SPEECH
OF
MIR SOULE, OF LOUISIANA,
ON HIS
SUBSTITUTE FOR THE CALIFORNIA BILL.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, JUNE 24, 1850.
WASHINGTON:
PRINTED BY JOHN T. TOWERS.
1850.








SPEECH
OF
MR. SOIJLE, OF LOUISIANA,
ON HIS
SUBSTITUTE FOR THE CALIFORNIA BILL.
DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, JUNE 24) 1850.
The Senate having under consideration the special order, being the bill
to admit California as a State into the Union, to establish Territorial
Governments for Utah and New Mexico, and making proposals to
Texas for the establishment of her western and northern boundaries,
Mr. SOULL  said:
I rise, Mr. President, to state the reasons that will compel me to resist,
and which, in my humble judgment, ought to induce the Senate to delay, the admission of California into the Union until she has executed a
full and solemn relinquishment of all rights and pretensions to the publie cojBin within her limits, and until she has restricted the area of her
jurisdiction to suitable bounds and dimensions. When that is done, she
may come at once andclimher rank among the sovereigns of this great
Confederacy. I shall be the first to hail and welcome her; for I harbor
no feeling, I entertain no designs that should alarm her friends or make
them distrustful. But, while I am for throwing open to her every avenue through which she may surely and promptly reach us, I cannot consent to let her ride over the rights of the South and the best interests of
the Republic. Sir, many as are the objections which I might urge against
her being admitted at all, under present circumstances, I shall not overlook the exigences of her present condition, and the unjustifiable neglect
through which they were brought about I know, sir, that we have been
unwarrantably delinquent in her case; and I am willing, on that account, that we should treat her claims with the highest degree of indulgence, that we should clear the way for her from all removeable encumbrances and obstructions, and that is what my substitute aims to
effect. Had California been provided, as she ought to have been, with
a government that would have enabled her to prescribe rules for the
guidance of her citizens-to extend security to their lives-to insure protection to their property —-we would not at this day be engaged in this
disturbing and inauspicious discussion. -Yet, sir, it should not be forgotten that when the attempt was made in the two last Congresses to
organize a government for the newly acquired Territories, it was resisted by those who are now the most anxious for the immediate and unconditional admission of California-by those who had originally opposed
her accession to the United States, and had voted against the treaty annexing her. It was resisted on the avowed ground that, as no hope could
be indulged that the Executive sanction was to be obtained to any bill




4
imposing the unconstitutional proviso which a blind fanaticism sought
to insert in it, it was better to leave the Territories exposed to all the
inconveniences and dangers of anarchy, than to suffer the South to have
the least chance of sharing in the profits of a conquest for which she had
poured out so lavishly her treasures and her blood. It was the triumph
of numercial force over law and justice, over reason and right, over the
spirit and letter of the Constitution. And for what?-for what? Why,
Slavery was to be excluded from these new acquisitions! It was an
evil not to be suffered to go a foot beyond the limits within which it was
then encircled.
Sir,-much has been said about slavery; and I will not stop to consider
here whether it be a blessing or an evil. War is an evil; —and your statute-book shows that there may be just and necessary wars. The Territories about which we are now debating were the immediate fruits of
war; and I am yet to learn that those who denounced that war to the
civilized world as a social and religious crime, have been deterred by
any scruples from sending their stout and hardy sons to dig out from the
accursed acquisitions the contaminated and corrupting treasures they
contain. Government is an evil-a great and stupendous evil-a vast
net of servitudes covering a handful of liberties; yet, sir, we owe it to the
protective influence of government that we can live in peace, in comfort,
and in happiness. If slavery be an evil, what right have Northerners
to denounce and to cast it against the South as a reproach? Who implanted it where it now prevails? Who nourished the slave-plague from
1787 to 1808, and gathered its victims on these shores, and reaped the
spoils of the adventures? Why, their very fathers and fathers' fathers I
They, it was, who bequeathed it to us, and at all events, supplied fully
three-fourths of the original materials out of which sprang the present
stock. And, sir, among those who have engaged in the unholy crusade
which has been raging for these fifteen years past against the South, how
many are there who still dance on the silk carpets and look out from the
gilt balconies that were paid for with the profits of the accursed trade I
They enjoy remorselessly the unholy inheritance, and never think of
atoning for its hellish origin otherwise than by their foul and ceaseless
assaults against those whose only sin is to have made themselves the
instruments and victims of their own fortunes.
How elastic is the conscience of man! He thunders out his anathemas against the vices and corruptions of the day, while he exults, with
an insulting ostentation, over the displays of the very profits which he
derives from them!
These Territories, now the object of so much debate, were stigmatized
(if I recollect aright the language of the peace fanatics of the day) as
the fruit of spoliation and theft. But now they insist upon having it all
to themselves! Ah! but for slavery-slavery! Why, sir, it is as ancient as civilized man. It has pervaded the whole world, and carries
along with it, through the passing centuries, the sanction of the highest
names and of the most revered authority. It covers still now by far
the largest portion of the inhabited globe, and, (I say it in deep sorrow,)
uiider disguised names, even where liberty is said to prevail, constitutes
the condition of nineteen-twentieths of the human race. It is the work
of ages, which ages alone can remove. Those who denoulce and
calumniate it would certainly perform a nobler task if, instead of wast



5
ing their energies in impotent strivings for an impracticable emancipation, they applied them to the propagation of those solemn truths and
salutary doctrines that tend to mitigate its hardships, and might
awaken their own minds to the mysterious callings which an All-wise
Providence may hide under it.
But, sir, I am wandering from my subject, and I hasten to return to
it. One of the objects which I have in view in presenting my substitute
is to secure in the United States the right to the primary disposal of the
public domain in California.
The third section of the bill reported by the Committee provides
That the State of California shall be admitted into the Union upon the express condition that
the people of the said State, through their Legislature or otherwise, shall never interfere with the
primary disposal of the publ c lands within its limits, and shall pass no law and do no act
whereby the leof the United States to, and right to dispose of, the same shall be impaired or
questioned; and that they shall never levy any tax or assessment of any description whatsoevel
upon the public domain of the United States, &c. &c.
When the bill was originally introduced into the Senate from the
Committee on Territories, it was without such a provision.  The experienced Senator from Alabama (Mr. KING) promptly noticed the omission,
and strongly pressed upon the Senate the necessity there was of securing the public domain through a conventional ordinance from California,
relinquishing all claim or title thereto prior to receiving her into the
Union; without which, as he most ably contended, the whole of that
domain would escheat to the State, and be wholly lost to the United
States. The Senator from Kentucky (Mr. CLAY) expressed his decided
concurrence in these views-urged upon the chairman of the committee,
(Mr. DOUGLAS,) the necessity of providing against such a consequence;
and I understood the distinguished Senator from Missouri, (Mr. BENTON,)
the next day, as fully assenting that some such provision would be
necessary to protect the public domain. The section which I have just
referred to was the result of these expressions of opinion; and I believe
that I express the opinion of the whole Senate in saying that, unless
some effective provision is made to avert the consequence, the public
domain will escheat to California the moment we part with the sovereignty and jurisdiction over it. All the writers on public law, the
ablest jurists of ancient and modern times, agree that sovereignty is
necessarily and inseparably connected with the right of soil to the
territory over which it is exercised. So essential is this right that
sovereigny cannot exist without it.  (Vattel, 165, 112, 99.)  Nor is it
surprising at all that such should be the unanimous opinion of the
Senate, since it seems to have been the unanimous opinion of both
houses of Congress, in every Congress, for these forty years past, which
has provided for the admission of new States into the Union, with an
unappropriated public domain within their borders; for they have invariably exacted of these States such a relinquishment, and (with a
single exception, I believe) made the execution of the ordinances of
relinquishment a condition precedent to the admission of any new State.
I do not regard the five States formed out of the Northwestern Territory as exceptions to the rule; for these precedent conditions rested
upon them before they were States, by virtue of the ordinance of 1787;
and every one of them, by special references in their several Constitu



6
tions, expressly recognized the existing and binding validity of its provisions. That ordinance declared that
The following articles shall be considered as articles of compact between the original States and
the people and States in the said Territory, and forever remain u, alterable, unless by common
consent.
And the fourth article of that ordinance or compact provided that" The Legislatures of these districts or new States shall never interfere with the primary.
disposal of the soil by the United States in Congress assembled, nor with any regulation Congress may find necessary for securing the title in such soil to the bonafide purchasers. No tax
shall be imposed on land the property of the United States," 4c.
Thus, too, it is seen that the Congress of the Confederation, before
the adoption of the Federal Constitution, considered that a title to the
public domain within the limits of a State was an incident and muniment of its sovereignty, and that the only mode of protecting it from
such a destination was by putting in operation an ordinance of relinquishment before she became a State.  Afortiori, then, when the Constitution took effect, with a clause expressly limiting the power of this
Government to hold lands within the body of a State to the enumerated
objects of "forts, arsenals, magazines, dock-yards, and other needful
buildings"-nor even these without the consent of the Legislatures of
the States in which they are situated-most clearly would the public
lands have inured to the States where they were situate the very moment they were admitted into the Union, unless they had previously relinquished them, through the same organic power which formed their
constitutions.  I do not say that the State's relinquishment of title reinvested it in this Government, or that a State can confer on it powers
which the Constitution withholds. Not at all. But I do maintain that
the State thereby divests herself of it, deprives herself of all interest or
motive to meddle with it, and leaves the United States free to dispose
of the public lands as heretofore, conveying indefeasible titles to purchasers, because none can have better ones to divest them.
Now, if I may take it for granted that the Congress of the Confederation, the sages of the Constitution, and all preceding Congresses-that
distinguished Senators here now-nay, that the whole Senate-think
that when a State enters into the Union she thereby divests the United
States of their title to the public domain within her limits, unless she
previously, or eo instante with her admission, relinquishes all title or claim'o the same, it is most important to the issue I am now approaching to
letermine the precise point of time at which such an effect of State
sovereignty upon the public domain is wrought; in other words, the
exact moment when this Government becomes divested of, and disqualified to hold the public domain, and anew State acquires it. But, though
this is most important, it is, I apprehend, so entirely clear that none will
deem it either debatable or doubtful. There cannot be two opinions
about it. There is not a Senator here who will not concur with me that
the United States will lose and California will acquire the public domain (if lost or acquired at all) at that precise moment when California
shall be received as a sovereign State into the Union, supposing the bill
to pass as it is. And as to what will be that precise moment, we must
all equally agree about it.  It must necessarily be that precise moment
when the President shall affix his signature to the same. At that in



