Seal of California
Courtesy of Department of Education, Sacramento, California
Tomorrow we celebrate the 166th
anniversary of California’s admission to the Union as the 31st state. California
was admitted at a time of controversy—when territories and states were either
for or against slavery. To many, its admission came with a price—with passage
of the Compromise of 1850, a package of legislative bills that designated
California a free state while also mollifying an increasingly rebellious South.
Map of Free, Slave, and “Open to
Slavery” States and Territories, c. 1856
Courtesy
of Library of Congress
In the collections held by CHS is an
original copy of the passionate argument made against the Compromise by
then-New York Senator William H. Seward. Often called the “Higher Law” speech,
it was Seward’s first speech to the U.S. Senate. Senator Robert Byrd has
describe it as one of the most “significant ‘maiden’ speeches in the history of
the Senate,” and it established Seward as a leading opponent of slavery.
Speech of the Hon. W. H. Seward on the
Admission of California,
and the Subject of Slavery, 1850
California
Historical Society
William H. Seward (1801–1872)
Courtesy of Library of Congress
Seward, who had been the governor of
New York and later became Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of State, was not an abolitionist,
per se. But he was known for seeking legislation establishing rights for
African Americans, and he and his wife, Frances, aided escaping slaves via the
Underground Railroad at their home in Auburn, New York.
Charles T. Webber, The
Underground Railroad, c.1893
Courtesy
of Library of Congress
About one of the provisions of the
Compromise of 1850, a Fugitive Slave Law, Seward wrote: “We deem the principle of the law for the
recapture of fugitives, as thus expounded, therefore, unjust, unconstitutional
and immoral; and thus, while patriotism withholds its approbation, the
consciences of our people condemn it.”
Although not an attention-grabber at
the outset, within weeks of its writing 100,000 copies of the speech were
printed and widely distributed. In it, Seward noted all of California’s
advantages to the Union—its rapidly growing population, recent discovery of
gold, abandonment of its military government and its new constitution. He
strongly encouraged its admission as a state. He said:
“To-day, California is a State, more
populous than the least and richer than several of the greatest of our thirty
States. This same California, thus rich and populous, is here asking admission
into the Union, and finds us debating the dissolution of the Union itself.”
Effects of the Fugitive-Slave-Law, 1850
Courtesy
of Library of Congress
According to Robert Byrd, “Seward acknowledged
that the Constitution’s framers had recognized the existence of slavery and
protected it where it existed, but the new territory was governed by a ‘higher
law than the Constitution’—a moral law established by “the Creator of the
universe.” The New York senator, opposing all legislative compromise as
‘radically wrong and essentially vicious,’ demanded the unconditional admission
of California as a free state. He warned the South that slavery was doomed and
that secession from the Union would be futile.”
Trusting implicitly in the strength of
the Union, however, Seward felt that slavery would “gradually give way, to the
salutary instructions of economy, and to the ripening influences of humanity.”
Five Generations on Smith's
Plantation, Beaufort, South Carolina, 1862 (printed later)
Courtesy
of Library of Congress
“Let, then, those who distrust the Union
make compromises to save it,” Seward wrote, “I shall not impeach their wisdom,
as I certainly cannot their patriotism; but indulging no such apprehensions
myself, I shall vote for the admission of California directly, without
conditions, without qualifications, and without compromise.”
At the conclusion of his speech,
Seward urged his fellow Senators to vote against compromise and to return the
American ground to its pre-slavery state: “You found it free, and conquered it
to extend a better and surer freedom over it. Whatever choice you have made for
yourselves, let us have no partial freedom; let us all be free; let the
reversion of your broad domain descend to us unencumbered, and free from the
calamities and the sorrows of human bondage.”
Historic
Stagville Plantation, Durham, North Carolina 2016
Courtesy of Alison Moore
In the end, the Compromise was
enacted, California was admitted to the Union and civil war was forestalled for
a decade more. At the same time, continued concessions to the Southern states
consigned enslaved Americans to ten more years of government sanctioned
hardship, torture, and injustice.
African American Family Portrait, 1870
Courtesy
of Los Angeles Public Library
Alison Moore
Strategic Initiatives Liaison
Sources
Robert C. Byrd, The Senate, 1789-1989: Classic Speeches, 1830-1993. Washington,
D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1994. http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/Speeches_Seward_NewTerritories.htm
The Compromise of 1850
http://www.ushistory.org/us/30d.asp; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compromise_of_1850
William H. Seward, Speech of William H. Seward on the Admission
of California delivered in the Senate of the United States, March 11, 1850
(Washington: Buell & Blanchard, 1850) https://archive.org/details/williamhspeech00sewarich
William H. Seward
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H._Seward
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