Mr. DIXON. Will the Senator allow me to ask another question?

Mr. WADE. Yes, sir; as many as you please. Mr. DIXON. Does the Senator consider the free negroes in his State as equal to the free white people?

How is this? We are told that the slaveholder | the master, who compels him, by open force and must go into this Territory. Why? Because, says without right, to serve him alone. That, sir, is the gentleman from Kentucky, it belongs to the my doctrine. When you speak of equality before States, and those who hold slaves have just as the law, or equality before the Almighty God. I good a right to immigrate into it and take their do not suppose you [addressing himself to Mr. property with them, as any other person has. DIXON] stand one whit higher than the meanest Now, we have seen that these two interests are slave you have. That is my judgment, and probantagonistical; they cannot both stand together. ably it is the judgment that you will understand in If you take your slaves there, I tell you the proud the last day, though you will not understand it laborer of the North, although he has no capital, before. except his ability to draw from the earth his support by honorable labor, will never consent to work side by side with your miserable serf and slave. Then, there being an antagonism between these two principles, which is greatest in numbers? According to the present census, all the slaveholders in the United States do not amount to Mr. WADE. Yes. Why not equal? Do they four hundred thousand. What number of free not all have their life from Almighty God; do not laborers are there who ought to have the benefit of they hold it of his tenure? When you speak of this great Territory? Probably fully thirteen mil-wealth, riches, and influence-if that is what you lions are to be offset against about four hundred mean-they are generally poor, without influence, thousand. If you take any considerable number perhaps despised among us as well as with you; of slaves into this Territory, you as effectually blast but that does not prevent that equality of which I and condemn it for all the purposes of free immi-speak. I say, in the language of the Declaration "created equal" gration as though you should burn it with fire and of Independence, that they were brimstone, as Sodom and Gomorrah were once and you have trampled them under foot, and made consumed. Every man understands this. them apparently unequal by your own wrong Immigration does not go into slave States. Im- That is all there is of it. That is my doctrine. I migration cannot abide there. But is there any do not go into the States, be it known; constitutional difficulty upon this subject? Sena- went there to ask any questions of you; but I betors from the South say they can go into this Terri- lieve your legislation is all wrong, and as wrong tory and take their property with them. Now for you, even, as it is for your slaves; for when I why should they be let in there with what they contrast the prosperity of the States where this call their property? Am I obliged, as a mem- wrong and outrage is indulged in with the pros ber of the Government of the United States, to ac-perity of those where the free and just principles knowledge your title to a slave? No, sir, never. of the North prevail, what is the manifestation of Before I would do it, I would expatriate myself; these principles upon the apparent welfare of the for I am a believer in the Declaration of Indepen- societies in which they prevail? This is a quesdence. I believe that it was a declaration from tion which, if it were not involved in this controAlmighty God, that all men are created free and versy, I should not argue at all; for I do not wish equal, and have the same inherent rights. But, to do anything which will excite ill feeling here; thank God, the Government of the United States to which I belong does not anywhere compel any man to acknowledge the title of any person to a slave. If you own him, you own him by virtue of positive law in your own States, with which I have nothing to do, and with which I never have had anything to do. Sir, I hear the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. BUTLER] talking to the Senator from Kentucky, [Mr. DIXON,] and I wish it to go forth that the gentleman from South Carolina says, why should not the free laborer work with the slave? Is he not his equal? Is that the opinion of the chairman of the committee?

Mr. DIXON. Will the Senator allow me to ask a question?

Mr. WADE. Yes, sir; and your associate, too, [Mr. BUTLER.]

I never

but I cannot shrink from anything that is pertinent to the issue. The question is whether, in that fair field, large as a continent, we shall now plant human slavery; or whether we shall leave it as our forefathers left it-fenced out forever hereafter. That brings up the whole question. If slavery is right-if it comports with the best interests of mankind, slavery unquestionably should be fostered, encouraged, and upheld by our legislation. I s with you there, if you will meet me upon that issue. If you will make it appear that your principle works better than ours, let us not only carry it into Nebraska, but let us carry it to the ends of the earth; let us send missionaries out to herald forth the blessings of human slavery, and introduce it into countries where it does not now exist, if you can find such. I am for doing the greatest good to mankind.

Mr. DIXON. The Senator, if I understood him, said he was a believer in the Declaration of But how is this? Look at the Old Dominion Independence, and in the doctrines of God, which herself. It is not more than sixty years ago, declare that all men are equal. Does the Senator mean that the slave is equal to those free laborers that he speaks of in the North ?

