But there is a law superior to the Constitution that governs our authority on the ground and enshrines it to the same noble purposes. The region is a significant part of humanity`s common heritage bestowed upon them by the Creator of the universe. We are stewards and must fulfill our trust in such a way as to ensure their happiness to the highest degree possible. How important this trust is, we can learn from the instructions of the founder of modern philosophy: Seward said many things in response to Calhoun that deserve more comprehensive treatment, but two stand out. First of all, the higher law, which gives its name to the speech, although the words themselves appear later: Lord, those who want to alarm us with the horrors of the revolution have not properly considered the structure of this government and the organization of its forces. It is a democracy of property and people, with a just approach to universal education and universal suffrage. The constituent members of this democracy are the only ones who could undermine it; and they are not citizens of a metropolis like Paris or a region exposed to the influences of a metropolis like France; but they are cattle ranchers, scattered over this vast territory, on the mountain, on the plain and on the prairie, from the ocean to the Rocky Mountains, and from the great lakes to the gulf; And these people now, as we discuss their imaginary danger, are at peace and in their happy homes, just as carefree and uninformed about their dangers as they are about the events happening on the moon. Nor did the alarmists take into account in their calculations the influence of conservative reaction, strong in any government and irresistible in a rural republic operating on universal suffrage. This principle of reaction is based on the power of habits of tolerance and loyalty between people.
It is not oppression to add the sanction of Congress to authority so weakly and violently challenged. And there is some possibility, if not a probability, that the institution could secretly gain a foothold unless it is absolutely forbidden by our own authority. On the other hand, our statesmen say that “slavery has always existed, and if they know or can know it, it must always exist. God has allowed it, and only He can show the way to remove it. As if the Supreme Creator, having given us the instructions of His providence and revelation for the illumination of our minds and consciences, had not left us in all human transactions with the due invocation of His Holy Spirit to seek His will and accomplish it for ourselves. “No one,” says Bacon, “out of care, as Scripture says, can add a cubit to his stature in this little model of the human body; But on the grand scale of realms and commonwealths, it is in the power of princes or domains to give amplitude and grandeur to their kingdoms. For by instituting such wise ordinances, constitutions, and customs, they can sow greatness to their descendants and successors. But these things are usually not observed, but left in order to take advantage of their opportunity. Calhoun`s farewell speech (parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. did not go unanswered. With Calhoun in mind, Webster delivered his famous March Seventh speech of the Compromise Party.
New York Senator William H. Seward, one of those Whigs who, like Lincoln, hoped Taylor would be enslaved with them, spoke for Calhoun`s opposite: the anti-compromise Northerners. Seward was elected in 1849 and addressed the Senate for the first time on March 11, 1850. He spent weeks on the speech, hoping it could become the North`s answer to Calhoun. Ingenious and subtle arguments, serious and bold declamations and persuasion, as sweet and winning as the voice of the turtledove when heard in the country, have not convinced me of the validity of this principle of the proposed compromise or of any of the proposals on which it must be based.