Who? Asa Biggs? Even the most ardent student of the times might be hard pressed to recall an Asa Biggs. A little background might be in order before we jump into his thoughts on disunion.
Born on February 4, 1811, Biggs hailed from Martin County. He was educated locally in Williamston, and at the age of fifteen began clerking and later, managing a mercantile firm. Biggs read law, and it appears he did just that: read law. He later wrote that he “had no legal instruction.” In July, he traveled to Raleigh where he was interviewed by two of the state supreme court justices and was licensed to practice law in the county courts. “In 1832,” Biggs wrote, “I attend a District Convention as a delegate from martin County to nominate an elector on the Jackson-Van Buren ticket.” This was probably Biggs’s first role in politics. Although it was different from his family, he chose to align with the Democrat party, “believing that the principles of the party promised more good to the country.” Biggs served as a delegate to the North Carolina Constitutional Convention of 1835. In 1840, Biggs was nominated for a seat in the state house, a contest which he won. In 1844, he ran and won a seat in the state senate. He was then nominated to run for the US Senate, a seat he won, serving in the 29th Congress (1845-1847). Governor Reid appointed Biggs to a panel of three to revise the Statutes of North Carolina. Again in 1854, Biggs served in the state senate, and in 1855, was nominated and elected a United States Senator, a position he held until May 1858, when James Buchanan appointed Biggs Judge of the United States District Court for the District of North Carolina.[1]
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| Asa Biggs |
“In was evident to
my mind,” Biggs wrote about his time in Washington, D.C., after his election to
the Senate, that “a lamentable decay of virtue was progressing in our public councils.”
Instead of growing better since his term in the US House in 1845, “things were
growing worse.” Biggs probably witnessed Sen. Charles Sumner’s “Crime Against
Kansas” speech, followed by Rep. Preston Brook’s caning of Sumner. He would
have seen first-hand the fallout from the Dred Scott case, the ongoing debate
between Stephen Douglas and James Buchanan, and the turmoil in Kansas. These
events, along with the corruption within the government, led Biggs to surmise “that
the government of the United States was becoming thoroughly corrupt, and that
in a few years it would fall to pieces by its own corruption.” With the death
of Judge Henry Potter, Biggs was nominated by President James Buchanan to fill
the position. Biggs accepted and resigned his seat in the US Senate. District
courts were held twice a year in Edenton, New Bern, and Wilmington. Biggs was
also required to attend circuit court in Raleigh once a year. At the latter,
Biggs was required to sit with another Federal Judge, Associate Justice James
M. Wayne. In those two years, Wayne only showed up once. In their correspondence,
Biggs was able to ascertain than Wayne “positively denied the right of a state
to secede from the Union.” With the election of Lincoln eminent, “the excitement
in the South was great.” Biggs prepared a charge to the grand jury should Wayne include the troubles plaguing
the nation in his charge to the grand jury. While Wayne did not mention secession,
Biggs kept his charge and recorded it in his autobiography.[2]
“I am well aware
that the right of State Secession from this Union, has been for a long time a
controverted question, upon which Statesmen and the brightest intellects of the
Country have entertained opposite opinions; and therefore I might well hesitate
as a judicial officer, in volunteering an opinion, until a case is made which
rendered it necessary to pronounce my judgement. But no alternative is now left
me . . .
“I hold therefore
that the states, in forming the Federal government acted separately as equals
and sovereigns, with no common Superior, and that the first duty and obligation
of the citizens was due to his State; and upon the adoption of the Constitution
of the United States by his State, this duty and obligation is no less due to
the United States, but because it is at the command and clothed with the
sovereign authority of his State. That the citizen while his State remains a
member of the Federal Union must conform to the Constitution of the United
States and the constitutional laws of the Federal government, although they
conflict with the Constitution and laws of his State; and where there is a
conflict of opinion as to what laws are constitutional, the proper tribunal to
decide that question is the Supreme Judiciary of the United States. . .”
“But whenever any
State in her Sovereign capacity (and I mean by that, the people of a State duly
and legally assembled in a convention by the proper authority, with the same
formalities and regularity as conventions were held to ratify and adopt the Constitution
of the United States originally) shall solemnly so decide she has the right for
sufficient cause (of which she must be the judge, as upon her alone rest the
heavy responsibility for such a fearful act) to voluntarily and peaceably
secede from the Union, which she voluntarily entered; and thereupon, a citizen of
such State is absolved from his allegiance to the United States, and will not
be guilty of treason to the United States for obeying the commands and
maintaining the laws of his own State.”
“This is my decided
judgement now formed after much reflection upon the theory of our government,
and the history of the day in which the Federal Government, was created; and in
my humble judgment, in the language of one of North Carolina’s most cherished
sons, (the late Mr. [Nathaniel] Macon) ‘this right is the best guard to public
liberty and to public justice that could be desired’; and if, generally or universally
admitted, is the best Security for the permanency and perpetuity of the Union.”
Biggs never gave
this charge to the grand jury, but it is important for understanding his
thinking regarding the important issue of the date. All of this was recorded by
Biggs in his autography, which he started in 1863 and finished in 1865. Under a
section entitled “SECESSION,” Biggs wrote of the division in the Democratic
party in 1860, and in political theory altogether. There “was a conflict of opinion
as to the course to be adopted in creating territorial government; some in
favor, and others opposed to what was called ‘Squatter Sovereignty.’ The
opposition, then organized in a party, called themselves ‘Republicans,’ (a
desecration of that old party name) claimed the right of Congress, to prohibit
slavery in the Territories, and to legislate for them; and avowed their
determination to do so if they obtained power.” Biggs was no fire eater, or
radical. “I felt an earnest desire to
save the Union,” he wrote, “if the rights of the South and the States, could be
preserved.”[3]
Judge Biggs held on
to his post as a Federal Judge until April 1861, when a cumulation of events
forced him to resign. In his short letter to Lincoln, he stated that he was “unwilling
longer to hold a commission in a Government which had degenerated into a
military despotism. I subscribe myself yet a friend of constitutional
liberty.” Biggs went on to serve in the North Carolina session convention, and
once North Carolina joined the Southern Confederacy, Jefferson Davis would
appoint him a Confederate judge for the same area of North Carolina. His family
were forced out of their home in Williamston by Federal advances and Biggs lost
one son during the war. Biggs later
moved to Norfolk, Virginia, where he died in 1878.[4]
Paul Chestnut wrote
in 1979 in the Dictionary of North Carolina Biography that Biggs was an “ardent
supporter of slavery and states’ rights.” Based upon Biggs’s own writings, it
might be better said that Asa Biggs was an ardent supporter of the United
States Constitution and the restrictions the constitution placed on the Federal
government.[5]
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