Page images
PDF
EPUB

and enterprise; and the systems of education prevailing among us open to all the stores of human science and art.

they constitute inferior masses, and may be regarded as accidental if not disturbing political forces. The ruling homogeneous family planted at first on the Atlantic shores, and following an obvious law, is The old world and the past were allotted by seen continually and rapidly spreading itself west- Providence to the pupilage of mankind, under the ward year by year, subduing the wilderness and the hard discipline of arbitrary power, quelling the vioprairie, and thus extending this great political com-lence of human passions. The new world and the munity, which, as fast as it advances, breaks into distinct States for municipal purposes only, while the whole constitutes one entire contiguous and compact nation.

That 10 years hence it will be
That 20 years hence it will be
That 30 years hence it will be
That 40 years hence it will be
That 50 years hence it will be
That 100 years hence, that is, in the
year 1950, it will be

future seem to have been appointed for the maturity of mankind, with the development of self-government operating in obedience to reason and judgment.

We have thoroughly tried our novel system of Well-established calculations in political arithme- Democratic Federal Government, with its complex, tic enables us to say that the aggegate population of yet harmonious and effective combination of distinct the nation now is 22,000,000 local elective agencies, for the conduct of domestic 30,000,000 affairs, and its common central elective agencies, for 38,000,000 the regulation of internal interests and of intercourse 50,000,000 with foreign nations; and we know that it is a sys64,000,000 tem equally cohesive in its parts, and capable of all 80.000,000 desirable expansion; and that it is a system, moreover, perfectly adapted to secure domestic tranquil200,000,000 lity, while it brings into activity all the elements equal nearly to one-fourth of the present aggregate of national aggrandizement. The Atlantic States, population of the globe, and double the population through their commercial, social, and political affiniof Europe at the time of the discovery of America. ties and sympathies, are steadily renovating the But the advance of population on the Pacific will Governments and the social constitutions of Europe far exceed what has heretofore occurred on the and of Africa. The pacific States must necessarily Atlantic coast, while emigration even here is out-perform the same sublime and beneficent functions stripping the calculations on which the estimates are in Asia. If, then, the American people shall remain based. There are silver and gold in the mountains an undivided nation, the ripening civilization of the and ravines of California. The granite of New West, after a separation growing wider and wider England and New York is barren. for four thousand years, will, in its circuit of the Allowing due consideration to the increasing den-world, meet again and mingle with the declining sity of our population, we are safe in assuming, that long before this mass shall have attained the maximum of numbers indicated, the entire width of our possessions from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean will be covered by it, and be brought into social maturity and complete political organization.

The question now arises, Shall this one great people, having a common origin, a common language, a common religion, common sentiments, interests, sympathies, and hopes, remain one political State, one nation, one Republic, or shall it be broken into two confiicting and probably hostile Nations or Republics? There cannot ultimately be more than two; for the habit of association is already formed, as the interests of mutual intercourse are being formed. It is already ascertained where the centre of political power must rest. It must rest in the agricultural interests and masses, who will occupy the interior of the continent. These masses, if they cannot all command access to both oceans, will not be obstructed in their approaches to that one, which offers the greatest facilities to their commerce.

Shall the American people, then, be divided? Before deciding on this question, let us consider our position, our power, and capabilities.

civilization of the East on our own free soil, and a new and more perfect civilization will arise to bless the earth, under the sway of our own cherished and beneficent democratic institutions.

We may then reasonably hope for greatness, felicity, and renown, excelling any hitherto attained by any nation, if, standing firmly on the continent, we loose not our grasp on the shore of either ocean. Whether a destiny so magnificent would be only partially defeated or whether it would be altogether lost, by a relaxation of that grasp, surpasses our wisdom to determine, and happily it is not important to be determined. It is enough, if we agree that expectations so grand, yet so reasonable and so just, ought not to be in any degree disappointed. And now it seems to me that the perpetual unity of the Empire hangs on the decision of this day and of this hour.

