well known, and are not in question here. Accord- even such an abstraction shall command no respect, ing to the general understanding, they are marked and inspire no hope into the hearts of the oppressed. by peculiar circumstances and features, viz. :- But it is no such abstraction. It was no unnecessary First, there is a division of opinion upon some dispute, no mere contest of blind passion, that vital national question between the two Houses of brought that Compromise into being. Slavery and Congress, which division is irreconcilable, except by Freedom were active antagonists, then seeking for mutual concessions of interests and opinions, which ascendency in this Union. Both Slavery and Freethe Houses deem constitutional and just. dom are more vigorous, active, and self-aggrandizing Secondly, they are rendered necessary by impend-now, than they were then, or ever were before or ing calamities, to result from the failure of legislation, and to be no otherwise averted than by such mutual concessions, or sacrifices.

Thirdly, such concessions are mutual and equal, or are accepted as such, and so become conditions of the mutual arrangement.

Fourthly, by this mutual exchange of conditions, the transaction takes on the nature and character of a contract, compact, or treaty, between the parties represented; and so, according to well-settled principles of morality and public law, the statute which embodies it is understood, by those who uphold this system of legislation, to be irrevocable and irrepealable, except by the mutual consent of both, or of all the parties concerned. Not, indeed, that it is absolutely irrepealable, but that it cannot be repealed without a violation of honor, justice, and good faith, which it is presumed will not be committed.

since that period. The contest between them has been only protracted, not decided. It is a great feature in our national Hereafter. So the question of adhering to or abrogating this Compromise is no unmeaning issue, and no contest of mere blind passion now.

To adhere, is to secure the occupation by freemen, with free labor, of a region in the very centre of the continent, capable of sustaining, and in that event destined, though it may be only after a far-distant period, to sustain ten, twenty, thirty, forty millions of people and their successive generations forever! To abrogate, is to resign all that vast region to chances which mortal vision cannot fully foresee; perhaps to the sovereignty of such stinted and shortlived communities as those of which Mexico and South America and the West India Islands present us with examples; perhaps to convert that region Such was the Compromise of 1820. Missouri into the scene of long and desolating conflicts became into the Union immediately as a slaveholding tween not merely races, but castes, to end, like a State, and Arkansas came in as a slaveholding State, similar conflict in Egypt, in a convulsive exodus of sixteen years afterward. Nebraska, the part of the the oppressed people, despoiling their superiors; Territory reserved exclusively for free Territories perhaps, like one not dissimilar in Spain, in the and free States, has remained a wilderness ever forcible expulsion of the inferior race, exhausting since. And now it is proposed here to abrogate, the state by the sudden and complete suppression of not, indeed, the whole Compromise, but only that a great resource of national wealth and labor; perpart of it which saved Nebraska as free territory, to haps in the disastrous expulsion, even of the superior be afterwards divided into non-slaveholding States, race itself, by a people too suddenly raised from which should be admitted into the Union. And this slavery to liberty, as in St. Domingo. To adhere, is proposed, notwithstanding an universal acquies- is to secure forever the presence here, after some cence in the Compromise, by both parties, for thirty lapse of time, of two, four, ten, twenty, or more Senyears, and its confirmation, over and over again, by ators, and of Representatives in larger proportions, many acts of successive Congresses, and notwith- to uphold the policy and interests of the non-slavestanding that the slaveholding States have peaceably holding States, and balance that ever-increasing enjoyed, ever since it was made, all their equivalents, representation of slaveholding States, which past while, owing to circumstances which will hereafter experience, and the decay of the Spanish American appear, the non-slaveholding States have not practi-States, admonish us has only just begun; to save cally enjoyed those guarantied to them.

This is the question now before the Senate of the United States of America.

ture.

It is a question of transcendent importance. The proviso of 1820, to be abrogated in Nebraska, is the Ordinance of the Continental Congress of 1787, extended over a new part of the national domain, acquired under our present Constitution. It is rendered venerable by its antiquity, and sacred by the memory of that Congress, which, in surrendering its trust, after establishing the Ordinance, enjoined it upon posterity, always to remember that the cause of the United States was the cause of Human NaThe question involves an issue of public faith, and national morality and honor. It will be a sad day for this Republic, when such a question shall be deemed unworthy of grave discussion and shall fail to excite intense interest. Even if it were certain that the inhibition of Slavery in the region concerned was unnecessary, and if the question was thus reduced to a mere abstraction, yet even that abstraction would involve the testimony of the United States on the expediency, wisdom, morality, and justice, of the system of human bondage, with which this and other portions of the world have been so long afflicted; and it will be a melancholy day for the Republic and for mankind, when her decision on

what the non-slaveholding States have in mints, navy yards, the military academy and fortifications, to balance against the capital and federal institutions in the slaveholding States; to save against any danger from adverse or hostile policy, the culture, the manufactures, and the commerce, as well as the just influence and weight of the national principles and sentiments of the slaveholding States. To adhere, is to save, to the non-slaveholding States, as well as to the slaveholding States, always, and in every event, a right of way and free communication across the continent, to and with the States on the Pacific coasts, and with the rising States on the islands in the South Sea, and with all the eastern nations on the vast continent of Asia.

