E416 .M32 UBRARY OF CONGRESS D0DD503D3bS - ^>' - l> o « 9 . ♦^^ - •'bV^ / y€ <" ,<«•' ■U.A^ * ^^' ^^ ^mw.^ V -^J^s^^r^. '^ju r^^ oV^^:^Siii;v- '^'^ ^-^ ^^ . ^oV ,1 'vt.O* 'V *• o „ o ' V^ "•^0^ -0 i .^^^^^ ^"^ ^ .-^^ .. ^^-n^. ^'^^^'^v ^■^ . . ^^ * c . o ' ^* ^ • ^V EEMAEKS O F GEORGE P. MARSH, OF VERMONT, ON SLATER! II THE TEERIT0RIE8 O F New iWexico, California and Oregon ; Delivered in the House of Representatives, August Sd, 1848, .M32 »m^mmimmi^«*^^**-*iivtmummim/m FREE PRESS OFFICE PRINT, Burlington, Vermont. REMARKS. Mr. Marsh said : — That tlirouglioiit the de- bate on this important subject, it had i;een as- sumed, that slavery liad neither a legal nor an actual existence in Oregon, or the territory ac- quired. by the late Mexican Treaty. He was not sure tliat this opinion was well founded, and he proposed to ^how, that it was matter of doubt, whether slavery had ever been abolished in Or- egon, California or New Mexico, by any legis- lation which our courts of law would recognize as valid, and he would thence argue the necssi- sity of a positive proliibition of that institution by Congress. It was too notorious to require historical proof, that slavery was tolerated, and actually existed throughout Spanish America, until the separation of those provinces from the Spanish crown, and of course it might now law- fully exist in all the territory acquired from Mex- ico or Spain, unless it had been legally abolish- ed, by express legislation, or by operation of law, as a necessary result of the transfer of that ter- i ritory to the United States. I Slavery, said Mr. Marsh, was introduced into all the foreign possessions of the Spanish crown about the commencement of the sixteentii cen- tury, at a period when it was tolerated in almost every country where the civil law was in force; and though the nfuiiber of slaves in Mexico did not exceed ten thousand: in the yeariSOO, yet the institution was neither legally nor ])ractical- ly extinct, at the time of the Mexican Revolu- tion. It had been asserted, that slavery was prohib- ted by the Mexican Federal constitution of 1)524. This was an error, and Yir. Marsh referred to that instrument to show, that so far from being abolished, it was actually recognized by the constitution of 1824, which contained the fol- lowing provision, borrowed no doubt from our constitution : " Cvery state is bound to deliver "' up fugitives from otlier states to the person " who justly demands them, or to comjiel them " in some other way to satisfy the party interest- "ed." The phraseology had been altered from the corresponding provision in our conslilution, in order to embrace, not technical slavery alone^ but that barbarous relic of the ancient Roman law, iwonaiie, or the servitude of an insolvent debtor to iiis creditor, as existing by the laws of Mexico. The error, so far as it was a misapprehension, and not a misrepresentation, arose from the fact, that the constitution of the srveral States of the Mexican confederacy did in fact, in general at least, abolish slavery either immediately or pros- pectively, and Mr. Marsh cited the provisions of several of those constitutions to that purport, and among others, that of the joint statejof Tex- and Coahuila, adopted in 1827. which ordains as follows : " In this state none is born a slave after the " promulgation of this constitution at the capital "of each district; and after six montlis, the in- " troduction of slaves is permitted under no pre- " text whatsoever." But, said Mr. Marsh, New Mexico and Cali- fornia never were states of the confederacy, but territories, without a provincial legislature, the government of the former being purely military, and that of the latter a politico-religious organ- ization. It was not satisfactorily siiewn, tliat the Mexican government had ever, in a consti- tutional way, attempted tlie abolition of slavery in those territories, nor was it clear that Con- gress, or any branch of the federal government, had the power to interfere with the riglits of property in the territories. The constitution of 1824 gave Congress power "to enact laws and " decrees for the regulation of the internal ad- " ministration of the territories." These terms were very difFerent from those defining the power of our Congress over the ter- ritories. Did they authorize the Mexican Con- gress to do anything more than prescribe the form of government for the territories? This, in the opinion of Mr. Marsh, was at least doubt- ful. But it had been said, that President Guerrero, who had been made Dictator at the time of the Spanish invasion under Barragan in 1829, had 4 abolished slavery throughout the Republic. It was a sufficient answer to this, to say that Con- gress had no constitutional authority to confer ihe alleged extraordinary powers upon the Pres- ident, and his dictatorship was consequently a mere inihtary usurpation ; but although the de- cree of Guerrero recited, that he had been invest- ed with extraordinary powers, no act of Con- gress granting such powers had been produced. On tlie contrary, it did appear, that in July 1829, Iwo months only before the date of the decree in question, the Mexican Senate, by a decided majority, refused its assent to a bill which had passed the lower House, conferring extraordina- ry powers on the President for the term of five months. In 1835, said Mr. Marsh, the federal consti- tution of Mexico was overthrown, not by the constitutional process of amendment, but by vi- olence ; and a plan of government, creating a centralized, instead of a. federal republic, abolish- ing the state legislatures, and reducing the states themselves to departments, was promulgated. — Mr. Marsh had not been able to find a copy of this plan of government, but it did not appear, from the abstract of it given by Muhlenpfordt, to have contained any provision relative to slavery. It had been said, that the Congress acting under (his new plan of government had passed a law in 1837 abolishinir slavery throughout the Re- public, and providing for the compensation of the master; but whether Congress had power to pass such an act, under the new constitution, and whether that instrument ought to be held legally tn supercede the constitution of 1824, were questions which we had not the means of determining. it must be remembered, said Mr. Marsh, that publicists and jurists are guided by very different j)rinciplesin tiie determination of questions ofthis nature. Politically, and with reference to other nations, the government de