Mant every foot of the public domain within her limits is hers! At that
instant her sovereignty and rights are as absolute and entire as those
of any one of the original States of the Union! There can be no possible mistake about this. Look at the 1st section of the committee's
bill. Here it is:
"SEc. 1. Be it enacted, J4c. That the State of California be, and she is hereby, admitted
into the Union upon an equal footing with the original States, in all respects whatsoever," 4c.
When the President's signature shall have made that section the law
of the land, California will have acquired all the freedom and independence, all the rights, immunities, and exemptions, "in all respects whatsoever," which the original State of Massachusetts ever has enjoyed,
enjoys now, or can enjoy. Did Massachusetts or any of the original
States enter the Union clogged with any other condition whatever than
that of fulfilling such obligations as the Constitution expressly defined,
and imposed upon each and all of them  alike?  Was any one of them
clogged with the condition that she should permit the Federal Government, at its own option, and for all time, to hold any quantity of public
domain within her limits-with powers to exempt them  from taxes,
lease them in perpetuity, establish federal tenantries there, or for any
other purposes than those enumerated in the Constitution, to wit: " forts,
arsenals, magazines, dock-yards, and other needful buildings?" There
is not a Senator here who will not put his emphatic negative upon such
an assumption. There is not a Senator here who will not fully concede that when we shall have clogged California with such a condition,
she will NOT be "admitted into the Union upon an equalfooting with
the original States, in all respects whatsoever."  There is not a Senator
here who will not admit that this first section will speak forth an absolute untruth, unless California shall be admitted discharged of all conditions whatsoever. You must either purge the bill of the condition in
the third section which destroys her equality with her co-States, or you
must strike out the first section, which that condition, if valid, makes
utterly untrue. But when you have stricken out that section, the matter will by no means be mended; for, whether you express it in words
or not, you cannot admit California into the Union at all, under the
Constitution, unless she is admitted upon " an equal footing with the
original States, in all respects whatsoever." If, then, you admit her at
all, she will come in discharged and untramelled of unconstitutional
conditions, in spite of you, and whether you will it or not. Time will
show that this is inevitable.
But, apart from all this, is it not perceived that there is something
surpassingly absurd in insisting upon the enforcement of a condition
which we ourselves have made impossible of performance, and a mere
nullity, by passing the first section of the bill? That section admits
her into the Union at once. If it does, it brings with her a constitutional right to possess, enjoy, and hold forever all the public domain
within her limits-and does more: for, at one and the same instant, it
divests this Government of the same, and invests California with both
the actual possession and the allodial title! These premises being true,
what follows: Why, clearly, that you will have already effected and
completed "the primary disposal of all the public lands within her
limits."  You will have parted with every acre of it. It is no longer




8
yours; it is absolutely hers. Can any thing, then, be more preposterous or impracticable than for you to forbid a sovereign State (as you
attempt to do in the 3d section) "from  interfering with the primary
disposal" of what is confessedly her own, and which you yourselves
have absolutely disposed of already? You destroy the condition in the
very instant that you impose it; for you yourselves effect that very
primary disposalof the lands before she is aware of your attempt to
guard against her interfering with it!
But, sir, how is this a condition at all. A condition binds nobody, unless it is assented to, nor until it is assented to by the party on whom its
performance devolves. In all grants, compacts, &c., there must be more
than one party-a party who accepts, as well as a party who bestows.
It is a perversion of language to call that a condition to which but one
party is privy. It is a proposition, and nothing more, binding AFTER acceptance, but without effect before. Is there a Senator here who can
persuade himself that California can be bound by any proposal you make
to her, not only before she has accepted it, but before she has ev er heard
of it? If you admit her to-day, not less than six weeks must elapse before she can give her assent to it, or even know of it. And what happens in the mean time? Why, she is a State in the Union; and there
having been no prior or coexisting relinquishment on her part to avert
such a consequence, the public domain has become hers, and she is free
to do with it as she pleases. You will receive her Senators upon this
floor; her Representatives will be received upon the floor of the House;
they will share in all the legislation of the country, and in all respects
have the same powers, rights, privileges, and immunities that we have.
When California knows of your proposal to her in the 3d section, she
will know of all this; she wil know that the lands are all hers, and that
it is her OPTION to do with them as she thinks fit. She cannot believe
otherwise; how can we? She may relinquish her claim if she will; but
what if she will not? If any obligation rested upon her to make the
relinquishment, how could it be enforced? Yon make it the condition
of her admission into the Union; and if that condition is not performed,
how can you change either the fact or the law of her being a State in
the Union, and how is she to get out of it, if you should deny her so obvious and essential a right of sovereignty as that of peacefully seceding
from this confederation of sovereignties? You will not admit that she
could get out of the Union by her own act, and the whole Senate will
deny the power of any or all of the departments to put her out against
her consent. The public lands must, then, be saved by the judiciary, if
saved at all. But how could it be done there, where law is the true and
sole measure of right? How can you make the primary disposal of the
domain yourselves, and then complain to a court of justice that California had interfered with your doing so, in the face of the physical impossibility that she had purposely broken a condition she had never heard
of, and in the face of so controlling a fact as that you had disposed of it
yourselves, before she knew that a promise was expected from her that
she never would interfere with the primary disposal of it? How could
it be expected that the Supreme Court would enforce a condition against
a party which the party imposing it had annulled before the other party
had come to a knowledge of its existence? How could it be expected




9
that it would reverse the judgments of more than thirty Congresses of
the Union, that the admission of a State gave her the public domain
within her borders, unless it were protected by her prior ordinance of
relinquishment? And, above all, how could it be expected that that court
would adjudge the United States to be the sovereign owners of public
domain within the limits of a State, in defiance of the Constitution,
which limits their power to hold them there to the enumerated objects
of " forts, magazines," &c.?
But, even could we admit that the primary disposal by the United
States of the public domain might not be cotemporaneous with the entrance of California into the Union, this 3d section would not rid us of
the main obstacle in our way. It does not provide for any ordinance to
be made by the State relinquishing all claim or title to the public domain.
It contains nothing of the sort. Should such a title accrue to California,
as all seem to admit, it is plain that there is not contained either in the
section itself, or which it directs or contemplates to be done hereafter,
any provision whatever which does or would extinguish that title. Giving it the largest latitude, and admitting it could avert consequences
which must have ensued weeks, if not months, before it can come to the
knowledge of the party it aims to bind, yet the most it could secure to
the United States would be the forbearance on the part of California to
interfere with "their primary disposal."  But if we leave California
with the constructive possession and actual title to the lands, what is
there in the section which forbids her to interfere with them thereafter?
A similar section was contained in the act of Congress of June 15,
1836, admitting Arkansas into the Union. But, for the reasons which I
have assigned, and for many others, it produced no legal effect whatsoever. And, what is more to the purpose, the very Congress which passed the act was so convinced of its inefficiency to protect the public domain, that immediately it entertained, and the eighth day thereafter,
(June 23, 1836,) and long before Arkansas had knowledge of the first
act, passed another act, offering large donations of land to Arkansas to
induce her to pass an ordinance providing that the authorities of that
State should "never interfere with the primary disposal of the soil," &c.
I believe these terms were accepted, and the ordinance passed; but
whether it was or not, the offer itself is conclusive of two things: the
one, that, in the deliberate judgment of the same Congress which admitted Arkansas into the Union, without such an ordinance-Arkansas would
not have parted with her right of interference, notwithstanding that the
eighth section of the act admitting her, like the third section of this bill,
specially declared that "the State of Arkansas is admitted into the
Union upon the express condition that the people of the said state shall
never interfere," &c.; and the other, tha:t, in the deliberate judgment of
the same Congress, Arkansas possessed the option to pass such an ordinance or not to pass it, to interfere or not to interfere with the primary
disposal of the public domain, and that the eighth section which I have
just quoted wrought no control whatsoever over her discretion, rights, or
powers in these regards. And it needs no prophet to foretell that neither
this Congress, nor California, nor the people of this Union, nor their judiciary, will ever attribute a higher or different'effect to the third section of this bill than the Congress of 1836 attributed to the eighth section of the act admitting Arkansas into the Union.




10
Upon this branch of the subject I conclude confidently, and without
the fear of refutation, and scarcely of denial, that if the admission of
California into the Union, without any provision at all in reference to
the public lands, would insure their entire loss to the United States, the
provisions of the third section constitute no bar or obstacle whatever to
avert from the Union so serious a consequence. I go further, and boldly
defy the wit of man, the very genius of statesmanship, the sagacity of
both Houses, to contrive a condition in this bill which can save these
public lands to the United States, if California is to be admitted now,
and if such a condition is only to be known to her and its performance
provided for hereafter! In other words, her ordinance of relinquishment must precede her entrance into the Union, or the public domain
within her limits will be forever lost to the United States, unless she
voluntarily surrenders it. I repeat that every acre of the public domain,
that every ounce of the precious metals, will be irretrievably lost to the
United States, if she is admitted into the Union under the provisions of
any bill which can be devised, unless her ordinance of relinquishment
precedes, in point of time, the final consummation of the act. After the
profoundest reflection I am capable of bestowing upon this deeply momentous measure, such is the thorough and absolute conviction resting
upon my mind of what will be the deplorable and inevitable consequences of passing this bill! With such results before me, can it be
expected that I would give it my support?  Have I any instructions
from my constituents, under which I could defend myself for surrendering to a single State, and without the semblance of a consideration, a
fee-simple title to public domain ample enough in dimensions to cover
the whole area of New England, with that of the Empire State of New
York added to it, and embracing a mineral region with a depth of unexplored treasures ample enough to discharge the public debt of the
world? Sir, is there a single constituency on this side of the Rocky
Mountains who are anticipating such startling and blasting results
from this bill, or who would assent to it if they did, or who would submit to it if they could help it? Should I vote for this bill, and should
the bill pass, and should these consequences ensue, I would not dare to
face my constituents, after sharing in an act of fatuity that would avert
from them and their posterity these exhaustless sources of relief from
all the fiscal burdens of the government, and for all time! Not a Senator here represents a constituency more considerate, liberal, or generous
than mine; but there are things which they could neither endure, nor
forget, nor forgive, and these are of them.
I am aware, sir, that to all this it may be replied that, even admitting
that my objections to the third section should be deemed conclusive and
unanswerable, yet that all of them have been anticipated and provided
against by California herself; and through an instrument contemporaneous and of equal authority with her constitution itself; and as it professes to provide for the relinquishment on her part of all purpose to
"interfere with the primary disposal" of the public domain, and was
executed before she applied for admission into the Union, it overcomes
the main obstacle I have raised to her admission under this bill. This
I should concede fully, provided that such instrument does effectually
protect the public domain from all danger. Let us, then, look at that




