Massachusetts and South Carolina and the Sectional Crisis, Part 3

 

 

At the end of 1852 one of the more unlikely friendships in politics was that of Pickens Butler and Charles Sumner. It wasn’t just their radically different positions on slavery but their temperament and views of the world: two men could not be more personally different. And yet from the moment Sumner had entered the Senate in 1851 the two men had been drawn to each other and were still friends as the December session of 1852 began. Yet as 1853 began both men were in complete opposite position when it came to political influence. Sumner had begun to establish himself as a voice against the slavery but his political influence was limited and his position in his home state precarious while Butler was not only the most influential man in South Carolina but had a far bigger impact on the South’s influence on national policy.

In the year Sumner had been in the Senate, he had started out not particularly highly regarded in his own state: when he entered the Senate he was just one of only Free Soilers in the chamber. With no alliance to either major party, committee assignments were unlikely and he was in a tenuous position with the coalition of Democrats and Free Soilers that had gotten him in the Senate in the first place. He didn’t even have much clout with members of his own party: he felt little regard for John Hale of New Hampshire, who despite his prominence among the anti-slavery passion he never considered serious while he was drawn to Salmon P. Chase of Ohio. Nor did he have an alliance with his Northern colleagues such as Stephen Douglas or Lewis Cass, who similarly looked down on him. Interestingly enough he was closer in temperament to his Southern colleagues initially: in addition to Butler, he felt an affinity to Louisiana’s Pierre Soule and even Varina Davis, Jefferson Davis’s wife, was impressed by him at social gatherings.

Sumner initially tried to take a middle ground on the slavery issue, something his colleagues in Massachusetts refused to take well. Lloyd Garrison did nothing to help him by sending Sumner a petition on behalf of two anti-slavery men, Daniel Drayton and Edward Sayres, who were in prison for violating the Fugitive Slave Act. Sumner was supposed to present it to gain floor access for an assault on slavery. Sumner refused to act because President Filmore was considering a pardon for both men and he knew public pressure would backfire. Garrison was unaware of this fact but considering the nature of the man, it would likely have made no difference. On March 19^th he published an editorial expressing ‘surprise and regret’ at Sumner’s inaction. He helped secure a motion from the Norfolk Anti-Slavery Society censuring him for ‘inexplicable silence’. In in April he turned against Sumner for meeting and dining with President Filmore, a man who he castigated in a speech for signing the Fugitive Slave Act. In the minds of Garrison and other Free Soil newspapers – many of whom had little use for the patience of politics – there was an increasing demand for Sumner to speak. His hand was forced by his adversaries from the Cotton Whigs and Democrats in his home state, including Robert Winthrop.

Finally he arranged to give a speech on an amendment by Senator Robert Hunter of Virginia related to the Fugitive Slave Act. He would speak for nearly four hours, going out of his way to avoid any connection to Garrison and his abolitionists description as ‘the Constitution as a covenant with death’. He also went out of his way to avoid William Seward’s famous misstep during the 1850 debates when he had declared ‘there was a higher law than the Constitution’. He made it clear that the Constitution was a hallowed bulwark of tradition, that liberty and justice were national principles as opposed to slavery, which was sectional. He noted the famous phrase from the Declaration of Independence “that all men are created equal’

“Slavery is in no respect national – that is not within the sphere of national activity – that it has no positive support in the constitution. (Rather) it is strictly a local institution, peculiar to the states and under the guardianship of states’ rights.

He argued that the Fugitive Slave Act was not merely morally wrong but doubly unconstitutional.

This speech had a mixed response on sectional lines. Naturally Garrison rejected the Senator’s effort to draw a distinction between freedom as national and slavery as sectional. The distinction reflected no real difference and it did ‘nothing to relieve the central government from the guilt of upholding the slave system.” He did concede that this speech would enlarge and consolidate the already wide reputation of the author. It had but even before the speech his friends in Boston worried that it would affect his already high opinion of himself.

Sumner had more immediate concerns at the end of 1852. The coalition of support that had made him Senator was already beginning to fray during that year’s elections. The Whigs managed to stage a comeback in Massachusetts and elected their man governor. Many of his colleagues blamed Sumner for doing little during the fall campaign to rally the faithful during the fall recess. It didn’t help that more purist Free Soilers such as Charles Francis Adams were hostile to him because of the alignments he had made for ‘political power’, which they considered unprincipled. And the Garrison forces viewed him inadequate to the cause of abolition because of his fealty to the Constitution. Less than a year after he’d been elected, antislavery men were comparing him to Webster when it came to a moral flaw.

