CHAPTER CXCIII.

"Press not too much on any part the sphere,Hard were the task thy weight divine to bear!O'er the mid orb more equal shalt thou rise,And with a juster balance fix the skies."—Lucan.

I recognize no such parties—no two halves in this Union, separated by a ridge-pole, with a man, or a god, sitting upon it, to keep the balance even. I know no North, and I know no South; and I repulse and repudiate, as a thing to be for ever condemned, this first attempt to establish geographical parties in this chamber, by creating a committee formed upon that principle. In the next place, there is no sanction for any such compromise—no authority to enforce it—none to punish its violation. In the third place, there is nothing to be compromised. A compromise is a concession, a mutual concession of contested claims between two parties. I know of nothing to be conceded on the part of the slaveholding States in regard to their slave property. Their rights are independent of the federal government, and admitted in the constitution—a right to hold their slavesas property, a right to pursue and recover themas property, a right to it as apolitical elementin the weight of these States, by making five count three in the national representation. These are our rights by an instrument which we are bound to respect, and I will concede none of them, nor purchase any of them. I never purchase as a concession what I hold as a right, nor accept an inferior title when I already hold the highest. Even if this congeries of bills was a compromise, in fact, I should be opposed to it for the reasons stated. But the fact itself is to me apocryphal. What is it but the case of five old bills introduced by different members as common legislative measures—caught up by the senator from Kentucky, andhis committee, bundled together, and then called a compromise! Now, this mystifies me. The same bills were ordinary legislation in the hands of their authors; they become a sacred compromise in the hands of their new possessors. They seemed to be of no account as laws: they become a national panacea as a compromise. The difference seems to be in the change of name. The poet tells us that a rose will smell as sweet by any other name. That may be true of roses, but not of compromises. In the case of the compromise, the whole smell is in the name; and here is the proof. The senator from Illinois (Mr. Douglass) brought in three of these bills: they emitted no smell. The senator from Virginia (Mr. Mason) brought in another of them—no smell in that. The senator from Missouri, who now speaks to the Senate, brought in the fifth—ditto, no smell about it. The olfactory nerve of the nation never scented their existence. But no sooner are they jumbled together, and called a compromise, than the nation is filled with their perfume. People smell it all over the land, and, like the inhalers of certain drugs, become frantic for the thing. This mystifies me; and the nearest that I can come to a solution of the mystery is in the case of the two Dr. Townsends and their sarsaparilla root. They both extract from the same root, but the extract is a totally different article in the hands of the two doctors. Produced by one it is the universal panacea: by the other, it is of no account, and little less than poison. Here is what the old doctor says of this strange difference:

"We wish it understood, because it is theabsolute truth, that S. P. Townsend's article and Old Dr. Jacob Townsend's sarsaparilla areheaven-wide apart, and infinitely dissimilar; that they are unlike in every particular, having not one single thing in common."

And accounts for the difference thus:

"The sarsaparilla root, it is well known to medical men, contains many medicinal properties, and some properties which are inert or useless, and others which, if retained in preparing it for use, producefermentation and acid, which is injurious to the system. Some of the properties of sarsaparilla are sovolatilethat they entirely evaporate, and are lost in the preparation, if they are not preserved by ascientific process, known only to the experienced in its manufacture. Moreover, thosevolatile principles, which fly off in vapor, or as an exhalation, under heat, are the veryessential medical propertiesof the root, which give to it all its value."

Now, all this is perfectly intelligible to me. I understand it exactly. It shows me precisely how the same root is either to be a poison or a medicine, as it happens to be in the hands of the old or the young doctor. This may be the case with these bills. To me it looks like a clue to the mystery; but I decide nothing, and wait patiently for the solution which the senator from Kentucky may give when he comes to answer this part of my speech. The old doctor winds up in requiring particular attention to his name labelled on the bottle, to wit, "Old Doctor Jacob Townsend," and not Young Doctor Samuel Townsend. This shows that there is virtue in a name when applied to the extract of sarsaparilla root; and there may be equal virtue in it when applied to a compromise bill. If so, it may show how these self-same bills are of no force or virtue in the hands of the young senator from Illinois (Mr. Douglass), and become omnipotently efficacious in the hands of the old senator from Kentucky.

This is the end of the grand committee's work—five old bills tacked together, and presented as a remedy for evils which have no existence, and required to be accepted under a penalty—the penalty of being gazetted as enemies of compromise, and played at by the organs! The old one, to be sure, is dreadfully out of tune—the strings all broken, and the screws all loose, and discoursing most woful music, and still requiring us to dance to it! And such dancing it would be!—nothing but turn round, cross over, set-to, and back out! Sir, there was once a musician—we have all read of him—who had power with his lyre (but his instrument was speltl y r e)—not only over men, but over wild beasts also, and even over stones, which he could make dance into their places when the walls of Ilion were built. But our old organist was none of that sort, even in his best day; and since the injury to his instrument in playing the grand national symphony of the four F's—the fifty-four forty or fight—it is so out of tune that its music will be much more apt to scare off tame men than to charm wild beasts or stones.

No, sir! no more slavery compromises. Stick to those we have in the constitution, and they will be stuck to! Look at the four votes—those four on the propositions which I submitted. No abolition of slavery in the States: none in the forts, arsenals, navy-yards, and dock-yards: none in the District of Columbia: no interference with the slave trade between the States. These are the votes given on this floor, and which are above all Congress compromises, because they abide the compromises of the constitution.

The committee, besides the ordinary purpose of legislation, that of making laws for the government of the people, propose another object of a different kind, that of acting the part of national benefactors, and giving peace and happiness to a miserable and distracted people—innuendo, the people of the United States. They propose this object as the grand result and crowning mercy of their multifarious labors. The gravity with which the chairman of the committee has brought forward this object in his report, and the pathetic manner in which he has enforced it in his speech, and the exact enumeration he has made of the public calamities upon his fingers' ends, preclude the idea, as I have heretofore intimated, of any intentional joke to be practised upon us by that distinguished senator; otherwise I might have been tempted to believe that the eminent senator, unbending from his serious occupations, had condescended to amuse himself at our expense. Certain it is that the conception of this restoration of peace and happiness is most jocose. In the first place, there is no contention to be reconciled, no distraction to be composed, no misery to be assuaged, no lost harmony to be restored, no lost happiness to be recovered! And, if there was, the committee is not the party to give us these blessings. Their example and precept do not agree. They preach concord, and practise discord. They recommend harmony to others, and disagree among themselves. They propose the fraternal kiss to us, and give themselves rude rebuffs. They set us a sad example. Scarcely is the healing report read, and the anodyne bills, or pills, laid on our tables, than fierce contention breaks out in the ranks of the committee itself. They attack each other. They give and take fierce licks. The great peacemaker himself fares badly—stuck all over with arrows, like the man on the first leaf of the almanac. Here, in our presence, in the very act of consummating the marriage of California with Utah, New Mexico, Texas, the fugacious slaves of the States, and the marketable slaves of this District—in this very act of consummation, as in a certain wedding feast of old, the feast becomes a fight—the festival a combat—and the amiable guests pummel each other.

When his committee was formed, and himself safely installed at the head of it, conqueror and pacificator, the senator from Kentucky appeared to be the happiest of mankind. We all remember that night. He seemed to ache with pleasure. It was too great for continence. It burst forth. In the fulness of his joy, and the overflowing of his heart, he entered upon that series of congratulations which we all remember so well, and which seemed to me to be rather premature, and in disregard of the sage maxim which admonishes the traveller never to halloo till he is out of the woods. I thought so then. I was forcibly reminded of it on Saturday last, when I saw that senator, after vain efforts to compose his friends, and even reminding them of what they were "threatened" with this day—innuendo, this poor speech of mine—gather up his beaver and quit the chamber, in a way that seemed to say, the Lord have mercy upon you all, for I am done with you! But the senator was happy that night—supremely so. All his plans had succeeded—Committee of Thirteen appointed—he himself its chairman—all power put into their hands—their own hands untied, and the hands of the Senate tied—and the parties just ready to be bound together for ever. It was an ecstatic moment for the senator, something like that of the heroic Pirithous when he surveyed the preparations for the nuptial feast—saw the company all present, the lapithæ on couches, the centaurs on their haunches—heard theIo hymenbeginning to resound, and saw the beauteous Hippodamia, about as beauteous I suppose as California, come "glittering like a star," and take her stand on his left hand. It was a happy moment for Pirithous! and in the fulness of his feelings he might have given vent to his joy in congratulations to all the company present, to all the lapithæ and to all the centaurs, to all mankind, and to all horsekind, on the auspicious event. But, oh! the deceitfulness of humanfelicity. In an instant the scene was changed! the feast a fight—the wedding festival a mortal combat—the table itself supplying the implements of war!