facto is recognized by statesmen, but a court of justice might ad- judge, that as between the subjects and the gov- ernment, the acts of the latter had no validity whatever, and therefore,though a treaty made by us with the government actually in power might be binding, it by no means followed that our courts would sustain laws, in derogation of the rights of property, enacted by any of the series of usurpations with which Mexico had been cursed. Doubtless it was true that the law had been generally acquiesced in, at least in the stales; that it had been so universally, in the territories was not yet proved, but there was every reason to believe, that slavery existed in fact, to but a very limited extent, if at all, in any part of the Mexican republic. What the effect of such ac- quiescence in a law not perhaps originally bind- ing might be, Mr. Marsh would not undertake to say, but he was unwilling to risk anything on such a question. In regard to Oregon, Mr. M. said, that per- sons familiar with the discussions relative to our rights to that territory would remember, that upon full debate, and especiallly after the able speech of a distinguished Senator from New York, (Mr. Dix) it was generally agreed, that the title by which we must stand or fall was that derived from Spain by the treaty of 1819. In Oregon, then, considered as apart of Spanish America, Slavery legally existed, at the time of the transfer to the United States. It would not be admitted by Southern gentlemen, that Slave- ry was abolished by the change of sovereignty. On the contrary, they insisted that the range of Slavery was extended, by annexing to this con- federacy territory before free, in virtue of the alledged right of every American citizen to mi- grate thither, carrying with him his moveable properli/, and personal rights to property. Slave- ry, then, said Mr. M., it will be contended, may now be legally introduced into Ore- gon, unless prohibited by law. It was urged, that the provisional government organized b)'^ the people of Oregon had adopted the great fea- ture of the ordinance of 1787, but when, in what form, and under what sanctions ? On this sub- ject, we are by no means fully enlightened, and Mr. M. had the authority of a gentleman, who had twice visited Oregon, and resided there for many months, for saying that, in spite of the or- dinance of the provisional government, both Af- ricans and Sandwich Islanders are at this hour, to some extent, held in Slavery in that terri- tory. It might, therefore, and would be, contended, said Mr. M., that Slavery might be lawfully re- introduced throughout the whole of those vast districts where it had altogether, or with very trifling exceptions, ceased to exist, upon two grounds: First, that Slavery having been per- mitted in Oregon, California, and New Mexico, while provinces of Spain, and having never been legally abolished, in contemplation of law still exists in those territories ; and secondly, that though Slavery may have been abolished by Mexico, yet American Slaveholders may now revive it, by removing to the territories and car- rying their Slaves with them. To the latter of these propositions Mr. M. said he could by no means assent, though aware that much better lawyers than himself had main- tained the affirmative, and as to the former, while he was not prepared to deny what he hoped would prove true, that Slavery, namely, had been legally abolished throughout both the States and the Territories of Mexico, yet he must insist that we were acting without any sufficient war- rant, in assuming such to be the fact. Mr. Marsh continued as follows ; — It is, then, matter of grave doubt, whether the effect of the acquisition of New Mexico, California, and Oregon is not the extension of Christian American Slavery through all those wide provinces. How shall this doubt be solved ? Two modes are proposed. The one is to cut this gordian knot by the sword of Congressional legislation, the other is to refer the question, as a matter of law, to the deter- mination of judicial tribunals. The first method proposes the abolition of Slavery, if actually, or in contemplation nf law, now existent in these territories, and its prohibition, if now non-ej^ist- ent; the other repudiates the interference of Congress, and avows the purpose of tolerating Slavery wherever it now exists, or can be intro- duced without a violation of positive prohibjtory law. The advocates of the former plan seek to re- strict Slavery, by adopting the principles of the ordinance of 1787 ; the aption of those of the latter, tends to spread it, through the operation of the Compromise Bill lately reported to (.he Senate of the United States, over immense re- gions where it now exists, if indeed at i^ll, only as a legal fiction. I shall first say a word jn reference to the ex- pediency and the safety of submitting thjs great question to adjudication by courts of law. 1 may eafely assume, that no intelligent lawyer, cer- tainly no Northern lawyer, would be content to leave this point to be determined, in the last ;-e- sort, by the local tribunals ; yet the bill pressed by some of its friends with hot q.nd indecent haste, in order that it might be acted upon before pub- lic sentin^cnt should be roused, and the public will expressed — ^a bill framed, too, by lawyers presumahly not ignort^nt of the very recent de- cision of the Suprenie Coqrt of the United States jn Barry's case—contained, as originally reportr ed, no eflfectual provision for the removal of tlie question to the Supreme Court. It is true, that an amenijment fbr that purpose was finally i^dopted, but the negative votes of some, and tl^e sjjence of other friends of the bill, upon this and other amendments designed to give frecfjom an equal chance with sl^.very, indicate fdajnly enough, that its franjers had not special- y at nearf the promotion of the cause of human liberty by the legislative or judicial action of this republic* * Upon the day of the passage pf the Camprquiise pill by the Senate, the following amendments, amoncj Pfhera were ofltred. By Mr. Baldwin, a Whig Senator from Connectj. put; And be it further enacted. That it shall be t|\e duty of m a{{flrftejr» fqj: Biji4 Xerriwriea^ respectively, oa But suppose all obstacles, whether technical or practical, to the fair presentation of the ques- tion to the Supreme Court, to be removed ; is that court a fit tribunal for the determination of a great political question like this ? I am far from desiring to disparage the impartiality