E 
 
 .5 
 
 .GM 
 
/ REMARKS 
 
 OP 
 
 MESSRS. GROW, QUITMAN, AND T. L. HARRIS, 
 
 ON THE 
 
 MISSOURI COMPROMISE, 
 
 AND THE 
 
 RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ORGANIZATION OF THE HOUSE. 
 
 
 
 DELIVERED JANUARY 18 AND 19, 1S5S> 
 
 
 WASHINGTON: 
 
 PRiljtTED AT THE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE OFFICE, 
 1856. 
 
E434 
 
 
 %% 
 
MISSOURI COMPROMISE, ETC. 
 
 Friday, January 19, 1856. 
 
 Mr. GROW said: Mr. Clerk, I haye refrained 
 from participation in the debates of this Hall until 
 an organization of the House should be effected, 
 and I do not now propose to say anything in refer- 
 ence to the legitimate legislation of the country 
 until the attainment of that result. But as to the 
 responsibility for the organization of this House 
 which has been raised here this morning, I pro- 
 pose to say a few words. The responsibility 
 should rest on those who have produced the 
 state of things we find in this Hall and the coun- 
 try. It is not a question of figures or votes, 
 whether this or that man could have been elected 
 by transferring votes from this or the other can- 
 didate. 
 
 What has produced the present state of things? 
 Why cannot this House organize? At the open- 
 ing of the last Congress, peace reigned in every 
 quarter of the country, and men came here from 
 cvi rv section with fraternal feelings. There were 
 urbing elements to jar the .universal har- 
 mony of sentiment. "The dead past had buried 
 its dead." The bitter controversies of previous 
 years had ceased, and sectional quarrels were for 
 the time forgotten. No note of discord was heard 
 in the councils of the nation, and the future was 
 unclouded and bright; yet, in violation of good 
 faith, mutually pledged by the representatives of 
 the two deal parties of the country; "to 
 
 resist the further agitation of the slavery ques- 
 tion in Congress or out of it," a time-honored 
 en the two sections of the Union 
 was trampled under foot, thu ■-. under 
 
 the sanction of the Governni territory 
 
 to the introduction of slavery, from which our 
 fathers agreed thai it should be forever excluded. 
 Upon the men, and the influence that si cured its 
 abrogation, rests the responsibility for our want 
 of organization at this time. 
 
 It was di clared he're, as a ri asbn for the repeal 
 of that compromise, that it was necessary to take 
 the question out of Congress. The efforl to take 
 it out has been a civil war in Kansas, and a sec- 
 tional strife unparalleled in the history of the 
 
 country. Such is the result thus far of the at- 
 tempt to take the question out of Congress; and 
 tie' restriction in Minnesota and Oregon si ill re- 
 mains a bone of contention for a future day. 
 When the repeal of the Missouri compromise 
 was ur^ed on the ground that it would q>; 
 tation, and take this question out of Congress, I 
 declared on this floor that — 
 
 "Those who make this declaration with so much appa- 
 rent sincerity either do nnt understand the real sentiment 
 of the North, or they tV.il to comprehend aright the springs 
 of human action. Hir. you are caking open and fanning 
 into a flame coals which were already smothered, an I. .f 
 left alone, would have buried themselves forever in their 
 own cinders. 
 
 •■ As an early and constant friend of this Administration. 
 I desire the defeat of this bill ; for its passage will, in my 
 judgment, insure, Beyond a doubt, an anti-Administration 
 majority in the next Congress, As an earnest and devoted 
 friend of the Democratic party to which I have Cheerfully 
 given my best energies from my earliest ,'»>Ii!;<\l! an ion. I 
 <! a.' the defeat of this bill ; for its passage will blot it out 
 as a national organization, and leaving but a wreck in every 
 northern Stat.', it will live only in history. A- ,. lover Of 
 peace, harmony, and fraternal concord BJBOng the citizens 
 of the Confed iracy, ami as a devotee at the shrine of this 
 Union, with all its precious hopes to man. I desire the de- 
 feat of this bin ; for it- passage will tear open wounds not 
 yet healed, lacerate spirits already phrensied, ami • I 
 
 of confidence ' which unites tic two sections of the Union, 
 will hi- rent asunder, and year:; of alienation and unkind- 
 ness may intervene beTore it can be restored; if ever, to its 
 wont A tenacity and strength." 
 
 Sir, history has made those remarks prophetic; 
 though it was but the natural result of that legis- 
 lation. The r isponsibility for want of an i 
 ization of this I bees, is upon those who reopened 
 this agitation. Yon trampled down a fair arrange- 
 ment between the two sections of this Union: you 
 trampled on your own plighted faith, given in 
 the conventions assembled at Baltimore in 1852. 
 v, t scarcely is year had elapsed before th 
 tiop,was reopened in Congress. Wounds were 
 torn open that had just healed; and to-day we 
 
 selves in the midst of this quasi i 
 t ; on. On the brads, then, of those who trampled 
 down these compacts of good faith be the respons- 
 ibility. 
 