Mr. WADE. Go on.

hardly has the age of one man passed away since the Old Dominion was a head and shoulders higher, in every particular, than any State in this Union, not only in the number of her population, but in her riches and wealth, and the importance of all that pertained to her. Why, sir, at the Mr. WADE. Certainly; certainly. The slave, time your Constitution was framed, so apparent in my judgment, is equal to anybody else, but is was this that Edmund Randolph, I think it was, degraded by the nefarious acts and selfishness of refused to sign the Constitution of the United

Mr. DIXON. I desire him to answer that question.

States, alleging as a reason that it was all wrong. | them. I admit that in the States you have full The State of New York, said he, will have as control over it. You may do with it as seems to much influence in the Senate of the United States you good. You never found me, you never found as Virginia itself, under this Constitution. It is all wrong. The small States will be on a par with the large States. It ought to be grounded, either upon property, or upon the number of white male inhabitants.

the party to which I belong in the North, pretending to do anything adverse to your right to make such laws and regulations with regard to this institution as you please. We hoped, like all other men, that you would see that the system did not work to your best advantage; we were in hopes you would see that a gradual system of emancipation, just such as made the vast difference between the progress of the State of New York and old Virginia, would wake up every sensible man to follow in the track, and to do likewise. We hoped that, but we claimed no right to interfere. You must do with this as seems to you good.

That is what he said at the time, and that was the condition of things at the time. Now look on old Virginia. Does she not lie in the fairest part of this continent? Is there any other State that exceeds her in the fertility of her soil, in the salubrity of her climate, in all that pertains to the material welfare of man? No State in this Union probably could compare with her. And now, during one age of man, how does she rank accord- I regret, Mr. President, that this question has ing to the last census? Why, from number one arisen here now, for I believe all will bear me witshe has sunk to number five. What has produced ness that I have not been factious here. From this? That great statesmanship of which she the first day I took my seat in this body, resoluboasts so much, and upon which she sometimes, tions touching slavery, in a manner exceedingly as I think, takes airs to herself. Is that the prin- offensive to men of the North, were urged upon ciple? Have your principles of statesmanship us day after day, week after week, and month advanced you thus? Why, sir, your statesman-after month, well calculated to stir the blood of a ship is Africanized, and you want to Africanize northern man, and yet I sat under it. While it this whole Territory. That is what you are after; was a matter in the abstract, I cared nothing and if it is right, you should do it. But, really, about it. Your finality resolutions that were the policy of this Government now differs but a debated here so long, all that you could say little from what it is in Africa, from Guinea to Tim- here or elsewhere, your determinations to resist buctoo. We are about the same in principle. all agitation of this subject, never stirred me to There they are opposed to any general system of opposition; but when you come in here, by law internal improvement; they are opposed to any attempting to legalize slavery in half a contigeneral system of education. I do not know that nent, and to bring it into this Union in that they carry it quite as far as they do in some other way, and when, in doing so, you are guilty of places, where they whip and imprison women who the greatest perfidy you can commit, I must undertake to teach the poor. I am not quite cer-enter my indignant protest against it. Sir, what tain that they undertake to carry it to that extent; will be the consequence of passing this bill? Does but, nevertheless, so far they go side by side; and when you come to raising children for the market, they can vie well with each other. But they seek to extend the market for human beings; and hence the object of this bill. Their object is to enhance and extend this market; and I say it does not consist with the welfare of this Union to do so. I say that to fill the interior of this continent with that kind of chattels is to blast the fairest prospects of every man who has ever entertained the highest hopes of the progress of his country, and hence it is that I stand here as one to oppose it.

