Slavery and Silence - Paul D. Naish

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stated his objection to the Panama Mission thus: “Shall we not be told by this Congress that every man, on this Continent, is entitled to liberty?”59 That representatives of the South American states might point out the contradiction of slavery in the United States was problematic enough; but one of the stated objectives of the congress was to discuss the fate of Cuba and Puerto Rico, still under Spanish rule and still flourishing slave societies, enriching their mother country with slave-generated wealth and supplying a staging area for counterrevolutionary activities. Looking at the future of Cuba, Senator James Hamilton of South Carolina predicted revolution followed quickly by servile revolt, threatening both the Southern states specifically and U.S. access to the Gulf of Mexico more generally.60 Hamilton, who had served as mayor of Charleston when the city’s Vesey conspiracy was exposed in 1822, had particular reasons for suspecting connections between free discussion of abolition and rebellion.61

      Representative William Brent of Louisiana used the same Southern fear of abolition in Cuba and Puerto Rico in support of the Panama Mission, arguing that U.S. involvement might prevent the colonies’ precipitous liberation from Spain. He likewise spoke about race through indirection, pointing out that while of course his sympathies lay with any people still in the thrall of a monarch, Spain’s islands presented a special case, one a Southern man must “feel,” though “I need not refer to the population of Cuba, to justify my fears.”62 Brent proceeded to sketch for Congress various scenarios that would follow in the wake of the liberation of islands with black majorities, scenes of “ruin, horror, and desolation, too painful to be portrayed” all indicated through suggestion, intimation, and artful rhetoric. Like the narrator of a ghost story who achieves his effects through dramatic pause and innuendo, letting the imagination of the hearer supply the details, Brent allowed his listeners to make associations with Haiti and the resulting threat for neighboring Louisiana: “the very thought of the consequences flowing from such a state of things, excites feelings too heart-rending to be dwelt upon for one moment. I must turn from them.”63

      Race clearly trumped professed republicanism even more explicitly in some of the testimony. Without a shadow of hesitation, Georgia’s John Berrien defended colonial status for colonies with a black majority. Should the United States participate in the congress, it would be expected to assist in freeing Cuba and Puerto Rico from Spanish control, spawning two new states with black majorities and insufficient white supervision. In such a case Berrien could imagine no other possibility than that “these Islands [would] pass into the hands of bucaniers, drunk with their new born liberty” who would reenact “the horrors of St. Domingo.” There was but one course: “Cuba and Puerto Rico must remain as they are.”64 The safety of the South—by which he presumably meant the white South—depended upon prevailing over those so literal-minded as to insist that “he who would tolerate slavery is unworthy to be free.”65 But in championing colonialism over republicanism, Berrien only seconded John Quincy Adams. Owing to the “peculiar composition of their population.… It is unnecessary to enlarge upon this topic, or to say more than that all our efforts in reference to this interest, will be to preserve the existing state of things,” Adams had admitted.66 However much the defense of European colonization in the Western Hemisphere and the limitation of liberty would seem to be inconsistent with U.S. ideals, the complexion of Latin America demanded a new and more limited understanding of liberty than that proclaimed in Boston in 1776—or even Buenos Aires in 1826.

      One way around this conundrum—in which liberty was not available to everyone—was to define liberty in a particular way. The fulfillment of the promise of freedom—from the standpoint of the abolition of slavery—would seem to be one area where the South American students had vaunted ahead of their so-called teachers. But this mark of superiority depended entirely on what liberty signified. “The fundamental principle of all liberty, Mr [Samuel] H[ouston of Tennessee] said, in his opinion, was equal rights, equal privileges, laws that give protection to individuals, to their lives, persons, and property: where the People are represented, and where every man has liberty of conscience guarantied.”67 “Liberty of property” presumably included slave property, a right denied in nations with universal emancipation; “liberty of conscience” was code for the absence of established religion. The Spanish American republics failed to make these vital distinctions.

      Liberty to African slaves, insisted some congressmen, threatened the entire social order. Representing the grain-growing state of Pennsylvania, James Buchanan made a remarkable attempt to characterize the United States in a way that would transcend both party division and section. “The cause of liberty in South America is the cause of the whole American People, not of any party,” he declared.68 The investment of the United States in the republicanism of its Southern neighbors was something upon which the whole country had to agree. On the other hand, added Buchanan, the entire country could find benefits in the continuation of Cuba’s colonial status. Cuba accounted for both one-seventh of the imports and nearly as much of the exports of the United States—a greater proportion than the new southern republics. Particularly if it assisted in Cuba’s struggle for independence, Mexico would represent a potential rival for this trade, and its liberation of the island would hurt the West.69 For the South, the threat of Cuban liberation was even more obvious, involving “a subject to which I have never before adverted upon this floor, and to which, I trust, I may never again have occasion to avert. I mean the subject of slavery.” Though slavery was an evil, Buchanan insisted, its elimination would involve dangers to the prosperity and even safety of the “high-minded, and the chivalrous race of men in the South” that could not be permitted. “For my own part I would, without hesitation, buckle on my knapsack, and march in company with my friend from Massachusetts (Mr. Everett) in defense of their cause.”70

      Where the subject of slavery in Latin America was concerned, Southerners, who were usually the most strident in insisting the federal Congress had no business discussing the matter, were often more eager to speak than Northerners. Sometimes they spoke out even as they insisted on silence. “Let us then cease to talk of slavery in this House; let us cease to negotiate upon any subject connected with it,” directed Senator Hugh Lawson White of Tennessee, before immediately taking up the thread again: “One word more upon this point, Mr. President, and I will dismiss it. If there be any gentlemen in the United States who seriously wish to see an end of slavery, let them cease talking and writing, to induce the Federal Government to take up the subject, because by the course now being pursued, by some, they are protracting a measure which they profess a wish to hasten the accomplishment of.”71 So great was the relief he evidently felt in being allowed to violate this taboo, however, White proceeded to discuss Haiti and the possibility that the abolition of the slave trade would be brought up in Panama.72 Similarly, Senator Robert Hayne of South Carolina insisted that all questions of slavery, because of their “extreme delicacy,” “belong to a class, which the peace and safety of a large portion of our Union forbids us even to discuss.” Yet he supplied a detailed description of the likely effect on U.S. slaves that might be produced by any formal association of the U.S. participants at the Panama Congress with “men of color” from Haiti. One of the proposed U.S. ministers, Hayne suggested darkly, was “a distinguished advocate of the Missouri restriction—an acknowledged abolitionist.”73

      Some Southern congressmen expressed the fear that complicity with Latin America would force emancipation upon them. Would participation in the congress signify recognition for Haiti? asked Hamilton of South Carolina.74 “Is this Congress to tell the gentleman from South Carolina, and all of us from the Southern States, that ‘all men are free and equal;’ and if you join us to command the Emperor of Brazil to descend from his throne, we shall then turn round to you, and say to the United States, ‘Every man is free; and if you refuse to make them so, we will bring seven Republics, in full march, to compel you …?’ ” demanded Representative John Floyd of Virginia.75

      In their discovery that no one tried to abort discussion of emancipation in Cuba or colorblindness in Guatemalan society, these legislators had stumbled upon a kind of outlet, a safety valve: talking about nations next door to the United States allowed the airing of proscribed subjects in public. The debates over the Panama Congress supplied an occasion for public figures to

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