 Sir, by the records of votes here you can prove 
 that almost anybody is responsible for this want 
 
of organization. Did not the gentleman from II "What is it but a recognition of the principles 
 Alabama, [Mr. "Walker,] the first weeks of the Ij which underlie the Constitution of the United 
 session, propose to the Democracy that the two i States?— the right of all the States in their Fed- 
 
 parties unite, and elect a (what is called) national 
 man Speaker; and are not the seventy-four men 
 who vote for Mr. Richardson responsible be- 
 cause they did not take that proposition? By 
 the same line of argument pursued by my friend 
 from Alabama, [Mr. Houston,] they certainly 
 are. But I do not hold them to any responsi- 
 bility on such grounds. Gentlemen stand here 
 by their principles. It is said that the gentleman 
 from Ohio [Mr. Campbell] could have been 
 elected, if all the anti-Nebraska men had voted 
 for him. For three days Mr. Banks was within 
 three of an election. If three of those who voted 
 for others had voted for him, he would now have 
 been the Speaker. You can transfer the respons- 
 ibility on whom you please by taking the. votes 
 as they are on the record, because combinations 
 could have been made at any time by which an 
 election could have been effected. That result 
 could be figured out of the vote of anti-Nebraska 
 men; and the same could be done in the vote of 
 Democrats and Americans. It is not expected 
 that those voting for Mr. Richardson will change 
 their position, because by doing so they may gain 
 a few votes. Nor should it be expected that those 
 voting for Mr. Banks will change their ground, 
 because by so doing they may secure a few more 
 votes. Those of us who were here at the time 
 resisted the repeal of the Missouri compromise, 
 and were opposed to reopening the slavery agita- 
 tion. We were borne down then, but our views 
 of the justice of that measure have not changed. 
 What was wrong when enacted never ceases with 
 me to be a wrong. 
 
 Saturday, January 19, 185G. 
 Mr. QUITMAN. I intended yesterday to take 
 the floor for the purpose of making a few remarks 
 in reply to those which fell from the gentleman 
 from Pennsylvania, [Mr. Grow,] who last spoke 
 upon the subject of the responsibility of the several 
 parties* for the failure of this House to organize; 
 but I refrained from doing so in the hope that some 
 other gentleman would have done it. But, there 
 were some expressions that fell from the gentleman 
 from Pennsylvania, in the few eloquent remarks 
 that he made to the House, which 1 think it my 
 duty to animadvert upon. He traces the cause 
 of the failure of this. House to effect an organiza- 
 tion, not to what has occurred during the present 
 session, but he goes back to the passage of the 
 Kansas-Nebraska bill as the cause of the hostile 
 
 eral capacity, and the rights of the citizens of 
 the respective States to an equal participation in 
 a country which was acquired by their common 
 blood and treasure — not less by that of the 
 people of the South than that of the people of the 
 North. 
 
 But gentlemen are mistaken. They do not 
 travel back to the sources of that angry feeling 
 which exists between the different sections of the 
 Union, when they stop at the passage of the Ne- 
 braska bill by the last Congress. That was not 
 the cause of that hostility of feeling which now 
 prevents the organization of this House. That 
 was not the original cause why, at the present 
 time, we find the two sections of the country 
 arrayed against one another. I will tell gentlemen 
 what the "cause is. The cause has operated for 
 more than a year. It made its appearance on 
 this floor in 1819, and was only quieted for a 
 time by the compromise of 1821). It broke out 
 afresh in 1835. It is to be found in that spirit 
 of aggression upon the institutions of the South 
 which comes from a portion of that section of 
 the country which the gentleman [Mr. Grow] 
 represents. The South has ever stood by the 
 guarantees of the Constitution; she has adhered 
 faithfully to the system of government under 
 which we live. She has never undertaken to 
 make any encroachment upon any State rights, 
 or upon any individual rights of the citizens of 
 the North. Not so with the North. Upon the 
 application of Missouri for admission into the 
 Union in 1819, she evinced her disposition to 
 exercise her political powers to prevent the in- 
 crease of slaveholding States, and to deprive the 
 South of her just rights to a participation in all 
 the benefits of the Union. The political strife 
 which grew out of that controversy threatened 
 the dissolution of the Union. It resulted in a 
 compromise unjust to the South, but which she 
 was compelled to accept. The result of that 
 struggle, thus terminated, quelled agitation for a 
 time. It soon rose again with fearful violence, 
 and has been continued ever since. 
 
