ature, you thereby confess that they are competent to exercise the powers of legislation. If they wish slavery, they have a right to it. If they do not want it, they will not have it, and you should not attempt to force it upon them.

I do not like, I never did like, the system of legislation on our part, by which a geographical line, in violation of the laws of nature, and climate and soil, and of the laws of God, should be run to establish institutions for a people contrary to their wishes; yet, out of a regard for the peace and quiet of the country, out of respect for past pledges, and out of a desire to adhere faithfully to all compromises, I sustained the Missouri compromise so long as it was in force, and advocated its extension to the Pacific ocean. Now, when that has been abandoned, when it has been superseded, when a great principle of self-government has been substituted for it, I choose to cling to that principle, and abide in good faith, not only by the letter, but by the spirit of the last compromise.

Sir, I do not recognize the right of the abolitionists of this country to arraign me for being false to sacred pledges, as they have done in their proclamations. Let them show when and where I have ever proposed to violate a compact. I have proved that I stood by the compact of 1820 and 1845, and proposed its continuance and observance in 1848. I have proved that the freesoilers and abolitionists were the guilty parties who violated that compromise then. I should like to compare notes with the abolition confederates about adherence to compromises. When did they stand by or approve of any one that was ever made?

Did not every abolitionist and freesoiler in America denounce the Missouri Compromise in 1820? Did they not for years hunt down ravenously, for his blood, every man who assisted in making that compromise? Did they not in 1845, when Texas was annexed, denounce all of us who went for the annexation of Texas, and for the continuation of the Missouri Compromise line through it? Did they not, in 1848, denounce me as a slavery propagandist for standing by the principles of the Missouri Compromise, and proposing to continue it to the Pacific Ocean? Did they not themselves violate and repudiate it then? Is not the charge of bad faith true as to every abolitionist in America, instead of being true as to me and the committee, and those who advocate this bill?

They talk about the bill being a violation of the Compromise measure of 1850. Who can show me a man in either house of Congress who was in favor of those Compromise measures in 1850, and who is not now in favor of leaving the people of Nebraska and Kansas to do as they please upon the subject of slavery, according to the principle of my bill? Is there one? If so, I have not heard of him. This tornado has been raised by abolitionist, and abolitionists alone. They have made an impression upon the public mind, in the way in which I have men tioned, by a falsification of the law and the facts; and this whole organization against the Compromise measures of 1850 is an abolition

movement. I presume they had some hope of getting a few tenderfooted Democrats into their plot; and, acting on what they supposed they might do, they sent forth publicly to the world the falsehood that their address was sighed by the senators and a majority of the representatives from the State of Ohio; but when we come to examine signatures, we find no one Whig there, no one Democrat there; none but pure, unmitigated, unadulterated abolitionists.

Much effect, I know, has been produced by this circular, coming as it does with the imposing title of a representation of a majority of the Ohio delegation. What was the reason for its effect? Because the manner in which it was sent forth implied that all the Whig members from that State had joined in it; that part of the Democrats had signed it; and then that the two abolitionists had signed it, and that made a majority of the delegation. By this means it frightened the Whig party and the Democracy in the State of Ohio, because they supposed their own representatives and friends had gone into this negro movement, when the fact turns out to be that it was not signed by a single Whig or Democratic member from Ohio.

Now, I ask the friends and the opponents of this measure to look at it as it is. Is not the question involved the simple one, whether the people of the Territories shall be allowed to do as they please upon the question of slavery, subject only to the limitations of the Constitution? That is all the bill provides; and it does so in clear, explicit and unequivocal terms. I know there are some men, Whigs and Democrats, who, not willing to repudiate the Baltimore platform of their own party, would be willing to vote for this principle, provided they could do so in such equivocal terms that they could deny that it means what it was intended to mean in certain localities. I do not wish to deal in any equivocal language. If the principle is right, let it be avowed and maintained. If it is wrong, let it be repudiated. Let all this quibbling about the Missouri Compromise, about the territory acquired from France, about the act of 1820, be cast behind you; for the simple question is, will you allow the people to legislate for themselves upon the subject of slavery? Why should you not?

When you propose to give them a Territorial government, do you not acknowledge that they ought to be erected into a political organization; and when you give them a legislature, do you not acknowledge that they are capable of self-government? Having made that acknowledgment, why should you not allow them to exercise the rights of legislation? Oh, these abolitionists say they are entirely willing to concede all this, with one exception. They say they are willing, to trust the Territorial legislature, under the limitations of the Constitution, to legislate upon the rights of inheritance, to legislate in regard to religion, education, and morals, to legislate in regard to the relations of husband and wife, of parent and child, of guardian and ward, upon everything pertaining to the dearest rights and interests

of white men, but they are not willing to trust them to legislate in regard to a few miserable negroes. That is their single exception. They acknowledge that the people of the Territories are capable of deciding for themselves concerning white men, but not in relation to negroes. The real gist of the matter is this: Does it require any higher degree of civilization, and intelligence, and learning, and sagacity, to legislate for negroes than for white men? If it does, we ought to adopt the abolition doctrine, and go with them against this bill. If it does not-if we are willing to trust the people with the great, sacred, fundamental right of prescribing their own institutions, consistent with the Constitution of the country-we must vote for this bill. That is the only question involved in the bill. I hope I have been able to strip it of all the misrepresentation, to wipe away all of that mist and obscurity with which it has been surrounded by this abolition address.