California is already a State, a complete and fully appointed State. She never again can be less than that. She can never again be a province or a colony; nor can she be made to shrink and shrivel int the proportions of a federal dependent Territor California, then, henceforth and for ever, must b what she is now, a State.

The world contains no seat of empire so magnifi- The question whether she shall be one of the cent as this; which, while it embraces all the vary- United States of America has depended on her ing climates of the temperate zone, and is traversed and on us. Her election has been made. Our by wide expanding lakes and long-branching rivers, consent alone remains suspended; and that consent offers supplies on the Atlantic shores to the over- must be pronounced now or never. I say now or crowded nations of Europe, while on the Pacific never. Nothing prevents it now, but want of agreecoast it intercepts the commerce of the Indies. The ment among ourselves. Our harmony can not innation thus situated, and enjoying forest, mineral, crease while this question remains open. We shall and agricultural resources unequalled, if endowed never agree to admit California, unless we agree also with moral energies adequate to the achievement of great enterprises, and favored with a Government adapted to their character and condition, must command the empire of the seas, which alone is real empire.

We think that we may claim to have inherited physical and intellectual vigor, courage, invention,

now. Nor will California abide delay. I do not say that she contemplates independence; but, if she does not, it is because she does not anticipate rejection. Do you say that she can have no motive? Consider, then, her attitude, if rejected. She needs a Constitution, a Legislature, and Magistrates; she needs titles to that golden domain of yours within her

borders; good titles, too; and you must give them | of judgment and conscience on distinct and separate on your own terms, or she must take them without questions, at distinct and separate times, with the your leave. She needs a mint, a customhouse, indispensable advantages it affords for ascertaining wharves, hospitals, and institutions of learning; truth. They involve a relinquishment of the right she needs fortifications, and roads, and railroads; to reconsider in future the decisions of the present, she needs the protection of an army and a navy; on questions prematurely anticipated. And they either your stars and stripes must wave over her are acts of usurpation as to future questions of the ports and her fleets, or she must raise aloft a stand- province of future legislators. ard for herself; she needs, at least, to know whether you are friends or enemies; and, finally, she needs, what no American community can live without, sovereignty and independence-either a just and equal share of yours, or sovereignty and independence of her own.

Will you say that California could not aggrandize herself by separation? Would it, then, be a mean ambition to set up within fifty years, on the Pacific coast, monuments like those which we think two hundred years have been well spent in establishing on the Atlantic coast?

Will you say that California has no ability to become independent? She has the same moral ability for enterprise that inheres in us, and that ability implies command of all physical means. She has advantages of position. She is practically further removed from us than England. We can not reach her by railroad, nor by unbroken steam navigation. We can send no armies over the prairie, the mountain, and the desert, nor across the remote and narrow Isthmus within a foreign jurisdiction, nor around the Cape of Storms. We may send a navy there, but she has only to open her mines, and she can seduce our navies and appropriate our floating bulwarks to her own defence. Let her only seize our domain within her borders, and our commerce in her ports, and she will have at once revenues and credit adequate to all her necessities. Besides, are we so moderate, and has the world become so just, that we have no rivals and no enemies to lend their sympathies and aid to compass the dismemberment of our empire?

Try not the temper and fidelity of California-at least not now, not yet. Cherish her and indulge her until you have extended your settlements to her borders, and bound her fast by railroads, and canals, and telegraphs, to your interests-until her affinities of intercourse are established, and her habits of loyalty are fixed-and then she can never be disengaged.

California would not go alone. Oregon, so intimately allied to her, and as yet so loosely attached to us, would go also; and then at least the entire Pacific coast, with the western declivity of the Sierra Nevada, would be lost. It would not depend at all upon us, nor even on the mere forbearance of California, how far eastward the long line across the temperate zone should be drawn, which should separate the Republic of the Pacific from the Republic of the Atlantic. Terminus has passed away, with all the deities of the ancient Pantheon, but his sceptre remains. Commerce is the God of boundaries, and no man now living can foretell his ultimate de

cree.

