posing insurmountable obstacles to the recovery of slaves. Every means which ingenuity could devise was put in operation to render the law a dead letter. Indeed, the excitement against it rose so high that the life and liberty of the master who pursued his fugitive slave into a free State were placed in imminent peril. For this he was often imprisoned, and, in some instances, • murdered.

The Fugitive Slave Law, although passed under the administration of Washington for the purpose of carrying into effect a plain, clear, and mandatory provision of the Constitution, was. set at naught. And this was done in the face of a well-known historical fact, that without such a provision the Constitution itself never could have existed. Without this law the slaveholder would have had no remedy to enforce his Constitutional right. There would have been no security for his property. If the slave, by simply escaping across a State line, could make himself free, the guarantees of the Constitution in favor of the master would be effectually abolished. These very guarantees were rendered practically of little or no avail, by the decision of the Court in the case of Prigg vs. Pennsylvania, declaring that the Congress of 1793 had violated the Constitution by requiring State magistrates to aid in executing the law.

We have no disposition to dispute the binding force of this decision, although made by a bare majority against the opinion of Chief-Justice Taney and three other judges. It was nevertheless pronounced by the Constitutional tribunal in the last resort, and therefore challenges the obedience, if not the approval, of every law-abiding citizen.

Mr. Justice Story himself seems to have clearly and complacently foreseen the injurious consequences to the rights of the slaveholder which would result from his decision. In his biography, written by his son (vol. ii., p. 392), it is stated: "But in establishing, contrary to the opinion of four of the judges, that the extradition of fugitive slaves is exclusively within the jurisdiction of the Federal Government, and that the State Legisla tures are prohibited from interfering, even to assist in giving effect to the clause in the Constitution on this subject; he (Judge Story) considered that a great point had been gained for liberty;

so great a point, indeed, that, on his return from Washington, he repeatedly and earnestly spoke of it to his family and his intimate friends as being 'a triumph of freedom.""

Again (page 394): "Nor were these views contradicted by subsequent experience. From the day of the decision of Prigg vs. the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the act of 1793 was," says his biographer, "a dead letter in the free States."

The slaveholders, thus deprived of their rights, began to threaten secession from the Union. They contended that, the people of the Northern States having violated the Constitution in a fundamental provision necessary to their peace and safety, they of the South, according to the settled rules governing the construction of all contracts, whether between States or individuals, had a right to rescind it altogether.

In 1846, in the midst of the agitation against the Fugitive Slave Law, came that on the Wilmot Proviso. This asserted it to be the right and duty of Congress to prohibit the people of the Southern States from emigrating with their slave property to the common territory of the United States, which might be acquired by the war with Mexico. Thus was raised anew the question in regard to slavery in the territories, which has since proved so fatal.

In May, 1846, the existence of war with Mexico, by the act of that Republic, was recognized by Congress, and measures were adopted for its prosecution.*

On the 4th of August, 1846, near the close of the session,† President Polk, desirous of restoring peace as speedily as possible, and of adjusting the boundaries between the two Republics in a satisfactory manner, asked Congress for a small contingent appropriation, to be applied to this purpose, which it might or might not become necessary to employ before their next meeting. Accordingly, on the 8th of August a bill was presented to the House granting the President $2,000,000.

To this bill Mr. Wilmot offered his proviso as an amendment. The proviso declared "That, as an express and fundamental condition to the acquisition of any territory from the

* Act of 13th May, 1846; 9 U. S. S. at Large, p. 9. + 3 Statesman's Manual, 1610. Con. Globe, 1845-'6, p. 1217.

Republic of Mexico by the United States, by virtue of any treaty which may be negotiated between them, and to the use by the Executive of the moneys herein appropriated, neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any part of said territory, except for crime, whereof the party shall first be duly convicted."

Had this proviso been never so proper in itself, it was both out of time and out of place. Out of time, because, whether any treaty could be made acquiring territory from Mexico, was future and contingent; and in fact that of Guadalupe Hidalgo, under which we acquired Upper California and New Mexico, was not concluded until almost eighteen months thereafter. * But Mr. Wilmot was so eager to introduce this new subject for anti-slavery agitation, that he could not await the regular course of events.