11
paper. It has been prited by order of the Senate, and I have it here.
It purports to be " California's ordinance of relinquishment," &c.
There is a mystery about this paper, and its introduction into the
Senate, which I have striven in vain to comprehend. The preamble to
it attests its adoption by the California Convention, declaringBe it ordained by the Convention assembled to form a constitution for the State of California,
on behalf and by authority of the people of the said State, &c.
Now, all such ordinances are invariably, I learn, attested by the signature of the president of the Convention, countersigned by the secretaries, and transmitted with the constitution, to be laid before Congress
contemporaneously with it. All this was done in the case of the Michigan ordinance; and the California ordinance is said to have been modelled upon that. But, more strangely still, it did not accompany the
California constitution, when it was transmitted by the President to
both Houses of Congress; and for no other reason, I take it for granted,
but that the President had not received it. Stranger still, the constitution was fully two months before Congress: it had been referred to the
Committee on Territories, and that committee had reported a bill to admit California into the Union, and not an intimation was given to the
Senate that such an ordinance existed. Though it is evident that the
California Convention considered the admission of the State somewhat
depended on the efficacy of that instrument, not until a writer of deep
and acute sagacity, of profound judgment, and of consummate forecast,
(Randolph of Roanoke,) had, in the public prints, strongly called the attention of Congress to the necessity there was of exacting such an ordinance prior to the admission of California into the Union, to save the
public domain from passing to the State, pointing out the usages which
had obtained in the admission of new States heretofore, and whose remarks were soon followed up in the Senate with the striking and forcible observations to the same effect from the Senator from Alabama,
(Mr. KING,) and from other distinguished Senators, did the Senate come
to a knowledge that any such ordinance had been made. Shortly afterwards, the chairman of the Committee on Territories (Mr. DOUGLAS) laid
upon the table of the Senate a manuscript paper, (of which the paper
before me is a printed copy,) and obtained the Senate's order for printing it. But this paper did not purport to be an original. It was neither
dated, nor signed, nor countersigned; it was not certified to be a copy of
any valid instrument then in existence. In fine, it had not one proof or
trace about it to attest either its authenticity or verity, or that California would be bound by it, should Congress treat it as genuine and valid!
Is it not most extraordinary, sir, that we should be permitted to know
so very little about a document so important as this, and where such
vast interests are at stake?  Congress has a right to be informed
whether there has be"e an original ordinance passed and attested in
proper form. If there be, where is it? Who brought it to Washington? Who sent it? Who withholds it? Why was it not transmitted
to the President with the oonstitution, and by him to Congress? Sir,
we are reasoning in the dark entirely, until we have some assurance
about this matter. Is there any Senator here who will avouch the authenticity of the ordinance which I hold in my hand? Will the honorable Senator from Illinois, (Mr. DOUGLAS,) who introduced it into the




12
Senate, and moved the Senate's order for its printing?  I will ask of the
Secretary to hand me the original, on file with the papers of the Senate.
The VICE PRESIDENT. The Chair is informed that the paper alluded to
is in the Secretary's office, and it will presently be brought into the Senate.
Mr. SOULE.  While the Secretary is looking for the document, I had
better, perhaps, go on with a synopsis of what the printed ordinance
provides. It presents the following results:
Article 1st binds this Government to give California four sections in
each township in the State for the use of schools.
Article 2d binds the Government to give to California seventy-two
sections for the use of a university.
Article 3d binds this Government to give four sections, to be selected
by the State, for the use of a seat of government.
Article 4th binds this Government to give 1,000,000 of acres, designated under the direction of the Legislature, for the purpose of defraying the expenses of the State Government, and for other State purposes; also, 5 per cent. of the net proceeds of the sales of the'public
lands in the State for the encouragement of learning.
Article 5th binds this Government to give all the salt springs within
the State, and all the land reserved for the use of the same.
Let us pause here a moment before noticing the 6th article. It is perceived that, while these five sections bind this Government to make to
Califor4nia all these grants of lands, far exceeding any grant that was
ever made to any other new State, not one of them binds California to
any thing! Now, without valuing at all (for want of data) the amount
arising from  the 5 per cent. on the net proceeds, here is a grant of
1,737,280 acres of land, with an absolute authority to the Legislature of
California to make her own selection of 1,006,560 of the same from
any portions of the public domain! How and where these lands would
be located by the State, it needs no seer to foretell; and while a very
large proportion of the choicest agricultural lands would fall to the
State's share, every foot of the gold regions would at once be covered
and secured to California, to the perpetual exclusion of the United
States and of every State.
Now, I take it for granted that there is not one man in either House
of Congress who would sanction by his vote an acceptance of these
propositions as they stand in the ordinance. But does not the ordinance
confer some authority by which these propositions may be modified so
as to secure the acceptance of Congress?  No, sir; none whatever!
The California Convention has foreclosed and shut out from the action
of Congress all modifications of either of them. They are to be accepted or rejected in toto, and of course their rejection avoids the whole
ordinance.  This is obvious from  the 6th and last article of the ordinance, which I will proceed to read to the Senate:
ART. 6. The first Senators and Representatives elected to Congress from this State are
hereby authorized and empowered to make or assent to such other propositions as the interest of
the State may require; and any such' changes or new propositions, when approved by the
Legislature, shall be as obligatory as if the assent of thi. Convention was given thereto. And
all stipulations entered into by the Legislature, in pursuance of the autho' ity herein conferred,
shall be considered articles of compact between the United States and this State; and the Legislature is hereby further authorized-to declare, in behalf of the people of California, if such declaration be proposed by Congress, that they will not interfere with the primary disposal, uander
the authority of the United States, of the vacant lands within the limits of the State.




13
It is plain, then, that this section has conferred no authority whatever
upon California's Senators and Representatives to make or assent to
any variations in the propositions contained in the first five sections of
the bill, and expressly limits their agency to other propositions which
they might make or assent to; and hence the acceptance' of this ordinance by Congress would not only insure the loss to the people of the
other States and the treasury of the Union of the choicest farming
lands of the State, but the entire mining region of that county! But
there are other strange matters about this ordinance:
It is strange, as the ordinance is said to have been modelled upon
that of Michigan, (and it is manifest it was,) that the very clause should
have been left out of it which, in the Michigan ordinance, conferred the
power to vary the propositions made by that State; for that ordinance
provided that "the senators, &c., are authorized and empowered to
make or assent to such other propositions, or to such variations of the
propositions herein made," &c.
It is strange, that this ordinance should have been modelled upon that
of Michigan, as it must have been known that that of Michigan was rejected by Congress, even mtith the foregoing conservative clause contained
in it.
It is strange, that while the ordinance as printed by the Senate
omits the clause conferring authority " to vary the propositions herein
made," the ordinance as found in the printed debates of the California
Convention, which I have before me, retains that clause in the words of
the Michigan ordinance, but omits the clause touching the power "to
make or assent to other propositions.
Mr. DOUGLAS. If the Senator from Louisiana attaches any importance to that fact, I will give an explanation of it. I knew nothing of
this ordinance till one of the Senators from California called on me and
stated that there was an ordinance. I asked why he had not presented
it?  He answered that the construction they put upon it was, that it
was simply for them to make these terms after the State was admitted.
I told him I thought it would be well if it was before the Senate, and
asked him for a copy. He got a copy, and brought that paper; and,
after consultation with the Senator from Kentucky, (Mr. CLAY,) I moved
to have it printed. That Senator says he obtaiaed it from the official
reporter of the debates of the California Convention. If there is any
error, it is an error of the reporter in copying.
Mr. SOU.sE. I hope the Senator from Illinois will not understand me
as casting the least suspicion upon the gentleman who handed him this
ordinance; I know him well;  and he is the very last person whom I
-would suspect of an act in athe remotest degree improper or unbecoming. I am sure he has aCted in good faith; but this does not remove
the difficulty which arises flrom the inconsistency between the ordinance
as printed for the Senate and the ordinance as printed in the book of
debates. I was discussing a mere matter of fact, without any reference to individuals connected with it, officially or otherwise. The
Senator, I see, has: discovered that inconsistency to which I was alluding; and, from what has just fallen from his lips, we are left with
no means of ascertaining which be the valid ordinance. The ordinane:itself must have been regarded by the honorable Senator as being of some
importance, as we find that, after having reported a bill from the Commit



14
tee on Territories, he afterwards amends that bill by inserting the clause
which I have referred to, and makes specific reserves for the ordinance.
Mr. DOUGLAS. It is true, as the Senator has stated, that the bill as
reported contained no clause in regard to the public domain, for the
reason that the committee did not then deem such a clause' necessary.
It will be recollected, at the time that objection was first made to the
bill on that account, I offered to prove, by the most indisputable authority, that no such clause was necessary. Subsequently, after the
suggestions were made by the Senator from Alabama and others, I stated that I would sooner write down than argue down the objection.
Hence I brought in the bill as it is. At the same time one of the Senators from California told me that, at the time the people of California
adopted the Constitution, they did adopt the ordinance. I asked him
why he did not send it in. He answered that it was a matter for negotiation, after the admission of California as a State. I asked him if
he had an authentic copy of the ordinance. He said he had not; but
he had a copy, which he gave to me. I presented the paper with the
explanation at the time the objection was first made. But I would remark to the Senator from Louisiana, that the action of the Committee
on Territories was not upon that document; nor was the action of the
Committee of Thirteen upon that subject. The bill must stand or
fall upon its own terms, and not upon that ordinance. I am prepared
to maintain that, according to well-settled principles of this Government-principles that have been settled over and over again, which the
Senator has overlooked-even that clause was not necessary in the bill
of the Committee of Thirteen.
Mr. SOULE. I expected that the honorable Senator arose to explain
these inconsistencies, and I was listening to him with great attention;
but he has not relieved my mind, nor has he, I apprehend, relieved the
mind of other Senators, from the anxiety which such a state of things
as the one before us must necessarily have created. In answer to an
inquiry which I put to him a while ago concerning this ordinance, and
asking if the honorable Senator would vouch for its authenticity, he
says that the Committee on Territories never acted on the ordinance.
Have I intimated anything of the kind?  By no means, sir?  In the
course of my remarks upon the matters connected with the admission
of California, finding in my way this very ordinance, I was merely commenting upon the strange appearance it bore, and upon the incongruity
of the written document when compared with the printed one; and the
honorable Senator thinks, it would seem, that he has sufficiently answered me by stating that it was not acted upon by the committee!
Mr. DOUGLAS. With a slight change of expression, the Senator and
myself shall find no difficulty in agreeing. He wants us to give it up.
I will say to the Senator, we never urged it, and therefore we cannot
give it up. It is he who brings up the ordinance as defeating the bill!,
and not we. We rely on the bill as it is.
Mr. SOULE. The honorable Senator, I am sure, has not read lately the
bill under debate; otherwise, he could not take it amiss that I refer to
this ordinance. Will he allow me to refresh his memory by reading to
him that part of the third section of his own bill, which reads as follows?
Nothing herein contained shall be construed as recognizing or rejecting the propositions tendered by the people of California as articles of compact in the ordinance adopted by the convention which formed the Constitution of that State.