But it is insisted that the admission of California shall be attended by a COMPROMISE of questions which have arisen out of SLAVERY!

I AM OPPOSED TO ANY SUCH COMPROMISE, IN ANY AND ALL THE FORMS IN WHICH IT HAS BEEN PROPOSED; because, while admitting the purity and the patriotism of all from whom it is my misfortune to differ, I think all legislative compromises, not absolutely necessary, radically wrong and essentially vicious. They involve the surrender of the exercise

Sir, it seems to me as if slavery had laid its paralyzing hand upon myself, and the blood were coursing less freely than its wont through my veins, wheu I endeavor to suppose that such a compromise has been effected, and that my utterance forever rested upon all the great questions-social, moral, and political-arising out of a subject so important, and as yet so incomprehensible.

al

What am I to receive in this compromise?, Freedom in California. It is well; it is a noble acquisition; it is worth a sacrifice. But what am I to give as an equivalent? A recognition of the claim to perpetuate slavery in the District of Columbia; forbearance toward more stringent laws concerning the arrest of persons suspected of being slaves found in the free States; forbearance from the Proviso of Freedom in the charters of new territories. None of the plans of compromise offered demand less than two, and most of them insist on all of these conditions. The equivalent, then, is, some portion of liberty, some portion of human rights in one region for liberty in another region. But California brings gold and commerce as well as freedom. I am, then, to surrender some portion of human freedom in the District of Columbia, and in East California and New Mexico, for the mixed consideration of liberty, gold, and power, on the Pacific coast.

This view of legislative compromises is not new. It has widely prevailed, and many of the State Constitutions interdict the introduction of more than one subject into one bill submitted for legislative action.

It was of such compromises that Burke said, in one of the loftiest bursts of even his majestic parliamentary eloquence :

"Far, far from the Commons of Great Britain be all manner of real vice; but ten thousand times farther from them, as far as from pole to pole, be the whole tribe of spurious, affected, counterfeit, and hypocritical virtues! These are the things which are ten thousand times more at war with real virtue, these are the things which are ten thousand times more at war with real duty, than any vice known by its name and distinguished by its proper character.

"Far, far from us be that false and affected candor that is eternally in treaty with crime-that half virtue, which, like the ambiguous animal that flies about in the twilight of a compromise between day and night, is, to a just man's eye, an odious and disgusting thing. There is no middle point, my Lords, in which the Commons of Great Britain can meet tyranny and oppression."

But, sir, if I could overcome my repugnance to compromises in general, I should object to this one, on the ground of the inequality and incongruity of the interests to be compromised. Why, sir, according to the views I have submitted, California ought to come in, and must come in, whether slavery stand or fall in the District of Columbia; whether slavery stand or fall in New Mexico and Eastern California; and even whether slavery stand or fall in the slave States. California ought to come in, being a free State; and, under the circumstances of her conquest, her compact, her abandonment, her justifiable and necessary establishment of a Constitution, and the inevitable dismemberment of the empire consequent upon her rejection, I should have voted for her admission even if she had come as a slave State. California ought to come in, and must come in at all

events. It is, then, an independent, a paramount question. What, then, are these questions arising out of slavery, thus interposed, but collateral questions? They are unnecessary and incongruous, and therefore false issues, not introduced designedly, indeed, to defeat that great policy, yet unavoidably tending to that end.

Mr. FOOTE. Will the honorable Senator allow me to ask him, if the Senate is to understand him as saying that he would vote for the admission of California if she came here seeking admission as a slave State?

Mr. SEWARD. I reply, as I said before, that even if California had come as a slave State, yet coming under the extraordinary circumstances I have described, and in view of the consequences of a dismemberment of the empire, consequent upon her rejection, I should have voted for her admission, even though she had come as a slave State. But I should not have voted for her admission other wise.

