borders; good titles, too; and you must give them of judgment and conscience on distinct and separate her own. Will you say that California could not aggrandize herself by separation? Would it, then, be a mean ambition to set up within fifty years, on the Pacific coast, monuments like those which we think two hundred years have been well spent in establishing on the Atlantic coast? Will you say that California has no ability to become independent? She has the same moral ability for enterprise that inheres in us, and that ability implies command of all physical means. She has advantages of position. She is practically farther removed from us than England. We cannot reach her by railroad, nor by unbroken steam-navigation. We can send no armies over the prairie, the mountain, and the desert, nor across the remote and narrow Isthmus within a foreign jurisdiction, nor around the Cape of Storms. We may send a navy there, but she has only to open her mines, and she can seduce our navies, and appropriate our floating bulwarks to her own defence. Let her only seize our domain within her borders, and our commerce in her ports, and she will have at once revenues and credit adequate to all her necessities. Besides, are we so moderate, and has the world become so just, that we have no rivals and no enemies to lend their sympathies and aid to compass the dismemberment of our empire? Try not the temper and fidelity of California-at least not now, not yet. Cherish her and indulge her until you have extended your settlements to her borders, and bound her fast by railroads, and canals, and telegraphs, to your interests—until her affinities of intercourse are established, and her habits of loyalty are fixed-and then she can never be disengaged. California would not go alone. Oregon, so intimately allied to her, and as yet so loosely attached to us, would go also; and then at least the entire Pacific coast, with the western declivity of the Sierra Nevada, would be lost. It would not depend at all upon us, nor even on the mere forbearance of California, how far eastward the long line across the temperate zone should be drawn, which should separate the Republic of the Pacific from the Republic of the Atlantic. Terminus has passed away, with all the deities of the ancient Pantheon, but his sceptre remains. Commerce is the God of boundaries, and no man now living can foretell his ultimate de cree. But it is insisted that the admission of California shall be attended by a COMPROMISE of questions which have arisen out of SLAVERY! I AM OPPOSED TO ANY SUCH COMPROMISE, IN ANY AND ALL THE FORMS IN WHICH IT HAS BEEN PROPOSED; because, while admitting the purity and the patriotism of all from whom it is my misfortune to differ, I think all legislative compromises, not absolutely necessary, radically wrong and essentially vicious. They involve the surrender of the exercise Sir, it seems to me as if Slavery had laid its paralyzing hand upon myself, and the blood were coursing less freely than its wont through my veins, when I endeavor to suppose that such a compromise has been effected, and that my utterance for ever is arrested upon all the great questions-social, moral, and political-arising out of a subject so important, and as yet so incomprehensible. What am I to receive in this compromise? Freedom in California. It is well; it is a noble acquisition; it is worth a sacrifice. But what am I to give as an equivalent? A recognition of the claim to perpetuate Slavery in the District of Columbia; forbearance toward more stringent laws concerning the arrest of persons suspected of being slaves found in the free States; forbearance from the Proviso of Freedom in the charters of new Territories. None of the plans of compromise offered demand less than two, and most of them insist on all of these conditions. The equivalent, then, is, some portion of lib.. erty, some portion of human rights in one region for liberty in another region. But California brings gold and commerce as well as freedom. I am, then, to surrender some portion of human freedom in the District of Columbia, and in East California and New Mexico, for the mixed consideration of liberty, gold, and power, on the Pacific coast. This view of legislative compromises is not new. It has widely prevailed, and many of the State Constitutions interdict the introduction of more than one subject into one bill submitted for legislative action. It was of such compromises that BURKE said, in one of the loftiest bursts of even his majestic parliamentary eloquence : "Far, far from the Commons of Great Britain be all manner of real vice; but ten thousand times farther from them, as far as from pole to pole, be the whole tribe of spurious, affected, counterfeit, and hypocritical virtues! These are the things which are ten thousand times more at war with real virtue, these are the things which are ten thousand times more at war with real duty, than any vice known by its name and distinguished by its proper character. "Far, far from us be that false and affected candor that is the ambiguous animal that flies about in the twilight of a eternally in treaty with crime-that half virtue, which, like compromise between day and night, is, to a just man's eye, an odious and disgusting thing. There is no middle point, my Lords, in which the Commons of Great Britain can meet tyranny and oppression." But, sir, if I could overcome my repugnance to compromises in general, I should object to this one, on the ground of the inequality and incongruity of the interests to be compromised. Why, sir, according to the views I have submitted, California ought to come in, and must come in, whether Slavery stand or fall in the District of Columbia; whether Slavery stand or fall in New Mexico and