"At first a medley flight,Of bowls and jars supply the fight;Once implements of feasts, but now of fate."

You know how it ended. The fight broke up the feast. The wedding was postponed. And so may it be with this attempted conjunction of California with the many ill-suited spouses which the Committee of Thirteen have provided for her.

Mr. President, it is time to be done with this comedy of errors. California is suffering for want of admission. New Mexico is suffering for want of protection. The public business is suffering for want of attention. The character of Congress is suffering for want of progress in business. It is time to put an end to so many evils; and I have made the motion intended to terminate them, by moving the indefinite postponement of this unmanageable mass of incongruous bills, each an impediment to the other, that they may be taken up one by one, in their proper order, to receive the decision which their respective merits require.

He died in the second year of his presidency, suddenly, and unexpectedly, of violent fever, brought on by long exposure to the burning heat of a fourth of July sun—noted as the warmest of the season. He attended the ceremonies of the day, sitting out the speeches, and omitting no attention which he believed the decorum of his station required. It cost him his life. The ceremony took place on Friday: on the Tuesday following, he was dead—the violent attack commencing soon after his return to the presidential mansion. He was the first President elected upon a reputation purely military. He had been in the regular army from early youth. Far from having ever exercised civil office, he had never even voted at an election, and was a major-general in the service, at the time of his election. Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, Monterey, and Buena Vista, were his titles to popular favor—backed by irreproachable private character, undoubted patriotism, and established reputation for judgment and firmness. His brief career showed no deficiency of political wisdom for want of previous political training. He came into the administration at a time of great difficulty, and acted up to the emergency of his position. The slavery agitation was raging; the Southern manifesto had been issued: California, New Mexico, Utah, were without governments: a Southern Congress was in process of being called, the very name of which implied disunion: a Southern convention was actually called, and met, to consult upon disunion. He met the whole crisis firmly, determined to do what was right among all the States, and to maintain the Federal Union at all hazards. His first, and only annual message, marked out his course. The admission of California as a State was recommended by him, and would avoid all questions about slavery. Leaving Utah and New Mexico to ripen into State governments, and then decide the question for themselves, also avoided the question in those territories where slavery was then extinct under the laws of the country from which they came to the United States. Texas had an unsettled boundary on the side of New Mexico. President Taylor considered that question to be one between the United States and New Mexico, and not between New Mexico and Texas; and to be settled by the United States in some legal and amicable way—as, by compact, by mutual legislation, or judicial decision. Some ardent spirits in Texas proposed to take possession of one half of New Mexico, in virtue of a naked pretension to it, founded in their own laws and constitution. President Taylor would have resisted that pretension, and protected New Mexico in its ancient actual possession until the question of boundary should have been settled in a legal way. His death was a public calamity. No man could have been more devoted to the Union, or more opposed to the slavery agitation; and his position as a Southern man, and a slave-holder—his military reputation, and his election by a majority of the people and of the States—would have given him a power in the settlement of these questions which no President withoutthese qualifications could have possessed. In the political division he classed with the whig party, but his administration, as far as it went, was applauded by the democracy, and promised to be so to the end of his official term. Dying at the head of the government, a national lamentation bewailed his departure from life and power, and embalmed his memory in the affections of his country.

Wednesday, July the tenth, witnessed the inauguration of Mr. Fillmore, Vice-President of the United States, become President by the death of President Taylor. It took place in the Hall of the House of Representatives, in the presence of both Houses of Congress, in conformity to the wish of the new President, communicated in a message. The constitution requires nothing of the President elect, before entering on the duties of his station, except to take the oath of office,faithfully to execute his duties, and do his best to preserve, protect, and defend the constitution; and that oath might be taken any where, and before any magistrate having power to administer oaths, and then filed in the department of State; but propriety and custom have made it a ceremony to be publicly performed, and impressively conducted. A place on the great eastern portico of the Capitol, where tens of thousands could witness it, and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States to administer the oath, have always been the place and the magistrate for this ceremony, in the case of Presidents elected to the office—giving the utmost display to it—and very suitably as in such cases there is always a feeling of general gratification and exultation. Mr. Fillmore, with great propriety, reduced the ceremony of his inauguration to an official act, impressively done in Congress, and to be marked by solemnity without joy. A committee of the two Houses attended him—Messrs. Soulé, of Louisiana, Davis, of Massachusetts, and Underwood, of Kentucky, on the part of the Senate; Messrs. Winthrop, of Massachusetts, Morse, of Louisiana, and Morehead, of Kentucky, on the part of the House; and he was accompanied by all the members of the late President's cabinet. The Chief Justice of the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia, the venerable William Cranch, appointed fifty years before, by President John Adams, administered the oath; which being done, the President, without any inaugural address, bowed, and retired; and the ceremony was at an end.

The first official act of the new President was an immediate message to the two Houses, recommending suitable measures to be taken by them for the funeral of the deceased President—saying:

"A great man has fallen among us, and a whole country is called to an occasion of unexpected, deep, and general mourning."I recommend to the two Houses of Congress to adopt such measures as in their discretion they may deem proper, to perform with due solemnities the funeral obsequies of ZACHARY TAYLOR, late President of the United States; and thereby to signify the great and affectionate regard of the American people for the memory of one whose life has been devoted to the public service; whose career in arms has not been surpassed in usefulness or brilliancy; who has been so recently raised by the unsolicited voice of the people to the highest civil authority in the government—which he administered with so much honor and advantage to his country; and by whose sudden death, so many hopes offuture usefulness have been blighted for ever."To you, senators and representatives of a nation in tears, I can say nothing which can alleviate the sorrow with which you are oppressed. I appeal to you to aid me, under the trying circumstances which surround me, in the discharge of the duties, from which, however much I may be oppressed by them, I dare not shrink; and I rely upon Him, who holds in his hands the destinies of nations, to endow me with the requisite strength for the task, and to avert from our country the evils apprehended from the heavy calamity which has befallen us."I shall most readily concur in whatever measures the wisdom of the two Houses may suggest, as befitting this deeply melancholy occasion."

"A great man has fallen among us, and a whole country is called to an occasion of unexpected, deep, and general mourning.

"I recommend to the two Houses of Congress to adopt such measures as in their discretion they may deem proper, to perform with due solemnities the funeral obsequies of ZACHARY TAYLOR, late President of the United States; and thereby to signify the great and affectionate regard of the American people for the memory of one whose life has been devoted to the public service; whose career in arms has not been surpassed in usefulness or brilliancy; who has been so recently raised by the unsolicited voice of the people to the highest civil authority in the government—which he administered with so much honor and advantage to his country; and by whose sudden death, so many hopes offuture usefulness have been blighted for ever.

"To you, senators and representatives of a nation in tears, I can say nothing which can alleviate the sorrow with which you are oppressed. I appeal to you to aid me, under the trying circumstances which surround me, in the discharge of the duties, from which, however much I may be oppressed by them, I dare not shrink; and I rely upon Him, who holds in his hands the destinies of nations, to endow me with the requisite strength for the task, and to avert from our country the evils apprehended from the heavy calamity which has befallen us.

"I shall most readily concur in whatever measures the wisdom of the two Houses may suggest, as befitting this deeply melancholy occasion."

The two Houses readily complied with this recommendation, and a solemn public funeral was unanimously voted, and in due time, impressively performed. All the members of the late President's cabinet gave in their resignations immediately, but were requested by President Fillmore to retain their places until successors could be appointed; which they did. In due time, the new cabinet was constituted: Daniel Webster, of Massachusetts, Secretary of State; Thomas Corwin, of Ohio, Secretary of the Treasury; Alexander H. H. Stuart, of Virginia, Secretary of the Interior; Charles M. Conrad, of Louisiana, Secretary at War; William A. Graham, of North Carolina, Secretary of the Navy (succeeded by John P. Kennedy, of Maryland); John J. Crittenden, of Kentucky, Attorney-General; Nathan K. Hall, of New York (succeeded by Samuel D. Hubbard, of Connecticut).