or the ability of a tribunal distinguished for the posses- sion of eyery judicial excellence, and which I hold in the highest reverence as the great bul- wark ofour constitutional liberties. Its pre-em- inent ability is recognised by the universal voice the complaint of any person held in involuntary servi- tude therein, to make application in his behalf, in due form of law, to die court ne.vt thereafter to be holden in said Territory, for a writ ot liabeas corpus, to be directed to the person so holdinsr such applicant in service, as atbresnid, and to pursue all needful meas- ures in his behalf; and if the decision uf such court shall be adverse to such annlication, or if, in the re- turn of the writ, relief shall be denied to the applicant on the ground that he is a slave held in servitude in said Territory, said attorney ijhall cause an appeal to be taken therefrom ; and ^he record of all the pro- ceedings in the case to be transmi'ted to the Supreme Cpurt of the United States, as soon as may be ; and to give notice thereof to ll^e Attorney General of the United States, who shall prosecute (he same befora said court, who shall proceed to hear and determino ^he same at the first term {hereof. This amendment, the object of which was to enable the slave, who could scarcely be supposed to possess the means of litigating the issue, t3 test the question of his right to freedom, at the expense of the Govern- ment ot the United Stqtes, was defeated by the fol- lowing vote :— , Yeas — Messrs. Allen, Baldwin, P.enlon, Corwin, Davton, Dix, Dodge, Ft»loh, Greene, Hale, Hamlin, Miller, Niles, Upham and Walker.-^15. Nays— jMessrs. Atchison, Badger, Bell, Berrien, Borland, Bright, Butler, Calhoun, Clayton, Davis of Mississippi. Dickinson, Downs, Foote, Hann^gan, tlouaton, Hunter, Johnson of Maryland, Johnson of Louisiana, Johnson cf Georgia, King, tjewis, Man- gum, Atasoii, Metcalfe, Phelps. Ruslf, Sebastian, Spru- ance. Sturgeon, Turney and Underwood.^— 31. By Mr. Clarke, a Whig ^enafor ffom R. Island : Provided, fiowevor, that no law repealing the i\cx of the provisional government of said Territory [of Oregon] prohibiting slavery or involuntary servitude therein, shall be valid ijnlil the same shall be approved by Cong^ress. The yeas and nays were as follows:-.— t Yeas— Messrs. Allen, Baldwin, Benton, Bradbury, Clarke, Corwin, Davis of \Ia3sachusetts, Dayton, Dix, Dodge, Felch, Fitzgerald, Qreene, Hale, Hamlin, Miller, Niles, Upham and WalHer.-..iy. NAVS-^-IVIpssr^. Atchison, A.therton, Badger, Bell, Berrien, Borland, Breese, Bright Butler, Caihoqn, Clayton, Davis of .Mississippi, D'ekinson, Douglass, Powns, Foote, Hapnegan, Houston, Hunter, Johnspu of Marvland, Johnson of Georgia, I\ing, L,ewia, Ma^ son, Metcalfe, Phelps, Rusk, Sebastian, Sturgeon, Turney, Underwood, Westcott and Yulee._^33. By Mr. Jhvis, a Whig Senator from Massachu-. setts : "I'hat 80 much of the 6th article of the ordinance of the J3th July, 1787, as is contained in the following words, to wit : " There shall be neither slavery noy JHYolmiiaiy servitude it^ the said Territory oiherwiia of the legal profession, and its stern impartiality Las been signally attested by its decisions in the great cases of the Amistad negroes, and Prigg vs. Pennsylvania. But it is precisely because of my reverence for that court, and rny exalted estimate of its value as a conservative element in our system, that I would not impose upon it the painful and dangerous obligation— the plenum opus alerL'-of determining so weighty and so del- icate a question as tiiis. We should hazard not its impartiality and its high moral influence on- ly, hue its constitution, and even its existence. than in punishment of crimes vvh.ireof die party shall have been duly convicted," shall be and remain in ;,, force within tlie Territoiy of Oregon. The amenclment was lost by tiie following vote :— YE.is— .Messrs. Allen, Atherton, Baldwin, Benton, Bradbury. Clarke, Corwin, Davis of Massachusetts, Dayton, Dix, Dod^e, Felch, Fitztrcrald, Greene, Hale, Hamlin, MiLer, Nilfes, Spruance", Upham and Walk- er.^-21. Navs— Messrs. Atchison, Badger, Bell, Berrien, Borland, Breese, Bright, Biitler, Calhoun, Clayton, Davis of Mississippi, Dickinson, Douglass, Downs, Foote, flanuegan, Houston, Hunter, Johnson of ]*ld., Joinison of Louisiana, Johnson of Georj^ia, King, Lewis, Mangum, Mason, Metcalfe, Rusk, Sebastian, Sturgeon, Tnrney, Lhiderwood, Westcotl and Yulee. By Mr. Johnson, a Whig Senator from Maryland : Au amendment, providing for a writ of appeal from the Territorial to the Supreme Court, " upon any writ of habeas corpus involving the question of personal freedom." Y ];.is=-.Messrs. Allen, Atherton, Badger, Berrien, Bradbury, Clarke, Clayton, Corwin, Davis of Mass., Dayton, Dix, Dodge, I elch, Fitzgerald, Greene, Hale, Hamlin, Houston, Johnson ol Maryland, .lohnson o Louisiana, King, Mauguin, Metcalfe, Miller, Niles, J^helps, Rusk, Spruance, Sturgeon, Upbam, and Walker.-<^-3L N AVS" Messrs. Atchison, Benton, Borland, Bright, Butler, Calhoun, Davis of Miss., Dickinson, Downs, Foote, Hannegan, Hunter,. lohnson ofGeorg., Lewis, Mason, Sebastian, Turney, ffestcott and Yulee. —I'.l. Upod the passage of the bill the vote was as fol- lows:— YEAs^-^Northern Whigs, Mr Phelps. Southern VVhigs^^lVles^rs Berrien, Clayton, John- pon of Maryland, Johnson ot La., Man'gum, Spru- ance. ---6- Northern Democrats— Messrs. Atherton, Breese, Brirjht, Dickinson, Douglass, Hannegan, Sturgeon—T. Southern Democrats^-Messrs. Atchison, Benton, Borland, Butler, Calhoun, Davis of Missis3ippi,Downs, Foote, Houston, Johnson of Ga., King, Lewis, Ma- enn, Rusk, Sabastian, Turney, IFestcott, Yulee— 19. 83 in all. N.^vs^Northern Whigs ; Messrs, Baldwin, Clarke, Corwin, Davis of Massachusettes, Dayton, Greene, Miller, lipham.— 8. Southern Whigs-^-Messrs. Badger, Bell, Metcalfe, ond Underwood. ■—4. Northern Deinocrats-^Mee«rs. Allen, Bradbury, Di.\-, Dodge, Field, Fitzgerald, Hamlin, jiiles and \Valker..^y. Southern Democrats~None. Ji)ijpj)endent--Mr, Hdlp.