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Calhoun and Federal Reinforcement of State Laws
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 September 2013
Extract
In 1835, Southerners were alarmed and indignant at the growing practice on the part of Northern Abolitionists of mailing incendiary Abolitionist literature into the Southern slaveholding states, and were casting about for some effective method of dealing with this menace to their “peculiar institution.” The memory of Nat Turner's insurrection was still fresh in many Southern minds, and the circulation of such literature as the Abolitionists were sending through the federal mails might, if the practice were not checked, result in an even more destructive uprising of the slaves. In Charleston, on July 29, the postoffice was forcibly broken into and a mass of literature found there was publicly burned. This sort of action was hardly, however, a satisfactory solution of the problem.
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- American Government and Politics
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- Copyright © American Political Science Association 1942
References
1 “In leaving the care of other branches of this interesting subject [incendiary literature] to the State authorities, to whom they properly belong, it is nevertheless proper for Congress to take such measures as will prevent the Post-Office Department, which was designed to foster an amicable intercourse and correspondence between all the members of the confederation, from being used as an instrument of an opposite character…. I would, therefore, … respectfully suggest the propriety of passing such a law as will prohibit … the circulation in the Southern States, through the mail, of incendiary publications, intended to instigate the slaves to insurrection.” Sen. Jour., 24th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 31.
2 Cong. Globe, 24th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 36. The other members of the committee were King of Georgia, Mangum of North Carolina, Linn of Missouri, and Davis of Massachusetts. Sen. Jour., p. 46.
3 Sen. Jour., p. 139.
4 Calhoun's influence on this committee in securing the bill be desired seems to have been decisive. “… only one member of the committee concurred with Calhoun in making it. One of the members was altogether opposed and the other two preferred a bill which differed from the one advocated by the chairman.” Hockett, H. C., Constitutional History of the United States, 1826–1876 (New York, 1939), p. 179.Google Scholar
5 Senate Bills and Resolutions, 24th Cong., 1st Sess., S. 122, Feb. 4, 1836.
6 Ibid., Apr. 30, 1836; Sen. Jour., pp. 322, 399.
7 Cong. Globe, pp. 288 f.
8 Crallé, Richard K. (ed.), Works of John C. Calhoun (New York, 1863–1864), V, 197, 199.Google Scholar
9 Ibid., II, 527.
10 Sen. Jour. p. 416.
11 Senator Niles' statement on April 13 probably expressed the view of the majority: “However he might deprecate the circulation of these mischievous publications, he was not satisfied that there was any urgent necessity for calling in the agency of this [the federal] Government.” Cong. Globe, 24th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 301. No further effort was made to deal with the problem of incendiary literature through federal reinforcement of state laws.
12 26 U.S. Stat. at Large, 313. The original-package doctrine, established by Chief Justice Marshall in Brown v. Maryland in 1827, had hitherto, of course, prevented states from exercising any control over such shipments while they remained in their original wrappings.
13 Calhoun's Report, supra.
14 In re Rahrer, 140 U.S. 555, 562.
15 37 U.S. Stat. at Large, Pt. I, pp. 699 f.
16 Cong. Record, Vol. XLIX, Pt. V, pp. 4291 f.
17 Clark Distilling Co. v. Western Maryland Railway Co., 242 U.S. 311–32.
18 Quoted by the Chief Justice from an earlier opinion in Leisy v. Hardin, 135 U.S. 123 f.; 242 U.S., 329. The italics are mine.
19 40 U.S. Stat. at Large, 1084.
20 Whitfield v. Ohio, 297 U.S., 431–41.
21 49 U.S. Stat. at Large, Pt. I, pp. 494 f.
22 Kentucky Whip and Collar Co. v. Illinois Central Railroad Co., 299 U.S. 348, 351. The italics are mine.
23 Ex parte Jackson (1878), 96 U.S. 727–37; In re Rapier (1892), 143 U.S. 110–35. Calhoun himself had, of course, claimed that entire prohibition of any literature from the mails, in the manner suggested by President Jackson in 1835 and applied later in the century by Congress to certain types of literature, would be an abridgment of freedom of the press. In doing so, he was influenced, however, possibly by political animosity to Jackson and certainly by his aversion to the exercise of strong powers by the central government unless it were made clear that such powers were being exercised by the federal government in its capacity as the agent of the states and at their behest.
24 37 U.S. Stat. at Large, Pt. I, pp. 240 f.
25 54 U.S. Stat. at Large, Pt. I, p. 686.
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