Eastern California; and even whether Slavery stand or fall in the slave States. California ought to come in, being a free State; and, under the circumstances of her conquest, her compact, her abandonment, her justifiable and necessary establishment of a Constitution, and the inevitable dismemberment of the empire consequent upon her rejection, I should have voted for her admission even if she had come as a slave State. California ought to come in, and must come in at all events. It is, then, an independent, a paramount | ity or a proximate equality in the number of slaves question. What, then, are these questions arising and freemen. And this must be perpetual. out of slavery, thus interposed, but collateral questions? They are unnecessary and incongruous, and therefore false issues, not introduced designedly, indeed, to defeat that great policy, yet unavoidably tending to that end. Mr. FOOTE. Will the honorable Senator allow me to ask him, if the Senate is to understand him as saying that he would vote for the admission of California if she came here seeking admission as a slave State? Mr. SEWARD. I reply, as I said before, that even if California had come as a slave State, yet coming under the extraordinary circumstances I have described, and in view of the consequences of a dismemberment of the empire, consequent upon her rejection, I should have voted for her admission, even though she had come as a slave State. But I should not have voted for her admission other wise. I remark in the next place, that consent on my part would be disingenuous and fraudulent, because the compromise would be unavailing. It is now avowed by the honorable Senator from South Carolina, [Mr. CALHOUN,] that nothing will satisfy the slave States, but a compromise that will convince them that they can remain in the Union consistently with their honor and their safety. And what are the concessions which will have that effect? Here they are, in the words of that Senator: "The North must do justice by conceding to the South an equal right in the acquired territory, and do her duty by causing the stipulations relative to fugitive slaves to be faithfully fulfilled-cease the agitation of the slave question-and provide for the insertion of a provision in the Constitution, by an amendment, which will restore to the South in sub stance the power she possessed, of protecting herself, before the equilibrium between the sections was destroyed by the action of this Government." These terms amount to this: that the free States having already, or although they may hereafter have, majorities of population, and majorities in both Houses of Congress, shall concede to the slave States, being in a minority in both, the unequal advantage of an equality. That is, that we shall alter the Constitution so as to convert the Government from a national democracy, operating by a constitutional majority of voices, into a Federal alliance, in which the minority shall have a veto against the majority. And this is nothing less than to return to the original Articles of Confederation. I will not stop to protest against the injustice or the inexpediency of an innovation which, if it was practicable, would be so entirely subversive of the principle of democratic institutions. It is enough to say that it is totally impracticable. The free States, Northern and Western, have acquiesced in the long and nearly-unbroken ascendency of the slave States under the Constitution, because the result happened under the Constitution. But they have honor and interests to preserve, and there is nothing in the nature of mankind or in the character of that people to induce an expectation that they, loyal as they are, are insensible to the duty of defending them. But the scheme would still be impracticable, even if this difficulty were overcome. What is proposed is a political equilibrium. Every political equilibrium requires a physical equilibrium to rest upon, and is valueless without it. To constitute a physical equilibrium between the slave States and the free States, requires, first, an equality of territory, or some near approximation. And this is already lost. But it requires much more than this. It requires an equal But the census of 1840 gives a slave basis of only 2,500,000, and a free basis of 14,500,000. And the population on the slave basis increases in the ratio of 25 per cent. for ten years, while that on the free basis advances at the rate of 38 per cent. The accelerating movement of the free population now complained of, will occupy the new Territories with pioneers, and every day increases the difficulty of forcing or insinuating slavery into regions which freemen have pre-occupied. And if this were possible, the African slave-trade is prohibited, and the domestic increase is not sufficient to supply the new slave States which are expected to maintain the equilibrium. The theory of a new political equilibrium claims that it once existed, and has been lost. When lost, and how? It began to be lost in 1787, when preliminary arrangements were made to admit five new free States in the Northwest Territory, two years before the Constitution was finally adopted; that is, it began to be lost two years before it began to exist! Sir, the equilibrium, if restored, would be lost again, and lost more rapidly than it was before. The progress of the free population is to be accelerated by increased emigration, and by new tides from South America and from Europe and Asia, while that of the slaves is to be checked and retarded by inevitable partial emancipation. "Nothing," says Montesquieu, "reduces a man so low as always to see freemen, and yet not be free. Persons in that condition are natural enemies of the state, and their numbers would be dangerous if