The Committee of Thirteen had reported in favor of Mr. Clay's plan. It was a committee so numerous, almost a quarter of the Senate, that its recommendation would seem to insure the senatorial concurrence. Not so the fact. The incongruities were too obvious and glaring to admit of conjunction. The subjects were too different to admit of one vote—yea or nay—upon all of them together. The injustice of mixing up the admission of California, a State which had rejected slavery for itself, with all the vexations of the slave question in the territories, was too apparent to subject her to the degradation of such an association. It was evident that no compromise, of any kind whatever, on the subject of slavery, under any one of its aspects separately, much less under all put together, could possibly be made. There was no spirit of concession—no spirit in which there could be giving and taking—in which a compromise could be made. Whatever was to be done, it was evident would be done in the ordinary spirit of legislation, in which the majority gives law to the minority. The only case in which there was even forbearance, was in that of rejecting the Wilmot proviso. That measure was rejected again as heretofore, and by the votes of those who were opposed to extending slavery into the territories, because it was unnecessary and inoperative—irritating to the slave States without benefit to the free States—a mere work of supererogation, of which the only fruit was to be discontent. It was rejected, not on the principle of non-intervention—not on the principle of leaving to the territories to do as they pleased on the question; but because there had been intervention! because Mexican law and constitution had intervened! had abolished slavery by law in those dominions! which law would remain in force, until repealed by Congress. All that the opponents to the extension of slavery had to do then, was to do nothing. And they did nothing.

The numerous measures put together in Mr. Clay's bill were disconnected and separated. Each measure received a separate and independent consideration, and with a result which showed the injustice of the attempted conjunction. United, they had received the support of the majority of the committee: separated, and no two were passed by the same vote: and only four members of the whole grand committee that voted alike on each of the measures.

This became the "test" question in the great slavery agitation which disturbed Congress and the Union, and as such was impressively presented by Mr. Calhoun in the last and most intensely considered speech of his life—read for him in the Senate by Mr. Mason of Virginia. In that speech, and at the conclusion of it, and as the resulting consequence of the whole of it, he said:

"It is time, senators, that there should be an open and manly avowal on all sides, as to what is intended to be done. If the question is not now settled, it is uncertain whether it ever can hereafter be; and we, as the representatives of the States of this Union, regarded as governments, should come to a distinct understanding as to our respective views, in order to ascertain whether the great questions at issue can be settled or not. If you, who represent the stronger portion, cannot agree to settle them on the broad principle of justice and duty, say so; and let the States we both represent agree to separate and part in peace. If you are unwilling that we should part in peace, tell us so, and we shall know what to do, when you reduce the question to submission or resistance. If you remain silent, you will compel us to infer by your acts what you intend. In that case, California will become thetestquestion. If you admit her, under all the difficulties that oppose her admission, you compel us to infer that you intend to exclude us from the whole of the acquired territories, with the intention of destroying irretrievably the equilibrium between the two sections. We would be blind not to perceive, in that case, that your real objects are power and aggrandizement, and infatuated not to act accordingly."

Mr. Calhoun died before the bill for the admission of California was taken up: but his principles did not die with him: and the test question which he had proclaimed remained a legacy to his friends. As such they took it up, and cherished it. The bill was taken up in the Senate, and many motions made to amend, of which the most material was by Mr. Turney of Tennessee, to limit the southern boundary of the State to the latitude of 36° 30', and to extend the Missouri line through to the Pacific, so as to authorize the existence of slavery in all the territory south of that latitude. On this motion the yeas and nays were:

"Yeas—Messrs. Atchison, Badger, Barnwell, Bell, Berrien, Butler, Clemens, Davis of Mississippi, Dawson, Downs, Foote, Houston, Hunter, King, Mangum, Mason, Morton, Pearce, Pratt, Rusk, Sebastian, Soulé, Turney, and Yulee—24."Nays—Messrs. Baldwin, Benton, Bradbury, Bright, Cass, Clarke, Cooper, Davis of Massachusetts, Dayton, Dickinson, Dodge of Wisconsin, Dodge of Iowa, Douglass, Ewing, Felch, Greene, Hale, Hamlin, Jones, Norris, Phelps, Seward, Shields, Smith, Spruance, Sturgeon, Underwood, Upham, Wales, Walker, Whitcomb, and Winthrop—32."

"Nays—Messrs. Baldwin, Benton, Bradbury, Bright, Cass, Clarke, Cooper, Davis of Massachusetts, Dayton, Dickinson, Dodge of Wisconsin, Dodge of Iowa, Douglass, Ewing, Felch, Greene, Hale, Hamlin, Jones, Norris, Phelps, Seward, Shields, Smith, Spruance, Sturgeon, Underwood, Upham, Wales, Walker, Whitcomb, and Winthrop—32."

The amendments having all been disposed of, the question was taken upon the passage of the bill, and resulted in its favor, 34 yeas to 18 nays. The vote was:

"Yeas—Messrs. Baldwin, Bell, Benton, Bradbury, Bright, Cass, Chase, Cooper, Davis of Massachusetts, Dickinson, Dodge of Wisconsin, Dodge of Iowa, Douglass, Ewing, Felch, Greene, Hale, Hamlin, Houston, Jones, Miller, Norris, Phelps, Seward, Shields, Smith, Spruance, Sturgeon, Underwood, Upham, Wales, Walker, Whitcomb, and Winthrop—34."Nays—Messrs. Atchison, Barnwell, Berrien, Butler, Clemens, Davis of Mississippi, Dawson, Foote, Hunter, King, Mason, Morton, Pratt, Rusk, Sebastian, Soulé, Turney, and Yulee—18."

"Nays—Messrs. Atchison, Barnwell, Berrien, Butler, Clemens, Davis of Mississippi, Dawson, Foote, Hunter, King, Mason, Morton, Pratt, Rusk, Sebastian, Soulé, Turney, and Yulee—18."

Immediately upon the passage of the bill through the Senate, ten of the senators opposed to it offered a protest against it, which was read at the secretary's table, of which the leading points were these:

"We, the undersigned senators, deeply impressed with the importance of the occasion, and with a solemn sense of the responsibility under which we are acting, respectfully submit the following protest against the bill admitting California as a State into this Union, and request that it may be entered upon the Journal of the Senate. We feel that it is not enough to have resisted in debate alone a bill so fraught with mischief to the Union and the States which we represent, with all the resources of argument which we possessed; but that it is also due to ourselves, the people whose interest have been intrusted to our care, and to posterity, which even in its most distant generations may feel its consequences, to leave in whatever form may be most solemn and enduring, a memorial of the opposition which we have made to this measure, and of the reasons by which we have been governed, upon thepages of a journal which the constitution requires to be kept so long as the Senate may have an existence. We desire to place the reasons upon which we are willing to be judged by generations living and yet to come, for our opposition to a bill whose consequences may be so durable and portentous as to make it an object of deep interest to all who may come after us."We have dissented from this bill because it gives the sanction of law, and thus imparts validity to the unauthorized action of a portion of the inhabitants of California, by which an odious discrimination is made against the property of the fifteen slaveholding States of the Union, who are thus deprived of that position of equality which the constitution so manifestly designs, and which constitutes the only sure and stable foundation on which this Union can repose."Because the right of the slaveholding States to a common and equal enjoyment of the territory of the Union has been defeated by a system of measures which, without the authority of precedent, of law, or of the constitution, were manifestly contrived for that purpose, and which Congress must sanction and adopt, should this bill become a law."Because to vote for a bill passed under such circumstances would be to agree to a principle, which may exclude for ever hereafter, as it does now, the States which we represent from all enjoyment of the common territory of the Union; a principle which destroys the equal rights of their constituents, the equality of their States in the Confederacy, the equal dignity of those whom they represent as men and as citizens in the eye of the law, and their equal title to the protection of the government and the constitution."Because all the propositions have been rejected which have been made to obtain either a recognition of the rights of the slaveholding States to a common enjoyment of all the territory of the United States, or to a fair division of that territory between the slaveholding and non-slaveholding States of the Union—every effort having failed which has been made to obtain a fair division of the territory proposed to be brought in as the State of California."But, lastly, we dissent from this bill, and solemnly protest against its passage, because, in sanctioning measures so contrary to former precedent, to obvious policy, to the spirit and intent of the constitution of the United States, for the purpose of excluding the slaveholding States from the territory thus to be erected into a State, this government in effect declares, that the exclusion of slavery from the territory of the United States is an object so high and important as to justify a disregard not only of all the principles of sound policy, but also of the constitution itself. Against this conclusion we must now and for ever protest, as it is destructive of the safety and liberties of those whose rights have been committed to our care, fatal to the peace andequalityof the States which we represent, and must lead, if persisted in, to thedissolutionof that confederacy, in which the slaveholding States have never sought more thanequality, and in which they will not be content toremainwith less."

"We have dissented from this bill because it gives the sanction of law, and thus imparts validity to the unauthorized action of a portion of the inhabitants of California, by which an odious discrimination is made against the property of the fifteen slaveholding States of the Union, who are thus deprived of that position of equality which the constitution so manifestly designs, and which constitutes the only sure and stable foundation on which this Union can repose.

