GEORGE W. F. MELLEN¹George Washington Frost Mellen was a chemist and author of An Argument on the Unconstitutionality of Slavery (1841). Most other abolitionists regarded Mellen with suspicion because he sometimes appeared at antislavery conventions wearing a Revolutionary War military uniform and seemed to confuse himself with his namesake, George Washington. Merrill and Ruchames, Garrison Letters, 2:727n; Wiecek, Antislavery Constitutionalism, 256. TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS

Boston, [Mass.] 31 Aug[ust] 1851.

MR. FREDERICK DOUGLASS:

DEAR SIR:—

I perceive you have changed your mind in regard to the constitutionality of slavery.—Of this, I am very much rejoiced, not only because I esteem your present position right in regard to the truth, but because you can, with that position, urge with more power and force, and I cannot but think effectively, the breaking up of the institution of slavery than can be done in any other way. While I would not take that position, if I did not think it conformed to the truth, yet believing that it does, beside the superior advantage is possessed in having it in our power, to appeal to the general government to carry out in its administration the principles of liberty that are involved in its various provisions according to their oath of office, we have the moral weight of the influence which that band of men that carried forward our revolution on the side of the liberation of the slave, which is of no small consideration; but which being now claimed not only by the slaveholder, but our own abolitionists as against, is, without doubt, a great obstacle in the way of the advancement of the cause.—Precedents and authorities in courts of law are made binding on the acts and consciences of them who uphold them, as well as in all our acts; it is, therefore, of much importance what those precedents are. We see the consequence in the admissions that have been made by the abolitionists, as well as the interested assertion of the slaveholder to the enactment of the fugitive slave bill;²The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. which, in my humble opinion, would never have been passed were it not for the

admission made on the part of our friends;³Many northern lawyers, politicians, and jurists conceded the legitimacy of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and the right of southern slaveholders to use the federal courts to retrieve their fugitive slaves. When the act appeared before Congress, William H. Seward, a fierce opponent of slavery in general, proposed amendments to the bill to allow state courts to try the fugitive slave cases. Southern congressmen opposed this measure, but abolitionists believed that such a stand gave credence to the basis for another proposed law: that residence in a free state did not automatically confer freedom upon an individual. Thirty-two congressmen from northern states, including the powerfully influential senators Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, abstained from voting on the act. Although these congressmen essentially opposed the measure, they hoped to placate southern congressmen who might vote in favor of other pieces of legislation or who argued for disunion should the Fugitive Slave Act fail to pass. Once the legislation was enacted, a debate arose in northern states as to its constitutionality. Many jurists restricted its potential application, arguing that it upheld the fugitive slave clause of the Constitution but nothing more. This interpretation also submitted that the fugitive slave clause was essential in the ratification of the Constitution. Northern courts, including those in Massachusetts and New York, tended to favor this interpretation. Nonetheless, even moderate abolitionists found these actions repugnant and viewed them as an abuse of federal power in favor of a minority section of the country. More radical abolitionists refused to recognize the right of the federal government to pass the Fugitive Slave Act and repudiated the Constitution for permitting slavery. Any admission of legitimacy of the Fugitive Slave Act was considered contrary to antislavery ideology. David M. Potter, The Impending Crisis, 1848–1861 (New York, 1976), 113, 130; Campbell, Slave Catchers, 16–48. and sometimes it seems to me, as if it was done to show their folly, in supposing our fathers could make such a government, having no real basis (if the fugitive slave law is constitutional) of liberty in it, and yet the world has never discovered till now, but they were entitled to every consideration for their love of liberty and the formation of such a constitution of government as the United States now possesses. B[e]aring always, that it gives no sanctions to slavery. Certainly it can be proved most triumphantly, the men who formed that instrument refused to recognize property in man, and when asked to return slaves and servants like the criminal, they utterly refused so to do. What right then have men who derive all their authority from that instrument, to recognize property in their fellow men. In my humble opinion, every soul of them commits perjury of the most damning dye, unless through ignorance, they know not what their fathers did. This alone can be their excuse. On this subject I have a good many facts that have not been generally circulated which I cannot but think would convince the most sceptical, but which I cannot get published even by our free soil papers. Part of my purpose in now writing to you is to say, if you should like it, and will show your willingness to receive any communications on the subject by sending me your paper, I will write under the head of Americans, and give you such facts as I cannot but think will prove highly useful to the cause. I would assume that name or my own init[i]als as you think best.

