vote for the bill, if not excused, as I can never withhold sup. plies under the circumstances, as the greater evil." He then withdrew his motion to be excused, and voted as we have stated.

He has opposed the Wilmot Proviso, which he regarded as usurping powers not conferred by the Constitution on Congress. And, in respect to the ordinance of 1787, wherein that proviso has its original existence, he holds this language:

"I do not hesitate to say that that ordinance originated in a palpable usurpation of power by the Congress of 1787. The Articles of Confederation conferred upon Congress no such power; indeed, they conferred scarcely any legislative powers whatever. The powers conferred were mainly executive, and related to our foreign relations. The Congress, under the Confederation, was rather a many-headed executive than a legislative body. The Congress itself seemed to concede, at one time, that they could not adopt the ordinance as a legislative act; and here they attempted to give it validity under the guise of 'compact.' But, admit it to be such, and you do not avoid the difficulty, but rather increase it; for the ordinance was adopted by a bare majority, and did not receive the vote of a sufficient number of states to give it validity as a compact; and, at one time, this was the view of the Congress itself. In April, 1784, the ordinance was first proposed; and it had seven states in its favor, three against, and one (North Carolina) divided. Yet it was decided to be rejected; thus showing that the Congress thought the affirmative vote of nine states, the number the Articles of Confederation required to adopt treaties, was necessary to its adoption. But the Congress, finding that the vote of nine states could not be had for it, and notwithstanding their decision in 1784, that a smaller number would not be sufficient, in 1787 they declared it adopted by a bare majority. But something more was necessary to give it validity as a compact, which is wanting in this case. To create a compact, there must be parties able and willing to contract, and who, in fact, do contract. Now who, in this case, were the parties? The ordinance declares the parties to be the original states, and the people and states in the said territory.' Now, sir, I choose, on this point, to rest upon the fact rather than the law. Which of the original states ever assented to this compact?

Not one.

It is true Virginia was asked to consent to a change which was proposed in the boundary of the states which it was designed to create in the territory northwest of the Ohio, and the number of them, from the number and boundaries specified in her deed of cession. To this Virginia assented; but she was not asked to assent, and she did not assent, to any other point of the ordinance. There is no pretense that any other state acted in the matter at all. Will it be said that they assented through their delegates in Congress? They had no commission to give any such assent. Besides, the people and states in said territory,' the other parties, were not represented in Congress, and they never were, in any form, consulted.

"If this ordinance is to be considered a legislative act, it was always null and void, because the Congress of 1787 had no authority to pass it as such, as the Congress of 1784 decided. But if it is to be considered a compact, then it is equally void, as it was not adopted by the requisite vote, and, above all, as the pretended parties to it were not consulted. Well, then, might Mr. Madison speak of it as an act 'done without the least color of constitutional authority. In the thirty-eighth number of the Federalist, Mr. Madison says, 'Congress has assumed the administration of this stock' [referring to the public lands]. They have begun to render it productive. Congress has undertaken to do more: they have proceeded to form new states; to erect temporary governments; to appoint officers for them, and to prescribe the conditions on which the states shall be admitted into the Confederacy. And all this has been done, and done without the least color of constitu tional authority. And, in truth, the sixth article of the ordinance, the one relating to slavery, was always treated as a nullity in the territory itself. At the time of the cession of the territory, it was uninhabited, except by a few French and Canadian settlers, who held slaves; and they continued to hold them, notwithstanding the ordinance, and the issue of many of them are held as slaves to this day.

"I think it sufficiently clear that the sixth article of the ordinance of 1787 never had any validity. But of all the absurd ideas I have ever heard in this hall, the idea that the ordinance is forever beyond the reach of the people of the present States, and, in its own language, is to 'forever remain unalter

able,' is, beyond question, the most absurd. The gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Pettit] says it is unalterable, because it is a compact. Have I not shown that it never had validity as such? Besides, suppose it was otherwise, who ever had authority to bind men and their descendants through all time as to the form of government and the institutions under which they should live? All governments are compacts in the sense in which the word compact is used here; yet will any one say, in this country, that the people can be restrained in their right to alter and reform their governments and laws whenever, in their opinion, it will be promotive of their prosperity and happiness? If this idea that this ordinance is forever unalterable be correct, then the states in the Northwest are not completely sovereign, and they do not stand on an equal footing with the original states; and the condition of the Virginia deed of cession, that they should be admitted into the Union, 'having the same rights of sovereignty, freedom, and independence' as other states, has been violated. Will the Northwestern states admit that such is their condition of inferiority?"