"Because the right of the slaveholding States to a common and equal enjoyment of the territory of the Union has been defeated by a system of measures which, without the authority of precedent, of law, or of the constitution, were manifestly contrived for that purpose, and which Congress must sanction and adopt, should this bill become a law.

"Because to vote for a bill passed under such circumstances would be to agree to a principle, which may exclude for ever hereafter, as it does now, the States which we represent from all enjoyment of the common territory of the Union; a principle which destroys the equal rights of their constituents, the equality of their States in the Confederacy, the equal dignity of those whom they represent as men and as citizens in the eye of the law, and their equal title to the protection of the government and the constitution.

"Because all the propositions have been rejected which have been made to obtain either a recognition of the rights of the slaveholding States to a common enjoyment of all the territory of the United States, or to a fair division of that territory between the slaveholding and non-slaveholding States of the Union—every effort having failed which has been made to obtain a fair division of the territory proposed to be brought in as the State of California.

"But, lastly, we dissent from this bill, and solemnly protest against its passage, because, in sanctioning measures so contrary to former precedent, to obvious policy, to the spirit and intent of the constitution of the United States, for the purpose of excluding the slaveholding States from the territory thus to be erected into a State, this government in effect declares, that the exclusion of slavery from the territory of the United States is an object so high and important as to justify a disregard not only of all the principles of sound policy, but also of the constitution itself. Against this conclusion we must now and for ever protest, as it is destructive of the safety and liberties of those whose rights have been committed to our care, fatal to the peace andequalityof the States which we represent, and must lead, if persisted in, to thedissolutionof that confederacy, in which the slaveholding States have never sought more thanequality, and in which they will not be content toremainwith less."

This protest was signed by Messrs. Mason and Hunter, senators from Virginia; Messrs. Butler and Barnwell, senators from South Carolina; Mr. Turney, senator from Tennessee; Mr. Pierre Soulé, senator from Louisiana; Mr. Jefferson Davis, senator from Mississippi; Mr. Atchison, senator from Missouri; and Messrs. Morton and Yulee, senators from Florida. It is remarkable that this protest is not on account of any power exercised by Congress over the subject of slavery in a territory, but for the non-exercise of such power, and especially for not extending the Missouri compromise line to the Pacific Ocean; and which non-extension of that line was then cause for the dissolution of the Union.

Mr. Winthrop, newly appointed senator from Massachusetts, in place of Mr. Webster, appointed Secretary of State, immediately raised the question of reception upon this protest, for the purpose of preventing it from going upon the Journal, where, he alleged, the only protest that could be entered by a senator (and that was a sufficient one) was his peremptory "no:" and then said:

"Sir, does my honorable friend from Virginia (Mr. Hunter), know that there is but one parliamentary body in the world—so far as my own knowledge, certainly, goes—which acknowledges an inherent right in its members to enter their protests upon the Journals? That body is the British House of Lords. It is the privilege of every peer, as I understand it, to enter upon the Journals his protest against any measure which may have been passed contrary to his own individual views or wishes. But what has been the practice in our own country? You, yourself, Mr. President, have read to us an authority upon this subject. It seems that in the earliest days of our history, when there may have been something more of a disposition than I hope prevails among us now, to copy the precedents of the British government, a rule was introduced into this body for the purpose of securing to the senators of the several States this privilege which belongs to the peers of the British Parliament. That proposition was negatived. I know not by what majority, for you did not read the record; I know not by whose votes; but that rule was rejected. It was thus declared in the early days of ourhistory that this body should not be assimilated to the British House of Lords in this respect, however it may be in any other; and that individual senators should not be allowed this privilege which belongs to British peers, of spreading upon the Journals the reasons which may have influenced their votes."

Mr. Benton spoke against the reception of the protest, denying the right of senators to file any reasons upon the Journal for their vote; and said:

"In the British House of Lords, Mr. President, this right prevails, but not in the House of Commons; and I will show you before I have done that the attempt to introduce it into the House of Commons gave rise to altercation, well-nigh led to bloodshed on the floor of the House, and caused the member who attempted to introduce it, though he asked leave to do so, to be committed to the Tower for his presumption. And I will show that we begin the practice here at a point at which the British Parliament had arrived, long after they commenced the business of entering the dissents. It will be my business to show that, notwithstanding the British House of Lords in the beginning entered the protestor's name under the word 'dissent,' precisely as our names are entered here under the word 'nay,' it went on until something very different took place, and which ended in authorizing any member who pleased to arraign the sense of the House, and to reproach the House whenever he pleased. Now, how came the lords to possess this right? It is because every lord is a power within himself. He is his own constituent body. He represents himself; and in virtue of that representation of himself, he can constitute a representative, and can give a proxy to any lord to vote for him on any measure not judicial. Members of the House of Commons cannot do it, because they are themselves nothing but proxies and representatives of the people. The House of Lords, then, who have this privilege and right of entering their dissent, have it by virtue of being themselves, each one, a power within himself, a constituent body to himself, having inherent rights which he derives from nobody, but which belong to him by virtue of being a peer of the realm; and by virtue of that he enters his protest on the Journal, if he pleases. It is a privilege belonging to every lord, each for himself, and is an absolute privilege; and although the form is to ask leave of the House, yet the House is bound to grant the leave."

Mr. Benton showed that there was no right of protest in the members of the British House of Commons—that the only time it was attempted there was during the strifes of Charles the First with the Parliament, and by Mr. Hyde (afterwards Lord Clarendon), who was committed prisoner to the Tower for presuming to insult the House, by proposing to set up his judgment against the act of the House after the House had acted. Having spoken against the right of the senators to enter a protest on the Journal against an act of the Senate, Mr. Benton proceeded to speak against the protest itself, and especially the concluding part of it, in which a dissolution of the Union was hypothetically predicated upon the admission of California.

"I now pass over what relates to the body or matter of the protest, and come to the concluding sentence, where, sir, I see a word which I am sorry to see, or hear used even in the heat of debate in this chamber. It is one which I believe I have not pronounced this session, not even hypothetically or historically, in speaking of every thing which has taken place. But I find it here, and I am sorry to see it. It is qualified, it is true; yet I am sorry to see it any where, and especially in a paper of such solemn import. It is in the concluding sentence:'Against this conclusion we must now and for everprotest, as it is destructive of the safety and liberties of those whose rights have been committed to our care, fatal to the peace andequalityof the States which we represent, and must lead, if persisted in, to thedissolutionof that confederacy in which the slaveholding States have never sought more than anequality, and in which they will not be content toremainwith less.'"I grieve to see these words used with this deliberation; still more do I grieve to see an application made to enter them on the Journal of the Senate. Hypothetically they use the words; but we all know what this word "if" is—a great peacemaker, the poet tells us, between individuals, but, as we all know, a most convenient introduction to a positive conclusion. The language here is used solemnly, and the word protest is one of serious import. Protest is a word known to the law, and always implies authority, and one which is rarely used by individuals at all. It is a word of grave and authoritative import in the English language, which implies the testification of the truth! and a right to testify to it! and which is far above any other mode of asseveration. It comes from the Latin—testari, to be a witness—protestari, to be a public witness, to publish, avouch, and testify the truth; and can be only used on legal or on the most solemn occasions. It has given a name to a great division of the Christian family, who took the title from the fact of their 'protesting' against the imperial edicts of Charles V., which put on a level with the Holy Scriptures the traditions of the church and the opinions of the commentators. It was a great act ofprotesting, and an act of conscience and duty. It was a proper occasion to use the wordprotest; and it was used in the face of power, and maintained through oceans and seas of blood, until it has found an immortalityin the name of one division of the Christian family."I have read to you from British history—history of 1640—the most eventful in the British annals—to show the first attempt to introduce a protest in the House of Commons—to show you how the men of that day—men in whose bosoms the love of liberty rose higher than love of self—the Puritans whose sacrifices for liberty were only equalled by their sacrifices to their religion—these men, from whom we learned so much, refused to suffer themselves to be arraigned by a minority—refused to suffer an indictment to be placed on their own Journals against themselves. I have shown you that a body in which were such men as Hampden, and Cromwell, and Pym, and Sir Harry Vane, would not allow themselves to be arraigned by a minority, or to be impeached before the people, and that they sent the man to the Tower who even asked leave to do it. This period of British history is that of the civil wars which deluged Great Britain with blood; and, sir, may there be no analogy to it in our history!—may there be no omen in this proceeding—nothing ominous in this attempted imitation of one of the scenes which preceded the outbreak of civil war in Great Britain. Sir, this protest is treated by some senators as a harmless and innocent matter; but I cannot so consider it. It is a novelty, but a portentous one, and connects itself with other novelties, equally portentous. The Senate must bear with me for a moment. I have refrained hitherto from alluding to the painful subject, and would not now do it if it was not brought forward in such a manner as to compel me. This is a novelty, and it connects itself with other novelties of a most important character. We have seen lately what we have never before seen in the history of the country—sectional meetings of members of Congress, sectional declarations by legislative bodies, sectional meetings of conventions, sectional establishment of a press here! and now the introduction of this protest, also sectional, and not only connecting itself in time and circumstances, but connecting itself by its arguments, by its facts, and by its conclusions, with all these sectional movements to which I have referred. It is a sectional protest."All of these sectional movements are based upon the hypothesis, that, if a certain state of things is continued, there is to be a dissolution of the Union. The Wilmot proviso, to be sure, is now dropped, or is not referred to in the protest. That cause of dissolution is dead; but the California bill comes in its place, and the system of measures of which it is said to be a part. Of these, the admission of California is now made the prominent, the salient point in that whole system, which hypothetically it is assumed may lead to a dissolution of the Union. Sir, I cannot help looking upon this protest as belonging to the series of novelties to which I have referred. I cannot help considering it as part of a system—as a link in a chain of measures all looking to one result, hypothetically, to be sure, but all still looking to the same result—that of a dissolution of the Union. It is afflicting enough to witness such things out of doors; but to enter a solemn protest on our Journals, looking to the contingent dissolution of the Union, and that for our own acts—for the acts of a majority—to call upon us of the majority to receive our own indictment, and enter it, without answer, upon our own Journals—is certainly going beyond all the other signs of the times, and taking a most alarming step in the progress which seems to be making in leading to a dreadful catastrophe. 'Dissolution' to be entered on our Journal! What would our ancestors have thought of it? The paper contains an enumeration of what it characterizes as unconstitutional, unjust, and oppressive conduct on the part of Congress against the South, which, if persisted in, must lead to a dissolution of the Union, and names the admission of California as one of the worst of these measures. I cannot consent to place that paper on our Journals. I protest against it—protest in the name of my constituents. I have made a stand against it. It took me by surprise; but my spirit rose and fought. I deem it my sacred duty to resist it—to resist the entrance upon our Journal of a paper hypothetically justifying disunion. If defeated, and the paper goes on the Journal, I still wish the present age and posterity to see that it was not without a struggle—not without a stand against the portentous measure—a stand which should mark one of those eras in the history of nations from which calamitous events flow."