The proviso was also out of place in an appropriation bill confined to a single important object, because it was calculated to defeat, as it actually did defeat, the appropriation. It was a firebrand recklessly and prematurely cast among the free and slave States, at a moment when a foreign war was raging, in which all were gallantly fighting, side by side, to conquer an honorable peace. This was the moment selected, long in advance, to announce to the people of the slaveholding States that if we should acquire any new territory by our common blood and treasure, they should forever be prohibited from entering any portion of it with by far the most valuable part of their property.

The introduction of this proviso instantly caused the flames of fanaticism to burn with more intense ardor, both North and South, than they had ever done before. How wise is the Divine maxim, that "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof "!

The new territory afterwards acquired from Mexico, being outside of the ancient province of Louisiana, was not embraced by the Missouri Compromise. The late President, then Secretary of State, strongly urged the extension of the line of 36° 30' through this territory to the Pacific Ocean, as the best mode of adjustment. He believed that its division by this ancient line,

* Treaty, Feb. 2, 1848; 9 U. S. Statutes at Large, 922.

to which we had been long accustomed, would be more just in itself, and more acceptable to the people, both North and South, than any new plan which could be devised.*

This proposal was defeated by the Wilmot Proviso. That ill-starred measure continued to be forced. upon the consideration of Congress, as well as of State Legislatures, session after session, in various forms. Whilst Northern Legislatures were passing resolutions instructing their Senators and requesting their Representatives to vote for the Wilmot Proviso, Southern Legislatures and conventions were passing resolutions pledging themselves to measures of resistance.

The interposition of the proviso, in season and out of season, and the violent and protracted debates to which it gave rise, defeated the establishment of territorial governments in California and New Mexico throughout the whole of the thirtieth Congress (1847-'8 and 1848-'9). Meanwhile it placed the two sections of the Union in hostile array against each other. The people of the one, instead of regarding those of the other as brethren, were converted into deadly enemies. At the meeting of the thirtyfirst Congress (December, 1849) serious apprehensions were everywhere entertained, among the most enlightened and purest patriots, for the safety of the Union. The necessity was admitted by all that measures should be adopted to ward off the impending danger.

* Letter to Berks County, Aug. 25, 1847.

CHAPTER II.

Meeting of Congress in December, 1849-The five Acts constituting the Compromise of September, 1850-Effect of the Compromise in allaying excitement-Whig and Democratic Platforms indorse it-President Pierce's happy reference to it in his Message of December, 1853—The repeal of the Missouri Compromise reopens the slavery agitation-Its passage in March, 1820, and character-Its recognition by Congress in 1845, on the Annexation of Texas-The history of its repeal-This repeal gives rise to the Kansas troubles-Their nature and history-The Lecompton Constitution and proceedings of Congress upon it-The Republican party greatly strengthened-Decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott caseRepudiated by the Republican party and by the Douglas Democracy-Sustained by the old Democracy-The Kansas and Nebraska Act-The policy and practice of Congress toward the Territories-Abuse of President Buchanan for not adhering to the Cincinnati Platform without foundation.

THE thirty-first Congress assembled on the first Monday of December, 1849, and they happily succeeded in averting the present danger by the adoption of one of those wise compromises which had previously proved so beneficent to the country.

The first ray of light to penetrate the gloom emanated from the great and powerful State of Pennsylvania. Her House of Representatives refused to consider instructing resolutions in favor of the Wilmot Proviso. Soon thereafter, on the 4th of February, 1850, the House of Representatives at Washington, by a vote of 105 to 75, laid resolutions favoring this proviso upon the table.* The way was now opened for compromising all the existing questions in regard to slavery.

The bold, eloquent, and patriotic Clay, who, thirty years before, had contributed so much to the passage of the Mis

* Con. Globe, 1849-'50, p. 276.