To abrogate, on the contrary, is to commit all these precious interests to the chances and hazards of embarrassment and injury by legislation, under the influence of social, political, and commercial jealousy and rivalry; and in the event of the secession of the slaveholding States, which is so often threatened in their name, but I thank God without their authority, to give to a servile population a La Vendee at the very sources of the Mississippi, and in the very recesses of the Rocky Mountains.

Nor is this last a contingency against which a statesman, when engaged in giving a Constitution

Mr. President, the Committee who have recommended these twin bills for the organization of the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas hold the affirmative in the argument upon their passage.

What is the case they present to the Senate and the country?

They have submitted a report; but that report, brought in before they had introduced or even conceived this bold and daring measure of abrogating the Missouri Compromise, directs all its arguments against it. The Committee say, in their report:—

for such a Territory, so situated, must veil his eyes. I It is a statesman's province and duty to look before as well as after. I know, indeed, the present loyalty of the American People, North and South, and East and West. I know that i is a sentiment stronger than any sectional interest or ambition, and stronger than even the love of equality in the nonslaveholding States; and stronger, I doubt not, than the love of Slavery in the slaveholding States. But I do not know, and no mortal sagacity does know, the seductions of interest and ambition, and the influences of passion, which are yet to be matured in every region. I know this, however: that "Such being the character of the controversy, in respect this Union is safe now, and that it will be safe so to the territory acquired from Mexico, a similar question long as impartial political equality shall constitute has arisen in regard to the right to hold slaves in the prothe basis of society, as it has heretofore done in posed Territory of Nebraska, when the Indian laws shall be even half of these States, and they shall thus main-withdrawn, and the country thrown open to emigration and settlement. By the eighth section of an act to authorize tain a just equilibrium against the slaveholding the people of the Missouri Territory to form a Constitution States. But I am well assured, also, on the other and State Government, and for the admission of such State hand, that if ever the slaveholding States shall mul- into the Union on an equal footing with the original States, tiply themselves, and extend their sphere, so that March 6, 1820, it was provided: 'That in all that territory and to prohibit Slavery in certain Territories,' approved they could, without association with the non-slave- ceded by France to the United States under the name of holding States, constitute of themselves a commer- Louisiana, which lies north of thirty-six degrees and thirty cial republic, from that day their rule, through the minutes north latitude, not included within the limits of the Executive, Judicial, and Legislative powers of this vitude, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof State contemplated by this act, Slavery and involuntary serGovernment, will be such as will be hard for the the parties shall have been duly convicted, shall be, and is non-slaveholding States to bear; and their pride and hereby, for ever prohibited: Provided, always, That any perambition, since they are congregations of men, and son escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any State or Territory of the United are moved by human passions, will consent to no States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed, and con. Union in which they shall not so rule. veyed to the person claiming his or her labor or service, as aforesaid.'

The slaveholding States already possess the mouths of the Mississippi, and their territory reaches far northward along its banks, on one side to the Ohio, and on the other even to the confluence of the Missouri. They stretch their dominion now from the banks of the Delaware, quite around bay, headland, and promontory, to the Rio Grande. They will not stop, although they now think they may, on the summit of the Sierra Nevada; nay, their armed pioneers are already in Sonora, and their eyes are already fixed, never to be taken off, on the island of Cuba, the Queen of the Antilles. If we of the non-slaveholding States surrender to them now the eastern slope of the Rocky mountains, and the very sources of the Mississippi, what territory will be secure, what territory can be secured hereafter, for the creation and organization of free States, within our ocean-bound domain? What territories on this continent will remain unappropriated and unoccupied, for us to annex? What territories, even if we are able to buy or conquer them from Great Britain or Russia, will the slaveholding States suffer, much less aid, us to annex, to restore the equilibrium which by this unnecessary measure we shall have so unwisely, so hurriedly, so suicidally subverted?