I remark in the next place, that consent on my part would be disingenuous and fraudulent, because the compromise would be unavailing.

It is now avowed by the honorable Senator from South Carolina, [Mr. CALHOUN,] that nothing will satisfy the slave States but a compromise that will convince them that they can remain in the Union consistently with their honor and their safety. And what are the concessions which will have that effect? Here they are, in the words of that Senator :

"The North must do justice by conceding to the South an equal right in the acquired territory, and do her duty by causing the stipulations relative to fugitive slaves to be faithfully fulfilled-cease the agitation of the slave question-and provide for the insertion of a provision in the Constitution, by an amendment, which will restore to the South in sub stance the power she possessed, of protecting herself, before the equilibrium between the sections was destroyed by the

action of this Government."

These terms amount to this: that the free States having already, or although they may hereafter have, majorities of population, and majorities in both Houses of Congress, shall concede to the slave States, being in a minority in both, the unequal advantage of an equality. That is, that we shall alter the Constitution so as to convert the Government from a nationn! democracy, operating by a constitutional majority of voices, into a Federal alliance, in which the minority shall have a veto against the majority. And this is nothing less than to return to the original Articles of Confederation.

ity or a proximate equality in the number of slaves and freemen. And this must be perpetual.

But the census of 1840 gives a slave basis of only 2,500,000, and a free basis of 14,500,000. And the population on the slave basis increases in the ratio of 25 per cent. for ten years, while that on the free basis advances at the rate of 38 per cent. The accelerating movement of the free population now complained of, will occupy the new Territories with pioneers, and every day increases the difficulty of forcing or insinuating slavery into regions which freemen have pre-occupied. And if this were possible, the African slave-trade is prohibited, and the domestic increase is not sufficient to supply the new slave States which are expected to maintain the equilibrium.. The theory of a new political equilibrium claims that it once existed, and has been lost. When lost, and how? It began to be lost in 1787, when preliminary arrangements were made to admit five new free States in the Northwest Territory, two years before the Constitution was finally adopted; that is, it began to be lost two years before it began to exist!

Sir, the equilibrium, if restored, would be lost again, and lost more rapidly than it was before. The progress of the free population is to be accelerated by increased emigration, and by new tides from South America and from Europe and Asia, while that of the slaves is to be checked and retarded by inevitable partial emancipation. "Nothing," says Montesquieu, "reduces a man so low as always to see freemen, and yet not be free. Persons in that condition are natural enemies of the state, and their numbers would be dangerous if increased too high." Sir, the fugitive slave colonies and the emancipated slave colonies in the free States, in Canada, and in Liberia, are the best guaranties South Carolina has for the perpetuity of slavery.

Nor would success attend any of the details of the compromise. And, first, I advert to the proposed alteration of the law concerning fugitives from service or labor. I shall speak on this, as on all subjects, with due respect, but yet frankly, and without reservation. The Constitution contains only a compact, which rests for its execution on the States. Not content with this, the slave States induced legislation by Congress; and the Supreme Court of the United States have virtually decided that the whole subject is within the province of Congress, and exclusive of State authority. Nay, they have decided that slaves are to be regarded, not merely as persons I will not stop to protest against the injustice or to be claimed, but as property and chattels, to be the inexpediency of an innovation which, if it was seized without any legal authority or claim whatever. practicable, would be so entirely subversive of the The compact is thus subverted by the procurement principle of democratic institutions. It is enough to of the slave States. With what reason, then, can say that it is totally impracticable. The free States, they expect the States ex gratia to reassume the obNorthern and Western, have acquiesced in the long ligations from which they caused those States to be and nearly-unbroken ascendency of the slave States discharged? I say, then, to the slave States, you under the Constitution, because the result happened are entitled to no more stringent laws; and that under the Constitution. But they have honor and such laws would be useless. The cause of the inefinterests to preserve, and there is nothing in the na- ficiency of the present statute is not at all the leniture of mankind or in the character of that people ency of its provisions. It is a law that deprives the to induce an expectation that they, loyal as they are, alleged refugee from a legal obligation not assumed are insensible to the duty of defending them. But by him, but imposed upon him by laws enacted bethe scheme would still be impracticable, even if this fore he was born, of the writ of habeas corpus, and difficulty were overcome. What is proposed is a of any certain judicial process of examination of the political equilibrium. Every political equilibrium claim set up by his pursuer, and finally degrades him requires a physical equilibrium to rest upon, and is into a chattel which may be seized and carried away valueless without it. To constitute a physical equi-peaceably wherever found, even although exercising librium between the slave States and the free States, the rights and responsibilities of a free citizen of the requires, first, an equality of territory, or some near Commonwealth in which he resides, and of the Uniapproximation. And this is already lost. But it ted States--a law which denies to the citizen all the requires much more than this. It requires an equal- I safeguards of personal liberty, to render less frequent

