
 now willing to vote for the bill on its passage, and the minority 
 were urged and pressed to accept the proposition of the South 
 Americans. The Tribune of Thursday had spoken of those 
 who refused the compromise as impracticables, and it was 
 said that in some instances they were threatened with expulsion 
 from the party ; but I heard nothing of that character. If such 
 threats were made, they were uncalled for, as all with whom I 
 
346 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 conversed disapproved it. Outsiders and Senators, with the kind 
 est feelings and purest motives, as I believe, urged us to vote for 
 the Crittenden amendment. 
 
 " Saturday, the 27th, I thought the excitement increased rather 
 than diminished. In my whole life I had seen nothing so unac 
 countable as the feeling which now pervaded most of the Repub 
 lican party in regard to this matter. 
 
 " One man of distinction, not a member, called me aside, told 
 me that our friends were exceedingly anxious to have me vote for 
 Crittenden s bill, and had desired him to urge me to vote for it, 
 but said that the feeling was so strong that he was unwilling to 
 have it known that he agreed with me. 
 
 " On Saturday evening I attended a social party at Dr. 
 Bailey s. I had scarcely got seated when the subject of adopt 
 ing Crittenden s amendment was introduced, and the conversa 
 tion was kept up during the entire evening. I met Governor 
 Robinson of Kansas at this party, and he made a most solemn 
 appeal to me in behalf of the people of that Territory to per 
 mit them to repudiate this constitution by vote, and save them 
 from bloodshed. 
 
 " On Monday I reached the hall at ten o clock. Hon. Francis 
 P. Blair met me there. He had come from home for the purpose 
 of seeing me, in order to persuade me to consent to Crittenden s 
 amendment We came to my room. We had long acted to 
 gether, and fully sympathized in support of the great cause. He 
 insisted that we had by our discussions made up a collateral issue 
 with the slave-power upon the fact that the Lecompton constitu 
 tion was not the voice of the people of Kansas, while the Admin 
 istration had insisted that it was, and the President had staked 
 the existence of his party upon it ; that we knew the people had 
 repudiated it by at least thirteen thousand votes, while not more 
 than twenty-five hundred could be found in favor of it. He 
 insisted that we ought to refer it to the people of the Terri 
 tory, who would act as the jury to convict the President and his 
 party of falsehood and tyranny, and of maintaining a military 
 despotism in that territory since its invasion by border ruffians ; 
 that on such conviction the people of the United States would 
 pass sentence upon the President and his party. We should then 
 be safe from Cuban annexation and from other outrages. 
 
 " I again went to the House. Mr. Morris of Illinois came to 
 my seat, said that the Douglas Democrats were to hold a caucus 
 within the approaching hour, and were fearful that a number of 
 their men would leave them and go back to the Democratic 
 party unless we agreed to vote for Crittenden s amendment; 
 that the whole issue depended on my decision ; and closed 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 347 
 
 by assuring me that it was important that they should know 
 my opinion before going into caucus. 
 
 " I at once went to the Senate and consulted with some old 
 friends of experience who sympathized with me in the cause, but 
 who were evidently unwilling to decide for me, or advise me 
 what course to pursue, but left me to rely altogether upon my 
 own judgment. 
 
 " As I reached the Hall of Representatives I met Senator Crit- 
 tenden of Kentucky, and Mr. Davis of Maryland. They both 
 appeared to think, with me, that if our friends had at first con 
 sented to go no farther than to vote for amending the bill, the 
 South Americans would have demanded nothing more ; but that, 
 as it now appeared, both the Douglas men and South Americans 
 were united in the course which ought to be pursued, and most 
 of the Republicans were with them, and that it was too late to 
 think of changing the programme. Mr. Davis spoke of his own 
 sacrifice in voting for us. Mr. Crittenden did the same thing. 
 He also referred with great feeling to old times and old associa 
 tions ; spoke of the time when he and Mr. Clay came from the 
 Senate Chamber to witness my departure from the House of 
 Representatives when censured in 1842. He thought an oppor 
 tunity now offered to act together for the purpose of paralyzing 
 the Administration, and rendering it harmless to the country in 
 future ; that in this we all felt a mutual interest and a mutual 
 desire ; and if we failed to do it, we should be responsible to the 
 country. 
 
 "It was under these circumstances that I yielded to the judg 
 ment of friends and consented to the arrangement, but reserving 
 to myself the privilege of consulting some personal and political 
 associates with whom I had long acted, and abiding by their judg 
 ment if I thought best. But without delay some gentlemen in 
 formed the Douglas Democrats of my new position, as they felt 
 it important to do so before that wing of the Democratic party 
 should retire for their appointed caucus. Many warm friends 
 came to my seat and heartily thanked me for taking the position 
 which I had assumed, as it relieved them from embarrassment. 
 
 " Under the excitement attending these movements, and the 
 responsibility under which I was placed, my nervous system be 
 came affected. I found myself unable to sleep, and soon became 
 conscious of those pains in the head and in the region of the 
 heart which indicated danger of death at any moment. Friends 
 to whom I made known these facts urged me to leave the city, 
 and by their anxiety contributed to increase the difficulties sur 
 rounding me. 
 
 " On Tuesday, the 3oth, some eight or ten warm personal friends 
 
348 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 who had viewed the subject at first as I had done, invited me to 
 a conference. We retired to a committee-room, expressed our 
 opinions freely, and all but one or two united in consenting to 
 support the bill if necessary to pass it. 
 
 " I was also told that my new position had served to strengthen 
 the Douglas men. Some warm anti-slavery men expressed the fear 
 that associating with slaveholders, South Americans, and Douglas 
 men would cause the Republican party to modify its position. To 
 this I replied that the people constituted the Republican party. 
 Their platform was written, known, and read of all men, and we 
 members of Congress could have little effect upon it. 
 
 "Near evening a distinguished Senator with whom I had 
 acted in former times while he was a member of our body, on 
 some trying occasions came to the House, thanked me for hav 
 ing consented to support the bill, and said he thought nearly 
 every Republican Senator concurred in my determination. 
 
 " On Wednesday evening we were informed that the Demo 
 crats had totally failed to unite, or to agree upon any plan of 
 union. 
 
 " All appeared to promise a united vote. At half-past eleven 
 a distinguished statesman from Pennsylvania came to my seat. 
 He had for many years sympathized with me on the subject of 
 slavery, and while a member of Congress had voted with me. I 
 had not met him for some years, and being both old men, we were 
 pleased at meeting once more. I soon discovered that he was 
 laboring under excitement in consequence of the Republicans 
 indicating a disposition to vote for the amendment of Mr. 
 Crittenden. 
 
 "The House continued in session until near one o clock of 
 Thursday, for the purpose of closing the debate on the Kansas 
 bill. At eight o clock I received my evening mail, which brought 
 me two remonstrances against our voting for Crittenden s amend 
 ment; one was signed by the Republican members of the Senate, 
 and the other by those of the House of Representatives of our 
 State Legislature. 
 
 " Most of the delegation from our State had left the hall when 
 these papers reached me. I at once appointed a meeting for the 
 Ohio delegation, to be held at my room at 10 o clock A.M. the 
 next morning, and took measures for giving each absent mem 
 ber notice, those present being notified at the time by myself 
 in person. 
 
 " At the time appointed, Senator Wade and all the Republi 
 can members of the House met, according to appointment. Mr. 
 Campbell, not professing to be a Republican, did not meet with 
 us, and E. Wade and Mr. Horton had not been notified, through 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 349 
 
 mistake. On comparing views it was easily discovered that argu 
 ment rendered each more firm and unyielding in his opinion. 
 The views of our members of the Legislature were treated with 
 great respect, but appeared to have changed the opinion of no 
 one. I endeavored to soothe the feelings of all, and urged that 
 it was not so important which course was pursued as it was that 
 the Republican party should act together. 
 
 " With these feelings we all repaired to the Capitol, and the 
 scenes which transpired there on the ist of April will soon be 
 come the subject of general history. 
 
 " Our triumph was hailed with rejoicing in all parts of the 
 Free States. I was congratulated by friends upon our success, 
 but I constantly replied that difficulties remained for us to en 
 counter ; and as I saw in one of the papers of my district some 
 reflections upon me for my unwillingness to go with my Republi 
 can friends in voting for the amendment, I stated in a letter for 
 publication the fact that I had from the first opposed the proposi 
 tion, and only yielded for the purpose of voting with my friends 
 and keeping the party together. 
 
 "The Senate, having disagreed to our amendment, returned to 
 the House a message announcing that fact. Now commenced 
 the anxiety and fears of those who had advocated the adoption 
 of the amendment. They feared that some of our men might 
 yield to the influence and patronage of the Executive, and that 
 all might yet be lost." 
 
 This ends the diary. It closed with the ist of 
 April, when the House voted on the Crittenden- 
 Montgomery Amendment, which was adopted by a 
 vote of yeas 120 to nays 112. With much reluctance 
 and many misgivings, Giddings supported it. His 
 true attitude would have been to stand alone, as he 
 had done on some notable occasions; but he yielded 
 his own judgment to the persuasions and entreaties 
 of his friends. Every Republican member of the 
 House voted for the measure, as every Republican in 
 the Senate, with a single exception, had done. But 
 they were all wrong. In playing their game of party 
 tactics they abandoned their fundamental principles 
 touching the question of slavery in the Territories 
 and the admission of more Slave States, and ac- 
 
350 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 cepted the position of the Douglas Democrats. 
 They unitedly pledged themselves to the admission 
 of Kansas with the Lecompton constitution, if the 
 people of the Territory should favor it ; and this be 
 trayal of their cause proved utterly fruitless of good. 
 On the next day after the vote in the House the 
 Senate rejected the Crittenden-Montgomery Amend 
 ment by a vote of 32 yeas to 23 nays, and asked for 
 a Committee of Conference; thus forcing the two 
 Houses again to face the necessity for some plan of 
 compromise by which the freedom of Kansas might 
 be sacrificed. English of Indiana, who had all along 
 opposed the Lecompton Bill, was placed at the head 
 of the House Committee, and the final result of the 
 conference was a bill denying to the people of Kan 
 sas the right to be heard on the question of slavery 
 as completely as did the Lecompton Bill, and con 
 taining other provisions still more atrocious. This 
 bill was passed by the House on the 3Oth of April 
 by a vote of yeas 112 to nays 103; and on the same 
 day the Senate adopted it by a vote of 31 against 22. 
 Such was the deplorable outcome of the coalition 
 formed by the Republicans with Douglas Democrats 
 and Southern Know -Nothings for the purpose of sav 
 ing Kansas from slavery. The twenty-three Douglas 
 Democrats who had solemnly pledged themselves to 
 stand by the Crittenden-Montgomery Amendment 
 dwindled to twelve, and thus justified the apprehen 
 sion expressed by Giddings in the closing sentence 
 of his diary that "the influence and patronage of the 
 Executive " might prove fatal to the freedom of Kan 
 sas. In spite of the recreancy of Congress, however, 
 and solely through the heroism of her people, the 
 English Bill was repudiated, and the way thus left 
 open for her final admission as a Free State. 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 351 
 
 The action of the Republicans in dealing with 
 Kansas undoubtedly exerted a demoralizing influence 
 upon their party. It was followed by a very formi 
 dable effort to stampede its members from the prin 
 ciples broadly affirmed in the national platform of 
 1856. The "New York Tribune" took the lead in 
 beating this retreat, openly favoring the disband- 
 ment of the Republican party and the formation of 
 a combination against the Democrats, composed of 
 Republicans, Douglas Democrats, Know-Nothings, 
 and Whigs. The abandonment of Republicanism 
 was likewise favored by such papers as the " Cin 
 cinnati Gazette," which pronounced the policy of 
 Congressional prohibition worthless, and openly 
 committed itself to the admission of more Slave 
 States when demanded by a popular majority in any 
 Territory. The "Indianapolis Journal" and other 
 leading Republican organs spoke of Congressional 
 prohibition as "murdered by Dred Scott." Accord 
 ing to many Republican leaders, Republicanism 
 simply meant opposition to the latest outrage of 
 slavery, and acquiescence in all preceding ones. 
 Fortunately, this downward tendency was arrested 
 by the Republicans of Illinois, who refused to follow 
 Douglas, and thus opened the way for the memor 
 able debate between him and Lincoln, and the suc 
 cessful struggle of 1860, which followed. 
 
 The Kansas struggle did not divert the attention 
 of Giddings from other topics. On the 26th of Feb 
 ruary he addressed the House on "The Conflict be 
 tween Religious Truths and American Infidelity." 
 He said, 
 
 " The Philadelphia Convention will be remembered in coming 
 time as first in the history of the political parties of our nation 
 to make religious truths the basis of political action, and first to 
 
352 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 proclaim the rights of mankind as universal, to be enjoyed 
 equally, by princes and people, by rulers and the most humble. 
 It was the first to proclaim the fatherhood of God and the broth 
 erhood of man. The result of the Presidential election of 1856 
 showed the advocates of oppression that there was but one alter 
 native for them. They were constrained to take distinct issue 
 with the advocates of liberty by denying these religious truths, 
 or disband their party in every Free State." 
 
 This was the key-note of his speech, and he pro 
 ceeded to arraign as "American Infidels" the men 
 who sought the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, 
 who justified the raid into Kansas for the purpose of 
 making it a Slave State, who defended and lauded 
 the Dred Scott decision, which denied the right of 
 all men to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, 
 and who even contended that slavery was sanctioned 
 by the Almighty. The speech was widely circulated 
 and warmly welcomed in the Northern States, and 
 called forth from his old friend Arnold Buffum a 
 letter, from which I quote : 
 
 " On reading thy speech delivered in Congress, exposing the 
 infidelity of enslaving our fellow-creatures, I exclaimed to my 
 daughter, I should like to go into the future or spirit world in 
 Joshua R. Giddings s carpet-bag. I felt an undoubting assur 
 ance that I should be safe. Oh, my dear friend, I rejoice to see 
 thee growing stronger and stronger as thee draws nearer to the 
 termination of thy earthly career. I do from the bottom of my 
 heart approve every word uttered in that speech." 
 
 On the 7th of June Giddings addressed the House 
 upon the joint resolutions proposing hostilities with 
 England on account of her exercising the right of 
 visitation. He reviewed in detail the action of the 
 Government in favoring or conniving at the African 
 slave-trade, and referred to the fact that slaves, 
 direct from Africa, were landed upon our Southern 
 coast, and that Southern conventions had for years 
 been publicly discussing the propriety of restoring 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 353 
 
 this traffic, while slave-ships were being built in our 
 own ports, under the very eye of the Administration. 
 He also frequently took part in incidental discus 
 sions, and it was while responding to a question by 
 Marshall of Kentucky, touching the Lecompton Bill, 
 on the 29th of April, that he was suddenly prostrated 
 by heart trouble, as he had been in the preceding 
 Congress. 
 
 When Giddings returned to his constituents after 
 the adjournment of this session, he found them dis 
 cussing the question of his renomination. His friends 
 insisted on his making the race, not on personal 
 grounds, but solely because his long service in Con 
 gress eminently fitted him to represent the principles 
 of his constituents. They had no doubt of his nomi 
 nation, nor had Giddings; for he had been unani 
 mously nominated two years before, and had done 
 nothing whatever to forfeit his standing in the dis 
 trict. The question, however, was embarrassing. 
 He felt admonished by advancing years and failing 
 health that he could not much longer bear the bur 
 den of his public duties; and yet he had been so 
 long in Congress and had become so habituated to 
 his work that he hesitated as to his decision. He 
 was finally persuaded to stand as a candidate and 
 leave his constituents to decide the question of his 
 final retirement. A great surprise awaited him and 
 his friends. The Congressional convention which 
 met on the 25th of August gave the nomination to 
 his competitor, John Hutchins, of Warren, by one 
 majority. Giddings, who was present, seemed to 
 find relief in this solution of his dilemma, and cheer 
 fully and cordially indorsed the action of the conven 
 tion in an admirable speech; but his friends were 
 inexpressibly disappointed and vexed. They were 
 
 23 
 
354 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 the victims of their own over-confidence and inac 
 tivity; they had taken his nomination for granted. 
 
 Giddings himself made no personal efforts, and 
 would not, for the reason that he was thoroughly 
 known to his constituents, who had stood by him 
 faithfully for twenty years, and were abundantly able 
 to decide the question. In his own county six dele 
 gates were lost to him because they considered his 
 nomination assured without their help, while seven 
 other delegates who were well understood to be his 
 friends had been induced by the secret tactics of the 
 opposition to oppose him. All of his old enemies, 
 including Know-Nothings and old Whigs who had 
 through many long years labored in vain for his 
 defeat, worked with all their might for Mr. Hutch- 
 ins. They saw that their opportunity had come, and 
 they used it. In the disguise of friendship for Gid 
 dings they could plausibly urge his retirement on 
 the score of his age and precarious health. The 
 unquestioning confidence of his friends in his suc 
 cess put them to sleep, and left the field clear 
 for the unscrupulous and unhindered tactics of his 
 foes. 
 
 Mr. Hutchins was a man of character, who had 
 been a member of the old Liberty party, and was 
 as thoroughly committed to radical anti-slavery prin 
 ciples as Giddings; but the enemies of the latter 
 knew that in no other way than through the support 
 of Hutchins was there any hope of their success. 
 Their fight was personal. Giddings had been stead 
 fastly and bravely in the right, and they now hated 
 him because they had wronged him, and were not 
 willing to confess it by abandoning their opposition. 
 These men were reinforced by others whom Gid 
 dings had unavoidably displeased in his disposition 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 355 
 
 of Federal patronage in the course of his long public 
 service, and by still others whose ambition for his 
 place had been or might be thwarted by his continu 
 ance in office. One of his most indefatigable op 
 ponents was Jacob D. Cox, since well known to the 
 country by his civil and military services, and then 
 the law partner of Mr. Hutchins. Another was Hon. 
 Milton Sutliff. Both these gentlemen had always 
 been supporters of Giddings, and were supposed to 
 be his friends till the morning of the nominating 
 convention. These various forces operated against 
 him very actively and quietly. Their campaign was 
 a "still hunt," while his friends rested in the serene 
 faith that his nomination was a matter of course. 
 Had they understood the situation, there would not 
 have been the slightest doubt about his triumph, 
 while their disappointment was now aggravated by 
 self-reproach. 
 
 Giddings, however, maintained his customary equa 
 nimity and cheerfulness. He did not manifest the 
 slightest ill-will towards those who had accomplished 
 his defeat. He showed no coldness towards old 
 friends who had deserted him, and no unwillingness 
 to surrender the position he had so long honored. 
 He did not agree with those of his friends who felt 
 that he had received a slight at the hands of his 
 constituents, and was as ready as ever to continue 
 his warfare against slavery. In a letter to an old 
 friend, speaking of his early service with John Quincy 
 Adams, he said, 
 
 " Many years since that day have come and gone. The storms 
 which gathered around him while living, subsequently beat upon 
 my own political pathway. I have met them as best I could, 
 until their violence appears to have been spent, the clouds are 
 breaking, and the sunlight of truth is arousing the nation to 
 action." 
 
356 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 This was his sufficient consolation. The con 
 sciousness of having been faithful to duty, and 
 that the great cause he had served was advancing, 
 made him satisfied, and left no room for personal 
 resentments. 
 
 The slaveocracy and its Northern allies were of 
 course delighted, and manifested their joy by char 
 acteristic demonstrations, while the disappointment 
 of the friends of Giddings was by no means confined 
 to his own district or State. William H. Seward 
 wrote him from Auburn, 
 
 " I shall have sbme curiosity to see the bold man who is to 
 come into your place at Washington. He will come there under 
 prodigious responsibilities. I sincerely hoped that your term of 
 service, protracted as it has been, might not end before my own. 
 But you have nothing to regret. You have overcome resistance 
 the most prejudiced and violent, and have established for your 
 self a name that the friends of humanity will never suffer to 
 perish." 
 
 Senator Wilson of Massachusetts wrote, 
 
 " I have just returned from the battle-field of Maine, and I 
 now write to say to you that wherever I have been, the people 
 express their surprise and deep regret at your failure to be re- 
 nominated. Here in New England you are dear to the hearts of 
 the people ; and we indulged the hope that your district, which 
 has honored itself so long, would continue you in Congress as 
 long as you could stand up there on the field of your glory and 
 uphold the great cause. I have tried to get reconciled to your 
 failure to be renominated, but I cannot. I do not see how any 
 one can be a candidate in your district against the veteran friend 
 of our cause who more than any one has the love and respect of 
 our true and tried friends all over the country. This cannot be 
 right, and our friends feel that it is wrong, that it is a wrong to 
 you, and above all to the cause by whose infancy you stood in 
 the halls of Congress." 
 
 His old and devoted friend, Dr. Palfrey, of Cam 
 bridge, Massachusetts, wrote, 
 
 " Permit me to say in a word how greatly I am grieved to 
 learn that your public career for the present, at least is 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 357 
 
 brought to a close. Your services to the public have been so 
 important through so many years that when they are withdrawn 
 it seems as if the whole mechanism of freedom was dislocated. 
 
 " I will not allow that I am so much vexed as grieved. But I 
 am afraid I am too much vexed for equanimity. Your successor 
 is an historical character, without fail ; whatever he may do or 
 forbear hereafter, the future historian is sure to erect a pillory for 
 him, as for the man who intrigued or, if he did not intrigue, 
 who consented to supplant the twenty years champion of free 
 dom. If he wanted $3,000 a year, he has got it. If he wants a 
 place in the memory of man, he has got that too, to a certainty, 
 such as it is ; but Heaven forbid that such a place should be 
 mine ! 
 
 " I trust and pray, my dear sir, that the public loss may be your 
 gain ; that in retirement from public cares your strength may be 
 invigorated and sustained ; that you may have many happy years 
 before you in which to enjoy the gratitude of good men and the 
 testimony of an approving conscience for your duties wisely and 
 bravely discharged ; and that serus in coelum redeas. God 
 bless you ! " 
 
 Giddings received many messages of sympathy and 
 friendship, of which none was more gratifying than 
 the following: 
 
 MONTPELLIER, FRANCE, Feb. I, 1859. 
 
 MY DEAR GIDDINGS, The very earnest counsel of my phy 
 sicians, and the requirements of the medical treatment which I 
 am still pursuing, make it more than doubtful if I shall be in my 
 seat during the present session of Congress. Reluctantly I yield 
 to my fate, in the full conviction that, by the blessing of God, the 
 next session will see my long catalogue of pains, aches, and 
 smarts brought to an end. But I shall feel another then of a 
 different kind, the anticipation of which adds to my present 
 troubles, in missing you from that seat of eminent duty which 
 you have so long honored. 
 
 I write with great sincerity, and simply because I cannot help 
 it, to express the emotions which your retirement is calculated to 
 produce in the breast of those who have at heart the welfare of 
 their country and the improvement of the great family of man. 
 
 Among the reminiscences of John Quincy Adams, which I 
 have ever guarded with profound respect, is one which concerns 
 yourself. Pardon me if I mention it now. I sat by the bedside 
 of this veteran soldier of our cause not long before that death 
 which took him so suddenly from among us. While I listened, 
 
358 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 he dwelt at length and with especial satisfaction upon your 
 public life, and concluded by declaring, with an emphasis that at 
 the time penetrated my soul and still reverberates there, " Mr. 
 Giddings is the most useful man in Congress." He who uttered 
 these words knew well how to measure the different kinds of use 
 fulness in a public man ; he knew full well how to recognize that 
 best usefulness which is found in the unflinching support of those 
 sacred principles which constitute the soul of society, which for 
 their sake is not ashamed to bear reproach and contumely, which 
 is deterred by no menace or danger, and which, in an assembly 
 ruled by vulgar slave-drivers and packed by their cowering ac 
 complices, proclaims the rights of freedom and humanity. 
 
 I am no prophet, but I see clearly in the future that your 
 public career will be enrolled in history for the admiration and 
 gratitude of mankind. 
 
 I pray that, though withdrawn from active service, you may 
 be long spared in health to cheer by a hearty God-speed those 
 of us who are left to continue the battle. Though your voice 
 may not be heard, your example will speak, saying constantly, as 
 in times past : " Be firm, and yield not ; have faith in the justice 
 and dignity of your cause, and know for certain that you cannot 
 fail ! " 
 
 Good by ! From my distant exile across the sea I send you 
 all best wishes. Believe me ever sincerely yours, 
 
 CHARLES SUMNER. 
 
 The Anti-slavery and Republican Press joined in 
 voicing the wide-spread and heartfelt regret which 
 the unexpected news of this event awakened among 
 the people. Even conservative journals, which had 
 occasionally criticised the course of Giddings as 
 extreme and impracticable, now deplored the dis 
 placement of the veteran leader of the cause of 
 freedom in Congress. As an example, I quote the 
 following from the "New York Evening Post": 
 
 "The people of a congressional district of course have the 
 right to manage their own affairs in their own way, but people 
 elsewhere have an equal right to comment on their doings. We 
 are not surprised, therefore, at the general disapproval which is 
 manifested by the Northern Press at the recent action of the 
 Republican Convention in the Ashtabula district of Ohio in 
 discharging their long-tried and faithful representative, Joshua 
 R. Giddings; for we presume the nomination of a successor 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 359 
 
 terminates his public career. Notwithstanding the impaired 
 condition of his health, which unfits him for active labor, and 
 the many subjects on which we differ from him, we cannot help 
 concurring with the universal feeling expressed at the prospect 
 of his retirement. 
 
 " Mr. Giddings is now the oldest member of the House. For 
 twenty-two years his venerable head and stalwart frame have 
 rendered him conspicuous among his associates, from whom he 
 was not less distinguished by the peculiarity of his principles and 
 his bold, uncompromising style of enforcing them. Embodying, 
 as he did, in an extreme degree, the opinions of a small and ex 
 ceedingly unpopular party, he was for a long time a mark for the 
 fiercest assaults of the influential leaders of both the great po 
 litical organizations ; but the courage with which he has con 
 fronted them always won a renewed tribute of confidence from 
 his constituents. 
 
 " When John Quincy Adams entered on that career of agitation 
 for the right of petition which a friendly biographer declares to 
 have been the most illustrious and honorable period of his life, 
 Mr. Giddings was at his side, fighting the same battle, and shar 
 ing, without flinching, in its obloquy. The vote of censure in 
 1842 passed upon him by the House for his temerity in offering 
 resolutions commending the conduct of the insurgent slaves of 
 the Creole, was the most noted attempt to single him out as a 
 subject of intimidation. He resigned his seat, and threw himself 
 upon his constituency only to be immediately returned by a 
 largely increased majority. Since then his right to free speech 
 has seldom been successfully questioned ; and it must be con 
 fessed he has exercised it, to use a pertinent colloquialism, with 
 a vengeance. Whenever the occasion arises, he is on his feet to 
 protest against some new attempt of the enemy to press forward, 
 openly or covertly, or to give legislative sanction to the projects 
 of that institution which he so abhors. Just as regularly as a 
 new Congress opens, he is up at the first opportunity to deliver 
 one of his incendiary reassertions of principles, reviewing, 
 somewhat on the plan of Lord Lyndhurst s famous tirades in 
 Parliament, the shortcomings of the Government and the prog 
 ress of the cause of which he was a representative ; and yet such 
 has been his courtesy and regard for the rules of order, and such 
 his obvious sincerity, as to command ultimately the respect, if 
 not the approval, of his bitterest foes. 
 
 " There is something, too, in the boldness and independence 
 of Mr. Giddings, something in that sympathy which he always 
 shows for the weak and oppressed, whether it be the negro or 
 the fugitive Indians whose wrongs he has so faithfully presented 
 
360 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 in his Exiles of Florida, that commands an instinctive respect, 
 even from those whose convictions are adverse to his own. His 
 mania is not a restless itching for notoriety, it is a certain noble 
 rage, the overplus of an honest and genuine humanity. He has 
 not succeeded in popular estimation as a politician, but he has 
 at last obtained a foremost place on the good angel s book as 
 one who loved his fellow-men ; and we are not displeased to find 
 that he is even now receiving something of the respect and 
 admiration with which posterity will repay his unfaltering and 
 unselfish zeal for a great and noble cause." 
 
 In speaking of the retirement of Giddings the 
 11 Atlantic Monthly " said, 
 
 " A winter such as rounds his days is fuller of life and prom 
 ise than a century of vulgar summers. He has won for himself 
 an honorable and enduring place in the hearts and memories of 
 men by the fidelity to principle and the unfaltering courage of 
 his public course. Among the ignoble hundreds who have flitted 
 through the Capitol since he first took his place there, 
 
 Heads without name, no more remembered, 
 
 his is one of the two or three that are household words on the 
 lips of the nation. And it will so remain and be familiar in the 
 mouths of posterity, with a fame as pure as it is noble. The ear 
 that hath not heard him shall bless him, and the eye that hath 
 not seen him shall give witness to him." 
 
 But the retirement of Giddings at the close of this 
 Congress was for the best. As an anti-slavery pio 
 neer and leader his mission was accomplished. He 
 was no longer a lone knight in battling with the 
 armies of slavery. Others were now ready to take 
 his place, as he had been ready to take up the work 
 of John Quincy Adams, when the latter laid it down. 
 The great party which was soon to take possession of 
 the government had openly espoused the principles for 
 which he had so long toiled, while it was abundantly 
 supplied with leaders, many of them in the prime of 
 their manhood, who were able to marshal its forces 
 and direct their operations; and Giddings certainly 
 had no desire to "lag superfluous on the stage." 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 361 
 
 Besides, with his constitutional heart trouble, his 
 life might be cut short at any moment; it hung 
 upon a thread. The Thirty-sixth Congress was to 
 bring with it the excitement and turbulence of civil 
 war, while his personal safety demanded tranquillity 
 and rest. If his constituents had required the sacri 
 fice, he would have remained in Congress while he 
 lived, and have fallen at last at his post of public 
 duty. This would have seemed to his old and de 
 voted friends the fit ending of his long and honorable 
 career; but it was ordered otherwise, and he was 
 finally restored to the endearing claims of home and 
 kindred, which had been so long and so painfully 
 interrupted by the pressure of his public duties. 
 
 The second session of the Thirty-fifth Congress 
 was more orderly and less exciting than the first. 
 The discussions related mainly to the foreign affairs 
 of the government, although the question of slavery 
 was involved. On the I5th of January, in a debate 
 on the codification of the revenue laws, Giddings re 
 iterated his views on the coastwise slave-trade and the 
 obligations imposed upon the United States under 
 the treaty of Ghent to suppress that trade as well as 
 the foreign traffic. On the 2ist of the month he 
 joined in the debate on the bill to provide for the 
 examination and payment of certain claims of citi 
 zens of Georgia and Alabama on account of losses 
 sustained by depredations of the Creek Indians. 
 The question of slavery was not involved, and it 
 was strictly a legal argument. On the I2th of this 
 month he delivered his last anti-slavery speech. It 
 was a brief historical review of the anti-slavery con 
 flict in Congress. In speaking of the campaign of 
 1856 and the principles avowed by the two parties at 
 that time, he said, 
 
362 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 " To effect this object I had toiled for many years. I had, in 
 this body, asserted the doctrine of man s inalienable rights, and 
 called on gentlemen of the Democratic party to admit or deny it ; 
 but I had called in vain. I had travelled and spoken in thirteen 
 States ; I had written essays and newspaper articles ; I had com 
 piled a volume of romantic incidents, showing the secret work 
 ings of the slave-power. These had been gathered with great 
 labor from more than two hundred documents reposing in our 
 library under the accumulated dust of many years. To expose 
 this moral and political infidelity I had encountered Southern 
 opposition and Northern distrust ; and I greatly rejoiced to see 
 that party compelled to avow its doctrines, for I well knew 
 that the avowal of its principles would show that its days were 
 numbered." 
 
 He concluded his farewell speech as follows : 
 
 " Mr. Chairman, from childhood I have mingled with the 
 people. I know their love of justice, their devotion to liberty. 
 The great American heart beats in sympathy for the oppressed, 
 for justice to ourselves and to mankind. The popular voice de 
 mands the exercise of our constitutional powers to drive oppres 
 sion from our Territories, from our ships while sailing upon the 
 high seas, from this District ; to exclude it from all support by 
 Congress, by the Executive, by our courts ; to condemn it as an 
 outlaw ; and that the legitimate powers of government shall be 
 exerted for freedom. Give the people an opportunity, and they 
 will elect a President and Vice-President, a Senate and House of 
 Representatives, pledged not merely to these purposes, but to 
 put forth the moral influence of our nation to drive oppression 
 from the earth. 
 
 " To the attainment of this object my official labors have long 
 been directed. Those labors are now drawing to a close, and I 
 shall soon surrender the cause, so far as I am officially concerned, 
 to other and abler hands. My political pathway has been rugged, 
 beset with difficulties. I have been constrained to meet many 
 of my fellow-members in intellectual conflict, and at times those 
 conflicts have been severe ; but I am not conscious of having 
 assailed any man except in self-defence, and I separate from 
 my opponents without a feeling of unkindness. Indeed, if my 
 desire, my earnest prayer, could avail, they should all be just 
 and wise and pure and happy. Here for many long years I have 
 counselled with friends and combated opponents. The scenes 
 through which I have passed rush upon the recollection as I am 
 about to bid adieu to this arena of my political life. I shall leave 
 it with emotions, but not with regret. I shall bear with me to 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 363 
 
 private life many interesting recollections of the great contest 
 which gives character to the age in which we live. And I beg 
 to assure you, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, that whether in pub 
 lic or in private life, in prosperity or in adversity, whether living 
 or dying, my heart s desire and prayer to God shall be that every 
 human soul may enjoy that liberty which is necessary to pro 
 tect and cherish life, attain knowledge, and prepare for heaven. 
 And when I shall have passed away, let my epitaph announce 
 that / hated oppression and wrong, that / loved liberty and 
 justice" 
 
 Near the close of this session Giddings was made 
 the recipient of a beautiful testimonial from his fel 
 low-members. It consisted of a solid silver tea-set 
 of six pieces, and a highly ornamented tray, on each 
 of which are engraved representations of the tea- 
 plant, water-lilies, etc. The handles and spouts are 
 beautifully wrought in scroll and leaf work, and on 
 each piece is an ornamented shield bearing the fol 
 lowing inscription: 
 
 PRESENTED BY 104 MEMBERS OF THE 35TH CONGRESS 
 
 TO JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS, 
 
 AS A TOKEN OF RESPECT FOR HIS MORAL WORTH 
 AND PERSONAL INTEGRITY. 
 
 Accompanying the service of silver was a walking- 
 stick of rare and beautiful wood, mounted with a 
 massive gold head, which bears a similar inscription 
 to that on the tea-set. 
 
 Soon after the adjournment of Congress Giddings 
 received another handsome present. It was a gold 
 watch, presented by the colored people of New York 
 and Brooklyn as a token of their regard for him as 
 the champion and defender of the rights of their race 
 in the United States, and of the cause of universal 
 freedom. The gold of this watch had been dug by 
 free hands from the mines of California, and the 
 works were manufactured in Waltham, Massachusetts. 
 The inscription on the watch was as follows : 
 
364 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS, 
 
 PRESENTED TO THE HONORABLE JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS, 
 
 THE CHAMPION OF AMERICAN FREEDOM, 
 
 BY THE COLORED PEOPLE OF NEW YORK AND BROOKLYN, 
 MARCH 28, 1859. 
 
 The presentation was made by Rev. Hiram Gar 
 net, and was accompanied by a large Family Bible, 
 handsomely bound and beautifully inscribed, a 
 gift from the ladies of the Giddings and Joliffe 
 Association. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 MARCH, 1859, TO MAY, 1864. 
 
 The " Exiles of Florida." The John Brown Raid. The Lecture Field. 
 