The position assumed by our friends must inev[i]tably produce a revolution, a separation of the states, and all their concomitant evils, war, bloodshed, brotherly hate, unless three-fourths of the states agree to amend the constitution⁴Whether by the initiative of Congress or of the state legislatures, three-fourths of the states must ratify any amendment to the U.S. Constitution, as laid out in article V. or break up our present Union. The idea that any one state can peaceably sesede, as was asserted at the Annual Meeting of American Anti-Slavery Society in Syracuse,⁵The American Anti-Slavery Society held its 1851 annual meeting at City Hall in Syracuse, New York, on 7–10 May. During the evening session of the first day, the business committee proposed a resolution advocating disunion, noting that any political or religious alliance with the slaveholding states was “a covenant with Death and an agreement with Hell.” An intense discussion involving William Lloyd Garrison, Edmund Quincy, Henry C. Wright, and Ohioan James W. Walker followed the presentation of the resolution and is probably the source of Mellen’s assertion. NASS, 15 May 1851. is preposterous. No such thing can be done. Those in authority are sworn to support the constitution, and the attempts of any state to act unconstitutionally in such a way, would, undoubtedly, be resisted by force of arms. It was by this force that South Carolina was made to succumb during her nullification times.⁶The issue of tariffs sparked the South Carolina Nullification Crisis of 1832–33. Southern planters had opposed the rising federal tariffs through the 1820s, arguing that they favored northeastern industrialists while hurting southern and western agricultural interests. Moreover, the planters insisted that slaveholders bore the greatest brunt of these tariffs, so that they must be construed as prejudicial against slavery. According to the planters, this use of the legislative branch to aid one section at the expense of others and targeting the property of one group was unconstitutional. The strongest support for this line of thought lay in South Carolina. South Carolina senator Robert Y. Hayne, in his debates against Daniel Webster, argued that the United States was a voluntary association of states, and Vice President John C. Calhoun, in his pamphlet Exposition and Protest (1828), advanced the theory of nullification, whereby state governments had the right to nullify federal laws deemed harmful to the general well-being of the state. In the local elections of November 1832, representatives supporting this “nullifier” view won a majority in the South Carolina legislature and voted to declare the federal tariffs of 1828 and 1832 void within the borders of the state. President Andrew Jackson criticized the actions of South Carolina as treasonous and began raising one of the largest armies seen on the continent since the American Revolution. Facing civil war, Congress struggled to find a compromise, finally presented by Kentucky senator Henry Clay. In this compromise, Congress would gradually lower the 1832 tariff over ten years to a level acceptable to the southern planters. At the same time, Congress also passed the Force Bill, which would allow Jackson to use the military to collect the tariff in South Carolina. South Carolina accepted the compromise tariff but nullified the Force Bill, a defiant act that the rest of the nation for the most part ignored. Chauncey Samuel Boucher, The Nullification Controversy in South Carolina (Chicago, 1916); William H. Freehling, Prelude to Civil War: The Nullification Controversy in South Carolina, 1816–1836 (New York, 1966); Harry L. Watson, Liberty and Power: The Politics of Jacksonian America (New York, 1990), 114–22, 126–31. A ball sent by one of our vessels of war before the bows of an English merchantman that attempted to land her cargo at the wharfs of Charleston, contrary to our custom-house laws, brought her to her senses. Be[ ]sure, Congress afterwards modified the tariffs in some measure, so as not to let her appear too much disgraced. It was the claw of the eagle, I have always imagined, that held her tight in his grasp, or she would, at this day, have been a

wandering star; and believe me, those claws will always be put in active exercise for the preservation of this Union till three-fourths of the states agree that it shall be dissolved.⁷Despite increasingly frequent calls for “disunionism” by both northern and southern militants in the debate over slavery, the U.S. Constitution did not specifically address the possibility of or mechanics for the secession of one or more states from the Union. Mellen probably extrapolates that procedure from article V of the Constitution, which specifies that three-fourths of the states, either by action of their legislature or special convention, must consent to the amending of the original document. Eric H. Walther, The Shattering of the Union: America in the 1850s (Wilmington, Del., 2004), 18, 49, 96, 115, 123–27; Wiecek, Antislavery Constitutionalism, 57, 107–08, 142, 176, 236–38, 247. When that day comes, a dissolution of this Union will take place, and not till then, unless an insurrection of the slaves should cause it. The South may bluster and threaten, or rather, I should say, the slaveholder; but his blustering would be like the idle wind were it not for his northern ally. Let us convert him, and we need not fear a dissolution of the Union. The slaveholder is among the weakest of men.

Respectfully yours,

G. W. F. MELLENMellen, George W. F.

George Washington Frost Mellen was a chemist and author of An Argument on the Unconstitutionality of Slavery (1841). Most other abolitionists regarded Mellen with suspicion because he sometimes appeared at antislavery conventions wearing a Revolutionary War military uniform and seemed to confuse himself with his namesake, George Washington. Merrill and Ruchames, Garrison Letters, 2:727n; Wiecek, Antislavery Constitutionalism, 256. .

PLSr: FDP, 11 September 1851.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS TO GERRIT SMITH

Rochester, [N.Y.] 2 Sept[ember] 1851.