[ocr errors]

the escape of the bondman. And since complaints are so freely made against the one side, I shall not hesitate to declare that there have been even greater faults on the other side. Relying on the perversion of the Constitution which makes slaves mere chattels, the slave States have applied to them the pinciples of the criminal law, and have held that he who aided the escape of his fellow-man from bondage was guilty of a larceny in stealing him. I speak of what I know. Two instances came within my own knowledge, in which Governors of slave States, under the provision of the Constitution relating to fugitives from justice, demanded from the Governor of a free State the surrender of persons as thieves whose alleged offences consisted in constructive larceny of the rags that covered the persons of female slaves, whose attempt at escape they permitted or assisted.

We deem the principle of the law for the recapture of fugitives, as thus expounded, therefore, unjust, unconstitutional, and immoral; and thus, while patriotism withholds its approbation, the consciences of our people condemn it.

the standard of the laws of God, and must be tried by that standard, and must stand or fail by it. This principle was happily explained by one of the most distinguished political philosophers of England in these emphatic words:

"There is but one law for all, namely, that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity, the law of nature and of nations. So far as any laws fortify this primeval law, and give it more precision, more energy, more effect, by their declarations, such laws enter into the sanctuary and participate in the sacredness of its character; but the man who quotes as precedents the abuses of tyrants and robbers, pollutes the very fountains of justice, destroys the foundations of all law, and therefore removes the only safeguard against evil men, whether gov. ernors or governed; the guard which prevents governors from becoming tyrants, and the governed from becoming

rebels."

There was deep philosophy in the confession of an eminent English judge. When he had condemned a young woman to death, under the late sanguinary code of his country, for her first petty theft, she fell down dead at his feet: "I seem to myself," said he, "to have been pronouncing sentence, not against the prisoner, but against the law itself."

Do we,

You will say that these convictions of ours are dis- To conclude on this point. We are not slaveloyal. Grant it for the sake of argument. They holders. We cannot, in our judgment, be either are, nevertheless, honest; and the law is to be exe- true Christians or real freemen, if we impose on cuted among us, not among you; not by us, but by another a chain that we defy all human power to the Federal authority. Has any Government ever fasten on ourselves. You believe and think othersucceeded in changing the moral convictions of its wise, and doubtless with equal sincerity. We judge subjects by force? But these convictions imply no you not, and He alone who ordained the conscience disloyalty. We reverence the Constitution, although of man and its laws of action can judge us. we perceive this defect, just as we acknowledge the then, in this conflict of opinion, demand of you an splendor and the power of the sun, although its sur-unreasonable thing in asking that, since you will face is tarnished with here and there an opaque spot. have property that can and will exercise human Your Constitution and laws convert hospitality to powers to effect its escape, you shall be your own the refugee from the most degrading oppression on police, and, in acting among us as such, you shall earth into a crime, but all mankind except you es- conform to principles indispensable to the security teem that hospitality a virtue. The right of extra- of admitted rights of freemen? If you will have dition of a fugitive from justice is not admitted by this law executed, you must alleviate, not increase, the law of nature and of nations, but rests in volun- its rigors. tary compacts. I know of only two compacts found in diplomatic history that admitted EXTRADITION OF SLAVES. Here is one of them. It is found in a treaty of peace made between Alexander Comnenus and Leontine, Greek Emperors at Constantinople, and Oleg, King of Russia, in the year 902, and is in these words:

"If a Russian slave take flight, or even if he is carried away by any one under pretence of having been bought, his master shall have the right and power to pursue him, and hunt for and capture him wherever he shall be found; and any person who shall oppose the master in the execution of this right shall be deemed guilty of violating this treaty, and be punished accordingly."

This was in the year of Grace 902, in the period called the "Dark Ages," and the contracting Powers were despotisms. And here is the other:

"No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor is due."

This is from the Constitution of the United States in 1787, and the parties were the republican States of this Union. The law of nations disavows such compacts; the law of nature, written on the hearts and consciences of freemen, repudiates them. Armed power could not enforce them, because there is no public conscience to sustain them. I know that here are laws of various sorts which regulate the conduct of men. There are constitutions and statutes, codes mercantile and codes civil; but when we are legislating for States, especially when we are founding States, all these laws must be brought to

Another feature in most of these plans of compromise is a bill of peace for slavery in the District of Columbia; and this bill of peace we cannot grant. We of the free States are, equally with you of the slave States, responsible for the existence of slavery in this District, the field exclusively of our common legislation. I regret that, as yet, I see little reason to hope that a majority in favor of emancipation exists here. The Legislature of New York-from whom, with great deference, I dissent-seems willing to accept now the extinction of the slave trade, and waive emancipation. But we shall assume the whole responsibility, if we stipulate not to exercise the power hereafter when a majority shall be obtained. Nor will the plea with which you would furnish us be of any avail. If I could understand so mysterious a paradox myself, I never should be able to explain, to the apprehension of the people whom I represent, how it was that an absolute and express power to legislate in all cases over the District of Columbia, was embarrassed and defeated by an implied condition not to legislate for the abolition of slavery in this District. Sir, I shall vote for that measure, and am willing to appropriate any means necessary to carry it into execution. And, if I shall be asked what I did to embellish the capital of my country, I will point to her freedmen, and say, these are the monuments of my munificence!

If I was willing to advance a cause that I deem sacred by disingenuous means, I would advise you to adopt those means of compromise which I have thus examined. The echo is not quicker in its response than would be that loud and universal cry

of repeal, that would not die away until the habeas corpus was secured to the alleged fugitive from bondage, and the symmetry of the free institutions of the capital was perfected.

I apply the same observations to the proposition | for a waiver of the Proviso of Freedom in Territorial charters. Thus far you have only direct popular action in favor of that Ordinance, and there seems even to be a partial disposition to await the action of the people of the new Territories, as we have compulsorily waited for it in California. But I must tell you, nevertheless, in candor and in plainness, that the spirit of the people of the free States is set upon a spring that rises with the pressure put upon it. That spring, if pressed too hard, will give a recoil that will not leave here one servant who knew his master's will, and did it not.

power of the President and the Senate. Entertaining this view, I must insist that the constitutionality of the annexation of Texas itself shall be cleared up before I can agree to the admission of any new States to be formed within Texas.

Mr. FOOTE. Did not I hear the Senator observe that he would admit California, whether slavery was or was not precluded from these Territories? Mr. SEWARD. I said I would have voted for the admission of California even as a slave State, under the extraordinary circumstances which I have before distinctly described. I say that now; but I say also, that before I would agree to admit any more States from Texas, the circumstances which render such act necessary must be shown, and must be such as to determine my obligation to do so; and that is precisely what I insist cannot be settled now. It must be left for those to whom the responsibility will belong. ⚫

You will say that this implies violence. Not at all. It implies only peaceful, lawful, constitutional, customary action. I cannot too strongly express my Mr. President, I understand, and I am happy in surprise that those who insist that the people of the understanding, that I agree with the honorable Senslave States cannot be held back from remedies out- ator from Massachusetts, that there is no obligation side of the Constitution, should so far misunder-upon Congress to admit four new slave States out stand us of the free States as to suppose we would not exercise our constitutional rights to sustain the policy which we deem just and beneficent.