 Scene in the Chicago Convention. Campaign of 1860. Letter 
 to Hon. Thomas Ewing. Another Literary Venture. Appointed 
 Consul-General to Canada. Correspondence with Sumner. Life 
 in Montreal. The Reciprocity Treaty. Further Correspondence. 
 
 Declining Health. " History of the Rebellion." Death. 
 
 BEFORE we follow Mr. Giddings into his retire 
 ment it will be proper to refer to a topic which 
 had engaged his serious attention. Notwithstanding 
 his busy life during the first session of the Thirty- 
 fifth Congress, he found time to complete and pub 
 lish an interesting and valuable contribution to the 
 history of slavery in the United States. It is enti 
 tled "The Exiles of Florida; or, The Crimes com 
 mitted by our Government against the Maroons who 
 fled from South Carolina and other Slave States, 
 seeking Protection under Spanish Laws." It opened 
 a new and unexplored field of historic research bear 
 ing upon the question of slavery, and was a surprise 
 to men of all parties and sections. Few subjects 
 have been so little understood by the great body of 
 the people as the genesis and character of our Florida 
 wars. The public has been made to believe that they 
 were caused by the depredations of the savages of 
 Florida upon the contiguous States, and the further 
 excuse has been urged that these savages had made 
 this province a refuge for fugitive slaves. 
 
366 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 The general impression has also prevailed that 
 these slaves were recent fugitives, whose real mas 
 ters were seeking their recovery. But the truth is 
 that long before the War of the Revolution, slaves 
 fled to Florida, and that at least three quarters of 
 a century prior to the purchase of Florida by the 
 United States, a colony of negroes had been estab 
 lished there, who gradually mingled and became 
 identified with the Seminole or Southern Creek In 
 dians, who had also made it their refuge from Caro 
 lina slavery. These negroes and Indians inter 
 married, lived happily together, planted and hunted 
 as friendly allies, and enjoyed the fruits of their 
 toil in peace. They were in all respects free citi 
 zens of the Spanish Crown, and were permitted to 
 occupy lands upon the same terms as other subjects 
 of Spain. When they passed away, their children 
 took their places, and were in turn followed by their 
 grandchildren and their descendants ; and although 
 the founders of the colony had fled from slavery, they 
 and their descendants were as free in this province 
 of Spain as the thousands of slaves who from time to 
 time found an asylum in Canada. 
 
 But the slaveholders of Georgia did not relish this 
 spectacle of a free and independent community of 
 Indians and negroes in an adjoining province. They 
 dreaded its influence on their cherished institution, 
 and determined to break it up by a vigorous slave- 
 hunt. They claimed these exiles as their property, 
 and the Federal Government espoused their cause. 
 The exiles determined to fight for their liberty, and 
 the army of the United States was employed for their 
 subjugation. Native citizens of the province and 
 subjects of the king of Spain who had been free for 
 generations were reduced to hopeless bondage in fur- 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 367 
 
 therance of the claims of imaginary owners. More 
 than five hundred persons, some of them recent fugi 
 tives, but generally natives of the province, and all 
 of them free on Spanish soil, were made slaves, at 
 a cost to the United States of forty million dollars, 
 or eighty thousand dollars for each pretended fugitive 
 reclaimed. 
 
 The Government at last became weary of its bar 
 barous and unprofitable work, and determined upon 
 the removal of the Seminoles to the Cherokee lands 
 west of Arkansas. Under the solemn pledge of the 
 nation that they should be settled in villages sepa 
 rate from the Creeks, and protected by the Govern 
 ment, they removed to their new home. Relying on 
 its good faith, they built their huts, planted their 
 ground, and entered upon the work of providing for 
 their wants, when two hundred armed Creek war 
 riors, stimulated by the offer of a slave-dealer of one 
 hundred dollars for each exile captured and deliv 
 ered, pounced upon them; and although they were 
 repulsed, they seized a portion of the exiles, carried 
 them to their employer, and received the price stipu 
 lated for their services. The prisoners were taken 
 before an Arkansas judge, who, in violation of ex 
 press treaty stipulation, and in utter defiance of law, 
 ordered them to be delivered to the slave-dealer, who 
 sold them in the Southern market. The exiles now 
 clearly saw that no reliance could be placed upon 
 the plighted faith of the Government, and those of 
 them who had successfully resisted the crusade of 
 hireling Creeks, resolved to seek an asylum in Mex 
 ico, where slavery did not exist. They took up 
 their march by night, holding themselves in readi 
 ness for an attack. They were pursued by the 
 Creeks, who were repulsed, leaving their dead upon 
 
368 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 the field; and these hunted victims at last found 
 a home on foreign soil. 
 
 Such, in the fewest words, is the story of these 
 exiles. Giddings tells it at length, and in all its 
 horrid details. It is the story of a war waged by 
 a great nation against unoffending negroes and In 
 dians, whose heroism in defending their liberty must 
 forever challenge the admiration of the world. It 
 was a war instigated by Carolina and Georgia slave 
 holders, not, in fact, for the recapture of fugitive 
 slaves, but for the enslavement of men and women 
 who were free, and whose example menaced the secu 
 rity of slave property; and nearly every Administra 
 tion of the government, from Washington s to Folk s, 
 both inclusive, was an accessory, either before or after 
 the fact, to this national crime against a brave and 
 helpless people. Giddings found the facts which 
 support his statements buried in the archives of the 
 government, and often disguised or perverted by the 
 officials who played their part in the shameful busi 
 ness; but through great labor and patience in ran 
 sacking the musty records, he compelled them to 
 yield up their secrets, which he exposed to the gaze 
 of the world in this book. No such indictment of 
 the slaveocracy had ever been framed, nor had the 
 nation ever been so solemnly arraigned before the 
 judgment-seat of history for its cold-blooded treach 
 ery to freedom and humanity. 
 
 In a notice of this work soon after its publication, 
 the "Atlantic Monthly" (then edited by James Rus 
 sell Lowell) said, 
 
 " It is full of pathetic and tragic interest, and melts and stirs 
 the heart at once with pity for the sufferers, and with anger, that 
 sins not, at their mean and ruthless oppressors. Every Ameri 
 can citizen should read it ; for it is an indictment which recites 
 crimes which have been committed in his name, perpetrated by 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G1D DINGS. 369 
 
 troops and officials in his service, and all done at his expense. 
 The whole nation is responsible at the bar of the world and be 
 fore the tribunal of posterity for these atrocities, devised by 
 members of its Cabinets and its Congress, directed by its Presi 
 dents, and executed by its armies and its courts/ 
 
 In a letter to the publishers the venerable Josiah 
 Quincy said of this work, 
 
 " It opens new and painful views of the sufferings of these 
 exiles, and casts a glorious light on their principles and persever 
 ance. It is a sad and humiliating fact that Americans men 
 boasting of their freedom, with the flag of our Union waving over 
 them, with liberty, law, and religion in their mouths were their 
 oppressors and persecutors. The work illustrates with great 
 power and unquestionable truth the inherent spirit of the slave 
 holder, his pride, his cupidity, his disregard of the rights of 
 nature, of the feelings of humanity, and the extinction of the 
 moral sense in every bosom in which the spirit of masterdom 
 predominates. It ought to enkindle in the Free States a feeling, 
 a will, and a resolve to relieve the Union of this incubus, which 
 depresses our hopes of the preservation of our free institutions, 
 disgraces our character, and while it brutalizes one portion of 
 our population, demoralizes and makes callous another." 
 
 The style of the book is admirable. The story is 
 told as simply and naturally as if the facts narrated 
 had been every-day occurrences ; and yet they are so 
 thrilling and tragic as to give the work the charm 
 of a romance. Giddings indulges in no exaggeration 
 or distortion, and uses none of the indignant rhet 
 oric which we find in his Congressional speeches. 
 Fie writes with elegant simplicity and perfect cool 
 ness, and the reader is thus left to form his own 
 opinions and find expression for his own emotions. 
 This enhances the effect of his statements. It was 
 a new and startling revelation of the cruelty and 
 rapacity of slavery and its lordship over the National 
 Government, while it created one of the great moral 
 currents which finally united in sweeping the curse 
 from the land ; and it earned for the writer the thanks 
 and praise of coming generations. 
 
 24 
 
3/0 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 We have seen that Giddings was in correspondence 
 with John Brown in 1856 respecting the troubles in 
 Kansas. Brown afterwards visited Jefferson, where 
 he addressed the people on the same subject, and was 
 assisted by Giddings in raising funds for his relief, 
 having lost all his property in Kansas by border-ruf 
 fian outrages, and being now poor. After the famous 
 raid into Virginia the champions of slavery and their 
 allies at once attempted to involve the Republican 
 party in the transaction. An election was pending 
 in New York and New Jersey, and members of the 
 Democratic party, believing that great odium would 
 attach to those who sympathized with Brown, charged 
 Giddings with having stimulated him to invade Vir 
 ginia and give freedom to her slaves. While wounded 
 and a prisoner, Brown was visited by Senator Mason 
 of Virginia and Hon. C. L. Vallandigham of Ohio, 
 who endeavored to draw from him facts that would 
 implicate Republicans. Their conversations with 
 him were published, and purported to involve Gid 
 dings. He at once replied in a card published in 
 Philadelphia, where he happened to be on business, 
 declaring that the murder of Brown s son in Kansas, 
 and the barbarities exercised there under Democratic 
 influence, had impelled Brown to make his raid into 
 Virginia. He also addressed an immense audience 
 in that city, frankly stating his acquaintance and rela 
 tions with Brown, and disavowing any knowledge of 
 his movement in Virginia till he heard of it through 
 the newspapers. In response to these statements an 
 advertisement appeared in the papers published at 
 Richmond, Virginia, offering a bounty of ten thou 
 sand dollars to any one who w.ould bring Giddings to 
 that city alive, or five thousand dollars for his head. 
 A committee of Democrats, who had been appointed 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 371 
 
 in New York to ascertain and report the facts con 
 cerning Brown s invasion, made a report asserting 
 in substance that John P. Hale, Gerrit Smith, and 
 Joshua R. Giddings were involved ; but on receiving 
 official notice that they would be called to account in 
 an action for libel, they acknowledged their error, 
 paid the costs and counsel fees, and legal proceedings 
 against them were discontinued. 
 
 Mr. Giddings left Congress a poor man. The 
 congressional salary during his long term of service 
 was much less than it is at present, and having a 
 large family, it was only by the strictest economy that 
 he was able to save anything from his earnings. The 
 methods by which members of Congress have grown 
 rich in later years were wholly unknown to him; and 
 as he was now too old to resume his professional 
 labors, he determined to enter the lecture field. He 
 prepared an address on the trial of John Quincy 
 Adams, and delivered it at various points during the 
 winter of 1859-1860. This brought him face to face 
 with multitudes of his friends and admirers, while it 
 gratified the long-established bent of his mind to 
 wards politics, and pleasantly occupied his thoughts 
 with the old familiar question. 
 
 As the time for another Presidential election ap 
 proached, Giddings critically watched the political 
 signs of the times. He saw and deplored the dis 
 position of a portion of the Republican leaders to 
 abandon the broad ground on which the party had 
 planted itself at Philadelphia in 1856. He was anx 
 ious, if possible, to check this evil tendency; and to 
 this end his friends made him a delegate to the Chi 
 cago Convention, which met on May 15, and nomi 
 nated Lincoln and Hamlin. He did not attend the 
 convention as the champion of any particular candi- 
 
3/2 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 date, but as the representative of the principles of the 
 party; and he so declared to his friends on reaching 
 Chicago. In the hope that he could do something 
 to prevent the threatened retreat from these princi 
 ples, he asked_the delegates from his State for a place 
 on the Committee on Resolutions; but the old con 
 servative Whigs in the delegation were strong enough 
 to prevent this. These men belonged to a faction 
 described by Giddings as still believing in the prin 
 ciples and policy of the Whig party, but who joined 
 the Republicans to avoid isolation from political life; 
 and they now wished to change the Republican creed 
 rather than admit that they had been wrong in their 
 past action. 
 
 When the platform was reported, Giddings listened 
 to its reading with anxiety and apprehension. In the 
 main it was an admirable declaration of principles, 
 clearly setting forth the practical issues of the can 
 vass which the course of events had produced ; but it 
 failed to re-affirm the self-evident truths of the Dec 
 laration of Independence, as embodied in the plat 
 form of 1856. Giddings obtained the floor and moved 
 to amend the first resolution by adding the omitted 
 words, making an earnest speech in support of his 
 motion. Hon. David K. Cartter of Ohio opposed the 
 amendment, declaring that it was " all gas " that had 
 been expended by his colleague on the amendment, 
 and that "we might as well insert the Golden Rule as 
 the Declaration of Independence." Mr. Eli Thayer, 
 delegated from Oregon, said that " many great truths 
 have been left out of the Declaration of Independ 
 ence. For one, I believe in the Ten Commandments, 
 but I do not desire to see them embodied in the plat 
 form." Mr. Oyler of Indiana said "it would be as 
 proper to put in the Bible, from the first chapter to 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 373 
 
 the last." No member of the convention came to 
 the support of Giddings, and in the general eager 
 ness for a vote, and the prevailing opinion that the 
 platform was substantially sufficient, the amendment 
 was voted down. Giddings was sorely disappointed, 
 and left the convention for his lodgings, followed by 
 sympathizing friends, who deplored this break in the 
 harmony of the proceedings, and urged him to return. 
 On his way out, George William Curtis, one of the 
 delegates from New York, and then a young man, 
 asked him where he was going, and he replied : " I 
 see that I am out of place here." In giving an 
 account of this affair afterwards, Mr. Curtis says: 
 " It seemed to me that the original impulse of the 
 party was leaving the convention in his person, and 
 I begged him to remain, saying that I would try the 
 amendment again." While the friends of Giddings 
 were persuading him to remain in the convention, 
 Curtis mounted upon his seat, and having caught the 
 eye of the president, moved to amend the second reso 
 lution by adding thereto the prelude to the Declaration 
 of Independence, being substantially the amend 
 ment which the convention had rejected. Mingled 
 applause and disapprobation followed, and Mr. Cart- 
 ter made the point of order that the convention had 
 already voted down the amendment, which was there 
 fore out of order. The president, George Ashmun 
 of Massachusetts, a conservative old Whig who 
 defended Webster s 7th of March speech, was evi 
 dently displeased with this motion, and promptly 
 sustained the point of order. Frank Blair of Mis 
 souri instantly rose to his feet, and so energetically 
 addressed the president that he was obliged to see 
 him. Blair urged the point that the amendment 
 offered by Mr. Curtis was to the second resolution 
 
3/4 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 of the platform, and therefore in order. The presi 
 dent reluctantly acknowledged this; and Mr. Curtis 
 was awarded the floor. He said, - 
 
 " I have to ask the convention whether they are prepared to go 
 upon the record before the country as voting down the Declara 
 tion of Independence ? I rise simply to ask gentlemen to think 
 well before, upon the free prairies of the West, in the summer of 
 1860, they dare to wince and quail before the assertions of the 
 men in Philadelphia in 1776, before they dare to shrink from 
 repeating the words that these great men enunciated." 
 
 This speech took the convention by storm, and 
 a scene of the wildest excitement followed. The 
 amendment was unanimously adopted, and Giddings 
 returned to his seat, while ten thousand voices 
 swelled into a roar so deafening that for several 
 minutes every effort to restore order was in vain. 
 It was a magnificent victory for the gifted young 
 orator and his venerable friend. In a recent letter, 
 Mr. Murat Halsted, who was present, says, - 
 
 " It was a great scene, and as I think of it every feature of it 
 comes vividly before me. I had very often seen Mr. Giddings 
 in Congress, but never saw him when his figure appeared so 
 stately and his snowy head so lofty as on this occasion; and 
 the play of emotions in his face, visible to the whole conven 
 tion, was as frank as a child s." 
 
 This was not merely a great personal triumph for 
 Giddings, and as gratifying to his hosts of friends as 
 to himself, but it was a triumph of courage over 
 timidity, of principle over policy. The cowardly 
 fear of abolitionism was rebuked. The trimmers 
 and time-servers in the party, who had for years la 
 bored so energetically and yet so stealthily to lower 
 the Republican standard, could not fail to see that 
 their rank in the grand army of freedom was hence 
 forward to be that of subordination, and not of 
 leadership. 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 375 
 
 The defeat of the Giddings amendment would have 
 been a deplorable blunder, and he was bravely right 
 in turning his back upon the convention. It would 
 have been a scheme of salvation by suicide. Gid 
 dings understood the timely significance of the prin 
 ciples of the Declaration of Independence. In his 
 earlier years he had sat at the feet of John Quincy 
 Adams, and caught the spirit of his solemn appeal 
 to the people at the Jubilee of the Constitution, in 
 1839. Said he, - 
 
 " Lay up these principles in your hearts and in your souls. 
 Bind them for signs upon your hands, that they may be as front 
 lets between your eyes. Teach them to your children, speaking 
 of them when sitting in your homes, when walking by the way, 
 when lying down, and when rising up. Write them upon the 
 doorplates of your houses and upon your gates. Cling to them 
 as to the issues of life ; adhere to them as to the cords of your 
 eternal salvation." 
 
 Mr. Lincoln was as religiously devoted to these 
 principles as were Adams and Giddings. In speak 
 ing of those who cavil at them as " glittering gen 
 eralities," he had declared in a published letter a 
 few months before that " they are the vanguards, the 
 sappers and miners, of returning despotism." "All 
 honor to Jefferson," said he, "to the man who, in 
 the concrete struggle for national independence by 
 a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and 
 capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary 
 document an abstract truth applicable to all men 
 and all times, and so to embalm it there that to-day 
 and in all coming days it shall be a rebuke and a 
 stumbling-block to the harbingers of reappearing 
 tyranny and despotism." Mr. Giddings was verily 
 right in declaring himself "out of place" in the con 
 vention when it refused to voice the words of Jeffer 
 son and the fathers in its declaration of fundamental 
 
376 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R GIDDINGS. 
 
 principles; and posterity will honor him for the hero 
 ism and unflinching fidelity which averted a deadly 
 peril. 
 
 Immediately after Mr. Lincoln s nomination Gid- 
 dings addressed to him a friendly note congratulating 
 him on his success, confidently predicting his tri 
 umph in November, and expressing himself with 
 much warmth as an old friend. To this Lincoln 
 made a brief and characteristic reply: 
 
 SPRINGFIELD, ILL., May 21, 1860. 
 Hon. J. R. GIDDINGS : 
 
 MY GOOD FRIEND, Your very kind and acceptable letter of 
 the 1 9th was duly handed me by Mr. Tuck. It is, indeed, most 
 grateful to my feelings that the responsible position assigned me 
 comes without conditions, save only such honorable ones as are 
 fairly implied. I am not wanting in the purpose, though I may 
 fail in the strength, to maintain my freedom from bad influences. 
 Your letter comes to my aid in this point most opportunely. May 
 the Almighty grant that the cause of truth, justice, and humanity 
 shall in no wise suffer at my hands ! Mrs. L. joins me in sincere 
 wishes for your health, happiness, and long life. 
 
 A. LINCOLN. 
 
 In this memorable canvass it was simply impossi 
 ble for Mr. Giddings to be idle or indifferent. Not 
 withstanding the precarious condition of his health, 
 he felt impelled to take the stump, and his labors 
 extended into different States. He was everywhere 
 greeted by large and enthusiastic audiences, and in 
 every direction he saw unmistakable signs of victory. 
 To him the campaign was a sort of jubilee, and he 
 probably enjoyed it more than any in which he had 
 ever participated. All the cherished principles for 
 which he had so long labored were now embodied in 
 the creed of a great party, which he had done as much 
 as any man in the Union to create and inspire; and 
 no man had a clearer title to its leadership and its 
 honors than himself. 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 377 
 
 Towards the close of this canvass Hon. Thomas 
 Ewing made a remarkable speech at Chillicothe, 
 Ohio, which invited the particular attention of Mr. 
 Giddings. Ewing was an old Whig, who had thus 
 far opposed the Republican party, and whose choice 
 for the Presidency was John Bell of Tennessee; but 
 as there was no hope of his election, and as Ewing 
 had satisfied himself that Lincoln would succeed, 
 he determined to support him, with the evident 
 purpose of influencing his Administration. At the 
 Chillicothe meeting he clearly defined his position 
 as a conservative and an inveterate hater of Repub 
 lican principles. He argued that the Republican 
 party arose out of the repeal of the Missouri Com 
 promise, and that when that compromise should be 
 restored, the mission of the party would be ended; 
 that in the present or early part of the coming year 
 its destiny would be fulfilled, unless it placed itself 
 on a basis of substantial national policy, while it 
 could not possibly sustain itself as a general anti- 
 slavery party; that it had fallen under the control of 
 "men of extreme opinions, Abolitionists, higher- 
 law and irrepressible-conflict men, all shades and 
 degrees," and could not hope to succeed without the 
 inspiration and guidance of the conservative Whig 
 masses; that the eighth resolution of the platform, 
 declaring that "the normal condition of all the 
 territory of the United States is that of freedom," 
 is not true in fact, and should not have been incor 
 porated; that the adoption of that portion of the 
 Declaration of Independence which embodies its 
 self-evident truths was not in "good taste," and that 
 it is only "true in the vague and general sense in 
 which it was used by the framers of the Declaration, 
 who were, three fourths of them, slaveholders," and 
 
378 THE LIFE OF JOSPIUA R. GI DOINGS. 
 
 that Mr. Lincoln, with his political training as an 
 old Whig, "from the first to the last, in his inaugural 
 address, in which words will be things, and in his 
 final message, will show himself the President of the 
 nation, and not of a section or a party." Ewing also 
 arraigned the Republican Legislature of Ohio for 
 its refusal to enact a law to prohibit the fitting out 
 of marauding expeditions against sister States, and 
 Governor Dennison for refusing to surrender fugi 
 tives from justice charged with offences not made 
 criminal by the laws of Ohio. 
 
 Mr. Ewing was a man of great ability, and had 
 been a power in the politics of Ohio in the days of 
 the Whig party. He was elected to a seat in the 
 United States Senate in 1830. He held the office 
 of Secretary of the Treasury in the Cabinet of Gen 
 eral Harrison, and that of Secretary of the Interior 
 under General Taylor. In his prime he was every 
 where recognized as one of the great party leaders of 
 his day. When such a man attempted to persuade 
 the Republican party to belie its principles and 
 record and commit the fortunes of the people to the 
 leadership of old Whigs, it was not to be expected 
 that Giddings would remain silent. It was for the 
 relegation of such men as Ewing to private life, and 
 for the inauguration of a new dispensation in the in 
 terest of the people, that the Republican party had 
 been formed; and there was something strikingly akin 
 to effrontery in this effort of an incorrigible political 
 Bourbon to restore a dead party to life and to per 
 suade a live one to commit suicide. Although Gid 
 dings could not fail to see that this speech was aimed 
 at just such men as himself, he did not find time to 
 notice it till early in November, when he addressed 
 Mr. Ewing a public letter in reply. This letter is 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 379 
 
 not without a certain historic value as an exposition 
 of the Republican creed and a sign of Republican 
 progress, while it shows the skill of the writer in the 
 way of argument and retort. It also illustrates the 
 amazing diversity of opinion which prevailed among 
 those who united in the election of the first Repub 
 lican President. It is as follows: 
 
 SIR, I have read your speech delivered at Chillicothe with 
 interest. That interest was excited from the circumstance that it 
 was made after you became satisfied that Mr. Lincoln would be 
 elected ; the whole speech also showing it was not made to pro 
 mote his election, but to guide his action and the action of his 
 Administration after he should come into power. I was also 
 aware that other gentlemen who have united with us, probably 
 for similar reasons, are endeavoring to bring influences to bear 
 upon the President-elect that would lead him to disregard the 
 doctrine on which he has been elected, in order to re-establish the 
 old Whig party, and be guided by the counsels of men who have 
 long since been weighed in the balance and found wanting. For 
 this purpose we are informed by the public Press that a member 
 of one of the past Executive Cabinets visited Mr. Lincoln before 
 he was elected, and then assured his friends at Washington that 
 the incoming Executive would enforce the Fugitive Slave Law, 
 which the people of the Free States hold in contempt. Repub 
 licans who have labored for ten, fifteen, or twenty years, spent 
 their fortunes to establish the principles of that party, have given 
 existence, power, and energy to the organization that has elected 
 Mr. Lincoln, quietly confide in the pledge he has given the 
 country to support the platform on which all have agreed to 
 stand. Those doctrines are clearly expressed and well under 
 stood, and it were an insult to ask him to violate them ; no 
 honorable man will do it. 
 
 There is but one real issue between the Republican party and 
 those factions who stand opposed to it. That is the question of 
 slavery. There is really no other issue formed. The Republi 
 cans are pledged to exert the constitutional powers of govern 
 ment in favor of liberty against oppression and slavery wherever 
 it holds exclusive jurisdiction ; and if they exert those powers to 
 sustain slavery or the slave-trade, at any time or in any place, 
 they will bring upon themselves the same displeasure of the 
 people that the Whig, the Democratic, and the Bell-Everett 
 parties have brought upon their organizations. 
 
380 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 Now, sir, I do not doubt your patriotic intentions when you 
 advise the incoming Administration to adopt the policy and 
 follow the example of the Whig party ; but I cannot forget the 
 fact that you have assisted to inaugurate two Whig Administra 
 tions, you being a member of the Cabinet in each instance; 
 that these Cabinets dissolved, and the party substantially dis 
 banded, before the close of the first session of Congress that 
 assembled under them. I cannot suppose these signal failures 
 will very strongly commend your policy to Mr. Lincoln or to 
 any Republican. Indeed, every intelligent man must be aware 
 that subserviency to the slave-power, which you recommend, has 
 destroyed all former factions; while manly resistance to that 
 power, and steady adherence to the doctrines of the Declaration 
 of Independence and of the Constitution, has given the Repub 
 licans influence, and control of the national government. If we 
 fail to profit by example, if we disregard the lessons of history, 
 if we remain stupid in spite of experience, our Republican or 
 ganization must also fail at no distant day. 
 
 But, sir, I desire to correct you in regard to historical facts. 
 You say, " The Republican party arose out of the repeal of the 
 Missouri Compromise." If this assertion pass into history as 
 true, it will place on Mr. Douglas responsibilities which you 
 ought to share with him. The repeal of the Missouri Com 
 promise was but an incident in the progress of the slave-power, 
 which by a series of despotic acts extending through many years, 
 gave rise to the Republican party, and doomed the other parties 
 to premature graves. You and I certainly ought to understand 
 the circumstances out of which the Republican party arose. 
 
 The winter of 1841 found Mr. Adams and myself struggling 
 in the House of Representatives against gag-rules and in favor 
 of the right of petition and the freedom of debate. We had 
 labored for the election of Mr. Harrison, were zealous Whigs, 
 expecting that the President-elect and his Cabinet, of which you 
 were one, would lend their influence to maintain the constitu 
 tional right of petition and free debate. After due consultation, 
 I prepared a speech upon the Florida War, by which I intended 
 to expose the despotism of slavery and of the gag-rules. It was 
 delivered on the 9th of February, A. D. 1841, about the time of 
 the President s arrival, as well as yours, in the city of Wash 
 ington. In that speech I shadowed forth the doctrine that Con 
 gress possessed no constitutional power to involve the people of 
 the Free States in a war for the recovery of fugitive slaves ; that 
 our Federal Government had no authority to maintain or abolish 
 slavery in the States. It excited much indignation with slave- 
 holding members, one of whom publicly insulted me at the time. 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 381 
 
 He was soon appointed to a foreign mission, and at the end of 
 four years retired with a fortune, although he had not even voted 
 for General Harrison ; while I, having labored zealously for that 
 object, received from the Executive unmistakable evidence of his 
 displeasure. And as you intimate what you think Mr. Lincoln s 
 inaugural address will contain, you may perhaps recollect that 
 General Harrison s inaugural, as it was originally prepared, con 
 tained a paragraph severely condemning those who in Congress 
 were agitating the subject of slavery, and that this offensive 
 paragraph was stricken out at the suggestion of Mr. Clay, to 
 whom the address was submitted. I do not know that you were 
 conversant with this fact; though I then supposed you were, and 
 still presume you must have been consulted in regard to it. I 
 speak upon the authority of one whose name shall be given you 
 if desired. To Mr. Adams, more than to any other man, are we 
 indebted for the reiteration of our Republican doctrines; but you 
 and the country are aware that the practical application of those 
 doctrines as the basis of political organization was put forth by 
 the humble individual who now addresses you. It was the sur 
 render of the Whig party to the slave-power during the Twenty- 
 seventh Congress, and the efforts of a Whig President to involve 
 our nation in the crime and disgrace of supporting an execrable 
 commerce in human flesh, that induced me to present to the con 
 sideration of the House of Representatives a series of resolutions 
 denying the authority of the Federal Government to involve our 
 nation in a war to support the coastwise slave-trade. These 
 resolutions embodied the essential doctrines on which the Re 
 publican party is now based. For thus expressing my own con 
 victions, for this assertion of the rights of the Free States, I was 
 arraigned, censured, and driven from my seat in the House of 
 Representatives by a vote of 125 to 69, that body having a 
 Whig majority of twenty members, and acting under an Admin 
 istration which you had assisted to inaugurate, and which you 
 now hold up as an example worthy to be followed by Republi 
 cans. I believe the country will award to both you and myself 
 the merit or demerit of adhering to our doctrines and policy. I 
 continue to maintain the duty and policy of separating the Fed 
 eral Government from the support of slavery, and leaving that 
 institution entirely with the several States. On this point I stood 
 entirely alone in that body for some years, Mr. Adams refusing 
 to admit that the Federal Government might not, under some 
 circumstances, abolish slavery in the States. 
 
 When you were again selected as a Cabinet officer for the 
 purpose of inaugurating a second and last Whig Administration, 
 you found me still in the House of Representatives, associated 
 
382 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 with seven as good and true men as ever served the cause of 
 freedom. We were united upon the doctrines which now con 
 stitute the basis of the Republican party. You continued to 
 maintain the Whig policy, under which that party disbanded and 
 forever disappeared from the theatre of political power. I and 
 my friends continued to maintain these doctrines; you retired to 
 private life. The advocates of liberty increased in number and 
 influence until, at Philadelphia in 1856, a convention of as high 
 moral character as any that ever convened on this continent 
 assembled. I penned the second resolution of that platform, 
 which asserts the rights of all men to life, liberty, and happi 
 ness ; that the primal object and ulterior design of our Federal 
 Government was to protect all persons under its exclusive juris 
 diction in the enjoyment of their rights. These fundamental prin 
 ciples were reasserted by the Chicago Convention. You say such 
 insertion was in " bad taste." I deny your criticism. You say 
 these doctrines are true " in a vague and general sense." I do 
 not understand " vague " truths. Our fathers called those " self- 
 evident " which you term "vague." You fear to admit, but dare 
 not deny them. This timidity is not consistent with that indeli 
 cacy which prompts you, uninvited, to thrust your opinions upon 
 a party to which you have ever been, and still are, opposed. 
 
 When you hold up to the Republicans the humbug of " disso 
 lution," you detract from the dignity of your own manhood ; 
 none but cowards, none but unvirile minions of the slave-power, 
 will be alarmed at it. 
 
 In assailing the Legislature and people of our State, you as 
 sume a self-importance, you evince an arrogance, seldom united 
 with great moral worth. You censure Governor Dennison for 
 adhering to a practice that has been followed by Executives of 
 both Slave and Free States for more than thirty years ; and in a 
 note contained in a pamphlet edition of your speech you half 
 apologize, saying the heresy had its origin ten years since, when 
 you were engaged in official duties, and did not notice it. You 
 next read a lecture to the people of our State for not electing a 
 judge whose opinions they disliked, while you always approved 
 them ; and then condemn the Legislature of our State for not 
 passing a law to protect slavery, by prohibiting the organizing of 
 a military force in Ohio for the purpose of invading other States. 
 No such organization has ever occurred in our State, nor have 
 our people ever invaded any other State. But while our State 
 has been often invaded by armed forces from other States, while 
 innocent men have been barbarously shot down upon our soil, 
 our citizens driven by armed force from other States, and free 
 men, born under our laws, have been kidnapped and carried to 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 383 
 
 slavery, you do not ask protection for them. But the electors 
 of our State have responded to your attacks in language more 
 emphatic than I can use. 
 
 You speak sneeringly of " irrepressible-conflict men," of 
 " extreme opinions," of " Abolitionists," of " higher-law men." 
 Epithets are not arguments. They are adapted to minds that 
 revolve in a certain sphere of thought, but are seldom uttered by 
 statesmen or philosophers. You, however, are understood as 
 referring to men who are your peers, to men whose states 
 manship, whose integrity, will not suffer by a comparison with 
 yours ; to men who will not shrink from the judgment of the 
 present or coming generation. I, sir, believe in that "higher 
 law " of the Creator which holds the sun in mid-heavens, guides 
 the planets in their courses, gives action to your throbbing heart 
 and heaving lungs, which inspires you with a love of life, a thirst 
 for happiness, a consciousness that liberty is yours, impresses 
 you to acquire knowledge, and removes you to another sphere at 
 the close of this life. You sneer at these doctrines; a cold 
 atheism pervades your speech. In it there is no recognition of 
 right, of enduring principle, of God, his attributes or laws. You 
 evidently hold that human governments possess the same power 
 to legislate for the murder of innocent men and women which 
 they have to protect human life, the same power to enslave men 
 which they have to protect liberty. Republicans hold with the 
 fathers that governments are instituted to secure the enjoyment 
 of life and liberty ; that the murder or enslavement of the hum 
 blest of the human family is not merely unjust, but criminal j 
 that all enactments by Congress, authorizing or proposing to 
 authorize one man to hold another in bondage, to flog him, rob 
 him of his labor, his wife, his children, his intelligence, his man 
 hood, are not only despotic, but barbarous, and in direct violation 
 of that clause in our Federal Constitution which declares that 
 " no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without 
 due process of law," that is, without trial before a court of 
 competent jurisdiction, by a jury of his peers. 
 
 For the establishment and maintenance of these views I have 
 labored long and steadily. You have labored long and just as 
 steadily to oppose them. We have lived to see an overwhelm 
 ing expression of the American people in their favor. They 
 have elected a President pledged to their support. Will he 
 redeem that pledge ? I believe he will. Time will solve the 
 problem. 
 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 J. R. GlDDINGS. 
 
 JEFFERSON, O., Nov. 7, 1860. 
 
384 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G1DDINGS. 
 
 Giddings now ventured upon a new task. Soon 
 after his retirement, Senator Wilson of Massachusetts 
 advised him to write a history of the anti-slavery con 
 flict in Congress. He urged him to do this, as did 
 other influential friends, on account of his peculiar 
 qualifications for the work, and the demand for it as 
 an important contribution to the history of the coun 
 try. Giddings had thought of undertaking it before; 
 and notwithstanding his age and declining health, he 
 now entered upon the task, devoting such time to it 
 as he could .spare during the winter of 1860-1861. 
 During this period, however, he closely watched the 
 course of events in Washington, and strongly con 
 demned the compromising policy of the Republican 
 leaders near the close of the Thirty-sixth Congress. 
 
 In the spring Mr. Lincoln tendered him the posi 
 tion of Consul-General to Canada, which he accepted. 
 This was not a laborious position, and it afforded 
 him the leisure he desired for the prosecution of his 
 History. He was now in a foreign country, but he 
 did not forget his own, nor the great question which 
 had so long occupied his thoughts. This will appear 
 in the following letter, dated Montreal, April 2 : 
 
 DEAR SUMNER, I write for advice. Some two years since 
 I wrote D. Appleton & Co. that Benton had grossly perverted 
 facts touching the slave question in the "Abridgment of Con 
 gressional Debates," which they were publishing. In reply they 
 assured me that the error should be avoided in their further vol 
 umes. I have just examined the four last volumes published, 
 and never was there more gross injustice perpetrated in any 
 standard work than has been done in this towards Mr. Adams 
 and all those statesmen who from 1840 to 1850 maintained the 
 doctrines of the Republican party. 
 