When Democratic members of the coalition pursued an agenda that was designed to enhance the rural west at the expense of the more densely populated east, the power play unified the Whigs but divided the Democrats on geographic lines. Caleb Cushing – the fiercest anti-coalition Democrats about to become the new President’s attorney general – declared the new administration would award no jobs to Massachusetts Democrats who continued to ally themselves with the coalition.

Not surprisingly in the autumn elections of 1853 the Whigs retained the governorship, recaptured the legislature and defeated a new Democratic proposal to the constitution substantially. The result destroy the coalition and obliterated the Senator’s legislative base. Sumner now faced the challenge of galvanizing the antislavery voters into a new base of support before he had to face reelection in 4 years.

By contrast Butler’s position in South Carolina now seemed more than secure with Calhoun’s death, Rhett’s resignation from the Senate and his political courage in pressing for cooperation rather than disunion. After the October 1851 elections, his political standing soured. With his position secure Butler was now positioned to play an increasingly prominent role in Washington.

In 1853 he and three fellow Southern Senators, Virginia’s James Mason and Robert M.T. Hunter and Missouri’s David Rice Atchison, jointly purchased a house at 361 F Street, where they would foster a tight political and personal bond. This would become known as the F Street Mess. All four men embraced the political ethos of Calhoun, particularly his view that slavery must be protected or the Union would dissolved.

All Butler’s compatriots had impeccable Congressional and Southern credentials. Mason had helped write the fugitive slave legislation. Hunter had been elected to Congress at 28 and became elected Speaker just two years later. In the Senate, he was the Chairman of the Finance Committee. Atchison had served two terms in the House and had joined the Senate in 1843 and had repeatedly held the position of president pro tempore, making him second in line to Presidential succession.

Butler, like the rest of the F Street Mess, were not known for their rhetoric like Sumner or Rhett had been. Rather with their command over powerful committees and senatorial procedure, they were well position to work behind the scenes to provide one of the greatest influence of slave power in Congress. That became clear during what was supposed to be an uneventful lame duck session of Congress that December that began the slowly rekindle the sparks of the slavery debate that so many had thought the Compromise of 1850 had put out.

The major issue was the visionary and necessary concept of what would become the Transcontinental Railroad. Many in Congress were enthusiasts, including Stephen Douglas, David Rice Atchison and his great rival from Missouri Thomas Hart Benton. Based on a proposal from dry-goods merchant Asa Whitney nearly a decade earlier three elements were integrated into settled concept: the necessity of a Pacific railroad, the financing mechanism should be federal land grants along the route, and the builders should be private industrialists willing to leverage land grants to maintain the line. There was a possibility for huge financial windfalls for railroad builders and those who could acquire property and establish business along the route. What matters was which big city would be the Eastern terminus. And into this would come Douglas of Illinois who ever since he had entered Congress in 1845 had been boosting for the city of Chicago to be the center.

The big problem was a vast landmass at the center of the country which since 1834 had been designated the ‘Indian Territory’, nearly 60 million acres that included nearly all U.S. territory between the Mississippi River and the Rockies, save for Missouri, Louisiana, what would become Arkansas and bits of all other states. Andrew Jackson had blessed it as such in 1835 but manifest destiny and the Mexican War had changed the dynamic. Several measures during the 1852-1853 congressional session called for reorganizing the portion of the Indian lands known as the Territory of Nebraska.

That February a bill to organize Nebraska territory passed with a huge majority in the House. But when the bill reached the Senate Douglas himself saw the problems. The most pertinent was the fact that Nebraska territory was on a collision course with the Missouri Compromise. That compromise had established firmly a demarcation line at latitude 36 degrees, 30 ‘, with no new slave states below that line. Nebraska was above that line and the thought of it becoming a new state barred from slavery caused Southern senators to hesitate embracing the rail project as a result. As  a result of this divide the bill died at the end of the lame-duck session and Douglas was handed a defeat which bothered him more than legislation – he had eyes on the Democratic nomination for President in 1856.