increased too high." Sir, the fugitive slave colonies and the emancipated slave colonies in the free States, in Canada, and in Liberia, are the best guaranties South Carolina has for the perpetuity of slavery. Nor would success attend any of the details of the compromise. And, first, I advert to the proposed alteration of the law concerning fugitives from service or labor. I shall speak on this, as on all subjects, with due respect, but yet frankly, and without reservation. The Constitntion contains only a compact, which rests for its execution on the States. Not content with this, the slave States induced legislation by Congress; and the Supreme Court of the United States have virtually decided that the whole subject is within the province of Congress, and exclusive of State authority. Nay, they have decided that slaves are to be regarded, not merely as persons to be claimed, but as property and chattels, to be seized without any legal authority or claim whatever. The compact is thus subverted by the procurement of the slave States. With what reason, then, can they expect the States ex gratia to reassume the obligations from which they caused those States to be discharged? I say, then, to the slave States, you are entitled to no more stringent laws; and that such laws would be useless. The cause of the inefficiency of the present statute is not at all the leniency of its provisions. It is a law that deprives the alleged refugee from a legal obligation not assumed by him, but imposed upon him by laws enacted before he was born, of the writ of habeas corpus, and of any certain judicial process of examination of the claim set up by his pursuer, and finally degrades him into a chattel which may be seized and carried away peaceably wherever found, even although exercising the rights and responsibilities of a free citizen of the Commonwealth in which he resides, and of the United States-a law which denies to the citizen all the safeguards of personal liberty, to render less frequent the escape of the bondman. And since complaints are so freely made against the one side, I shall not hesitate to declare that there have been even greater faults on the other side. Relying on the perversion of the Constitution which makes slaves mere chattels, the slave States have applied to them the principles of the criminal law, and have held that he who aided the escape of his fellow-man from bondage was guilty of larceny in stealing him. I speak of what I know. Two instances came within my own knowledge, in which Governors of slave States, under the provision of the Constitution relating to fugitives from justice, demanded from the Governor of a free State the surrender of persons as thieves whose alleged offences consisted in constructive larceny of the rags that covered the persons of female slaves, whose attempt at escape they permitted or assisted. the standard of the laws of God, and must be tried by that standard, and must stand or fall by it. This principle was happily explained by one of the most distinguished political philosophers of England in these emphatic words: "There is but one law for all, namely, that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, Justice, equity, the law of nature and of nations. So far as any laws fortify this primeval law, and give it more pre cision, more energy, more effect, by their declarations, such laws enter into the sanctuary and participate in the sacredness of its character; but the man who quotes as precedents the abuses of tyrants and robbers, pollutes the very fountains of justice, destroys the foundations of all law, and therefore removes the only safeguard against evil men, whether gov. ernors or governed; the guard which prevents governors from becoming tyrants, and the governed from becoming rebels." There was deep philosophy in the confession of an eminent English judge. When he had condemned We deem the principle of the law for the recap- a young woman to death, under the late sanguinary ture of fugitives, as thus expounded, therefore, un-code of his country, for her first petty theft, she fell just, unconstitutional, and immoral; and thus, while down dead at his feet: "I seem to myself," said he, patriotism withholds its approbation, the consciences "to have been pronouncing sentence, not against of our people condemn it. the prisoner, but against the law itself." You will say that these convictions of ours are disloyal. Grant it for the sake of argument. They are, nevertheless, honest; and the law is to be executed among us, not among you; not by us, but by the Federal authority. Has any Government ever succeeded in changing the moral convictions of its subjects by force? But these convictions imply no disloyalty. We reverence the Constitution, although we perceive this defect, just as we acknowledge the splendor and the power of the sun, although its surface is tarnished with here and there an opaque spot. Your Constitution and laws convert hospitality to the refugee from the most degrading oppression on earth into a crime; but all mankind except you esteem that hospitality a virtue. The right of extradition of a fugitive from justice is not admitted by the law of nature and of nations, but rests in voluntary compacts. I know of only two compacts found in diplomatic history that admitted EXTRADITION OF SLAVES. Here is one of them. It is found in a treaty of peace made between Alexander Commenus and Leontine, Greek Emperors at Constantinople, and Oleg, King of Russia, in the year 902, and is in these words: "If a Russian slave take flight, or even if he is carried away by any one under pretence of having been bought, his master shall have the right and power to pursue him, and hunt for and capture him wherever he shall be found; and