 Now, sir, what becomes your duty and mine in this matter? 
 Are we bound to expose facts, to make them known to the world ? 
 I have written Messrs. Appleton, complaining of this garbling of 
 the historic record, and giving examples. But what say you ? Pray 
 advise me. . . . Very sincerely, J. R. GIDDINGS. 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 385 
 
 To this Mr. Sumner replied on the 28th of April : 
 
 MY DEAR CONSUL-GENERAL, On my return to Boston after 
 a long detention in Washington, I found your favor of April 2d. 
 
 I have not examined the " Abridgment of Debates," but am not 
 surprised at what you say. You will remember it was made in 
 great haste, and I suppose it may be said with truth that Colonel 
 Benton, with all his great merits, had no real sympathy with the 
 anti-slavery cause, certainly in those early struggles where you 
 and Mr. Adams bore a conspicuous part. 
 
 But surely you are right in making your protest against the 
 injustice done. To render this effective, there should be a proper 
 statement, drawn up by yourself, the living witness of the truth, 
 which the publishers ought to print and bind with the volumes in 
 question. 
 
 From your distant retreat I doubt not that you watch the 
 great events of to-day with intense interest. Only a short time 
 ago it seemed as if there must be a separation ; but this generous 
 and mighty uprising of the North seems to menace defeat to the 
 rebels, and the extinction of slavery in blood. How does it look 
 to you ? 
 
 I hope you are enjoying your new position ; but I cannot 
 reconcile myself to your not being at Washington. Good-by. 
 Ever sincerely yours, 
 
 CHARLES SUMNER. 
 
 Giddings answered thus on the 3Oth : 
 
 DEAR SUMNER, Thanks for your kind advice. I wrote a 
 communication to the Appletons, stating the general injustice 
 done to those who were early engaged in the anti-slavery cause, 
 and then gave two of the most striking instances as examples, 
 and was about to mail it when I began to entertain doubts, and 
 concluded to write you for advice. 
 
 I have an intense anxiety now to be at Washington. Never 
 was my desire to be there so strong as at this time. But you 
 know I am always hopeful, and never were the political heavens 
 more bright or auspicious. The first gun fired at Fort Sumter 
 rang out the death-knell of slavery. But the promptness, the 
 unity and zeal of the people of our Free States must excite the 
 admiration of all nations ; and should we come out of the contest 
 without stain upon our honor, our government will in future be 
 regarded as more permanent and efficient than ever before. 
 
 All honor to Massachusetts ! She has borne herself worthy 
 of her ancient fame. The iQth of April should be remembered 
 and observed by her people as the day of her proudest achieve 
 ment. . . . With great respect, 
 
 J. R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 25 
 
386 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 These letters show that while Giddings was abroad, 
 his heart was constantly at home. We read between 
 the lines how intense must have been his longing to 
 be among his fellow-citizens in the struggle that was 
 then stirring the nation to its depths, and which was 
 the outcome of the great conflict to which he had 
 devoted his public life. There were probably mo 
 ments when his life in Montreal seemed to him a 
 cruel exile; but his prevailing hopefulness and philo 
 sophic temper reconciled him to the situation. The 
 work of his office occupied a portion of his time, and 
 during the remainder he continued his labors upon 
 his History. The question of reciprocity with Canada 
 was then an exciting one, and it naturally led to a cor 
 respondence with Mr. Sumner, then Chairman of the 
 Committee on Foreign Relations in the Senate. On 
 the 7th of April, 1862, Giddings wrote, - 
 
 DEAR SUMNER, I notice there appears to be much hos 
 tility to our reciprocity treaty in the House of Representatives. 
 I think it unfounded. Our former treaties with England admitted 
 us to the British markets ; upon the same terms as the most fa 
 vored nations." The reciprocity gave to us and to the people of 
 Canada mutual extension of our fishing privileges. It gave us 
 the privilege of navigating the canals of Canada, the British of 
 Lake Michigan, and then exempted certain articles named in the 
 schedule from duty when taken from Canada to the United States, 
 or from the States to Canada. 
 
 There was no attempt to change the duty on any goods ; 
 those made free were the only subjects of negotiation. But 
 it is objected that the Canadian Government raised three or 
 four times as much revenue from dutiable goods imported from 
 the United States the year after this treaty went into operation, 
 as they had previously done in the same length of time, that is, 
 we exported to Canada more goods on which duties were paid 
 than ever before. But how the increase of our exports of duti 
 able goods should operate against the treaty is not so obvious. 
 The treaty, however, could have had no other effect than that 
 which naturally arose from more unrestricted commercial rela 
 tions of the two Governments, and that must be certainly favor 
 able to the treaty. 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 387 
 
 But an objection still more extraordinary, if possible, is raised 
 against the treaty. It is said that by a proper construction the 
 articles enumerated in this schedule are not only admitted to the 
 States free of duty, but after they are in the United States can 
 not be subjected to direct taxation, tolls, or assessments, to which 
 the same articles of American growth are subjected. How such 
 a forced construction can be given to the treaty is incompre 
 hensible to me. I have made inquiry of the members of the 
 Board of Trade, of the president of that association, and of com 
 mercial men here, all of whom say they never heard nor thought 
 of such a construction. The anthracite coal of Pennsylvania and 
 the bituminous coal of Ohio are now used to some extent in Que 
 bec, to a much greater extent here, and perhaps I may say, ex 
 tensively in Canada West ; but I cannot find that any man ever 
 supposed that this coal was not subject to all local assessments, 
 taxes, and license that Canadian productions are subjected to. 
 
 But, as we are informed, coal has been exempted from direct 
 taxation in the States for the reason that the article imported 
 from Halifax and New Brunswick cannot be taxed under the 
 treaty ; and if our own coal were taxed it would give foreign coal 
 a preference in the market. This exemption of the coal from 
 Pennsylvania and Ohio is not only wrong, but is most important. 
 In my opinion a proper tax on that article would increase the 
 revenue $50,000,000 annually. Flour, furs, and some other arti 
 cles are said to be exempt from duty on the same grounds. I am 
 sure you will look to the matter and see that no errors of the 
 kind are committed by the Senate. 
 
 Thanks, a thousand thanks, for the abolition of slavery in the 
 District of Columbia ! Thanks also for sending the President s 
 views in regard to emancipation in the States. 
 Very faithfully, 
 
 J. R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 Among his correspondence a characteristic letter 
 was found from Horace Greeley, dated June 29, 1862, 
 relating to the speech of Lord Palmerston in the 
 British Parliament on General Butler s famous mili 
 tary order concerning the rebel women of New Or 
 leans. This was one of the darkest periods of the 
 war, and Mr. Greeley, as will be seen, shared with 
 many others the most gloomy apprehensions : 
 
 MY DEAR MR. GIDDINGS, I wrote an expose of Palmer- 
 ston s malignity the very night we received the news of it, and 
 
388 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 published it next morning. The old scoundrel knows better, and 
 it would be folly to waste explanation on him. But it is idle to 
 hope for justice from the British governing classes. They are 
 bent on our destruction, and imbecility and lack of earnestness 
 here will enable them to attain their end. We are going to ruin. 
 McClellan is certainly a fool, probably a traitor, and Halleck is 
 no better. We are doomed. 
 
 Yours, sadly, HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 During this year the utterances of Mr. Seward 
 touching the management of our foreign affairs were 
 much criticised by the more radical members of the 
 Republican party. On December i, Giddings wrote 
 to Sumner, 
 
 " I am dissatisfied with Seward s view of the French mediation. 
 Is it possible that he intends saving the institution of slavery ? 
 Pray let me know. The British Government and Press and 
 people are rapidly coming round to our position, and our ex 
 ample in this important crisis is to have an immense influence 
 on the nations of the earth. 
 
 " What does the political horoscope indicate to you ? " 
 
 On July 26, 1863, Mr. Sumner wrote, 
 
 MY DEAR GIDDINGS, I am anxious about your health. 
 Pray, how are you ? Let me know by a word from yourself 
 that you are well. You must live to see slavery die, as die it 
 will very soon. God bless you, who have done so much good 
 work to prepare and guide our country ! 
 
 Ever sincerely yours, 
 
 CHARLES SUMNER. 
 
 To this, Giddings replied on the 3Oth, - 
 
 MY DEAR SUMNER, Thanks for your kind wishes ! Be as 
 sured I am not unhappy. My regrets are that I am unable to 
 do more in the cause on which the labors of my life have been 
 bestowed. 
 
 My constitution is giving way under these repeated attacks of 
 atrophy, two of which came upon me before leaving Congress. 
 The fifth was on the ist of June, at Montreal. It was the most 
 severe. From it I shall not probably recover. For a while, both 
 mental and physical powers were suspended. Slowly but gradu 
 ally have I improved. My memory is yet imperfect, and you 
 would think the decrepitude of age had suddenly befallen me, 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 389 
 
 were you to see me. My physicians say the next will probably 
 be final. I am sure it must disqualify me for usefulness, and am 
 therefore not unwilling that the prophecy may prove true. Judg 
 ing from the best data that I have, I think it probable that I may 
 remain some months, possibly a year. But while I continue, my 
 hopes, my anxious prayer, will be for the destruction of oppres 
 sion and crime from our country and the world. 
 
 I flatter myself that the extensive enlistment of soldiers from 
 the colored population is the beginning of the end. It will elevate 
 the negro, teach him the value of freedom and the only mode of 
 defending it ; and my readings of the book of future events assure 
 me that, as soon as the death of slavery shall take place, the 
 nation s life will commence. 
 
 From the British Government we have nothing to hope, except 
 a fear of war, which must prove disastrous to them. The feeling 
 of hostility which existed among the aristocracy at the close of 
 the Revolution has long been suppressed and silent, but to-day is 
 the same, only more intensified. The anti-slavery and laboring 
 portion of the British people are very decidedly with us ; and if 
 our diplomatic relations be properly managed, Great Britain will 
 never again be involved in a war with the United States. 
 
 On looking over the whole field I am to-day as confident and 
 hopeful as at any former time. I fully believe our nation will 
 come out of this conflict the freest and purest government of 
 earth. In life and in death, 
 
 Your friend, JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 Although Giddings was now fully conscious of his 
 failing faculties, and though his physician told him 
 that the next attack of atrophy would be the last, he 
 maintained his usual cheerfulness, as is shown in the 
 following extract from a letter to his wife of the 3ist 
 of May : 
 
 " You and the family and friends should prepare your minds 
 for the separation which must come, and you should not be 
 surprised to hear that I have taken my departure at any time. 
 It is a matter of gratitude that I have lived so long, that I 
 have enjoyed life so much, that the future looks so pleasant, 
 that my hopes are so buoyant. Let me say that so far as I am 
 myself concerned, I would not even ask delay. I live not for 
 myself, conscious that the sooner I depart, the sooner shall I 
 leave the infirmities which now beset me, the sooner shall I be 
 free from the evils which surround me, the sooner shall I meet 
 with dear friends from whom I have long been separated." 
 
390 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 On the 1 5th of September he wrote from Jefferson : 
 
 DEAR SUMNER, I have just received your lecture at Cooper 
 Institute. That production excites in my heart the deepest grati 
 tude and the highest pleasure. When John Quincy Adams, our 
 venerated friend, lay upon what he supposed his death-bed, or, 
 to use his own expressive language, when he was " on the verge 
 of eternity," I was sitting by him. His mind was absorbed in 
 the subject of reforming the government, when, looking me full 
 in the face, he said, " I have more hope from you than from any 
 other man." 
 
 Feeling myself unworthy of the high compliment, I have 
 never repeated the language till now, for the first and the last 
 time. I say, " I have more hope from you than from any other 
 man." With the highest respect, 
 
 Your friend, JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 On October 9 following he wrote, - 
 
 MY DEAR SUMNER, I am anxious to see whether Earl 
 Russell has attempted to answer your argument, or merely to 
 avoid an answer by declamation. I judge that he has taken the 
 same line of defence that his supporters have done, that they 
 did all they could under their "Foreign Enlistment Act," a 
 matter of which we know nothing and care less. But I have 
 never been able to make a real Englishman understand that we 
 were not bound by their enlistment law. They cannot compre 
 hend that we are only authorized to judge the nation and Gov 
 ernment by its acts, or that a ship leaving an English port must 
 be regarded as an English ship until registered under some other 
 Government; that the " Alabama," having sailed from an English 
 port, where she was built, is regarded as English until she enters 
 some port of some other Government, and by sale is transferred 
 and registered under such Government, thereby becoming identi 
 fied with such other nation. But I am anxious to see the cor 
 respondence between Mr. Adams and Lord John. 
 
 I am glad to assure you that events are fast tending to the 
 separation of these provinces from the mother-country. I have 
 never been in favor of the annexation of the Canadas, but as a 
 philanthropist I have long entertained the opinion that the inde 
 pendence of these provinces would serve to develop their own 
 statesmen and promote the happiness of the people both of the 
 mother-country and of the provinces. The change of opinion 
 here has been most marked during the last six months. I intend 
 placing a pamphlet copy of your Cooper Institute speech in the 
 hands of the principal members of the Canadian Parliament. 
 
 Ever truly your friend, JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 391 
 
 In addition to his regular consular duties, Giddings 
 also devoted a portion of each day to the completion 
 of his book, which he entitled a "History of the Re 
 bellion: its Authors and Causes." He was most anx 
 ious to live long enough to finish it. In reference to 
 this book he had written to his daughter Laura early 
 in the year, - 
 
 " My mission has been performed ; and when I shall have 
 placed the story on paper and can see it in print, I shall feel 
 that my work has been accomplished. I therefore devote my 
 time and energies to that object, and intend to continue until it 
 is finished. I shall then leave my vindication to posterity, though 
 I think I have already been vindicated pretty well." 
 
 On the 1 5th of May, 1864, he was able to write to 
 his wife: "I have employed a clerk. I think it best 
 for my health to be rather indolent, and take the world 
 easy. Since finishing my book I am quite a man of 
 leisure." The book was then in the hands of his 
 publishers, and it fortunately happened that the 
 proof-sheets reached him on the day of his death, 
 so that he was able to give them a hasty exami 
 nation. It is mainly devoted to the Congressional 
 debates on the slavery question and an exposition 
 of the action of the Government relative thereto. It 
 is not so much a history as a contribution to history, 
 and as such it will be found valuable. Its compila 
 tion was a work of much labor and detail, and it is 
 to be regretted that owing to his failing memory and 
 the lack of a careful revision, occasional inaccuracies 
 are to be found in the matter of dates and names. 
 The work is in the public libraries of the country. 
 
 Our Reciprocity Treaty with Canada continued to 
 be an exciting topic during the progress of the Civil 
 War. Giddings recurred to it in a letter to Sumner, 
 dated February 8, while on a visit to his home: 
 
392 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 
 
 MY DEAR SENATOR, While in Washington I was told that 
 the Colonial Secretary had transmitted to the Treasury Depart 
 ment certain statistics (not yet published) touching the Reci 
 procity Treaty. Of these statistics I cannot of course judge, not 
 having seen them ; but I shall not make my report on the subject 
 until I can obtain the proper statistics. 
 
 But there are prominent facts, of which you and I are con 
 scious. For instance, coal must constitute a large item of export 
 to the Canadas. Most of this coal is of the anthracite kind, 
 which gives out no smoke by which a steamer can be discovered 
 at a great distance. Large quantities of this coal, on reaching 
 Montreal or Quebec, are shipped to Nassau, and then sold to 
 blockade-runners, to enable them to enter rebel ports with arms, 
 ammunition, and clothing for the use of the rebels. One house 
 in the city of Montreal furnished four hundred tons of this coal 
 to a steamer bound to Nassau in September last, while she car 
 ried bituminous coal for her own use. This is but one case ; yet 
 I doubt not that the people of the United States were injured by 
 this one cargo of coal more than they have been benefited by 
 the whole of our Canadian commerce for the last year. 
 
 Another item. Wheat must form one of the principal articles 
 of export. This is furnished by Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illi 
 nois, and Wisconsin, and is to some extent beneficial to those 
 States. But the wheat is manufactured into flour mostly in 
 Canada, while our own millers might as well enjoy the benefits 
 of that process ; and it is transported to Europe in British bot 
 toms, while our own shipowners ought to have the benefit of 
 transportation, and this is done while the British pirates are 
 driving our commerce from the ocean. Thus is almost the whole 
 of our Canadian commerce benefiting our enemies and actually 
 injuring ourselves. Very truly, 
 
 JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 His interest in the question of reciprocity seems 
 never to have been intermitted. He resumed its 
 discussion in the following letter, dated Montreal, 
 April 5, in which the subject of annexation is also 
 referred to : 
 
 DEAR SUMNER, The Canadas have no minister to represent 
 them at Washington. Lord Lyons does not and cannot know 
 their wants. If he did, he would be bound to act against them. 
 
 On reaching this city I at once found myself under more in 
 teresting circumstances than I expected. The feeling in favor 
 of continuing the Reciprocity Treaty is far more intense than I 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 393 
 
 expected. The new Ministry expects to retain power by continu 
 ing or renewing it. They are from the high Tory party, and are 
 most bitter opponents, but are ready to bow low enough to obtain 
 their objects. 
 
 I presume that you fully appreciate the object which as philan 
 thropists and statesmen we have in view. Indeed, there would 
 be the same propriety in a son s adhering to his father for counsel 
 and direction at the age of forty that there is in Canada s looking 
 to Great Britain for a governor and for advice. They are now 
 constrained to look to us for favors. They are conscious of this 
 fact, but have no idea that the more dependent they are on us, 
 the sooner they must separate from England. But this I may 
 not say to them. I therefore think we should cherish every mea 
 sure which identifies their prosperity with ours. . . . That policy 
 (annexation) is now openly talked of by business men, who de 
 clare they must have the favor of the United States, even if it be 
 obtained by annexation. Such remarks two years ago would 
 have been regarded as treasonable. But to-day if an end were 
 put to the Reciprocity Treaty the whole business population of 
 Canada here and west of this city would vote for annexation. I 
 speak from what I see and hear and learn from others ; but it 
 were safe to say that such is the tendency of the business popu 
 lation. And we are now thrown into the position that in doing 
 good to the people of Canada we are constrained to assume a 
 position of firmness, and an apparent determination to deal out 
 to them retributive justice. 
 
 I entertain no doubt as to the ability of your report on the Reci 
 procity Treaty ; but I know you will excuse me for saying that 
 I greatly desire that in it you will not be too delicately inclined. 
 There are no statesmen in Canada, and never will be under her 
 present position. They think the thoughts of England, and when 
 Earl Russell takes snuff, they sneeze. I hope you will in your 
 report presume that the provinces will seek their best interest, de 
 velop their own resources, protect their own labor, and elevate 
 their own people. For they now live, move, and have their being 
 for the benefit of Her Majesty and her minister. But I think it 
 also prudent to say that Canada can and must do this for herself, 
 without relying on the United States or any other power. This is 
 one of the difficulties which we have to meet. They have an 
 idea that we want them to be annexed to the United States. / 
 do not think that best for them or for us. Independence of 
 thoiight, of action, of policy, is the first step which I wish to see 
 Canada take. I believe it better for them, for England, for us, 
 that Canada should govern herself. I speak very freely to you, 
 for it seems necessary that Canada should act on this subject, 
 
394 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 and indeed the Executive cannot act upon it, except secretly. I 
 shall, however, communicate unofficially to the Department of 
 State more fully. Very truly, 
 
 J. R. GlDDINGS. 
 
 During the spring of this year the letters of Mr. 
 Giddings to different members of his family and to 
 personal friends all breathe the most kindly and 
 cheerful spirit, but they indicate the gradual weak 
 ening of his powers and the near approach of the 
 end. On the 22d of May he wrote to his son: 
 
 " I find that I no longer possess that firmness and determina 
 tion of purpose which once characterized my action. I am also 
 well aware that when I give up business I shall die soon ; yet I 
 cannot find energy enough to withstand these infirmities. I write 
 to say that you had better make your calculations to come here 
 at a moment s notice and close up business. I hope I may con 
 tinue here for the present quarter, but it is not certain that I 
 shall remain a week. Indeed, if I continue in as much pain as I 
 now suffer, I shall leave in less than a week." 
 
 His physician, Dr. Ross, became alarmed about 
 him on May 21. Said he, - 
 
 " On that day Mr. Giddings sent for me about eight in the 
 evening, and told me he felt that the end was rapidly approach 
 ing, and that he had written several letters, which he wished me 
 to keep in my possession until his death, and that he was con 
 vinced it was close at hand. I did all I could to encourage him 
 and rally him from his despondency. I left him about twelve, in 
 seemingly better spirits. On Sunday and Monday he appeared 
 to improve under the treatment I prescribed for him. On Wed 
 nesday he began to write an essay on private claims (at the urgent 
 request of the Secretary of the Treasury) to the Hon. Mr. Wash- 
 burne, of the House of Congress. After he had finished he wished 
 me to read it to him; and what struck me very forcibly was that 
 in several places he remarked that he felt convinced that his 
 death was close at hand. He seemed to be fully impressed with 
 the fact of his near departure. He often said to me that he had 
 not the least fear of death, and was prepared for the change when 
 it should come. He said he wished to die in harness, like his 
 old friend John Quincy Adams." 
 
 On the evening of Friday, the 2/th, he joined some 
 friends at a game of billiards. This was his favorite 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 395 
 
 mode of exercise, and, indeed, the only available one, 
 in view of his growing infirmities and heavy frame. 
 He had played one game, and while engaged in an 
 other, in good spirits, he was suddenly prostrated by 
 another attack of heart trouble, and died in about 
 eight minutes, at a little after ten o clock. His 
 elder daughter was with him, and arrangements were 
 at once made for taking his remains to Jefferson. 
 The newspapers of Montreal, in noticing the event, 
 eulogized the character of Mr. Giddings and sketched 
 his public career. A meeting of the most respectable 
 and influential citizens of Montreal was held in Me 
 chanics Hall, presided over by the Mayor of the 
 city, at which appropriate resolutions were adopted, 
 expressive of their respect for the memory of Mr. 
 Giddings, and tendering to his family their sincere 
 sympathy. Similar resolutions were adopted by the 
 New England Society of Montreal, while the Press 
 of the Northern States, with remarkable unanimity, 
 gave eloquent expression to the gratitude and love 
 of the people for the veteran anti-slavery leader and 
 champion of free speech in Congress. 
 
 His remains reached Ashtabula on Sunday after 
 noon, the 29th of May, where a large concourse of 
 people were in waiting. A procession was formed, 
 and proceeded to Jefferson the same evening. The 
 funeral was on Monday, at one o clock, when a brief 
 discourse was delivered by the Rev. Mr. Conklin, of 
 the Congregational Church; but owing to the unex 
 pected detention of his daughter Laura and her hus 
 band on their journey from Washington, the burial 
 did not occur till seven o clock in the evening, just as 
 the sun was sinking in the west. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 Personal Traits. Devotion to Family. Friendships. Fondness for 
 Athletic Sports. Religious Principles. Political Foresight. 
 Moral Earnestness. Practical Qualities as a Reformer. His 
 Place in History. 
 
 THE story of the public life of Mr. Giddings, 
 which I have endeavored to tell in the fore 
 going chapters, has afforded some glimpses of his 
 private life and personal traits. These, however, 
 demand a more particular notice in concluding my 
 task. 
 
 The strong language so frequently found in his 
 anti-slavery speeches led many to regard him as harsh 
 and turbulent in his temper. This was a total mis 
 conception of his character. It was contradicted by 
 the tones of his voice and the benignity of his face. 
 His nature was singularly tender. His denunci 
 ations of slavery were severe, because his sense of 
 justice was keen and his hatred of every form of 
 oppression intense; but he was wholly free from 
 malignity, and above the meanness of hating his 
 fellow-men. The struggles and conflicts which gen 
 erally impart a certain sadness and sternness to the 
 character could not sour his temper or cloud the 
 sunshine of his inborn kindliness. He was remark 
 able for the uniform buoyancy of his spirits, and his 
 mind continued young in his old age. His cheerful- 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS. 397 
 
 ness was perennial. During the last months of his 
 life, when his physician told him that the end was 
 probable at any moment, he looked death in the face 
 with serenity, and steadily prosecuted his daily task. 
 His constitutional hopefulness has been referred to 
 in previous chapters. It reinforced the courage and 
 strength he needed in the great work of his life. His 
 faith in the omnipotence of justice was absolute. He 
 never despaired for a moment, even in the darkest 
 days of the anti-slavery struggle, when others fal 
 tered or fell. He believed in God, and was filled 
 with the enthusiasm of humanity. 
 
 His love of home was a passion, and his devotion 
 to his family perfect. The burdens and cares of his 
 public life were constantly aggravated by the neces 
 sity which compelled him to live apart from the 
 household of his love. This is abundantly revealed 
 in his correspondence with his family. In a letter 
 to his wife in 1856 he says, 
 
 " I want to be at home. I want to cheer you and the chil 
 dren, to make you all happy, and render the pathway of life pleas 
 ant and beautiful, so that in future we may not only meet the 
 loved ones who have gone before us, but that we may all there 
 constitute a family circle, where parting and gloom shall be no 
 more." 
 
 His letters to different members of his family 
 breathe the same spirit. They show a loneliness 
 and longing for home which bordered on heart-sick 
 ness. In his correspondence with his younger chil 
 dren and his grandchildren, he took time from his 
 other duties to print the letters in Roman text, in 
 order that they might read them. The most trifling 
 matters connected with the family interested him, 
 not excepting his favorite Newfoundland dog, Rover, 
 that had been taught to carry groceries and the mail 
 for the family. In his letters from Canada he fre- 
 
398 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 quently inquired about the dog and his deportment, 
 and was kept duly informed in regard to him. When 
 he was at home Rover always went with him to the 
 village church, and sometimes added his dissonant 
 howl to the music of the organ, for which he was 
 promptly but quietly reproved. 
 
 Gidclings was deeply interested in the political 
 training of his boys, and in 1844, when the country 
 was agitated by the question of the annexation of 
 Texas, he wrote to one of them, 
 
 " Let me beseech you not to play the craven. Although you 
 are a boy, if you are ever at another public meeting where no one 
 dares to speak of liberty and in contempt of slavery, speak your 
 self, with firmness, and with perfect sincerity and calmness." 
 
 He kept his family well informed of his part in the 
 debates of the House, and found evident pleasure in 
 reporting his successes, but was always careful to 
 guard them against any apprehension of trouble on 
 his account. When he had his encounter with Black 
 of Georgia in 1845, he promptly wrote his son a de 
 tailed account of it, concluding, 
 
 " Now, I suppose there will be all sorts of stories, as usual, 
 and perhaps your mother may be alarmed ; but you can assure 
 her that I view the matter coolly, and that there is, in fact, no 
 danger whatever. Do not let her know anything of it, unless it 
 reaches her by the papers." 
 
 Nearly allied to the qualities I have named were 
 his friendships. Nothing could have been more 
 honorable to him than his relations to Adams and 
 Sumner. His love for them was as perfect as ever 
 existed between men, and it was fully reciprocated. 
 His friendship for Hon. John A. Bingham of Ohio 
 was equally admirable. They served together in 
 Congress for years, and usually occupied the same 
 quarters. Bingham was a most genial companion, 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 399 
 
 a fascinating speaker, a lover of poetry, and an ex 
 tensive reader of books. The tones of his voice, 
 which were winning, became musical when he ad 
 dressed "Father Giddings." He loved him as de 
 votedly as any son could love his own father; and 
 no one could witness the amenities of their inter 
 course without thinking better of his kind. 
 
 Giddings was remarkably fond of athletic sports, 
 his favorite game being base-ball; and nothing but 
 physical inability led him to discontinue it. The 
 summer adjournment of Congress was always the 
 signal at Jefferson for the opening of the base-ball 
 season, and the ground was generally ready by the 
 time he reached home. The first afternoon was sure 
 to open the season. The game was then played with 
 a soft ball, which was thrown at the player while on 
 the run. Being left-handed, Giddings usually took 
 the boys at a disadvantage, as they could not calculate 
 upon his motions, and the ball often came where it 
 was not looked for. He used to play with perfect 
 abandon, and it was hard to tell which was the most 
 boyish, he or those with whom he played, who gen 
 erally ranged from fifteen to twenty-five, "without 
 distinction as to race, color, or previous condition of 
 servitude." When the game was over, he was the 
 representative of his district till the next afternoon, 
 when the Congressman again gave way to one of the 
 nine. The habits of Mr. Giddings were almost Arca 
 dian in this relation. He was also a great shot, and 
 when there was game in the country, was no ordinary 
 hunter. He was very fond of music. He purchased 
 the first piano that came to Jefferson, and frequently 
 joined his family in singing favorite selections. 
 
 Giddings had his religious training in the school 
 of New England Congregationalism. For more than 
 
400 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 
 
 forty years he was a member of the Congregational 
 Church; but as his zeal in the cause of freedom in 
 creased, and the indifference or hostility of nearly all 
 religous denominations to the anti-slavery movement 
 became more and more pronounced, his views re 
 specting creeds and sectarian agencies were modified. 
 He was not less religious, but his faith in ecclesias 
 tical machinery was seriously impaired. In a letter 
 to the "Anti-slavery Standard," published in 1857, 
 he thus presents his views: 
 
 " The Reformers struck at some of the prominent errors of the 
 Church both in faith and practice, but they advanced no funda 
 mental truths on which all men claiming Christianity must agree. 
 The Reformers themselves held to the divine right of kings to 
 bear civil rule over their fellow-men, to establish privileges for 
 one class and impose heavy burdens on others ; that the Church 
 held the same rule over the conscience and the faith of mankind. 
 They were intolerant, persecuted those who disagreed with them. 
 Calvin himself advised, nay, caused, the burning of Servetus for 
 uttering the honest sentiments of his own heart. No one then 
 dared avow the right of all men to think for themselves, to decide 
 upon their own form of faith, to proclaim the equal rights of all 
 men to civil, religious, and spiritual freedom. Luther s ninety- 
 five propositions were aimed at the sale of indulgences under 
 the papal rule. Those propositions are of little interest to the 
 present age. Calvin s five points of theology are far less inter 
 esting to the present generation than are the practical duties of 
 doing; unto others as we would have them do unto ^ts. The Re 
 formers of that age sought to control the thoughts, to guide the 
 faith, of mankind by metaphysical theories and abstract dogmas 
 but little understood by the people or divines. Hence the great 
 number of sects of the present age, each holding to some doc 
 trine, some article of faith, which distinguishes it from others. 
 Yet all reflecting Christians now hold that the great object of 
 human existence is the instruction, the elevation, the unfolding 
 of each and every moral being, preparing him or her for useful 
 ness here and for enjoyment here and hereafter, in just such 
 degree as the moral faculties are developed." 
 
 After stating his well-known views respecting the 
 equal rights of all men as derived from their Creator 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. G ID DINGS, 401 
 
 and the duty of the Government to protect them, ho 
 says, 
 
 " I think the time has arrived when some modern Luther or 
 Calvin should erect the standard of a higher, a purer theology, 
 a theology in harmony with the laws of justice, of God ; a the 
 ology in harmony with the teachings of the gospel ; a theology 
 approved by the philosophy, the judgment, of enlightened men ; 
 a theology that acknowledges and proclaims the primal truths 
 that life, that civil, religious, and spiritual freedom are the gifts 
 of God; that every member of the human family has received 
 from the Creator an equal and inalienable right to enjoy them ; 
 that such enjoyment is necessary to develop the intellect, ele 
 vate the soul, and prepare the individual for usefulness, for 
 happiness here and hereafter ; that every attempt to limit the 
 sphere of human thought, or to hold the mind or the body of one 
 man in subjection to the views or the will of another, or to pre 
 vent the enlargement of the immortal mind, or the full and perfect 
 development of any human soul, constitutes a crime with which, 
 by the laws of Nature and of Nature s God, the appropriate pen 
 alty is inseparably connected, while every act in harmony with 
 those laws necessarily elevates the individual and prepares him 
 for higher attainments. 
 
 " For the protection of these rights and the encouragement of 
 these duties all governments and associations should be adapted. 
 Of all the nations of the earth ours is the most favorably situated 
 for carrying forward this great reformation. Our government 
 was founded upon these truths, and most of our people believe 
 them. The reformation has commenced, is in rapid progress. 
 In all parts of the country men are awaking to the necessity of 
 a more practical theology. The open and undisguised infidelity 
 recently avowed in the Presbyterian General Assembly, that 
 there is no such thing as eternal right and wrong, has awak 
 ened the most thoughtless. Men see that mere theories, bald 
 forms of sectarian faith, are impotent and useless. Our old or 
 ganizations are becoming inert, inefficient, worn out. Men long 
 to lay them aside, to disconnect themselves from these theoreti 
 cal technicalities, which retard the union of hearts upon those 
 great and vital truths which elevate mankind. Many of our min 
 isters have caught the inspiration of these truths. They are giv 
 ing utterance to the solemn convictions of their own judgment, 
 unfettered by sectarian prejudices. The sea of human thought, 
 which has remained quiet for a hundred and fifty years, is 
 troubled. Its waters, nearly stagnant from long repose, are now 
 ploughed by many keels. Discussion is stirring its deep founda- 
 
 26 
 
402 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 tions. The billows of agitation are rolling, and I trust the storm 
 will continue until false theories and infidelity, the love of oppres 
 sion, of tyranny, violence, polygamy, and slavery, shall be over 
 whelmed, and their broken wrecks cast upon the sterile coast of 
 political and religious conservatism." 
 
 These extracts not only show the theological change 
 of front of Mr. Giddings, as the result of his labors 
 for the slave, but the general trend of thought among 
 intelligent anti-slavery men. William Lloyd Garri 
 son, Gerrit Smith, Beriah Green, and other anti-sla 
 very leaders turned away from the Puritan doctrines 
 in which they had been bred, when they found them 
 proclaimed by churches and hierarchies which took 
 the side of the oppressor. They were theologically 
 reconstructed through their unselfish devotion to hu 
 manity and the recreancy of the churches to which 
 they had been attached. They were less Orthodox, 
 but more Christian. Their faith in the fatherhood 
 of God and the brotherhood of man became a living 
 principle, and compelled them to reject all dogmas 
 which stood in its way. The venerable Dr. Furness, 
 of Philadelphia, is credited with saying that the anti- 
 slavery struggle in this country taught him more about 
 the essential nature of the Gospel than he had learned 
 in any other way. " It was felt to be something more 
 than the attempt to apply the beatitudes and parables 
 to a flagrant case of inhumanity, it was regarded as 
 a new interpretation ot religion, a fresh declaration of 
 the meaning of the Gospel, a living sign of the purely 
 human character of a divine faith, an education in 
 brotherly love and sacrifice. " l It solemnized the mar 
 riage of ethics and religion, which thus became one. 
 
 In a letter to his wife, dated March 14, 1856, 
 Mr. Giddings touchingly reveals the triumph of his 
 humanity over the creed of his church : 
 
 1 Frothingham s Recollections and Impressions, p. 49. 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 403 
 
 " I am alone in my room. Bingham has gone home. I feel 
 lonely. The House has adjourned over to Monday. I have 
 labored hard, and almost brought up my correspondence. In my 
 easy-chair I have thought back to the days of our youth, our 
 early acquaintance, our more solemn association, our parents; 
 the time when, in the innocence of youth and the ignorance of 
 that day, we attended church and listened to sermons that uttered 
 now would cause any hearer to recoil from them. What an age, 
 and what a people ! Yet all were sincere and honest ; but oh, 
 what thoughts of God, of heaven, of the relation between us 
 and the Creator of the universe ! Ah, pains and bitter regrets 
 attended every thought of death, which now appears so comely 
 and beautiful. What terrible thoughts of the danger of eternal 
 fires ! Who ean paint the emotions I felt when I wept at the 
 grave of a beloved sister, who was mild and lovely and virtuous 
 and beautiful ? What ideas then passed through my mind ! " 
 
 These words voice the experience of many an ear 
 nest man and woman. In laboring for the emancipa 
 tion of the slave, Giddings emancipated himself from 
 the bondage of sectarian theology, and realized that 
 Christianity does not consist in creeds or forms, but 
 in uprightness of life and devotion to human welfare. 
 