 But the gentleman traces back the cause of this 
 sectional hostility one year only. Let me tell 
 him that, twenty years ago, when I had the honor 
 to send in an executive message to the Legislature 
 of Mississippi, I deemed it proper to call the 
 attention of the Legislature of that State to the 
 aggressive movements in the northern States. 
 Could I have procured that document, I would 
 have read extracts from it to show the truth of 
 
 corn- 
 
 fueling between the different sections of the Union 
 
 which to-day produces the disorganization of this my remarks. The South has ever si 
 
 House. | plained of this intermeddling of the North with 
 
 The gentleman does not go far enough back. |; her institutions. Yet it has continued without 
 
 Is it, sir, the passage of that bill which has given jl intermission; it is the agitation which that gen- 
 
 to all portions of this country their equal rights 
 in this Confederacy — is it the passage of that 
 bill which has produced this state of feeling be- 
 tween the different sect inns of the country? If 
 it is, then the gentlemen who concur with him 
 have taken the bold position that they will deny 
 to a large portion of this country their common, 
 
 tleman, and those who cooperate with him, has 
 raised that has produced this feeling between tho 
 different sections of this country, and not the 
 passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill; that was 
 the result, not the cause. It is not because the 
 Kansas-Nebraska bill has taken away a single 
 rio-lit from the North, but it is because it has 
 
 he po- I performed a constitutional duty to the South: be- 
 inority I cause it has given to the South the same rights 
 
 equal, constitutional rights. If this is the 
 
 sition gentlemen occupy, we from the minority 
 
 section of the Union would be glad to know which we acknowledge are possessed by the peo- 
 
 it. But, sir, what is the Kansas-Nebraska bill ? II pie of the North. Let the gentleman, then, when 
 
bo attempts to trace causes, go back to tbc sources 
 of tbis state of feeling, and bo will find that it is 
 upon you, northern men, the responsibility of 
 this state of tilings lirs — upon you, who have 
 stirred up this sectional agitation, you who seek 
 to deprive sovereign States of their federal and 
 constitutional rights. When you attempt, then, 
 to trace it back, go to its true sourer. In the future 
 of our country, if it should happen that the glori- 
 ous system which pur fathers nave transmitted to 
 us should fall and tumble into ruin, the verdict 
 of posterity and history will he to condemn the 
 agitators of the slavery question as traitors to 
 the Constitution and to t li.- equal constitutional 
 rights of a portion of this Union. There, sir, I 
 trace it, and there posterity will trace it, and will 
 not impute it to the action of the last Congress in 
 doing what was nothing but mere justice to the 
 South. 
 
 Gentlemen tell us here, graciously, that tl»ey 
 are not disposed to invade our rights of property 
 within the States. I do not thank them for that. 
 Let me tell them here on this floor — though my- 
 self born north of Mason and Dixon's line — that 
 that is not all we desire. No, sir; we desire 
 more. We desire the eommon benefits of this 
 system of Government. We are not content that 
 that gnat interest, whose existence in our section 
 of the country has constituted so important an 
 element of your prosperity as well as of ours — 
 that system which God in bis infinite wisdom 
 has permitted to be built up in our country to 
 promote, foster, and carry forward its great des- 
 tiny — should meet a mere tolerance at your hands 
 in the States in which it exists. No, sir; we 
 would be craven, we would be traitors to our 
 constitutional rights, if we did not ask of you 
 what we have a right to demand — the benefits 
 of the great system of government which your 
 fathers and our fathers established. We demand 
 it. We demand its benefits as well for our prop- 
 erty as for yours, within the legitimate sphere of 
 its action. We will not be content, we ought 
 not to be content, with anything less. We are 
 willing to meet you here as independent and pa- 
 triotic men, and stand as equals upon a level, face 
 to face and eye to eye; but we do not intend that 
 you shall be our superiors — that you shall reap 
 all the advantages of our common Government. 
 We wan tits benefits also, and we insist upon them. 
 You deprive us of most of our constitutional 
 rights when you refuse to us all and every of the 
 blessings which those institutions were intended 
 to secure to all the citizens of every State. Do 
 not be mistaken; let not gentlemen deceive them- 
 selves with the idea that we are asking from their 
 bounty mere tolerance of our institutions in the 
 States. We demand all our constitutional rights — 
 1 say, we demand them. [Here the hammer fell.] 
 