New Mexico and Utah, it is a disputed point whether Slavery "Under this section, as in the case of the Mexican law in is prohibited in the Nebraska country by valid enactment. The decision of this question involves the constitutional power of Congress to pass laws prescribing and regulating the domestic institutions of the various Territories of the Union. In the opinion of those eminent statesmen who hold that Congress is invested with no rightful authority to legis late upon the subject of Slavery in the Territories, the eighth section of the act preparatory to the admission of Missouri tions of the Union sustains the doctrine that the Constitution is null and void; while the prevailing sentiment in large porof the United States secures to every citizen an inalienable right to move into any of the Territories with his property, of whatever kind and description, and to hold and enjoy the same under the sanction of law. Your Committee do not feel themselves called upon to enter into the discussion of these controverted questions. They involve the same grave issues which produced the agitation, the sectional strife, and and prudent to refrain from deciding the matters in controthe fearful struggle, of 1850. As Congress deemed it wise versy then, by either affirming or repealing the Mexican laws, or by an act declaratory of the true intent of the Constitution, and the extent of the protection afforded by it to prepared now to recommend a departure from the course slave property in the Territories, so your Committee are not pursued on that memorable occasion, by either affirming or repealing the eighth section of the Missouri act, or by any act declaratory of the meaning of the Constitution in respect to the legal points in dispute."

Nor am I to be told that only a few slaves will This report gives us the deliberate judgment of enter into this vast region. One slaveholder in a the Committee on two important points. First, that new Territory, with access to the Executive ear at the Compromise of 1850 did not, by its letter or by Washington, exercises more political influence than its spirit, repeal, or render necessary, or even profive hundred freemen. It is not necessary that all pose, the abrogation of the Missouri Compromise; and, or a majority of the citizens of a State shall be slave- secondly, that the Missouri Compromise ought not holders, to constitute a slaveholding State. Dela- now to be abrogated. And now, sir, what do we next ware has only two thousand slaves, against ninety-hear from this Committee? First, two similar and one thousand freemen; and yet Delaware is a slave- kindred bills, actually abrogating the Missouri Comholding State. The proportion is not substantially promise, which, in their report, they had told us different in Maryland and in Missouri; and yet they ought not to be abrogated at all. Secondly, these bills are slaveholding States. These, sir, are the stakes declare on their face, in substance, that that Comproin this legislative game, in which I lament to see, mise was already abrogated by the spirit of that very that while the representatives of the slaveholding Compromise of 1850, which, in their report, they States are unanimously and earnestly playing to win, had just shown us, left the Compromise of 1820 ab so many of the representatives of the non-slavehold- solutely unaffected and unimpaired. Thirdly, the ing States are with even greater zeal and diligence Committee favor us, by their chairman, with an oral playing to lose. explanation, that the amended bills abrogating the

Missouri Compromise are identical with their previous bill, which did not abrogate it, and are only made to differ in phraseology, to the end that the provisions contained in their previous and now-discarded bill shall be absolutely clear and certain.

I entertain great respect for the Committee itself, but I must take leave to say that the inconsistencies and self-contradictions contained in the papers it has given us, have destroyed all claims, on the part of those documents, to respect, here or elsewhere.

| immaterial issues, to perplex, and bewilder, and confound the People, by whom this transaction is to be reviewed. Look again at the vacillation betrayed in the frequent changes of the structure of this apology. At first the recital told us that the eighth section of the Compromise act of 1820 was superseded by the principles of the Compromise laws of 1850as if any one had ever heard of a supersedeas of one local law by the mere principles of another local law, enacted for an altogether different region, thirty The recital of the effect of the Compromise of years afterwards. On another day we were told, by 1850 upon the Compromise of 1820, as finally re- an amendment of the recital, that the Compromise vised, corrected, and amended, here in the face of of 1820 was not superseded by the Compromise of the Senate, means after all substantially what that 1850 at all, but was only "inconsistent with" it-as recital meant as it stood before it was perfected, or if a local act which was irrepealable was now to be else it means nothing tangible or worthy of consid-abrogated, because it was inconsistent with a subseeration at all. What if the spirit, or even the let- quent enactment, which had no application whatever ter, of the Compromise laws of 1850 did conflict within the region to which the first enactment was with the Compromise of 1820? The Compromise confined. On a third day the meaning of the recital of 1820 was, by its very nature, a Compromise irre- was further and finally elucidated by an amendment, pealable and unchangeable, without a violation of which declared that the first irrepealable act prohonor, justice, and good faith. The Compromise tecting Nebraska fram Slavery was now declared of 1850, if it impaired the previous Compromise to "inoperative and void," because it was inconsistent the extent of the loss to free labor of one acre of with the present purposes of Congress not to legisthe Territory of Nebraska, was either absolutely late Slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exvoid, or bught, in all subsequent legislation, to be clude it therefrom. deemed and held void.

But take this apology in whatever form it may be expressed, and test its logic by a simple process.