I have now said all I have to say upon the present occasion. For all, except the first ten minutes of these remarks, the abolition confederates are responsible. My object, in the first place, was only to explain the provisions of the bill, so that they might be distinctly understood. I was willing to allow its assailants to attack it as much as they pleased, reserving to myself the right, when the time should approach for taking the vote, to answer in a concluding speech all the arguments which might be used against it. I still reserve-what I believe common courtesy and parliamentary usage awards to the chairman of a committee and the author of a bill-the right of summing up after all shall have been said which has to be said against this measure.

I hope the compact which was made on last Tuesday, at the suggestion of these abolitionists, when the bill was proposed to be taken up, will be observed. It was that the bill, when taken up to-day, should continue to be considered from day to day until finally disposed of. I hope they will not repudiate and violate that compact, as they have the Missouri Compromise and all others which have been entered into. I hope, therefore, that we may press the bill to a vote; but not by depriving persons of an opportunity of speaking.

I am in favor of giving every enemy of the bill the most ample time. Let us hear them all patiently, and then take the vote and pass the bill. We who are in favor of it know that the principle on which it is based is right. Why, then, should we gratify the abolition party in their effort to get up another political tornado of fanaticism, and put the country again in peril, merely for the purpose of electing a few agitators to the Congress of the United States? We intend to stand by the principle of the Compromise measures of 1850.

ON NEBRASKA AND KANSAS.

Delivered in the Senate, March 3, 1854.

MR. PRESIDENT: before I proceed to the general argument upon the most important branch of this question, I must say a few words in reply to the senator from Tennessee (Mr. Bell), who has spoken upon the bill to-day. He approves of the principles of the bill; he thinks they have great merit; but he does not see his way entirely clear to vote for the bill, because of the objections which he has stated, most of which relate to the Indians.

Upon that point, I desire to say that it has never been the custom in territorial bills to make regulations concerning the Indians within the limits of the proposed Territories. All matters relating to them it has been thought wise to leave to subsequent legislation, to be brought forward by the Committee on Indian Affairs. I did venture originally in this bill to put in one or two provisions upon that subject; but, at the suggestion of many senators on both sides of the chamber, they were stricken out, in order to allow the appropriate committee of the Senate to take charge of that subject. I think, therefore, since we have stricken from the bill all those provisions which pertain to the Indians, and reserved the whole subject for the consideration and action of the appropriate committee, we have obviated every possible objection which could reasonably be urged upon that score. We have every reason to hope and trust that the Committee on Indian Affairs will propose such measures as will do entire justice to the Indians, without contravening the objects of Congress in organizing these Territories.

But, sir, allusion has been made to certain Indian treaties, and it has been intimated, if not charged in direct terms, that we were violating the stipulations of those treaties in respect to the rights and lands of the Indians. The senator from Texas (Mr. Houston), made a very long and interesting speech on that subject; but it so happened that most of the treaties to which he referred were with Indians not included within the limits of this bill. We have been informed, in the course of the debate to-day, by the chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs (Mr. Sebastian), that there is but one treaty in existence relating to lands or Indians within the limits of either of the proposed Territories, and that is the treaty with the Ottawa Indians, about two hundred persons in number, owning about thirty-four thousand acres of land. Thus it appears that the whole argument of injustice to the red man, which in the course of this debate has called forth so much sympathy and indignation, is confined to two hundred Indians, owning less than two townships of land. Now, sir, is it possible that a country, said to be five hun

dred thousand square miles in extent, and large enough to make twelve such States as Ohio, is to be consigned to perpetual barbarism merely on account of that small number of Indians, when the bill itself expressly provides that those Indians and their lands are not to be included within the limits of the proposed Territories, nor to be subject to their laws or jurisdiction? I would not allow this measure to invade the rights of even one Indian, and hence I inserted in the first section of the bill that none of the tribes with whom we have treaty stipulations should be embraced within either of the Territories, unless such Indians shall voluntarily consent to be included therein by treaties hereafter to be made. If any senator can furnish me with language more explicit, or which would prove more effectual in securing the rights of the Indians, I will cheerfully adopt it.

Well, sir, the senator from Tennessee, in a very kind spirit, here raises the objection for me to answer, that this bill includes Indians within the limits of these Territories with whom we have no treaties; and he desires to know what we are to do with them. I will say to him, that that is not a matter of inquiry which necessarily or properly arises upon the passage of this bill; that is not a proper inquiry to come before the Committee on Territories. You have in

all your Territorial bills included Indians within the boundaries of the Territories. When you erected the Territory of Minnesota, you had not extinguished the Indian title to one foot of land in that Territory west of the Mississippi River, and to the major part of that Territory the Indian title remains unextinguished to this day. In addition to those wild tribes, you removed Indians from Wisconsin and located them within Minnesota since the Territory was organized. It will be a question for the consideration of the Committee on Indian Affairs, and for the action of Congress, when, in settlement and civilization, it shall become necessary to change the present policy in respect to the Indians. When you erected the Territorial government of Oregon, a few years ago, you embraced within it all the Indians living in the Territory without their consent, and without any such reservations in their behalf as are contained in this bill. You had not at that time made a treaty with those Indians, nor extinguished their title to an acre of land in that Territory, nor indeed have you done so to this day. So it is in the organization of Washington Territory. You ran the lines around the country which you thought ought to be within the limits of the Territory, and you embraced all the Indians within those lines; but you made no provision in respect to their rights or lands; you left that matter to the Committee on Indian Affairs, to the Indian laws, and to the proper department, to be arranged afterward as the public interests might require. The same is true in reference to Utah and New Mexico.

In fact, the policy provided for in this bill, in respect to the Indians, is that which is now in force in every one of the Territories. Therefore, any senator who objects to this bill on that score should