 Mr. GROW. The gentleman from Mississippi 
 [Mr. Quitman] complains of remarks made by 
 me yesterday, and refers the agitation which 
 exists in the country at the present moment back 
 to the year 1835, instead of to the repeal of the 
 Missouri compromise. In 1819, gentlemen say. 
 Very well. Sir, whether the Missouri compro- 
 mise wns constitutional or nut — whether or not it 
 was a violation of your constitutional rights under 
 this Government — your fathers agreed with our 
 fathers, on the 6th of March, 18:20, that they 
 
 would give up that constitutional right — if they 
 
 had it — and that slavery should be forever after 
 
 excluded from the territory north of the line .'Hi 
 
 .')()'. Of the one hundred and three gentlemen who 
 
 then represented the South in this House and in 
 
 the Senate, but forty-six voted against this line. 
 
 Among the number who sustained it was your 
 
 own immortal Clay. He declared in the Senate 
 
 of the United States, in 1850, "that a majority of 
 
 southern members sustained that wrong — himself 
 
 among the number." Whether its passage was 
 
 ' or was not a violation of a constitutional Eight, it 
 
 ! was "a fair bargain," and good faith (required 
 
 that it should be observed. By it you consented 
 
 I voluntarily to relinquish all right to carry slavery 
 
 north of the line of .'30° 30'; and after availing 
 
 yourselves of all the advantages secured by that 
 
 arrangement to you, after converting every foot 
 
 H of territory south of that line into slave territory, 
 
 jl you came here, and by force of numbers struck 
 
 j down that bargain which your fathers made, and 
 
 i which was religiously observed for over a third 
 
 I of a century. 
 
 Mr. QUITMAN. Do you assort that Mr. 
 Clay voted for the Missouri compromise line? 
 Mr. GROW. I do assert that Mr. Clay says 
 j he voted for the line of 36° 30'. 
 
 Mr. HARRIS, of Illinois. He never did say 
 J so. 
 
 Mr. GROW. And that a majority of southern 
 j members in the House and in the Senate voted 
 ■ for it. 
 
 I Mr. BOWIE. Mr. Clay has stated that he did 
 | not vote for that line; be was not present, but he 
 thought that if he had been he would very likely 
 have done so. 
 
 Mr. GROW. I refer to a speech made by Mr. 
 Clay in the Senate of the United States on the 
 6th of March, 1850, in which he says, that 
 " among those who agreed to that linewere a majority 
 of southern members," and that " I hare no earthly 
 doubt that I voted in common with my other southern 
 friends fur the adoption of the line of 36° 30'." That 
 is the language of Mr. Clay, in 1850, in the Senate 
 of the United States. And. although he cannot 
 speak to-day with living voice, he do< s speak 
 through the records of his country; and I trust 
 that no man will stand here to contradict his own 
 declaration. 
 
 Mr. HARRIS. Will the gentleman allow me 
 to interrupt him? 
 Mr. GROW. No, I cannot now. 
 Mr HARRIS. The gentleman dares a contra- 
 diction of the statement that Mi-. Clay voted for 
 the line of 30° 30'. I wish to furnish a contra- 
 diction. 
 
 Mr. GROW. You may do so when I get 
 through. 
 
 Mr. HARRIS. You challenge a contradiction, 
 and I wish to make it. 
 
 Mr. GROW. No, sir, I only refer to the record. 
 One word now in reply to the charge of northern 
 aggressions upon the South, made by the gentle- 
 man from Mississippi, ] Mr. Quitman,] for whom 
 I entertain the kindest feelings; and the remarks 
 I may make I trust will not be considered as in 
 any way reflecting personally upon any south- 
 ern man. We expect men coming her.— reared 
 under the influences which surround them — 
 impressed with the influences of the society in 
 which they live — to bold views upon slavery dif- 
 
4 
 
 6 
 
 * 
 
 ferine from ours. With that we find no fault; " support the institution of slavery; and you asked 
 but we claim the risrht to hold the sentiments northern men to indorse that issue, made in our 
 inculcated by the education of our childhood and State papers. And in the last Congress, you 
 influences which have surrounded our lives, and ',', struck down— as I stated in the opening- of my 
 that we shall be allowed to express them here or || remarks— a fair bargain, made by your fathers 
 elsewhere with the same freedom as a southern ; with our fathers, and which had been religiously 
 
 man expresses his, without being disfranchised 
 therefor under this Government. 
 
 Sir, what are the nothern aggressions that the 
 
 observed by them for more than a third of a 
 century. 
 Mr. 'QUITMAN, (in his seat.) You robbed 
 
 centleman sneaks of? Let me say to the gentle- e us of California. 
 
