1826. DEBATE IN THE SENATE. 447 out slaves; never would they willingly see a non-slave-holding republic within ninety miles of the Florida coast. Turning to Cuba, Hayne declared that the question of its liberation was one of the most important subjects to be discussed at Panama. The President, it was true, had not put one word about Cuba in his message. But he had been silent because he was powerless to act. To France and Russia Clay had said the United States "will not permit any nation except Spain to take Cuba under any circumstances whatever." To the South American states Clay had declared that "if Spain should refuse to conclude a peace, and obstinately resolve on continuing the war, although we do not desire that either Colombia or Mexico should acquire the island of Cuba, the President cannot see any justifiable grounds on which we can forcibly interfere." If this meant anything, it meant that we would not permit interference by the Old World powers, and would permit it by those of South America. "This position," said Hayne, “I would change. I would declare that the South American states shall not be permitted to take Cuba nor to revolutionize it." "Of all the subjects that could be thought of for discussion at Panama," said White, of Tennessee," the abolition of the slave-trade is the most unfortunate. If slavery is an infliction, all the Southern and Western States have it, and with it their peculiar modes of thinking on all subjects connected with it. Some of these new States have put it down in their constitutions that whoever owns a slave shall cease to be a citizen. Is it, then, fit that the United States should disturb the quiet of the Southern and Western States by a discussion and agreement with the new States on any subject connected with slavery? Let us then cease to talk of slavery in this House, let us cease to negotiate upon any subject connected with it." "It is manifest from the documents before us," said Berrien, of Georgia, " that the Congress at Panama is to settle the fate of Cuba and Porto Rico. When we look at the situation of those islands we cannot be indifferent to a change of their condition. But when we reflect that they are in juxtaposition to a portion of this Union where slavery exists, that the proposed change is to be effected by a people whose fundamental maxim it is that he who would tolerate slavery is unfit to be free, that the principle of universal emancipation must march in the van of the invading force, and that all the horrors of servile war will surely follow in its train, all commercial considerations sink into insignificance are swallowed up in the magnitude of the danger with which we are menaced. Sir, under such circumstances, the question to be decided is this: With a due regard to the safety of Southern States, can you suffer these islands (Cuba and Porto Rico) to pass into the hands of buccaneers drunk with their new-born liberty? I repeat the question: Can you suffer this thing consistently with your duty to Maryland, to Virginia, to Kentucky, to Missouri, to Tennessee, to North Carolina and South Carolina, to Georgia, to Alabama, to Mississippi, to Louisiana, and to Florida? What, then, is our policy? Cuba and Porto Rico must remain as they are. To Europe the President has distinctly said we cannot allow a transfer of Cuba to any European power. We must hold a language equally decisive to the South American States. We cannot allow their principle of universal emancipation to be called into activity in a situation where its contagion from our neighborhood would be dangerous to our quiet and safety. The safety of the Southern portion of this Union must not be sacrificed to a passion for diplomacy." "The relations of Hayti with the American states-these United States included-and the rights of Africans in this hemisphere are two other questions to be determined at the isthmus," said Benton. "Our policy toward Hayti has been determined these three-and-thirty years. We trade with her, but no diplomatic relations have been established between us. We purchase coffee from her and pay her for it, but we interchange no consuls or ministers. We receive no mulatto consuls or black ambassadors from her. And why? Because the peace of eleven States in this Union will not permit black consuls and ambassadors to establish themselves in our cities and to parade through our country and give their fellow-blacks in the United States proof in hand of the honors which await them for a like successful effort on 1826. DEBATE IN THE SENATE. 449 their part. No; this is a question which has been determined here for three-and-thirty years, one which has never been open for discussion at home or abroad, one which cannot be discussed in this chamber on this day-and shall we go to Panama to discuss it? Who are to advise and sit in judgment on it? Five nations who have already put the black man on an equality with the white; five nations who have at this moment black generals in their army and mulatto senators in their Congresses. And who is the counsel retained on our part to plead our cause? An agitator who, having taken the hold that knows no relaxation, resisted the admission of Missouri into the Union during the entire session of 1820-221 on the single isolated point of free negroes' and mulattoes' rights! And now this very individual, who kept Missouri out of the Union for one entire year because she would not take negroes and mulattoes to her bosom, is to go to Panama to prevent black ambassadors and