No. VI.

THE THIRTIETH CONGRESS.

THE term of the Thirtieth Congress was the date of the first apparent successes obtained by the forces of Freedom over the Slave Power, since the beginning of the contest. It seemed as

if, driven to the wall, they had turned upon their assailants and were about to make good a defence.

The opening of the Congress was inauspicious. Mr. Winthrop, of Massachusetts, was chosen Speaker of the House. Mr. Winthrop's course in general, both at Washington and at home, had been satisfactory to the Southern statesmen; and he had given them important support on the great test question of the Mexican war. Of course, he would not have been their first choice, had the question of a selection been perfectly open, since, however inclined personally to carry out their policy, his relations to his own State might be supposed somewhat to hamper him in that line of conduct. But a Presidential election was coming on, and it was necessary to keep some terms of decency with the North, which had rarely had a Speaker; it was desirable to conciliate Massachusetts, which had considerable influence for a Free State, and whose politics were in a critical condition; and independently of any mutual explanations which may have been made, great reliance was placed on Mr. Winthrop's supposed determination to rise in public life, as giving a pledge of his readiness to do the work of the Slave Power in the Speaker's chair.

"The Southern Whigs, opposed to the Wilmot Proviso," said Mr. I. E. Holmes, of Charleston, South Carolina, in a letter for his constituents, "nominated Mr. Winthrop in caucus in opposition to a majority of the Northern Whigs, who were in favor of the Wilmot Proviso, and who opposed the nomination of Mr. Winthrop." Dissatisfied with his position and policy, three Northern Whigs, Messrs. Giddings, Tuck, and Palfrey, withheld from him their votes; and he was only chosen on the third trial by the withdrawal of the opposing votes of Mr. Tompkins of Mississippi, and the Democratic Mr. Holmes of South Carolina.

His appointment of committees fully justified the distrust of the three recusants. He gave the cause of Freedom a decidedly less strong representation than it has received from his successor, the Democratic Mr. Cobb of Georgia. With the exception of the Committee on the Territories, all the important political committees were seen to be in the Slave Power interest, as soon as the names were announced; and such proved to be in fact their policy, to the end of the Congress. And the Committee on

the Territories, of which better things were augured, turned out to be little better than a nominal exception. It will not do to say that Mr. Smith, of Indiana, its chairman, was understood to be treacherous when he was appointed, or that he was treacherHis inefficiency may have been only sluggishness or incapacity; but on the most favorable supposition, it was unspeakably calamitous for the country that, in one way or another, he proved to be so unfit for such a post.

ous.

The question, which it had been so often and positively declared should never be tolerated for discussion within the Representatives' chamber, was formally installed there for a thenceforward permanent habitancy, in the third week of the session. On the 22d day of December, the House having gone into Committee of the Whole on the distribution of the topics of the President's Message, Mr. Clingman, of North Carolina, introduced the debate with a long speech on what he called, in his printed report, "The Political Aspect of the Slave Question." This was censured by some of his friends at the time as a false move, as it opened to opponents that field for debate for which they had so long striven with little success. He was answered by Mr. Palfrey, of Massachusetts, to whom the House had to listen without interruption, when the gauntlet had been so thrown down by a Southern hand. And from that time to this, the Slavery question has been fully recognized as a legitimate topic of debate; and has, in fact, been much more largely treated than any other. A point of immense importance was carried, when Freedom got a hearing within the Capitol walls.

If, while the great subject was constantly forcing itself into the action of both Houses, commonly no direct practical result was obtained, still the course of discussion enlightened the public mind; and the very privilege of discussing gave heart to the friends of Freedom in Congress, while it exhibited them in a new position abroad. Mr. Giddings moved to submit the question respecting the abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia to a vote of its male citizens of full age, including negro slaves; and the motion, though defeated, was sustained by 79 votes. Mr. Gott, of New York, moved a resolution for the prohibition of the Slave-trade in the District, with a preamble reciting that the trade was "contrary to natural justice and the fundamental principles of our own political system, notoriously a reproach to our country throughout Christendom, and a serious hinderance to the progress of republican liberty among the nations of the earth." It was carried by a vote of 98 to 87; but an adjournment having taken place on the motion of one of the minority, skilled in the Rules and Orders, it went over to the end of the session in the fat file of unfinished business. Mr. Palfrey asked leave to introduce a bill to "repeal all acts or parts of acts of Congress establishing or maintaining Slavery or the Slave

trade in the District of Columbia"; and leave was refused by a majority of only 82 to 69. A bill, in what was called "the Pacheco case," for payment for a slave sent away into the Indian country by a United States officer, was vigorously contested, on the ground of its involving the admission that the Federal Constitution recognized property in slaves. After some suspicious counting of the yeas and nays, on the part of the clerk's deputy, it was held that the bill had passed by a majority of two; but it did not come up for action in the Senate, and has not yet become a law. A gross attempt made, on the recommendation of the President, to pay the Spanish pirates of the Amistad for the free negroes whom they had endeavored to kidnap, was successful in the Senate, in the face of a decision of the Supreme Court on the merits of the case, but was defeated in the House. Mr. Hall, of New York (now in the mire of Mr. Fillmore's cabinet,-heu! quantum mutatus ab illo), moved to instruct the Committee on the Judiciary to report a bill withdrawing the use of the jails of the District for the detention of fugitive slaves. The House refused, by 117 votes against 72, to lay on the table a bill "to prohibit the introduction of Slavery into the District of Columbia as merchandise, or for sale or hire"; but, by dexterous management, it was carried over among the unfinished business.