— I. During the long period of the pendency of this question, it would be incessantly exnosed to ev- ery adverse influence. Local sympathies, long cherished prejudices, the predilections of party, the known wishes of the administration, and of the national legislature, would all conspire to bias the decision, intervening vacancies would be filled with reference to the supposed, perhaps even pledged, opinion of the candidate upon this one question, and when finally tiie decision should be promulgated, tlie coiirt itself would become, with the defeated party, the object of a hostility as deep-rooted,as ))ersevering.as wide- ly difiused, as rancorous, as are at this moment the feelings and the prejudices of the parties now arrayed against each other upon this great is- sue. Could a tribunal which relies for its sup- port upon moral force and public ojjinion alone, awes not by lictor and fasces, enforces its de- crees by no armed satellites, dispenses no pat- ronage and is sustained by no e.vecutive po'ver, long withstand the malignant influence, which would thus be brought to bear upon it ? And what would be the condition of things in the territories meanuhile ? The issue can- not be made and determined in California or New Mexico, removed to the Supreme Court, and there heard and adjudged, in less than three or four years. In that space of time, the terri- tories would be filled up with slave.'i and slave- holders, and they would probably be ready for admission into the Union, as states with consti-. tutions tolerating slavery, before the Supreme Court would be prepared to pronounce a decree, which if happily favorable to the cause of free- dom, would come, forever, too late. But it has been intimated by a gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Hilliard), that the present introduction of slavery into the territories is practically impo.s- sible, because there Is no law in being there to enforce the obedience of the slave. Sir, there is upon tiiis earth but one law, by which man, in spite of the law of nature and of Ciod, holds his fellov.'-man in bondage — the law o'\' farce, moral or physical. Does slavery in the southern states appeal for its support to the moral sense of the unlettered and degraded African ? Is it rever-i ence for the majesty of the law, considered as the expression of a nation's will, that binds the arm of the slave, in those communities where the same statute-book makes it a crime for the master to enlighten, by teaching, the immortal mind of the servant by the sweat of whose brow he lives.and punishes with de.\tii the slave who, in o. bedience to the first law of nature, raises hishand against a wiiite, in even the just defence of his person, his wife, or his child ? No, sir ; the an- thority of the master is sustained alone by the fear of brute violence, or the awe of superior in- telligej)ce, To these the giaveholder could ap. peal as successfully in California as in Carolina, and in case we are again cursed witli a nortii- ern executive with southern principles, ilio troops tliat Mr. Polk, witliout waiting for Con- gress to make appropriations for carrying tlio late treaty into eflect, and probably with an eye to this very contingency, is now sendin^f to the new territory, will be employed to put down any servile insurrection, or manifestation of popular displeasure, that may threaten the peace and se- curity of the emigrant slaveholder. But if there be no law for sustaining slavery in New Mexico and California while thequestion is pending'be- fore the judiciary, the Compromise Bill has ef- fectually secured the title of the master, by for- bidding the territorial legislature to pass any Ihw whatever on the subject of slavery. They can- not emancipate the siave.they can enact no stat- ute for his protection against the cruelty of his owner, tiiey can lend him no aid in establishing his right to freedom. Under these circumstan- ces, how could the slave employ or reward his counsel, how could he collect his witnesses, and what would be his protection against the resent- nient of his master, irritated by his impotent ef- forts to assert his rights to his birth-right.liberty'' It was found an easy matter to import slaves in- to Texas, in spiie of prohibitory law; will it be [nore diiTicult to introduce them into New Mexi- co in the absence of all law ? I spoke just nov/ of slavery as existing in de- fiance of the law of God. Let me not be mis- understood. I sit not in judgment to condemn my lellow christians, who were born and reared in comuiunities v.diere slavery existed for gener- ations before their own age, and is incorporated, as a supposed inseparable element, in all tlieir domestic traditions, their historical recollections, their civil institutions. I speak not of individu- al cases, but of slavery as a system deliberately adopted, continued without overruling necessity, or voluntarily extended. I agree that both the opinions and the feelings of southern men on this delicate question are entitled to great consider- ation. I respect their opinions, because their better opportunitions for observation give them a more intimate knowledge of the social, moral, and economical bearings of the system, tl.an a stranger can possibly acquire, and I can con- ceive that they may ije in some degree reconcil- ed to the undeniable evils of slavery by the por- . ception of compensations, inappreciable by Nor- thern men, by which a wise and beneficent Providence, (as in other cases of great and wide- ly diffused wrong), mitigates those to northern iipprehension so unmixed evils. I know more- over, that some Southern men, who deplore and acknowledge the wrong and the mischief in its full extent, see, or think they see, in every pchcmQ of abolition yet proposed, dangers to the best interests of both -races .^o certain and so an> palling, that they believe it betferand wiser witii a " ma.'-.torly inactivity " to look to the interposi' tion of I'rovidcnce alone for relief, tlian to appe;i 1 to any human counsel, iiowever specious, i have, too, a great respect for the prejudices of' birth and education, and for the feelings founded on them, knowing, as long observation of tho world has taught me, that no man can wiiolly renounce those prejudices, however erroneous, or quite abjure his hereditary opinions upon re- ligion, or government, or social order, without at the same time sacrificing a large portion of the better part of his own nature. Nor can { forget, that this general subject, which with us of the North is a question of political power, or of abstract right, affecting in no degree our se- curity, and but remotely our social and pecunia- ry interests, is to the people of the Soutli a ques- tion of the most vital interest, involving in its various relations the permanence of long cher- ished institutions, the economical arrangements on which they depend for sustenance, and even the safety of their firesides. It is not Strang.?, that those who have so great a stake at hazard should be