Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

jority of the delegates from New York, and a considerable number from other states, maintained their opposition to the test resolutions proposed by the other branch of the party. Those resolutions, however, were adopted by a decisive majority. They were voted for by many who may be presumed to have been convinced of their importance, while others doubtless were influenced by fears of a disruption of the party. A platform was thus established, resembling, in its main features, that of the democrats. Supported by several advocates of the new platform, on the ground of his personal popularity, General Scott received the nomination. He was, however, regarded with suspicion by a great number of whigs in the slave-holding states. It was feared, that if he was elected to the presidency, Mr. Seward would be called to the office of secretary of state, and thus exert a leading influence on the administration. General Scott lost no time in attempting to remove these prejudices. In announcing his acceptance of the nomination, he promptly declared his adhesion to the principles of the platform, adopted by the party. At the instance of the friends of the candidate, Mr. Seward disclaimed all personal interest in the election of General Scott. With his characteristic frankness and fidelity to political associates, he publicly announced his determination to accept no office at the hands of the president, in case of General Scott's success. This had hitherto been his course, and it would not be changed under a future administration."

The democratic party, forgetting its past divisions, at least, for the moment, supported Mr. Pierce with unanimity and zeal. On the contrary, Mr. Webster was nominated by a portion of the whig party, and died not only refusing to decline the nomination but openly avowing his disgust with the action of the party. Many ardent friends of the compromise refused to rally around General Scott, distrusting his fidelity to the platform; while a large number * See Vol. III., p. 416.

of whigs in the free states, through aversion to the platform, assumed a neutral position, or gave their support to a third candidate. Mr. Seward and his friends could not so far belie their convictions, as to approve the principles of the platform, but yielded their aid to General Scott, in the manner, which, in their opinion, was best adapted to secure his election. The result, however, was what might have been foreseen. The democratic nominees received the electoral votes of twenty-six out of the thirty-one states. The loud exultations of the prevailing party, as well as of those whigs, who had sympathized with them in the canvass, showed their belief, that in the defeat of General Scott, Mr. Seward was not only overthrown, but politically annihilated. The whig party, in their opinion, was also for ever destroyed. Under these discouraging auspices, Mr. Seward resumed his seat in the senate, at the second session of the Thirty-Second Congress, in December, 1852. But neither his speeches nor his public conduct, were colored by the remembrance of the recent struggle. No traces of disappointment were visible in his bearing, and he at once devoted himself to the business of the session with the same calmness and assiduity which had always marked his congressional career.

CHAPTER XX.

XXXII CONGRESS, SECOND SESSION, 1852-53

SPEECHES JOHN QUINCY ADAMS CUBA -PACIFIC RAILROAD-TARIFF TEXAS- -ORATIONS- JAMES TALLMADGE.

THE speeches of Mr. Seward in the senate during the second session of the thirty-second Congress were on questions of great practical interest. In his remarks in the debate on "Continental Rights and Relations," Jan. 26, 1852, he pays a graceful and feeling tribute to the character of John Quincy Adams, whom he claims as the author of the policy on recolonization generally ascribed to President Monroe. Passing to the discussion of the policy itself, he gives his reasons for holding to its substantial truth, while he protests against the manner in which it was brought in issue on that occasion. The speech is gravely and forcibly argued, though not without incidental touches of effective satire.*

We quote a few passages relating to John Quincy Adams and to Cuba:

"MR. PRESIDENT: On the 23d day of February, 1848, John Quincy Adams, of Massachusetts, who had completed a circle of public service filling fifty years, beginning with an inferior diplomatic function, passing through the chief magistracy, and closing with the trust of a representative in Congress, departed from the earth, certainly respected by mankind, and, if all posthumous honors are not insincere and false, deplored by his countrymen.

“On a fair and cloudless day in the month of June, 1850, when the loud and deep voice of wailing had just died away in the land, the senator from Michigan, of New England born, and by New England reared-the leader of a great party, not only

* See Vol. III., p. 605.

[ocr errors]

here, but in the whole country-rose in the senate-chamber, and after complaining that a member of the family of that great statesman of the east, instead of going backward with a garment to cover his infirmities, had revealed them by publishing portions of his private diary, himself proceeded to read the obnoxious extracts. They showed the author's strong opinions, that by the federal compact the slaveholding class had obtained, and they had exercised, a controlling influence in the government of the country. Placing these extracts by the side of passages taken from the Farewell Address of Washington, the senator from Michigan said: 'He is unworthy the name of an American who does not feel at his heart's core the difference between the lofty patriotism and noble sentiments of one of these documents, andbut I will not say what the occasion would justify. I will only say, and that is enough, the other, for it is another?' not, nor will it, nor should it, escape the censure of an age like this.' 'Better that it had been entombed, like the ancient Egyptian records, till its language was lost, than thus to have been exposed to the light of day.'

• It can

The senator then proceeded to set forth, by contrast, his own greater justice and generosity to the southern states, and his own higher fidelity to the Union. This was in the senate of the United States. And yet no one rose to vindicate the memory of John Quincy Adams, or to express an emotion even of surprise, or of regret, that it had been thought necessary thus to invade the sanctity of the honored grave where the illustrious statesman, who had so recently passed the gates of death, was sleeping. I was not of New England, by residence, education, or descent, and there were reasons enough why I should then endure in silence a pain that I shared with so many of my countrymen. But I determined that, when the tempest of popular passion that was then raging in the country should have passed by, I would claim a hearing here--not to defend or vindicate the sentiments which the senator from Michigan had thus severely censured, for Mr. Adams himself had referred them, together with all his actions and opinions concerning slaverynot to this tribunal, or even to the present time, but to that afterage which gathers and records the impartial and ultimate judgment of mankind-but to show how just and generous he had

been in his public career toward all the members of this confederacy, and how devoted to the union of the states, and to the aggrandizement of this republic. I am thankful that the necessity for performing that duty has passed by, and that the statesman of Quincy has, earlier than I hoped, received his vindication, and has received it, too, at the hands of him from whom it was justly due--the accuser himself. I regret only this-that the vindication was not as generously as it was effectually made. "There are two propositions arising out of our interests in and around the gulf of Mexico, which are admitted by all our statesmen. One of them is, that the safety of the southern states requires a watchful jealousy of the presence of European powers in the southern portions of the North-American continent; and the other is, that the tendency of commercial and political events invites the United States to assume and exercise a ́paramount influence in the affairs of the nations situated in this hemisphere; that is, to become and remain a great western continental power, balancing itself against the possible combinations of Europe. The advance of the country toward that position constitutes what, in the language of many, is called 'progress;' and the position itself is what, by the same class, is called manifest destiny.' It is held by all who approve that progress, and expect that destiny, to be necessary to prevent the recolonization of this continent by the European states, and to save the island of Cuba from passing out of the possession of decayed Spain, into that of any of the more vigorous maritime powers of the old world.

"In December, 1823, James Monroe, president of the United States, in his annual message to Congress, proclaimed the first of these two policies substantially as follows: The American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European power; and while existing rights should be respected, the safety and interest of the United States require them to announce that no future colony or dominion shall, with their consent, be planted or established in any part of the North American continent.' This what is called, here and elsewhere, the Monroe doctrine, so far as it involves recolonization.

« ZurückWeiter »