James Buchanan: Remarks to Congress on Slavery (1836)
Explanation and Analysis of the Document
Buchanan had risen through the ranks of the Democratic Party of Pennsylvania, exploiting his early support of Andrew Jackson to gain an appointment as minister to Russia in 1832. Some two years later he was elected to the U.S. Senate and took his seat at the end of 1834. The following year the United States witnessed a wave of violent outbreaks across the country attributed to the agitation of the slavery question by abolitionists. In Washington, D.C., there had been riots on the heels of news that a slave, intoxicated by alcohol and abolitionist propaganda, had attempted to murder his owner, a prominent Washington widow. President Jackson ordered his postmaster general to intercept abolitionist literature sent through the mails; when Congress met that December, its members debated how it should handle the avalanche of abolitionist petitions arriving in Washington, some calling for a complete end to slavery and others urging Congress...
