ON A MEMORIAL FROM THE STATE OF

DELAWARE.

IN SENATE, JULY 3, 1850.

[SENATOR WALES, of Delaware, had read a somewhat long memorial from some of his constituents against the Compromise measures then in debate before the Senate, which occasioned the following remarks of Mr. Clay.]

Mr. President, I feel it proper and incumbent on me to say, that I have received a letter from one of the most eminent citizens of Delaware, by which I am informed that upon the question of the adoption of these resolutions, the meeting was so nearly equally divided, that it could not be ascertained on which side the majority lay, and it was only upon a second division of the meeting that a small majority was supposed to present itself in favor of the resolutions.

Sir, the resolutions which the honorable senator has presented endeavor to assail the bill before the Senate upon the ground of its being, in the popular language of the country-but I hope the term will not be applied in the Senate-an" omnibus" bill. Those resolutions which have a diplomatic odor about them, are much more incongruous in their character, and the subject of which they treat, than the bill to which this appellation has been applied. But the honorable senator near me is not satisfied with the presentation of the resolutions, but must make some observations on the great measure pending before the Senate. He thinks it has not yet produced the concord which its authors hope for. Let it be tried before the country, and I think the issue will be that it will produce concord throughout this distracted nation. He tells us that the senators from the South are not united, or that there is considerable division between them. I confess I have found some difficulty in counting votes in this body, and I have experienced no difficulty in ascertaining the course which the honorable senator himself means to pursue. But I hope, I yet hope, that he will find it incumbent on him to support this measure. If I know any thing of the people of Delaware-and my heart is full of gratitude toward them, and I have always had great respect for their sentiments throughout the long time that I have been acquainted with them and their representatives

-if I know any thing of the sentiments of the State, if influences are not brought to bear upon them, I venture to say they will stand alongside of the vast majority of the States of the Union in favor of this compromise -a majority so great that in some States, Maryland for example, the neighbor, the nearest neighbor of Delaware, and in my own State, it approximates almost to unanimity.

And, sir, to go beyond the slaveholding States, the State represented so ably by my friends in my eye, the States of Indiana and Illinois, are almost unanimous in favor of the bill. When I arrive, as I soon hope to do, at a period when I can vindicate this measure, I will show how predictions heretofore made in reference to compromises of former times have failed, as they will fail now. When the Missouri compromise was proposed, it was everywhere said, and in both Houses of Congress, "it will bring no peace to the country." And yet everywhere throughout this nation there was a degree of joy and exultation almost unparalleled in its existence. So it was said when the compromise of the tariff of 1833 was adopted. Repeal, agitation, and modification, it was announced, would be attempted at session after session, in order to destroy that compromise. So far from it, the manufacturing interest never enjoyed seven years of more profound peace and prosperity than it did during the prevalence of the compromise tariff of 1833, and up to the time when that compromise fell down to the lowest rate of revenue did that prosperity continue unchecked and unalloyed.

Sir, the nation wants repose; and, as has been properly remarked, it is not so much cared what mode be adopted-though I believe a vast majority of the people are in favor of this measure of compromise-as that some healing measure, some comprehensive measure, some measure that shall reach all the sources of distraction which prevail throughout the country, be adopted. And any such measure will be hailed with a delight which the disturbers of the peace will find themselves wholly unable to destroy or impair in the slightest degree.

I have felt myself called upon, standing in the relation I do to this subject, to make the few observations which I have made, in consequence of the remarks, and in consequence of the character of the resolutions, presented by the honorable senator.

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Mr. President, I wish to make but a single remark with respect to Wilmington. It is not a very large, though an extremely respectable city, full of industry and energy. Its population is, I suppose, about ten or fifteen thousand. There is no man in that city better acquainted with its public sentiment than my friend to whom I referred, and whose name is well known to the senator from Delaware.

But with regard to the editors who were there, and who voted against these resolutions. There was an editor, if I am rightly informed, from the "North American" press of Philadelphia, who went to Wilmington to assist the good people of Delaware in framing these resolutions.

MR. WALES. He made a speech there.

MR. CLAY. Yes, he made a speech upon the occasion.