peculiarly sensitive upon this topic, and I am disposed to regard with charity 3 de- cree of passionate excitement in Southern gen- tlemen, when this subject is discussed, which I should deem censurable in Nortliern speakers. For the humane Southern slaveholcTer, there-, fore, so long as he confines his system and its influences to his patrimonial limits, I have no reproaches, though 1 can neither assent to his opinions, nor sympathize in his feelings; and it is only when he defends the abuses of slavery, or invokes the aid of our national government to extend over a wide space the evils under which he, perhajis unconsciously, labors, that [ am bound to regard him as an antagonist. I have consequently neither motive nor desire to discuss the moral or economical character of slavery, but I must be excused for pausing a moment to notice one argument in defence of slavery as a christian institution, which has been mucii oftener urged them answered. Forgetting that Christianity discourages all appeals to force, and is, emphatically, the reli- gion of moral suasion and non-resistance, tho advocates of Slavery triumphantly cite, as an explicit recognition and sanction of a servile re- lation analogous to modern Slavery, those pas- sages of the New Testament, which enjoin up- on the servant oliedienco to the commands of tho master. But this argument is founded in amis- apprehension of the fundamental principles ot christian ethics — upon the assumption, that in this, as in other schemes of morality, the impo^ sition of a didij or obliiru/ion upon one party con- fers a correlativo right upon tlie other, coupled jffith authority to enforce that right. Nothing can be farther from both the letter and the spirit of Christianity than such a proposition as this. — The great rule " as ye would that men would do to you, do ye also to them likewise" is a gener- alization of the entire code of christian morality, find properly conditioned and understood, is of universal application, but it by no means author- izes the indiscriminate use of compulsory n^eans to enforce obedience to its injunctions, and nu- merous particular cases are put where a duty is required to be performed to a party, who has not the shadow of a right to demand, still less, to po77ipel the discharge of the obligation. " There- fore, if thv enemy hunger, feed him ;" Does this passage authorise my enenrjy to demand of me bread,, and when I refuse it, to wrest it from me by force ? •' Him that taketh away thy coat, forbid not to take thy oloak also ;"' Does this in- junction warrant my neighbor in stripping me, that he may clothe hirnself ? "Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also ;" Did any sane niar) ever argue, that the unprovoked smiter might here find a justifi- cation for repeating the blow? "Resist not evil ;" Is this command a license to do to others that evil, which we rnight nqt ourselves lawfully resist ? He that defends Slavery by the author- ity of the New Testament must be prepared to maintain the affirmative of these questions, and Jie would reason as well in this, as in affirmmg that, because Christianity enjoins upon the ser- vant suomission to the will of the master, it jus- tifies the niaster in extorting unwilling obe- dience and unrequited labor from the slave. But it has been said, that the South neither expects or desires the introduction of Slavery into the new territory, because its soil and cli- mate are unsuited to the growth of those veget- able products, for the culture of which alone, slave labor can be advantageously employed. — Oregon, California and New Mexico, it is urged, lie without the natural limits of Slavery, and the institution cannot ej^ist in those provinces, because it is excluded by physical conditions and the economical law of profit and loss vyhich they dictate. It is assumed, that none of the gub-tropical plants usually cultivated by slave labor, rice, cotton, or the sugar-cane, will thrive in the new territories, which are adapted only to grain-growing, and pastoral husbandry, and will therefore be inhabited and tjlledonly by freemen. But the whole of this supposition is a fallacy. It is not true, that profitable Slavery is confined to any particular range of climate, or any particular species of agricultural industry. Did the law of profit and loss, as regulated by physical circumstances, forbid the existence of Plavery in the similar climates of Greece and Hi^me, in Anglo-Saxou Britain, or ia ancient Teutonic and Scandinavian Europe? Does it forbid it, at this moment, in Mohammedan Tuti' key, from whose mild code of servile law the christian South might borrow useful lessons; ia frozen Russia ; in our own Maryland and Vir- ginia and Kentucky ? Sir, Slavery is every- where profitable under the nianagement of a prudent master, and especially so, in all new countries to which eijiigration is tending, and where the amount of labor to be done is greater than the force at hand to perform it. Doubtless it is true, that most mer\ who inherit property in slaves diminish, rather than augment, their pat- rirnonial estates. But this is just as true in re- lation to capital invested in any other way. — Capital employed in any industrial enterprise, in niining, in manufacturing, in agriculture, in navigation, in commerce, in a majority of cases fails to yield any increase. J3ut does this provCj that these branches of industry are in themselves unprofitable? By no means. It only proves that most men are unthrifty managers, and it will not be found that, in general, capital in? vested in slaves, even in the Northern slave States, is more unprofitable than when employ- ed in any other species of labor. It has been charged upon New England, and the other Northern States, as a reproach, that they abol? ished Slavery wjthin their limits, only when they discovered it to be no longer a lucrative mode of investing capital. Tliis is a historical error. Slavery was profitable in New England to the last, if pecuniary gain is profit, and it was abolished, not because it was contrary to the eco- nomical law of profit and loss, but because our fathers held it, as did then also the wisest and best of their Southern brethren, to be contrary to the law of conscience and of God. I shall not charge upon any gentleman a de- sign to deceive the ilouse or the country by these representations, but if the disclaimer of a purpose to extend Slavery beyond its present limits is sincere, I still question whether gen- tlemen have the authority of