'Against this conclusion we must now and for everprotest, as it is destructive of the safety and liberties of those whose rights have been committed to our care, fatal to the peace andequalityof the States which we represent, and must lead, if persisted in, to thedissolutionof that confederacy in which the slaveholding States have never sought more than anequality, and in which they will not be content toremainwith less.'

"I grieve to see these words used with this deliberation; still more do I grieve to see an application made to enter them on the Journal of the Senate. Hypothetically they use the words; but we all know what this word "if" is—a great peacemaker, the poet tells us, between individuals, but, as we all know, a most convenient introduction to a positive conclusion. The language here is used solemnly, and the word protest is one of serious import. Protest is a word known to the law, and always implies authority, and one which is rarely used by individuals at all. It is a word of grave and authoritative import in the English language, which implies the testification of the truth! and a right to testify to it! and which is far above any other mode of asseveration. It comes from the Latin—testari, to be a witness—protestari, to be a public witness, to publish, avouch, and testify the truth; and can be only used on legal or on the most solemn occasions. It has given a name to a great division of the Christian family, who took the title from the fact of their 'protesting' against the imperial edicts of Charles V., which put on a level with the Holy Scriptures the traditions of the church and the opinions of the commentators. It was a great act ofprotesting, and an act of conscience and duty. It was a proper occasion to use the wordprotest; and it was used in the face of power, and maintained through oceans and seas of blood, until it has found an immortalityin the name of one division of the Christian family.

"I have read to you from British history—history of 1640—the most eventful in the British annals—to show the first attempt to introduce a protest in the House of Commons—to show you how the men of that day—men in whose bosoms the love of liberty rose higher than love of self—the Puritans whose sacrifices for liberty were only equalled by their sacrifices to their religion—these men, from whom we learned so much, refused to suffer themselves to be arraigned by a minority—refused to suffer an indictment to be placed on their own Journals against themselves. I have shown you that a body in which were such men as Hampden, and Cromwell, and Pym, and Sir Harry Vane, would not allow themselves to be arraigned by a minority, or to be impeached before the people, and that they sent the man to the Tower who even asked leave to do it. This period of British history is that of the civil wars which deluged Great Britain with blood; and, sir, may there be no analogy to it in our history!—may there be no omen in this proceeding—nothing ominous in this attempted imitation of one of the scenes which preceded the outbreak of civil war in Great Britain. Sir, this protest is treated by some senators as a harmless and innocent matter; but I cannot so consider it. It is a novelty, but a portentous one, and connects itself with other novelties, equally portentous. The Senate must bear with me for a moment. I have refrained hitherto from alluding to the painful subject, and would not now do it if it was not brought forward in such a manner as to compel me. This is a novelty, and it connects itself with other novelties of a most important character. We have seen lately what we have never before seen in the history of the country—sectional meetings of members of Congress, sectional declarations by legislative bodies, sectional meetings of conventions, sectional establishment of a press here! and now the introduction of this protest, also sectional, and not only connecting itself in time and circumstances, but connecting itself by its arguments, by its facts, and by its conclusions, with all these sectional movements to which I have referred. It is a sectional protest.

"All of these sectional movements are based upon the hypothesis, that, if a certain state of things is continued, there is to be a dissolution of the Union. The Wilmot proviso, to be sure, is now dropped, or is not referred to in the protest. That cause of dissolution is dead; but the California bill comes in its place, and the system of measures of which it is said to be a part. Of these, the admission of California is now made the prominent, the salient point in that whole system, which hypothetically it is assumed may lead to a dissolution of the Union. Sir, I cannot help looking upon this protest as belonging to the series of novelties to which I have referred. I cannot help considering it as part of a system—as a link in a chain of measures all looking to one result, hypothetically, to be sure, but all still looking to the same result—that of a dissolution of the Union. It is afflicting enough to witness such things out of doors; but to enter a solemn protest on our Journals, looking to the contingent dissolution of the Union, and that for our own acts—for the acts of a majority—to call upon us of the majority to receive our own indictment, and enter it, without answer, upon our own Journals—is certainly going beyond all the other signs of the times, and taking a most alarming step in the progress which seems to be making in leading to a dreadful catastrophe. 'Dissolution' to be entered on our Journal! What would our ancestors have thought of it? The paper contains an enumeration of what it characterizes as unconstitutional, unjust, and oppressive conduct on the part of Congress against the South, which, if persisted in, must lead to a dissolution of the Union, and names the admission of California as one of the worst of these measures. I cannot consent to place that paper on our Journals. I protest against it—protest in the name of my constituents. I have made a stand against it. It took me by surprise; but my spirit rose and fought. I deem it my sacred duty to resist it—to resist the entrance upon our Journal of a paper hypothetically justifying disunion. If defeated, and the paper goes on the Journal, I still wish the present age and posterity to see that it was not without a struggle—not without a stand against the portentous measure—a stand which should mark one of those eras in the history of nations from which calamitous events flow."

The reception of the protest was refused, and the bill sent to the House of Representatives, and readily passed; and immediately receiving the approval of the President, the senators elect from California, who had been long waiting (Messrs. William M. Gwinn and John Charles Frémont), were admitted to their seats; but not without further and strenuous resistance. Their credentials being presented, Mr. Davis, of Mississippi, moved to refer them to the Committee on the Judiciary, to report on the law and the facts of the case; which motion led to a discussion, terminated by a call for the yeas and nays. The yeas were 12 in number; to wit: Messrs. Atchison, Barnwell, Berrien, Butler, Davis of Mississippi, Hunter, Mason, Morton, Pratt, Sebastian, Soulé, Turney. Only 12 voting for the reference, and 36 against it; the two senators elect were then sworn in, and took their seats.