Gerrit Smith Esq.Smith, Gerrit

Gerrit Smith (1797– 1874), a New York businessman and land speculator, became best known for his philanthropic work for such reform causes as temperance and abolition. Between 1828 and 1835, he donated large sums of money to the American Colonization Society, but abandoned that movement in 1835 when his sympathies shifted to the immediate abolitionists. In the 1840s, he gave approximately 140,000 acres of land in upstate New York to three thousand black settlers, thus qualifying them to vote. Smith was a founder and frequent candidate of the Liberty party, running for governor of New York on that ticket in 1840 and winning a seat in Congress in 1852. When the Free Soil merger with moderate antislavery Democrats and Whigs lured away many Liberty party supporters, Smith helped bankroll that organization until 1860. Smith befriended Douglass when the latter moved to Rochester, and Smith frequently helped finance Frederick Douglass’ Paper. Like Douglass, Smith supported John Brown, but psychological stress caused by the failure at Harpers Ferry brought on the first of a series of bipolar episodes that greatly reduced his subsequent reform activities. Ralph Volney Harlow, Gerrit Smith: Philanthropist and Reformer (1939; New York, 1972); Gerald Sorin, The New York Abolitionists: A Case Study of Political Radicalism (Westport, Conn., 1971), 269– 87; Lewis Perry, Radical Abolitionism: Anarchy and the Government of God in Antislavery Thought (Ithaca, N.Y., 1973), 170– 80; John R. McKivigan and Madeleine Leveille, “The ‘Black Dream’ of Gerrit Smith, New York Abolitionist,” Syracuse University Library Associates Courier, 20:61– 76 (Fall 1985); NCAB , 2:322– 23; DAB, 17:270– 71.

I thank you sincerely for your response to the appeal of my friend Miss
Griffiths.¹ I regretted that you should be so soon called upon for a helping
hand, ² especially in view of the very large draw which the Chaplin CaseChaplin, William Lawrence

In August 1850 William L. Chaplin (1796-1871) was among a group arrested for aiding fugitive slaves. Originally a lawyer, Chaplin left his legal practice in Easton, Massachusetts, to devote himself to the abolitionist movement in New York in the 1830s. He worked for the Liberty party as a lecturer and editor, becoming an associate of Gerrit Smith. In 1850 Chaplin assisted a group of slaves who had escaped from slave owners Alexander H. Stephens and Robert Toombs. Authorities arrested Chaplin and charged him with violating the Fugitive Slave Act in both Washington, D.C., and Maryland. Three of Chaplin’s longtime New York abolitionist friends, James C. Jackson, Joseph C. Hathaway, and Theodosia Gilbert, rushed to Washington to attend to Chaplin’s needs while jailed. Free Democrat Congressman Joshua Giddings and Senator Salmon P. Chase aided in Chaplin’s legal defense. Opponents of the Fugitive Slave Act, led by Smith, rallied around the case and posted the bond of $25,000 for Chaplin. Back in New York in 1851, Chaplin refused to return south for his trial and worked only briefly to raise funds to reimburse those who stood his bail. He drifted away from Gerrit Smith and, together with Jackson and Hathaway, moved into the Free Democratic camp. Chaplin later married Gilbert and joined Jackson in operating a water cure establishment in Glen Haven, New York. Henry Wilson, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, 3 vols. (Boston, 1874), 2:80-82; Stanley Harrold, Subversives: Antislavery Community in Washington, D.C., 1826-1865 (Baton Rouge, La., 2003), 157-62; Friedman, Gregarioas Saints, 123; Harlow, Gerrit Smith, 290-95; Lawrence J. Friedman, “The Gerrit Smith Circle: Abolitionism in the Burned-Over District,” CWH, 26:19-37 (March 1980).In August 1850 William L. Chaplin (1796-1871) was among a group arrested for aiding fugitive slaves. Originally a lawyer, Chaplin left his legal practice in Easton, Massachusetts, to devote himself to the abolitionist movement in New York in the 1830s. He worked for the Liberty party as a lecturer and editor, becoming an associate of Gerrit Smith. In 1850 Chaplin assisted a group of slaves who had escaped from slave owners Alexander H. Stephens and Robert Toombs. Authorities arrested Chaplin and charged him with violating the Fugitive Slave Act in both Washington, D.C., and Maryland. Three of Chaplin’s longtime New York abolitionist friends, James C. Jackson, Joseph C. Hathaway, and Theodosia Gilbert, rushed to Washington to attend to Chaplin’s needs while jailed. Free Democrat Congressman Joshua Giddings and Senator Salmon P. Chase aided in Chaplin’s legal defense. Opponents of the Fugitive Slave Act, led by Smith, rallied around the case and posted the bond of $25,000 for Chaplin. Back in New York in 1851, Chaplin refused to return south for his trial and worked only briefly to raise funds to reimburse those who stood his bail. He drifted away from Gerrit Smith and, together with Jackson and Hathaway, moved into the Free Democratic camp. Chaplin later married Gilbert and joined Jackson in operating a water cure establishment in Glen Haven, New York. Henry Wilson, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, 3 vols. (Boston, 1874), 2:80-82; Stanley Harrold, Subversives: Antislavery Community in Washington, D.C., 1826-1865 (Baton Rouge, La., 2003), 157-62; Friedman, Gregarioas Saints, 123; Harlow, Gerrit Smith, 290-95; Lawrence J. Friedman, “The Gerrit Smith Circle: Abolitionism in the Burned-Over District,” CWH, 26:19-37 (March 1980). ³
has made upon your purse—but necessity, my friend, would listen to no re
grets. I was under the hammer, and my friend Julia seeing it cried out in my
behalf. You came to my help, and I am on my legs again. I bless you for it,
and that God, the friend of whose poor, you are, will ever bless you.