their cunstituent:^ for makincr it. I cannot doubt that it is the int tention of a powerful party at the South to car- ry Slavery to latitude forty-nine, or just so far as it shall" not be prohibited by some law of Con? gress, and I cannot look upon the late Compro- mise Bill as anything but an ingeniously devist ed scheme for accomplishing that object, under cover of an apparent respect for law. I have been told that some Northern gentlemen have been ill-advised enough to plume themselves up. on some of the niost objectionable features of that bill, as original inventions of their own — . This is doubtless an honest, pevhaps a pardona- ble vanity, but under some circumstances, we are unable to trace the operations of our own minds, and therefore it is var^ possib)a, tjt^t, what was apparently a Northern suggestion mav have been in fact prompted by a Southern inspi- ration. , , , . , , But if, in truth, the South holds it to be unde- sirable or impracticable to introduce slavery in- to Oregon, or the whole of New Mexico and Califor'nia, why offend and irritate the North, by insisting on a barren, disputed right, which it is never intended to exercise ? I am answered, that pride forbids Southern men to yield in a controversy provoked by ns of the North, and to capitulate in an issue, which we have forced upon them. But is not this agitation a neces- sary, foreseen and foretold result of the annexa- tion of Texas, and did we force that flagitious measure upon you ? Did we contrive that can- ning and profligate artifice by which, while Texas was yet a Mexican State, and in spite of its own organic law, slavery was there extended and perpetuated ? Did we plot the intrigues, ■whereby the revolt of Texas was first excited, and tlien nursed and encouraged until it ripened into a revolution ? Did we furnish the men, the money and the [materiel, by which alone Texas was enabled to resist the arms of Mexi- co ? Did a Northern Administration dispense the patronage, and participate in the corruption, by which annexation, in defiance of the solemn resolutions of almost every Northern State Le- gislature, and the almost unanimous opinion of the Northern people, was introduced into the Democratic platform by the Baltimore cabal, and afterwards, in palpable violation of the Con- stitution, carried through both Houses of Con- gress ? Was it to gratify the ambition of a Northern Executive, or to extend the bounds of Northern institutions, that an unprovoked war has been waged with Mexico, two hundred mil- lions of dollars' worse than squandered, thou- sands of Mexican citizens butchered for defend- ing their altars and their homes, and myriads of our citizens sacrificed to the accursed idol — military glory ? But, Mr. Chairman, let me be just. Let me not involve in sweeping and indiscriminate con- demnation the whole people of the South, as participants in crimes, whose original guilt properly rests on the shoulders of a few South- ern political aspirants, but the shame of whose consummation is the damning and irretrievable disgrace of the Democracy of the North. A majority of the Baltimore Convention of 1844, which pledged the party to the annexation of Texas, and rejected Mr. Van Buren, because, in emerging from the cloud in which his politi- cal opinions are usually shrouded, he had, mis- taking the signs of the times, accidentally come out on the Northern side of this question, was composed of Northern Democrats ; the issue was /airly made in the Presidential election of that year, and (with the exception of enlight* ened Pennsylvania, which sustained Mr. Polk as a tariff-man.) the Vote of every Northern Democratic State was givert to the nominee of the Baltimore Convention, expressly as the apostle of annexation ; and upon the final vote in Congress, every Northern Democratic Sena.' tor, and every Northern Democratic Represen- tative save three, recorded his suffrage in favor of this great wrong. On the other hand, it should never be forgot- ten, that the Southern Whigs as a body, and with very few exceptions, in resisting, in spite of sectional prejudice, and the denunciations of a majority of their immediate fellow citizens, a policy which, though speciously recommended by considerations of local advantage, they held to be a violation of national right, and a sacri- fice of national interest, exhibited, to their ever- lasting honor, a generosity, an incorruptible firmness, and a degree of political virtue, of which the North, unhappily, has given but iQ\y examples.* * The most important votes in Congress on the question of'aane.tation were as follows: On the 15th of March, 1844, Mr. Winthrop moved the following resolution in the House of Representa- tives: — Ilesolved, That no proposition for the annexation of Texas to the United States ought to be made, or assented to, by this government. Upon the question of suspending the rules for the purpose of receiving the resolution, Every Northern, and three Southern Whig mem- bers, v/nhthree Democrats only (Messrs. R. D. Davis, Potter and J. A. Upright) voted in the affirmative. Every democrat (except as above) including Messrs Brinkerhoff, Preston King, Rathbun and other promi- nent Barnburners, with_/f/iee« Southern whige, voted in the negative. On the llth of June, 1844, after the rejection of Mr. Tyler's Annexation Treaty by the Senate, the Presi- dent sent a mes age to the House of Representatives, urging that body to take immediate steps towards ef- fecting the object which he had failed to accomplisli by treaty. With a view of preventing any action on the sub- ject, Mr. John P. Kennedy, a Southern whig, moved to lay the communication on the table. Upon this motion, every whig member, with the exception of six Southern gentlemen, voted in the affirmative ; every democratic member, Northern as well as Southern, including Messrs. Brinkerhott', R. D. Davis, Hamlin, Preston King, Norris and Rath- bun, voted in tlie negative. On the final passage of the bill, as amended by the Senate, Feb. 28, 1845, the vote in the House ol Repre- sentatives was as follows : — In the affirmative, eiicri/ democratic member, north- ern as well as southern, exceptiiig Messrs. R. D. Da- vis, John P Hale and E. 11. Potter, but including Messrs. Brinkerhof!', Dillingham, Hannibal Hamlin, Preston King, Rathbun, &c. In the negative, every whig memler, Southern as well as Northern, with the single exception of Mr. Dellett of Alabama. It will thus be seen, that though a few Southern 10 But does not this question involve