[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.In the lower South,Clay’s defense of gradual emancipation and colonization lessened slaveholders’already diminishing level of comfort with the ACS still further.In the upper South,Clay’s active involvement with the ACS after the election of led supportersof Andrew Jackson to see the society as little more than a “political engine” for theKentuckian.Loyal Tennessee supporters of Jackson charged Clay with “making314W O R D S A N D D E E D Suse” of the ACS for “political purposes—for gaining popularity in the North.” Asone ACS loyalist lamented, Clay’s involvement with the society prompted manyJackson “partizans” to “view us with some suspicion.” Other ACS supporters wor-ried that Clay “had been helping himself to a ride on our shoulders,” but judged theKentuckian’s “service to the Society worth the burden.” 42 Thus, at least in the upperSouth, the southern debate over colonization began to parallel factional bickeringwithin the increasingly unwieldy Jeff ersonian Republican Party.With importantexceptions, supporters of Jackson and the emerging Democratic-Republican factiontended to oppose ACS requests for federal aid and took a dim view of colonizationgenerally.Southern supporters of Clay and the “national Republicans” remaineddecidedly more likely to support colonization and to favor the ACS requests forfederal funds, though they were hardly unanimous on the latter question.The intro-duction of a partisan dimension into debate over colonization further complicatedan already complicated matter.As a result of the emerging Jacksonian suspicion and increasing lower Southhostility, some political strategists urged the ACS not to seek federal aid again untilafter the presidential election of , when the intrepid General Jackson appeareddestined to avenge the “corrupt bargain” between Adams and Clay.Petersburgcolonization supporter William Atkinson advised ACS president R.R.Gurley inJuly that “the overwhelming majority” of eastern Virginians, “believe thatCongress have no power” to appropriate funds for the ACS.43 But at its nationalmeeting in , the ACS membership decided to forge ahead with its request forfederal aid to assist in its eff orts to colonize free blacks.The ACS board appealedfor the “immediate and eff ectual interposition of the Government” on behalf ofcolonization, as the society again insisted that its “real and only” design was thecolonization of free blacks.44Despite its conservative wrapping, the new ACS appeal for federal aid spurredyet another round of denunciations from the lower South.An outraged Georgialegislature blasted the idea of colonization as “wild and fanatical and destructive.”Georgia lawmakers argued that opponents of slavery within the ACS were “prepar-ing a mine” that “once exploded will lay our much-loved country in one commonruin.” They rebuked all nonslaveholding states for their “cold-blooded selfi shness”in seeking “an interference with our local concerns and domestic relations.” At “thefi rst establishment of the Colonization society,” the legislature recalled, “the generalimpression in the Southern states” was that the society’s aim “was limited to theremoval beyond the U.States of the then free people of color and their descendants,and none others.” Auxiliary societies were formed in Georgia on that assumption,and their “infl uence and resources” had “daily increased.” More recent actions of theACS, however, convinced the legislature that “this impression was false” and that thesociety was committed to ending slavery and removing all blacks from the UnitedD I S C O U R S E S O F C O L O N I Z A T I O N315States.Such a removal, the legislature predicted, would prove “especially ruinousto the prosperity, importance, and political strength of the Southern states.” Out-side “interference” with slavery violated the legislature’s belief that the institutionmust remain a “local concern,” and was thus both unconstitutional and intolerable.45Even Georgia’s friends of colonization recognized the emergence of intense popularhostility to the movement.In the state’s hilly upper Piedmont, the active JacksonCounty ACS auxiliary complained that the movement suff ered “great discourage-ments” arising “out of ill-founded jealousies and fears of the South relative to theultimate designs of the North.” 46South Carolina radicals heaped even more venom on the ACS.On the fl oor ofthe United States Senate, South Carolina’s Robert Y.Hayne again asserted that thefederal government had no right to appropriate money for the purpose of Afri-can colonization, calling such an appropriation unconstitutional as well an “entiredeparture” from “the fundamental principles and settled policy of the country.”Predictably, the South Carolinian scored the ACS for its attempt to involve thefederal government in questions of slavery and manumission previously consideredthe constitutional prerogative of the states.Colonization, Hayne argued, “not onlyrelates to a subject with which the Federal Government can have nothing to do, butwhich it will be extremely dangerous for them to meddle with [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl odbijak.htw.pl