any person who shall oppose the master in the execution of this right shall be deemed guilty of violating this treaty, and be punished accordingly." This was in the year of Grace 902, in the period called the "Dark Ages," and the contracting Powers were despotisms. And here is the other: "No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor is due." This is from the Constitution of the United States in 1787, and the parties were the republican States of this Union. The law of nations disavows such compacts the law of nature, written on the hearts and consciences of freemen, repudiates them. Armed power could not enforce them, because there is no public conscience to sustain them. I know that there are laws of various sorts which regulate the conduct of men. These are constitutions and statutes, codes mercantile and codes civil; but when we are legislating for States, especially when we are founding States, all these laws must be brought to Do we, To conclude on this point. We are not slaveholders. We cannot, in our judgment, be either true Christians or real freemen, if we impose on another a chain that we defy all human power to fasten on ourselves. You believe and think otherwise, and doubtless with equal sincerity. We judge you not, and He alone who ordained the conscience of man and its laws of action can judge us. then, in this conflict of opinion, demand of you an unreasonable thing in asking that, since you will have property that can and will exercise human powers to effect its escape, you shall be your own police, and, in acting among us as such, you shall conform to principles indispensable to the security of admitted rights of freemen? If you will have this law executed, you must alleviate, not increase, its rigors. Another feature in most of these plans of compromise is a bill of peace for slavery in the District of Columbia; and this bill of peace we cannot grant. We of the free States are, equally with you of the slave States, responsible for the existence of slavery in this District, the field exclusively of our common legislation. I regret that, as yet, I see little reason to hope that a majority in favor of emancipation exists here. The Legislature of New Ynrk-from whom, with great deference, I dissent-seems willing to accept now the extinction of the slave trade, and waive emancipation. But we shall assume the whole responsibility, if we stipulate not to exercise the power hereafter when a majority shall be ob tained. Nor will the plea with which you would furnish us be of any avail. If I could understand so mysterious a paradox myself, I never should be able to explain, to the apprehension of the people whom I represent, how it was that an absolute and express power to legislate in all cases over the Dietrict of Columbia, was embarrassed and defeated by an implied condition not to legislate for the abolition of slavery in this District. Sir, I shall vote for that measure, and am willing to appropriate any means necessary to carry it into execution. And, if I shall be asked what I did to embellish the capital of my country, I will point to her freedmen, and say, these are the monuments of my munificence! If I was willing to advance a cause that I deem sacred by disingenuous means, I would advise you to adopt those means of compromise which I have thus examined. The echo is not quicker in its response than would be that loud and universal cry of repeal, that would not die away until the habeas corpus was secured to the alleged fugitive from bondage, and the symmetry of the free institutions of the capital was perfected. I apply the same observations to the proposition for a waiver of the Proviso of Freedom in Territorial charters. Thus far you have only direct popular action in favor of that Ordinance, and there seems even to be a partial disposition to await the action of the people of the new Territories, as we have compulsorily waited for it in California. But I must tell you, nevertheless, in candor and in plainness, that the spirit of the people of the free States is set upon a spring that rises with the pressure put upon it. That spring, if pressed too hard, will give a recoil that will, not leave here one servant who knew his master's will, and did it not. power of the President and the Senate. Entertaining this view, I must insist that the constitutionality of the annexation of Texas itself shall be cleared up before I can agree to the admission of any new States to be formed within Texas. Mr. FOOTE. Did not I hear the Senator observe that he would admit California, whether slavery was or was not precluded from these Territories? Mr. SEWARD. I said I would have voted for the admission of California even as a slave State, under the extraordinary circumstances which I have before distinctly described. I say that now; but I say also, that before I would agree to admit any more States from Texas, the circumstances which render such act necessary must be shown, and must be such as to determine my obligation to do so; and that is precisely what I insist cannot be settled. now. It must be left for those to whom the responsibility will belong. You will say that this implies violence. Not at all. It implies only peaceful, lawful, constitutional, customary action. I cannot too strongly express my Mr. President, I understand, and I am happy in surprise that those who insist that the people of the understanding, that I agree with the honorable Senslave States cannot be held back from remedies out- ator from Massachusetts, that there is no obligation side of the Constitution, should so far misunder-upon Congress to admit four new slave States out stand us of the free States as to suppose we would not exercise our constitutional rights to sustain the policy which