some con- siderations of fairness and dutv to the North ? — Has it not been the uniform policv of this gov- ernment to strenjTthen the shiveliolding, at the cost of tiie free States? Have we not vielded every doubtful question of title upon the North- ern frontier, and insisted on every semblance of claim upon the iSouthern border ? Is it not no- torious, that the war of 1812. though declared by us, was waged solely as a defensive war, les't aggressive operations should result in strength- ening the free States by the conquest of Cana- da ? Would the treaty of Washington, so wise- ly negotiated by Webster, have been sanctioned by a Southern President, if it had been a South- ern, instead of a free State, whose claims were compromised ? Why was our claim to North- ern Oregon so readily relinquished? Was it because Mr. Polk thought our title up to 54o 40, which he surrendered without an equivalent, less clear than the right of Texas to the valley of t!ie Rio Grande, to sustain whicli, he engaged in a war, in defiance of all the forms of the Constitu- tion ? Was it because he believed Vancouver's Island, the noble harbors, and all the fertile ter- ritory North of 49 degrees, less valuable than the " stupendous deserts" between the Nueces and the Rio Bravo ? Was it because he held a war with powerful England unlawful, but with puny Mexico, praiseworthy ! No sir ; it was because lie and his advisers sought to clip the wings of the North, and plinnethe pinions of the South. And yet this was patiently borne. Tlie constitution was shamelessly trampled under foot, and the blackest and most gigantic scheme of political corruption, that over disgrac- ed a free people, was organized to sustain South- ern ascendency by the annexation of Texas. — And this has been patiently borne. An unjust and disgraceful war has been waged with a sis- ter republic, a national debt incu°red, that will liang like a millstone upon the necks of our children for half a century, and thousands of lives sacrihced by pestilence and the sword, to gratify the ambition of Southern prize-fighters und politicians. This, too, has been patiently borne; and after all this, I ask, is it fair to insist that the paltry 'indemnity' which we have re- ceived for all this loss of treasure and blood and lienor shall enure to the exclusive benefit of the South ? So far as Slavery already exists be- neath the regis of your State constitutions, we seek not to interfere with it. We leave its aho- Whi^s at first favored annexation, they were at last all butuuanimously opposed to the measure. In the Senate, 'Feb. 26, 1815, on the finul'passage of tlie bill, every Democratic Senator voted in the .ifnrniative ; every Whig Senator, exceptino; ?>Iessrs. •lohnson and Merrick, but ineludmg twelve other Southern iVhigs, in the negative. lition, or its maintenance, to your own con- sciences and the suggestions of your enlighten- ed self-interest; but we must not, and wiU not, be asked to aid yon in extending it; in forcing upon free soil a curse, which you have often complained, that the cupidity of the mother coun- try, in your age of colonial dependence, forced upon you. Upon this point, the North is no longer to be reasoned with. It has, to use a parlia'nientary phrase, moved and sustained the previous ques- tion, and its will can be defeated only by the same means of congressional corruption, by which the annexation of Texas was effected.—! The people of the North cannot again be hood- winked or cajoled, and, as I believe and trust, they are prepared to do what thev ourrlit to have done when that greatoutrage was perpetra- ted — to resist^ namely, to every extremity, and by all the lawful means, tiiat God and nature have put into their hands. There is a class of Northern politicians who seek every opportunity of parading their obse- quious subserviency to the will of the South, and their contempf for the sectional interests of their own people; who prefer Presidential candidates pledged to ultra Southern interests and policy, and who, had the choice of the late Baltimore Convention fallen upon Shatter and Williams, would liave hailed the nomination with as un- hesitating devotion as they have that of Cass and Butler. Such men abound in every demo- cratic State ; in frozen New England, in the fertile West, throughout the middle States ; and whenever the occasions of Southern gentlemen gentlemen demand a curb for Northern freedom of action and speech, in the shape of a gag-rule, or a motion for the previous que.stion, or to lay upon the table, at an ungracious moment, they have only to signify their pleasure to some son of New Hampshire, who has studied political ethics under Hubbard and Hill, or some Penn- sylvania broadhorn, who believes in Polk and the tariff of '42. If then, by any chance, there are democrats of this stamp in the present House of Representa- tives, it is probable enough, that, by the use of familiar appliances, Congress may yet be induc- ed to adopt the Compromise Bill or some other equally insidious and mischievous scheme; but its passage will produce a tornado of popular in- dignation, to which all former tempests will be but zephyrs. The entire Northern people will demand repeal, and not a representative will l)e returned to the next Congress from the free States, wlio is not pledged to that measure. — There are abundant and unmistakable tokens of a fixed determination throughout the North to consent to no arrangement, by which one foot of American soil now legally or actually free" 11 shall be contaminated by the spread of Slavery, und tlie movement which has now commenced will go on, gathering strength, until it shall have accomplished its object— the legal restriction of Slavery, namely, to its present limits — or have rent this Union into fragments. V/hcn I speak of unequivocal tokens, I do not refer to certain hue remarkable movements among the democrat- ic party-leaders in New York and elsewhere. These are important, not as expreysions, bwt as imlicalions, of popular opinion. The instigators of these proceedings are very f;ir from being the originators of the feeling, which now controls the^masscs of the North, except in so far as their own former outrageous treachery to Northern rights and interests has contributed to provoke it! They are dexterously seizing and convert- ing to their own corrupt and sellish purposes an honorable, enthusiasm, which they derided as a sickly sensibility or a narrow prejudice, con^ demned as an unjust and uncharitable hostility