2004-9-1
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
THE MAKING OF A NATION -- a program in Special English.
(MUSIC)
During the first half of the eighteen-hundreds, the question of
slavery in the United States remained a problem. The nation's
leaders found no way to settle the issue. After the war with Mexico
in eighteen-hundred-forty-nine, when the United States got
California and New Mexico, the dispute over slavery became more
threatening.
The north refused to permit slavery in these new territories. The
south declared that it had a constitutional right to bring slaves
into the new lands. The south was ready to secede -- leave and break
up the Union of States. Then, in eighteen-hundred-fifty, Senator
Henry Clay of Kentucky offered a compromise to save the nation from
a split, and probably a war between the north and the south. He
attacked the south's claim that it had the right to leave the Union.
He said the Union of States was permanent, created for all future
Americans. He warned that the war which would follow southern
secession would be long and bloody.
VOICE TWO:
Extremists on both sides opposed
Clay's compromise proposals. So did President Taylor. The president
had hoped that Webster, Clay, and other Whig Party leaders would
support his own limited plan of statehood for California. The
president's feelings were hurt when none of the party leaders
thought that his idea was important.
The president's chief adviser, Senator Seward of New York, was
also against Clay's proposals. Seward strongly opposed slavery and
did not believe it was right to compromise on it. One week after
Clay spoke, Senator Jefferson Davis of Mississippi explained his
position. He did not say much about Clay's proposed compromise.
Davis was sure that no good would result from it, not even from
stronger laws on the return of escaped slaves. He said these laws
would not be enforced in states where people opposed slavery.
VOICE ONE:
Senator Davis said that what was needed was a change in the
north's policy toward the south. He said the north must recognize
the rights of southerners, especially the right to take slave
property into territories of the United States. Davis said Congress
had no right to destroy or limit this right. He admitted that the
old Missouri compromise of eighteen-hundred-twenty had limited the
right to take slaves into the territories. He said the
eighteen-hundred-twenty compromise worked -- not because Congress
passed it -- but because the states agreed to it.
Senator Davis said the north was responsible for the growing
split, because the north was trying to get complete control of the
south. He said if these efforts were not stopped, the north some day
would be powerful enough to change the constitution and end slavery
everywhere. Davis warned that the south would never accept this.
VOICE TWO:
Three weeks later, the Senate heard another southern leader,
Senator John C. Calhoun. For years, Calhoun was the voice of the
south. He now was sixty-eight years old and a sick man. He would die
within a month. Calhoun had been too ill to hear Clay's speech. He
spent the last week in February writing what he believed to be the
true position of the south.
On Sunday, March third, it was announced that Calhoun would speak
in the Senate the next day. Most understood that it would be his
last speech. The Senate was crowded when Calhoun entered. One by
one, friends came up to speak to him. The old man's long, gray hair
fell to his shoulders. His face was thin and white. But his eyes
were bright and his jaw firm. Calhoun was too weak to read his
speech. He asked Senator Mason to read it for him.
VOICE ONE:
Calhoun said that for a long time he had believed that the
dispute over slavery -- if not settled -- would end in disunion.
Calhoun said it was clear now to everyone that the Union was
breaking apart...that the ties that had held the north and south
together were breaking, one by one.
Three churches, once united across
the nation, now were split between north and south. The two major
political parties, he declared, were divided in the same way.
Calhoun said the north was responsible for all this, because it had
destroyed the political balance between the two parts of the
country. As the population of the north had grown large, he noted,
that part of the country had seized political and economic control.
The north had passed tariff bills that the south opposed. It had
filled most of the offices in the federal government. It closed the
new territories to southern slaveholders. And, said Calhoun, it had
viciously attacked the southern institution of slavery.
VOICE TWO:
The situation was so bad, Calhoun said, that the south could not
-- with honor and safety -- remain in the Union. "How can the Union
be saved?" he asked. "Not by the compromise proposed by the senator
from Kentucky. There is but one way. A full and final settlement,
with justice, of all the questions disputed by the two sections.
"The south asks for justice, simple justice, and less she ought not
to take. She has no compromise to offer but the constitution, and no
concession or surrender to make. She has already surrendered so much
that she has little left to surrender."
Then Calhoun listed the things the north must do to satisfy the
south. He said it must give the south an equal right in the new
territories of the west. It must make people obey the laws on the
return of runaway slaves. It must agree to an amendment to the
constitution that would return political balance to north and south.
And it must stop the attacks against slavery. If all these things
were not done, Calhoun said, then it would be better to separate, to
part in peace. But if the north refused a peaceful separation, then
the south would be faced with the choice of surrender or fight. "The
south will know what to do," said Calhoun.
VOICE ONE:
When calhoun finished his speech to the Senate, southern
lawmakers crowded around the old man, congratulating him. But many
of them could not agree with his extreme demands and the violence of
his words. His appeal was too late. Most southerners believed that
clay's proposals were a reasonable way to settle the difference and
protect the union. Clay was worried that his compromise might be
defeated by northern votes. Many in the north felt slavery was
wrong. They opposed the compromise, because it might permit slavery
in the New Mexico territory, and because it called for stronger laws
on the return of slaves who had escaped to the north.
VOICE TWO:
Eight days before he first proposed the compromise, Clay visited
Senator Daniel Webster of Massachusetts. A friend of Webster's
described the meeting in these words: "Mr. Clay came to Mr.
Webster's house and had a long talk with him about the best way to
settle the difficulties growing out of slavery and the new
territories. I heard part of their conversation."
"Mr. Clay left after about an
hour. Mr. Webster called me to his side and spoke to me of Mr. Clay
in words of great kindness. He said he agreed generally with Mr.
Clay, that he thought Mr. Clay's purpose was great and highly
patriotic."
"He said Mr. Clay seemed to be very weak and had a very bad
cough, that he was sure Mr. Clay wanted to do something for the good
of his country during the little time he had left on Earth. Mr.
webster said further that he thought Mr. Clay's plan was one that
should be satisfactory to the north and to the reasonable men of the
south. He said he believed that he could support all of it and would
work for its approval in the Senate."
VOICE ONE:
Webster planned to speak in support of Clay's proposal. But he
would wait until the best time for declaring it. He decided to make
it on March seventh, just three days after Calhoun's speech was read
to the Senate. Webster was sixty-eight years old, as old as Calhoun.
His voice was weaker now. But his words rang with the same strength
as years earlier.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
You have been listening to the Special English program, THE
MAKING OF A NATION. Your narrators were lew rowland and jack moyles.
Our program was written by Frank Beardsley. THE MAKING OF A NATION
can be heard thursdays.