He also contends that the proposition to exclude slavery from all territory hereafter to be acquired, without any reference to its geographical position, evinces bad faith on the part of the non-slaveholding states; that it is not only a palpable violation of the Constitution, but also of the Missouri Compromise. He admits that that compromise does not, in terms, extend to ter ritory hereafter to be acquired; but he argues that if the compromise was fair and equal so far as concerned territory in our possession at the time of its enactment, it would not be less so in respect to territory subsequently acquired. The argument, he thinks, gains additional weight from the circumstance which he forcibly presented to the consideration of the House, that the Missouri Compromise was forced upon the South by the North; that it was the proposition of the North itself, carried by Northern votes against Southern votes and Southern protests. He then says:

"In the case of Texas, the Missouri Compromise line was recognized as extending to territory to which it did not in terms apply. But gentlemen say the South voted against applying it to Texas. It is true we did, because, for the reasons I have given, we did not think Congress had the power to do it. But

it was proposed by a gentleman from a non-slaveholding state, and it was carried by the representatives of the non-slaveholding states. We could not vote for it, but we acquiesced. Notwithstanding all this, in less than two years, gentlemen who voted to extend the Missouri Compromise to Texas come forward and insist that that compromise has no application to territory which we did not possess at the time of its adoption. They are estopped by their own votes from taking this ground." And he thus expresses himself as to the object of the parties engaged in the Wilmot Proviso movement:

"There are three classes of persons concerned in it :

"First. The mere politician, who is actuated by the hope that, by pandering to the prejudices of a portion of the people of the non-slaveholding states, he can reap an immediate party advantage.

"Second. Those who look a little further ahead, and seek to retard, if they can not prevent, the admission of new slave states, and to stimulate the formation of new non-slaveholding states, with the view of throwing the control of the government entirely into their hands.

"Third. The abolition fanatic.

"The first of these have seen the power which the Abolitionists wield in the elections, and to conciliate their support for mere party advantage, they are willing to trample upon the Constitution and disturb our peace.

"The second avow that their object is political power. Their calculation is, that if they prohibit slavery in all the territories, the growth of such as are fitted to slave labor will be retarded, and that all such as are not fitted to slave labor would be proportionally stimulated; the result of which would be, non-slaveholding states would come into the Union so much faster than slave states, that in a short time the government would be in the undisputed possession of the non-slaveholding states. The gentleman from New York (Mr. Rathbun) had the candor to declare that sympathy for the negro had nothing to do with his conduct, and that if we would consent so to amend the Constitution as to abolish slave representation, he would not care how many slave territories we might erect, or how much slavery was extended. His object was, as he avowed, to throw the power of the government into the hands of the non-slaveholding states.

And why did he desire to do this? Because he thought it would be in hands that would guide our destiny more successfully! Oh no! But that the North might dispense and enjoy the of fices and the patronage of the government!

"The third class is the abolition fanatics, who are bent upon the abolition of slavery at every hazard, and by any means, even by deluging the South with blood. But, as these people deny the right of Congress to emancipate the slaves in the States, it may be asked, What have they to gain by the agitation of this subject of slavery here? Their own report answers this ques tion. I quote from the Annual Report of the New York Abo lition Society for 1838. Similar sentiments pervade all their publications. The report goes on to argue, that the value of the slave to his master is the great obstacle to abolition. De stroy their value, they say, and you dispose the South to abo lition. They propose many modes of diminishing the value of slaves; but I dismiss minor points, and come at once to the main one. The discussion of the subject of abolition at the North, and in Congress, they say, will decrease the value of slaves by

"The interest which they themselves will take in the dis cussion. In spite of all precautions, the slaves will become ac quainted with what so deeply interests them; and, so far as they do, self-respect will be regenerated: an excellent and profitable sentiment for a free laborer, but ruinous to the slave. It was the testimony of the planters of Jamaica before the British Parliament, that their slaves became acquainted with all that passed in respect to them in the mother country, and were thereby to much excited to fill the places of slaves with slavish obedience.'

"The knowledge of the slave that a portion of the whites are exerting themselves for his emancipation, upon the ground that he is illegally held in bondage, will make him, they say, impa tient in his servitude. It will make him sullen and moody; it will incite him to indulge dreams of freedom in another land which he can never enjoy in his own. He will be reduced to a condition in which his master can not rely upon his labor. He will be disposed to run away, and at a time when his services can be least spared. The master will be subjected to constant and heavy expense to recapture him. He will thus become to his owner a source of vexation rather than comfort, of trouble