 2j an ' Mr. GROW. The gentleman says that we 
 
 Mr. QUITMAN, (interrupting.) I. desire to have robbed you of California. How is that? 
 ask the gentleman from Pennsylvania this q'ues- California came to Congress and asked to be ad- 
 tion: whether he himself was not elected as a mitted as a State of this Union. Your Govern- 
 member of this House on the principle of hostility ment had neglected to give her a Government, and 
 to the institutions of the southern States? she was forced to fall back upon the inherent 
 
 Mr GROW. Sir, I hold no " hostility" to ' rights of men to take care of themselves, 
 the institutions of the southern States, but shall j Mr. QUITMAN. Why not extend to Cah- 
 
 resist the effort now making to change the con 
 struction given to the Constitution by our fathers 
 and the action of every branch of the Govern 
 ment for over sixty years. If any one thin 
 
 fornia the compromise line ? 
 
 Mr. GROW. I am coming to that presently. 
 The people of California— in the exercise of what 
 is called popular sovereignty, and which was in 
 
 more than another secured my return to this this case really so, because the people were forced 
 House for the third time, by the unanimous vote [ by the neglect of the Government to r< ly entirely 
 of my district, it was no doubt because I had i| on their inherent rights— formed a Government, 
 
 stood" upon this floor, and resisted the repeal of 
 the Missouri compromise. 
 
 But, let me say to the gentleman from Missis- 
 sippi, that political Abolitionism in the North — 
 paradoxical as it may seem — is the child of the 
 
 and excluded slavery. And what did you do ? 
 The application of California for admission into 
 the Union was resisted from the first; and on the 
 Journal of the Senate of the United States is, to- 
 day, a protest of ten southern Senators against 
 
 "South. You nurtured it in infancy, when too the admission of California into the Union after 
 feeble to stand alone; and you have made it the act of admission had passed. And what is 
 strong in manhood by the injudicious and unjust I the reason these Senators gave for their opposition? 
 legislation of this Hall. When the North peti- Because her constitution excluded slavery. 1 will 
 tioned this Government to take steps in reference read the language of their protest 
 to the institution of slavery, where it is conceded I Mr. HUMPHREY MARSHA 
 
 to be solely under the jurisdiction of Congress, 
 you passed' the twenty-first rule, denying a great 
 constitutional right to freemen under this Govern- 
 ment. That inaugurated political Abolitionism 
 in the North; and "from that day to this the war- 
 fare has been one of constitutional rights, not for 
 the South alone, but for the North. In resisting 
 the reopening of this agitation in the last Con- 
 gress, by a repeal of the Missouri compromise, 
 I took occasion to say that — 
 
 *< Previous to that time[i. e. the passage of the twenty-first 
 rule] Abolitionism was but a sentiment, arid a mere senti- 
 ment is not a sufficient basis for a formidable pqlitieal organ- 
 isation : but when great principles of constitutional risht are 
 i i in the legislation of the country legislative acts 
 
 ng with a strong and universal - ntiment may form 
 enduring organizations. And the sentiment of the North, 
 in reference to slavery, being dei p ami general; when you 
 
 ALL. Will the 
 gentleman from Pennsylvania allow me to make 
 a suggestion here? 
 
 Mr. GROW declined to yield the floor, and con- 
 tinued: The reason alleged in this protest is, 
 " that the bill gives the sanction of law, and thus 
 imparts validity to the unauthorized action of a 
 portion of the inhabitants of California, by which 
 an odious discrimination is made against the property 
 of the fifteen slaveholdin* Statcsofthe Union." That 
 was the protest often southern Senators, that the 
 admission of California, under her constitution, 
 was a violation of the right of fifteen slaveholding 
 States. 
 
 Mr. QUITMAN. Let me tell the gentleman 
 from Pennsylvania that no southern man has 
 ever taken the ground of opposition to the admis- 
 sion of California on the ground of her having 
 
 force up legislative issues to combine with it, then be- 1 at j pt e d a constitution excluding slavery. 
 
 comes a formidable element. 
 
 Mr. GROW. I refer the gentleman to the 
 language of the protest which I have just quoted. 
 
 
 You then placed a censorship over the mails 
 
 of this country like that placed by Louis Na- [Here, the hammer fell.] 
 poleon to-day over the press of France; and in . . 
 
 this country, where we claim that intelligence Mr. HARRIS said: I should not, sir, have 
 
 should circulate as free as the air we breathe, you attempt d at this time to occupy the time of the 
 
 empowered your postmasters to declare what is House for a moment, had it not been for the dec- 
 
 ihcendia'ry, and to withhold such matter from the laration made by the gentleman from Pennsyl- 
 
 white freemen of the South. You placed Upon vania, [Mr. Grow,] who dared any one to deny 
 the records of your country, through your Sec- ]| what he had asserted. In the full confidence that 
 
 retary of State, John C. Calhoun— a man whose in the denial of that assertion would be the truth 
 
 memory I revere for his purity of character and I ventured a denial at the time. The statement 
 
 integrity of purpoa — one of' the brightest and made by the gentleman from Pennsylvania was, 
 
 purest intellects that the country evi r produced— that Mr. Clay was the supporter of the Missouri 
 
 you put, I say, upon the records of the country, line of 1820, and he dared any one to deny that 
 
 through him, a justification' of the annexation of such was the fact. ' ' 
 
 Texas, on the ground that it would uphold and ,1 Mr. GROW. I do not think that I uared any 
 
;' 
 
 one to deny it, but I ap^TT .led to the record for 
 the truth of my assertion. ■ 
 
 Mr. HARRIS. Well, whether the gentleman 
 did or not, his words are taken by the reporters, 
 and their record will show how tie- fact is. 
 