It is of record proof that the anti-slavery clause in the ordinance of 1787, could not be passed until the fugitive slave recovery clause was added to it. That anti-slavery clause, first prepared in the Congress of the confederation by Mr. Jefferson in 1784, and rejected, remained rejected for three years—until 1787; when receiving the additional clause for the recovery of fugitives, it was unanimously passed. This is clear proof that the first clause, prohibiting slavery in the Northwest territory, could not be obtained without the second, authorizing the recovery of slaves which should take refuge in that territory. It was a compromise between the slave States and the free States, unanimously agreed to by both parties, and founded on a valuable consideration—one preventing the spread of slavery over a vast extent of territory, the other retaining the right of property in the slaves which might flee to it. Simultaneously with the adoption of this article in the ordinance of 1787 was the formation of the constitution of the United States—both formed at the same time, in neighboring cities, and (it may be said) by the same men. The Congress sat in New York—the Federal Convention in Philadelphia—and, while the most active members of both were members of each, as Madison and Hamilton, yet, from constant interchange of opinion, the members of both bodies may be assumed to have worked together for a common object. The right to recover fugitive slaves went into the constitution, as it went into the ordinance, simultaneously and unanimously; and it may be assumed upon the facts of the case, and all the evidence of the day, that the constitution, no more than the ordinance, could have been formed without the fugitive slave recovery clause contained in it. A right to recover slaves is not only authorized by the constitution, but it is a right without which there would have been no constitution, and also no anti-slavery ordinance.

One of the early acts of Congress, as early as February, '93, was a statute to carry into effect the clause in the constitution for the reclamation of fugitives from justice, and fugitives from labor; and that statute, made by the men who made the constitution, may be assumed to be the meaning of the constitution, as interpreted by men who had a right to know its meaning. That act consisted of four sections, all brief and clear, and the first two of which exclusively applied to fugitives from justice. The third and fourth applied to fugitives from labor, embracing apprentices as well as slaves, and applying the same rights and remedies in each case: and of these two, the third alone contains the whole provision for reclaiming the fugitive—the fourth merely containing penalties for the obstruction of that right. The third section, then, is the only one essential to the object of this chapter, and is in these words:

"That when a person held to labor in any of the United States, or in either of the territories on the north-west, or south of Ohio, under the laws thereof, shall escape into any other of said States or territories, the person to whom such labor is due, his agent or attorney, is hereby empowered to seize or arrest such fugitive from labor, and to take him or her before any judge of the circuit or district courts of the United States, residing or being within the State, or before any magistrate of a county, city, or town corporate, wherein such seizure or arrest shall be made, and upon proof to the satisfaction of such judge or magistrate, either by oral testimony, or affidavit taken before and certified by a magistrate of any such State or territory, that the person so seized and arrested, doth under the laws of the State or territory from which he or she fled, owe service to the person claiming him or her, it shall be the duty of such judge or magistrate to give a certificate thereof to such claimant, his agent or attorney, which shall be sufficient warrant for removing the said fugitive from labor, to the State or territory from which he or she fled."

This act was passed on the recommendation of President Washington, in consequence of a case having arisen between Pennsylvania and Virginia, which showed the want of an act of Congress to carry the clause in the constitution into effect. It may be held to be a fair interpretation of the constitution, and by it the party claiming the service of the fugitive in any State or territory, had the right to seize his slave wherever he saw him, and to carry him before a judicial authority in the State; and upon affidavit, or oral testimony, showing his right, he was to receive a certificate to thateffect, by virtue of which he might carry him back to the State from which he had fled. This act, thus fully recognizing the right of the claimant to seize his slave by mere virtue of ownership, and then to carry him out of the State upon a certificate, and without a trial, was passed as good as unanimously by the second Congress which sat under the constitution—the proceedings of the Senate showing no division, and in the House only seven voting against the bill, there being no separate vote on the two parts of it, and two of these seven from slave States (Virginia and Maryland). It does not appear to what part these seven objected—whether to the fugitive slave sections, or those which applied to fugitives from justice. Such unanimity in its passage, by those who helped to make the constitution, was high evidence in its favor: the conduct of the States, and both judiciaries, State and federal, were to the same effect. The act was continually enforced, and the courts decided that this right of the owner to seize his slave, was just as large in the free State to which he had fled as in the slave State from which he had run away—that he might seize, by night as well as by day, of Sundays as well as other days; and, also, in a house, provided no breach of the peace was committed. The penal section in the bill was clear and heavy, and went upon the ground of the absolute right of the master to seize his slave by his own authority wherever he saw him, and the criminality of any obstruction or resistance in the exercise of that right. It was in these words:

"That any person who shall knowingly and wilfully obstruct or hinder such claimant, his agent or attorney, in so seizing or arresting such fugitive from labor, or shall rescue such fugitive from such claimant, his agent or attorney, when so arrested pursuant to the authority herein given or declared; or shall harbor or conceal such person after notice that he or she was a fugitive from labor as aforesaid, shall, for either of the said offences, forfeit and pay the sum of five hundred dollars. Which penalty may be recovered by and for the benefit of such claimant, by action of debt in any court proper to try the same, saving moreover to the person claiming such labor or service his right of action for or on account of the said injuries, or either of them."

State officers, the magistrates and judges, though not bound to act under the law of Congress, yet did so; and State jails, though not obligatory under a federal law, were freely used for the custody of the re-captured fugitive. This continued till a late day in most of the free States—in all of them until after the Congress of the United States engaged in the slavery agitation—and in the great State of Pennsylvania until the 20th of March, 1847: that is to say, until a month after the time that Mr. Calhoun brought into the Senate the slavery resolutions, stigmatized by Mr. Benton as "fire-brand," at the moment of their introduction, and which are since involving the Union in conflagration. Then Pennsylvania passed the act forbidding her judicial authorities to take cognizance of any fugitive slave case—granted a habeas corpus remedy to any fugitive arrested—denying the use of her jails to confine any one—and repealing the six months' slave sojourning law of 1780.

Some years before the passage of this harsh act, and before the slavery agitation had commenced in Congress, to wit, 1826 (which was nine years before the commencement of the agitation), Pennsylvania had passed a most liberal law of her own, done upon the request of Maryland, to aid the recovery of fugitive slaves. It was entitled, "An act to give effect to the Constitution of the United States in reclaiming fugitives from justice." Such had been the just and generous conduct of Pennsylvania towards the slave States until up to the time of passing the harsh act of 1847. Her legal right to pass that act is admitted; her magistrates were not bound to act under the federal law—her jails were not liable to be used for federal purposes. The sojourning law of 1780 was her own, and she had a right to repeal it. But the whole act of '47 was the exercise of a mere right, against the comity which is due to States united under a common head, against moral and social duty, against high national policy, against the spirit in which the constitution was made, against her own previous conduct for sixty years; and injurious and irritating to the people of the slave States, and parts of it unconstitutional. The denial of the intervention of her judicial officers, and the use of her prisons, though an inconvenience, was not insurmountable, and might be remedied by Congress; the repeal of the act of 1780 was the radical injury and for which there was no remedy in federal legislation.

That act was passed before the adoption of the constitution, and while the feelings of conciliation, good will, and entire justice, prevailed among the States; it was allowed to continue in force near sixty years after the constitution was made; and was a proof of good feeling towards all during that time. By the terms of this act, a discrimination was established between sojourners and permanent residents, and the element of time—the most obvious and easy of all arbiters—was taken for the rule of discrimination. Six months was the time allowed to discriminate a sojourner from a resident; and during that time the rights of the owner remained complete in his slave; after the lapse of that time, his ownership ceased. This six months was equally in favor of all persons; but there was a further and indefinite provision in favor of members of Congress, and of the federal government, all of whom, coming from slave States, were allowed to retain their ownership as long as their federal duties required them to remain in the State. Such an act was just and wise, and in accordance with the spirit of comity which should prevail among States formed into a Union, having a common general government, and reciprocating the rights of citizenship. It is to be deplored that any event ever arose to occasion the repeal of that act. It is to be wished that a spirit would arise to re-enact it; and that others of the free States should follow the example. For there were others, and several which had similar acts, and which have repealed them in like manner, as Pennsylvania—under the same unhappy influences, and with the same baleful consequences. New York, for example—her law of discrimination between the sojourner and the resident, being the same in principle, and still more liberal in detail, than that of Pennsylvania—allowing nine months instead of six, to determine that character.