 Giddings was gifted with unusual political fore 
 sight. He was a close student of facts, and knew 
 h ^w to penetrate their meaning. In dealing with 
 the tactics of the slave-masters the truth of this 
 statement was frequently illustrated. He mastered 
 the philosophy of their movements. In a speech 
 in the House of Representatives on July 14, 1846, 
 he said, 
 
 " We have seen the leading policy of the nation changed as 
 often as the views of Southern men have altered. At the bidding 
 of the slave-power we have fostered banks, and at the dictation of 
 the same influence we have discarded and opposed them. When 
 bidden by the potent voice of the South, we have imposed heavy 
 duties upon imported manufactures in order to encourage do 
 mestic labor ; and then again, under the same guidance, has our 
 policy been changed so as to approximate free-trade. In short, 
 sir, for fifty years we have constantly shifted our sails upon the 
 ship of state in order to catch the changing Southern breeze." 
 
404 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 It was in the light of these facts that he made his 
 notable speech on the Oregon question. In referring 
 to President Polk and his Cabinet, he said, - 
 
 " With the same degree of confidence that I have in my own 
 existence, I declare that they will, before the nation and the 
 world, back out from their avowed policy, and will surrender up 
 all that portion of Oregon north of the forty-ninth parallel of 
 latitude." 
 
 For this utterance he was ridiculed by some and 
 denounced by others; but he was right. He knew 
 that a war with England would threaten the life of 
 slavery, and that the Democratic party would be 
 compelled by the South to retreat from its position. 
 
 Again, on May 21, 1844, he warned the country 
 that the annexation of Texas would result in the 
 repeal of the tariff of 1842. He told the Democrats 
 of Pennsylvania, who were deluded into the support 
 of Polk, that "our tariff would be held at the will of 
 Texan advocates of free trade." This statement was 
 verified on July 2, 1846, when the tariff of 1842 was 
 repealed by a vote of one majority in the Senate, 
 both the Senators from Texas voting in the affirma 
 tive. Giddings claimed no gift of prophecy, but 
 reasoned from the fact that slavery ruled the gov 
 ernment, and would take counsel only of its own 
 interest. 
 
 His foresight was also shown in his judgment of 
 Winthrop, in December, 1847. In that judgment, 
 as we have seen, he stood almost alone, and by it he 
 invoked the relentless hostility of the party with 
 which he had acted up to that time ; but his forecast 
 of Winthrop s action and his estimate of the latter s 
 character were perfectly justified by facts. He took 
 the true measure of the man, and saw clearly that 
 while his party trusted him, Winthrop was not strong 
 enough to face the emergency in which he was placed. 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GTDDINGS. 405 
 
 Still another illustration may be cited. In a speech 
 in the House of Representatives nine years before 
 Lincoln issued his Proclamation of Emancipation, 
 Giddings uttered words which now seem prophetic. 
 The champions of slavery then desired a war with 
 Spain for the acquisition of Cuba and the more 
 complete ascendency of their power over the gov 
 ernment. Giddings reminded them that in such a 
 struggle the enemy would strike at our weakest 
 point, and might "bring the war into this American 
 Africa, and rear the standard of freedom on our own 
 soil." He warned them that in such a contest the war 
 power of the government could interpose for the lib 
 eration of every slave in the Union. Said he, - 
 
 " When that contest shall come ; when the thunder shall roll 
 and the lightnings flash ; when the slaves of the South shall rise 
 in the spirit of freedom, actuated by the soul-stirring emotion 
 that they are men, destined to immortality, entitled to the rights 
 which God bestowed upon them ; when the masters shall turn 
 pale and tremble ; when their dwellings shall smoke, and dismay 
 sit on each countenance, then, sir, I do not say we shall laugh at 
 your calamity and mock when your fear cometh, but I do say, 
 the lovers of our race will then stand forth and exert the legiti 
 mate powers of this government of freedom. We shall then 
 have constitutional power to act for the good of our country, and 
 to do justice to the slave. WE WILL THEN STRIKE OFF THE 
 SHACKLES FROM HIS LIMBS. The Government will then have 
 power to act between slavery and freedom ; and it can best make 
 peace by giving liberty to the slaves. And let me tell you, Mr. 
 Speaker, that time hastens / the President is exerting a power that 
 will hurry it on ; and I shall hail it as the approaching dawn of 
 that millennium which I know must come upon the earth." 
 
 These illustrations could readily be multiplied, and 
 they show how his devotion to a great cause anointed 
 his vision and made him a discerner of the signs of 
 the times. 
 
 But the dominating fact in the life of Giddings was 
 his moral earnestness. He was by no means wanting 
 
406 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 in other qualities which his anti-slavery leadership 
 demanded. He had an abundance of pluck, perti 
 nacity, and courage. He had readiness, prudence, 
 vigilance, and self-possession. He had audacity 
 when the occasion demanded it, and contempt for 
 base personal assaults. But his earnestness was the 
 master-key to his character, and the real source of 
 his power. It inspired and invigorated all his facul 
 ties. The people saw that he had dedicated his life 
 to the service of the truth, and therefore they trusted 
 and followed him. They saw that he possessed the 
 absolute courage of his convictions. He could say 
 with Sumner, " The slave of principles, I call no party 
 master," and he illustrated this by his solitary vote 
 against a resolution of thanks to General Taylor for 
 his services in the Mexican War. He defied all men 
 aces, and spurned all suggestions of compromise. He 
 faced political and social ostracism and personal vio 
 lence without flinching. When Slade of Vermont 
 and Gates of New York left Congress, and Adams 
 was bending under the weight of years and infirmi 
 ties, Giddings was obliged to bear the brunt of the 
 unequal struggle, and he did it with an undaunted 
 spirit. Whether standing alone or supported by 
 allies, he never wearied in his warfare against sla 
 very, nor lost an opportunity to smite it. When 
 others faltered he pressed forward. He had a ge 
 nius for persistency, and never relaxed his purpose 
 to keep the great conflict at the front, whether it 
 related to the horrors of the Florida War, the sup 
 pression of the freedom of debate, the demand of 
 payment for slaves, the support of the internal slave- 
 trade, the abolition of the traffic in the District of 
 Columbia, or conspiracies for the extension of sla 
 very. All obstacles yielded to his rare singleness of 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 407 
 
 purpose. This was the secret of his power, and it 
 entitles him to the foremost place in history among 
 all the famous leaders of the anti-slavery cause in 
 Congress. 
 
 The lesson of such a life is invaluable. He was 
 wholly wanting in genius. He was deficient in im 
 agination and the graces of rhetoric. There are pas 
 sages in his speeches which rise to the height of 
 eloquence, but as a rule they are merely the compact 
 statements of a man of strong convictions and com 
 mon-sense, whose ruling purpose was to impress 
 others with his opinions, and whose profound ear 
 nestness made him indifferent to literary art. He 
 was always bravely himself. He was well aware 
 that his whole life had been handicapped by the 
 trials and privations of his earlier years, while his 
 native diffidence and love of peace would have lured 
 him into the walks of private life; but his warfare 
 with slavery was the travail of his soul, and he prose 
 cuted it with unfaltering faith and unquenchable 
 zeal. He could not do otherwise. It was sufficient 
 for him that his conscience commanded him, and he 
 succeeded by the strength of a great moral purpose 
 which found an answering throb in the hearts of the 
 people, and at last made him their prophet. 
 
 But the zeal of Giddings in the anti-slavery conflict 
 was not without knowledge. No man was more clear 
 sighted respecting methods of action. He was emi 
 nently practical. His desire to serve the cause made 
 him all the more anxious to find the most direct and 
 effective way of doing it. When he first entered 
 Congress he devoted himself to the mastery of the 
 parliamentary manual. He knew the inestimable 
 value of this knowledge, and how potent it had been 
 in the practised hands of Southern members in secur- 
 
408 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 ing the advantage over representatives from the Free 
 States, who were generally retained in their places 
 for a brief term only, and succeeded by men equally 
 inexperienced. His continuance in Congress con 
 stantly added to his parliamentary resources, while 
 no man in either House was so thoroughly equipped 
 on the question of slavery. These were great advan 
 tages. They gave him confidence in himself, and 
 commanded the respect of his fellow-members. In 
 debating his favorite question he was perfectly at 
 home, and was never disconcerted by questions. He 
 invited them, and nothing pleased him better than 
 the attempts of Southern members to badger him. 
 They were always the losers in these encounters, 
 as the Congressional Records will show; and this 
 gradually led them to decline such ventures, and 
 sometimes, as we have seen, to play the blackguard 
 and the bully. The power of such a leader, reso 
 lutely exerted through many years, and combining 
 perfect devotion to his cause with great ability to 
 defend it, cannot be computed. 
 
 Giddings was not less practical and sensible in 
 dealing with the relations of slavery to the Federal 
 Government. He was not diverted from his work by 
 any far-fetched constitutional theory, or any political 
 vagaries, but always took counsel of his common- 
 sense. In the matters of taxation, representation, 
 and the return of fugitive slaves, the Federal Con 
 stitution involved the people of the Free States in 
 the guilt of upholding slavery. Giddings made no 
 denial of this, and admitted that the obvious remedy 
 for it was an amendment of the Constitution; but 
 this was wholly unattainable, as shown by Mr. Adams 
 and himself in their masterly report on the subject 
 in 1844. Equally futile was the hope of meeting the 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 409 
 
 difficulty by the remedy of disunion. The people 
 loved the Union more than they hated slavery, and 
 could not be rallied under any revolutionary banner; 
 moreover, the dissolution of the Union would leave 
 the slave in his chains. The power of slavery had 
 to be wrestled with by some other method, while the 
 people of the Free States could only escape their 
 complicity with the evil by leaving the country. 
 Giddings did not feel called upon to do this, but 
 believed it to be the duty of all good citizens to lay 
 hold of such powers as they possessed in reforming 
 the administration of the government. He therefore 
 favored a plan of operations under the Constitution, 
 and in strict conformity with its provisions. 
 
 When he entered Congress, in 1838, the people of 
 the South, with great unanimity, avowed the prin 
 ciple that slavery was a State institution, with which 
 the Federal Government had no rightful authority 
 to intermeddle either to support or abolish it. As 
 shown in a previous chapter, he proposed to hold the 
 South to the logical consequences of this position. 
 If slavery borrowed its life from State law, and could 
 only exist within State boundaries, its existence in 
 the District of Columbia was national slavery, and 
 therefore forbidden by the Constitution; for Mary 
 land and Virginia had relinquished their rights in 
 the territory comprising this district by ceding it to 
 the General Government. The same principle ap 
 plied to the Act of Congress authorizing and regu 
 lating the coastwise slave-trade in vessels sailing 
 under the national flag. It was legislation for the 
 support of slavery, and therefore unwarranted by the 
 Constitution. So all compensation for the loss of 
 slaves captured by the enemy in a foreign war, or 
 made free by landing on British soil, was likewise 
 
410 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 forbidden. The spread of slavery over our national 
 Territories and the admission of new slaveholding 
 States were of course unconstitutional, as finally 
 declared in the resolution drafted by Giddings and 
 incorporated into the Republican platform of 1856. 
 In other words, while all the compromises of the 
 Constitution were to be faithfully observed, the Fed 
 eral Government, in all other respects, was bound to 
 see to it that no man outside of the Slave States, and 
 under its exclusive jurisdiction, should be deprived 
 of life, liberty, or property without due process of 
 law. Slavery was to have its pound of flesh, but not 
 one drop of blood. 
 
 Such was the fundamental principle which was to 
 be the starting point of organized political action 
 against slavery ; and the measure of its scope; and 
 "to Giddings," says Von Hoist, "more than to any 
 other person belongs the credit of having, with full 
 consciousness, made it the constitutional basis of his 
 entire warfare against the slaveocracy, and of having 
 applied it with a consistency never before attained to 
 all questions to which it was pertinent." On this 
 principle the v Free-Soil party of 1848 planted itself, 
 as did the Republican party eight years afterwards. 
 On the lines indicated by this principle the political 
 battle with slavery was to be fought, and Giddings 
 foresaw the victory of the Free States, and that it 
 would be final and decisive. He saw clearly that 
 slavery could only maintain its ascendency and pro 
 long its life by usurpation, as it had done in the past ; 
 and that without infringing any of its constitutional 
 rights, and by strictly constitutional methods, this 
 usurpation could be arrested and the curse driven 
 into the last ditch. Time has amply vindicated his 
 sagacity; and if any man can justly be singled out 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 41 I 
 
 as the father of the Republican party, it is he. If his 
 anti-slavery policy had been espoused by the people of 
 the Northern States in season, the peaceful abolition 
 of slavery would have been possible ; and to him must 
 be accorded the honor of having prosecuted this policy 
 with such unflinching pertinacity and tireless zeal that 
 the contagion of his example brought the people to his 
 support before the absolute supremacy of slavery had 
 been established on the ruins of the Constitution. 
 
 The great moral leaders of the anti-slavery struggle 
 did their work outside of politics. They played their 
 grand part in creating an anti-slavery public opinion, 
 and to this extent they reinforced the work of legisla 
 tion. But this was not enough. An anti-slavery pub 
 lic opinion could not execute itself. It needed some 
 available method of action; and the lack of this was 
 the great stumbling-block in the way of anti-slavery 
 effort. The old question, "What has the North to 
 do with slavery ? " had to be answered ; and the answer 
 of Giddings inevitably made the conflict a political 
 one. In the very nature of things it had to be fought 
 out in Congress. It was here, indeed, that the work 
 of moral agitation itself was largely carried on. " One 
 good Congressman," said James G. Birney, "can do 
 more for the cause than a hundred lecturers. He has 
 almost daily occasion for agitation, and he speaks to 
 the whole people. We can reach the South through 
 no other means. The slaveholders gain their advan 
 tages in national politics and legislation, and should 
 be met in every movement they make." 
 
 It was absolutely necessary thus to meet them. It 
 was in Congress that the project was conceived and 
 finally matured of transforming the government into 
 a slave-owning and slave-trading oligarchy. It was 
 here that cowardly and compromising statesmen of 
 
412 THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 
 
 the Free States, during a period of more than forty 
 years, surrendered the rights of free men at the bid 
 ding of their Southern overseers. It was here that 
 Giddings and his faithful allies sounded the cry of 
 danger in the ears of the nation, and made the Con 
 gressional debates the vehicle of anti-slavery truth in 
 every section of the Union, and the seed-plot of a 
 constantly growing anti-slavery opinion. And it was 
 here that the slave-masters were at last overborne. It 
 is true that anti-slavery action in Congress was half 
 hearted, reluctant, and compromising. No man saw 
 this more clearly than Giddings, or labored more val 
 iantly or effectively to inspire it with courage. It is 
 also true that slavery perished by the madness of its 
 champions in attempting to save its life by the de 
 struction of the Union; but this madness was itself 
 provoked by the victory of the Free States on the 
 issue of " Freedom national, slavery sectional," which 
 rang the knell of its ascendency and foreshadowed 
 its doom. If political action was to be condemned 
 on the score of its tardiness and inefficiency, the 
 moral warfare against slavery could be assailed on 
 the same ground. This victory was won in spite of 
 the halting and reactionary element in the Republi 
 can party, and by it freedom made a very narrow 
 escape; for if slavery had triumphed, its domination 
 over the government would have been prolonged 
 through indefinite years, if not permanently estab 
 lished. It is in the light of these facts that the 
 labors of Giddings in Congress must be estimated. 
 
 The time has not yet come to write the final his 
 tory of slavery in the United States. When we 
 shall be farther from the thrilling events of the 
 great struggle for its overthrow, and the passions 
 and prejudices which it engendered shall have died 
 
THE LIFE OF JOSHUA R. GID DINGS. 413 
 
 away, the story will be told, and justice will be done 
 to all. The chief actors in the world-famous move 
 ment will be assigned to their true positions; and 
 whether they shall be judged by their fidelity to a 
 great cause in the face of all dangers and tempta 
 tions, or by the results of their labors in hastening 
 the final consummation of their grand purpose, the 
 rank of Giddings will be second to none. It will 
 amply justify the prophetic lines of James Russell 
 Lowell, written fifty years ago: 
 
 "Giddings, far rougher names than thine have grown 
 
 Smoother than honey on the lips of men 
 And thou shalt aye be honorably known, 
 
 As one who bravely used his tongue and pen, 
 As best befits a freeman, even for those 
 
 To whom our Law s unblushing front denies 
 A right to plead against the life-long woes 
 
 Which are the negro s glimpse of freedom s skies. 
 Fear nothing and hope all things, as the right 
 
 Alone may do securely; every hour 
 The thrones of ignorance and ancient Night 
 
 Lose somewhat of their long-usurped power, 
 And freedom s lightest word can make them shiver 
 With a base dread that clings to them forever." 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 PACIFICUS: 
 
 THE RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES OF THE SEVERAL 
 STATES IN REGARD TO SLAVERY. 
 
 BEING A SERIES OF ESSAYS PUBLISHED IN "THE WESTERN RESERVE 
 CHRONICLE " (OHIO), AFTER THE ELECTION OF 1842. 
 
 BY A WHIG OF OHIO. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 To THE EDITOR OF THE CHRONICLE, 
 
 THE election is past, and our opponents have triumphed. 
 They are now charged with the responsibility of adminis 
 tering our State government. This being the case, we may ex 
 pect the election of a Senator to Congress who will vote to repeal 
 the tariff and to abandon the protection of the free labor of 
 the North. We must expect the election of such a man as will 
 exert his influence against our harbor improvements and a com 
 pletion of the Cumberland road, and who will oppose the dis 
 tribution of the proceeds of the public lands. We must look 
 for the election of a man who will vote for the annexation of 
 Texas to this Union, and who will lend his influence generally 
 to the slaveholding interests. The State will be so districted 
 as to elect the greatest possible number of representatives in 
 Congress who will sustain the same policy, and who will vote 
 for John C. Calhoun to the office of President in 1844, should 
 the election devolve upon the House of Representatives. 
 
 Had the friends of Northern rights united their political 
 efforts at the recent election, these consequences would have 
 been avoided ; but we were divided, and of course were 
 
41 6 APPENDIX. 
 
 conquered. Crimination and recrimination will not extricate 
 us from the difficulties into which our unhappy divisions have 
 precipitated us. Future triumph can only be secured by 
 future union ; we should, therefore, profit by experience. 
 Let us search out the rock on which we have split, that we 
 may avoid it hereafter. If there be any political or moral 
 principle involved in the controversy, let us understand what 
 it is. Let it be developed and placed before the people, that 
 we may all distinctly understand it. In order to do this, it is 
 the intention of the writer to enter into an examination of 
 this subject. He will endeavor to do so with such plainness 
 and sincerity as the subject demands ; no false delicacy shall 
 deter him from a full, fair, and candid expression of truth, 
 nor shall feelings of excitement induce him to use terms or 
 epithets that may offend the sincere inquirer after truth, 
 whether he lives in a Free or Slave State, or belongs to the 
 Whig, the Democratic, or the Liberty party. 
 
 In order to be distinctly understood, your readers may 
 expect an examination of the subject in the following 
 order : 
 
 1. He will inquire into the rights and privileges of the 
 several States in regard to slavery. 
 
 2. The encroachments upon these rights, of which the anti- 
 slavery men complain. 
 
 3. The remedy which I think all will agree should be 
 adopted. 
 
 The whole will occupy several columns of your paper, and 
 will be furnished as the writer finds leisure to communicate 
 with your readers. 
 
 PACIFICUS. 
 
 November I, 1842. 
 
 NUMBER I. 
 
 RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES OF THE SEVERAL STATES 
 CONCERNING SLAVERY. 
 
 MR. EDITOR, For the purpose of fixing in the mind a 
 definite idea of our rights and privileges respecting slavery it 
 becomes necessary to look back to the time of forming the 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 417 
 
 Constitution. At that period the spirit of universal liberty 
 pervaded the minds of our people generally, particularly those 
 of New England and the Northern States. The sages and 
 patriots of 1776 had put forth the undying truth that man is 
 born free, as a self-evident fact. In obedience to this declar 
 ation, Massachusetts, ever forward in the cause of liberty, by 
 a similar assertion of the rights of man had stricken the 
 shackles from every slave within her territories. The soil of 
 Vermont had never been contaminated with the footsteps of a 
 slave. Pennsylvania, and indeed nearly all of the Northern 
 States, had commenced a system of gradual emancipation. 
 The delegates from the North carried with them a strong pre 
 disposition in favor of universal liberty. While in convention 
 they spoke of slavery with deep abhorrence and the most 
 irreconcilable hatred. Not so with the Southern States. 
 They regarded slavery as necessary to their prosperity. They 
 refused to enter into the constitutional compact upon any 
 terms that would subject that institution to the control of the 
 General Government. Up to this period each State had acted, 
 in regard to slavery, according to the dictates of its own will. 
 Each, for itself, held supreme, indisputable, and uncontrolled 
 jurisdiction over that institution within its own limits. This 
 entire power was reserved to itself by each State, and no 
 portion of it was delegated to the General Government ; and 
 to place the subject in such plain and palpable light that it 
 should never be questioned or disputed, Article 10 of the 
 Amendments was subsequently adopted, by which it was 
 declared that the powers not delegated by the Constitution 
 were reserved to the several States. It is therefore plain that 
 the General Government has now no more power over the 
 institution of slavery than it had prior to the adoption of the 
 Constitution. The people of the Southern States hold that 
 institution as independently of the Federal Government as 
 they did under the old Confederation. 
 
 Precisely to the same extent do the people of the Free 
 States hold and enjoy the blessings of personal liberty. They 
 delegated to the Federal Government no more power to in 
 volve them in slavery than the South did to involve them in 
 its abolition. The rights of the States on this subject were 
 mutual and perfectly reciprocal. Those States that desired 
 
 27 
 
41 8 APPENDIX. 
 
 to do so could continue the institution of slavery ; and those 
 that desired to be free, and entirely exempt from the expense, 
 the disgrace, and the guilt of it, reserved to themselves the 
 full and indisputable right to remain altogether separate from, 
 and unconnected with, its evils. The sons of the Pilgrims 
 regarded slavery as a violation of the will of Heaven and a 
 flagrant transgression of the law of God. They would no 
 sooner have been prevailed upon to involve themselves in its 
 moral turpitude than they would in that of piracy or murder. 
 The people of the Free States, therefore, secured to them 
 selves the absolute right of remaining free from the guilt, the 
 disgrace, and the expense of slavery, by withholding from the 
 Federal Government all constitutional power in regard to that 
 institution ; while the Slave States secured to themselves an 
 equal privilege to enjoy the benefits (as they supposed) result 
 ing from a continuance of slavery. 
 
 These doctrines are not new, they are as old as the Con 
 stitution. They are not local, for they have been substantially 
 asserted in Congress, and both in the North and the South. 
 They are not anti-slavery, for they have been, for half a cen 
 tury, the declared doctrines of the Slave States. If any anti- 
 slavery man claims for the Free States any further rights in 
 regard to slavery than those expressed above, he is requested 
 to make them known. If any Whig or Democrat of Ohio is 
 willing to deny to the people of the Free States the rights above 
 set forth, he is invited to express his views, in order that the 
 public mind may be informed upon this important subject. 
 
 If these be the constitutional rights of the Free States, all 
 will agree that they should be maintained and supported. 
 On this point it would appear impossible that Whigs and anti- 
 slavery men should disagree. I therefore submit the question 
 to our editors, and the conductors of the public Press gener 
 ally, whether they ought not to speak out boldly and temper 
 ately upon this subject? Ought they not to urge forward our 
 State and national legislators to maintain and defend the rights 
 of the Free States as assiduously as they do those of the Slave 
 States? The question is also submitted to the members of 
 our State Legislature, and to our members of Congress, whether 
 they are not as much bound by their oath of office to preserve 
 the Free States from all participation in the guilt, the disgrace, 
 
APPENDIX. 419 
 
 and the expense of slavery, as they are to preserve the Slave 
 States from the abolition of that institution by Congress? 
 Ought they not to put forth their influence to separate and 
 wholly divorce the Federal Government from all support of 
 slavery, and to bring it back to the position in which the Con 
 stitution placed it in relation to that institution? 
 
 Having thus stated, generally, the rights of the States, I 
 shall, in my next communication, examine the subject of 
 fugitive slaves, which has sometimes been urged as an excep 
 tion to the general principle that we of the Free States are 
 constitutionally unconnected with slavery. 
 
 PACIFICUS. 
 
 NUMBER II. 
 
 FUGITIVE SLAVES. 
 
 MR. EDITOR, The convention that framed our Federal 
 Constitution met with no trifling difficulty in fixing the rights 
 of the people of the different States in regard to fugitive slaves. 
 By the common law and the law of nations " a slave became ab 
 solutely free by entering the territory of a free state or govern 
 ment" whether he did so by consent of his master, or by 
 escaping from his master s custody. It was foreseen that 
 if this principle of the common law remained in force, self- 
 emancipation would deprive the Slave States of an institution 
 which they regarded as important to their prosperity. A 
 member from South Carolina moved an amendment to the 
 Constitution, requiring "fugitive slaves and servants to be de 
 livered up like criminals" This was objected to by members 
 from Pennsylvania and Connecticut, for the reason that it 
 would involve the people of the Free States in the expense 
 of slavery. (Vide 3d volume Madison Papers, 1447.) An 
 amendment was subsequently adopted, in the form in which 
 it is now found in the last clause of the first section of the 
 Fourth Article, which provides that " no person held to service 
 or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into an 
 other, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, 
 be discharged from such service or labor" etc. By this pro- 
 
420 APPENDIX. 
 
 vision the common law, as it then stood, was changed so far 
 as the United States were concerned, so that a slave ESCAPING 
 to a Free State did not thereby become free. 
 
 Under this provision Congress passed the law of 1793, 
 requiring certain officers of the State and Federal Govern 
 ments to act when fugitive slaves were brought before them ; 
 and it was supposed by our people generally that we were bound 
 to aid the master in recapturing his fugitive slave. This has 
 led many of our people to believe the subject of fugitive slaves 
 to form an exception to the doctrine laid down in my first 
 number. But the subject came before the Supreme Court of 
 the United States at their last session, in the case of Prigg vs. 
 The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania ; and it was decided, on 
 solemn argument, that no State officer was obliged to act in 
 such case, and that so much of said law as required them 
 to act was unconstitutional. In this manner the doctrine laid 
 down in my last communication was confirmed by the Supreme 
 Court of the United States in regard to fugitive slaves. 
 There were many other important points decided in that case, 
 from which the following principles are deduced : 
 
 A slave by escaping to a Free State acquires certain impor 
 tant rights and privileges. When he reaches our territory we 
 regard him as a man, not as property. If he work for me, or 
 sell me property, he may sue me in his own name, and col 
 lect his pay. Neither I nor any other man, except his mas 
 ter, can take advantage of his having been a slave. If any 
 person attempt to arrest him, as a slave, without process, he 
 may defend himself with just so much force as becomes neces 
 sary to protect his person and his personal liberty. In this 
 respect he enjoys the same rights and privileges which our 
 citizens possess. He is liable to be arrested and taken back 
 to slavery by his former master ; in all other respects he is 
 regarded in law as a freeman. While in a Slave State he may 
 not resist the violence of his master by any act of self-defence ; 
 if he do so, he may be instantly slain by his master, or other 
 wise severely punished under the laws of such State. It is this 
 law, declaring it criminal in him to defend his person against 
 the violence of his master, which constitutes slavery. That 
 law can have no operation in our State. The slave, therefore, 
 by escaping from a Slave State, escapes from the operation of 
 
APPENDIX. 42 1 
 
 that law. Its penalties cannot be visited upon him for an act 
 done in Ohio. There is no such law here, nor is it in the 
 power of our Legislature to enact such a law. Our constitution 
 forbids its existence. 
 
 The court, in the case referred to, expressly decided that 
 the jurisdiction is vested solely in Congress ; that the passing 
 of a law upon the subject by Congress is conclusive that the 
 master shall have the benefit conferred by the Act, and that 
 no State law can be interposed to qualify or change the powers 
 given by Congress. They further decided that it was equally 
 plain that Congress intended that the master should have no 
 other or further facilities for capturing his slave than those ex 
 pressed in the law of Congress ; and therefore, no State law 
 can add to the powers conferred in the Act of 1 793. It there 
 fore follows that he may defend himself against his master 
 while in this State, for the obvious reason that self-defence is 
 a natural right, and there is no law having force within the 
 State of Ohio which forbids its exercise. If his master at 
 tempt to arrest him, the slave may defend himself with so 
 much force as may be necessary to protect his person and 
 liberty. If the master press upon him, and it becomes neces 
 sary for his protection, he may kill his master, or the agents of 
 his master, be they few or many, without inquiring whether 
 they come from a Slave State or be citizens of Ohio. It is 
 important that our citizens should distinctly understand that 
 if they volunteer to arrest a fugitive slave they do so at their 
 peril. I speak with confidence on this point. There is nothing 
 in the Act of Congress forbidding the slave to exercise his nat 
 ural right of self-defence, nor does it mention any penalty for 
 so doing. The Act treats him as property merely, and visits upon 
 him no more punishment for killing his master than it would 
 upon a mule for the same act. The law of Congress settles 
 the rights existing between the master and the people of the 
 State to which the slave may flee, but it does not attempt 
 to define the rights existing between the master and slave. 
 
 It follows, therefore, that the slave when he reaches our ter 
 ritory becomes at once reinstated in the enjoyment of all his 
 natural rights which belonged to him while in Africa. It is 
 true that we lend him no protection against his master, but we 
 leave him to defend himself with all the means in his power. 
 
422 APPENDIX. 
 
 He may, for this purpose, provide himself with weapons. If 
 there be two or more of them together, they may unite their 
 efforts to defend themselves, and in all respects put forth their 
 physical powers to the same extent that they could were they 
 on the soil of their native land. I am aware that many of our 
 people think it wrong to do anything by which the slave shall 
 learn his rights. With such I disagree. If it were in my 
 power, every person should know his rights the moment he 
 touches our soil. To withhold from him this knowledge 
 would aid his master in regaining him. We are under no con 
 stitutional, legal, or moral obligation thus to aid the master ; 
 therefore every means we may use for that purpose makes us 
 partakers of his guilt. On the contrary, we are under every 
 moral obligation to use all our efforts and influence to the 
 advancement of justice and liberty, so far as we can, without 
 offending against the laws of our country. It is on this prin 
 ciple that every citizen of our State, whether he be a judge, 
 justice of the peace, or any other State officer, incurs as much 
 moral guilt when he assists a master in retaking a slave as he 
 would were he to go with the master to Africa and aid him in 
 capturing and bringing into slavery the inhabitants of that un 
 happy land. It must be a vitiated state of public opinion that 
 regards the question in any other light. The offence against 
 mankind is the same in either case, and I intend that no false 
 delicacy shall deter me from an unreserved expression of our 
 rights. 
 
 One of these rights is to inform every person within our 
 borders of all his legal privileges. I would as soon take from 
 a slave his physical powers of defence as I would rob him of 
 his moral power. I would as soon bind his body with chains 
 as I would bind his intellect in ignorance. But while the 
 slave enjoys these natural rights, the master has his consti 
 tutional and legal privileges ; and these we are bound also to 
 respect and observe. The master may enter our State and 
 pass through it in pursuit of his fugitive slave, and we have 
 not the constitutional power to prohibit him. As individuals, 
 we may refuse him admission to our dwellings, or we may 
 deny him the rights of hospitality ; we may regard him with 
 horror, and teach our children to detest him ; but he may, 
 nevertheless, travel our roads, and may arrest his slave in our 
 
APPENDIX. 423 
 
 presence ; and may bind him, if necessary, and transport him 
 back to the State from whence he escaped. We have no 
 right to interfere for the slave s protection, although our sym 
 pathies may be excited in his favor. On this subject our 
 faith is pledged, and must not be violated. 
 
 But while viz permit the master to do this, we do not pro 
 tect him in doing it. Far from it. When he enters our State 
 to arrest his fugitive slave, so far as they two are concerned, he 
 does it at his own peril, as much as he would if he should go 
 to Africa to kidnap a native of that country. He has no law 
 to protect him, and must depend upon physical force ; yet he 
 must respect the rights of our people. He must not violate 
 the sanctity of our private dwellings, nor must he violate the 
 public peace. He may lay "gentle hands " upon the slave, 
 he may arrest and secure him ; but we are under no obliga 
 tions to furnish him the use of our prisons, or to guard his 
 captive for him. If the slave defends himself, the master is 
 not thereby authorized to shoot or kill him, as he would if in 
 a Slave State. Should he do that, it would constitute murder 
 under our law, for which he would be hanged, the same as 
 though he had killed a free man. After he has arrested the 
 slave, he cannot compel him to perform any menial service 
 whatever, nor can he legally beat or chastise him. Should he 
 do this, he may be arrested and punished for the assault and 
 battery. The master s power extends so far as is necessary 
 to arrest and take back his slave; beyond this he cannot go. 
 But he may do everything to effect this object peaceably. 
 Here his rights terminate. But this he does at his own peril ; 
 and if the slave, in defending himself, kill his master, it is a 
 matter in which we have no concern. Yet he must not do it 
 wantonly or unnecessarily. Should he beat off his master, 
 and while the master is retreating shoot him, that too would 
 be murder, and we should then hang the slave. 
 
 These are some of the rights of the master and of the 
 slave while within our State ; and it will be observed by every 
 reader that it is a matter entirely between themselves. It is a 
 subject in which our people are under no obligation to inter 
 fere. If the slave drive back the master when attempting to 
 arrest him, there is no moral or legal duty resting upon us to 
 step in to the master s aid. There is no such stipulation con- 
 
424 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 tained in our Constitution. The patriots who framed that 
 charter of American liberty made no such degrading com 
 promise for the people of the Free States. Yet by the Con 
 stitution our State is made the race-ground over which the 
 master may pursue his slave, and may use every means to 
 arrest him that an officer may use to arrest a citizen on legal 
 process. There is this distinction, however, between the 
 master and officer : viz protect the officer, but not the master ; 
 for a person to resist an officer in the execution of process 
 is criminal under our law. 
 
 Not so with the slave ; he may defend himself precisely as 
 he would in Africa, or as a citizen of our State may defend 
 himself against a person who, without process, attempts to 
 arrest him for crime. Nor are our people under any more 
 obligation to assist a slaveholder to catch a slave here, than 
 they are to go to Africa and aid in kidnapping. Indeed, if 
 you will show me a man who, knowing his rights, will aid a 
 master in catching a slave in this State, I will show you a man 
 who would go to Africa and aid in kidnapping the people 
 there, and bringing them into slavery, provided he could do 
 so without incurring danger of the halter. Or if you will 
 show me a judge, or justice of the peace, or other State 
 officer, who, knowing his rights, will aid in sending a fugitive 
 back into slavery, or in detaining one for further proof of his 
 being a slave, I think I hazard little in saying that for the 
 same fees he would send you or me into bondage, if he had 
 the power to do so. 
 