15
Mr. DOUGLAS.  Precisely. I wrote that clause, and my idea was this:
that as the matter of the ordinance for setting apart school land and
seminary land would arise immediately after California was admitted
into the Union, we declared in that part of the bill that nothing should
be construed as rejecting or affirming, thus leaving that open an question.
Mr. SOULE. The Senator must feel somewhat inclined to exonerate
me from reproach for having thus commented upon an ordinance which
he himself had brought into debate, through the reference he made to it
in his own bill. But I despair not to satisfy him before I am done that,
even for the object which ie seems to have had in view, the ordinance
in its present shape would not avail him.
I was going to remark, when I was interrupted, that it was strange
that while the whole virtue of this ordinance consists in the power it
purports to confer upon California's Senators and Representatives to
make a compact with Congress touching other propositions-such as a
reduction of boundaries, relinquishment of title to the public domain,
&c., &c.-yet we are, day by day, pressing this bill to a final vote, and
not the first movement has been made in the Senate, by friends or foes,
evincing either a purpose or a desire to enter into a compact with these
gentlemen to secure to the United States either of these very important
objects, or any others.
Sir, I would gladly have taken the initiative in such a movement, for
the accomplisnment of objects so important to the interest of the whole
country, could I have persuaded myself that the powers invested in California's agents by this ordinance were adequate to bind California definitely in such a compact; and I proceed to give the reasons why, in my
most deliberate judgment, they were not:
1st. The ordinance devolved upon them functions which constituted
them as officers by constitutional intendment, and it may be doubted
whether they were eligible to appointments to such high trusts under
the Constitution of either California or the United States: certainly they
could exercise no other powers, as Senators and Representatives, but
those which the Constitution of the latter specially devolved upon them.
2d. The ordinance conferring these powers was passed by a convention invested fully with the whole organic sovereignty of the people of
California. Could it, or any of its provisions, be abrogated or modified
by any authority less than that which made it? Could the convention
have conferred upon others conventional powers? Did it do so? Delegata potestas non potest delegari! Why, one of the provisions which a
compact entered into by the United States with California's agents might
embrace would probably be a reduction of boundaries: a change in them
would change the constitution of California.
3d. The convention was constituted for a special purpose-to form
a constitution and State government. That being done, its functions
were at an end, and it did accordingly adjourn sine die on the 13th of October, 1849: from that date it wasfunctus officio. Could its powers or
functions have survived the adjournment? Not for an hour! Could it
delegate those powers and functions to others, so that they could outlive
its own political demise and civil death? Most obviously, no.
4th. Certainly that Convention, of itself, could not have performed
any act of sovereignty, or any political act whatever, after its final
adjournment, and when it had been dissolved into its original elements:




16
afortiori, then, it could not have delegated to California's Senators and
Representatives conventional powers, to be exercised after the Convention had ceased to possess any powers at all; nor could it have devolvedconventional powers upon the Legislature to perform Acts of sovereignty which were never conferred upon it by the Constitution. Least
of all could the Convention delegate its conventional powers, or any
portion of them, to its agents, to be exercised at Washington; for, if it
could, it might delegate the like powers to other agents, to be exercised
in California. And when you once adopt such a system of substitution, the monstrous absurdity soon grows into the principle that when
the people have chosen delegates to a convention, those delegates can
appoint others in their places, and, indeed, decline themselves acting at
all, and thus leave the people subjected to a system of government imposed upon them by men in whose appointment they had no share.
5th. Admitting that the Convention  could have delegated such
powers, those which she has actually conferred upon her agents are
wholly inadequate to the service for which they purport to have been
bestowed. While these mandatories are forbidden to modify the first
five sections at all, and while it authorizes and empowers them to entertain "other propositions," it commands them to nothing. They cannot
bind California definitely to any thing beyond an acceptance of the unexampled grants and donations which the first five articles of the ordinance so lavishly bestow upon them! All that they do is inchoate, contingent, and in abeyance until approved by the Legislature of California,
while all that Congress stipulates is to pass into instantaneous enactment and execution.
6th. The ordinance confers conventional powers upon the California
Legislature, which the California constitution scrupulously and entirely
withholds.
7th. But the most important and vital defect of the sixth section is
yet to be noticed; and I now specially call the attention of Senators to
the language in which it is couched. It declares thatThe Legislature is hereby further authorized to declare, in behalf of the people of California, if such declaration be proposed by Congress, that they will not interfere with the primary
dsosal, under the authority of the United States, of the vacant lands within the limits of the
State.
Now, let us point out, one by one, the absolute inefficacy of this provision to secure the deep interest of the Union in the vast and unexplored domain embraced within the limits of California.
It excludes California's Senators and Representatives from all agency
in making provision for the protection of the public domain: It devolves
all the power it confers on the California Legislature exclusively, and
limits its action to mere words, which accomplish nothing, because they
bind nobody. It excludes whatever it authorizes the Legislature to do,
from the obligation of the compact:it suggests between the United
States and the State of California. It commands the Legislature in nothing, but merely authorizes it to do something in reference to the public domain, and of course leaves to the Legislature a full and untrammelled discretion to do that something or to let it alone. What it authorizes the Legislature to declare is a mere opinion, which may vary
as Legislatures may change, and will be of equal effect whether favorable or contrary to that which it is intended should be covered by its




11 
sanction.  But when you have made the most of this legislative declation, that declaration does not cover an inch of the public domain in
California which is already occupied! Look at the closing clause of
the sixth section of the ordinance: it limits the legislative declaration
to the vacant lands. Well, with 20,000 agriculturists locating farms,
and 100,000 gold-diggers in quest of fortunes in California, how much
think you, Mr. President, there is at this day vacant of the choicest and
most valuable agricultural and mineral lands of that State?
If this ordinance is to be all our reliance to save the public domain
from escheating to the State, it is idle to talk of the people of California
not interfering with the primary disposal of it, when the United States
will have already effected that primary disposal by admitting California
into the Union.
Besides, what know you of the condition of the public domain in
California?  What know you of the mines?  You are in the dark about
all this; and yet you are going to surrender your sovereignty over regions unexplored, unstudied, unknown; you divest yourselves of your
sovereignty before having ascertained its value, its bearing, its extent;
you leave every thing to chance, to future debate and interpretation,
shrouded in difficulty and darkness.
And now, should the principle so often and so strenuously advocated here
and elsewhere by your government agents in California, by your ministers here-should that principle prevail which makes the law of Mexico paramount over the Territories ceded by the treaty of Guadalupe
Hidalgo-what~ becomes of the vast treasures, the uncounted millions,
imbedded in the mining repositories there?  The Mexican law opens
the mines to all the world, and constitutes the first occupant owner of
the mine he discovers or works, reserving only to the sovereign the right
of levying a duty on the proceeds of the diggings.
By the civil law, all veins and mineral deposites of gold or silver ore
belonged, if in public ground, to the sovereign; if in private ground, to
the owner-subject, when worked, to a tribute of one-tenth of the produce. Subsequently, it became an established custom, and was so declared by law in most kingdoms, that ALL such veins vested in the Crown.
In Spain, under the laws of the PARTIDAS, the property was held to be.so vested in the King that it did not pass with the grant of lands.
Afterwards, by a law  of Alfonso XI, in the ORDENAMIENTO REAL, all
mines were declared to be the property of the Crown, and no one was
permitted to work them except under some special license. Juan the
First moderated this law, by permitting any person to dig or work
mines in his land, or in the land of another with his permission, and to
retain one third of the produce, rendering the other two-thirds to the
Crown.  But Philip II repealed all this legislation, and, by an ordinance
to be found in the NEW CODE of laws of Castile respecting the mines,
provided thatIn order to benefit and favor our subjects and the natives of these kingdoms, and all other persons whatsoever, though strangers to these kingdoms, who shall work or discover any silver
mines whatsoever, discovered or to be discovered, it is our will and command that they shall have
them, and that they shall be their own in possession and property, and that they may deal with
them as with anything of their own, observing, both in regard to what they have to pay us by
way of duty, and in all other respects, the regulations and arrangements ordered by this edict, in
the manner hereinafter mentioned.-(Gamboa on the Mining Ordinances of Spain.)




18
The laws of the Indies make a similar grant " to all subjects, whether
Indians or Spaniards, and of whatever station, condition, rank, or dignity, (except governors, ministers, alcades, &c.,) authorizing them to work
the mines freely and without impediment, and making them common to
all persons, wheresoever situate, &c.,) Leyes de Indias, title 19, book 4.
From the ample terms of these grants, it is evident that the sovereign
divested himself through them of all right of domain over the mining
repositories within the possessions which Spain then held in the New
World; and such is the decided opinion of Don Matheo de Lagunes,
judge of the audiency of Quito, and of the Cardinal de Luca, two eminent jurists of great authority and learning, whose works have cast an
effulgent light over these matters, and have rendered them accessible
to the bluntest understanding. Now, let me ask honorable Senators,
how, under such a legislation, stands the public domain within the borders of California?
Without concluding, Mr. S. here gave way to a motion to postpone
the subject until to-morrow.
TUESDAY, JUNE 25, 1850.
Mr. SOULE resumed and concluded as follows:
Mr. PRESIDENT: When, on yesterday, through the indulgence of the
Senate, I was permitted to resume my seat, I was commenting upon the
legislation of Mexico with respect to the mines. I propose now to resume that subject, and to dispose of it as briefly as it may be in my
power to do. But before I proceed in my remarks, I will express my
regret that anything which I said on yesterday, with respect to the ordinance enacted by the California Convention, should have been construed
as casting the least reproach upon those persons who were in any way
connected with the transmission of it to this government. It is with me
an object not only of taste, but of scrupulous observance, never to bring
names into debate when it can be avoided, and, above all, never to cast
the remotest suspicion on any individual when he has not a fair chance
of defending himself. I was dealing with facts, and I most sedulously
avoided connecting them with any person to whom they bore not an
official and undeniable relation. If names were brought forth during
the debate, it was not through my agency, but through that of others;
and for this I decline all responsibility.
Returning, then, to the question of the mines, the Senate will have
perceived that the only right which the United States, as sovereign, and
under the stipulations of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, can set up,
and are entitled to set up, and to exercise over the mining regions, is the
right reserved by Philip II. when he divested himself of that part of the
domain, to wit: the right of levying a duty upon, and of requiring a
portion of the proceeds of the diggings; for, nothing can be surer than
that these provisions are now, and have been, time out of mind, the
settled law in Mexico, as they have been that of all the Spanish American Republics. And as this right is one that belongs essentially to the
sovereign, I ask whether, even under any reservation of the public
lands, the United States could exercise it after transferring their sovereignty to the State of California, without any specific reservation for its
protection?