 Mr. GROW. Very well; let that determine it. 
 
 Mr. HARRIS. But 1 want to say a few words 
 in conm ction with this question, and to dispose 
 of the challenge which the gentleman has thrown 
 out to the House, 1 state here in my place, that 
 the remark which the gentleman made, that Mr. 
 Clay favored tie- 1 territorial restriction, is not cor- 
 rect". What does the record show ? In tie 
 place I read from tin 1 17th volume olTViles's Re- 
 gister, pages 174 and 175, as follows: 
 
 " Wednesday, January 26, (1880.) Afti r other uusi 
 the House unit into Committee of the Whole (Mr. Bald- 
 wni in the chair) mi the Missouri bill. 
 
 •'The proposition under consideration: was an amend- 
 ment offered yesterdaj to the second section of thebill by 
 Mr. Storrs, substantially t<> alter ill.' limits of the proposed 
 State, so as to make the Missouri river the northern I 
 ary thereof— [with the view of drawing a hue en which 
 ein favor <>;'. and those opposed to, the slave restriction 
 might compromise their views.] » 
 
 •• .Mr. Si s rose and withdrew the amendment lie of- 
 fered yesterday, and in lieu then of submit! id the following : 
 ••./ furtfter, and it is her* '; i ■<■■ ted, That for- 
 
 ever hi rentier neither slavery nor involuntary servitude (ex- 
 for the punishment of crimes tor which the party shall 
 have been duly convicted) shall exist in the territory of the 
 
 lying north of the thirty eigltth deg of north 
 
 latitude, at d west pfthe Mississippi rivi r, and of the bound- 
 
 tttis tut: Pro- 
 vider, in escaping into 9aid Territory from 
 n service is lawfully claimed in anyof.the 
 States, such fugitive ma> be lawfully reclaimed and coh- 
 umg to the laws of the United States in sueh 
 ease made ami provided, to the person claiming his or her 
 tabor as aforesaid. 
 
 •■ i "i :,.i- motion a debate ensued of a desultory charac- 
 ter. Messrs. Randolph, Lowndes, Mercer, Brush, Smith 
 of Marylai A, Stbfrs, and Clay, successively followed each 
 other iii debate." 
 
 Kbw, Bdtr. Clerk, here is the only meager ac- 
 count we find of the character of that debate; but 
 the question here naturally arises upon which 
 side of that proposition was Mr. Clay found. 
 From t'i • position which Mr. Clay subsequently 
 took in February, in opposition to restrictions upon 
 the State, when In-, according to tin- declaration 
 of the National Intelligencer of this city,rose and 
 spoke for four hours in opposition, the House 
 bi ing in the Commits e of the Whole, and when 
 
 the _ if debate was allowed, is it 
 
 probable that he would have omitted to state his 
 view - this question of u rxitorial re- 
 
 striction? No "tie can suppose that for a moment; 
 and the question is, what position did he take 
 upon thai question: The |entleman from Ken- 
 tucky, [Mr. Humphrey Marshall,] who has 
 just taken his seat, has stated certain matters 
 which maybe adduced collaterally to show what 
 positioiijie took upon that occasion. Hut there 
 js 1 ctti r proof than that— and 1 take pleasure in 
 bringing it to the notice of the House, and I wish 
 it to go carefully upon the records of the House, 
 as a declaration which I make by authority. 
 There is nowa gentleman living is this city, ven- 
 erable in years, having been near fifty years in 
 the service of his country. Si rving her faithfully, 
 wine I, and never 
 
 •will be — who was present and heard Mr. Clay 
 upon both of these occasions, win a he di bated 
 the resolution of Mr. Storrs and the resolution 
 upon State restriction. He took notes of 
 
 speeches, as he tells me, and he authorizes me to 
 say that Mr. Clay opposed all restrictions either 
 upon territory or State. [" Who is it?"] Gen- 
 eral Jesup, whose authority no man will ques- 
 tion, lb: says he heard Mr. Clay upon this floor 
 upon both of those occasions, and took notes of 
 his remarks. He has them now, and he proposes 
 to give 'bent to tin 1 public at a proper time. He 
 says Mr. Clay opposed restriction upon both 
 branches of this subject, and that he was opposed 
 to till restriction. He also details the hue of 
 argument pursued upon those occasions. 
 