I come now to notice the suggested compromise of the boundary between Texas and New Mexico. This is a judicial question in its nature, or at least a question of legal right and title. If it is to be compromised at all, it is due to the two parties, and to national dignity as well as to justice, that it be kept separate from compromises proceeding on the ground of expediency, and be settled by itself alone. I take this occasion to say, that while I do not intend to discuss the questions alluded to in this connection by the honorable and distinguished Senator from Massachusetts, I am not able to agree with him in regard to the alleged obligation of Congress to admit four new slave States, to be formed in the State of Texas. There are several questions arising out of that subject, upon which I am not prepared to decide now, and which I desire to reserve for future consideration. One of these is, whether the Article of Annexation does really deprive Congress of the right to exercise its choice in regard to the subdivision of Texas into four additional States. It seems to me by no means so plain a question as the Senator from Massachusetts assumed, and that it must be left to remain an open question, as it is a great question, whether Congress is not a party whose future consent is necessary to

the formation of new States out of Texas.

Mr. WEBSTER. Supposing Congress to have the authority to fix the number, and time of election, and apportionment of Representatives, &c., the question is, whether, if new States are formed out of Texas, to come into this Union, there is not a solemn pledge by law that they have a right to come in as slave States?

Mr. SEWARD. When the States are once formed, they have the right to come in as free or slave States, according to their own choice; but what I insist is, that they cannot be formed at all without the consent of Congress, to be hereafter given, which consent Congress is not obliged to give. But I pass that question for the present, and proceed to say that I am not prepared to admit that the Article of the Annexation of Texas is itself constitutional. I find no authority in the Constitution of the United States for the annexation of foreign countries by a resolution of Congress, and no power adequate to that purpose but the treaty-making

of Texas, but that Congress has reserved her right to say whether those States shall be formed and admitted or not. I shall rely on that reservation. I shall vote to admit no more slave States, unless under circumstances absolutely compulsory-and no such case is now foreseen.

Mr. WEBSTER. What I said was, that if the States hereafter to be made out of Texas choose to come in as slave States, they have a right so to do.

Mr. SEWARD. My position is, that they have not a right to come in at all, if Congress rejects their institutions. The subdivision of Texas is a matter optional with both parties, Texas and the United States.

Mr. WEBSTER. Does the honorable Senator mean to say that Congress can hereafter decide whether they shall be slave or free States?

Mr. SEWARD. I mean to say that Congress can hereafter decide whether any States, slave or free, can be framed out of Texas. If they should never be framed out of Texas, they never could be admitted.

Another objection arises out of the principle on which the demand for compromise rests. That principle assumes a classification of the States as North ern and Southern States, as it is expressed by the honorable Senator from South Carolina, [Mr. CALHOUN,] but into slave States and free States, as more directly expressed by the honorable Senator from Georgia, [Mr. BERRIEN.] The argument is, that the States are severally equal, and that these two classes were equal at the first, and that the Constitution was founded on that equilibrium; that the States being equal, and the classes of the States being equal in rights, they are to be regarded as constituting an association in which each State, and each of these classes of States, respectively, contribute in due proportions; that the new Territories are a common acquisition, and the people of these several States and classes of States have an equal right to participate in them, respectively; that the right of the people of the slave States to emigrate to the Territories with their slaves as property is necessary to afford such a participation, on their part, inasmuch as the people of the free States emigrate into the same Territories with their property. And the ar gument deduces from this right the principle that, if Congress exclude slavery from any part of this new domain, it would be only just to set off a portion of the domain-some say south of 36 deg. 30 min.,

« PreviousContinue »