19
The present gold-diggers will, then, have acquired in the intervening
time between the cession to the United States by Mexico of the territory
which California embraces within her boundaries, and the time when
the clause in this bill extending to them the Constitution and laws of
the United States shall go into operation, certain rights-inchoate rights,
if you please-but rights which should have been disposed of by you in
some way or other, while you retain the sovereignty in your hands.
What will become of them when your sovereignty has passed away,
and you have surrendered the only power that gave you any control
over them?  It is fit that the Senate should deeply ponder upon the
consequences, before hazarding a step which must subject these vast
interests to the fate of an irretrievable abandonment.
Having shown on yesterday, (as I think, that the ordinance enacted by
the California Convention amounts to nothing,) that the 3d section of
the bill under debate affords (nor could through any modifications which
could be made in it) no protection whatever for the invaluable public
domain of the United States, which will be saved or sacrificed as we
shall decide; after the most deliberate and anxious reflection, my mind
rests under the conviction that it is past the wit of man to devise a plan
which will protect this interest from escheating to the State, unless
there be a conventional ordinance from California preceding her admission as a sovereign State into the Union. And I think I may satisfy the
Senate that California is very much of that opinion, and, what is more
ominous still, that she is resolved and intent upon maintaining it the
moment the occasion arises to put it to the test. It was under this conviction that I prepared a substitute for the three first sections of the bill
under debate, which, I think, safely and amply provides not only for all
these exigencies, but places Northern and Southern territorial rights
upon so fair a basis of public justice and constitutional equality, that its
adoption would at once secure not only the peace, but the fraternal
harmony of the Union.  If there be any plan different from this, in any
of its essential'features, adequate to the objects we all profess to have
in view, I confess I have no reach of mind of power or vigor enough to
compass or to grasp it. Be assured, sir, that if it shall be the pleasure
of Congress to pass this bill in its present form, we shall have parted
with the last opportunity and the only means of securing any one of the
great interests at stake; and the only chance that will be left us, if
there be a chance-the only hope that remains, if there be a hope-is,
that California will voluntarily surrender and relinquish her title to that
which the provisions of this bill will make indisputably her own. We
may form  some estimate of the importance and value of such chances
and hopes in turning to a few startling passages which struck my attention while glancing through the volume of debates of the California
Convention.-(See Debates, p. 316.)
Mr. McCarver submitted the following resolutions:
Resolved, (as the deliberate opinion of this Convention,) That the public domain within
the limits of this State in right and justice belongs to the people of California, and the undis
turbed enjoyment thereof ought to be secured to them.
Resolved, That the Legislature of this State, at its first session, be requested to take such
steps as it may deem necessary to carry out the object of the foregoing resolution.
Mr. McCarver said: I conceive the object of these resolutions.to be of vital importance to
the citizens of California, and hope the House will generally unite with me, at least so far as to
take the matter into serious consideration. These resolutions refer to the right of the new States




20
to the public domain within their limits. The question has been before the American people,
and has been advocated by the people of the West especially for many years; and the right of
the new States to the public domain within their borders has been generally conceded through
the United States.
Mr. Botts, following, said: I shall vote against the resolution, &c. As to the principle
avowed by the gentleman from Sacramento (Mr. McCarver) that the public lands necessarily
belong to the State, I am willing to acknowledge it; but I shall vote against the action of this
Convention upon that subject, simply because I think it is a proper object of legislative action.
*  *  *  That ground I am ready to take; but I will take it at the polls. *     *  I donot
object to the principle avowed in the resolutions, &c., but to any action of this House upon the
subject.
Now, will the Senate follow me to page 349 of the same volume?
Mr. Stewart, of San Francisco, in alluding to what Mr. Gwin had
stated  before in these words: "we have  the  privilege, whenever we
become  a  State, of taking  500,000 acres of land.  As a  matter of
course, we will select the best from the gold mines," &c., says:
I concur entirely with my colleague from San Francisco (Mr. Gwin) in regard to the
500,000 acres of land granted by Congress for the purposes of education.
It is (says Mr. Sherwood in the same page) on the supposition that the 500,000 acres, or a
portion of them, may be located in the mining districts, and that from those lands a large revenue may be derived, which properly should go to defray the expenses of the government, that
I think this proviso should stand.
By turning to page 471, the Senate will find the reassertion of that
right in the State, first claiming absolutely the public domain exclusively, and then, at all events, of locating the lands, claimed by California
as a donation, in the mining regions, without a dissenting opinion, so far
as I can find.
Mr. DOUGLAS.  Will the Senator from  Louisiana allow  me to ask
him whether he asserted that California had passed a resolution that
the lands did belong to the State?
Mr. SOULE. Not at all. I meant to state, on the contrary, that the resolutions were resisted upon the ground only that it was not a matter for
the action of the Convention, but for that of the Legislature, who undoubtedly  would  exert it.  Yet the  resolution  was referred  to  the
Committee of the Whole without a dissenting voice, and only failed to
pass, not because of any reluctance on the part of the Convention to
admit the principle which they proclaimed, (for it was generally assented to,) but because of there being no occasion for the Convention to act
upon them.
And, Mr. President, the keen eye of the Senator from Illinois cannot
have failed to perceive in the fact, that the California constitution had
to be subjected to the scrutinies of both Houses of Congress, a very
adequate reason why the members of the Convention should have forborne to assert in it an absolute claim of title to the public domain within the State, as that must have insured the rejection of the constitution,
whenever it should be offered for the acceptance of Congress.
Mr. FOOTE.  Did I understand the honorable Senator from  Louisiana
as contending that the Legislature of California had the power to do so?
Mr. SOULE.  Most undoubtedly, unless you secure the public domain
by  an  ordinance of relinquishment precedent to, or contemporaneous
with, the admission of California into the Union.
But, Mr. President, if you were disposed to admit California without
the requirements which I have alluded to, even then would you be willing to admit her with the limits which she claims in her present consti



21
tution? I am most reluctant to believe it; and I proceed to state some
of the prominent objections I have to the boundaries she claims in it:
They  are  enormous and excessive, far  beyond  such  as  were ever
allotted  to any  of the States which  were formed  out of Territories
belonging to the United States.  Tennessee was only allowed, in round
numbers, 44,000  square  miles; Ohio, 40,000; Louisiana, 46,000; Indiana, 34,000;  Missouri, 67,000;  Illinois, 55,000;  Alabama, 50,000;
Maine, 35,000;  Mississippi, 47,000;   Arkansas, 52,000;  Michigan,
56,000; Florida, 59,000; Iowa, 50,000; and Wisconsin, 54,000.
They are unnatural, disregarding those geographical divisions which
her  very  structure  indicates, and  combining  together  districts  disjoined by the eternal barriers of the Creation, and by antagonistical
conditions of soil and climate.
They  are  impolitic, placing   under  the  control and  sway  of a
single State territory equal in extent to all New England, with the
Empire  State  of New   York  added  to  it; an  extent  of seacoast exceeding one thousand miles; all the trade of China and of the Indian
Archipelago-and laying the foundation {or an empire which may hereafter wield in its hands the destinies of this Republic, if it should not
endanger its very existence.
But we shall find in the movements that brought about the adjustment of the  present boundaries of California, that they  by no means
originated in any wants of hers, but with the intermeddling of the Administration, and in the arrogant assumption of the authority of Congress to close up the slavery question, through the exclusion of the
South from the totality of the Territory, which was the nucleus of the
contest at the last two sessions; and that I may give the Senate an insight into the motives which actuated the delegates in the California
Convention to assume the boundaries which they claim, I will now lay
before it some other passages from the debates of the Convention:
Mr. Semple, (President of the Convention.) I feel under some obligation to repeat a conversation which has a direct bearing upon this matter. There is a distinguished member of Congress, who holds his seat from one of the States of the Union, now in Calitornia.  With a desire to obtain all the information possible in relation to the state of things on the other side of the
mountains, I asked him what was the desire of the people in Congress? I observed to him that
it was not the desire of the people of California to take a larger boundary than the Sierra Nevada, and that we would prefer not embracing within our limits this desert waste to the east. His
reply was:' For God's sake, leave us no territory to legislate upon in Congress.' He went on
to state then that the great object in our formatimn of a State government was to avoid further
legislation; there would be no question as to our admission by adopting this course; and that
all subjects of minor importance could afterwards be settled.  I think it my duty to impart this
information to the Convention.  The conversation took place between Mr. Thomas Butler King
and myself.-(Debates, 184.)
Speaking of this communication, Mr. Shannon  says. (Deb ates 191:)
The chief argument which has been urged in favor of the extreme boundary has been, not
as to the necessity, not the convenience, not the benefit to be derived from it, nor the necessity
of including it, but the probability of its passing the Congress of the United States, and the
authority of a gentleman from Congress, that, if such a proposition was adopted, it would pass.
Sir, I claim for the dignity of the new State of California, that all dictation of this kind should
not receive a very favorable reception in this House; that we should not listen to the propositions
of gentlemen in this matter, however high their characters at home, &c.  *   But who
are these authorities? Are they men who have become, by long life or service in this country,
so deeply interested in the welfare of California that the weal of the new State is alone the dearest
object of their aspirations? or are they not rather the agents of interested parties, not of Congress? For they do not speak the will of Congress; a single man cannot speak the will of
Congress.  And when the President of this Convention stated, this afternoon, the expression of