not any man see that its first effect will be to render all future compromises absolutely ridiculous and impossible? for if one as solemnly entered into as this, as faithfully lived up to as this, shall be thus wantonly broken down, how, when a matter of difference again arises between us, shall we compromise it? Shall we have any faith in each other? No, sir; no. Where is your compromise of 1850? Why it is just as effectually gone as the compromise you now seek to repeal. They both stand together. One guarantees the other. They are linked together by the same legislation. To You may call me an Abolitionist if you will; I repudiate one is to repudiate both. And do you care but little for that; for if an undying hatred to believe, sir, that we shall keep our hands off that slavery or oppression constitutes an Abolitionist, portion of the legislation of 1850 upon which the I am that Abolitionist. If man's determination, South now relies as giving an equal chance for at all times and at all hazards, to the last extre- slavery in New Mexico and Utah, and which is mity, to resist the extension of slavery, or any exceedingly offensive to the North, as that was other tyranny, constitutes an Abolitionist, I, be- free country when we conquered it? Suppose a fore God, believe myself to be that Abolitionist. prodigious excitement pervades all the northern So I was taught, and I shall not probably very States. Suppose they come in here to say to soon swerve from the faith of my forefathers in the South: "You have led the way in repudithis particular. It is idle to cry "Abolition" to ating compromises, and, as there is no further To me it is an honorable name. Not, sir, trust to be reposed in one section of the country or that I ever went with that particular party; but I the other, we sternly demand a repeal of all those did not differ from them on these points; hut be- laws which are for your benefit, as you have gone cause they did not make their opposition effectual, foremost in doing away with that portion which in my judgment; for I would have gone with those were made for us." What shall then be said? who would have reached your institutions, wher- What plea can you put in to me when I come ever the Constitution gave us a right to reach here backed by my constituents, demanding that them, without trenching one hair's breadth now, inasmuch as the South have come up as one where we had no right. There I do not under-man and have taken away all the guarantees on take, and never shall undertake, to trench, upon which we and our forefathers relied to guard

me.

this great domain against the encroachments of tions of it are rife now in the heavens, and any slavery, inasmuch as it has been ruthlessly tram- man who is not blind can see it. There are meetpled under foot by a few treacherous men not ings of the people in all quarters; they express consulting with their constituents, that you shall their alarm, their dismay, their horror at the prorepeal all the compromise laws, the fugitive slave position which has been made here. You cannot law included, which you hold of consequence to make them believe that the thing is seriously conyou? Has any northern man offered such a pro-templated here. How is it? You of the South, position? I know you complained that we do all of you, propose to go for repudiating this oblinot submit with as much resignation to your gation. Do you not see that you are about to fugitive bill as you would be glad to see. Well, bring slavery and freedom face to face, to grapple sir, we do not. I agree to that. Why do we not? for the victory, and that one or the other must It is because the northern mind, imbued with the die? I do not know that I ought to regret it, but principles of liberty, is unable to see the force of I say to gentlemen, you are antedating the time your claim and title to the slave. I grant that when that must come. It has always been my the Constitution of the United States contains opinion that principles so entirely in opposition to what you call a compromise; but it is scarcely each other, so utterly hostile and irreconcileable, more sacred than the one under consideration. could never exist long in the same government. So far as the inclinations of the people will go, so But, sir, with mutual forbearance and good-will, far as their feelings will go, you have a faithful with no attempt on either side to take advantage execution of that law; but if you demand that of the other, perhaps we might have lived in hapagainst which human nature itself revolts, you piness and peace for many years; but when you must take it with such objections as naturally will come boldly forth to overthrow the time-honored arise. In general your law has been enforced; but guarantees of liberty, you show us that the prinwhat will be said when you have thrown down ciples of slavery are aggressive, incorrigibly agthe gauntlet on the other side, and told us that gressive; that they can no more be at ease than compromises for our benefit mean nothing at all? can a guilty conscience. If you show us that—and Have you not got now three slave states out of you are fast pointing the road to such a state of the Louisiana purchase nearly as large as the rest things-how can it be otherwsie than that we of that territory, and are you not enjoying it? must meet each other as enemies, fighting for the Has any man from the north ever said it should victory? for the one or the other of these princibe taken from you? No, sir; not a lisp of it, not ples must prevail. a word of it. Is not freedom to be considered as well as slavery?

I tell you, sir, if you precipitate such a conflict as that, it will not be liberty that will die in the nineteenth century. No, sir, that will not be the party that must finally knock under. This is a progressive age; and if you will make this fight, you must be ready for the consequences. I regret it. I am an advocate for the continuance of this Union; but, as I have already said, I do not believe this Union can survive ten years the act of perfidy that will repudiate the great compromise of 1820.

Mr. President, I do not wish to detain the Senate upon this subject. Perhaps I have said all that I have to say upon it. I wished to enter my protest against this act. I wished to wash my hands clean of this nefarious conspiracy to trample on the rights of freemen, and give the ascendency to slavery. I could not justify my course to my constituents without having done so to the utmost of my ability; and having done so, I shall leave this issue to you to say whether it is safe, right, and reasonable for any fancied advantage, to incur such enormous perils.