 Yet it is a humiliating fact that in 1839 our Democratic 
 Legislature attempted, by legal enactment, to make our State 
 officers and citizens the catchpoles of Southern slaveholders. 
 I say they attempted to do this, for by the decision of the 
 Supreme Court above referred to, all such State laws are de 
 clared " UNCONSTITUTIONAL AND VOID." Notwithstanding they 
 were then told that such Acts would be void, they gravely 
 occupied their time, and expended the money of our citizens, 
 in devising the best mode of catching slaves. They used all 
 their power and influence to involve you and me, and our 
 people generally, in the guilt, the disgrace, and the expense 
 of slavery. In this they violated the Constitution of the 
 United States, as well as that of our own State. 
 
APPENDIX. 425 
 
 And now, Mr. Editor, anti-slavery m f n ask that the party, 
 the men, who enacted this law should receive the full benefit 
 of their servility. They desire that public sentiment should be 
 expressed through our public papers ; that this law be re 
 pealed j that our State be relieved from the disgraceful atti 
 tude in which it now stands ; that the subject of fugitive slaves 
 be left where the Constitution and laws of the United States 
 have placed it. And can there be any difference of opinion 
 on this subject between Whigs and anti-slavery men? Is there 
 a Whig editor in our State who will hesitate to raise his voice 
 against this disgraceful law, and to maintain the clear, abso 
 lute, and indisputable right of our people to be entirely free 
 and exempt from the guilt, the disgrace and expense of 
 catching fugitive slaves? 
 
 PACIFICUS. 
 
 NUMBER III. 
 
 SUPPRESSION OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE. 
 
 MR. EDITOR, The framers of our Federal Constitution set 
 forth, in the preamble of that instrument, the objects for which 
 it was entered into. One of those objects is "TO SECURE TO 
 
 OURSELVES AND OUR POSTERITY THE BLESSINGS OF LIBERTY." 
 
 Mr. Webster, in his late letter to Lore 1 Ashburton, says : " Sla 
 very exists in the Southern States of this Union under the 
 guarantee of our Federal Constitution." The patriots who 
 framed the Constitution declared their object was " to secure 
 the blessings of liberty" Mr. Webster affirms that they guar 
 anteed slavery. Did Madison and Washington and Franklin 
 say one thing, and do another, or is Mr. Webster mistaken in 
 the assertion contained in his letter? If this doctrine of Mr. 
 Webster be correct, it follows, of course, that the Free States 
 are involved in all the guilt, disgrace, and responsibility of 
 slavery ; and the position assumed in my first communication, 
 " that the Free States are no more liable to support slavery than 
 the Slave States are to abolish it," is erroneous and unfounded. 
 This doctrine of Mr. Webster is often asserted by Southern 
 
426 APPENDIX. 
 
 slaveholders, as well as by Northern men, who appear anxious 
 to impress our people with the idea that the Free States are 
 thus subsidiary to the Slave States, and involved in all the 
 hateful consequences of slavery. I will not call such men 
 doughfaces, with them I have nothing to do ; my business is 
 with their arguments. Our country and posterity will hold 
 them responsible for their attempts to induce our people to 
 yield up their own constitutional rights and to become the 
 voluntary supporters of slavery and the slave-trade. To arouse 
 our people to the investigation of our constitutional rights in 
 regard to this subject, and to inspire them to a patriotic and 
 firm maintenance of our interests and honor, is the duty of the 
 public Press and of public men. 
 
 To the people of Ohio and of the Free States I declare this 
 doctrine unsupported by any clause in our Constitution. No 
 such guarantee is found in that instrument. The patriots who 
 framed that " bond of union " made no such degrading stipu 
 lation on the part of Northern freemen. If that instrument had 
 contained any clause susceptible of a doubtful construction in 
 this respect, all will agree that it would and ought to be so 
 construed as to secure the blessings of liberty, rather than to 
 perpetuate slavery. But there is no clause that can, in the 
 opinion of the writer, be deemed doubtful, or that by any 
 strained construction can be said to guarantee slavery. The 
 fourth section of the Fourth Article is, however, quoted in sup 
 port of the doctrine referred to. It reads as follows : " The 
 United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a 
 republican form of government, and shall protect them against 
 invasion, and on application of the Executive, when the Legis 
 lature cannot be convened, against domestic violence The 
 word " guarantee " is used in connection with a " republican 
 form of government" and not with slavery. It can hardly be 
 expected that any one will suppose these terms to be synony 
 mous. It is believed, however, that those who adhere to the 
 doctrine now contended against, rely upon the last clause, 
 which pledges the protection of the United States against 
 " domestic violence" 
 
 The history concerning the insertion of this provision is 
 this: In 1786 the "Shays rebellion" broke out in the State 
 of Massachusetts. This insurrection threatened the overthrow, 
 
APPENDIX. 427 
 
 not only of the government of that State, but portended the 
 downfall of all the other State governments. While they were 
 thus endangered, it was discovered that no authority existed 
 in the old Articles of Confederation by which the troops of 
 one State could be employed to suppress an insurrection in 
 another. This difficulty gave rise to the adoption of this 
 clause for suppressing domestic violence. Massachusetts was 
 then the only State that had abolished slavery. In this history 
 it is difficult to trace out any intention to guarantee slavery. 
 It is impossible to see how any legal mind can torture this 
 clause into such a guarantee. It is simply a provision for sup 
 pressing insurrections. It applies as much to the Free States 
 as to Slave States, and would have been adopted had no 
 slavery existed in any of the States. It has no relation to 
 the character of the insurgents, whether they be black or white, 
 bondmen or freemen, masters or slaves. If an insurrection act 
 ually take place, the power of the Federal Government must 
 be employed to put it down, if milder measures will not effect 
 that object. But the President, when called on for aid to sup 
 press an insurrection, cannot stop to inquire into the cause 
 from which it arose. He is entirely unauthorized to withhold 
 such aid, in case it arise from the abolition of slavery. The 
 truth is, the Federal Constitution considers slaves as persons ; 
 and draws no distinction in regard to the character of the in 
 surgents. When the United States troops arrive upon the 
 theatre of action, they must direct their efforts to suppressing 
 the violence. It is their duty to slay all persons found in arms 
 against the public tranquillity. The master and slave fighting 
 side by side against the public authority must both be slain 
 without distinction, and without inquiring into their relations 
 to each other. 
 
 When the violence is suppressed, the duty of the troops 
 will have been performed. If, then, every slave in the nation 
 peaceably leaves his master and starts for CANADA, there is no 
 power in the Federal Government to send our troops after 
 them, or to set them as a guard to prevent their escape. The 
 duty of the President and of the troops is to suppress the 
 violence, and not to support slavery. Such escape of slaves 
 would prove a total abolition of slavery. Where then would 
 be the guarantee? But suppose the slaves engage in and con- 
 
428 APPENDIX. 
 
 tinue the violence : it will then be the duty of our troops to 
 slay them. Would such killing of slaves be a support of 
 slavery ? It would be so far an abolition of slavery, and if 
 all the slaves be thus slain, slavery would be abolished (for no 
 new importations can be made under our laws). Where, then, 
 will be our guarantee? Again, if the slaves should stubbornly 
 refuse to labor or to obey their masters, they would thereby 
 work the abolition of slavery. But would such act obligate 
 the Federal Government to furnish obedient servants? Or 
 should they commit suicide, and thereby abolish the institu 
 tion, would the United States become liable as guarantors? 
 Or were they to pursue a course of secret destruction of their 
 masters property, and thus compel their owners to emancipate 
 them, could the slaveholders demand indemnity of the Fed 
 eral Government? Or should the slaves pursue any other 
 course which would inevitably destroy that institution, would 
 the Federal Government be held responsible? I apprehend 
 but one answer can be given to these interrogatories. 
 
 But some politicians give a more loose and indefinite con 
 struction to this section. They hold that as Congress is 
 bound to lend its protection when called on to suppress do 
 mestic violence, it is their duty, in time of peace, to provide 
 arms, troops, and fortifications for that purpose, and to have 
 them so distributed as to intimidate the slaves to obedience. 
 If this construction be correct, it is certainly one that was not 
 foreseen or intended by the framers of the Constitution. If 
 it be correct, the freemen of the North may be taxed to erect 
 a fortification on every plantation south of " Mason and Dix- 
 on s line," and to furnish a body-guard to every slaveholder 
 and overseer in the United States. Indeed, such construction 
 would render it the duty of our freemen of the North to go to 
 the Slave States and act as life-guards to the slaveholders. 
 But there is, in this section, no authority for the Federal 
 Government to act on the subject until actual violence takes 
 place. The President cannot order out the troops of the 
 United States to suppress an insurrection, even when actual 
 violence has occurred, unless his aid be invoked by the State 
 authority. Every reader will see that two things are necessary 
 to authorize the President to interfere, 
 
 i. There must be actual violence. 
 
APPENDIX. 429 
 
 2. There must be a demand of aid from the Federal 
 Government by the State authorities. 
 
 Without these the President has no power to act. If vio 
 lence arise, it is the privilege of the State Government to sup 
 press it, and to enforce their own laws, if they please. In 
 such case the President has no power to order the troops of 
 the United States into the field. If the slaveholders antici 
 pate violence from their slaves, they are at full liberty to 
 remove all danger by emancipating them. But the President 
 has no power to send our troops to the Slave States to guard 
 the masters and overseers while they whip and scourge and 
 torture their slaves, to compel them to labor for the support 
 and to promote the luxury, of their owners. Yet such is, 
 substantially, the doctrine avowed and inculcated by some 
 Northern politicians, as well as Southern slaveholders ; and 
 the question comes home to our editors and public men 
 whether such views shall be pressed upon the public mind 
 without examination and contradiction. 
 
 I have now examined the only clause in our Constitution 
 relied upon by those who urge that slavery exists in the South 
 ern States under the guarantee of our Federal compact. The 
 doctrine has no foundation except in the servile disposition of 
 those who appear anxious to involve the people of the Free 
 States in the guilt and dishonor of an institution with which 
 we are constitutionally unconnected. 
 
 Mr. Webster, probably without deliberation or close ex 
 amination of the subject, wrote his letter of directions to Mr. 
 Everett, under the dictation of a slaveholding President, 
 giving to that minister orders to exert our national influence 
 to obtain indemnity for the slave-dealers who claimed the 
 cargo of the " Creole." In this manner he involved the 
 people of the Free States in the disgrace of that accursed 
 traffic in human flesh. Having done this, it became neces 
 sary that he should sustain the doctrine in his correspondence 
 with Lord Ashburton. In his letter addressed to that func 
 tionary, on the subject of the " Creole," he substantially 
 declares the people of the Free States to be the guarantors 
 of slavery and the supporters of the slave-trade, which they 
 execrate and detest. This saying of Mr. Webster will be 
 quoted by thousands of Northern doughfaces to establish 
 
430 APPENDIX. 
 
 this unfounded doctrine. It is believed that every such effort 
 to commit us to the support of slavery should be promptly 
 met and exposed by our public Press. They are attempts to 
 surrender up our constitutional rights, and should be discarded 
 by every friend of liberty and by every lover of his country. 
 On this point it would seem that no difference of sentiment 
 could exist among our people, whether they belong to the 
 Whig, the Democratic, or Liberty party. All are desirous 
 that our Press and public men should speak forth, in plain 
 and respectful language, our constitutional rights. They 
 neither wish nor desire that language offensive to Southern 
 men should be employed. On the contrary, they would have 
 them treated with respect and kindness. It is proper that the 
 public mind should be fully informed in regard to our rights, 
 and that these rights should be respectfully and firmly main 
 tained. Is there a Whig who would not do this? Is there an 
 editor or elector in the Whig ranks who feels too delicate to 
 assert our rights, or too patriotic to maintain them? I make 
 these remarks in consequence of the feeling so often expressed, 
 that the agitation of our rights is impolitic. The idea is one 
 which should meet with universal disapprobation. We ought 
 never to remain silent when our rights and interests are 
 invaded. 
 
 Having examined the two paragraphs in our Constitution 
 which are quoted to prove that we are involved in the support 
 of slavery, I trust the reader will be prepared to say, with me, 
 that the Federal Government and the Free States have the 
 constitutional right to be separate and totally exempt from 
 the support of slavery and the slave-trade, and that this right 
 is as supreme, absolute, and unconditional as is the right of 
 the Slave States to maintain them. 
 
 In my next I shall ask the attention of my readers to some 
 of the instances in which their rights have been invaded. 
 
 PACIFICUS. 
 
APPENDIX. 43 
 
 NUMBER IV. 
 
 VIOLATION OF THE CONSTITUTION FOR THE SUPPORT OF 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 MR. EDITOR, In my first communication I stated that, 
 by our Federal Constitution, the Free States possessed " the 
 absolute and unqualified right of being exempt and entirely 
 free from the expense, the guilt t and the disgrace of slavery 
 and of the slave-trade." To establish this principle beyond 
 all doubt or cavil has been the object of my second and third 
 numbers. Having thus disposed of that part of my subject, I 
 shall now proceed to call the attention of my readers to some 
 few of the instances in which the people of the Free States 
 have been unconstitutionally involved in the expense of that 
 institution ; reserving for a future number all reference to the 
 guilt and disgrace which have been forced upon us in order 
 to sustain and encourage slavery. 
 
 This practice of sustaining slavery at the expense and incon 
 venience of the people of the Free States had its origin in the 
 days of our Revolution. In 1780, the authorities of South 
 Carolina sent a confidential agent to inform Congress that 
 their State could furnish no troops to defend her territory 
 against the British forces, as it was necessary that her men 
 should all remain at home to defend their families and friends 
 against their slaves in case of insurrection. ( Vide Secret Jour 
 nal of Congress.) Under these circumstances, troops were 
 taken from the Northern States to defend them against the 
 British, while they defended themselves against their slaves 
 and compelled them to labor for the benefit of their masters. 
 In this way Southern plantations were rendered productive, 
 while those of the North were left destitute of laborers, and 
 the burden of supporting slavery was thrown almost entirely 
 upon the Northern States. By the subsequent adoption of 
 the Constitution, slavery was made strictly a State institution, 
 its burdens to be borne by such States as continued them ; 
 while those States which preferred to do so, had an equal 
 right to be exempt from all its evils, by emancipating their 
 
432 APPENDIX. 
 
 slaves. Yet the practice of throwing the burden of support 
 ing slavery upon the nation at large, thereby involving the 
 Free States in its expense, has continued down to the 
 present day. 
 
 These burdens have been cast upon the people of the Free 
 States, firstly, by appropriations made by Congress for the 
 direct and avowed purpose of sustaining slavery and the slave- 
 trade ; and, secondly, by such action of the executive and 
 legislative branches of government as was calculated eventu 
 ally to produce that effect, and in some instances the refusal 
 of Congress and the Executive to act, lest such action should 
 relieve the people of the Free States from this burden. 
 
 To the first branch of this proposition I shall devote the 
 present number. 
 
 Our first treaty, formed with the Creek Indians, was signed 
 Aug. 7, 1790. It contained a stipulation on the part of the 
 Indians to surrender up all negroes then in their territory. 
 
 The same stipulation was contained in nearly all our subse 
 quent treaties with that savage nation. I regret that the 
 limits prescribed to myself will not admit of detail, and I will 
 here state that if any reader shall call for details on any point 
 embraced in these essays, I will most cheerfully give them 
 hereafter. This covenant of the Indians to surrender up 
 negroes was connected with stipulations to perform other 
 acts, and the exact amount paid for surrendering negroes 
 is therefore unknown. For the violation of this clause of 
 the treaty we compelled them to pay to the slaveholders of 
 Georgia, at one time, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. 
 I think it a fair estimate to set down the sum paid to that 
 nation, for the purpose of inducing them to return fugitive 
 slaves, at three hundred thousand dollars. In our treaty with 
 the Florida Indians, concluded at Camp Moultrie in 1823, we 
 agreed to pay them six thousand dollars, and an annuity of 
 five thousand dollars for twenty years. The Indians, on their 
 part, stipulated " to be active and vigilant in preventing fugitive 
 slaves from passing through their country, and in apprehending 
 and returning to their masters such as should seek an asylum 
 among them Official reports and documents, now on file in 
 the War Department, show beyond contradiction that the 
 Florida War was commenced and prosecuted for the purpose 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 433 
 
 of regaining fugitive slaves, and to prevent further escapes of 
 that class of people. 
 
 The expense of this war is estimated at forty millions of 
 dollars. 
 
 After the close of the late war with Great Britain, our Gov 
 ernment demanded of that nation compensation for the own 
 ers for such slaves as escaped to their army during hostilities. 
 The demand was resisted, and years of diplomatic effort were 
 employed in extorting from them the price of liberty thus 
 gained by our fellow-men. After much effort and expense 
 we obtained fourteen hundred thousand dollars for the slave 
 holders ; but the people of the Free States were taxed to de 
 fray the expense of obtaining and distributing the money. In 
 1825, and for many years subsequent to that time, the efforts 
 of our Government were put forth " to prevent the abolition 
 of slavery in the island of Cuba, lest the example might affect 
 the institution in our Southern States." And an agent was 
 sent there to prevent the emancipation of slaves. Our people 
 of the Free States were thus involved in the expense of oppos 
 ing the liberty of mankind. In 1818, General Jackson marched 
 his army into Florida ; while there, his soldiers and the follow 
 ers of his camp took many slaves from the people of that terri 
 tory, and the people of the Free States have been taxed to pay 
 for the negroes thus taken. 1 (Vide documents on file in the 
 office of the Secretary of the Treasury.) 
 
 In 1816, certain fugitive slaves took refuge in the Territory 
 of Florida and erected a fort upon the banks of the Appalachi- 
 cola River. Here they made their gardens and cleared their 
 fields and cultivated their farms. General Jackson sent orders 
 to General Gaines to enter this territory of the king of Spain, 
 to destroy the fort, and " to arrest and return the fugitive slaves 
 
 1 In the last clause of the ninth article of our treaty with Spain, en 
 tered into in 1820, the United States agreed "to pay the Spanish offi 
 cers and the private Spanish citizens for all property lost by the move 
 ments of the late American army in Florida. " On a reference of the 
 question to the late Attorney-General, Felix Grundy, that officer gravely 
 decided that slaves were property, and he substantially decided also 
 that stealing negroes constituted a portion of the movements of our late 
 army in Florida. Upon the authority of this opinion, Secretary Wood- 
 bury paid for the negroes, although no other secretary had ever enter 
 tained such an application. 
 
 28 
 
434 APPENDIX. 
 
 to their masters" A gunboat was despatched for the purpose 
 of effecting these objects. The fort was cannonaded with hot 
 shot until the magazine was blown up, and two hundred and 
 seventy men, women, and children were instantaneously mur 
 dered in cold blood, for no other crime than that of preferring 
 liberty to slavery. A law was passed in February, 1838, to pay 
 more than five thousand dollars to the officers and crew, as a 
 bounty for this destruction of our fellow-beings. Our people 
 of Ohio and the other Free States were thus involved in the 
 expense of murdering fugitive slaves for the benefic of that 
 institution. 
 
 The bill granting this sum, as a merited bounty for killing 
 slaves, was reported by the chairman * of the Naval Com 
 mittee, and, it is said, was passed upon their authority, without 
 further examination in the House. Many of the Slave States 
 have laws authorizing their officers to arrest and imprison free 
 colored persons who enter their States, and to sell them as 
 slaves unless the expense of imprisoning them be paid. Many 
 free colored men, in the employ of the United States, have 
 been thus imprisoned, and the expense paid by Government 
 in order to release them. ( Vide reports of committees made 
 at the last session of Congress.) Much expense has also 
 been incurred by Government in sending detachments of 
 troops and of the marine corps to intimidate the slaves of 
 the South to obedience. These instances have been frequent ; 
 so much so that officers commanding detachments do not 
 even wait for orders from the War Department to march their 
 forces into any region where appearances of insurrection are 
 manifested. 2 
 
 Every reader is aware that ships engaged in the slave-trade 
 have been wrecked on or near the British West India islands, 
 and the slaves, finding themselves at liberty, have refused to 
 return. Our Government has espoused the cause of the slave- 
 dealers, and for many years has involved the people of the 
 Free States in the expense of obtaining from the British Gov 
 ernment remuneration for the loss which the slave-merchants 
 
 1 Hon. Isaac Toucey, a Democratic representative from Connecticut, 
 was the author of the bill. 
 
 2 Most appointments in the army and navy made by slaveholding 
 Presidents are from the South. 
 
APPENDIX. 435 
 
 sustained by the liberation of their slaves. Thus have we been 
 taxed for the support of the slave-trade. I need not mention 
 the particulars concerning the "Creole; " they will be recol 
 lected by every reader. More than a hundred thousand dollars 
 have been appropriated for the erection of prisons in the Dis 
 trict of Columbia. These prisons have been, and still are, used 
 by slave-merchants to confine their slaves until their cargoes 
 or coffles for Southern markets are completed. In a former 
 number I referred to the fact that a Democratic Legislature 
 of our own State appropriated the money of our fellow-citi 
 zens to pay themselves their per diem while they discussed 
 the proper mode of catching Southern slaves. These are 
 some of the instances in which the people of the Free States 
 have been involved in the direct expense of sustaining and 
 supporting slavery. The amount cannot be ascertained with 
 precision. Many have estimated it at one hundred million 
 dollars, or more than one eighth part of the whole sum ex 
 pended by the United States since the adoption of our Fed 
 eral Constitution, including the expense of the late war with 
 Great Britain. They include in such estimate the expense of 
 removing Southern Indians, and the amount paid for the pur 
 chase of Florida and Louisiana. The protection of slavery 
 doubtless entered into and formed a part of the objects at 
 tained by these purchases and the removal of the Indians. 
 But the writer is unwilling to bring forward, upon his own 
 responsibility, any estimate that admits of dispute or ar 
 gument. The amount is immense when viewed in the most 
 favorable light. Yet the abuse consists in the clear and pal 
 pable violation of our constitutional rights, rather than in the 
 number of dollars and cents taken from our pockets and 
 appropriated to the support of slavery. 
 
 The Constitution has been violated, and these violations 
 have become so frequent as to create alarm among our pa 
 triots and sages. ( Vide Mr. Adams s late speech at Braintree.) 
 The writer, however, considers the most alarming circum 
 stance to be the perfect silence of our Northern Press, and 
 our Northern statesmen and politicians, under the infliction 
 of those abuses and violations of the Constitution, and of 
 our rights and interests. We have submitted to them so long 
 and so patiently that many of our people begin to entertain 
 
436 APPENDIX. 
 
 the opinion that we are constitutionally bound to contribute a 
 portion of our substance, accumulated by our toil and labor, 
 to enable the slaveholders of the South to keep their slaves 
 in subjection. Sir, this supineness of the Northern Press and 
 Northern men is unworthy of the descendants of our Revolu 
 tionary fathers. Further abuses should be resisted. While 
 we pay all possible deference to the rights of the Slave States, 
 we surely ought to maintain our own. We should stand upon 
 the strict line of the Constitution. We ought not to permit 
 our Southern brethren to invade our rights, while we should 
 be equally careful not to encroach upon theirs. 
 
 PACIFICUS. 
 
 NUMBER V. 
 
 VIOLATIONS OF THE CONSTITUTION, CONTINUED. 
 
 MR. EDITOR, In my last communication I referred to 
 some of the instances in which the money, collected from our 
 people of the Free States, had been appropriated directly to the 
 support of slavery. It is now my purpose to refer to some 
 instances in which the people of the Free States have been 
 compelled to suffer pecuniary inconveniences and loss for the 
 benefit of the slaveholding interests of the South. 
 
 It is more than forty years since the people of Hayti, 
 following the example which we have set them, achieved their 
 independence and established a government of their own. 
 By their acts of valor and patriotism they became as much 
 entitled to a rank among the governments of the earth as we 
 did by our Revolution. This claim has been acknowledged by 
 France and England, and, indeed, so far as I am informed, 
 by all the civilized nations of the earth, except the United 
 States. So far from recognizing the Government of Hayti, at 
 an early day we passed a law to suppress all commercial in 
 tercourse between our people and the people of that island. 
 ( Vide Act of Congress approved 28th February, 1806.) This 
 was done because the people had, most of them, been slaves ; 
 and it was designed to withhold from them our provisions in 
 order to bring upon them famine and distress, lest their 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 437 
 
 example might induce the slaves in our Southern States to 
 assert their liberty. It is true that a hazardous and uncertain 
 trade has existed between our people of New England and 
 those of Hayti ; but we have been virtually cut off from the 
 profits and advantages of a commerce with that island, for the 
 reason that intercourse with that people might affect the slaves 
 of the Southern States and render them discontented in their 
 chains of bondage. Most of this time we have been virtually 
 excluded from the commerce of the British West India 
 Islands. In the mean time Hayti has offered to our merchants 
 golden temptations for their American produce. These 
 temptations they were compelled to forego, in order that the 
 Southern slaves might be held in ignorance of their rights. 
 Our farmers of Ohio have been denied a market for their 
 wheat, flour, beef, pork, and other produce, in order to main 
 tain such a state of ignorance in the Slave States as would 
 enable the masters to hold their slaves in subjection. 
 
 I have already alluded to the fact that by a law existing in 
 most of the Slave States, colored seamen, when they arrive in 
 port, are liable to be seized and imprisoned, lest their presence 
 might create a desire for liberty among the slaves. If the 
 persons thus imprisoned are found unable to pay the ex 
 travagant charges for their arrest and imprisonment, they are 
 to be sold into slavery. These proceedings have operated 
 as a tax upon the commerce of our Northern States. Thus 
 have our interests been made to subserve the interests of 
 slavery. In this way the Federal Government has extended 
 its fostering care over that institution, at the expense of the 
 people of the Free States. For forty years we have thus been 
 rendered tributary to the Slave States. Our Government still 
 refuses to enter into commercial relations with that of Hayti, 
 and the interests of our shipowners, our sailors, our merchants, 
 our mechanics and farmers, are depressed and discouraged, in 
 order that ignorance and slavery may be prolonged in the 
 South. And where are our statesmen or our editors, of either 
 party, who boldly denounce this flagrant abuse of Northern 
 interests and Northern rights? Nay, I appeal to every think 
 ing, candid man to say whether a frank and temperate 
 maintenance of our rights on this subject has not been re 
 garded as unconstitutional and dishonorable by a portion of 
 
438 APPENDIX. 
 
 our people of the North? So long, so tamely and silently, 
 have we been accustomed to yield up our interests for the 
 benefits of slavery that an open assertion of our rights, and 
 support of our interests, is regarded with distrust and 
 jealousy. 
 
 In 1816 our people of the Free States were deeply engaged in 
 commerce ; our ships navigated every sea ; our sailors were 
 numerous ; our merchants were enjoying a profitable com 
 merce ; our farmers were encouraged by a ready market for 
 their products. The war, then but just closed, had left our 
 nation in debt ; a hundred millions of dollars were to be 
 raised, besides the current expenses of government. Southern 
 statesmen considered that the interests of the slaveholding 
 States would be promoted by levying this vast sum upon the 
 commerce of the Free States. The command was given and 
 the blow was struck. Twelve thousand seamen were turned 
 out of employ, commerce was crippled, and thousands of our 
 shipowners and merchants were ruined, and the industry of 
 the North was for a season paralyzed, for the purpose of 
 relieving the Slave States of their due proportion of our public 
 debt and the expenses of our government. 
 
 At length our people of the North gradually conformed to 
 the tariff of 1816 and subsequent amendments. They vested 
 their fortunes, accumulated by industry and economy, in the 
 factories designed to supply our nation with such fabrics as 
 were deemed necessary to the comfort of our people. Our 
 laborers again found employment. Industry was encouraged. 
 Our farmers of Ohio found a ready market for their produce ; 
 prosperity again cheered every department of society in the 
 Free States. Our public revenues were ample. Our national 
 debt was paid off, our harbor improvements, the improve 
 ment of our river navigation and our Cumberland road, were 
 going forward with rapidity, when the slaveholding influence 
 became dissatisfied, and threatened a dissolution of the 
 Union. One of the Slave States arrayed its military forces to 
 oppose this Northern prosperity and to reduce the Federal 
 Government to the necessity of changing its policy for the 
 fancied purpose of forcing prosperity upon the Slave States, in 
 defiance of that law of Providence which has ordained that it 
 shall never result from oppression and vice. The Compromise 
 
APPENDIX. 439 
 
 Act of 1833 was nothing more nor less than the mandate of 
 Southern statesmen, by which they directed that our harbor 
 and river improvements should cease ; that the sale of Ohio 
 wheat, flour, pork, and beef in New England should stop, 
 and that our farmers should be deprived of a home market 
 for their produce ; that the manufacturers of New England 
 should be ruined ; that hundreds of thousands of laborers 
 should be turned out of employment ; that the revenues of 
 government should be struck down ; that a national debt 
 should be incurred, public credit impaired, and private credit 
 ruined, for the purpose of sustaining and encouraging the 
 interests of the Slave States. The mandate was obeyed, and 
 the people of the Free States have quietly, and almost silently, 
 submitted to the loss of untold millions for the benefit of the 
 Slave States. The writer would not be understood as saying 
 these are violations of the Constitution, but that they were as 
 clearly violations of the rights of the Free States as were the 
 appropriations of money for the express purpose of capturing 
 fugitive slaves. It is thus that our commerce with Hayti has 
 been cut off, and our domestic labor has been left to compete 
 with the pauper labor of Europe, in order that the interests of 
 the Slave States might be protected, sustained, and upheld at 
 the expense of Northern freemen. 
 
 Under the law distributing the proceeds of the public lands 
 among the several States, a fund was provided by which all our 
 Northern States would have extricated themselves from their 
 present embarrassments, and would have been enabled to 
 complete their internal improvements already commenced. 
 Our canals and railroads would have given increased facilities 
 to our internal commerce, stimulated our agricultural and 
 mechanical laborers to greater effort by offering greater en 
 couragement. They would have aided and increased our 
 manufactures. They would, in a degree, have annihilated 
 the space which now divides the people of New England from 
 those of our Western States ; our associations would have in 
 creased ; refinement and taste would have been encouraged, 
 intelligence more rapidly disseminated, and learning and sci 
 ence promoted. These advantages, though highly desirable 
 to a free people, are dangerous to the interests of slavery, 
 which must ever depend upon the ignorance and stupidity of 
 
440 APPENDIX. 
 
 the slave population in regard to their rights and the means 
 of regaining them. All these results were clearly seen by that 
 influence which is ever jealous of the progress of knowledge, 
 which teaches man to know the rights that God has given him. 
 Their sacrifice was deemed necessary to the interest of slavery. 
 A slaveholding President became the willing instrument by 
 which the object was effected. Consistency, self-respect, rea 
 son, and the rights of the Northern States presented but slight 
 obstacles to the attainment of his purpose. These advantages 
 to the Free States, increasing and expanding as we look for 
 ward to coming time, were sacrificed by the Federal Govern 
 ment for the purpose of preserving the slaveholding influence 
 from all hazard. I am aware that a portion of our people con 
 sider these subjects of but little importance. They urge that 
 all encroachments upon our rights in favor of the slaveholding 
 interests are to be resisted, but deny that a protective tariff, 
 the distribution of the proceeds of the public lands, the im 
 provement of our harbors, our river navigation, or of the Cum 
 berland road, are of such importance as to require their aid 
 and support. 
 
 If these important interests be abandoned by those who 
 make the " support of Northern rights " their motto, how can 
 they expect the friends of internal improvements and of the 
 tariff to unite with them in matters which they deem of far 
 less pecuniary importance? If one class of our Northern men 
 will tamely surrender our pecuniary interests, may we not ex 
 pect that another portion will be as willing to yield up our 
 honor to the demands of the Southern States ? Is there an in 
 dividual who is not perfectly conscious that such divisions must 
 prove destructive to our sectional rights ? If those whose minds 
 dwell mostly on the moral influences of slavery, and who feel 
 most deeply interested in removing the moral desolation it 
 occasions, abandon all support of our pecuniary interests, sep 
 arate from their political friends, and refuse to co-operate with 
 them, can they expect by such separation to facilitate the ac 
 complishment of their own purposes ? Can any man of reflec 
 tion suppose that we can extricate ourselves from the moral 
 influence of slavery while it continues to control our pecuniary 
 interests ? 
 
 The safety of the Free States depends on preserving the 
 
APPENDIX. 441 
 
 Constitution in its purity, and in the firm and temperate sup 
 port of all our rights. If one of our important rights suffer, 
 all must be affected. They will either stand or fall together. 
 Division of our friends is itself a sacrifice of our rights. Union 
 of our friends will secure our rights and our interests. I am 
 aware that I shall be charged with speaking mostly in regard 
 to the rights of the North, while I say but little of those of the 
 South. But I beg my readers to understand that the South 
 has not only maintained its own rights, but they have made 
 our rights subservient to their interests ; and it has therefore 
 become necessary that public attention should be thus particu 
 larly called to the support of the interests and the honor of the 
 Free States. 
 
 PACIFICUS. 
 
 NUMBER VI. 
 
 VIOLATIONS OF THE CONSTITUTION, CONTINUED. 
 
 MR. EDITOR, Having in my last two numbers made some 
 allusion to the manner in which the people of the Free States 
 have been involved in the pecuniary expense of slavery, I will 
 now proceed to examine some of the instances in which we 
 have been involved in the moral guilt of that institution. 
 
 By Act of Congress approved Feb. 27, 1801, slavery and 
 the slave-trade in the District of Columbia were re-estab 
 lished and continued. As some diversity of opinion exists in 
 regard to the power of Congress over the subject of slavery in 
 that District, it may be well to remark that the States of Mary 
 land and Virginia, by deeds of cession bearing date in 1800, 
 conveyed the territory embraced within the District of Colum 
 bia to the United States. These deeds of cession each con 
 tained a clause providing that the State laws should continue 
 in force within the territory ceded, until Congress should accept 
 the grant. Congress accepted the grant, and from that 
 instant the State laws ceased to have any force or effect within 
 the territory. It then came under the control of another 
 sovereignty, and of course all former laws must cease. When 
 I speak of former State laws, I refer to all statute or munici- 
 
442 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 pal laws, including the laws of descent and distribution, and 
 the laws for the collection of debts and punishing crimes, as 
 well as the laws of slavery and the slave-trade. All these ceased 
 to exist the moment Congress accepted the grants. 
 
 From that time to this, there has been no municipal law 
 in existence within said District except Acts of Congress. In 
 order that the people within the District shall suffer no in 
 convenience for the want of laws, Congress passed the Act 
 above referred to. By this law, the statutes formerly in force 
 were re-enacted, and became the laws of Congress, and have 
 been in force since that time. In this way slavery was re 
 established, and by virtue of this Act of Congress the slave- 
 trade is now continued in the city that bears the name of 
 WASHINGTON. Repeal that Act of Congress, and the slave- 
 trade will instantly be abolished, and slavery will be done 
 away forever. Congress refuses to repeal this law of its own 
 enacting, and by such refusal upholds the slave-trade, with all 
 its horrors and its attendant guilt. By virtue of this law, 
 parents are separated from their children, husbands from their 
 wives, brothers from their sisters, and, chained to the coffle or 
 placed on board the slave-ships, are destined for a Southern 
 market. By virtue of this law of Congress, all the ties of 
 domestic life are severed by the mercenary trader in human 
 flesh. Here the father, in the presence of his wife and chil 
 dren, has been known to lay violent hands upon himself, and 
 rush into the presence of his God, rather than meet the hor 
 rors of a separation about to be inflicted upon him, under the 
 sanction of this Congressional slave-code. Here, within the 
 walls of the prison, erected by funds drawn from the people 
 of the Free States, the mother has been known, in the un 
 utterable anguish of her soul, to murder the children of her 
 own body, to prevent their otherwise inevitable doom of being 
 exposed to a Southern slave-market ; and with hands reeking 
 with the blood of her offspring, to sever the thread of her 
 own existence, rather than meet the tortures of that " execrable 
 commerce," now carried on under the sanction of this law, 
 passed and sustained by votes of Northern representatives.^ 
 
 Petitions are forwarded every year to Congress, praying 
 
 1 Every Democratic member from Ohio has for years opposed all 
 attempts to repeal this law or to stop the traffic in slaves. 
 