consuls from Santo Domingo coming into the bosom of the United States. In reply to our objection to Mr. Sergeant, we are told that Mr. Anderson goes along to plead the cause of the slave-holder. I say, if he must go on such an errand, give him an assistant, not an opponent; give him another Southern man, not a Missouri agitator, not the president of an abolition society, not the veteran advocate of free negroes' and mulattoes' rights! Mr. Benton, in his turn, offered an amendment declaring that the Senate could not advise that it was expedient to send Ministers to the Congress of American states at Panama before it received satisfactory information on four points: the subjects which were to engage the attention of the Congress; the substance and form of the powers to be given our representatives; the mode of organizing the Congress; the mode of deciding questions submitted to the Congress. But the Senate rejected his amendment, whereupon Van Buren moved that the Constitution authorized the President to nominate officers of a diplomatic character only, and did not empower him to nominate representatives to an assembly of nations; that the power of entering into new political associations or confederacies belonged to VOL. V.-30 the people of the United States in their sovereign character; and that, in the opinion of the Senate, the appointment of deputies to the Congress at Panama would be a departure from the wise and settled policy by which the intercourse of the United States with foreign nations had hitherto been regulated. This, too, the Senate rejected. The resolution reported by the Committee on Foreign Relations was next rejected, the committee discharged from further consideration of the matter, and the nominations of Richard C. Anderson, John Sergeant, and William B. Rochester were duly confirmed. The Senate having consented to the appointment of commissioners, it now became the duty of the House to vote an appropriation to cover the expenses of the mission. That the call for money would be made the occasion for an attack upon the President was well known, for the matter had already been under debate in that body. Quite early in the session * a member from South Carolina offered a resolution calling on the President for copies of the papers and correspondence which had induced him to inform the House that Ministers from the United States would be sent to the Panama Congress. But the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs assured him that it was the intention of the President to send the papers as soon as the Senate consented to the proposed mission, and he allowed his resolution to lie on the table. As time passed and no papers came, another member, a month later,† introduced two resolutions. One expressed the deep and anxious solicitude with which the people of the United States watched the struggle of the South American republics for independence and self-government. The other declared that the appointment of Ministers to the Congress at Panama was wise and proper, and that an appropriation to meet the cost of the mission ought to be made. These were tabled; but when a resolution was offered calling on the President for papers and documents relative to the invitation to be represented at Panama, the House *December 16, 1825. + January 26, 1826. January 30, 1826. 1826. DEBATE IN THE HOUSE. 451 could contain itself no longer, and spent two weeks in debate before the resolution passed by a vote of one hundred and twenty-five to forty.* Adams waited ten days, and then sent the information and the papers. At the end of another ten days the Committee on Appropriations reported a bill making provision for the mission, and the Committee on Foreign Relations a report and resolution that it was expedient to appropriate the funds necessary to enable the President to send Ministers to Panama. Both were sent to the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union. First to be taken up was the resolution, to which an amendment was offered declaring that it was the settled policy of the United States, in extending commercial relations, to have as little political connection with other nations as possible, to preserve peace, commerce, and friendship with all nations, and form entangling alliances with none; that the Ministers ought to go in a diplomatic character only; that they should not be authorized to discuss, consider, or consult on any proposition of alliance between the United States and any South American government, nor make any compact or declaration binding their Government to resist interference from abroad with the domestic concerns of South American countries. Those who opposed the amendment took two grounds: Some, led by Webster, held that to pass such a resolution was to instruct the Ministers, that the instruction of Ministers was an executive act, and that as the Constitution vested the executive power in the President the House could not use it. Others argued that, the President having recommended the mission and the Senate having approved, the plain duty of the House was to vote the appropriation, unless it believed the mission was likely to be dangerous to the peace of the country. To remove the constitutional objections of Webster and his followers, a resolution was offered by James Buchanan declaring that while the House had the warmest sympathy for the republics of South America and could not view the hostile interposition of any European power against their *March 5, 1826. + March 15, 1826. |