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| Millard Fillmore and Slavery
by Millard Fillmore
FROM THE MESSAGES AND PAPERS OF MILLARD FILLMORE
State of the Union Address
December 2, 1850
It was hardly to have been expected that the series of measures passed at
your last session with the view of healing the sectional differences which
had sprung from the slavery and territorial questions should at once have
realized their beneficent purpose. All mutual concession in the nature of a
compromise must necessarily be unwelcome to men of extreme opinions. And
though without such concessions our Constitution could not have been
formed, and can not be permanently sustained, yet we have seen them made
the subject of bitter controversy in both sections of the Republic. It
required many months of discussion and deliberation to secure the
concurrence of a majority of Congress in their favor. It would be strange
if they had been received with immediate approbation by people and States
prejudiced and heated by the exciting controversies of their
representatives. I believe those measures to have been required by the
circumstances and condition of the country. I believe they were necessary
to allay asperities and animosities that were rapidly alienating one
section of the country from another and destroying those fraternal
sentiments which are the strongest supports of the Constitution. They were
adopted in the spirit of conciliation and for the purpose of conciliation.
I believe that a great majority of our fellow citizens sympathize in that
spirit and that purpose, and in the main approve and are prepared in all
respects to sustain these enactments. I can not doubt that the American
people, bound together by kindred blood and common traditions, still
cherish a paramount regard for the Union of their fathers, and that they
are ready to rebuke any attempt to violate its integrity, to disturb the
compromises on which it is based, or to resist the laws which have been
enacted under its authority.
The series of measures to which I have alluded are regarded by me as a
settlement in principle and substance--a final settlement of the dangerous
and exciting subjects which they embraced. Most of these subjects, indeed,
are beyond your reach, as the legislation which disposed of them was in its
character final and irrevocable. It may be presumed from the opposition
which they all encountered that none of those measures was free from
imperfections, but in their mutual dependence and connection they formed a
system of compromise the most conciliatory and best for the entire country
that could be obtained from conflicting sectional interests and opinions.
For this reason I recommend your adherence to the adjustment established by
those measures until time and experience shall demonstrate the necessity of
further legislation to guard against evasion or abuse.
By that adjustment we have been rescued from the wide and boundless
agitation that surrounded us, and have a firm, distinct, and legal ground
to rest upon. And the occasion, I trust, will justify me in exhorting my
countrymen to rally upon and maintain that ground as the best, if not the
only, means of restoring peace and quiet to the country and maintaining
inviolate the integrity of the Union.
State of the Union Address
December 2, 1851
The act of Congress for the return of fugitives from labor is one required
and demanded by the express words of the Constitution. The Constitution
declares that--No person held to service or labor in one State, under the
laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or
regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be
delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be
due. This constitutional provision is equally obligatory upon the
legislative, the executive, and judicial departments of the Government, and
upon every citizen of the United States.
Congress, however, must from necessity first act upon the subject by
prescribing the proceedings necessary to ascertain that the person is a
fugitive and the means to be used for his restoration to the claimant. This
was done by an act passed during the first term of President Washington,
which was amended by that enacted by the last Congress, and it now remains
for the executive and judicial departments to take care that these laws be
faithfully executed. This injunction of the Constitution is as peremptory
and as binding as any other; it stands exactly on the same foundation as
that clause which provides for the return of fugitives from justice, or
that which declares that no bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be
passed, or that which provides for an equality of taxation according to the
census, or the clause declaring that all duties shall be uniform throughout
the United States, or the important provision that the trial of all crimes
shall be by jury. These several articles and clauses of the Constitution,
all resting on the same authority, must stand or fall together. Some
objections have been urged against the details of the act for the return of
fugitives from labor, but it is worthy of remark that the main opposition
is aimed against the Constitution itself, and proceeds from persons and
classes of persons many of whom declare their wish to see that Constitution
overturned. They avow their hostility to any law which shall give full and
practical effect to this requirement of the Constitution. Fortunately, the
number of these persons is comparatively small, and is believed to be daily
diminishing; but the issue which they present is one which involves the
supremacy and even the existence of the Constitution.
Cases have heretofore arisen in which individuals have denied the binding
authority of acts of Congress, and even States have proposed to nullify
such acts upon the ground that the Constitution was the supreme law of the
land, and that those acts of Congress were repugnant to that instrument;
but nullification is now aimed not so much against particular laws as being
inconsistent with the Constitution as against the Constitution itself, and
it is not to be disguised that a spirit exists, and has been actively at
work, to rend asunder this Union, which is our cherished inheritance from
our Revolutionary fathers.
In my last annual message I stated that I considered the series of measures
which had been adopted at the previous session in reference to the
agitation growing out of the Territorial and slavery questions as a final
settlement in principle and substance of the dangerous and exciting
subjects which they embraced, and I recommended adherence to the adjustment
established by those measures until time and experience should demonstrate
the necessity of further legislation to guard against evasion or abuse. I
was not induced to make this recommendation because I thought those
measures perfect, for no human legislation can be perfect. Wide differences
and jarring opinions can only be reconciled by yielding something on all
sides, and this result had been reached after an angry conflict of many
months, in which one part of the country was arrayed against another, and
violent convulsion seemed to be imminent. Looking at the interests of the
whole country, I felt it to be my duty to seize upon this compromise as the
best that could be obtained amid conflicting interests and to insist upon
it as a final settlement, to be adhered to by all who value the peace and
welfare of the country. A year has now elapsed since that recommendation
was made. To that recommendation I still adhere, and I congratulate you and
the country upon the general acquiescence in these measures of peace which
has been exhibited in all parts of the Republic. And not only is there this
general acquiescence in these measures, but the spirit of conciliation
which has been manifested in regard to them in all parts of the country has
removed doubts and uncertainties in the minds of thousands of good men
concerning the durability of our popular institutions and given renewed
assurance that our liberty and our Union may subsist together for the
benefit of this and all succeeding generations.
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