we deem just and beneficent. of Texas, but that Congress has reserved her right to say whether those States shall be formed and admitted or not. I shall rely on that reservation. I shall vote to admit no more slave States, unless under circumstances absolutely compulsory-and no such case is now foreseen. Mr. WEBSTER. What I said was, that if the States hereafter to be made out of Texas choose to come in as slave States, they have a right so to do. Mr. SEWARD. My position is, that they have not a right to come in at all, if Congress rejects their institutions. The subdivision of Texas is a matter optional with both parties, Texas and the United States. Mr. WEBSTER. Does the honorable Senator mean to say that Congress can hereafter decide whether they shall be slave or free States! I come now to notice the suggested compromise of the boundary between Texas and New Mexico. This is a judicial question in its nature, or at least a question of legal right and title. If it is to be compromised at all, it is due to the two parties, and to national dignity as well as to justice, that it be kept separate from compromises proceeding on the ground of expediency, and be settled by itself alone. I take this occasion to say, that while I do not intend to discuss the questions alluded to in this connection by the honorable and distinguished Senator from Massachusetts, I am not able to agree with him in regard to the alleged obligation of Congress to admit four new slave States, to be formed in the State of Texas. There are several questions Mr. SEWARD. I mean to say that Congress arising out of that subject, upon which I am not can hereafter decide whether any States, slave or prepared to decide now, and which I desire to re-free, can be framed out of Texas. If they should serve for future consideration. One of these is, never be framed out of Texas, they never could be whether the Article of Annexation does really de-admitted. prive Congress of the right to exercise its choice in regard to the subdivision of Texas into four additional States. It seems to me by no means so plain a question as the Senator from Massachusetts assumed, and that it must be left to remain an open question, as it is a great question, whether Congress is not a party whose future consent is necessary to the formation of new States out of Texas. Mr. WEBSTER. Supposing Congress to have the authority to fix the number, and time of election, and apportionment of Representatives, &c., the question is, whether, if new States are formed out of Texas, to come into this Union, there is not a solemn pledge by law that they have a right to come in as slave States? Mr. SEWARD. When the States are once formed, they have the right to come in as free or slave States, according to their own choice; but what I insist is, that they cannot be formed at all without the consent of Congress, to be hereafter given, which consent Congress is not obliged to give. But I pass that question for the present, and proceed to say that I am not prepared to admit that the Article of the Annexation of Texas is itself constitutional. I find no authority in the Constitution of the United States for the annexation of foreign countries by a resolution of Congress, and no power adequate to that purpose but the treaty-making Another objection arises out of the principle on which the demand for compromise rests. That principle assumes a classification of the States as Northern and Southern States, as it is expressed by the honorable Senator from South Carolina, [Mr. CALHOUN,] but into slave States and free States, as more directly expressed by the honorable Senator from Georgia, [Mr. BERRIEN.] The argument is, that the States are severally equal, and that these two classes were equal at the first, and that the Constitution was founded on that equilibrium; that the States being equal, and the classes of the States being equal in rights, they are to be regarded as constituting an association in which each State, and each of these classes of States, respectively, contribute in due proportions; that the new Territories are a common acquisition, and the people of these sev eral States and classes of States have an equal right to participate in them, respectively; that the right of the people of the slave States to emigrate to the Territories with their slaves as property is necessary to afford such a participation on their part, inasmuch as the people of the free States emigrate into the same Territories with their property. And the ar gument deduces from this right the principle that, if Congress exclude slavery from any part of this new domain, it would be only just to set off a portion of the domain-some say south of 36 deg. 30 min., others south of 34 deg.-which should be regarded at least as free to slavery, and to be organized into slave States. Argument ingenious and subtle, declamation earnest and bold, and persuasion gentle and winning as the voice of the turtle dove when it is heard in the land, all alike and altogether have failed to convince me of the soundness of this principle of the proposed compromise, or of any one of the propositions on which it is attempted to be established. How is the original equality of the States proved? It rests on a syllogism of Vattel, as follows: All men are equal by the law of nature and of nations. But States are only lawful aggregations of individual men, who severally are equal. Therefore, States are equal in natural rights. All this is just and sound. But assuming the same premises, to wit, that all men are equal by the law of nature and of nations, the right of property in slaves falls to the ground; for one who is equal to another cannot be the owner or property of that other. But you answer, that the Constitution recognises property in slaves. It would be sufficient, then, to reply, that this constitutional recognition must be void, because it is repugnant to the law of nature and of nations. But I deny that the Constitution recognises property in man. I submit, on the other hand, most respectfully, that the Constitution not merely does not affirm that principle, but, on the contrary, altogether excludes it. the idea that slavery was legal in a moral view."