mmm IB . tains the same provision in regard to slavery as the preceding. 3. An act for the admission of the State of Cal- ifornia. This has no reference whatever to slavery; the constitution of the State, however, prohibited 4. An act to amend the act entitled "An act respecting fugitives from justice and persons escap- ing from the service of their masters," approved February 12, 1793— [September 16, 1850] 5. An act to suppress the slave trade in the District of Columbia— [September 20, 1850.] These five acts constitute what are called the compromise measures oflbSO. These measure* covered every foot of territory not previou.?ly affected by some adjustment of the slavery question. They had taken a part of the territory north of 36° 30' claimed by Texas, from under the influences of the Missouri restriction, and had incorporated it with New Mexico, pro- viding that it might be slave or free territory, as the people of New Mexico might determine when they formed their constitution. They had taken from the Louisiana territory the " Middle Park," , as it is called, a basin in the Rocky Mountains, ! and had added it to Utah, and made it subject to the same provisions. In all other things the Mis- touri compromise teas expressly saved. Mr. Ma- son's proviso had saved the ris;ht of Texas to her new Stales — slave ^outh of 36° 30'; free north of that line, as, indeed, no act impairing that right would have been worth a straw, as it would have violated one of the fundamental conditions of her union with the States. I beg, sir, to call your attention to the promi- nence given to the Missouri act in all this legis- lation — how it was fought for by the southern meiTibers here up to the last moment of the ex- citing scenes of 1850; how, lest perhaps it might have been weakened, provisoes were moved to save rights supposed to have accrued under it. Yes, sir, and prior to that time, the father of this agitation had incorporated it into his Texas res- olutions, and into the Oregon bill; and with what tenacity it has clung to life and vitality, while the doctrines of the ordinance of 1787 have gone to rest — ay, sir, while they "sleep the sleep that knows no waking!" Yes, sir, legislation relating to the Missouri act has been well defined — the act has been carefully treated in all its bearings. The soul, the embodiment of two adjustments, it was so important in the third, that while a different principle was applied to the new Territories, it was expressly saved as to the old. And so, sir, the question stood in the fall of 1850. Three sessions of Congress have come and gone, and each one has treated the question as finally settled. Did not the last Congress declare a finality as to this slavery question.' Now, I ask, would gentlemen have stultified themselves by Buch a vole, had anything been needed to make them final.' To suspect them of such folly is an insult I would not offer to any gentleman amongst them. No, sir, they never imagined that the Missouri compromise was to be repealed, or dreamed that it had been done by others. And again, sir: in time both political parties of the country came together in convention. They nominated their candidates, they adopted their platforms. That party to which 1 belong adopted the following resolutions as a part of theirs: " 9. That Congress has no power under the Con.stitution to interfere with or control Ilie dnniolic instiliillons of the several Slates, and that such States are tlie sole and proper judges of everything appertaining to Ih- ir own affairs not prohibited by the Constitution ; that all cflbrls of the Aboli- lionists or oihers, made to induce Congrt'ss to interfere with questions of slavery, or to take incipient steps in relation thereto, are calculated to lead to the most alarming and dangerous consequences ; and that all such efforts have an inevitable tendency to diminish the happiness of the peo- ple and endanger the stability and permanency of the Union, and ought not to be countenanced by any friend of our po- litical inslitutions. " 4. Resolved, Thai the foregoini; pTopoaiHon covers, and was intended to embrac, the uhole suhjcct of slanery agi- tation in Congress ; and therefore the Oemocrailc parly of the Union, standing on this national platform, will abide by and adhere to a faithful execution of the acts known as the compromise measures settled by the last Congress, ' the act for reclaiming fugitives from service or labor' included; which act being designed to carry out an express provision of the Constilution, cannot, with fidelity (hereto, be repealed 1 or so changed as to destroy or impair its efficiency. I " 5. Resolved, That the Democratic party will resist all j attempts at renewing, in Congress or out of if, the agitation I of the slavery question, under whatever shape or color the attempt may he niadc.'^ I need not say, sir, the platform was sustained. ! Mr. Pierce came into office with the prestige of ! almost entire unanimity. He had pledged him- \ self to the platform. His inaugural affirmed that pledge. His message reaffirmed it. A dispatch had gone from one of his Cabinet to Massachu- setts that agitation must be crushed out; yes, sir, that free-soil, abolition agitation must be crushed out! Crushed out were the words, sir. They were ponderous words; and I would to God the man who uttered thein possessed the moral courage to apply them now to the fathers of this agitation. Well, sir, one or two facts more, and I shall leave the history of the past. Did you not pass a Nebraska bill last year.' You did, sir, the same bill now pending here, as a substitute for the bill of the Committee on Territories. I need not say, sir, that the two bills are different; you know that fact but loo well. Well, sir, when you were de- bating that bill, did any one discover that the Missouri act was disturbed, or superseded by in- consistent legislation .' No, sir; but my agitating colleague [Mr. Giddings] called your attention to I the slavery exclusion of this Missouri act as ap- plicable to this very Territory; he said, to multi- ply words about it, would weaken the force of that prohibition; and in the face of this language the bill passed by a large majority — eighteen southern gentlemen voting for it, many of whom I seearound' me to-day. Strange consistency; strange indeed,, when you reflect that but one short year has passed away. Mr. Atchison said, in the Senate, while dis- cussing the bill of last se.ssion: " I had two objpctjBns to it. One was that the Indian title in that Territor^had not been extinguished, or, at least, a very small nortion of it had been. Another was the Missouri compromise, or, as it is commonly caileti, the slavery restriction. It was my opinion at that lime— and I am not now very clear on that subject— that the law of Congress, when tlie State of Missouri was admitted into the Union, excluding slavery from the Teriitory of Louisi- ana, north of 36° 30', would be enforced in that Territory, unless it was specially rescinded ; ami, whether that law was in accordance with the Constitution ot' the United States or not, it would do its work, and that work would be to preclude slaveholders from g'