Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/538

 Mr. Clay said the papers, while in the post-office or in the mail, did no harm; it was their circulation — their being taken out of the mail, and the use made of them — that constituted the mischief; and the state authorities could apply the remedy. The instant a prohibited paper was handed out, whether to a citizen or a sojourner, he was subject to the law which might compel him to surrender or to burn it. The bill was vague and indefinite, unnecessary and dangerous. It applied to non-slaveholding as well as to slaveholding states; to papers touching slavery, as well for as against it; and a non-slaveholding state might, under this bill, [sic]prohibt publications in defense of slavery. But the law would be inoperative: the postmaster was not amenable, unless he delivered the papers knowing them to be incendiary; and he had only to plead ignorance to avoid the penalty of the law. Mr. Clay wished to know whence congress derived the power to pass this lav/. The senator from Pennsylvania had asked if the post-office power did not give the right to say what should be carried in the mails. There was no such power as that claimed in the bill. If such doctrine prevailed, the government might designate the persons, or parties, or classes, who should have the exclusive benefit of the mails.

Before the question was taken on the engrossment of the bill, a motion by Mr. Calhoun to amend it so as to prevent the withdrawal of the prohibited papers, was negatived, 15 to 15. An amendment offered by Mr. Grundy, restricting the punishment of deputy-postmasters to removal from office, was agreed to; and the bill was reported to the senate. Mr. Calhoun renewed his motion in senate, and it was again lost, 15 to 15. In committee of the whole, the vice-president did not vote in the case of a tie. The question being then taken on the engrossment, there was again a tie, 18 to 18. The vice-president having temporarily left the chair, returned, and gave the casting vote in the affirmative. Of the senators from the free states voting in the affirmative, were Messrs. Buchanan, Tallmadge and "Wright. Those who voted in the negative from the slave states, were Messrs. Benton, Clay, and Kent, of Maryland.

This casting vote of Mr. Van Buren, and the several votes of Mr. "Wright, who voted with Mr. Calhoun on this subject, have been justified by their friends on the ground that Mr. Calhoun (to use the language of Mr. Benton,) "had made the rejection of the bill a test of alliance with northern abolitionists, and a cause for the secession of the southern states; and if this bill had been rejected by Mr. Van Buren's vote, the whole responsibility of its loss would have been thrown upon him and the north, and the south inflamed against those states and himself-the more so, as Mr. White, of Tennessee, the opposing democratic Candida. e for the presidency, gave his votes for the bill." The several successive tie votes have been ascribed to design — that of placing Mr. Van Buren in this position. With this intent, other senators voted for the bill, and still others absented themselves, knowing it would not finally pass. This supposition was strengthened by the full vote given on the question of its final passage: yeas, 19; noes, 25; only four absent; the three senators from the free states, Buchanan, Tallmadge and Wright, again voting in the