The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1855-08-02
From the Franklin (Tenn.l Review.
POLITICAL PARTIES AND SLAVERY.


upon them, no better test of fitness for the pub
lie service will be admitted. The remedy which
have to Offer, and, it seems to me, any other
effectual one, absolutely requires the discard
ing of all men who are engaged In hunting
after popularity and office. We must recur to
the principle, that the Office should 90 after the
man, not the man after the Office.
Not only are politicians by vocation unworthy
of all trust upon the subject of Slavery, but
equally so all bodies of men having an interest
distinct from the community at large. In the
controversy, leading finally to division, which
occurred in the M. E. Church in 1874, / think
all cool observers could see that neither party
was really DESTROYS to see the difficulty about
Slavery quietly settled. Each division, assum-
ing the championship respectively of Slavery
and Anti-Slavery, was sure to make popularity
| at home; and the two churches have now,
doubtless, more influence and more money
| than the united one would have obtained. That
other denominations have not played the same
game, is perhaps owing to the less intense &C.
clesiasticism of their orgauization-the laity
| having greater agency in the direction of af-
fairs with other denominations than with the
| Methodists. 1t is true that the advantage is
purchased at some cost. When the world sees
| that the chosen teachers of religion, upon a
great question of practical morals, will, from
| the same premises, arrive at precisely opposite
| conclusions according to the accident of living
| north or south of certain geographical line,
| they will beg in TO lose reverence for such
guidance. But this disadvantage the Method
lists will share in common with the ministry of
| other sects, while the profits are all their own.
With the delinquencies of Anti-Slavery agi-
| tators at the North, | have here no concern ;
| and, besides, they will be quite sure of vitupe-
| rations enough from q thousand stumps now
occupied in the South and West by men who are
not eloquent upon any other topic. Let us TOR
| a moment engage in the novel task of looking
| dispassionately at our own doings in this re-
| gard. / am not going to rehearse the fussfica
tons of cross-road politicians through the
length and breadth of the land but to notice
the political action and the expression of ma
tured opinion OF our Southern leaders and
select men. Have they shown any disposition
to " let well enough alone" upon this dangerous
subject? Well, in 1920, Mr.. Calhoun favored
the Missouri Com promise-thought it an excel
lent adjustment, and indeed the whole country
tcas satisfied with it. But in 1888, when Mr..
Calhoun's political interests demanded little
sectional excitement, he denounced the said
compromise as Liberal and uni ust, admitting,
however, that it was constitutional. I'm 1913,
when the Southern flame needed, in his view,
smart tanning, in order to prevent quiet, he
discovered that the measure was altogether at
war with the Constitution. Then Mr. Calhoun,
among the wisest and best of Southern states
men, for the mere sake of personal popularity,
was led to maintain, first, that the compromise
was both constitutional and erpedient; second
ly, that it was constitutional, but not erpedieat
and lastly, that it was neither constitutional nor
erpediem. Alas! when the "great defender
of Southern institutions could so stultify him
self, is it necessary to inquire into the conduct
Of the small fry?
In 1850, the celebrated " compromise meas
ures" passed in Congress, by which, as was
alleged all the issues growing out of Slavery,
retrospective, present, and prospective, for at
least hundred years, was finally adjusted.
True, there was a little grumbling at the South,
that Anti Slavery had got too much in the set
Element, and at the North that they had got too
little-some specimens of mobbing and filibus-
tering in both sections-but, upon the whole,
the country was satisfied, and the ebullition
gradually subsidized. Here in Middle Tennes-
see, such was the popular favor for those meas
ures, that a man conld not be made overseer of
a second class road, until he professed to be
:" sound on the compromise" Do the voters
of Tennessee know that, i'll four short years, the
most ciamorous advocate of the compromise
the men who voted for it, and claimed to be
elected because they so voted or would have
voted-again opened the whole controversy with
en-sold aggravation, and reversed the quie,ing
effect of the compromise by repeating the set
tlement of 1920, and establishing squatter SOW
ereignty in the Territories?
Let not my readers suppose that our Con-
gressmen intended all the mischief likely to
grow out of the Kansas Nebraska bill of 1854.
No, good souls, they aimed at nothing, foresaw
h.,% ttA,~ Il -
history of the case is this Franklin Pierce
was Northern man with Southern princi-
Plies; )" that is, he was in position to accept
Pro-Slavery platform, together with the Dem
ocratic nomination at Baltimore, having an I'M
derstanding with the Anti-Slavery Democrats,
that they should have a fair share of the spois,
and be at liberty to pursue their own course at
| home and in Congress, if they would help to
elect him. Mr.. Nicholson, in the Union, saws
this was the understanding, and he ought to
know. SO fairly did the plot succeed that the
Little Giant F" at once determined to follow
in the footsteps" But there would be no room
for this sort of play, if the Slavery excitement
should go down, as it seemed likely to do. To
prevent this he introduced his firebrand bill :;
and it was a measure which sounded in ia
vor of the South, and offered them triumph
| however empty, our Southern members, igno-
ahead than the next Congressional election at
home, rushed into its support almost unani-
| mously. The bill passed, and here we are
the Pierce Administration overthrown-the
Union split into two geographical parties-the
present possession and future government of
Kansas settled by bowie-knive and revolver
In the midst of so much public calamity, it is
small pleasure TO know that the author could
not manage the storm which he raised and failed
in his object of personal promotion. He is
perhaps somewhere in Illinois, endeavoring to
persuade his constituents that he was not in
earnest in what he did, and content, for the
present, to bear about only the first half of his
political sonbriquet. The ultimate political
fate of his Southern coadj tutors and dnpes will
depend upon the amount Of sound sense still
extant among the people of the slave States.
My limits will not permit me to dwell upon
or even to enumerate the thousand and one
minor instances that might be adduced in proof
of my proposition, that Southern politicians
generally have consulted their own interests, in
promoting angry discussion of Slavery issues,
| rather than the welfare of the country, in dis
countenancing and REFRESHING it. If my read
ers will just set their memories to work in that
direction, they will readily find enough, and
more than enough, to make them ashamed of
the leadership they have followed. Is it not
high time that we should at least deliberate
upon the expediency Of changing course
which has brought us into our present danger
GUS predicament?
Persons who derive their knowledge of the
subject solely from the tiresome and frothy dec
lamation of stump speakers, or the equally un-
enlightened TRADES of party press, are ear
nestly invited to attend to a simple statement
of the Slavery question now before the country.
In the first place, how far does the Federal
Constitution interfere with Slavery? 1t recog-