The Life of Stephen A. Douglas [12]
will of God. He urged the duty of promptly providing governments for the unorganized domain and closed with a graceful tribute to Clay and the prediction that the Territories would soon be organized, California admitted and the controversy ended forever.
There were three generically distinct groups of statesmen participating in this great debate--the aggressive, unyielding men of the South to whom slavery was dearer than the Union; the temporizing politicians of the North and the border, with their compromises and concessions, hoping to save the Union by salving its wounds; and the stern Puritans of the North, bent on rooting out the sins of the Nation, through the heavens fell.
The climax of the debate was now past, but it continued to agitate Congress until the middle of September. President Taylor, who had exerted his influence against the Compromise, died on July 9th, and was succeeded by Fillmore, who at once called Webster to the head of his Cabinet and turned the Executive influence to the support of the bill. It proved impossible, even with his help, to pass it as a whole; but after it had gone to wreck its fragments were gathered up and each of the several bills which were jumbled together in the "Omnibus" was passed. The great Compromise was accomplished and the slavery question declared settled forever.
Chapter V. Results of the Fugitive Slave Law.
In 1850 Douglas moved to Chicago, which had become the chief city of the State.
The people were greatly exasperated by the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law. The City Council, on October 21st, passed resolutions harshly condemning the Senators and Representatives from the free States who had supported it and "those who basely sneaked away from their seats and thereby evaded the question," classing them with Benedict Arnold and Judas Iscariot. This was a personal challenge to Douglas. It happened that he was absent from the Senate on private business when the bill was passed. But the charge of evading the question was grossly unjust.
On the evening of the 22nd a mass meeting was held at the city hall, attended by a great concourse of angry citizens, who, amid tumultuous applause, resolved to defy "death, the dungeon and the grave" in resisting the hated law. Douglas appeared on the platform and announced that on the following evening he would address the people in defense of the Fugitive Slave Law and the entire Compromise. The announcement was received with a storm of hisses and groans.
The next night an enormous multitude gathered to hear him. The audience was not only sullen but bitterly hostile. After a contemptuous reference to the resolutions and a brief vindication of himself against their insinuations, he plunged into the defense of the law. He insisted that the provision for the return of fugitive slaves contained in the recent act was analogous to the general provision of law for the return of fugitives from justice, and, while abuses of the process might occur and wrong occasionally inflicted, that was one of the inherent infirmities of human law, and the same objection could be urged with equal force to all extradition statutes. While free blacks might be seized in the North and carried South on the false charge of being fugitives from service, innocent white men might also be seized in Chicago and carried to California on the false charge of being fugitives from justice.
He reminded them that the law of 1850 was substantially a reenactment of that of 1793, passed by the Revolutionary Fathers, the founders of the Constitution, and approved by President Washington. He did not argue, but assumed the justice of the old law; nor did he allude to the increased ardor of pursuit of fleeing slaves since their increase in value. He rested his case on the close resemblance of the letter of the new law to that of the old. He told them that the duty of returning fugitive slaves was created not by THIS law, but by the Constitution, and that the real question was not as to the existence of the duty, but which law performed
There were three generically distinct groups of statesmen participating in this great debate--the aggressive, unyielding men of the South to whom slavery was dearer than the Union; the temporizing politicians of the North and the border, with their compromises and concessions, hoping to save the Union by salving its wounds; and the stern Puritans of the North, bent on rooting out the sins of the Nation, through the heavens fell.
The climax of the debate was now past, but it continued to agitate Congress until the middle of September. President Taylor, who had exerted his influence against the Compromise, died on July 9th, and was succeeded by Fillmore, who at once called Webster to the head of his Cabinet and turned the Executive influence to the support of the bill. It proved impossible, even with his help, to pass it as a whole; but after it had gone to wreck its fragments were gathered up and each of the several bills which were jumbled together in the "Omnibus" was passed. The great Compromise was accomplished and the slavery question declared settled forever.
Chapter V. Results of the Fugitive Slave Law.
In 1850 Douglas moved to Chicago, which had become the chief city of the State.
The people were greatly exasperated by the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law. The City Council, on October 21st, passed resolutions harshly condemning the Senators and Representatives from the free States who had supported it and "those who basely sneaked away from their seats and thereby evaded the question," classing them with Benedict Arnold and Judas Iscariot. This was a personal challenge to Douglas. It happened that he was absent from the Senate on private business when the bill was passed. But the charge of evading the question was grossly unjust.
On the evening of the 22nd a mass meeting was held at the city hall, attended by a great concourse of angry citizens, who, amid tumultuous applause, resolved to defy "death, the dungeon and the grave" in resisting the hated law. Douglas appeared on the platform and announced that on the following evening he would address the people in defense of the Fugitive Slave Law and the entire Compromise. The announcement was received with a storm of hisses and groans.
The next night an enormous multitude gathered to hear him. The audience was not only sullen but bitterly hostile. After a contemptuous reference to the resolutions and a brief vindication of himself against their insinuations, he plunged into the defense of the law. He insisted that the provision for the return of fugitive slaves contained in the recent act was analogous to the general provision of law for the return of fugitives from justice, and, while abuses of the process might occur and wrong occasionally inflicted, that was one of the inherent infirmities of human law, and the same objection could be urged with equal force to all extradition statutes. While free blacks might be seized in the North and carried South on the false charge of being fugitives from service, innocent white men might also be seized in Chicago and carried to California on the false charge of being fugitives from justice.
He reminded them that the law of 1850 was substantially a reenactment of that of 1793, passed by the Revolutionary Fathers, the founders of the Constitution, and approved by President Washington. He did not argue, but assumed the justice of the old law; nor did he allude to the increased ardor of pursuit of fleeing slaves since their increase in value. He rested his case on the close resemblance of the letter of the new law to that of the old. He told them that the duty of returning fugitive slaves was created not by THIS law, but by the Constitution, and that the real question was not as to the existence of the duty, but which law performed