—Madison Debates, pp. 487, 492. I deem it established, then, that the Constitution does not recognise property in man, but leaves that question, as between the States, to the law of nature and of nations. That law, as expounded by Vattel, is founded on the reason of things. When God had created the earth, with its wonderful adaptations, He gave dominion over it to Man, absolute human dominion. The title of that dominion, thus bestowed, would have been incomplete, if the Lord of all terrestrial things could himself have been the property of his fellow-man. The right to have a slave implies the right in some one to make the slave; that right must be equal and mutual, and this would resolve society into a state of perpetual war. But if we grant the original equality of the States, and grant also the constitutional recognition of slaves as property, still the argument we are considering fails. Because the States are not parties to the Constitution as States; it is the Constitution of the People of the United States. But even if the States continue as States, they surrendered their equality as States, and submitted themselves to the sway of the numerical majority, with qualification or checks; first, of the represen tation of three-fifths of slaves in the ratio of representation and taxation: and, secondly, of the equal representation of States in the Senate. The proposition of an established classification of The Constitution does not expressly affirm any-States as slave States and free States, as insisted on thing on the subject; all that it contains is two inci- by some, and into Northern and Southern, as maindental allusions to slaves. These are, first, in the tained by others, seems to me purely imaginary, and provision establishing a ratio of representation and of course the supposed equilibrium of those classes a taxation; and, secondly, in the provision relating to mere conceit. This must be so, because, when the fugitives from labor. In both cases, the Constitu- Constitution was adopted, twelve of the thirteen tion designedly mentions slaves, not as slaves, much States were slave States, and so there was no equiless as chattels, but as persons. That this recogni- librium. And so as to the classification of States as tion of them as persons was designed as historically Northern States and Southern States. It is the known, and I think was never denied. I give only maintenance of slavery by law in a State, not paraltwo of the manifold proofs. First, JOHN JAY, in lels of latitude, that makes it a Southern State; and the Federalist, says: the absence of this, that makes it a Northern State. And so all the States, save one, were Southern States, and there was no equilibrium. But the Constitution was made not only for Southern and Northern States, but for States neither Northern nor Southern-the Western States, their coming in being foreseen and provided for. "Let the case of the slaves be considered, as it is in truth, a peculiar one. Let the compromising expedient of the Constitution be mutually adopted which regards them as inhabitants, but as debased below the equal level of free inhabitants, which regards the slave as divested of two-fifths of the man," Yes, sir, of two-fifths, but of only two-fifths; leaving still three-fifths; leaving the slave still an inhabitant, a person, a living, breathing, moving, reasoning, immortal man. The other proof is from the Debates in the Con: vention. It is brief, and I think instructive: "Mr. BUTLER moved to insert after article 15: 'If any person bound to service or labor in any of the United States shall escape into another State he or she shall not be discharged from such service or labor in consequence of any regulation subsisting in the State to which they escape, but shall be delivered up to the person justly claiming their service or labor.'" "After the engrossment, September 15, page 550, article 4, section 2, the third paragraph, the term 'legally' was struck out, and the words 'under the laws thereof inserted after the word State,' in compliance with the wishes of some who thought the term 'legal' equivocal, and favoring It needs little argument to show that the idea of a joint stock association, or a copartnership, as applicable even by its analogies to the United States, deduced from it. The United States are a political is erroneous, with all the consequences fancifully state, or organized society, whose end is government, for the security, welfare, and happiness of all who live under its protection. The theory I am combating reduces the objects of government to the mere spoils of conquest. Contrary to a theory so debasing, the preample of the Constitution not only asserts the sovereignty to be, not in the States, but in the People, but also promulgates the objects of the Constitution: "We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquil lity, provide for the common defence, promote the GENERAL WELFARE, and secure the blessings of liberty, do ordain and establish this Constitution." Objets sublime and benevolent! They exclude the very idea of conquests, to be either divided among States or even enjoyed by them, for the purpose of securing, not the blessings of liberty, but the evils of slavery. There is a novelty in the principle of the compromise which condemns it. Simultane |