The new President had little interest in dealing with the issue of slavery. He would soon cause enough problems for himself without it. In an effort to bring the party together Pierce chose to use his patronage to distribute political jobs. He ended up angering every part of his coalition which hurt him in every state in the Union, especially New York. In the off-year elections the Whigs would nearly double their number of legislative house seats from the previous session and increase their share of the Senate by nearly 22 percent. Democrats worried about the fracture in their party and wanted Pierce to unleash a major initiative that would unite the party domestically. Pierce, who seemed more concerned about issues like the acquisition of Cuba, didn’t seem interested in that, and in his domestic address gave lip service to the idea of the Transcontinental railroad.

By the time Pierce first year in office was over, observers were beginning to see how flawed their President was. He lacked vision and imagination, had little coherent policy, and showed incredible political naivete. When Congress returned to session in December everyone knew the railroad and the Nebraska territory would dominate the agenda. Few would be able to imagine the national consequences.

When Douglas considered the measure again he would learn that Atchison, along with the rest of the F Street Mess, were willing to vote for organizing Nebraska for statehood with anything that resembled an exclusion for slavery. Douglas kept that in mind when he introduced his new bill in January of 1854. In this bill he put forth the phrase “when admitted as a state of states, the said territory, or any portion of any same, shall be received into the Union, as their constitution may prescribe at the time of their admission. “ Douglas was clearly trying to finesse the issue of slavery as well as the Missouri Compromise. It was published January 7^th in the Washington Sentinel as Section 22.

Then three days later, the paper published it again but with an added section of uncertain origin. Known as Section 21 it stated: “in order to avoid all misconstruction…its true intent and meaning” to be that “all questions pertaining to slavery in the territories, and in the new states to be formed therefrom, are to be left to the decision of the people residing therein, through their appropriate representatives.” Essentially the section argued for the idea of popular sovereignty.”

Atchison called for a meeting of himself and Douglas, along with a freshman congressman (who had talked with his fellow F Street member Robert Hunter on the issue) about the dilemma. Douglas had no interest in hearing. However, he prudently asked language explicitly repealing the Missouri Compromise so he could keep it handy as events unfolded.

Kentucky’s Whig Senator Archibald Dixon, an ally of Atchison, introduced an amendment to the Bill, forcing the question into the open. The following day Sumner proposed an amendment demanding support for the Missouri Compromise, insisted any language contrary be expunged.

Douglas was now cornered. He had managed to get the slavery issue out of Congress during his actions in his work in the Compromise of 1850. Now he could either maintain his finesse in that and lose the support of the South or bow to Southern demands and reignite the slavery agitation. He chose to do the latter, and it was approved by the F Street Mess. Now all he had to do was get it past the President.

That same day the President was having a contentious cabinet meeting grappling with the same dilemma. Because he was less inclined to the idea of the railroad he was more inclined to opt for fealty to the Missouri Compromise. Of his seven cabinet members, only Jefferson Davis his secretary of war and secretary of the navy James Dobbin  - both Southerners – argued for revoking the compromise. The rest wanted the language kept vague. Pierce finally agreed collaborating with his Attorney General on wording designed to kick the matter to the Supreme Court and a split of the party. But when he presented the language to Douglas and the F Street Mess, they rejected it outright. Again Douglas was in a bind, he was now stuck between the President and the F Street men. And because he considered the President largely ineffectual, he decided to change the President’s mind.

In what ranks as one of the worst decisions of a disastrous Presidency Pierce would agree to a Sunday meeting with Douglas, John C. Breckinridge, the F Street Mess alone with the absence of his cabinet, save for Jefferson Davis. With no one around to raise a counterargument he went up against a contingent of some of the most astute legislative minds in Congress with the power to make or break his legislative agenda. And in keeping with his tendency to change his mind with the most recent person he talked to, he did exactly that. Knowing this Douglas insisted that the President put in writing a statement that the Missouri Compromise “was superseded by the principles of the legislation of 1850, commonly called the compromise measures, and is hereby declared inoperative and void.”

Douglas now had a clear path for bringing to the Senate an entirely new Nebraska bill that would transform the debate on slavery and alter the course of history. In his discussion with Dixon he had reversed his positions with prophetic words agreeing to the bill: “I know it will raise a hell of a storm.”

Truer words were never spoke.

In the next article I will deal with the debate and passage of that bill would lead to radical changes across the political spectrum – particularly in the case of a new political party.