But, sir, I would rather put this question on broader principles than these compacts, sacred as they are, and from which no man who violates them can escape with honor. However, as I have intimated already, this is a great question of human rights. Now, if there is not really any difference between liberty and slavery, then all that our fathers have done; all that the Declaration of Independence has set forth; all the legislation in England and in this country to further and guarantee the principles of human liberty, are a mere nullity, and ought not to be lived up to. This may be so, but we have been taught differently. Gentlemen have argued this question as though it were a matter of entire indifference whether the continent is to be overrun with slavery, or whether it is to be settled by freemen. I know that those who hold slaves may have an interest in this question; but when you consult this matter in the light of States, or communities, there can be but one answer to it. If there is any other, as I said before, if both are to stand and fare alike, then human liberty is a humbug, and tyranny ought to be the order of the day. But, Mr. President, this is also an exceedingly dangerous issue. I know the Senator from Kentucky said he did not think there would be very much of a storm after all. He was of opinion that the northern mind would But I have overlooked one thing that I ought immediately lie down under it, that the North to have said. The Senator from Illinois deduces would do as they have frequently done, submit to some great principles from the compromises of it, and finally become indifferent in regard to it. 1850. So he says in his speech. Now, from the But I tell the gentleman that I see indications very nature of those compromises, it was all but entirely adverse to that. I see a cloud, a little impossible that any particular principle could be bigger now than a man's hand, gathering in the deduced from them. There were several antagonorth, and in the west, and all around, and soon nistical subjects, about which there was dispute; the whole northern heavens will be lighted up and, indeed, there can never be much of a prinwith a fire that you cannot quench. The indica-ciple drawn from a compromise of antagonistical

I know gentlemen think all is calm, and I know they will preach peace. I wish there was real peace, for I do not delight in contention. I have endeavored not to be a contentious man here. I have endeavored even to abide by your compromises, which I did not exactly like.

each other; and while hardly any man agreed as to the settlement of them all, they got together, as men settle other controversies-they undertook to arbitrate and to compromise. Although they did not agree to any one thing in particular, they said, we will take these measures as a whole; they are the best we can do, and therefore we will submit to them; and having submitted, we will abide by them.

principles. That is not the place to fix a prin- | proposed it, was to extend slavery, not to restrict ciple. There was California—she had adopted a it. There is no analogy in the principles at all. constitution, and sought to be admitted into the One restricted slavery, and the other extended Union. Here was Texas wishing to have her slavery. What would be said of me if I should boundary adjusted with New Mexico. Here was undertake to deduce a principle from the action the District of Columbia, in which the North con- of Congress in 1850 in respect to the District of tended that slave-markets should be abolished. Columbia? You abolished the market for slaves Perhaps there were no two men who agreed in here, and declared that they should not be brought all these propositions. Some were for permitting into the District for sale. Then I might say, on California to be admitted into the Union. The the gentleman's doctrine, that you had settled a whole north thought it ought to come in; but did great principle; that you should not have slaveyou then stand upon the doctrine of non-interven- markets anywhere else, and it would be just as tion? Here was a State organized with a free logical as the principles which the gentleman constitution, knocking at your doors for admission. deduces from some other of those compromise Where, then, was this great doctrine of non-measures. The fact was, that there were a great intervention in the South? Where did it find any many real or fancied interests antagonistical to advocates then? Why, sir, the State of Georgia, I recollect, passed her resolutions, and among other points which she said would justify her in dissolving the Union, one was the admission of California into the Union. There, sir, was nonintervention with a vengeance! The whole South stood in opposition to her entering this Union with a free constitution. Was that non-intervention? And yet the gentleman says, one great principle that he deduces from the legislation of 1850 is non-intervention. So far from that, I should suppose it was intervention of the very highest character, to shut a State out of this Union, to resist her approach here as long as it could be done, and never to yield to it till some consideration could be given for it. A principle of non-intervention, says the gentleman, growing out of such a state of things as that! But, the gentleman also said that he offered to extend the Missouri compromise line to the Pacific, and he says the anti-slavery feeling rejected it, and therefore he is going to take vengeance upon us, and come up into the North with his slavery doctrine. How was that? The Missouri compromise was a restriction upon slavery; but the territories which we acquired from Mexico were already, by a decree of Mexico, free from slavery; therefore your line, when you

The idea of a compromise of course presupposes that the disputing parties have not got all that they were contending for. How then can you deduce principles from such a state of things as that? No one thought of doing it but one who was contending for the overthrow of even this last compromise, without giving any reason why he had done it; for I am sure if there was a reason adequate to such an exigency as this, it would be easy either to state it on paper or otherwise; but it has not been stated.

Mr. President, I will not prolong this discussion. In my desultory way I have said all, and more than all, that I intended to say. I am satisfied with having entered my protest against this measure. If gentlemen adopt it, they must take it with all its perils. I trust freedom will ultimately come out of the conflict triumphantly.

