At the period of the Kansas troubles.

At the period of the Harper's Ferry raid. From photographs in possession of the Kansas State Historical Society.

The Southern Rights Association of South Carolina met in convention at Charleston and declared itself in favor of immediate secession, with or without the coöperation of other Southern States. The paramount feeling in Georgia was reflected in the attitude of ex-Governor George M. Troup, who had been the consistent advocate of State sovereignty ever since that principle had been made politically prominent in Georgia through the legal contest over the Yazoo land claims. Of the thirty papers of South Carolina but two opposed secession. The fall election, however, either showed that a great change had come over the sentiment of the people since the Southern Rights Convention, or else the newspapers had not at the time properly reflected it. Twothirds of the delegates to the State Convention were elected to that body upon the issue of opposition to secession. This was regarded throughout the country as a Union victory, inasmuch as most of the other Southern States were by this time strongly under the influence of Union feeling.

In Mississippi this year political activity was marked, the claimants for public favor being Jefferson Davis and Senator Henry S. Foote. The States Rights party supported Davis as candidate for governor. This party believed in the right of secession and favored holding a convention of the Southern States to take action. Foote was the candidate of the Unionists. The campaign was vigorously conducted, and the returns showed a majority of only one thousand and nine in favor of Foote.

The advent of a political campaign with its distractions and excitement and the nomination of candidates served to fix the attention of the people for a time upon other matters than the Fugitive Slave Law, but that burning question could not be permanently set aside. The Thirty-second Congress met in its first session in December, 1851. The Democratic members of the House held a caucus, which was attended by two-thirds of the total number of Democratic representatives. A resolution endorsing the compromise measures was introduced and laid upon the table.

A caucus of the Whig members, attended by less than onehalf of the representatives of their party, met and passed a resolution endorsing the measures. After the House was organized by the election of Linn Boyd, of Kentucky, as Speaker, the annual message of President Fillmore was received and read. The president referred to his former annual message and reiterated its sentiments and recommendations, congratulating the country on the general acquiescence in the Congressional measures of conciliation and peace. Soon after Congress assembled, Senator Foote, of Mississippi, introduced a resolution declaring that the measures of adjustment finally settled questions growing out of the existence of slavery. This resolution was discussed, but never brought to a vote. In the House similar resolutions were introduced, and passed by large majorities. On May 26th, Charles Sumner presented a petition from the Society of Friends in New England, asking for the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law. The Senator, in performing this duty, made a speech which was comprehended in the aphorism: "Freedom, and not slavery, is national; while slavery, not freedom, is sectional." Sumner, on the following day, submitted a resolution instructing the Judiciary Committee to consider the expediency of reporting a bill for the immediate repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act. James M. Mason, of Virginia, and Walker Brooke, of Mississippi, opposed this measure on the ground that it would result in the dissolution of the Union. Permission to have the resolution considered was refused, only ten members voting favorably. Brooke, in his speech of opposition, declared that it was no idle threat to say that the Union would be dissolved if Sumner's resolution were passed, for, while he did not think the Fugitive Slave Act of any especial benefit to his own State, for the cost of capturing the few slaves who ran away from Mississippi amounted to more than their value, yet the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act would be construed as a breach of faith on the part of the North, and that section would be charged with not having lived up to its agreement.

Senator Charlton, of Georgia, made a similar statement in behalf of his State, alleging that Georgia was committed to the dissolution of the Union just as soon as the Fugitive Slave Law should be repealed, and impressed upon his hearers the interdependence of these two facts by the quotation:

"While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand;
When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall."

At this time Sumner did not have an opportunity of expressing himself, but later, when the appropriation bills were under consideration toward the close of the session, his chance arrived. One of these bills provided for the payment of the extraordinary expenses incurred by the government in executing the laws. This bill was plainly aimed at the Fugitive Slave Law, and its intent to have the general government bear the costs of capturing the runaway negroes was clear to all. Sumner promptly moved an amendment to the bill, excepting from its operation the Fugitive Slave Act and the repealing of the Act itself. This gave him an opportunity to speak upon the question. "I could not," he said, "allow this session to reach its close, without making or seizing an opportunity to declare myself openly against the usurpation, injustice, and cruelty of the late enactment by Congress for the recovery of fugitive slaves." He then launched upon an argument in favor of the repeal of that measure, taking for his thesis his favorite dictum that slavery was sectional and not national. He appealed for confirmation for his views to law, to history, to the great statesmen in the nation's past, to the Church, and to literature, showing that the institution of slavery was abhorrent to every sense of right, and at the time of the adoption of the Constitution was despised by the men whose views best expressed the spirit of the nation. He examined the history of the fugitive slave clause of the Constitution and pointed out that it was not one of the compromises, and averred that the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793" was not originally suggested by any difficulty or anxiety touching fugitives from labor."