Now, with respect to the "diplomatic odor" which these resolutions emit, I did not locate the diplomacy in Wilmington, but I should be extremely happy to see the original resolutions as at first drafted. They embrace so much matter, they are so comprehensive. Our bill an "omnibus !” Why, their "omnibus" is ten times as large. It covers the foreign diplomacy of the country and the entire administration. That member of the

administration from the senator's own State is lauded to the skies for the Nicaragua treaty and other diplomacy. Their "omnibus" contains matters vastly more incongruous than these measures, which we have conjoined in this compromise bill. And yet they oppose this bill because of the incongruity of the measures of which it is composed.

ON THE ADMISSION OF CALIFORNIA.

IN SENATE, JULY 15 & 19, 1850.

[IT should be understood, that the bills reported by the Committee of Thirteen were for the admission of California, to. establish territorial governments over New Mexico and Utah, to satisfy the claims of Texas over a part of New Mexico, to recover fugitive slaves, and to abolish the slave-trade in the District of Columbia. There was a long-protracted debate on the admission of California; and the following are some selections from what Mr. Clay said on that subject.]

July 15. Mr. Clay said:

It is true, as has been stated by the senator from New Jersey, that I entertained the purpose not to fill the blank with the sum to be paid to Texas until the third reading of the bill, if it should reach that point. At the time I made that intimation I was acting upon my general knowledge of parliamentary law, as laid down in the manual and the British books. According to these authorities, I knew that it was proper then to fill any blank that might, to that time, have been left in the bill; but since then my attention has been called to the particular rule of the Senate of the United States on this subject, which I believe I have never examined since it was adopted by the Senate, and I am now inclined to think that by one of our rules there has been a modification of the parliamentary law—that is, as to filling up blanks. By our rules I find that no amendment can be made on the third reading of a bill without unanimous consent; and upon ascertaining that our rules have thus modified the general parliamentary law, I changed my purpose as to the time when it would be proper to propose to fill the blank in this bill. My present purpose is to propose to fill the blank as one of the last amendments that it will be in order to make to the bill before it is ordered to an engrossment; and it will then be in order for the senator from New Jersey to offer his amendment which is now before the Senate.

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Mr. President, the proposition before the Senate, which has been submitted in that spirit of fairness which has characterized the senatorial course of the gentleman who made the motion, throughout my whole acquaintance with him, is one of great importance. It is vital. It is con

clusive, if it prevail, of the fate of the bill. The question is, whether all the labor bestowed by the committee of thirteen, and by the Senate, upon this great work of pacification is now to be lost, and whether we shall be brought back to the simple question of the admission of California, with her limits as proposed, with her representation in both branches of Congress as proposed.

The question is, in other words, whether we will take California, with all the objections that have been made to her admission, without compensation; or whether, rejecting the motion, we will take California, with the compensations that are provided in this bill. If the motion prevail, the effect of it will be to bring up instantly the question of the admission of California. And upon that question, no senator can hesitate to believe but that there is a large and decisive majority in the affirmative; of which majority-I repeat the profession and declaration I have often made before -I am one.

If I am reduced to the necessity of voting separately and distinctly upon the question of the admission of California, with her whole limits-stretching along the entire length of our possessions on the Pacific, up to the boundary of Oregon-with her senators and representatives, without any compensation, without any equivalent, without any rejection of the principle of the Wilmot proviso, I am prepared to give the vote. And the question for the Senate, and for all parts of the Senate to consider is, whether or not they will take the admission of California with the compensation contained in this bill as it is, or as it may be hereafter modified by subsequent amendments, in preference to what is otherwise inevitablethe separate admission of California. I hope and trust the proposition will be rejected. If there were any doubts about it, I should ask for the postponement of the question until the return to their seats of three or four senators, who, I hear, will vote against it. But, as I presume the proposition will be rejected by a large majority, I shall not ask this.

Mr. President, I have two or three times indicated my purpose, at some suitable moment, after hearing all that has been said against this bill, to address the Senate in answer to all the leading topics of objection that may be urged against it. I would do that now, but that I think the moment for performing such a duty has not arrived, and but for the anticipation I feel that this motion will be rejected. I have risen for the purpose which I have indicated, of stating the consequences of the motion: California as she is, without compensation, or California with the compensation contained in this bill, or which may be put in it during its subsequent progress. That is the question before the Senate, and I wish the country to see and understand it.

July 19, Mr. Clay said:

Mr. President, my connection with this subject imposes upon me the discharge of a very painful duty. I should gladly not have been placed in a position in which I find it necessary to make some response to the argu