SPEECH OF THE HON. EDWARD EVERETT,

IN THE SENATE, FEB. 8, 1854.

NEBRASKA AND KANSAS.

MR. EVERETT said:

thousands of kindred, civilized fellow-men and felMR. PRESIDENT: I intimated yesterday that if low-citizens. Yes, sir, the time is not far distant, time had been allowed, 1 should have been glad to probably, when Kansas and Nebraska, now unfamil submit to the Senate my views at some length in re- iar names to us all, will sound to the ears of their lation to some of the grave constitutional and politi- inhabitants as Virginia, and Massachusetts, and cal principles and questions involved in the measure Kentucky, and Ohio, and the names of the other old before us. Even for questions of a lower order, States, do to their children. Sir, these infant Territhose of a merely historical character, the time tories, if they may even at present be called by that which has elapsed since this bill, in its present form, name, occupy a most important position in the was brought into the Senate, which I think is but a geography of this continent. They stand where fortnight ago yesterday, has hardly been sufficient, Persia, Media, and Assyria stood in the continent for one not previously possessed of the information, of Asia, destined to hold the balance of power-to to acquaint myself fully with the details belonging be the centres of influence to the East and to the to the subject before us, even to those which relate West.* Sir, the fountains that trickle from the to subordinate parts of it, such as our Indian rela-snow-capped crests of the Sierra Madre flow in one tions. Who will undertake to say how they will be affected by the measure now before the Senate either under the provisions of the bill in that respect as it stood yesterday, or as it will stand now that all the sections relative to the Indians have been stricken out? And then, sir, with respect to that other and greater subject, the question of slavery as connected with our recent territorial acquisitions, it would take a person more than a fortnight to even read through the voluminous debates since 1848, the knowledge of which is necessary for a thorough comprehension of this important and delicate subject.

direction to the Gulf of Mexico, in another to the St. Lawrence, and in another to the Pacific. The commerce of the world, eastward from Asia, and westward from Europe, is destined to pass through the gates of the Rocky Mountains over the iron pathways which we are even now about to lay down through those Territories. Cities of unsurpassed magnitude and importance are destined to crown the banks of their noble rivers. Agriculture will clothe with plenty the vast plains now roamed over by the savage and the buffalo. And may we not hope, that, under the ægis of wise constitutions of For these reasons, sir, I shall not undertake at free government, religion and laws, morals and edthis time to discuss any of these larger questions.ucation, and the arts of civilized life, will add all I rise for a much more limited purpose-to speak the graces of the highest and purest culture to the for myself, and without authority to speak for any gifts of nature and the bounties of Providence? body else, as a friend and supporter of the compromises of 1850, and to inquire whether it is my duty, and how far it is the duty of others who agree with me in that respect, out of fidelity to those compromises, to support the bill which is now on your table, awaiting the action of the Senate. This, I feel, is a narrow question; but this is the question which I propose, at no very great length, to consider at the present time.

Sir, I assure you it was with great regret, having in my former congressional life uniformly concurred in every measure relating to the West which I supposed was for the advantage and prosperity of that part of the country, that as a member of the Committee on Territories, I found myself unable to support the bill which the majority of that committee had prepared to bring forward for the organization of these Territories. I should have been rejoiced if it had been in my power to give my support to the measure. But the hasty examination which, while the subject was before the committee, I was able to give to it, disclosed objections to the bill which I could not overcome; and more deliberate inquiry has increased the force of those objections.

I will, however, before I enter upon this subject, say, that the main question involved in the passage of a bill of this kind is well calculated to exalt and expand the mind. We are about to take a first step in laying the foundations of two new States, of two sister independent Republics, hereafter to enter into the Union, which already embraces thirty-one of I had, in the first place, some scruples-objec these sovereign States, and which, no doubt, in the tions I will not call them, because I think I could course of the present century, will include a much have overcome them-as to the expediency of givlarger number. I think Lord Bacon gives the sec-ing a territorial government of the highest order to ond place among the great of the earth to the found- this region at the present time. ers of States-Conditores imperiorum. And though it may seem to us that we are now legislating for a remote part of the unsubdued wilderness, yet the time will come, and that not a very long time, when these scarcely existing territories, when these almost empty wastes, will be the abode of hundreds and

In the debate on this subject in the House of Representatives last year, inquiries were made as to the number of inhabitants in the Territory, and I

*The idea in this sentence was suggested by a very strik. ing editorial article in a late number of the St. Louis Daily Intelligencer.