22
Mr. Thomas Butler King:'For God's sake, leave no territory in California to dispute abcut'when he (Mr. King) spoke it, I presume he did not speak the sentiment of the entire Congress
of the United States. The secret of it is this, that the Cabinet of the United States have feund
themselves in difficulty upon this question; they are in difficulty about the Wilmot proviso; and
Mr. Thomas Butler King (it may be others) is sent here, in the first place, for the purpose of influencing the people of California to establish a State government, and, in the next place, to include the entire Territory.  *    *    There are two great political parties there, (in Congress,)
who have been for years past fighting like tigers in their cage. Every day, every hour, but increases the ferocity with which they struggle upon this question of slavery.
When this proposition comes before them, Southern members-those from the slaveholding
States-will see that it strikes from beneath their feet an enormous tract of country into which
they desire to introduce slavery hereafter.  Add to that the further argument of the enormously
extensive territory that it includes; and then add to that the further argument, that a large portion of that territory has not been represented in this body-that the feelings and wishes of the
population are not known-and I think you leave open ground enough for them to build an argument upon that will defeat your constitution; that you at least bring all those difficulties which
gentlemen hope to avoid directly to bear against it-a result which every gentleman here, I
have no doubt, honestly seeks to avoid.  These are arguments which you cannot get over.  It
is true, sir, that the boundary is enormous. No man here wishes to include the whole of it.
We are told by these very gentlemen that it is too large; it is unwieldy; it includes an enormous
barren tract of country-an immense desert waste; but, say they, we will bring it all in, not
for the purpose of retaining it within the State of California, but for the purpose of settling
the slave question at home.  We don't intend to keep it.
Then we have something still more significant from  the delegate from
San Francisco, (Mr. Gwin,) page 197:
I was opposed to any other boundary but that of California, as recognized by the Governments
of the United States and Mexico, for another reason, and I consider it a very important one: that
if we leave a portion of territory out, we would necessarily open a question which we here should
not interfere with. We all know what 360 30' is. It is the great bone of contention. North of
that there is no contest; south of it there is a contest.  If gentlemen will look where this line
strikes the Pacific, they will see that not a solitary vote was cast by a delegate in this Convention
south of that line, except those cast against a Stategovernment.  The representatives here from
that region are unanimous in their votes against the establishment of a State government. If we
include the territory these delegates represent on the coast, why exclude the barren waste beyond,
where no white mqn lives?  We take awoy the substance and leave the shadow.  Let us take
the whole territory, or stop at that line. If we stop at that line, we mutilate the Convention by
excluding the members south of it.
Here we have the secret of this extraordinary assumption, on the part
of California, of boundaries extending far beyond her actual and necessary jurisdiction.
True it is, that the boundaries adopted by the Convention fell far short
of those advised  by Mr. King:  nevertheless, the Senate will see that
they embrace every inch of ground that is worth having.
As Mr. Gwin says:
Why exclude the barren waste beyond, where no white man lives? We take away the substance and leave the shadow
Mr. DOUGLAS.  Will the honorable Senator inform  us on what page
of the report that is to be found?
Mr. SOULE.  At page 197.  Had the California Convention any right
at all to parcel out the country? If yea, why embrace the reluctant opposing districts of Santa Barbara, San Diego, San Louis Obispo, and Los
Angeles?   If no, why  not call into  the  Convention  Deseret, which
numbered some 30,000 or 40,000 inhabitants?   Had Deseret joined  the
southern  districts, who  can  say what would have been the result as to
the formation of a State government at all, or as to the slavery question?
Nor does the representation of the several districts in the Convention
seem to have been very weighty, as far as numbers in the constituent




23
body were concerned, if we may judge of it from the fact stated by one
of the delegates of one of the most populous and most respectable districts of California, (Mr. Botts, from Monterey):
Do you know (says he, p. 193) by what vote of my constituents I sit upon this floor? I will
tell you. I received 96 votes; my colleague received some 20 or 30 more; and as for the remainder of my colleagues, I believe they are even worse off than I am. And yet we are called
upon to form laws for 30,000 freemen upon the Salt Lake! For my part, I have not the face to
do it.
And thus a district representing fully one-tenth portion of the nominal
population of all California, and more than one-fourth of its resident
population, only cast in the election of delegates something less than 150
votes! What the votes were in the other districts we are uninformed.
Strange opinions appear to have been entertained in the California
Convention. Its members had certainly conceived that they were vested
with most extraordinary powers, that they should have assumed the
high tone which characterizes their language when they speak of their
relations with the United States. They were to receive propositions
from  Congress.  "Negotiations were to be opened between the high
contracting parties i"  They took it for granted that they were under
no constraint to limit their boundaries to their own wants, but might
rejoice and assist the free-soilers in their efforts to crush and degrade
the South, by excluding her from settling in the ceded Territories,
and thus despoil her of her equal share in the common property of the
Union:
Mr. McCARVER. It is the duty of the State of California and the United States, as the two
high contracting parties, to fix the boundary, &c.   *  *   It is our duty to refuse to
come into the Union, as Iowa did, unless Congress accedes to the boundary which we deem proper to adopt.-(Debates, page 169.)
The secret of all this boldness on the part of the California Convention is to be found at page 179 of the Debates, where Mr. Botts is made
to say: " We have got the Congress of the United States in a tight
place."  *  *  *  "Congress is bound to take us-to admit us, boundary
and all."  *  *  *  "I am therefore now inclined to lay down the DICTUM to Congress-to PRESCRIBE to them even this question of boundaryto make it the sine qua non of our admission."
Such were the views that operated on many, if not on most, of the
delegates composing that convention. The slavery issue was to be taken from  Congress, and devolved upon them! California would settle
it, and settle it readily, by taking all from the South, and giving it to
the North.  Why, the North could have done that long ago, had she
ventured, and had she dared.  She had the power; but, in her praise
let me add, she was void of the rashness, and void of the injustice to
exert it. But the convention was with plenary powers, and was willing
so to exert them that no territory should be left for Congress to legislate
upon.  California might take it easily: for she had Congress in a tight
place, and ready to surrender at discretion. And when all this is taken
into consideration, will any one wonder that California should have appropriated to herself those limits which give her, in the language of
Mr. Shannon, (p. 192,) "a shape most awkward and ungainly."
But they had resolved upon taking the substance and leaving the shadow. Are you, Senators, prepared to receive her into the Union, unshorn of an atom  of her monster dimensions? —With 153,000 square




24
miles of jurisdiction, and with  1,000 miles of coast?-With the command of every outlet through which the vast territory that stretches
eastward to the western slope of the Rocky Mountains might disgorge
its products and enlarge its trade by a free access to the Pacific? Will
you thus disturb the natural demarcations which so peculiarly characterize and divide the different portions of that country-not because it
is right in itself, or just to the South, or best for California, but to remove the frantic cravings of a rapacious and intolerant free-soilism?
Sir, Nature has drawn with her own hands the limits which California should have as a State, by uniting in a common centre the valleys
of the Sacramento  and the San Joaquin.  They discharge their main
waters into the same basin, and that basin is the only outlet that connects them with the Pacific; and although they may differ somewhat
in climate and fertility, yet they were clearly intended to form a single,
inseparable whole.
The imposing and almost impassable Sierra Nevada encircles them as
within a  belt of rude granite-divides the  maritime region from  the
Great Basin, (Utah,) which it closes on the west; while the two valleys, by the innumerable streams and rivers which run from the south
and the north, and converge to the bay of San Francisco, are bound and
knit together:
The Sierra Nevada (says Mr. McDOUGAL, page 180,) presents to my mind a most proper and feasible line for our State.  Following the crest of that line from the north to the
south, taking the waters as they flow, all that portion of country where the waters commence to
flow to the west is what my proposition includes, and that gives us an area of country double as
large as any other State in the Union. If you cast your eyes on the map, you will see three
distinct divisions marked by Nature in the Territory of California, &c.
Here is that map, and Senators may see, strikingly delineated upon it,
the three divisions alluded by Mr. McDougal-Utah; the Maritime Region
embraced by the Sierra, and the Territory to the south, between the lines
described in my substitute.  And this opinion of the delegate from  Sacramento is fully sustained by the highest authority which I can summon before the Senate-that of the learned, enterprising, and indefatigable officer to whose labors the United States and the world are so much
indebted:
The valleys (says Col. FREMONT, speaking of the valleys of the Sacramento and the San Joaquin) are ONE, discriminated only by the names of the rivers that traverse it. It is a single valleya single geographical formation, near five hundred miles long-lying at the western base of the
Sierra Nevada, and between it and the coast-range of mountains, and stretching across the head
of the bay of San Francisco, with which a delta of twenty five miles connects it. The two
rivers-San Joaquin and Sacramento-rise at opposite ends of this long valley; receive numerous streams, many of them bold rivers, from the Sierra Nevada; become themselves navigable
rivers; flow towards each other; meet half-way, and enter the bay of San Francisco together,
in the region of tide-water, making a continuous water line from one end to the other. —(Fremont's Memoir, p. 15.
The Sierra Nevada is an unmistakable boundary to these two valleys, leaving no natural outlet from  them  to the Pacific but through the
Golden Gate, which unites the bay with the ocean.  It closes the valleys
on the northern side by a promontory, several thousand  feet above the
level of the sea, and to the south, by a gentle slope and neck that connects it with'the Santa Barbara mountains, which carry the limit to the
water's edge 6Cf -the sea; and thus are the boundaries of'the new State
drawn by the hand of God in bold and indestructible characters.