 Hut upon other facts of individual recollection, 
 from other notes and memoranda taken at the 
 time, there can be no doubt as to Mr. Clay \s po l- 
 tion upon that question; and it was to correct that 
 misrepresentation of the gentleman from Pennsyl- 
 vania, and to place the correction before the 
 country, that 1 rose, and for nothing more; and 
 having made the statements 1 hare, in connec- 
 tion with the remarks of those gentleman from 
 Pennsylvania, I have nothing more to say. 
 
 Mr. GROW. I shall say but a few words in 
 reply to the gentleman from Illinois. The effort 
 which he has made to change the record of the 
 country by citing officers of the Army, or any 
 living witness, will not, I trust, be admitti d here, 
 or in the country, against the declarations of the 
 living man, made in the Senate of the United 
 States in hifl own vindication. 
 
 That Mr. Clay was opposed to any restriction 
 on the State of Missouri there is no question. 
 He resisted it from first to last. That is not the 
 question in controversy. The question is, whe- 
 ther he was in favor of the adoption of the line 
 36° 30', north of which slavery should be for- 
 ever prohibited; and 1 will read an extract from 
 his own remarks, where lie himself, on the sixth 
 of February, 1850, gives the history <•!' the whole 
 transaction. In that history he clears up the 
 misapprehension which existed in the country 
 that In' was the originator of that proposition. 
 That fact lie denied. In that speech he reviewed 
 the controversy, stating his conm ction with it. 
 I did not claim that In- was in favor of a restriction 
 on the State, but that lie was in favor of the line 
 .^SO', and that a majority of southern men 
 supported it. And what is the record? Mr. Clay 
 says: 
 
 ••.Mr. Thomas, acting in every instance, presented the 
 proposition of 35° 30', and it was finally agreed to. ButI 
 take the occasion to say. that among those who agreed to 
 that line, were a majority of southern member*." 
 
 "My friend from Alabama in tin- Senate, [Mr. Kins.] 
 .Mr. Pinckney, from .Man land, and a majorit) of the south- 
 ern members in 1 1 1 i — body, voted in favor <>f the line of :>tj 
 of the members m the other Hi use, I 
 the head of whom was .Mr. Lowndes himself, voted abo 
 tor thai line. / it ,i r no do 
 
 •■ But, as I was sh„;ik>-r <>: the [louse, and as the Journal 
 d ies ii it -hew which way the Speaker votes, evj>t in the 
 ' ' a tie. I am net aide to tell with certainty how [ 
 actually did vote ; hut / have no earthly doulit that I ro/crf, 
 in c n.nnon with »ii/ other southern friends, for the adoption 
 of the line 36 ■ 
 
 Mr. Clay's own declaration, made by himself! 
 
 And the summoning of living witnesses to con- 
 
 cl him raises a question, not between me and 
 
 the witnesses WfiOni V"U sntimii ni . bul a ion stion 
 
 between thi i in of your own Clay and 
 
 that of your witnesses. Tie you. 
 
 1 li ave tiie r.cord, then, with the living wit- 
 en you summon to impeach the decla- 
 ration of your own immortal statesman. Eut, 
 
8 
 
 \ 
 
 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 sir, from the archives of your country comes the i 
 declaration of one of the living actors of the times, 
 that the South regarded the adoption of that 
 line of 36° 30' as a triumph. Charles Pinckney 
 wrote from this Capitol at midnight— for it seems 
 that all of these slavery laws must be passed in | 
 the darkness of the night; twelve o'clock seems 
 to be the fitting hour for passing all compromises 
 in regard to slavery, and for repealing them—at 
 least such is the history of the country— Mr. 
 Pinckney, writing from this Hall at the dead 
 hour of the night, in 1820, says: 
 
 "Dear Sir : I hasten to inform you that this moment we 
 have carried the question to admit Missouri and alt Louis- 
 ana to the southward of 36° 30', free of the restnetidn of 
 Blavery and nve the Southincr short time an addftmiot 
 six and ne haps eisM members to the Senate of the United 
 Stales, it is considered here by the slaveholding States as a 
 
 GREAT TRIUMPH." 
 
 It was considered by the South at the time as 
 a great triumph. And yet men stand here and 
 tell us that it was forced upon them by the North. 
 In the Senate of the United States, on the en- 
 grossment and passage of the bill, twenty south- 
 ern Senators voted for it— two only against it. 
 
 But four northern Senators voted for that line— 
 eighteen against it. But two southern Senators 
 voted against it— twenty for it. Among the latter 
 were both Senators from Virginia, Louisiana, 
 Tennessee, Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, Ala- 
 bama, Mississippi, and Delaware, with Mr ; 
 Stokes, of North Carolina, and Mr. Gilhard,of 
 South Carolina— leaving two against it. 
 