APPENDIX. 443 
 
 that body to repeal this law, and thereby release the people 
 of the North from the soul-sickening guilt attendant upon this 
 trade in suffering humanity. Yet these petitions are treated 
 with contempt, and we are compelled to continue involved in 
 this turpitude, fearing that our release from it would affect the 
 interest of the slave-dealers. To prevent our release from 
 this guilt, every Democratic member of Congress from Ohio 
 has for years united his influence and efforts with the slave 
 holders of the South. Indeed, they have stood before the 
 world as "the Swiss Guards " of the slave-dealers, ready on 
 all occasions to fight the battles of those who follow a traffic 
 condemned and execrated by the civilized world, cursed of 
 God and hated by man. I will not occupy time by anything 
 more than a mere reference to the fact that slavery and the 
 slave-trade exist in the Territory of Florida under the sanc 
 tion and approbation of the Congress of the United States. 1 
 In the guilt of thus sustaining and continuing the institution in 
 that Territory the people of the Free States are deeply in 
 volved, while their petitions to be relieved from such guilt are 
 indignantly scouted from the halls of legislation by their ser 
 vants in the House of Representatives. 
 
 In a former number I referred to the fact that the Execu 
 tive of the United States has put forth our national influence 
 for many years " to prevent the abolition of slavery in the 
 Island of Cuba" for the reason that "the sudden emancipa 
 tion of a numerous population could not but be very sensibly 
 felt upon the adjacent shores of the United States." 2 How 
 far these efforts of our Government have involved us in the 
 guilt of slavery and of the slave-trade as they have been 
 carried on there for the last fifteen years, I am unable to 
 determine. I refer to facts, and leave them for the con 
 sideration of the reader. 
 
 1 Since the publication of this article, an attempt has been made in 
 Congress to disapprove of a Territorial law of Florida which authorizes 
 the sale into slavery of such free colored persons as come into any 
 port of that Territory. The law was sustained by every Democratic 
 member from Ohio, as well as most of those from the Free States, 
 whose constituents will thereby become liable to be sold into intermi 
 nable bondage. ( Vide Journal of the House of Representatives of the 
 3d of January, 1842.) 
 
 2 See letter of Mr. Van Euren, Secretary of State, to Mr. Van 
 Ness, our Minister in Spain, Oct. 22, 1829. 
 
444 APPENDIX. 
 
 The troops of the United States have often been called on 
 to support the institution of slavery by the direct interposition 
 of our arms. More than five hundred slaves were captured 
 by our army in Florida, and returned to a state of interminable 
 slavery. (Vide Ex. Doc. 45, of last session of Congress.) 
 Thus the people of the Free States have been involved in ail 
 the guilt of enslaving our fellow-men in order that the slave 
 holders may have the benefit of their labor. 
 
 In my fourth number I referred to the manner in which a 
 fort within the Territory of Florida was blown up, and two 
 hundred and seventy men, women, and children were mur 
 dered by the crew of a gunboat detached from our naval 
 force, for the sole purpose of robbing them of their lives, for 
 no other reason than that they were unwilling to be robbed of 
 their liberty. This murder, unparalleled in the history of any 
 free and enlightened government on earth, was committed by 
 persons in our employ, by our agents, acting in our name 
 and by our authority. We were thus involved in the guilt of 
 violently sending two hundred and seventy of our fellow-be 
 ings to their final doom, in order that slavery may continue 
 and prosper. 
 
 "The deep damnation of their taking off" rests upon us, 
 on the people of the Free States as well as on those of the 
 Slave States. 
 
 In the general support which our Government has given to 
 slavery they have involved our people of the Free States in 
 the general guilt of that institution. The late census has 
 given us some interesting data by which the number of lives 
 annually sacrificed among the slaves may be estimated with 
 an approximation to truth. It has been said by some intelli 
 gent slaveholders that the most profitable time in which " to 
 use up a slave was seven years." By this it is understood 
 that the slaveholder may make more profit from his slave by 
 driving him so hard as to make the average length of life 
 among his slaves no more than seven years after they reach 
 maturity. By comparing the number of deaths between the 
 ages of twenty and forty, among the slaves of the South and 
 the laborers of the North, some opinion may be formed as to 
 the number of murders by the abuse of slaves in the United 
 States. The writer speaks from memory when he states that 
 
APPENDIX. 445 
 
 such comparisons show that four hundred thousand human 
 lives have been sacrificed to the Moloch of slavery within the 
 United States between 1830 and 1840. In the guilt of these 
 wholesale murders the people of the Free States have been 
 involved, in just such degree as they have lent their influence 
 and aid in supporting that institution. Every man who uses 
 his influence to withhold from our people a knowledge of 
 these facts, and of their rights to be exempt from this in 
 conceivable amount of guilt, becomes accessory to the murders 
 thus committed. Our public men and editors who endeavor 
 to suppress the agitation of our rights on this subject become 
 voluntary participators in shedding this river of blood, the 
 stains of which centuries will not wash from our national 
 escutcheon. 
 
 I might refer to numerous instances in which the people 
 of the Free States have been involved in the guilt of slavery 
 and the slave-trade ; but I have mentioned enough to serve 
 as examples. My object has been to show my readers the 
 manner in which their constitutional rights to remain free from 
 the guilt and moral turpitude of slavery have been invaded. 
 If the Federal Government had abolished slavery in every 
 State of this Union, the outrage upon the Constitution would 
 have been no greater than has been that of involving the people 
 of the Free States in the base wickedness of slavery and of the 
 slave-trade. Yet, Mr. Editor, our public Press and public 
 men have not only remained supinely inactive under these 
 positive violations of the Constitution and of our rights, but 
 they have been absolutely silent. 
 
 One of our great political parties has constantly aided in the 
 perpetration of those outrages upon the people, while it must 
 be acknowledged that the other has exhibited entirely too 
 much insensibility to our wrongs ; although their votes and 
 acts, for some years past, have demonstrated to the world an 
 unwillingness entirely to yield up our blood-bought privileges. 
 This servile yielding up of the Constitution, as well as the 
 rights and interests of the Free States, will gain no favor among 
 the people for either party. No Southern patriot will demand 
 it; no Northern patriot will silently submit to it. If our 
 Union be maintained, it will be by supporting the Constitu 
 tion, not by violating it. By maintaining the rights both of 
 
446 APPENDIX. 
 
 the North and of the South, not by trampling upon those 
 of either section. The South must be permitted to maintain 
 their slavery while they wish to do so ; the North must be 
 permitted to enjoy its freedom uncontaminated and unpol 
 luted by the guilt of slavery. The political party that throws 
 its influence into the support of all these rights will be sus 
 tained by the people ; while the party that either invades the 
 rights of the South, or supinely surrenders up those of the 
 North, will be found wanting, when weighed in the balance 
 of public sentiment. 
 
 PACIFICUS. 
 
 NUMBER VII. 
 
 VIOLATIONS OF THE CONSTITUTION, CONTINUED. 
 
 MR. EDITOR, I proceed to notice briefly some of the 
 instances in which the people of the Free States have been 
 involved in the disgrace of slavery. In my first number I 
 alluded to the unanimous declaration by these States of the 
 self -evident truth " THAT MAN is BORN FREE, AND is ENDOWED 
 
 BY HIS CREATOR WITH THE INALIENABLE RIGHT OF LIFE, LIB 
 ERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS." Every act of our 
 Federal Government which denies to our fellow-men these 
 rights, exhibits to the world an inconsistency, and renders us 
 obnoxious to the charge of hypocrisy. The first act of gross 
 inconsistency on the part of the Federal Government was the 
 Act of Congress, approved 27th February, 1801, by which 
 slavery and the slave-trade were re-established, continued, and 
 are now supported in the District of Columbia. Under that 
 law the people of the Free States have for forty years been in 
 volved in the disgrace of the slave-trade, which, during that 
 period, has been carried on in the city of Washington. 
 
 At an early day it was found that the slaves of the South 
 escaped to the British West India Islands, to Mexico, and to 
 Canada. Our Government espoused the cause of the slave 
 holders, and opened a correspondence with Great Britain and 
 Mexico, in order to obtain an arrangement with those Govern 
 ments for the return of such slaves ; thus endeavoring to make 
 
APPENDIX. 447 
 
 the Federal Government and the Free States the protectors of 
 slavery, and holding out to the world that it was a national 
 institution, in palpable violation of the Constitution and of 
 every dictate of justice. In 1835 tne people of Florida sent 
 a representation to General Jackson that the slaves of that 
 Territory and of the adjoining States were in the habit of flee 
 ing from their masters and taking refuge with the Seminole 
 Indians. Our troops, paid by the Federal Government in 
 money drawn from the people of the North, were ordered 
 there, and were literally made the catchpolls of slave 
 holders, thus making the capture of fugitive slaves the busi 
 ness of the nation, and involving the people of the Free States 
 in its disgrace. I mentioned in a former number the fact 
 that, by order of the War Department, a gunboat went up 
 the Appalachicola River for the purpose of destroying a fort 
 in which fugitive slaves had taken refuge, and that two hun 
 dred and seventy human beings were murdered in cold blood 
 by the agents of our Government, paid by the freemen of the 
 North. 
 
 In this extraordinary transaction our people of the Free 
 States were involved in the disgrace of murdering fugitive 
 slaves. 
 
 The efforts which our Government put forth to obtain in 
 demnity for the owners of slaves who escaped to the British 
 army during the late war, led that nation and the civilized 
 world to believe that slavery was a national institution, sus 
 tained by the Free States as well as the Slave States ; and we 
 were consequently involved in all the odium of slavery. The 
 exertions of our Government to prevent the abolition of slavery 
 in Cuba, and thus to stop the progress of human liberty, in 
 volved the people of the Free States in all the disgrace attached 
 to that extraordinary transaction. The spirited manner in 
 which our Government espoused the cause of the slave-deal 
 ers who owned the cargoes of the " Comet " and " Encomium " 
 brought upon the people of the Free States all the ignominy 
 attached to the supporters of the slave-trade. 
 
 But the honor of the Free States has suffered most deeply 
 from the restraints placed upon our people by the force of 
 public sentiment among ourselves. This state of public opin 
 ion originated in the patriotism of the Northern States. Prior 
 
448 APPENDIX. 
 
 to the formation of our Constitution, our people felt the abso 
 lute necessity of a confederate government, with more ample 
 powers than existed under the old Confederation. To obtain 
 this, they were ready and willing to make sacrifices. Georgia 
 and South Carolina would not adopt the Constitution unless 
 they were permitted to follow the slave-trade for twenty years ; 
 to this the Northern States reluctantly consented, in order to 
 bring them into the Union. The North also consented to 
 permit the South to be represented in Congress in proportion 
 to the number of their slaves, and to pursue their fugitive 
 slaves into the Free States, and arrest and carry them back. 
 These concessions were sacrifices of Northern sentiments and 
 Northern interests, made for the purpose of obtaining a more 
 efficient government, in order to strengthen and perpetuate 
 the institutions of our country. In this manner the Constitu 
 tion was purchased by the Free States. Since the adoption of 
 the Constitution, we have been constantly called on to make 
 further sacrifices to purchase its continuance. Thus, in 1820, 
 the Slave States demanded an extension of the slaveholding 
 influence, by the admission of Missouri as a Slave State, in 
 order to check the increasing preponderance of the Free States. 
 The Free States objected. The South threatened an immedi 
 ate dissolution of the Union unless their demands were com 
 plied with. The North submitted for the purpose of preserv 
 ing the Union. The sacrifice was declared an act of patriotism, 
 and an example worthy to be imitated by statesmen and poli 
 ticians. In 1833, South Carolina demanded a surrender of the 
 tariff, and distinctly informed us that unless her demands were 
 complied with she would dissolve the Union. The statesmen 
 of the Free States hesitated, trembled, and submitted. The 
 tariff was repealed, and the interests of the Free States yielded 
 up in order to purchase a continuance of the Union. The act 
 is yet quoted by some as an example of patriotism on the part 
 of the Free States. Our Press, our statesmen and politicians 
 treated it as such ; and our people were thus led to believe 
 that the sacrifice of Northern rights to the interest of the 
 Slave States was, in fact, a duty and a virtue. 
 
 Whenever the interests of the North and the South came 
 in conflict, Southern members were, for more than a quarter of 
 a century, in the habit of threatening " a dissolution of the 
 
APPENDIX. 449 
 
 Union/ as the most effectual argument in favor of their meas 
 ures ; and it seldom failed to convince their opponents. This 
 practice became so common that dictation appears to have 
 been regarded as the right of the South, and submission was 
 looked upon as the duty of the North. This feeling prevailed 
 so long and to such an extent that any deviation from the 
 accustomed submission was regarded as suspicious. 
 
 In our circles at home the agitation of any question which 
 embraced the institution of slavery or the slave-trade was usu 
 ally denounced as abolition ; and without further examination 
 was regarded as dishonorable to him who proposed it. Our 
 public men became unwilling to raise any question that should 
 affect slavery, lest they should thereby jeopardize their political 
 standing ; and the public Press discouraged every attempt to 
 assert the rights of the Free States in opposition to the interests 
 of the South. To support slavery it is absolutely necessary to 
 suppress all knowledge of human rights among those held in 
 bondage. 
 
 To the suppression of such knowledge our people of the 
 Free States became accessory. In doing this, our own rights 
 were lost sight of; we saw our money taken from our pockets 
 and appropriated to the recapture, and even to the murder, of 
 fugitive slaves, and were silent under the outrage. The spirit 
 of independence and honor seemed to have fled from our 
 people. We saw our Presidents, our heads of departments, 
 our Speakers of the House of Representatives and of the 
 Senate, our foreign ministers, our officers in the army and 
 navy, mostly taken from the Slave States, and we meekly sub 
 mitted to the abuse. We saw our respectful petitions to Con 
 gress treated with contempt ; and our citizens, who dared thus 
 to approach their servants, were insulted and abused by the 
 supercilious advocates of slavery ; while scarcely a solitary 
 voice was heard in defence of Northern honor. Even such as 
 dared to stand forth in defence of our rights and interests were 
 generally condemned by the Press or "damned with faint 
 praise." This was the point of our lowest degradation. His 
 tory will mark the commencement of 1842 as the period of 
 the deepest humiliation of the Free States. It was the time 
 when the slave-power ruled triumphant, and, untrammelled 
 by the Constutition, held the freemen of the North in almost 
 
 29 
 
450 APPENDIX. 
 
 willing subjection to its dictates ; when the rights, the interests, 
 and the honor of the Free States were regarded as of little im 
 portance, except as a means of promoting the interests of the 
 Slave States. At this period, when all hope of supporting the 
 rights of the North appeared about to expire, a most import 
 ant incident transpired in the House of Representatives of the 
 United States. John Quincy Adams presented a petition to 
 dissolve the Union. I say nothing in favor of this petition ; it 
 was, however, a request that Congress would carry into effect 
 the threats which for twenty-five years had been put forth by 
 Southern statesmen. It was a request that those States which 
 had assumed to themselves the control of the Federal Govern 
 ment might be left to take care of and protect themselves. 
 The proposition horrified those who had so often menaced us 
 with the consequences now prayed for by Northern men. 
 
 The effect produced by this petition was most important. 
 Southern statesmen exhibited to the world a consciousness of 
 their entire dependence upon the Free States. It was distinctly 
 avowed by one of their ablest and most influential members 
 that " the dissolution of the Union would be the dissolution of 
 slavery" It showed to the people of the Free States and to 
 the world that our institutions and national independence must 
 ever depend upon Northern freemen for support. From this 
 moment Northern men felt more conscious of their power, 
 and of the importance of our free institutions of the North. 
 The sceptre of power then departed from the South, and must 
 hereafter be swayed by the North, if our people prove them 
 selves worthy of the high trust reposed in them. It is true, 
 great efforts were subsequently made, and will continue to be 
 made, by members from the Slave States, assisted by Northern 
 Democrats, to stop the wheels of that revolution in the public 
 mind which originated in the attempt to censure the vener 
 able Adams. But their efforts have only served to awaken our 
 people more fully to the maintenance of our rights. 
 
 PACIFICUS. 
 
APPENDIX. 45 1 
 
 NUMBER VIII. 
 
 THE REMEDY. 
 
 MR. EDITOR, I have now stated, generally, the constitu 
 tional rights of the people of the Free States concerning sla 
 very, and have referred to some of the most prominent abuses 
 to which those rights have been subjected. It remains for me 
 to call the attention of my readers to the remedy. But this will 
 at once suggest itself to the mind of every reader, and each 
 will say that our remedy consists in a united vindication of our 
 rights ; that the real difficulty consists in our divisions, and 
 our first efforts should be to unite the friends of Northern 
 rights. In order to do this we must search out the cause of 
 our division, and understand distinctly the point on which we 
 separated. If I understand our Liberty men, they are anxious 
 to maintain the rights of the Free States, and they ask for 
 nothing more. I speak upon the authority of many leading 
 men of that party. I have never met with an intelligent man 
 who asked or demanded anything more than this ; yet they 
 say " the Whigs have neglected a portion of our most impor 
 tant rights," and they feel it their duty to separate from them 
 and to form a distinct party, whose principal efforts are to be 
 directed to the maintenance of such of our rights as have been 
 neglected by the Whigs. 
 
 It was not my intention when I commenced these essays 
 to throw censure upon any class of men, nor is such my pres 
 ent object ; I may, however, be permitted to say that I think 
 our Liberty friends did not well " define their position " before 
 they separated from us. For the correctness of this remark I 
 will refer to the recollection of the great mass of our people 
 of all parties. At the time of separating from us they had not 
 clearly set forth to the world our rights, which had been tram 
 pled upon ; nor did they state with perspicuity the abuses 
 which they sought to correct. Neither did they definitely 
 mark the boundaries and limit the extent of the political re 
 form which they were endeavoring to effect. On the contrary, 
 there was a degree of obscurity pervading their objects. They 
 
452 APPENDIX. 
 
 professed opposition to slavery, and left the public to infer a 
 design to invade the privileges of the Slave States, instead of 
 maintaining our own. This idea has rested in the minds of a 
 large portion of our people both in the Free and in the Slave 
 States. It is true the charge was often denied, and it is 
 equally true that the denial was not carried home to the 
 minds of the great mass of our people, many of whom to 
 this day really believe the object of the Liberty party to be 
 an unconstitutional interference with the privileges of the 
 Slave States. But so far as I have been able to learn their 
 motives and to analyze their views, I understand them to be 
 simply the preservation of our own rights ; the repeal of all 
 Acts of Congress passed for the support of slavery or the 
 slave-trade ; to separate the Federal Government and the 
 Free States from all unconstitutional connection with that 
 institution ; and to leave it with the individual States where 
 the Constitution placed it. This I believe to be the boun 
 dary and farthest extent of their political intentions. If they 
 entertain any other or farther views, I hope Judge King (the 
 candidate of the Liberty party for Governor of Ohio) will 
 state to your readers, through the " Chronicle," the point on 
 which I have failed to express their objects. I hope also that 
 the editors of the "Philanthropist" and "Emancipator" will, 
 through their respective papers, set forth definitely any error 
 into which I may have fallen in regard to the designs and 
 objects of their party. 
 
 But for the present, taking these to be the definite limits 
 to which they aspire, I will respectfully ask the Whigs, as a 
 party, and the Liberty men as a party, to show me the line of 
 demarcation between them? Is there an individual in the 
 whole Whig party of Ohio, or in the Free States, that is will 
 ing to surrender a single right of our people? If there be such 
 a Whig, I have not met him. If there be a Whig editor north 
 of Mason and Dixon s line who is willing to yield up any of 
 the constitutional rights of the Free States, I hope he will favor 
 the country with his views, and that he will inform us dis 
 tinctly which part of the Constitution we ought first to surren 
 der. I speak with great confidence when I say that I believe 
 no such man can be found. Let the rights of the people of 
 the Free States in regard to slavery be fairly and distinctly 
 
APPENDIX. 453 
 
 pointed out, and there will be no want of firmness nor of 
 patriotism to maintain them. It is true, however, that many 
 Whigs have and still do oppose the abolition of slavery in the 
 District of Columbia ; but they will assign to you as the reason 
 that Congress has not the constitutional power to abolish it. 
 If you then ask them if they are willing that Congress should 
 repeal its own laws, for the support of slavery and the slave- 
 trade in that District, they will at once answer you in the af 
 firmative. If you inquire whether they are willing to lend 
 their influence or their property to support slavery, they will 
 answer you they detest the institution. If you interrogate 
 them in regard to any other rights of the North, they will 
 unhesitatingly assure you of their determination to sustain 
 them. 
 
 If, then, our Whigs are willing to sustain all our rights, and 
 our Liberty men have no further objects in view than the sup 
 port of such rights, the question at once suggests itself, Why 
 do they divide? What principle separates them from each 
 other? And it is a question of high and solemn import, 
 which the writer would repeat in the ear of every Whig, 
 every anti-slavery man, and of every lover of our free in 
 stitutions, Why do you divide your political influence, and 
 prostrate your political energies, while you agree in principle 
 and are laboring for the same objects ? 
 
 We have the same interests to watch over, the same rights 
 to maintain, and the same honor to protect. All these must 
 receive our attention, or be left to those who as a party have 
 uniformly lent themselves to the slaveholding influence. If 
 we forget those rights, and spend our efforts in unmeaning 
 contentions and useless quarrels with each other, will not our 
 country hold us responsible ? Our interests have been sacri 
 ficed, our rights have been trampled upon, our State has been 
 disgraced, as I have heretofore shown. Yet we have divided 
 our efforts, and separated from our political associates, and 
 delivered the honor of our State to the keeping of a party who, 
 forgetful of the dignity of freemen, have shown themselves 
 willing to become the catchers of slaves , and to degrade them 
 selves and their State by legislating for the sole purpose of 
 robbing their fellow-men of that liberty with which the God of 
 Nature has endowed them. But I desire to examine a little 
 
454 APPENDIX. 
 
 further the cause of our separation at the late election. The 
 Whigs supported our tariff, our harbor improvements, the dis 
 tribution of the proceeds of the public lands, with zeal and 
 constancy. But our commerce with Hayti, the right of peti 
 tion, the slave-trade in the District of Columbia, received from 
 them, generally, much less attention, although they were not 
 neglected by a portion of that party. These latter subjects 
 were deemed of paramount importance by a portion of our 
 political friends ; on these they bestowed their principal 
 thoughts, and treated the others with comparatively little at 
 tention. In this manner each party felt that they were exerting 
 their efforts upon subjects of vital interest to our country, and 
 each considered the other as laboring in behalf of interests 
 that were not worthy of the attention paid to them. 
 
 In this way each party became dissatisfied with the other. 
 Here, then, is the precise point of division among our 
 friends, not because either did wrong, but because each 
 felt that the other was not sufficiently zealous in supporting 
 all their interests. The division did not arise from any politi 
 cal sin of commission, but for omitting some part of our duties. 
 The Democratic party has violently opposed those rights which 
 Liberty men deemed sacred. The Whigs were lukewarm in 
 supporting them, and on this account our Liberty friends with 
 drew from us, and thereby delivered over our interests to the 
 disposal of those whose bitterness against the rights of man 
 can scarcely find utterance in our language. 1 Having thus 
 ascertained the cause and the precise point of our separation, 
 the remedy is plain. It consists simply in doing our duty, in 
 maintaining our rights and interests and firmly resisting all 
 abuses, in placing ourselves upon the exact line of the 
 Constitution, and temperately, but resolutely, opposing all 
 encroachments upon our interests, our honor, or our con 
 stitutional privileges. 
 
 I am aware that many of our editors and public men fear 
 that the assertion and maintenance of our rights in regard to 
 slavery would drive from us our Whig friends in the Slave 
 States. If these fears were well grounded, they would form 
 no good reason why we should surrender our constitutional 
 rights in order to purchase their adherence. This is the 
 1 Vide the late number of the " Ohio Statesmen." 
 
APPENDIX. 45 5 
 
 policy of the opposite party. They appear anxious to sur 
 render up our rights, our interests, and our honor for the pur 
 chase of Southern votes. If the Whigs attempt to rival that 
 party in servility, they must fail. The independent spirit, the 
 high sense of honor, the patriotic sentiment of our Whigs, will 
 not permit them to become subservient to the slaveholding 
 interest. But the argument is not well founded. Our South 
 ern Whigs are generally men of liberal and patriotic senti 
 ments. They will not ask of us the sacrifice of our constitu 
 tional rights. On the contrary, they will be as willing to grant 
 us the enjoyment of all our rights as to demand the en 
 joyment of all their own. If they are not such men, they are 
 unfit to be the associates of Northern Whigs. It is, however, 
 true that they, as well as Northern men, have not heretofore 
 fully understood our rights, for the reason that we ourselves 
 dared not assert them , and they, as well as Northern men, have 
 unconsciously voted and acted in opposition to the rights of 
 the Free States, under the impression that they were sustaining 
 the Constitution. But when the attention of our Southern 
 and Northern W 7 higs shall be directed to this subject, when 
 they shall have fully investigated it, and shall understand the 
 constitutional limits of slavery, I apprehend there will be no 
 difference between them. It is, therefore, all important that 
 public attention should be directed to this matter. Indeed, 
 intelligence in regard to Northern rights cannot be longer sup 
 pressed. A spirit of inquiry is abroad among the people, and 
 it is increasing daily, and becoming stronger and stronger. 
 
 A marked and palpable change has taken place in the pub 
 lic mind within the past year. In February last almost the 
 entire Press united in the opinion that we were bound to sup 
 port the coastwise slave-trade of the South. At this time who 
 is willing to hazard his reputation by advocating such doctrine ? 
 Yet, with such examples before us, a portion of our Press and 
 of our public men exhibit much timidity as to asserting and 
 maintaining our constitutional rights. So long have the peo 
 ple of the North been accustomed to silent submission when 
 our rights have been invaded that many of our editors, our 
 statesmen and politicians, still appear to doubt the safety of 
 an open, frank, and manly defence of our interests and our 
 honor. It however needs no spirit of prophecy to foretell 
 
456 APPENDIX. 
 
 the downfall of any party which has not the moral and politi 
 cal courage to maintain the rights and interests of the North. 
 If the Whigs come forth to the defence of these interests and 
 maintenance of these rights, their success is not less certain 
 than the continuance of time ; and if the opposite party con 
 tinue to oppose these rights and interests, their defeat is 
 inevitable. 
 
 PACIFICUS. 
 
 NUMBER IX. 
 
 EJECTIONS ANSWERED. 
 
 MR. EDITOR, In this, my closing number, it is my inten 
 tion to answer some objections that have been urged against 
 a union of the friends of Northern rights. The first and 
 most important objection urged by the "Liberty men" is, 
 that " Henry Clay is the Whig candidate for President, and 
 they cannot vote for him because he is a slaveholder." My 
 first answer to this objection is that Mr. Clay is not the candidate 
 of the Whig party at present ; and whether he will be is quite 
 uncertain. Nor can I admit it to be good or sound policy for 
 me to withdraw from the support of good men, at this time, for 
 the reason that I think a bad man may be a candidate two 
 years hence for another office. Again, should Mr. Clay die 
 before the next Presidential election, or should he not be a 
 candidate, how can they justify their withdrawal at the late 
 election from the support of men who openly avow and sup 
 port every principle which they do themselves? My next 
 answer is that Mr. Clay, under the laws of Kentucky, is per 
 mitted to hold slaves. By the Constitution of the United 
 States that is made no disqualification for office. It is an 
 objection unknown to the Constitution, and we ought to be 
 careful how we attempt innovations upon that instrument, un 
 less they be made in the mode pointed out for its amendment. 
 
 The first President under the Constitution was a slave 
 holder; and the slaveholders of those States have an equal 
 right to hold office that gentlemen who reside in the Free 
 
APPENDIX. 457 
 
 States have. For us, at this day, to establish such a rule as a 
 test for office would be a violation of the rights of the people 
 of the Slave States. This is, in my opinion, highly objection 
 able. It would show us willing to invade their rights, while 
 we profess to maintain our own. This would be inconsistent. 
 Our inquiry should be, Will he maintain the Constitution, and 
 will he support the constitutional rights of all parts of the 
 Union ? If we are satisfied that he will do this, we ought not 
 to throw away our political influence, and suffer our interests, 
 our honor, and our constitutional rights to be trampled under 
 foot by a party who appear anxious to bring us under the sub 
 jection of the South. I would, in all candor, ask our Liberty 
 men whether they would not prefer the support of our rights 
 by a slaveholding President rather than their destruction by 
 "a Northern man with Southern principles"? I certainly 
 prefer that our candidates should not be slaveholders ; for 
 I believe slaveholding, even in a Slave State, to be immoral 
 and wrong, and must detract from the moral character of those 
 who practise it. Like all other vices, it should have its due 
 weight in our estimate of character ; but it is entitled to noth 
 ing more. Should Mr. Clay or his friends satisfy me that, 
 if elected President, he will, in good faith, support all these 
 rights to which I have alluded, and which have been so often 
 and so long trampled upon, and he be the only candidate 
 who, in my opinion, will sustain those rights, and who at the 
 same time has a reasonable chance for election, I could not 
 justify myself to my conscience were I to withhold my support 
 from him. Were I to do so, and thereby elect a man who I 
 believed would violate our Constitution and disregard our 
 rights, I should thereby become accessory to his acts. 
 
 In order to satisfy myself in regard to Mr. Clay s views on 
 this subject, I, as one of the sovereign people, may propound 
 to him any and all questions that I may deem important on 
 this subject ; and if he be worthy of that high office, he will 
 not hesitate to answer them fully and frankly. If I then be 
 come satisfied that he will, if elected, disregard those consti 
 tutional rights of the North, I cannot support him, it would 
 be wrong for me to do so ; for I should become accessory 
 to the violation of our Constitution and the subversion of 
 the rights of the Free States. Questions of policy constantly 
 
458 APPENDIX. 
 
 require of us mutual concessions of opinion ; but no cir 
 cumstances can justify the yielding up of any portion of the 
 Constitution. When that shall be done, society will be 
 resolved into its original elements. 
 
 Another objection is, that slaveholders when in office do 
 injustice to the Free States. This assertion has proven too 
 true in many cases, but is not correct in all instances. I 
 quote the example of the present Speaker of the House of 
 Representatives, the Hon. John White. No Northern man 
 has condemned his official acts. He has discharged his 
 duties honorably, and is as much entitled to confidence as 
 though he lived in a Free State. Here I would caution our 
 anti-slavery men not to permit their lofty principles of human 
 rights to dwindle down to mere local jealousies. We should 
 no more invade the spirit of the Constitution by making the 
 holding of slaves a test for office, than we should permit our 
 Southern friends to invade its letter. 
 
 Again, it is said that the Whigs have done nothing in favor 
 of those rights which anti-slavery men consider so important. 
 Is the assertion correct? Have not J. Q. Adams, William 
 Slade, Seth M. Gates, and other Whigs done what they could 
 for the defence and support of Northern rights? But it is 
 said these are individuals. Yet they belong to the Whig 
 party, and constitute a part of it ; and surely their acts can 
 not be placed to the credit of the other party. But do not 
 our friends, who make this objection, charge over to the Whig 
 party the acts of individuals belonging to that political sect 
 when they oppose the cause of human rights? The great 
 body of the Whig party in Congress voted to repeal the ob 
 noxious Twenty-first Rule. A few individuals, joining with the 
 opposite party, prevented its repeal. Our Liberty papers and 
 their party charged this as the act of the Whig party , while 
 they deny to that party any credit for the efforts of Mr. Adams 
 and others. This practice is unjust, and ought to cease. But 
 have not the Whig party (and when I speak of the party, I 
 mean the majority of the party) voted in support of these 
 rights for the last two years ? Have they not voted against 
 the odious gag and in favor of the right of petition when these 
 questions came before them? Did they not sustain Mr. 
 Adams when an attempt was made to censure him? Did 
 
APPENDIX. 459 
 
 they not sustain Mr. Giddings when censured ? Did not the 
 Whig party in his district sustain him? I ask in what in 
 stance, for the last two years, have the Whigs in the House 
 of Representatives failed to sustain these rights when agitated 
 upon the floor of Congress ? I will not say that they have at 
 all times maintained our rights ; but I do not hesitate in say 
 ing that I know of no instances when the question of North 
 ern rights has been brought distinctly before them, for the last 
 two years, in which a majority of the members of the Whig 
 party present have not sustained those rights. 
 
 Yet it is asserted by some that " the two great political par 
 ties have been equally opposed to the rights of mankind and to 
 the interests of the people of the Free States." I can hardly 
 believe that any intelligent man would make such statement 
 while under the exercise of a suitable regard to candor. It is 
 well known that for the last two years in every instance in which 
 those rights so dear to our friends have come before Congress, 
 every Democratic member from this State has opposed them, 
 and that every Whig member from this State has sustained 
 them ; and such, too, has been substantially true of the two 
 parties generally, though not to the same extent. A Whig 
 member from this State introduced resolutions declaring the 
 rights of the Free States as set forth in my second number, 
 and was sustained by every Whig colleague ; while one of his 
 Democratic colleagues moved a resolution to censure him for 
 thus presuming to assert our rights, and every Democratic 
 member voted for the resolution of censure. And is it pos 
 sible that any man can now be sincere in saying that the two 
 parties are alike subservient to the interests of the South ? x 
 
 But it is said that the Whigs have been subservient to South 
 ern dictation ; and their acts, in former years, are quoted to 
 prove the fact. This charge is too true. Up to a certain 
 time both parties appear to have been submissive to the de 
 mands of the Slave States. Such, too, was the case generally 
 with the men who now make this charge. Their attention had 
 
 1 The votes in Congress for suppressing the slave-trade in the Dis 
 trict of Columbia, and for repealing the Territorial law of Florida 
 which authorizes selling freemen into slavery, were given since the 
 above was published. On these questions the representatives from the 
 Free States were divided almost entirely by party lines. 
 
460 APPENDIX. 
 
 not been aroused to the subject. They, with the Whigs and 
 Democrats, were equally unconscious of the encroachments 
 upon our rights ; and the Whigs or the Democrats may 
 now make this charge against the " Liberty party " with 
 the same propriety that the latter can urge it against the 
 others. The truth is, the abuse of Northern rights has but 
 just begun to attract attention. But whatever has been done 
 in Congress has been done by the Whigs. Up to this time 
 there has been no Liberty man in that body or in our State 
 Legislature. But such has been the revolution in public 
 opinion that if it continues to progress as it has for the last 
 year, it will be completed, our rights secured, and the Con 
 stitution will be vindicated before that party will get any 
 members elected to either body. Would it not be far better 
 for the cause of Northern rights if our Liberty men were to 
 deal justly and candidly with both of the great political par 
 ties, and to approve as frankly that which is praiseworthy, as 
 they condemn that which is wrong? 
 
 But it is said that the present political parties have be 
 come corrupt, and it is therefore necessary to form a new 
 party that shall be free from such political corruptions. But I 
 ask from whence are we to find the men for this new party? 
 Must they not come from the present parties? And will 
 they be more pure, more honest, and more patriotic when 
 transferred to a new party than they now are ? Are there any 
 regenerating influences to act upon such as join the new 
 party? Are their political transgressions to be washed out? 
 Will the Whig who has always acted honestly, and been 
 guided by a sincere desire for his country s good, be more 
 likely to leave his party than the demagogue and the office- 
 seeker? I would not by any means be understood as 
 impugning the motives of those who now constitute the 
 Liberty party ; on the contrary, I believe them as honest and 
 patriotic as any other class of men. But I ask them if the 
 formation of a new party will not be likely to draw to 
 them the profligate and the unprincipled from both of the 
 other parties? 
 