to the institutions and prosperity of the South. and denounced as a virtual infraction of the compromises of the constitution, until, in its growing strength, it threatened to overwhelm them, and now they are fanning it with an assi- duity that quite puts to the blush the llagging zeal of the new recruit from the Granite State, and the ancient champion from the Western Reserve. Tiie leaders of the barnburner faction, when in Congress, have uniformly resisted tiiat right so dear to freemen, the right of petition''=; they advocated the annexation of Texasf; they sus- tained and justified the Mexican war, with a tuU knowledge of the base purposes for which it was provoked; and now they offer to atone for all these wrongs, by opposing the further exten- sion of slavery, whose area they have done so much to enlarge, and by complimenting with the hollow mockery of a fruitless nomination that cast-ofFidol, the IJagon of their ancient worship, upon whom the South, in the convention of 18-14, bestowed a tit reward for a life of slavish devo- tion to its interests, by turning him into the wil- derness as a scapegoat laden with a burden heavy enough to crush an Atlas — the sins of the democracy. Such are the men, who are now insulting the understandings of Northern free- men, by courting their sufiVages for a presiden- * At the first session of the 28th Congress a strenu- ous effort was made to rescind the notorious 21st rule, ■which forbade the reception of petitions concerning the abolition of Slavery. On the 27tlx and 23th of February 1844, numerous votes were taken on the question, and Messrs Jacob Brinkerhoff, Preston Kins;, Norris, and other /rce soil democrats, are recorded as having voted to sustain that infaiuous rule, eight times in those two days. t See previous note, p 9. tial candidate, who, when Vice President, gave the casting vote in the Senate in favor of a bill forbidding "postmasters to deliver to any pcrsou whatever" papers touching the subject of Slave- ry, in the slave states, ]; wlio bought the support of the South by pledging hiinselt in advance to veto any '• attempt on the part of Congress to abolish Slavery in the District of Columbia",) and wh.o sent a public armed vessel to a port in Connecticut, to kidnap the negroes of the Amis- tad. And with all this, they have not the virtue and the manhood to avow and regret their former errors. They profess reformation without repen- tance, glory in their shame, and witii hands stii[ unwashed of the uncleanness of Texan annexa- tion, and red with the blood of an unholy war, they proclaim themselves the chosen apostle.^ of human liberty. Out upon the bald hypocrisy of these whited sepulchres ! The sacred cause of freedom needs no sucli allies as these. But let us return to the main question I am discussing. Besides the obvious moral and po- litical considerations, which forbid the introduc- tion of Slavery into the new territory, there is another, that has great weight with the people of the North. It is, that in their opinion, any com- promise, by which Slavery shall be tolerated at all in Now Mexico and California, involves a repetition of the Te.xas iniquity. A new rebel- lion will be fomented, a new revolution proclaim- ed, a nev/ scheme of annexation plotted, and an- other war of conquest and plunder waged. — Those events are already foreshadowed in the reported movements towards establishing the Republic of the Sierra T'/Iadre, and they can be prevented only by prohibiting the extension of Slavery, which has been the motive and the in- ducement forall the national crimes perpetrated or plotted on our Southern and Southwestern frontier. Under these circumstances, what is the duty of Congress ? To shrink from the responsibili- ty of determining this great question, and de- volve it upon a tribunal, whose province it is to declare not what the law shall, and ought to be, but what it is ? The power of Congress to leg- islate on this subject is unquestionable, and the duty is as clear as the right. A vast majority of the people demand the exercise of this power, and the popular will must and will be obeyed. No bill for the organization of government in the new territories can ever pass this House, with- out some posia'ie provision on this subject, and no such mixed question of law and fact, as that of the present and future legal existence of Slavery in Mexico, will ever be submitted to the t Congressional Globe /.3 vol. p. 416. ^ President Van Buren's inaugural address March I 4th, 1837, 12 arbitrament' of our national judiciary. Sir, I liope the day is not far distant when the people of these provinces will need bo legisla- tion of ours. With the British possessions on the North West Qoast, they will soon be strong enough to found' and maintain a Republic of their own, and were they to declare their inde- pendence of this government tomorrow, I for one should be ready to vote for its recognition. But while they are preparing for this desirable event, let us give them the blessings of a free government, promote emigration to their shores, cherish and defend them, and when they no lon- ger require the fostering care of the mother country, let us bid them God speed, and dismiss them. Why should not the unnatural connec- tion between us and these remote regions be severed ? What common interests has Boston with the Bay of San Francisco, or New York with Monterey, or Charleston and Savannah and New Orleans with Puget^s sound and the mouth 1 of the Columbia ? True, their people have th( same su» and light and air and common human- ity and religion and God, but their social anc pecuniary relations are as diverse from each other as are the interests of the camel drivers o the desert from those of the ermine-hunters o: Siberia. Oregon and California lie so far to- wards the setting snn, that they lose themselves in the East. Separated from us by an eternal and impassable barrier ot waste and mountain, they are united to the coast of Asia by the free- ly navigable basin of the Pacific, as are our east- ern shores to the European Continent by the At lantic sea. From the ties of common blood and speech and faith, their population will sympa- thize with American and European civilization and Christianity, but they belong to another ge- ographical and political system, and their natur- al relations and interests bind them indissolubly to the oriental world. What, then, God hath joined together, let not nun put asuoider ! '^^ '-!«§^.* . '^" "^ . %^^^^^^*' ,^^'^^\. ^'^^/ . '^^^^ %.