25
But, independent of this great feature, which marks so peculiarly the
geographical structure  of the  two  valleys  thus held embraced by the
great Sierra, Nature has set another seal on  its  necessary  separation
from   the  country  lying  south  of them.  The  climate is no longer the
same.  The  soil is different, and  the  products  altogether  dissimilar.
Here begins quite a new country:
South of Point Conception (says Fremont, page 38) the climate and the general appearance
of the country exhibit a marked change.  The coast from  that cape tends almost directly east 
the face of the country has a more southern exposure, and is sheltered by ranges of low mountains from the violence and chilling effect of the northwest winds.  Hence the climate is still
more mild and genial, fostering a richer variety of productions, differing in kind from those of
the northern coast.  *  *  *  The soil is generally good, of a sandy or light character, easily
cultivated, and in many places of extraordinary fertility.
Thus the limits which California assumes in her constitution, connect
what Nature had intended should remain separate and distinct. They
embrace countries that bear no relation to each other. The two great
valleys formed  by  the  San  Joaquin  and  Sacramento  rivers, with the
plains that stretch along between the lower ranges of mountains on the
coast, constitute the natural and most appropriate appurtenances of the
new  State, and embrace an area of territory sufficient to maintain millions of inhabitants, being something less than 100,000 square miles.
I quote again from  Fremont, pages 13 and 14:
West of the Sierra Nevada, and between that mountain and the sea, is the second grand division of California, and the only part to which the name applies in the current language of the
country.  It is the occupied and inhabited part; and so different in character, so divided by the
mountain wall of the Sierra from the great basin above, as to constitute a region of itself, with a
structure and configuration, a soil, climate, and productions of its own; and as northern Persia
may be referred to as some type of the former, so may Italy be referred to as some point of comparison with the latter. *  *  *  Looking westward from the summit of the Sierra, the main
feature presented is the long, low, broad valley of the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers-the
two valleys forming one, five hundred miles long and fifty miles broad, lying along the base of
the Sierra, and bounded on the west by the low coast-range of monntains which separates it from
the sea
California, below the Sierra Nevada, is about the extent of Italy from the Alps to the termination of the peninsula. It is of the same length, about the same breadth, consequently the
same area-about one hundred thousand square miles-and presents much similarity of climate
and production. Like Italy, it is a country of mountains and valleys. Different from it in its
internal structure, it is formed for UNITY-its large rivers being concentric, and its large valleys appurtenant to the great central bay of San Francisco, within the area of whose waters the dominating power must be found.-(Ibid. p. 48.)
And now let us follow the map, and see what new region expands
beyond the southern termination of the Sierra Nevada.
The country south of Point Conception is utterly cut from the valleys
of the San Joaqdin and Sacramento  rivers, and can only communicate
with them, to any extent, by the Pacific. I have already noticed its
climate, its productions; let me add a  few  remarks from  Mr. Fremont.
He traces the southern division from Point Conception to the Gulf of
California, and speaking of it, says:
The productions of the South differ from those of the North, and of the Middle.  Grapes,
olives, Indian corn, have been its staples, with many assimilated grains.  Tobacco has bean introduced there; and the uniform summer heat which follows the wet season, and is uninterrupted by rain, would make the southern country well adapted to cotton.
And we are reminded by the same authority (same page) thatVancouver found in 1792, at the Mission of Buena Ventura (latitude 3s deg. 16 min.) apple,. pears, plums, figs, oranges, grapes, peaches, and pomegranates growing together with the
plantain, banana, cocoa-nut, sugar-cane, and indigo, all yielding fruit in abundance, and of excellent quality.




26
Why, then, I ask, connect, by artificial limits, this country with the
valleys above?   Why block up the vast plains behind from  all communication with the Pacific? Why put the eastern and southern basins
out of reach  of all navigable  streams?   Why  cut them   off from   all
outlet for their produce? Are we prepared to doom them forever to
utter insignificance and dependence-to separate them  from  the rest of
the world?   No, no!
Mr. Sherwood, from New York.  As to what ought to be our future boundary, I concur fully
with several gentlemen who have expressed the opinion that the crest of the Sierra Nevada, or
some line of longitude near it, should he the future permanent boundary of this State; and if
that were the only question before the House, I should, without hesitation, vote for the proposition which embraces these limits. But there are other questions which ought to influence our
action.  *       *  *  *  *  And now, by taking in the whole of California to the New
Mexico line, we can throw that question out of Congress, and keep it from discussion before the
people, and thus remove the bone of contention between the North and the South.  We should
then do an act which may render certain that the Union cannot be dissolved.  We are not aware
of all the feelings that control the people of the Eastern States.-(Debates, p. 180.)
And the delegate from  San  Francisco, (Mr. Gwin,) alluding  to  the
same subject, (Debates, 196,) uses the following startling language:
I have not the remotest idea that the Congress of the United States would give us this great
extent of boundary if it was expected it would remain one State; and when gentlemen say that
they will never give up an inch of the Pacific coast, they say what they cannot carry out. So
far as I am concerned, I should like to see six States fronting on the Pacific in California.
Is it strange, then, that the South should revolt at the idea of letting
California come into the Union, with  limits  that were  avowedly fixed
with a view to strip her of every inch of soil in the newly-acquired Territories, and to prepare the utter annihilation of her influence in the
government by the forthcoming adjunction of six new free States, and
of course of twelve additional free State Senators?   See, Mr. President,
what they themselves think of it?
Mr. Hastings, from Ohio.  But gentlemen maintain that it is very important to include the
whole territory, if possible, because if we settle the question of slavery now for the entire territory, it will be forever settled.  *   *   *  *  I can assure you, gentlemen, that the new
State of California will not be permitted to settle the great question of slavery, &c.  *  *  *
Will the South permit it? No, sir. It will be insisted by the South that we have been urged to
do so by influences brought to bear upon us from the North, &c.-(Debates, p. 173.)
The same.  We have a very low estimate of the sagacity of the South if we suppose they
will overlook this point. They will naturally say: You, a few Californians on the other side of
the continent, assume to settle the great question of slavery for a tract of territory which must
ultimately constitute thirteen or fourteen States of the Union — (Debates, p. 177.)
Mr. McCarver.  But do gentlemen suppose that the South would acquiesce in this airangement, that they will permit us to settle the question of slavery? —(Debates, same page.)
The same.  Do gentlemen suppose that Congress would have suffered Louisiana to settle that
question of slavery for the whole territory known as Louisiana? Equally idle is the assumption
that Congress will stand by, and allow a handfull of citizens in California to settle the slave
question.  It is a monstrous doctrine.-(Debates, p. 187.)
But they never expected that you would be brought to assent to such
pretensions. Mr. Gwin expressed himself as follows:
We know that Congress has the right to settle our boundary, and the boundaries of all new
States  It is a right which they will insist upon, and which they have always refused to surrender. And hence I have thought that if we make the boundary of the Sierra Nevada to run to
the mouth of the Gila, Congress might say to us, You have included too much for one State;
we will limit you to the territory in which youl population resides; we will cut off all south of
36 deg. 30 min.  South of that must be a territorial government.  *  *  *  *  That will be
the great battlefield.  I confess [ would greatly prefer a more restricted boundary.  We have
the natural boundary to make a greater State than any in the Union-the bay of San Francisco
and its tributaries.  IF WE HAD OUR CHOICE, we would thus shape cur boundaries. -(Debates,
p. 445.)




27
Will you, then, let me repeat it again, admit California as she presents
herself to you? We are told that she has already a population exceeding
150,000 of able-bodied men, capable to array in battle 75,000 of stout and
hardy soldiers-of such soldiers as would command the choice of the Senator from  Illinois (Mr. SHIELDS) in a great emergency. What, when she shall
have a population of 500,000 —of 1,000,000 —of 2,000,000, and 3,000,000?
How  monstrous her importance, if she should  remain  in  the  Union 
How gigantic her power, if at any time she should choose to go out of
it!  Cast your eyes a little ahead of you.  Before  them, the  commerce
and the luxuriant temptations of Hindostan, of China, Japan; behind
them the almost boundless empire, stretching from the Straits of Fuca
to the Gulf of Mexico, from  the Pacific to the  Rocky Mountains!  Are
you prepared thus to lay the foundation of a state  of things that may
and must eventually, either enable the new State to wield in her hands
the destinies of the republic by the weight of numbers, which ere long
she will cast in your national councils, or entice her to set out for herself with the bright prospects which the future holds out to her?
We are laying the foundation for a great empire, (says Mr. HALLECKI from New York, page
434.)  Let it be broad and deep.  Let us be governed by no narrow or short-sighted policy.
We are not legislating for a single day, or for a single generation, but for ages and generations
yet in the womb of time.  The position of California is unprecedented in history.  She is already attracting the attention of the world.  There is no spot on this continent which excites at
the present time so much interest and concern.  Men of intelligence from the old and the new
States, and from the commercial cities of South America and Europe, are already rushing in
large bodies to this land of promise.  Every avenue of approach is crowded to excess; every vessel that reaches our ports is crowded to overflowing.  This new population will form a State of
high public spirit and of daring enterprise.  No other portion of the globe will exercise a greater
influence upon the civilization and commerce of the world, &c.  We should therefore be careful,
in laying the foundation of THE NEW EMPIRE, not to contract within too narrow limits the circle
of its action, nor necessarily circumscribe the sphere of its usefulness.
But, while we suffer our attention to be thus engrossed by the claims
which California pleads at our bar, we lose sight of Deseret entirely.
What of her?   She also has sent here her Constitution, and pleads for
admission into the Union. Is she to be held as an independent community? Then she has her inherent rights as well as California proper.
She is the oldest in date before us, and in her State organization.   Her
constitution extends her limits to the crest of the Sierra Nevada, and
down the  Sierra  to  the  Santa  Barbara  mountains; thence  along  the
Pacific to the Gulf of California, embracing  the whole of the  southern
coast.  Can you cut her short of' those  limits to sanction  the posterior
usurpation of California?   Deseret acted in her right, if California did,
when framing her constitution; and  her boundaries, having been  asserted long prior to California, (by seven months.) ought to prevail. If
Deseret must be considered as being in subjection to California, why
was she not summoned to the Monterey Convention?
But (says the delegate from San Franciso, Mr. Gwin) have they any right to complain? Are
we not the majority?  Does any one pretend to say, in this house or elsewhere, that the districts
of California, established under proclamation of the Governor, do not contain a population that
is not represented here? Have not thousands reached the country since we were elected? As a
minority, were they not bound to submit to the majority? Sir, are we not here forcing a State
government upon a portion of the people of California, whose delegates have, by their recorded
votes, stated the fact that their constituents are unanimously against a State government, and in
favor of a territorial organization?  *  *  Gentlemen affect to believe, that in taking a large
extent of territory not represented here, and from which no opposition to our action has been