This act of New York, like that of Pennsylvania, continued undisturbed in the State, until the slavery agitation took root in Congress; and was even so well established in the good opinion of the people of that State, as late as thirteen years after the commencement of that agitation, as to be boldly sustained by the candidates for the highest offices. Of this an eminent instance will be given in the canvass for the governorship of the State, in the year 1838. In that year Mr. Marcy and Mr. Seward were the opposing candidates, and an anti-slavery meeting, held at Utica, passed a resolve to have them interrogated (among other things) on the point of repealing the slave sojournment act. Messrs. Gerritt Smith, and William Jay, were nominated a committee for that purpose, and fulfilled their mission so zealously as rather to overstate the terms of the act, using the word "importation" as applied to the coming of these slaves with their owners, thus: "Are you in favor of the repeal of the law which now authorizes the importation of slaves into this State, and their detention here as such for the time of nine months?" Objecting to the substitution of the term importation, and stating the act correctly, both the candidates answered fully in the negative, and with reasons for their opinion. The act was first quoted in its own terms, as follows:

"Any person, not being an inhabitant of this State, who shall be travelling to or from, or passing through this State, may bring with him any person lawfully held by him in slavery, and may take such person with him from this State; but the person so held in slavery shall not reside or continue in this State more than nine months; and if such residence be continued beyond that time, such person shall be free."

Replying to the interrogatory, Mr. Marcy then proceeds to give his opinion and reasons in favor of sustaining the act, which he does unreservedly:

"By comparing this law with your interrogatory, you will perceive at once that the latter implies much more than the former expresses. The discrepancy between them is so great, that I suspected, at first, that you had reference to some other enactment which had escaped general notice. As none, however, can be found but the foregoing, to which the question is in any respect applicable, there will be no mistake, I presume, in assuming it to be the one you had in view. The deviation, in putting the question, from what would seem to be the plain and obvious course of directing the attention to the particular law under consideration, by referring to it in the very terms in which it is expressed, or at least in language showing its objects and limitations, I do not impute to an intention to create an erroneous impression as to the law, or to ascribe to it a character of odiousness which it does not deserve; yet I think that it must be conceded that your question will induce those who are not particularly acquaintedwith the section of the statute to which it refers, to believe that there is a law of this State which allows a free importation of slaves into it, without restrictions as to object, and without limitation as to the persons who may do so; yet this is very far from being true. This law does not permit any inhabitant of this State to bring into it any person held in slavery, under any pretence or for any object whatsoever; nor does it allow any person of any other State or country to do so, except such person is actually travelling to or from, or passing through this State. This law, in its operation and effect, only allows persons belonging to States or nations where domestic slavery exists, who happen to be travelling in this State, to be attended by their servants whom they lawfully hold in slavery when at home, provided they do not remain within our territories longer than nine months. The difference between it and the one implied by your interrogatory is so manifest, that it is perhaps fair to presume, that if those by whose appointment you act in this matter had not misapprehended its character, they would not have instructed you to make it the subject of one of your questions. It is so restricted in its object, and that is so unexceptionable, that it can scarcely be regarded as obnoxious to well-founded objections when viewed in its true light. Its repeal would, I apprehend, have an injurious effect upon our intercourse with some of the other States, and particularly upon their business connection with our commercial emporium. In addition to this, the repeal would have a tendency to disturb the political harmony among the members of our confederacy, without producing any beneficial results to compensate for these evils. I am not therefore in favor of it."

This is an explicit answer, meeting the interrogatory with a full negative, and impliedly rebuking the phrase "importation," by supposing it would not have been used if the Utica convention had understood the act. Mr. Seward answered in the same spirit, and to the same effect, only giving a little more amplitude to his excellent reasons. He says:

"Does not your inquiry give too broad a meaning to the section? It certainly does not confer upon any citizen of a State, or of any other country, or any citizen of any other State, except the owner of slaves in another State by virtue of the laws thereof, the right to bring slaves into this State or detain them here under any circumstances as such. I understand your inquiry, therefore to mean, whether I am in favor of a repeal of the law which declares, in substance, that any person from the southern or south-western States, who may be travelling to or from or passing thrugh the State, may bring with him and take with him any person lawfully held by him in slavery in the State from whence he came, provided such slaves do not remain here more than nine months. The article of the constitution of the United States which bears upon the present question, declares that no person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping to another State, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but such persons shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due. I understand that, in the State of Massachusetts, this provision of the constitution has been decided by the courts not to include the case of a slave brought by his master into the State, and escaping thence. But the courts of law in this State have uniformly given a different construction to the same article of the constitution, and have always decided that it does embrace the case of a slave brought by his master into this State, and escaping from him here. Consequently, under this judicial construction of the constitution, and without, and in defiance of any law or regulation of this State, if the slave escape from his master in this State, he must be restored to him, when claimed at any time during his master's temporary sojournment within the State, whether that sojournment be six months, nine months, or longer. It is not for me to say that this decision is erroneous, nor is it for our legislature. Acting under its authority, they passed the law to which you object, for the purpose, not of conferring new powers or privileges on the slave-owner, but to prevent his abuse of that which the constitution of the United States, thus expounded, secures to him. The law, as I understand it, was intended to fix a period of time as a test of transient passage through, or temporary residence in the State, within the provisions of the constitution. The duration of nine months is not material in the question, and if it be unnecessarily long, may and ought to be abridged. But, if no such law existed, the right of the master (under the construction of the constitution before mentioned) would be indefinite, and the slave must be surrendered to him in all cases of travelling through, or passage to or from the State. If I have correctly apprehended the subject, this law is not one conferring a right upon any person to import slaves into the State, and hold them here as such; but is an attempt at restriction upon the constitutional right of the master; a qualification, or at least a definition of it, and is in favor of the slave. Its repeal, therefore, would have the effect to put in greater jeopardy the class of persons you propose to benefit by it. While the construction of the constitution adopted here is maintained, the law, it would seem, ought to remain upon our statute book, not as an encroachment upon the rights of man, but a protection for them."But, gentlemen, being desirous to be entirely candid in this communication, it is proper I should add, that I am not convinced it would be either wise, expedient or humane, to declare to our fellow-citizens of the southern and south-western States, that if they travel to or from, or pass through the State of New York, they shall not bring with them the attendants whom custom, or education, or habit, may have rendered necessary to them. I have not been able to discover any good object to be attained by such an act of inhospitality. It certainly can work no injury to us, nor can it be injurious to the unfortunate beings held in bondage, to permit them, once perhaps in their lives, and at most, on occasions few and far between, to visit a country where slavery is unknown. I can even conceive of benefits to the great cause of human liberty, from the cultivation of this intercourse with the South. I can imagine but one ground of objection, which is, that it may be regarded as an implication that this State sanctions slavery. If this objection were well grounded, I should at once condemn the law. But, in truth, the law does not imply any such sanction. The same statute which, in necessary obedience to the constitution of the United States as expounded, declares the exception, condemns, in the most clear and definite terms, all human bondage. I will not press the considerations flowing from the nature of our Union, and the mutual concessions on which it was founded, against the propriety of such an exclusion as your question contemplates, apparently for the purpose only of avoiding an implication not founded in fact, and which the history of our State so nobly contradicts. It is sufficient to say that such an exclusion could have no good effect practically, and would accomplish nothing in the great cause of human liberty."

"But, gentlemen, being desirous to be entirely candid in this communication, it is proper I should add, that I am not convinced it would be either wise, expedient or humane, to declare to our fellow-citizens of the southern and south-western States, that if they travel to or from, or pass through the State of New York, they shall not bring with them the attendants whom custom, or education, or habit, may have rendered necessary to them. I have not been able to discover any good object to be attained by such an act of inhospitality. It certainly can work no injury to us, nor can it be injurious to the unfortunate beings held in bondage, to permit them, once perhaps in their lives, and at most, on occasions few and far between, to visit a country where slavery is unknown. I can even conceive of benefits to the great cause of human liberty, from the cultivation of this intercourse with the South. I can imagine but one ground of objection, which is, that it may be regarded as an implication that this State sanctions slavery. If this objection were well grounded, I should at once condemn the law. But, in truth, the law does not imply any such sanction. The same statute which, in necessary obedience to the constitution of the United States as expounded, declares the exception, condemns, in the most clear and definite terms, all human bondage. I will not press the considerations flowing from the nature of our Union, and the mutual concessions on which it was founded, against the propriety of such an exclusion as your question contemplates, apparently for the purpose only of avoiding an implication not founded in fact, and which the history of our State so nobly contradicts. It is sufficient to say that such an exclusion could have no good effect practically, and would accomplish nothing in the great cause of human liberty."

These answers do not seem to have affected the election in any way. Mr. Seward was elected, each candidate receiving the full vote of his party. Since that time the act has been repealed, and no voice has yet been raised to restore it. Just and meritorious as were the answers of Messrs. Marcy and Seward in favor of sustaining the sojourning act, their voice in favor of its restoration would be still more so now. It was a measure in the very spirit of the constitution, and in the very nature of a union, and in full harmony with the spirit of concession, deference and good-will in which the constitution was founded. Several other States had acts to the same effect, and the temper of the people in all the free States was accordant. It was not until after the slavery question became a subject ofpoliticalagitation, in the national legislature, that these acts were repealed, and this spirit destroyed. Political agitation has done all the mischief.

