Daniel Webster, Abolitionist, Defends Capturing Fugitive Slaves?

During his eulogy for Senator Ted Kennedy last Saturday, President Obama told this humorous story about the late senator: “A few years ago, his father-in-law told him that he and Daniel Webster just might be the two greatest senators of all time. Without missing a beat, Teddy replied, ‘What did Webster do?’”

Ted Kennedy was kidding, of course. A lover of history, he knew very well that Daniel Webster was indeed one of the greatest senators in the history of this country. Like Kennedy, Webster represented Massachusetts, serving in the Senate from 1827 to1841, leaving to become Secretary of State, then returning to the Senate from 1845 to 1850 before leaving a second time to become Secretary of State.

Webster was an abolitionist, and voted against Texas’ entry into the Union in 1845 because it permitted slavery. However, fearing that the issue of slavery was tearing the country apart and leading it to civil war, he worked hard to gain passage of the Compromise of 1850. Known as a gifted orator, Webster strode to the floor of the Senate on Thursday, March 7, 1850, and gave one of the most powerful and startling speeches in his long history of fiery rhetoric.

Abolitionists listened, appalled, as Webster insisted the U.S. Constitution protected the right of slave owners to hunt down, capture, and bring back into bondage any fugitive slave – and that all Northerners had a legal obligation to assist Southerners in the capture.

He began his speech with this famous line: “I wish to speak today, not as a Massachusetts man, nor as a Northern man, but as an American, and a member of the Senate of the United States…I speak today for the preservation of the Union.”

The following article was printed in the May 4, 1850, edition of the Daily Ohio Statesman (Columbus, Ohio):

Daniel Webster’s Opinion of the Constitutional Duty of the Free States to Surrender up Fugitive Slaves

Extract from his late speech in the Senate on the slavery question:

I will state one complaint of the South, which has, in my opinion, just foundation; and that is, that there has been found at the North, among individuals and among legislators of the North, a disinclination to perform fully their constitutional duties in regard to the return of persons bound to service who have escaped into the Free States. In that respect, it is in my judgment that the South is right and the North is wrong – every member of every Northern Legislature is bound by oath to support the Constitution of the United States; and this article of the Constitution, which says to these States they shall deliver up fugitives from service, is as binding in honor and conscience as any other article. No man fulfills his duty in any Legislature who sets himself to find excuses, evasions, escapes from this constitutional duty. I have always thought the Constitution addressed itself to the Legislatures of the Free States themselves, or to the States themselves. It says, that those persons escaping to the other States shall be delivered up; and I confess I have always been of the opinion that it was an injunction upon the States themselves. When it is said that a person escaping into another State, and becoming therefore within the jurisdiction of that State, shall be delivered up, it seems to me the import of the passage is, that the State itself, in obedience to the Constitution, shall cause him to be given up. This is my judgment. I have always entertained it, and I entertain it now.

And I desire to call the attention of all sober-minded men, of all conscientious men in the North, of all men who are not carried away by any fanatical idea, or by any false idea whatever, to their constitutional obligations. I put it to all the sober and sound minds at the North, as a question of morals and a question of conscience. What right have they in their legislative capacity, or any other, to endeavor to get round this Constitution, to embarrass the free exercise of the rights secured by the Constitution to the persons whose slaves escape them? None at all; none at all. Neither in the forum of conscience, nor before the face of the Constitution are they justified, in my opinion. Of course it is a matter for their consideration. They, probably, in the turmoil of the times, have not stopped to consider this; they have followed what seems to be the current of thought and of motives for the occasion, and they neglect to investigate fully the real question, and to consider their constitutional obligations; as I am sure, if they did consider, they would fulfill them with alacrity. Therefore, I repeat, sir, that here is a ground of complaint against the North well founded, which ought to be removed, which it is now in the power of the different departments of this Government to remove; which calls for the enactment of proper laws authorizing the judicature of this Government in the several States, to do all that is necessary for the recapture of fugitive slaves, and for the restoration of them to those who claim them. Wherever I go, and whenever I speak on the subject – and when I speak here I desire to speak to the whole North – I say, that the South has been injured in this respect, and has a right to complain; and the North has been too careless of what I think the Constitution peremptorily and most emphatically enjoins upon it as a duty.