In the spring of 1848, an incident took place, quite important in its relations and results, since it may be reasonably considered to have settled the question of the freedom of the press at the seat of government. Sixty or seventy negro slaves were carried off in a vessel from Washington, but were retaken and brought back. The excitement was great, and, in want of some object for its fury, directed itself against the National Era, the wellknown anti-Slave-Power newspaper published in Washington. During the nights of Tuesday and Wednesday, the 18th and 19th of April, a lawless mob held uncontrolled possession of the city, threatening the Era office, and making speeches, passing votes, and going through the usual operations of such a body, with the countenance and presence of not a few persons of repute. On the evening of the 19th, it sent a deputation to Dr. Bailey, some of its members being magistrates of the city, with the insolent demand that he should discontinue the publication of his paper at the seat of government. At the opening of the Senate on the morning of the 20th, Mr. Hale, of New Hampshire, asked leave to introduce a "Bill relating to Riots and unlawful Assemblies in the District of Columbia." This led to a sharp debate, in the course of which Mr. Foote gave to Mr. Hale the invitation, sometimes since referred to, to come to Mississippi and be hung. The Senate adjourned over to Monday without action on the subject, and it was not revived. Simultaneously with this movement in the Senate on the 20th,

Mr. Palfrey, in the House, made a question of privilege of the threats which had been uttered against one of its members (Mr. Giddings), and asked the appointment of a committee with power to send for persons and papers, and to sit during the sessions of the House. A warm debate followed, which ended on the following Tuesday with a vote to lay the subject on the table. But this was of no consequence, for the telegraph was at work, and the business was actually settled as soon as started. The public was informed, the North was aroused, the responsibility was imposed at head-quarters, and the mob was overpowered, in the hour when the debate at the Capitol began. In the course of the day the President conferred with the city government; orders were sent to the marines at the Navy Yard to be in readiness; the clerks had their directions from the heads of departments; and the many-headed showed itself no more. The Antislavery press had tried its title, once for all, to be free at Washington, and had effectually carried the day.

The action of the parties out of doors, in the year 1848, in relation to the election of a President, had as much importance in the way of indicating the state and course of public sentiment, as the proceedings in the halls of Congress; and it had a sensible influence on those proceedings themselves.

The Democratic nominating convention met at Baltimore on the 23d of May. It adopted the two-thirds rule, which gave the slaveholding delegations an absolute veto on the selection of any candidate not agreeable to them. Its resolutions, indicating the policy on which the party proposed to administer the government, should it be placed in power, were of a character entirely satisfactory to the slaveholding interest, except that Mr. Yancey, of Alabama, and perhaps one or two others, declared, as usual, that they had not got as much as they should like. Lewis Cass, of Michigan, was nominated as the Democratic candidate, and avowed his adoption of the doctrines and policy set forth in the resolutions of the Convention.

The Whig Convention came together at Philadelphia on the following June 7th, and after coquetting with the names of some other aspirants, and some strong opposition from a few Northern members, who had not yet learned, like their colleagues, to eat all their brave antislavery words, it nominated General Taylor with an appearance of great enthusiasm. No platform of principles was laid down. General Taylor's position was such that the Slave Power felt no need of requiring pledges from him as to his policy. The object was much more to keep him quiet, lest the expression of his views should repel the Antislavery Whigs of the North from his support. Mr. Tilden, of Ohio, offered a resolution affirming the power of Congress over Slavery in the Territories; but it was voted down. Mr. Wilson and Mr. Allen, delegates from Massachusetts, denounced the proceedings in

earnest language; and it was thought to be owing to the course taken by them, that Mr. Fillmore, formerly a member of Congress from New York, and more recently Comptroller of that State, was selected as candidate for the office of Vice-President, instead of Mr. Abbott Lawrence, of Massachusetts, who had been prominent among the friends of General Taylor, and to whom it had been understood that the nomination would fall.

Thus both parties had given in their adhesion to the Slave Power for the approaching election, and undertaken to work its will. Yet in both there was wide dissatisfaction. Numbers had lately had their eyes opened to the deep designs and the swift advances of the insolent despotism which was establishing itself over them and over the liberties of America. The recent proceeding had torn away the veil, by which the reality of things had been hidden from the sight of many. The discontent was most diffused in Massachusetts and New York. In Massachusetts the Whig party especially had for years taken such high Antislavery ground, that large numbers in its ranks found it altogether impossible, at the mere dictation of a party interest in a new state of things, to falsify often-repeated professions, and denounce honest sentiments worn into the very fibre of their minds. The anti-Slave-Power wing of the Democratic party in New York, claiming to be the majority of, and to represent, the party, had sent delegates to the Baltimore Convention, whose seats had been contested by representatives of the opposite faction. And, added to their disapprobation of the policy adopted by the Convention, was the disgust occasioned by its action in respect to recognition of their delegates.

The arrival in Massachusetts of the intelligence of the nomination of General Taylor was immediately followed by a call, to persons dissatisfied with that proceeding, to meet at Worcester for consultation on the state of the times, and on measures proper to be taken. The Convention met on the 28th day of June, to the number, it was said, of not less than five thousand persons. They declared in their resolutions their adherence to the often-professed principles of Massachusetts on the subject of Slavery, and their purpose to maintain them in political action; and the Free Soil party of Massachusetts was formed.

Conformably to the action in Massachusetts, New York, and elsewhere, a convention of citizens opposed to the usurpations of the Slave Power, met at Buffalo on the 9th of August. It consisted of delegates from seventeen or eighteen States, and the numbers were differently estimated at from thirty to fifty thousand. It nominated Martin Van Buren, of New York, for President, and Charles F. Adams, of Massachusetts, for Vice-President, and laid down a platform of union for future action, consisting of an assertion of the right and duty, by legal enactment, to arrest the further extension of Slavery over American soil, and