 Again, it is said to have become necessary to form a party 
 whose principal object shall be the maintenance of those 
 rights which our anti-slavery men may deem important. If by 
 
APPENDIX. 461 
 
 this form of expression it be understood that those who unite 
 with that party are, in any degree, to neglect the protection of 
 free labor by a proper tariff of duties ; or if they intend to 
 abandon the improvement of our lake harbors, and our river 
 navigation, and other Northern interests which the Whigs deem 
 important, then I, for one, cannot unite with them, nor can I 
 believe their prospect of success very flattering, Our people 
 may easily be persuaded to maintain our rights when their 
 attention is called to them ; but it will be difficult to convince 
 them that it has become their duty to neglect either their 
 rights or their interests. 
 
 But if a portion of our friends form a distinct party for the 
 support of the right of petition and to maintain the freedom 
 of debate, and for that purpose they should oppose those who 
 are engaged for the protection of the free labor of the North, 
 while another portion turn their attention to this latter object, 
 and oppose their influence to the former, is it not perfectly 
 clear that both must fail ; while a union in support of both 
 would inevitably secure the triumph of each ? 
 
 But I have not time to pursue the subject further ; I have 
 already occupied more of your paper and more of the atten 
 tion of your readers, than I designed when I commenced 
 these essays. It has been my object to call public attention 
 to what I believe the true points in issue. I have intended to 
 speak with such plainness that no man, nor party, nor editor, 
 should say that I feared to state the whole truth, or that Whig 
 papers dare not publish arguments touching all our rights. 
 And if I have fallen short of this, I again call upon the editors 
 of the " Philanthropist " and the "Emancipator" to show 
 wherein. And, on the other hand, if there be a Whig editor 
 who is unwilling to support all our rights, or who thinks the 
 assertion and support of all our rights and interests impolitic 
 or imprudent, I desire him to place his objections before the 
 public. It is surely time that our papers and our people bad 
 ceased to contend about names and terms y and that they 
 should search out some principle, or some constitutional or 
 political right, as the foundation of their quarrels. 
 
 Again, the writer would say to his readers that he has put 
 forth no opinion upon the constitutional rights of the several 
 States without mature investigation, or on which he enter- 
 
462 APPENDIX. 
 
 tains any doubt. Yet he claims for himself no infallibility. 
 And if any man desire explanations, or authorities on any 
 point, he will most cheerfully furnish them. 
 
 In taking leave of my readers I wish to say that I was 
 induced to appear before the public on this subject from the 
 most thorough conviction that no fixed and established 
 policy will be framed by the General Government while the 
 rights of the Free States remain unsettled concerning slavery. 
 Looking at Ohio, New York, and all of New England, and 
 considering the result of our late elections, and the divisions 
 which distract and divide the friends of the North and of 
 liberty in those States, we must all acknowledge that we have 
 little hope of seeing our interests, our honor, or our rights 
 protected until union shall characterize our political efforts. 
 Since the commencement of these essays many things have 
 transpired to rivet this conviction more thoroughly upon the 
 mind. I refer, among other things, to the Latimer case at 
 Boston, and the absorbing interest now felt on the subject in 
 Massachusetts and in Virginia. 1 Feeling desirous to call the 
 attention of our people, as well as that of our politicians and 
 statesmen, to the importance of a speedy settlement of those 
 questions which involve the most vital interests of the Free 
 States, I have seized upon such moments as I could spare from 
 other employments to place some of my views before the 
 public. I have done this under the strong conviction that every 
 true patriot should put forth his influence to sustain our rights 
 and to unite our people in the protection of our interests, our 
 honor, and the Constitution of our common country. 
 
 PACIFICUS. 
 
 1 Since this article was published, the Norfolk meeting in Virginia 
 have passed resolutions recommending to their Legislature the " arming 
 and disciplining of their militia," preparatory to the coming conflict 
 between the Slave and Free States. Yet while Virginia is thus urged to 
 arm her militia in support of slavery, some Northern editors feel it 
 their duty to remain silent in regard to Northern rights. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 A. 
 
 ABBOTT, A., 231, 260. 
 
 Abolitionists, the, 45, 73, 87, 97, 136, 157, 
 212, 214, 287, 311, 377, 383 ; Henry Clay s 
 famous speech against, 65-66, 159 ; di 
 vided between support of Birney and 
 Harrison for the Presidency, 88 ; alarm 
 the slaveholders by organized political 
 action, 91; many support Clay for Presi 
 dent, 158. 
 
 Adams, Charles Francis, 210, 214, 269; 
 correspondence with Giddings, 199-200, 
 213-214, 228-229, 278; a "Conscience 
 Whig," 206; an intimate friend of Gid 
 dings, 208 ; editor of the " Boston 
 Whig," 232 ; supported Giddings in his 
 controversy with Winthrop, 232. 
 
 Adams, John Quincy, 44, 54, 56, 57-58, 64, 
 75. 92-93,97, 122-123, 124, 125, 128, 131, 
 133, 141, 145,147, 150, 173, 178, 190, 212, 
 214, 245, 248-249, 258, 355, 357, 359, 360, 
 381, 384, 385, 390, 406; representative to 
 Congress, 48 ; his friendship for Gid 
 dings, 48, 168-170, 208, 398; his posi 
 tion in the House, 48; independent in 
 politics, 49, 79 ; occasions dissension 
 among the Whigs, 49; champion of the 
 rightof petition, 49, 91-92, 102, 103 etseq., 
 140, 148-149, 380; disregard of legisla 
 tive rules, 51-52; his position on the 
 slavery question, 61-63 ! counsel for the 
 anti-slavery men in the "Amistad " case, 
 76-77 ; his service in the Twenty-sixth 
 Congress, 78-79 ; memorable action in 
 the Newjersey delegation contest, 7879; 
 chairman of the Committee on Foreign 
 Affairs, 102 ; presents a petition for the 
 dissolution of the Union, 103-104, 332 ; 
 his trial and punishment demanded by 
 Southern members, 104-105, 105-106 ; 
 zeal of his friends to assist him, 105 ; re 
 plies to the Southern leader, H. Mar 
 shall, 106 ; insulted by Southern mem 
 bers, 106-107; his defence of his actions, 
 107-110; effect of his triumph on the 
 anti-slavery movement, iio-in ; his ac 
 tion in the case of the "Creole," 118, 
 119-120 ; maintained the right of the 
 Federal Government to abolish slavery 
 in the States, 119-120; claims of the 
 West Florida slaveholders, 142; failing 
 in health, 148 ; appointed chairman of a 
 committee to provide rules for the House, 
 148 ; introduces memorial of the Massa 
 chusetts Legislature, 151-152 ; chairman 
 
 of a committee to report on the memo 
 rial, 151 ; his report, 151-152 ; loss of 
 friends through devotion to anti-slavery 
 cause, 168-169; obtains the repeal of the 
 " gag-rule," 171 ; his position on the 
 Oregon question, 189 ; votes against 
 the Mexican War Bill, 192 ; supports 
 Winthrop for Speaker, 217, 222; his 
 death, 239-240; Giddings s lectures on, 
 
 "Alabama," the, 390. 
 
 Alford, J. C., of Georgia, threatens Gid 
 dings, 98. 
 
 Allen, Charles, 206, 252, 258, 271, 274, 283. 
 
 Allen, William, of Ohio, 83, 188, 190. 
 
 American Anti-Slavery .Society, the, foun 
 dation of, 87 ; Arthur Tappan its first 
 president, 89. 
 
 "Amistad," case of the, 73-77, 153-155, 
 205, 256, 309-3(0. 
 
 Andrews, S. J., 33, 128, 147. 
 
 Arnold, T. D., of Tenn., 146. 
 
 Ashburton, Lord, 129. 
 
 Ashmun, George, 192, 206, 260, 274, 276, 
 283, 373- 
 
 Atchison, D, R., of Mo., 308. 
 
 Atherton, C. G., of N. H., his gag resolu 
 tions, 51. 
 
 B. 
 
 BAILEY, Dr. Gamaliel, 90 ; editor of the 
 " Philanthropist " and " National Era," 
 88 ; an ardent anti-slavery man, 88 ; let 
 ter to Giddings, 88-89; his house the 
 rendezvous of reformers, 284, 346. 
 
 Baldwin, Judge, 76. 
 
 Banks, Nathaniel P., 322, 336; elected 
 Speaker, 325-326. 
 
 Barringer, D. M., of N. C.. 277. 
 
 Barrow, Senator, 114. 
 
 Bayly, T. H., 274,310,316- 
 
 Bell, John, 283, 344, 377. 
 
 Benezett, Anthony, 37. 
 
 Benton, Thomas H., 83, 183, 283, 384, 385. 
 
 Berrien, J. M., of Georgia, 152. 
 
 Bingham, John A., a warm friend of Gid 
 dings, 398-399. 
 
 Birdseye, Victory, 147. 
 
 Birney, James G., 62, 91, 131, 157, 160, 
 411 ; Abolitionist candidate for Presi 
 dent in 1840, 88; nominated by the Lib 
 erty party for President in 1844, 158. 
 
 u? k , E w J 97 ~?, 8 I72 ~7l 398< 
 Black Warrior, case of the, 314-315. 
 
464 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Blair, Francis P., 346. 
 
 Blair, Francis, P., Jr., 373. 
 
 Borden, Nathaniel B., 147. 
 
 " Boston Atlas," 226-227, 229. 
 
 "Boston Whig," 229, 232. 
 
 Botts, J. M. , 109 ; his motion to censure Gid 
 dings for his action in the "Creole" 
 affair, 121122 ; condemned Giddiugs s 
 resolutions as ill-timed, 126. 
 
 Bowditch, H. I., Dr., 188, 189. 
 
 Brainerd, Lawrence, 242. 
 
 Brengle, Francis, 156. 
 
 Briggs, George N., 98, 147. 
 
 Briggs, J. A., 188. 
 
 Bronson, David, 147. 
 
 Brooks, James, 295, 297 ; speech on joint 
 resolution in honor of Kossuth, 291-293. 
 
 Brooks, Preston S., his assault on Sum- 
 ner, and subsequent trial by the House, 
 332-334- 
 
 Brougham, Lord, 147. 
 
 Brown, John, letters to Giddings, 327- 
 328 ; assisted by Giddings, 370 ; his Vir 
 ginia raid, 370. 
 
 Brown, Milton, 182. 
 
 Brown, William J., his attempt to obtain 
 the Speakership, 273-275 ; rage of South 
 ern members against, 275. 
 
 Buchanan, James, 83, 339; nomination and 
 election to the Presidency, 337 ; favored 
 the admission of Kansas as a Slave 
 State, 341. 
 
 Buffum, Arnold, 352. 
 
 Burke, Edmund, 151,201, 239. 
 
 Burlingame, Anson, 334. 
 
 Burritt, Elihu, 282. 
 
 Burt, A., 262. 
 
 Butler, General, 387. 
 
 C. 
 
 CALHOUN, JOHN C., 65, 80, 114, 116, 120, 
 127, 128, 283 ; his action in the " Enter 
 prise" affair, 81-84; offers resolutions to 
 nationalize slavery, 82-83, 126-127, IDO ; 
 Secretary of State, 157; his treaty for 
 the annexation of Texas, 178-182 ; posi 
 tion on the Oregon question, 189-190 ; 
 opposed Polk s call for additional troops 
 for Mexican War, 198; his address to the 
 South in support of slavery, 268. 
 
 Calhoun, William B., 105, 145, 147. 
 
 California, 257, 269-270, 281, 310. 
 
 Campbell, Lewis D., 322, 348. 
 
 Campbell, Mr., 217. 
 
 Cartter, David K., 372, 373. 
 
 Cass, General, 185, 190, 271, 278, 283, 306 ; 
 minister to France, 117; candidate for 
 President, 251 ; his " Nicholson Letters," 
 
 Chase, Salmon P., organizer of the Lib 
 erty party in Ohio, 130; correspondence 
 with Giddings, 130-133 ; elected to the 
 Senate, 257, 266-268, 271 ; his election 
 distasteful to the Whigs, 267 ; his con 
 nection with the Free-Soil address re 
 garding the Missouri Compromise, 311, 
 
 Chatham, Lord. See William Pitt. 
 Cherokee Indians, the, 175, 367. 
 
 Chittenden, Thomas C., 105, 147. 
 
 Choate, Rufus, n. 
 
 Cilley, J., S 8, 108. 
 
 Clark, Mr., 329. 
 
 Clarke, Staley N., 147. 
 
 Clay, Cassius M., 165. 
 
 Clay, Henry, 13, 54, 57, 83, 90, 140, 213, 
 214, 219, 271, 282, 347, 381 ; speech 
 against the Abolitionists, 65-66; de 
 fends the Whigs for favoring Abolition 
 ism, 80 ; his sympathy with Giddings 
 because of the House censuie, 125; 
 nominated for President, 157 ; position 
 on the annexation of Texas and slavery, 
 157 et seq. , his friendship with Gid 
 dings, 158-159, 208, 299; Giddings s con 
 fidence in, 159. 160; he causes the 
 Whigs great anxiety, 161 et seq* ; corre 
 spondence with Giddings, 161-163, 164- 
 165, 208-210; his Alabama letter, 163- 
 164 ; his vacillation costs him his elec 
 tion, 165168 ; his gratitude to Giddings, 
 167; opposed to the Mexican War Bill, 
 193 ; sacrificed by the Whigs in 1848, 
 252 ; his admirers unite with the Free- 
 Soil party, 253 ; connection with the 
 " Monroe Doctrine," 295-296; death of, 
 299. 
 
 " Cleveland Daily Herald," the, 223. 
 
 Clifford, Nathan, 92. 
 
 Clinton, General, 201. 
 
 Cobb, Ho well, 177, 178, 272, 276. 
 
 Coe, Rev. Harvey, 20. 
 
 Colcock, W. F., of S. C., 309. 
 
 Coleman, Nathaniel, 21. 
 
 Collamer, Jacob, of Vt, 277. 
 
 "Comet," the, 113, 120, 142. 
 
 Conklin, Rev. Mr., 395. 
 
 Cooper, James, 142. 
 
 Cooper, Mark A., 97, 123, 125. 
 
 Corwin, Thomas, 13, 47, 131, 255, 283; 
 his speech opposing the Mexican War, 
 199-200 ; proposed as a Presidential 
 candidate, 199, 200, 207; his attitude 
 on slavery unsatisfactory to anti-slavery 
 Whigs, 210-213 ; disappoints his anti- 
 slavery supporters, 214-215; Secretary 
 of the Treasury, 215 ; approves the Com 
 promise Measures of 1850, 215. 
 
 Cotton, Captain, 18. 
 
 Cox, J. D., opposes Giddings s renomina- 
 tion to Congress, 355. 
 
 Cranston, Henry T., 192. 
 
 Crawford, W. H., Secretary of the Trea 
 sury, 141. 
 
 Creek Indians, the, 175-177, 196, 299, 361, 
 366-368. 
 
 " Creole," case of the, 114 etseq., 160, 359. 
 
 Crittenden, John J., his amendment to the 
 Lecompton Bill, 341 et seq. 
 
 Crocket, David, 46. 
 
 Cuba ? its annexation to the United States 
 desired by the Democrats, 315-317. 405. 
 
 Culver, Erastus, 192, 229, 230, 231, 235. 
 
 Curtis, George T., 228. 
 
 Curtis, George William, delegate to the 
 Republican Convention in 1860, 373; his 
 efforts to embody the principles of the 
 Declaration of Independence in the Re 
 publican platform, 373-374. 
 
 Gushing, Caleb, 121. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 465 
 
 D 
 
 DADE, Major, 262. 
 
 Dana, Richard H., Jr., 206. 
 
 Davis, Garrett, 80, 151. 
 
 Davis, Mr., of Massachusetts, 83, 90. 
 
 Davis, Jefferson, of Mississippi, 244. 
 
 Davis, Henry Winter, of Maryland, 347. 
 
 Dawson, J. B., of Louisiana, insults and 
 threatens Giddings in the House, 145- 
 146, 174. 
 
 Declaration of Independence, 340, 377, 
 380 ; infidelity to, by politicians North 
 and South, 336 ; efforts to embody its 
 principles in the Republican platform 
 of 1860, 372-376. 
 
 Delano, Columbus, 192, 229, 230, 231-232 ; 
 defends Giddings s action regarding the 
 Mexican War, 203 204. 
 
 Democrats, their status in the Twenty-sixth 
 Congress, 77-78 ; control all the depart 
 ments of government, 77 ; ascendency 
 in the House dependent on admission 
 of New Jersey members, 77-79 ; charge 
 the Whigs with sympathy with Abolition 
 ism, So ; themselves in sympathy with 
 slavery, 137 ; nominate Polk for Presi 
 dent, 158 ; defeated in Ohio, 167 ; profit 
 by the Plaquemine frauds in Louisiana, 
 168 ; Oregon question divides them, 
 189-191 ; adverse effects of Van Buren s 
 defeat, 207, 251 ; some of them vote for 
 Winthrop as Speaker, 222 ; nominate 
 Cass for President, 251 ; anti-slavery 
 members unite in forming a third party, 
 253; forced to show their position on 
 slavery, 259-260; support Chase for 
 Senator from Ohio, 267 ; shaken by the 
 question of prohibition of slavery in na 
 tional Territories, 279 ; elect Cobb as 
 Speaker in the Thirty-first Congress, 
 272 ; try to suppress the discussion of 
 slavery, 266-291 ; nominate Pierce for 
 President, 302 ; their platform favors 
 the suppression of freedom of speech, 
 302 ; Giddings s arraignment of, 302- 
 305 ; control a majority of the State 
 Legislatures and both Houses of Con 
 gress in 1853, 309; denounce Giddings 
 for agitating the slavery question, 310; 
 desire the annexation of Cuba, 315-317 ; 
 willing to subordinate the slavery issue 
 to political success, 318; in a minority 
 in the House in the Thirty-fourth Con 
 gress, 321 ; united in support of Bu 
 chanan in 1856,337; attempt to involve 
 the Republicans in Brown s Virginia 
 raid, 370-371 ; forewarned by Giddings 
 of the effects of the annexation of Texas, 
 404. 
 
 Dennison, Governor, 378, 382. 
 
 DeWitt, Alexander, 311. 
 
 Dickey, Mr., of Penn., 263. 
 
 Dix, John A., 306. 
 
 Dixon, N. F., of R. I., 83. 
 
 Douglas, Stephen A., 190, 283, 298, 307, 
 380 ; first asserts his doctrine of popular 
 sovereignty, 184; favors the repeal of 
 the Missouri Compromise, 310-312; 
 leader of the Northern Democrats in 
 1856, 236 ; opposes the admission of 
 Kansas with Lecompton constitution, 
 
 342 et seq. ; measures which led to his 
 
 debate with Lincoln, 351. 
 Downing, Charles, of Fla., 98, 99. 
 Drayton, Captain, 241-243. 
 Duncan, Alex., of Ohio, 183. 
 Duncan, J. H., 309. 
 Dunlap, James, 165. 
 Durkee, Charles, 271, 274, 341. 
 
 E. 
 
 EDWARDS, Jonathan, 38. 
 
 Emerson, Benjamin, 103. 
 
 "Encomium," the, 113, 120, 142- 
 
 English, W. H., of Indiana, 350. 
 
 "Enterprise," case of the, 81-84, ri 4> u6, 
 120, 160. 
 
 Everett, Edward, Chairman of the Com 
 mittee on Foreign Affairs, 141. 
 
 Everett, H., of Vermont, 120, 121. 
 
 Ewing, Thomas, 13, 255, 283 ; his criti 
 cism of the Republican party, 377-378 ; 
 supports Lincoln for President, 377 ; 
 arraigns the Legislature and Governor 
 of Ohio, 378; Giddings s reply to, in 
 defence of the Republican party, 378- 
 383. 
 
 " Exiles of Florida," the, 360, 365-369. 
 
 F. 
 
 FASSETT, Henry, 137-138, 279. 
 
 Fessenden, W. P., 121. 
 
 Ficklin, O. B., 270. 
 
 Field, David Dudley, 306. 
 
 Fillmore, Millard, 33, 121, 122,282,302; 
 nominated by the Know-Nothings for 
 President in 1856, 337. 
 
 Florida, purchase of, 43 ; admission to the 
 Union, 43, 184; Indian wars in, 43. 80, 
 92-96, 135, 175-178) 262 ; slavery in its 
 constitution, 184. 
 
 Floyd, C. A.,ofN. Y., 121. 
 
 Foote, H. S., of Mississippi, 244, 288, 291. 
 
 Foote, Solomon, of Vermont, 174. 
 
 Fox, Charles James, 201, 202, 239. 
 
 Franklin, Benjamin, 39, 41. 
 
 Frasier, Major, 17. 
 
 Free-Soil Party, the, 44-45, 207, 252, 261, 
 272, 284 ; its convention in Massachu 
 setts addressed by Giddings, 247 ; Buf 
 falo convention of, 253 ; nominates Van 
 Buren for President, 254; bitterness of 
 the Whigs towards, 254-255; effect of 
 its action in 1848, 257; helps elect 
 Chase Senator fromOhio, 266-267 ; favors 
 Thaddeus Stevens for Speaker of the 
 House in the Thirty-first Congress, 272 ; 
 charged with causing the defeat of 
 Winthrop for the Speakership, 272, 
 276; its opposition to Winthrop vindi 
 cated by his subsequent career, 272; its 
 attempt to elect W. J. Brown Speaker, 
 273-275 ; defence of, by Giddings, 276- 
 277 ; enduring work of its leaders, 284- 
 285 ; helps elect Wade Senator from 
 Ohio, 287 ; its prophecies regarding the 
 Whigs verified, 302 ; its political out 
 look in 1852, 306; its address in refer 
 ence to the Missouri Compromise, 311- 
 
466 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 312; its rapid advance in public favor, 
 
 320; unites forces with the Republicans 
 
 in the Speakership contest of 1855, 322 ; 
 
 based on the principle that slavery was 
 
 a State institution, 410. 
 Fremont John C., Republican candidate 
 
 for President in 1856, 257, 335. 
 Fugitive Slave Law, 282, 283, 284, 286, 288, 
 
 301. 302, 304, 324, 379- 
 Furness, Rev. W. H., 402. 
 
 G. 
 
 GAG-RULE, known as the Twenty-first rule 
 of the House, 91 ; efforts of J. Q. Adams 
 to repeal, 91-92, 102, 140, 148-149; re 
 peal of 171. 
 
 Gaines, General, 176, 299. 
 
 Garner, Margaret, 328. 
 
 Garnet, Rev. Hiram, 364. 
 
 Garrison, William Lloyd, opposes the for 
 mation of a political anti-slavery party, 
 89 ; his religious principles, 402. 
 
 Gates, Seth M., 105, 142 ; member of Con 
 gress, 79-80 ; high moral character of, 
 79; an ardent sympathizer with the anti- 
 slavery movement, 80, 103 ; opposes the 
 annexation of Texas, 146-147 ; retires 
 from public life, 148, 406. 
 
 Gedney, Lieutenant, 74. 
 
 Ghent, treaty of, 112, 115, 361. 
 
 Giddings, Comfort Pease, 25. 
 
 Giddings, George, 12. 
 
 Giddings, Grotius Reed, 25; began the 
 practice of law in 1860, 25; his distin 
 guished action in the Rebellion, 26; in 
 jured in the New York riots, 26; his 
 death, 26. 
 
 Giddings, John, 12. 
 
 Giddings, Joseph Addison, 25 ; practises 
 law, later judge of the Probate Court, 25 ; 
 editor of "The Ashtabula Sentinel," 25. 
 
 Giddings, Joshua, 12. 
 
 Giddings, Joshua, Jr., 12; fought in the 
 Revolution, 12 ; married twice, 12 ; moves 
 to western New York, 12; moves to 
 Ohio, 13. 
 
 Giddings, Joshua Reed, 27, 76-77, 88, 105, 
 108, in, 116, 129, 141, 147, 190, 230, 260, 
 271, 272, 274, 281, 283; ancestry, 11-12; 
 birth, 12 ; his Ohio home, 13 ; youth, 
 15-20; education, 16-17, 19-20; in the 
 War of 1812, 17-18; teaches school, 19-20; 
 studies law, 21-22 ; first essay in public 
 speaking, 22 ; admitted to the Bar, 23-24; 
 marriage, 24 ; begins practice of law, 25 ; 
 his children, 25-26; moves to Jefferson, 
 28; early practice in court, 29-30; the 
 Williams vs. Hawley case, 30-32 ; great 
 success in criminal cases, 32-33 ; elected 
 to the State Legislature, 33-34 ; chair 
 man of the Committee on Military Af 
 fairs, 34 ; defeated for the State Senate, 
 34; forms a partnership with B. F. 
 Wade, 34; dissolution of partnership 
 and retirement from practice, 35; suffers 
 financial losses, 35 ; fails in health, 35; 
 travels, 35-36; engages again in law 
 practice, 36 ; enters Congress as a mem 
 ber of the Whig party, 36-37, 44-45 ; 
 first becomes interested in the slavery 
 question, 45 ; extracts from his private 
 
 journal, 46-72; tedious journey to Wash 
 ington, 46; warm friendship for J. Q. 
 Adams, 48, 168-170, 208, 398; visits 
 Van Buren, 50 ; a fearless opponent of 
 slavery, 52-53 ; makes his first regular 
 speech in the House, 58-60 ; action for 
 the abolition of slavery in the District 
 of Columbia, 64-65 ; makes his first anti- 
 slavery speech, 67-70; steadfastness of 
 purpose in the face of sectional opposi 
 tion, 70-71; action in the "Amistad" 
 case, 77, 153-155, 205, 309-310; first de 
 fection from the Whig party, 79 ; speech 
 on the Calhoun resolutions in the " En 
 terprise" affair, 84-85; supports Gen 
 eral Harrison for President in 1840, 91 ; 
 action regarding the Florida War, 92-96, 
 177-178, 380; incurs the odium of the 
 slaveholders, 97-99 ; insulted in the 
 House by Southern members, 97-98; 
 timely service in rousing the Free States 
 to an appreciation of the encroachments 
 of slavery, 99-100; letter from William 
 Jay, 100 ; President Harrison s displeas 
 ure with, loo ; chairman of the Commit 
 tee on Claims, 102-103 ; presents peti 
 tion for dissolution of the Union, no; 
 letter to his wife describing J. Q. Adams s 
 trial in the House, iio-m; action in 
 the "Creole" affair, 118 et seq. ; his 
 resolutions on the "Creole " case, 118- 
 120, 384; withdraws these resolutions, 
 121 ; his censure demanded, 121-122; 
 preparations for his defence, 122-123 ; 
 denied the privilege of defending himself, 
 123-124; censured by the House, 124; his 
 note of protest to the " National Intelli 
 gencer," 124-125; resigns his office as 
 representative, 125; sympathy of Mr. 
 Clay, 125 ; his resolutions condemned as 
 ill-timed, 126, 127; his position justified 
 by law and precedent, 126-127; re- 
 elected to the House, and instructed to 
 re-assert his principles, 128, 129; letter 
 to his son, 128; vindicates his position 
 in a public speech, 129-130; his firm 
 ness results in re-establishing freedom of 
 debate in the House, 130 ; letters from 
 Salmon P. Chase, 130-133; considers 
 a third-party movement unwise in 1842, 
 133; his "Pacificus" essays, 133-137, 
 !58 159? to establish the principle of 
 Federal non-intervention with slavery, 
 the aim of his public life, 136,409-411; 
 effect of his essays, 136-137; mistake in 
 exhorting the opponents of slavery to 
 support the Whig party, 137 ; deter 
 mines to retire from public life, 137 ; 
 declines a re-election to Congress, 137- 
 138; prevailed upon to remain in office, 
 138; letters to his wife, 138-139, 158-159, 
 198, 245-246, 389, 397 ; commended on all 
 sides for his firmness in maintaining his 
 doctrines, 139 ; attempt to deprive him of 
 the chairmanship of the Committee on 
 Claims, 140; opposes the claims of the 
 West Florida Slaveholders, 142 ; speaks 
 on the "Comet" and "Encomium" 
 claims, 143-144 ; insulted and threat 
 ened in the House by Dawson, 145-146; 
 denounced as an Abolitionist 1 and 
 "agitator," 148; removed from the 
 
INDEX. 
 
 467 
 
 chairmanship of the Committee on 
 Claims, 148, 177; assigned to the Com 
 mittee on Revolutionary Pensions, 148 ; 
 assists J. Q. Adams in fighting for the 
 repeal of the gag-rule, 149; exposes the 
 home squadron as the tool of slavery, 
 150-151; member of the committee to 
 consider the Massachusetts memorial, 
 151, 152; letter to his daughter, 155; 
 his first speech in opposition to the an 
 nexation of Texas, 156-157; friendship 
 with Henry Clay, 158-159, 208; confi 
 dence in Clay s anti-slavery character, 
 159, 160; his active support of the Whig 
 cause, 160, 161-167; correspondence 
 with Clay, 161-163, 164-165, 208-210; 
 charged by the Liberty party with hav 
 ing sold himself to Clay, 166167 ; un 
 tiring efforts in the Ohio State election 
 in 1844, 167 ; mistaken opinion of 
 Clay and the Whigs, 168; insulted and 
 threatened by Southern members, 172- 
 175 ; speech on Calhoun s treaty for the 
 annexation of Texas, 178-182 ; his feel 
 ings on the final vote for annexation, 
 183 ; speech on the Oregon question, 
 186-188, 317 ; receives letters regarding 
 the Oregon question, 188-189; opposes 
 the Mexican War Bill, 192; denounces 
 Polk for declaring war with Mexico, 195- 
 196 ; speech on the Indian Appropria 
 tion Bill, 196-197; series of public 
 speeches in Maine, 197-198; correspond 
 ence with Charles Sumner, 199; 202-203, 
 
 2O5, 208, 2IO-2I3, 214, 2IO-2I7, 222, 227, 
 
 258, 260-261, 267-268, 277-278, 287, 334- 
 335, 357-358, 384-3S5. 386-387, 388-389, 
 390, 391-394 ; correspondence with C. F. 
 Adams, 199-200, 213-214, 228-229,278; 
 arraignment of Folk s Mexican War 
 policy, 200 ; action in opposing the Mex 
 ican War based on British precedents, 
 200-201 ; position attacked by Mr. Win- 
 throp, 201-202 ; defended by Mr. Delano, 
 203-204; leader of the liberal Whigs in 
 the West, 206 ; chief representative of 
 the anti-slavery cause in Congress, 207 ; 
 warm friendship for C. F. Adams and 
 Charles Sumner, 208, 398 ; disapproved 
 of Clay s nomination in 1847, 208; 
 steadfast in his faith in Corwin, 214; 
 letter to Horace Greeley, 215-216; oppo 
 sition to Winthrop for Speaker, 216 et 
 seq.; reluctant to oppose his party friends, 
 218, 219-220; abused by the Whigs for 
 his opposition to the party, 222 et seq. ; 
 letter to the "Cleveland Daily Herald," 
 223-226; controversy with Mr. Winthrop, 
 226 et seq. ; 276-277, 280-281 ; his state 
 ment answered by the " Boston Atlas," 
 226-227, 229, 232 ; his defence in the 
 "Boston Atlas" and "Boston Whig," 
 229; supported by C. F. Adams and 
 Sumner, 232 ; vindicated in his refusal 
 to support Winthrop, 235-238, 241; 
 appointed to the Committee on Indian 
 Affairs, 236 ; his solitary vote against 
 thanking Generals Scott and Taylor, 238- 
 239, 406; slighted by Winthrop in the ap 
 pointment of a committee to attend J. Q. 
 Adams s funeral, 240; predicts the dis- 
 bandment of the Whig party, 241 ; 
 
 ridicules the claims of General Taylor as 
 a Whig, 241 ; brave action in the case of 
 the "Pearl," 241-244; series of public 
 speeches in Massachusetts, 245-247 ; a 
 recognized authority on slavery matters, 
 247-249; speech on indemnities for lost 
 slaves, 249-251 ; activity in the Presiden 
 tial campaign of 1848, 255-256: charges 
 against, by Elisha Whittlesey and Tru 
 man Smith, 255-256; his answer to 
 Smith, 256-257; under the social ban, 
 258, 284 ; action in the Pacheco case, 263- 
 266 ; extracts from his diary, 263-264, 267, 
 269-270, 344-349; a candidate for Sena 
 tor from Ohio, 266-268 ; replies to Cal 
 houn s address to the South, 268-269; 
 opposed to the admission of California 
 and New Mexico as Slave States, 269- 
 270; letter from Rev. Joshua Leavitt, 
 275 ; defends the Free Soilers against the 
 charges of the Whigs, 276-277 ; attacked 
 by the Whig Press, 278-280 ; letter to 
 Henry Fassett, 279; charged with pur 
 loining papers from the General Post- 
 OfBce, 279-280; speech on the Texas 
 Boundary Bill, 281-282 ; disapproves of 
 armed defence of the Union, 282 ; de 
 nounces the Fugitive Slave Law, 282, 
 283 ; speech on "the agitation of the 
 Slavery Question," 282-283 ; speech on 
 the Fugitive Slave Law, 288-289; Stan- 
 ly s reply to, 289-291 ; charged with a 
 design of involving the nation in war, 291 ; 
 293, 294; attends a meeting of the Penn 
 sylvania Anti-Slavery Society, 294-295 ; 
 letter to his son, 294-295 ; speech in de 
 fence of foreign intervention in Hungary, 
 295-298 ; criticises Webster s foreign pol 
 icy, 296-297 ; visits Clay shortly before 
 the latter s death, 299 ; speech on the 
 compromise measures, 300-301 ; arraign 
 ment of the Whigs and Democrats, 301, 
 302-305 ; declares civil war to be im 
 minent, 304; sonnet dedicated to, 305; 
 unsuccessful attempt to defeat his re 
 election, 306-307 ; a member of the Com 
 mittee on Territories, 307 ; opposes the 
 claim of W. H Wigg, 308 ; denounced 
 by the Democrats for agitating the 
 slavery question, 310; connection with 
 the Free-Soil address regarding the 
 Missouri Compromise, 311; speech on 
 the Kansas- Nebraska Bill, 313-314; 
 speech on the Homestead Bill, 314; ac 
 tion in the case of the " Black Warrior," 
 314-318; rebukes President Pierce, 316- 
 317; not in sympathy with the Know- 
 Nothing movement, 318; opposed to the 
 restoration of the Missouri Compromise, 
 318-319; vigilance in the matter of slav 
 ery, 319 ; his resolution submitted at the 
 Speakership conference of Republicans 
 and Free Soilers, 322-324; his activity 
 in the Speakership contest, 324-325 ; 
 administers the oath of office to Speaker 
 Banks, 325 ; his satisfaction at the elec 
 tion of Banks as Speaker, 326, 327 ; at 
 tends the Republican Convention at Pitts- 
 burg in 1856, 326-327 ; letters from John 
 Brown to, 327-328 ; speech on the De 
 ficiency Bill, 328-332 ; defence of the In 
 dians, 329-330 ; denounces the action of 
 
468 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 United States troops in Kansas, 330-331 ; 
 arraignment of the slave-code of Kansas, 
 331-332 ; vigorous protest in regard to the 
 Brooks assault on Sumner, 332-335 ; del 
 egate to the first nominating convention of 
 the Republican party, 335 ; his part in the 
 preparation of the Republican platform, 
 335 : his satisfaction at the indorsement 
 of his principles by the Republicans, 336 ; 
 activity in the Presidential campaign of 
 1856, 337 ; speech on the Kansas policy 
 of Buchanan, 337-338 , prostrated by 
 heart-trouble, 338; letter from J. P. Hale, 
 338-339; letters to Chief-Justice Taney 
 regarding the Dred Scott decision, 340 ; 
 opposes the Lecompton Bill, 341 ; his 
 perplexity regarding the Crittenden 
 Amendment, 343 etseq. ; speech on "The 
 Conflict between Religious Truths and 
 American Infidelity, "351-352 ; speech on 
 English right of visitation, 352; prostrated 
 a second time by heart-trouble, 353 ; de 
 feated for renomination to Congress, 353 
 et seq. ; his serenity over his defeat, 352 ; 
 messages of sympathy from his friends, 
 356-358 ; universal regret at his retirement 
 from public life, 358-360; his % Exiles of 
 Florida," 360, 365-369 ; farewell speech 
 in Congress, 361-363 ; testimonials from 
 his friends, 363-364 ; assists in raising 
 funds for the relief of John Brown, 370; 
 charged with being accessory to Brown s 
 Virginia raid, 370-371; leaves Congress 
 a poor man, 371 : delivers a course of 
 lectures on J. Q. Adams, 371 ; a delegate 
 to the Republican Convention of 1860, 
 371376; his efforts to embody in the 
 Republican platform the principles of the 
 Declaration of Independence, 372-376; 
 his congratulation to Lincoln on his 
 nomination for President, 376 ; activity 
 in the Presidential campaign of 1860, 
 376; his "History of the Rebellion," 
 384, 386, 391 ; accepts the position of 
 Consul-general to Canada, 384 ; his anx 
 iety to be in Washington, 385-386; his 
 interest in reciprocity with Canada, 386- 
 387, 391-394 ; letter from Horace Greeley, 
 387-388 ; health rapidly failing, 388-3^9, 
 391, 394; completion of his book, 391 ; 
 death, 394-395 ; eulogized by the Press 
 of Montreal and the Northern States, 
 395 ; funeral, 395 ; personal traits, 396- 
 397 ; devotion to his family, 397-398 ; his 
 friendships, 398-399; his fondness for 
 athletic sports and music, 399; his relig 
 ious principles, 399-403 ; his political 
 foresight, 403-405 ; moral earnestness 
 h s dominating characteristic, 405-407; 
 his practical qualities as a reformer, 407- 
 412; the father of the Republican party, 
 411; his place in history, 412-413; 
 Lowell s lines in praise of, 413. 
 