28
made known to us) we are doing a great act of injustice to those people; when, at the same time,
we have here before us the direct protest against a State government of a portion of the inhabitants of this Territory who are represented. But do we stop? Do we refrain from committing
this act of injustice? No, sirs we go on, and include them.
Then, Mr. President, might is to supercede right. If not, why join
the four protesting to the northwestern districts, and force them into
submission to the State government organized by the Convention? Why
take from them the right to provide for themselves that form of government which best suits them? They are Californians also; and most of
them the Californians for whom provision was intended to be made, and
protection was secured, in the treaty that transferred them to us; and the
first act of the conqueror is to bring them, by a feat of political legerdemain, within the pale and under the authority of a government to
which they were unanimously opposed!
The whole matter of the boundary, then, was cunningly devised to be
merely nominal, purposely unreal, and thoroughly deceptive. It was to be
effective and irreversible for a single object-TO EXCLUDE THE SOUTH FOREVER FROM ALL SHARE IN THE TERRITORIES, THROUGH SPOLIATIONS OF HER
RIGHTS AND A DEGRADATION OF HER SOVEREIGNTY, WITHOUT AN ALTERNATIVE
THAT DOES NOT END IN AN INGLORIOUS SUBMISSION OR A RUPTURE OF THE UNION I
I am now drawing rapidly to a close; and I promise the Senate that
I shall do my best to shorten as much as possible the remaining remarks
which I intend submitting to its consideration, for I feel I have trespassed already too long upon its patience.
My substitute proposes to restrict the limits of California to the 36th
deg. 30 min. parallel of north latitude.
The original line of the Missouri compromise, Mr. President, came
not at the South's instance, nor was it adopted through the South's
choice. Her assent to it was constrained; it was the only alternative
left her between the spoliation and abandonment of her equal rights
north of 36 deg. 30 min., and the dismemberment of the Union; and to
save the one she sacrificed the other, and was thus despoiled of threefourths of the slaveholding territory of Louisiana. With the North the
case was altogether different. She deemed it her interest to partition
the territory by an east and west line, and in such a way that while
southerners were excluded from migration and settlement north of the
line, northerners were left free to migrate and settle on both sides of it,
as they were before.  Through the power of numbers, she established
this principle of territorial partitions, and with the privilege of choice
she fixed on the degree of latitude where the line should run.
This was in 1820. Precisely one-fourth of a century thereafter (1845)
Texas, with her immense territory, was before Congress for admission
into the Union. The North insisted that the line of the Missouri compromise should be applied to her territory. It was in vain to tell her
that not a foot of this territory was the property of the United States,
but belonged exclusively to the State of Texas. She replied that the
principle of territorial partitions between the North and the South upon
the line of 36 deg. 30 min., had been finally settled by the compromise
of 1820, had been adhered to for one-fourth of a century, and was now
as binding as the Constitution itself. She was inexorable: the South
yielded again, and the Missouri line was stretched through the State of
Texas.




Scarcely three years had elapsed before the question of the Missouri
compromise was again mooted in Congress. It came up on the Oregon
territorial bill. All of Oregon south of the Columbia river had been
acquired under the Louisiana treaty of 1803, and of course was included in the Missouri compromise of 1820. But all of Oregbn north of
that river was acquired under the Florida treaty of 1819, which was
not ratified until 1821. Well, the North claimed all of Oregon as free
territory by force of the compromise, and the South recognised her right
to it upon the basis of that adjustment.
The very last instance in which the question arose between the free
and the slave States occurred in the act of acquiring California and New
Mexico, some two years ago; and that was the first and the only instance, after twenty-eight years of steadfast adherence to the principle
of territorial partitions, in which the free States betrayed the wish to
depart from and repudiate that principle.
The circumstance occurred in this Senate convened in Executive
session to deliberate upon the ratification of the treaty of Guadalupe
Ilidalgo. On that occasion, the Senator from Connecticut (Mr. BALDWIN) called upon the free States to disavow and repudiate the line of
the Missouri compromise, by offering an amendment extending the
Wilmot proviso over every acre of the Territories proposed to be ceded
by the treaty. The ground which the Southern Senators took upon that
amendment was this: If you abandon the line of the Missouri compromise, and adopt this amendment, we will at once bring the treaty to a
vote and reject it —leaving you without an inch of domain upon which
to inflict so flagrant an injustice upon the rights of the South! And as
there were thirty Southern Senators in a Senate of sixty, and it would
have required forty affirmative votes (two-thirds) to ratify, and twentyone negative votes would have been sufficient to reject it, even in a full
Senate, it was plain enough that the Southern Senators had it in their
power to make good what they said they would do in such a conjuncture. The amendment was therefore voted down by a decided majority, and the treaty was adopted without it. Sir, without a word in the
South's praise, it may be said, and no Senator here will deny it, that
without the South's military share in the war, without her monetary
share in expenses, and, above all, without her votes for the ratification
of the treaty, we should not now have had a single acre of Territory to
wrangle about. Not an inch of it could you have had, but by repudiating
the Wilmot proviso, and through the implication that the line of the
Missouri compromise would be maintained and applied to the new Territories. And was it so applied? It was not: for had it been, the new
Territories would have received the ordinary organization long ago, and
the country have been spared the fearful controversy which now disturbs and alarms it.
The very provisions of the present bill applicable to Utah and New
Mexico, (as amended by the Senate,) had they been applied to California at the last session of Congress, would have been accepted by the
South. Stretch the line of the Missouri compromise through all of
them now, and to the Pacific, the South will still be content. As much
as this sacrifices of what she hs jist claims to, as little as it secures of
what is really her own, yet such is her love of union and petce that
she will gladly shake hands wilh you upon that line, and be friends.




80
Some there are who seem to think that matters are materially changed
from what they were at the last session of Congress, because California
has since then met in convention, and formed a State constitution and
government; and it would seem that, in their opinion at least, Congress
could not stretch the line of the Missouri compromise across her State
boundaries-as if Congress, since the last session, had parted with any
power over California which it had before. Why, the powers of Congress over her boundaries are still the same, and doubtless supreme.
There is not an instance where Congress parted with them, until it admitted a new State into the Union: it has exercised them in every instance of admission of a new State, and the very bill under debate is an
authority and a voucher for what I am now contending for.
The Senate overlooks entirely that the State of Deseret (Utah) presented herself; some two months before California, with a regular State
constitution, at the bar of the Senate, and with a memorial to Congress
asking her admission into the Union! Deseret had a larger permanent
population than California at the time they respectively formed their
constitutions; for it was unanimously conceded in the California Convention, that she had from 30,000 to 40,000 inhabitants; and, what is
most remarkable, her constitution was unanimously adopted, while that
of California hardly reached 13,000!
Another astounding circumstance is, that California stretched her
boundary line across the heart of Deseret, and appropriated to herself
fully 70,000 square miles of that State.
The application of Deseret is still pending before the Senate; it has
not been acted upon-still less has it been rejected: and yet here is the
committee's bill, cutting off from Deseret these 70,000 square miles, and
extending California's boundaries over it.
Let it never more be said, then, that Congress does not at this moment possess all the powers and rights over the boundaries of California
that it ever did or does now possess over those of Utah and New Mexico.
It is obvious that there is not an obstacle in the way of Congress
running the line of the Missouri Compromise through California to the
Pacific, but its own WILL.
The North knows it. The South knows it; and she expects that it
will be conceded to her, and will insist upon it, and accept of no adjustment that will fall short of it. There is not a journal of either party, nor
have I seen a Southern man who, in yielding to the one or the other of
the two plans presented to Congress-the one by the Executive, the
other by the Committee of Thirteen-has not declared of either that it
was not what it should be; that the North got all and gave nothing
There is scarcely one journal that does not avow its preference to the
Missouri Compromise over all others. Some of them add, it is true,' we can't get it;" which I must think would be far more appropriate if
coming from those who do not want it, or, having the power, won't
yield it. But, sir, evidences that the universal South favors the line of
the Missouri Compromise above all other plans have been amply displayed within the very walls of the Capitol; and here, sir, in the Senate, when that distinctive measure shall come to a final vote, I shall be
both surprised and concerned if the Southern Senators shall not attest




31
their sense of what their respective States desire most, by casting something like a unanimous vote in its favor.
Congress possesses all the power over the boundaries of California
now, that it possessed at the last session of Congress, and has exactly the
same right to extend the line of the Missouri Compromise through it
that it had then.
It follows from this, that it is entirely at its option whether the Wilmot Proviso shall be established in California south of 360 30f or not.
It is not established yet; it cannot be established unless Congress says it
shall. And, Mr. President, do not expect that the South can be so easily
deluded. She knows-she will know-that if Congress limits California
by 36~ 30', it will have refused to establish the Wilmot Proviso; if it
does not, and admits her into the Union as she is, Congress WILL HAVE
ESTABLISHED IT.
Will riot the admission of California, then, be identically, in substance
and in fact, the establishment of the Wilmot Proviso south of 36~ 30'
BY CONGRESS? There cannot be a doubt of it. Well, sir, the mere menace of doing so heretofore threw the entire South into a flame, and united all hearts in resistance. Is it hoped that the consummation of that
odious measure, through the virtue of this bill, will not unite them
again, and kindle the flame that will blaze up fiercer than ever?
Have our brethren of the free States sufficiently pondered upon the consequences of putting the South to the wall, and forcing upon her the adoption of desperate measures? Will they shut their eyes on the clouds that
rise on the horizon? Will they brave the dangers that surround us
when they can avert them forever by adhering faithfully to a Compromise which they themselves contrived against and imposed upon the
South, and when the South is willing to abide by it? Sir, is the permanency of this Republic of so little value to them that they will not
secure it at such a price? Methinks I can read the characters which a
mysterious hand is writing upon these walls!
Yet, sir, bad as I think this measure, disastrous as will be the consequence, and strenuously as I may struggle against it while it is open to
debate, my opposition to it will end here. I may think no less of the
wrong it occasions, the injury it inflicts, the oppression it menaces, and
the dismemberment that awaits it; but whenever that controversy
passes beyond this chamber, and reaches the point of collision and rup.
ture, a deep sense of all I owe my adopted country will bid me abstain
from it, and leave its fate to its native sons and to that all-wise Providence that holds in its hands the destinies of nations. Until the State
that made me whatever I am summons me to other duties and other
resolves, I shall abide by the Union. I shall neither forget nor disown
how much I owe her, and how mighty are her claims on me! Mr.
President, I can hardly suppress, and yet I feel quite unable to give utterance to, the emotions which those claims awaken in my heart. Only
think of one who, in early life, for some humble strivings for liberty in
his native land, brought down upon him the monarch's frown, and had
to quit country, family, friends-everything that is dear and sacred to
the human heart. To this, the land of the free-sanctified by the virtues and patriotism  of a Washington, a Franklin, a Jefferson-he directed his steps. He came and found freedom and welcome. Poor, he




82
was cared for; friendless he was befriended; patronage seconded his
efforts; success crowned his toils; and, rewarded and honored far above
his merits, lo I the exile finds himself in the midst of the sages of the
Republic-an associate with patriots in a Senate of equals I Ah I believe you, sir, that I could ever tear out of my heart such a remembrance as this? —that I could lift arm of mine in such a strife? May
it perish sooner I But, sir, and you, Senators, allow me a last warning:
JVSTICE to the South, if you wish PERPErtITY T THE UNION! Whoever
advises you to the contrary can only be inspired by that king of spirits
" Whose throne is darkness in the abyss of light,"