 Now there is another part of this letter of Mr. 
 Pinckney's, which is testimony cotemporaneous 
 with the passage of that compromise which has 
 been so ruthlessly stricken down: 
 
 " To the north of 35° 30' there is to be, by the present law, 
 restriction, which, von will see by the votes, I voted against. 
 Bvt it is at present of no moment. It is a vast tract, unin- 
 habited onlv by savages and wild beasts, in which not a foot 
 of the ftidian claim to soil is extinguished, and in which, 
 according to the ideas prevalent, no land office will be opened 
 for a great length of time." 
 
 rj the 
 
 ques- 
 She 
 
 on of 
 cc to 
 such 
 
 But when a land office comes to be opened, you 
 come hero and strike down this restriction— strike 
 down everything which the North thought she 
 had secured by that arrangement. 
 
 The gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Humphrey 
 Marshall] said, in the way of interrogatory, 
 that I would not agree to extend the Missouri 
 compromise line to the Pacific. That is true. 
 He undertook to say, however, that the North 
 had not been faithful to the compromise of 1820. 
 Sir, what was the Missouri restriction applied to ? 
 To the territory purchased of France — to thai 
 alone, and nothing else. It was not applied to 
 any other territory, for there was no other to 
 apply it to. Then, has it not been adhered to 
 by the North in its application to the territory 
 to which it was applied ? Was it not put on the 
 statute-book on the 6th of March, 1820; and did 
 it not continue a valid enactment, without change 
 or alteration, till the passage of the Nebraska lull 
 by the last Congress? How then was it aban- 
 doned? Gentlemen complain that when Missouri 
 asked to be admitted into the Union, the North 
 objected ti> heradmission. 
 
 A Me 
 oppositi 
 | _ Mr. G 
 j tion. 1 
 ' had pass 
 I free blac 
 I her admi„. 
 
 a restriction, and not that she tolerated slavery. 
 It was in that compromise that Mr. Clay figured 
 as the originator. He brought in a proposition 
 to harmonize that question, and it passed. But 
 there was no question raised, at that time, about 
 the line of 36° 30', nor at any other time, so far 
 as the Louisiana purchase was concerned, the 
 only territory to which that arrangement applied. 
 But when the Government acquired new terri- 
 tory, to which we were asked to apply that line, 
 we said "no." And why? Because, while you 
 would hem us in, in our territorial expansion, 
 by this line on the south and the British posses- 
 sions on the north, you would be left almost in- 
 definite expansion on the south. Would it then 
 have hfcn fair for the North to have hemmed 
 herself in forever upon twelve and a half degrees 
 of latitude, over which to carry free labor and 
 free institutions; while leaving almost indefinite; 
 expansion to the institutions of slavery ? Besides, 
 sir, we had acquired free territory— territory in 
 which slavery was abolished by the laws of Mex- 
 ico—and we were asked to make it, by act of 
 Congress, slave territory. To such a proposition 
 I answer the gentleman, in the language of Ken- 
 tucky's own illustrious statesman, " I never will 
 vote, and no earthly power will ever make me 
 vote, to spread slavery over territory where it 
 does not exist." That was the declaration of 
 your own Clay, made on the 6th of March, 1850. 
 It was almost his dying declaration, and it will 
 live among the proudest legacies that he has be- 
 queathed to after times. Sir, I stand with him 
 in declaring that by no act of mine shall slavery 
 ever be carried into any territory from which it 
 is excluded by positive law. 
 
 Mr. HUMPHREY MARSHALL. The gen- 
 tleman from Pennsylvania will allow me to say, 
 that there is not a southern Representative on 
 tHs floor who will vote to spread shivery over 
 territory where it does not now exist. 
 
 Mr. GROW. But the proposition to extend 
 the Missouri compromise line through the acqui- 
 sition of Mexican territory was in fact the same 
 thing. It was saying, by legislative act of this 
 Republic, that slavery might exist in that Territo- 
 ry , notwithstanding the lawsofMexicb prohibited 
 it. We wen' asked to strike off all restrictions 
 by a positive legislative act. If slavery had then 
 gone into that Territory, it would have been the 
 act of this Government, as in the case of Kansas 
 now. If slavery plant itself there, who is re- 
 sponsible for it? The men who struck down that 
 restriction; for, with the Missouri compromise in 
 force, slavery could never have gone there. If 
 i then it goes there during its territorial existence, 
 ! while under the jurisdiction of Congress, it is 
 just the same in effect as if carried there by your 
 votes, for you permit to be done what you have 
 ] the power to prevent. 
 
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 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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