.In the lower South,Clay’s defense of gradual emancipation and colonization lessened slaveholders’already diminishing level of comfort with the ACS still further.In the upper South,Clay’s active involvement with the ACS after the election of led supportersof Andrew Jackson to see the society as little more than a “political engine” for theKentuckian.Loyal Tennessee supporters of Jackson charged Clay with “making314W O R D S A N D D E E D Suse” of the ACS for “political purposes—for gaining popularity in the North.” Asone ACS loyalist lamented, Clay’s involvement with the society prompted manyJackson “partizans” to “view us with some suspicion.” Other ACS supporters wor-ried that Clay “had been helping himself to a ride on our shoulders,” but judged theKentuckian’s “service to the Society worth the burden.” 42 Thus, at least in the upperSouth, the southern debate over colonization began to parallel factional bickeringwithin the increasingly unwieldy Jeff ersonian Republican Party.With importantexceptions, supporters of Jackson and the emerging Democratic-Republican factiontended to oppose ACS requests for federal aid and took a dim view of colonizationgenerally.Southern supporters of Clay and the “national Republicans” remaineddecidedly more likely to support colonization and to favor the ACS requests forfederal funds, though they were hardly unanimous on the latter question.The intro-duction of a partisan dimension into debate over colonization further complicatedan already complicated matter.As a result of the emerging Jacksonian suspicion and increasing lower Southhostility, some political strategists urged the ACS not to seek federal aid again untilafter the presidential election of , when the intrepid General Jackson appeareddestined to avenge the “corrupt bargain” between Adams and Clay.Petersburgcolonization supporter William Atkinson advised ACS president R.R.Gurley inJuly that “the overwhelming majority” of eastern Virginians, “believe thatCongress have no power” to appropriate funds for the ACS.43 But at its nationalmeeting in , the ACS membership decided to forge ahead with its request forfederal aid to assist in its eff orts to colonize free blacks.The ACS board appealedfor the “immediate and eff ectual interposition of the Government” on behalf ofcolonization, as the society again insisted that its “real and only” design was thecolonization of free blacks.44Despite its conservative wrapping, the new ACS appeal for federal aid spurredyet another round of denunciations from the lower South.An outraged Georgialegislature blasted the idea of colonization as “wild and fanatical and destructive.”Georgia lawmakers argued that opponents of slavery within the ACS were “prepar-ing a mine” that “once exploded will lay our much-loved country in one commonruin.” They rebuked all nonslaveholding states for their “cold-blooded selfi shness”in seeking “an interference with our local concerns and domestic relations.” At “thefi rst establishment of the Colonization society,” the legislature recalled, “the generalimpression in the Southern states” was that the society’s aim “was limited to theremoval beyond the U.States of the then free people of color and their descendants,and none others.” Auxiliary societies were formed in Georgia on that assumption,and their “infl uence and resources” had “daily increased.” More recent actions of theACS, however, convinced the legislature that “this impression was false” and that thesociety was committed to ending slavery and removing all blacks from the UnitedD I S C O U R S E S O F C O L O N I Z A T I O N315States.Such a removal, the legislature predicted, would prove “especially ruinousto the prosperity, importance, and political strength of the Southern states.” Out-side “interference” with slavery violated the legislature’s belief that the institutionmust remain a “local concern,” and was thus both unconstitutional and intolerable.45Even Georgia’s friends of colonization recognized the emergence of intense popularhostility to the movement.In the state’s hilly upper Piedmont, the active JacksonCounty ACS auxiliary complained that the movement suff ered “great discourage-ments” arising “out of ill-founded jealousies and fears of the South relative to theultimate designs of the North.” 46South Carolina radicals heaped even more venom on the ACS.On the fl oor ofthe United States Senate, South Carolina’s Robert Y.Hayne again asserted that thefederal government had no right to appropriate money for the purpose of Afri-can colonization, calling such an appropriation unconstitutional as well an “entiredeparture” from “the fundamental principles and settled policy of the country.”Predictably, the South Carolinian scored the ACS for its attempt to involve thefederal government in questions of slavery and manumission previously consideredthe constitutional prerogative of the states.Colonization, Hayne argued, “not onlyrelates to a subject with which the Federal Government can have nothing to do, butwhich it will be extremely dangerous for them to meddle with [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]