 Giddings, Laura, 26; marries George W. 
 Julian, 26; her death, 26; letter from 
 her father, 391. 
 
 Giddings, Lura Maria, 25 ; among the 
 early workers in the anti-slavery reform, 
 25 ; with her father in Montreal at time 
 of his death, 25, 395 ; her part in the 
 erection of a monument to her father, 25. 
 
 Giddings, Mrs. J. R., 24, 26; letters from 
 
 her husband, 138-139, 158-159, 198, 245- 
 
 246, 389, 397- 
 Giddings, Thomas, 12. 
 Gilmer, T. W., of Va., 103, 105, 109, 151. 
 Gott, Daniel, 259, 260, 277, 278. 
 Granger, Ralph, 37. 
 Greeley, Horace, 215, 252, 263 ; his belief 
 
 in the right of the Slave States to secede, 
 
 282 ; attends the Republican Convention 
 
 at Pittsburg in 1856, 326. 
 Green, Beriah, 402. 
 Grinnell, Joseph, 192, 231, 260. 
 
 H. 
 
 HABERSHAM, R. W., of Georgia, 93. 
 
 Hale, John P., 271, 283, 288, 337; candi 
 date of the Liberty party in 1847 f r 
 President, 207,212; solitary vote in the 
 Senate against thanking Generals Scott 
 and Taylor, 238-239; proposes a bill to 
 prevent riots in Washington, 243 ; Free- 
 Soil candidate for President in 1852, 306 ; 
 letter to Giddings, 338-339; charged 
 with being accessory to Brown s Virginia 
 raid, 371. 
 
 Halleck, General, 388. 
 
 Halsted, Murat, quoted, 374. 
 
 Hamlin, E. S., of Ohio, 242. 
 
 Hamlin, Hannibal, Republican candidate 
 for Vice-President in 1860, 371. 
 
 Hammet, W. J., 173, 178. 
 
 Harmegan, Senator E. A., rupture with 
 President Polk on the Oregon question, 
 190; reconciliation, and appointment as 
 minister to Russia, 191. 
 
 Haralson, H. A., 259. 
 
 Harney, Lieutenant-Colonel, 96; General, 
 329- 
 
 Harrison, William Henry, 54-55, 88- 
 89, 90, 131, 378, 380, 381 ; Whig candi 
 date for President in 1840, 84-86 ; a 
 pro-slavery Virginian, 86-87 ; elected 
 President in 1840, 91 ; charged with en 
 couraging Abolitionists, 97 ; displeased 
 with Giddings s speech on the Seminole 
 War, 100 ; disappoints the anti-slavery 
 men, 100-101. 
 
 Haskell, W. T., of Tenn., 243. 
 
 Hawley, Dr., 30-32. 
 
 Hawthorne, Nathaniel, n. 
 
 Hayes, General, 17. 
 
 Henry, T., of Penn., 105. 
 
 " Hermosa, ! the, 113, 114. 
 
 Hewell, a slave-dealer, 114. 
 
 Hillyer, Junius, of Ga , 300. 
 
 Hinsdale, Mr., quoted 14, note i. 
 
 Hoar, E. R., 206. 
 
 Hoar, Samuel, 206. 
 
 Hodges, Mr., 250,256. 
 
 Holmes, Isaac E., 103, 121, 122, 142, 222, 
 242, 261. 
 
 Hopkins. Dr. Samuel, 38. 
 
 Hopkins, G. W., of Va., 104, 108. 
 
 Howard, Jacob M M 142, 147. 
 
 Howe, John W., 271, 307. 
 
 Hubbard, Henry, of N. H., 83. 
 
 Hudson, Charles, 147, 174, 192, 231. 
 
 Hull, General, 17. 
 
 Hunter, R. M. T., Speaker of the House 
 in the Twenty-sixth Congress, 79. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 469 
 
 Hutchins, John, defeats Giddings for the 
 nomination to Congress, 353-354 ; an 
 ardent anti-slavery man, 354. 
 
 I. 
 
 INGERSOLL, Charles J., 77, 153. 
 Ingersoll, J. R., 151. 
 Iowa, admitted to the Union, 184. 
 Irwin, Alexander, 277. 
 
 J. 
 
 JACKSON, Andrew, 55, 81, 86, 99, 113, 14*1 
 142, 144, 176, 180, 249, 314. 
 
 Jackson, J., of Georgia, 288. 
 
 James, Francis, 295. 
 
 Jay, John, 39, 202, 203, 204. 
 
 Jay, William, letter to Giddings, 100, 247- 
 248 ; a contributor to anti-slavery litera 
 ture, 249. 
 
 Jefferson, Thomas, 39, 144, 157, 243 ; 
 Lincoln s tribute to, 375. 
 
 Jessup, General, commander of the United 
 States army in the Florida wars, 92, 94, 
 95. i75- I 77 262 > 26 5i 2 99- 
 
 Jones, Anson, 21. 
 
 Jones, Mr., of Wisconsin, 58-59. 
 
 Jones, G. W., Senator from Iowa, 288. 
 
 Jones, Submit, 12. 
 
 Tones, William, case of, 149-150. 
 
 Julian, George W., 271, 295; marries the 
 daughter of Giddings, 26; opposed to 
 W. J. Brown for Speaker in 1849, 273, 
 275. 
 
 K. 
 
 KANSAS, 325, 326, 337, 370 ; effort to estab 
 lish slavery in, 312-313, 320, 327-328, 
 330-332, 340 et seq. ; bill for organizing 
 the Territory of, 313 ; slave-code of, 331 ; 
 Lecompton Bill for its admission as a 
 State, 341 et seq. 
 
 Kansas-Nebraska Bill, 307, 313, 323. 
 
 King, Daniel P , 192. 
 
 King, Judge, of Ohio, 132. 
 
 King, Preston, 212, 252, 271,273, 306. 
 
 Knight, N. P., 83. 
 
 Know-Nothing party, 319. 322 ; the policy 
 and organization of, 318; controlled by 
 demagogues, 318; divided on the slavery 
 issue, 321 ; its phenomenal success, 32 c ; 
 puts forward two candidates for the 
 Speakership in 1855, 322 ; nominates 
 Fillmore for President in 1856, 337. 
 
 Kossuth, Louis, invited to visit the United 
 States, 291 ; resolutions of sympathy 
 with, 291, 294; his doctrine of foreign 
 intervention, 295, 297. 
 
 LAWRENCE, Joseph, of Penn., 105. 
 Lay, Benjamin, 37. 
 Leavitt, Rev. Joshua, 105, 275. 
 Lecompton constitution, 341. 
 Letcher, John, of Va., 322, 323. 
 Levin, L. C., of Penn., 283. 
 
 Lewis, Mr., 329. 
 
 Liberty party, the, 44-45, 91, 160, 218; 
 organized in Ohio, 130-133 ; failed to 
 rally the people, 137 ; nominates James 
 G. Birney for President in 1844, *58; 
 joined by many anti-sfevery Whigs, 
 
 166 ; controversy with Giddings, 166- 
 
 167 ; John P. Hale its Presidential can 
 didate in 1847, 207 ; withdraws its candi 
 date, 253 ; unites in a third-party move 
 ment, 253-254. 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham, 13, 14, 63, 257, 343, 
 377) 37*>, 379. 380; voted against the 
 abolition of the slave-trade in the Dis 
 trict of Columbia, 261 ; a moderate Wil- 
 mot-Proviso man, 261; measures which 
 led to his debate with Douglas, 351 ; 
 Republican nominee for President in 
 1860,371, 376; his tribute to Jefferson, 
 375 ; replies to Giddings s congratu 
 latory letter, 376 ; his Proclamation of 
 Emancipation, 405. 
 
 Lincoln, Levi, 206. 
 
 Linn, Archibald L., 147. 
 
 Louisiana, importance of its acquisition, 
 40, 43- 
 
 Lovejoy, Elijah P., 45. 
 
 Lovejoy, Owen, 326. 
 
 Lowell, James Russell, editor of the " At 
 lantic Monthly," 368 ; his favorable no 
 tice of Giddings s " Exiles in Florida," 
 368-369 ; his lines in praise of Giddings, 
 
 M. 
 
 MADISON, James, 40, 117, 265. 
 
 Mann, Horace, 236, 264. 
 
 Marsh, George P., 231, 277. 
 
 Marshall, Humphrey, prosecutes the trial 
 of J. Q. Adams in the House, 105-106 ; 
 his charges against Mr. Adams, 106, 
 107 ; Mr. Adams s chastisement of, 108- 
 ioq; the Southern Know-Nothing can 
 didate for Speaker in 1855, 322. 
 
 Mason, General, 59. 
 
 Mason, J. M., Senator from Virginia, 370; 
 charges Giddings with conspiracy in 
 Brown s Virginia raid, 370. 
 
 Mattocks, John, 147. 
 
 McClellan, General, 237, 388. 
 
 McDowell, James, of Va.,~283. 
 
 Mcllvaine, A. R., 229, 230, 231. 
 
 McLean, Judge, 207, 208. 
 
 McMullen, Fayette, of Va., 324. 
 
 Medill, Joseph, 338. 
 
 Mexico, 190, 248; cause of war with the 
 United States, 147, 185, 195 ; United 
 States declares war with, 191 ; General 
 Taylor s invasion of, 193 ; sufferings of 
 the United States army in, 198; unpopu 
 larity in United States of war with, 
 198-199 ; success of United States ar 
 mies in, 206. 
 
 Miles, General, 329. 
 
 Miller, J. W., Senator, 288. 
 
 Missouri, 43, 307, 330. 
 
 Missouri Compromise, the, 283, 307, 308, 
 324, 352 ; repeal of, 310-313; its resto 
 ration favored by the Whigs, 320-321; 
 effect of its repeal, 325, 377, 380; popu 
 lar cry for its restoration, 318. 
 
470 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Monroe, James, his first proclamation of 
 the " Monroe Doctrine," 295. 
 
 Montez, P., 73-77, 153. 
 
 Montgomery, William, of Penn., his 
 amendment to the Lecompton Bill, 342. 
 
 Moore, John, of La., 145. 
 
 Morgan, Christopher, 147. 
 
 Morrill, Justin S., 302. 
 
 Morse (of Maine), 151. 
 
 Morse (of Ohio), 266, 267. 
 
 N. 
 
 NEBRASKA, 320 ; bill for organizing a 
 government of, 307, 313 ; conflict over 
 the slavery question in, 312-313. 
 
 New Mexico, 269-270, 311. 
 
 Newton, Eben, of Ohio, 307. 
 
 Nowell, Senator from Michigan, 83. 
 
 O. 
 
 OGLETHORPE, General, 37. 
 
 Ohio, admitted to the Union, 13 ; charac 
 ter of its settlers, 14-15 ; state of its 
 society, 28. 
 
 Oregon, 329, 404 ; question of its annexa 
 tion, 183-191 ; saved from slavery, 257. 
 
 Oyler, Mr., 372. 
 
 P. 
 
 PACHECO, Antonio, 262-266. 
 
 "Pacificus" Essays. See Appendix. 
 
 Paine, Thomas, 38. 
 
 Palfrey, John G., 210, 213, 214, 217, 219, 
 225, 259, 264, 267, 269, 272, 281, 321 ; 
 a " Conscience Whig," 206 ; representa 
 tive to Congress, 220 ; personal charac 
 teristics, 220 ; opposed to Winthrop for 
 Speaker, 221-222 ; abused by the Whigs 
 for opposing Winthrop, 222 ; ill-feeling 
 of Winthrop towards, 232 ; appointed to 
 the Committee on Agriculture, 236 ; vin 
 dicated in his refusal to support Win 
 throp, 238 ; his action in the case of the 
 "Pearl," 243; letter to Giddings, 356- 
 
 Palmerston, Lord, 387. 
 
 Parker, Theodore, letters to Giddings, 
 248-249 ; contributed to anti-slavery 
 literature, 249. 
 
 Payne, W. W., of Ala., 172. 
 
 Peabody, Dr. Andrew P., 220. 
 
 "Pearl," the, case of, 241-244. 
 
 Pease, Elizabeth, 12. 
 
 Pease, John, 12. 
 
 Pennsylvania Abolition Society, 39, 294. 
 
 Phillips, P., of Alabama, 315. 
 
 Phillips, Stephen C., 206, 210, 217. 
 
 Phillips, Wendell, 245. 
 
 Pickering, Timothy, 202. 
 
 Pierce, Franklin, 83 ; Democratic nomi 
 nee for President, 302 ; elected Presi 
 dent, 305-306; approves the compromise 
 measures, 309; recommends payment 
 of indemnity in the "Amistad" case, 
 
 309 : his action in the case of the 
 "Black Warrior," 315-317; rebuked 
 by Giddings, 316-317. 
 
 Pitt William (Lord Chatham), 201, 202, 
 239- 
 
 Polk, James K., 65, 129; nominated by 
 Democrats for President in 1844, 158; 
 committed to the policy of the annexa 
 tion of Texas, 158; supported by the 
 worst classes of society, 160-161 ; his 
 Kane letter, 167-168 ; his election has 
 tened the advent of the Civil War, 168 ; 
 violated his promises to his party, 183; 
 his inauguration, 184; his position on 
 the Oregon question, 184, 185, 187 ; 
 message on the Oregon dispute with 
 England, 185; charges of Democratic 
 leaders against, 190; his settlement of 
 the Oregon question, 190; reconcilia 
 tion with Democratic leaders, 191 ; or 
 ders General Taylor to Corpus Christi, 
 191 ; denounced by the Whigs for caus 
 ing the Mexican War, 194 ; Giddings s 
 charges against, 195-196 ; his call for 
 additional troops for the Mexican War, 
 198 ; his action on the Oregon question 
 prophesied by Giddings, 404. 
 
 Pomeroy, General, 327. 
 
 Porter, A. S., of Michigan, 83. 
 
 Prentiss, S. S., 54, 56. 
 
 Preston, W. B., 277. 
 
 Proclamation of Emancipation, 405. 
 
 Q. 
 
 QUAKERS, their hostility to slavery in the 
 
 colonies, 37. 
 Quincy, Josiah P., praises Giddings s 
 
 " Exiles in Florida," 369. 
 
 R. 
 
 RANNEY, Rufus P., 35. 
 
 Rantoul, Robert, Jr., 306. 
 
 Raymond, Henry J., 290. 
 
 Raynor, Kenneth, 173. 
 
 Republican party, the, first organized, 321 ; 
 joins forces with the Free Soilers in the 
 Speakership contest of 1855, 322 ; elects 
 N. P. Banks Speaker, 325 ; call for a 
 National Convention of, 326-327 ; nomi 
 nates John C. Fremont for President in 
 856, 335! indorses Giddings s resolu 
 tion in their platform, 236 ; coalition 
 with the Douglas Democrats and South 
 ern Whigs to defeat the Lecompton Bill, 
 342 et seq. ; disastrous results of this co 
 alition, 350-351 ; its disruption arrested 
 by the Illinois Republicans, 351 ; charged 
 with being accessory to Brown s Virginia 
 raid, 370 ; disposition to abandon its 
 position of 1856, 371-372 ; nominates 
 Lincoln and Hamlin for President and 
 Vice-President in 1860, 371 ; criticised 
 by Thomas Ewing, 377-378 ; Giddings s 
 defence of, 378-383 ; founded on the 
 principle that slavery was a State insti 
 tution, 410 ; Giddings the father of, 411. 
 
 Rhett, R. B., 79, 151. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 471 
 
 Richardson, William A., the Democratic 
 candidate for Speaker in 1855, 322. 
 
 Robinson, Governor of Kansas, 346. 
 
 Robinson, J. M., of Illinois, 83. 
 
 Rockwell, Julius, 264, 276. 
 
 Root, Joseph M., 192, 199, 245, 269, 271, 
 273, 28x. 
 
 Ross, Dr., 394. 
 
 Ross, John, 175. 
 
 Ruiz, I., 73-77, 153. 
 
 Ruggles, Senator John, 83. 
 
 S. 
 
 SAMPLE, S. C., of Indiana, 151. 
 
 Sandiford, Ralph, 37. 
 
 Saunders, R. M., of N. C., 150. 
 
 Sayres, Mr., 241-243. 
 
 Schenck, Robert C., 229, 230, 276, 283. 
 
 Schouler, James, his " History of the 
 United States," 126, note i. 
 
 Scott, Dred, case of, 351, 352; repudiated 
 the principles of the Declaration of In 
 dependence, 339-340 ; political signifi 
 cance of, 340. 
 
 Scott, General Winfield, 233, 238 ; advo 
 cated the right of Slave States to secede, 
 282 ; the Whig nominee for President 
 in 1852, 301 ; defeated for the Presi 
 dency, 305. 
 
 Seminole Indians, the, war with, 43, 80, 
 92-96, 175-176, 196, 262, 366-368. 
 
 Severance, Luther, 192, 229, 231. 
 
 Seward, William H., 131, 283, 356. 
 
 Sharpe, Granville, 40. 
 
 Simonton, William, of Penn., 105. 
 
 Skelton, Charles, 309. 
 
 Slade, William, 64, 105, 142, 147, 406 ; an 
 ardent anti-slavery man, 61, 79, 103; 
 retired from public life, 148 ; letter to 
 Giddings, 189. 
 
 Siatter, Hope H., 244. 
 
 Slavery, its early history in America, 37- 
 45 ; repugnant to most of the colonies, 
 37-39; efforts of the Quakers to pro 
 hibit, 37; the slave-trade forbidden by 
 the Continental Congress, 38; Thomas 
 Paine s anti-slavery articles, 38 ; the 
 champions of independence its chief 
 foes, 38-40 ; formation of Abolition so 
 cieties, 39 ; the churches anti-slavery, 39 ; 
 forbidden in the territory under National 
 Government, 39; abolished in seven of 
 the States, 39; foreign slave-trade for 
 bidden in the new Constitution, 39 ; con 
 cessions of the Constitution to, 39-40, 
 44 ; a State institution, 40, 409-410 ; con 
 sidered a temporary evil, 40 ; the idea of 
 property in man avoided in the Constitu 
 tion, 40, 265 ; its rise to great political 
 power, 40-45 ; stimulated by invention 
 of the cotton-gin and acquisition of 
 Louisiana, 40, 43 ; effect of Franklin s 
 anti-slavery petition to Congress, 41 ; 
 treaty with Cherokee Indians for re 
 covery of fugitive slaves, 41-42 ; fugitive- 
 slave law of 1793, 42 ; first threats of dis 
 solving the Union, 42; nationalized in 
 the District of Columbia, 42-43, 62-63, 
 135; the regulation by Congress of the 
 coastwise slave-trade unconstitutional, 
 
 43, 112, 135; subserviency of the Na 
 tional Government to its methods, 43-44, 
 135; Florida purchased in the interest 
 of, 43 ; the Missouri struggle in 1820, 43 ; 
 the Florida wars carried on in its behalf, 
 43, 80, 92-96, 135, 175-178, 365-368 ; the 
 churches its bulwarks, 44 ; dangers of 
 opposing it, 44 ; right of petition and 
 freedom of debate on, forbidden in the 
 House, 45,80, n8; Lovejoy murdered 
 for his opposition to, 45 ; prostitutes the 
 mail service, 45 ; its supremacy during 
 the first session of the Twenty-sixth 
 Congress, 80-84 ? submission of public 
 nien to its demands, 84 ; not a prominent 
 issue in the Presidential campaign of 
 1840, 86, 88 ; foundation of the American 
 Anti-Slavery Society, 87 ; the people of 
 the Free States aroused to an apprecia 
 tion of its evils, 99-100, 103, 127-128, 
 206 ; questions arising from, cause seri 
 ous complications with England, 112 et 
 seq. , the Senate a unit in the service of, 
 118 ; its power illustrated in the treat 
 ment of Giddings, 125; the " Pacificus " 
 papers on, 133-134, 141 ; its extension 
 sought by the annexation of Texas, 146- 
 147, 161 ; the home squadron employed 
 in the interests of, 150-151; the memo 
 rial of the Massachusetts Legislature, 
 I 5 ~ I S3; the Georgia resolutions, 152- 
 , 153; strengthened by the annexation of 
 Texas, 186 ; its prohibition in newly 
 : acquired Mexican territory a vital is- 
 i sue, 206 ; in the District of Columbia, 
 \ 259-262 ; Calhoun s address to the 
 South in support of, 268 ; attempts to 
 secure its territorial extension, 269-270 ; 
 the most important question which con 
 fronted the Thirty-first Congress, 270, 
 271 ; Giddings speaks on, 282-283; the 
 compromise measures of the Thirty- 
 first Congress regarding, 283-284 ; efforts 
 of Whigs and Democrats to prevent dis 
 cussion of, 286-291 ; subserviency of 
 Whigs and Democrats to, 302 ; efforts 
 to establish it in Kansas, 312-313, 320, 
 327-328, 330-332,340^^^.; logically 
 opposed to the Declaration of Indepen 
 dence, 336 ; Giddings s manner of deal 
 ing with, 407-412 ; principal cause of its 
 overthrow, 412. 
 
 Slicer, Rev. Henry, 244-245. 
 
 Slidell, John, 168, 173. 
 
 Smith, Caleb B., 260, 277. 
 
 Smith, Gerrit, his connection with the 
 Free-Soil proclamation regarding the 
 Missouri Compromise, 311 ; charged 
 with being accessory to Brown s Vir 
 ginia raid, 371 ; his religious principles, 
 402. 
 
 Smith, O. H., Senator from Indiana, 47. 
 
 Smith, Truman, 83, 147,250-251, 260, 277; 
 abuses Giddings, 255 ; Giddings s reply 
 to, 255-256. 
 
 Southard, S. L., 83. 
 
 Stanly, Edward, of N. C., 54, 143, 294, 
 295 1 297; his scurrilous attack on Gid 
 dings, 289-291. 
 
 Stephens, Alexander H., 178, 198-199, 
 283, 338. 
 
 Stevens, Thaddeus, 272, 283. 
 
472 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Stevenson, Andrew, his action on the sla 
 very question while minister to England, 
 113, 142. 
 
 Stiles, W. H., of Georgia, 174. 
 
 Strahan, John, 192. 
 
 Stuart, A. H. H., 124. 
 
 Sturgeon, Daniel, of Penn., 83. 
 
 Sumner, Charles, 214, 215, 235, 236, 271, 
 282, 406 ; correspondence with Giddings, 
 199, 202-203, 205, 210-213, 214, 216-217, 
 222, 227, 258, 260-261, 267-268, 277-278, 
 
 Giddings, 208, 398 ; enters the Senate, 
 208, 287 ; supported Giddings in his con 
 troversy with Winthrop, 232 ; urges Gid 
 dings to speak in Massachusetts, 245 ; 
 his account of Giddings s visit to Massa 
 chusetts, 247 ; indignant at the attacks 
 of the Whig Press on Giddings, 278 ; his 
 connection with the Free-Soil address 
 regarding the Missouri Compromise, 311, 
 312 ; assaulted by P. S. Brooks, 332. 
 
 Sutliff, Flavel, forms a law partnership 
 with Giddings, 36. 
 
 Sutliff, Milton, opposes the renomination 
 of Giddings to Congress, 355. 
 
 T. 
 
 TEXAS, General Taylor ordered to guard 
 the southern boundary of, 191 ; hostili 
 ties with Mexico regarding the bounda 
 ries of, 191 ; Boundary Bill, 281, 283. 
 
 Texas, annexation of, a vital issue, 146 ; the 
 slaveocracy secretly plotting for, 146; 
 J. Q. Adams first to sound the alarm 
 against, 146; its undesirability, 146-147; 
 the cause of war with Mexico, 147,185, 
 195; action of the Mexican government 
 regarding, 147 ; Giddings makes the first 
 speech in opposition to, 156-157 ; an im 
 portant issue in the Presidential election 
 of 1844, 157 etseq. ; Calhoun s treaty for, 
 178-182 ; achieved by the joint resolu 
 tion of Congress, 182-183, 191 ; gave 
 the Slave States a majority in the Senate, 
 186; effects of on the tariff of 1842, 404. 
 
 Tallmadge, Senator N. P , 83. 
 
 Taney, Chief-Justice, 340. 
 
 Tappan, Arthur, first president of the 
 American Anti- Slavery Society, 89. 
 
 Tappan, Benjamin, senator from Ohio, 83. 
 
 Tappan, Lewis, a pioneer in the anti- 
 slavery cause, 89 ; letter to Giddings, 
 
 Taylor, General, 176-177, 215, 219, 229, 
 238, 256, 261, 271, 278, 287, 302, 378, 
 406; ordered to Corpus Chnsti, 191 ; 
 invades Mexico, 193 ; the Mexican War 
 makes him a prospective candidate for 
 President, 207 ; his non-committal atti 
 tude in politics, 241 ; nominated by the 
 Whigs for President, 252 ; his political 
 principles, 252; elected President, 258 ; 
 appointments to office, 277 ; death of, 
 281. 
 
 Thayer, Eli, 372. 
 
 Thompson, Wad Jy, 51-52, 92, 98, 100. 
 
 Tilden, Daniel R., 192. 
 
 Tilden, Samuel J., 306. 
 Tomlinson, Thomas, 147. 
 Tompkins, P. W., 222. 
 Toombs, Robert, 263, 281. 
 Townshend, Dr., 266, 267. 
 Triple tt, Philip, of Ky., 124. 
 Tuck, Amos, 271. 
 Tyler, John, 102, 115, 116, 129, 147. 
 
 U. 
 
 UPSHUR, A. P., Secretary of State, 157. 
 Utah, 311. 
 
 V. 
 
 VALLANDIGHAM, C. L., charges Giddings 
 with conspiring in Brown s Virginia raid, 
 370. 
 
 Van Buren, Martin (President), 36, 50, 51, 
 66, 89, 99, 113, 143, 144, 212, 213, 214, 
 271, 306 ; his attempt to shelter the slave- 
 trade under the national flag, 74-77 ; ""a 
 Northern man with Southern princi 
 ples," 86; his anti-Texas letter, 158; a 
 possible anti-slavery candidate for Presi 
 dent in 1847, 207 ; his followers unite in 
 a third-party movement, 253 ; nominated 
 for President by the Free-Soil conven 
 tion, 254. 
 
 Vance, Joseph, 177, 192, 230. 
 
 Venable, A. W., of N. C., 259. 
 
 Vinton, S. F., of Ohio, 261, 276, 277. 
 
 Von Hoist, Dr., his " Constitutional His 
 tory of the United States" quoted, 194. 
 
 W. 
 
 WADE, Benjamin F., 34-35, 45, 211, 256, 
 307, 311, 348; Senator from Ohio, 287. 
 
 Wade, Edward, 311, 348; elected to Con 
 gress, 307. 
 
 Walker, Senator from Mississippi, 182. 
 
 Wall, G. D., Senator from N. J., 83. 
 
 Wallace, Governor, 128. 
 
 Walsh, Mike, of N. Y., 309. 
 
 Ward, General, 120. 
 
 Warren, Lott, of Ga., 92. 
 
 Washburne, E. B., of Illinois, 394. 
 
 Washington, George, 42, 298. 
 
 Waters, Abner, 24. 
 
 Waters, Laura, 24. 
 
 Watson, James C., 176-177, 299-300. 
 
 Webster, Daniel, 83, 90, 127, 128, 129, 283 ; 
 Secretary of State, 116; his action in the 
 "Creole" affair, 116-118, 120; retired 
 from the State Department, 157; con 
 sidered by anti-slavery men as a candi 
 date for President, 207 ; nominated for 
 President by the Massachusetts Whig 
 convention, 210; in favor of the Wilmot 
 Proviso, 210 ; claimed Free Soil as a 
 Whig doctrine, 254; Secretary of State, 
 281, 287 ; criticism of his foreign policy, 
 in 1842, 296-297. 
 
 Weed, Thurlow, 188. 
 
 Weld, Theodore, ir, 45, 105. 
 
 Weller, John B., 122, 123. 
 
 Wesley, John, 37. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 473 
 
 Whigs, 91,97, 131, 132, 213, 229, 274, 282, 
 301, 307, 380 ; their power in the Twenty- 
 sixth Congress, 78 ; their majority in the 
 House depends on the admission of New 
 Jersey members, 78-79; charged by the 
 Democrats with favoring Abolitionism, 
 80; defended byHenry Clay, 80 ; Harrison 
 their candidate for President in 1840, 85 ; 
 their sole issue, 85-86; in a majority in the 
 Twenty-seventh Congress, 102 ; divided 
 into warring factions, 102 ; choose John 
 White Speaker of the House, 102 ; cred 
 ited with anti-slavery tendencies, 137 ; 
 nominate Clay for President in 1844, 157 ; 
 represented the best elements of society 
 in the campaign of 1844,160; manyoftheir 
 anti-slavery members join the Liberty 
 party, 166; their success in Ohio due to 
 the efforts of Giddings, 167; foreign-born 
 citizens the bitter opponents of, 168 ; not 
 a trustworthy agency in combating the 
 South, 168; their cowardice leads them 
 to vote for the Mexican War Bill, 192-194; 
 unworthy of their leader, Henry Clay, 
 193 ; denounce President Polk for bring 
 ing on the Mexican War, 194 ; threatened 
 with disruption, 206-207 ; " Conscience " 
 and " Cotton," 206, 253 ; their attitude in 
 1847 stated by Giddings, 215-216 ; in 
 Massachusetts, 219; their abuse of Gid 
 dings and Palfrey for refusing to support 
 Winthropfor the Speakership, 222etseg. ; 
 their disbandment predicted by Giddings, 
 241 ; nominate General Taylor for Presi 
 dent in 1848, 252 ; their readiness to sac 
 rifice principle for success, 252, 318; 
 their treachery to Clay, 252 ; many mem 
 bers withdraw from the party, 252-253, 
 254 ; their bitterness towards the Free 
 Soilers, 254-255; their treatment of Gid 
 dings, 258; forced to show their position 
 on slavery, 259-260 ; defeat Giddings 
 for the Ohio Senatorship, 267 ; seriously 
 divided, 270-271 ; nominate R. C. Win- 
 thrpp for Speaker of the House in the 
 Thirty-first Congress, 272 ; move the 
 " plurality rule " to govern the election of 
 Speaker, 272, 276 ; charge Winthrop s 
 defeat to the Free Soilers, 272, 276 ; 
 their efforts to suppress the discussion of 
 slavery, 286-291 ; General Scott their 
 nominee fpr President in 1852, 301 ; de 
 precate in their platform the agitation of 
 the slavery question, 301-302 ; demorali 
 zation of, 302 ; Gidclmgs s arraignment 
 of, 302-305 ; overwhelming defeat in 
 1852, 305-306; disruption of, 306, 318, 
 320; maintain their party organization in 
 New York, 321 ; conservative members 
 of, a discordant element in the Republican 
 party, 372. 
 
 White, John, Speaker of the House of 
 Representatives, 102. 
 
 Whitefield, George, 37. 
 
 Whitney, Eli, 41. 
 
 Whittlesey, Elisha, 21, 23, 24, 34, 37, 255. 
 
 Whittlesey, William A., 22, 23. 
 
 Wickliffe, C. A., Postmaster-general, 173, 
 
 Wigg, William Hazzard, 308. 
 
 Wilder, Horace, 37. 
 
 Williams, of North Carolina, 79. 
 
 Williams vs. Hawley, case of, 30-32. 
 
 Wilmot, David, 271, 273, 275. 
 
 Wilmot Proviso, 210, 211, 212, 214, 219, 
 
 220, 236, 237, 252,256, 263,28l, 284, JII. 
 
 Wilson, Henry, 206, 252, 334, 384; letter 
 to Giddings, 356. 
 
 Winthrop, Robert C., 211, 213, 217, 220, 
 276, 277, 278, 283 ; criticises Giddings 
 for voting to withhold supplies for the 
 Mexican War, 201-202 ; Delano s reply 
 to, in defence of Giddings, 203-204; a 
 "Cotton Whig," 206; elected Speaker 
 of the House of Representatives, 216, 
 222 ; his election opposed by Giddings, 
 216 et seg., 274 ; personal characteristics, 
 218; his famous toast, 218-219; opposes 
 the anti-slavery spirit of Massachusetts, 
 219; desires General Taylor s nomina 
 tion for President, 219, 237; favors the 
 Mexican War, 219 224, 233-234; ques 
 tioned as to his organization of the House 
 if chosen Speaker, 221-222 ; elected 
 Speaker by the aid of Democratic votes, 
 222 ; supported for Speakership by J. Q. 
 Adams, 222 ; controversy with Giddings, 
 226 et seg. ; his feelings towards C. F. 
 Adams and Sumner, 232 ; Giddings justi 
 fied in refusing to support him, 235-238 ; 
 his hostility to the Free-Soil movement, 
 237; declines to vote for the Wilmot 
 Proviso, 237 ; espouses the policy of 
 Congressional "non-action " with slavery 
 in the Territories, 237; opposes the for 
 mation of the Republican party in 1856, 
 237; opposes the election of Lincoln in 
 1860, 237; supports General McClellan 
 in 1864,237; slights Giddings, 240, 258; 
 Whig nominee for Speaker of the House 
 in the Thirty-first Congress, 272 ; his de 
 feat charged to the Free Soilers, 272, 276 ; 
 withdraws from the Speakership contest, 
 273 ; corrrectness of Giddings s prophe 
 cies regarding, 404. 
 
 Wise, H. A., his abuse of J. Q. Adams, 
 106-107. 
 
 Woodbury, Levi, 141. 
 
 Woods, Mr., of Ohio, 307. 
 
 Wool, General, 330. 
 
 Woolman, John, 37. 
 
 Wright, John C., 30-31. 
 
 Wright, H. B., of Penn , 314. 
 
 Y. 
 
 YOUNG, R. M., of Illinois, 83. 
 Young, Augustus, of Vermont, 103. 
 
 z. 
 
 ZOLLICOFFER, F. K., 325. 
 
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