The act of Pennsylvania, of March 3d, 1847, besides repealing the slave sojournment act of 1780—(an act made in the time of Dr. Franklin, and which had been on her statute-book near seventy years), besides repealing her recent act of 1826, and besides forbidding the use of her prisons, and the intervention of her officers in the recovery of fugitive slaves—besides all this, went on to make positive enactments to prevent the exercise of the rights of forcible recaption of fugitive slaves, as regulated by the act of Congress, under the clause in the constitution; and for that purpose contained this section:

"That if any person or persons claiming any negro or mulatto, as fugitive from servitude or labor, shall, under any pretence of authority whatever, violently and tumultuously seize upon and carry away in a riotous, violent, and tumultuous manner, and so as to disturb and endanger the public peace, any negro or mulatto within this commonwealth, either with or without the intention of taking such negro or mulatto before any district or circuit judge, the person or persons so offending against the peace of this commonwealth, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor; and on conviction thereof, shall be sentenced to pay a fine of not less than one hundred nor more than two thousand dollars; and, further, be confined in the county jail for any period not exceeding three months, at the discretion of the court."

The granting of thehabeas corpuswrit to any fugitive slave completed the enactments of this statute, which thus carried out, to the full, the ample intimations contained in its title, to wit: "An act to prevent kidnapping, preserve the public peace, prohibit the exercise of certain powers heretofore exercised by judges, justices of the peace, aldermen, and jailers in this commonwealth; and, to repeal certain slave laws." This act made a new starting-point in the anti-slavery movements North, as the resolutions of Mr. Calhoun, of the previous month, made a new starting-point in the pro-slavery movements in the South. The first led to the new fugitive slave recovery act of 1850—the other has led to the abrogation of the Missouri Compromise line; and, between the two, the state of things has been produced which now afflicts and distracts the country, and is working a sectional divorce of the States.

A citizen of Maryland, acting under the federal law of '93, in recapturing his slave in Pennsylvania, was prosecuted under the State act of 1826—convicted—and sentenced to its penalties. The constitutionality of this enactment was in vain plead in the Pennsylvania court; but her authorities acted in the spirit of deference and respect to the authorities of the Union, and concurred in an "agreed case," to be carried before the Supreme Court of the United States, to test the constitutionality of the Pennsylvania law. That court decided fully and promptly all the points in the case, and to the full vindication of all the rights of a slaveholder, under the recaption clause in the constitution. The points decided cover the whole ground, and, besides, show precisely in what particular the act of 1793 required to be amended, to make it work out its complete effect under the constitution, independent of all extrinsic aid. The points were these:

"The provisions of the act of 12th of February, 1793, relative to fugitive slaves, is clearly constitutional in all its leading provisions, and, indeed, with the exception of that part which confers authority on State magistrates, is free from reasonable doubt or difficulty. As to the authority so conferred on State magistrates, while a difference of opinion exists, and may exist on this point, in different States, whether State magistrates are bound to act under it, none is entertained by the court, that State magistrates may, if they choose, exercise that authority, unless forbid by State legislation." "The power of legislation in relation to fugitives from labor is exclusive in the national legislature." "The right to seize and retake fugitive slaves, and the duty to deliver them up, in whatever State of the Union they may be found, is under the constitution recognized as an absolute, positive right and duty, pervading the whole Union with an equal and supreme force, uncontrolled and uncontrollable by State sovereignty or State legislation. The right and duty are co-extensive and uniform in remedy and operation throughout the whole Union. The owner has the same exemption from State regulations and control, through however many States he may pass with the fugitive slaves in his possessionin transituto his domicil." "The act of the legislature of Pennsylvania, on which the indictment against Edward Prigg was founded, for carrying away a fugitive slave, is unconstitutional and void. It purports to punish, as a public offence against the State, the very act of seizing and removing a slave by his master, which the constitution of the United States was designed to justify and uphold." "The constitutionality of the act of Congress (1793), relating to fugitives from labor, has been affirmed by the adjudications of the State tribunals, and by those of the courts of the United States."

This decision of the Supreme Court—so clear and full—was further valuable in making visible to the legislative authority what was wanting to give efficacy to the act of 1793; it was nothing but to substitute federal commissioners for the State officers forbidden to act under it; and that substitution might have been accomplished in an amendatory bill of three or four lines—leaving all the rest of the act as it was. Unfortunately Congress did not limit itself to an amendment of the act of 1793; it made a new law—long and complex—and striking the public mind as a novelty. It was early in the session of 1849-'50 that the Judiciary Committee of the Senate reported a bill on the subject; it was a bill long and complex, and distasteful to all sides of the chamber, and lay upon the table six months untouched. It was taken up in the last weeks of a nine months' session, and substituted by another bill, still longer and more complex. This bill also was very distasteful to the Senate (the majority), and had the singular fate of being supported in its details, and passed into law, with less than a quorum of the body in its favor, and without ever receiving the full senatorial vote of the slave States. The material votes upon it, before it was passed, were on propositions to give the fugitive a jury trial, if he desired it, upon the question of his condition—free or slave; and upon the question of giving him the benefit of the writ ofhabeas corpus. The first of these propositions originated with Mr. Webster, but was offered in his absence by Mr. Dayton, of New Jersey. He (Mr. Webster) drew up a brief bill early in the session, to supply the defect found in the working of the act of '93; it was short and simple; but it contained a proviso in favor of a jury trial when the fugitive denied his servitude. That would have been about always; and this jury trial, besides being incompatible with the constitution, and contradictory to all cases of proceeding against fugitives, would have been pretty sure to have been fatal to the pursuer's claim; and certainly both expensive and troublesome to him. It was contrary to the act of 1793, and contrary to the whole established course of reclaiming fugitives, which is always to carry them back to the place from which they fled to be tried. Thus, if a man commits an offencein one country, and flies to another, he is carried back; so, if he flies from one State to another; and so in all the extradition treaties between foreign nations. All are carried back to the place from which they fled, the only condition being to establish the flight and the probable cause; and that in the case of fugitives from labor, as well as from justice, both of which classes are put together in the constitution of the United States, and in the fugitive act of 1793. The proposition was rejected by a vote of eleven to twenty-seven. The yeas were: Messrs. Davis of Massachusetts, Dayton, Dodge of Wisconsin, Greene, Hamlin, Phelps, Smith, Upham, Walker of Wisconsin, and Winthrop. The nays were: Messrs. Atchison, Badger, Barnwell, Bell, Benton, Berrien, Butler, Cass, Davis of Mississippi, Dawson, Dodge of Iowa, Downs, Houston, Jones of Iowa, King, Mangum, Mason, Morton, Pratt of Maryland, Rusk, Sebastian, Soulé, Sturgeon, Turney, Underwood, Wales, Yulee. The motion in favor of granting the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus to the fugitive was made by Mr. Winthrop, and rejected by the same vote of eleven yeas and twenty-seven nays. Other amendments were offered and disposed of, and the question coming on the passing of the bill, Mr. Cass, in speaking his own sentiments in favor of merely amending the act of 1793, also spoke the sentiments of many others, saying:

"When this subject was before the compromise committee, there was a general wish, and in that I fully concurred, that the main features of the act of 1793 upon this subject, so far as they were applicable, should be preserved, and that such changes as experience has shown to be necessary to a fair and just enforcement of the provisions of the constitution for the surrender of fugitive slaves, should be introduced by way of amendment. That law was approved by Washington, and has now been in force for sixty years, and lays down, among others, four general principles, to which I am prepared to adhere: 1. The right of the master to arrest his fugitive slave wherever he may find him. 2. His duty to carry him before a magistrate in the State where he is arrested, and that claim may be adjudged by him. 3. The duty of the magistrate to examine the claim, and to decide it, like other examining magistrates, without a jury, and then to commit him to the custody of the master. 4. The right of the master then to remove the slave to his residence. At the time this law was passed, every justice of the peace throughout the Union was required to execute the duties under it. Since then, as we all know, the Supreme Court has decided that justices of the peace cannot be called upon to execute this law, and the consequence is, that they have almost every where refused to do so. The master seeking his slave found his remedy a good one at the time, but now very ineffectual; and this defect is one that imperiously requires a remedy. And this remedy I am willing to provide, fairly and honestly, and to make such other provisions as may be proper and necessary. But I desire for myself that the original act should remain upon the statute book, and that the changes shown to be necessary should be made by way of amendment."

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