What if the spirit or the letter of the Compromise was a violation of the Compromise of 1820? Then, The law of 1820 secured free institutions in the inasmuch as the Compromise of 1820 was inviolable, regions acquired from France in 1803, by the wise the attempted violation of it shows that the so-called and prudent foresight of the Congress of the United Compromise of 1850 was to that extent not a Com- States. The law of 1850, on the contrary, commitpromise at all, but a factitious, spurious, and pre-ted the choice between free and slave institutions in tended Compromise. What if the letter or the spirit New Mexico and Utah-Territories acquired from of the Compromise of 1850 did supersede or impair, Mexico nearly fifty years afterward-to the interestor in any way, in any degree, conflict with the Com-ed cupidity or the caprice of their earliest and accipromise of 1820? Then that is a reason for abro-dental occupants. Free Institutions and Slave Ingating, not the irrepealable and inviolable Compro- stitutions are equal, but the interested cupidity of mise of 1820, but the spurious and pretended Compromise of 1850.

the pioneer is a wiser arbiter, and his judgment a surer safeguard, than the collective wisdom of the American People and the most solemn and timehonored statute of the American Congress. Therefore, let the law of freedom in the territory acquired from France be now annulled and abrogated, and let the fortunes and fate of Freedom and Slavery, in the region acquired from France, be, henceforward and for ever, determined by the votes of some seven hundred camp-followers around Fort Leavenworth, and the still smaller number of trappers, Government schoolmasters, and mechanics, who attend the Indians in their seasons of rest from hunting in the passes of the Rocky mountains. Sir, this syllogism may satisfy you and other Senators; but as for me, I must be content to adhere to the earlier system. Stare super antiquas vias.

Mr. President, why is this reason for the proposed abrogation of the Compromise of 1820 assigned in these bills at all? It is unnecessary. The assignment of a reason adds nothing to the force or weight of the abrogation itself. Either the fact alleged as a reason is true or it is not true. If it be untrue, your asserting it here will not make it true. If it be true, it is apparent in the text of the law of 1850, without the aid of legislative exposition now. It is unusual. It is unparliamentary. The language of the lawgiver, whether the sovereign be Democratic, Republican, or Despotic, is always the same. It is mandatory, imperative. If the lawgiver explains at all in a statute the reason for it, the reason is that it is his pleasure-sic volo, sic jubeo. Look at the Compromise of 1820. Does it plead an excuse for There is yet another difficulty in this new theory. its commands? Look at the Compromise of 1850, Let it be granted that, in order to carry out a new drawn by the master-hand of our American CHAT- principle recently adopted in New Mexico, you can HAM. Does that bespeak your favor by a quibbling supplant a Compromise in Nebraska, yet there is a or shuffling apology? Look at your own, now re- maxim of public law which forbids you from supjected, first Nebraska bill, which, by conclusive im- planting that Compromise, and establishing a new plication, saved the effect of the Missouri Compro- system there, until you first restore the parties in inmise. Look at any other bill ever reported by the terest there to their statu quo before the ComproCommittee on Territories. Look at any other bill mise to be supplanted was established. First, then, now on your calendar. Examine all the laws on remand Missouri and Arkansas back to the unsettled your statute-books. Do you find any one bill or condition, in regard to Slavery, which they held bestatute which ever came bowing, stooping, and wrig-fore the Compromise of 1820 was enacted, and then gling into the Senate, pleading an excuse for its clear and explicit declaration of the sovereign and irresisistible will of the American People? The departure from this habit in this solitary case betrays self-distrust, and an attempt on the part of the bill to divert the public attention. to raise complex and

we will hear you talk of rescinding that Compromise. You cannot do this. You ought not to do it, if you could; and because you cannot and ought not to do it, you cannot, without violating law, justice, equity, and honor, abrogate the guarantee of free

dom in Nebraska

covered grave, and challenge any advocate of this measure to confront that imperious shade, and say that, in making the Compromise of 1850, he intended or dreamed that he was subverting, or preof 1820. Sir, if that eagle spirit is yet lingering here over the scene of his mortal labors, and watching over the welfare of the Republic he loved so well, his heart is now moved with more than human indignation against those who are perverting his last great public act from its legitimate uses, not merely to subvert the column, but to wrench from its very bed the base of the column that perpetuates his fame.

There is still another and not less serious difficulty. | You call the Slavery laws of 1850 a compromise between the slaveholding and non-slaveholding States. For the purposes of this argument, let it be granted that they were such a compromise. It was never-paring the way for a subversion of, his greater work theless a compromise concerning Slavery in the Territories acquired from Mexico, and by the letter of the compromise it extended no further. Can you now, by an act which is not a compromise between the same parties, but a mere ordinary law extend the force and obligation of the principles of that Compromise of 1850 into regions not only excluded from it, but absolutely protected from your intervention there by a solemn Compromise of thirty years' And that other proud and dominating Senator, duration, and invested with a sanctity scarcely in- who, sacrificing himself, gave the aid without which ferior to that which hallows the Constitution itself? the Compromise of 1850 could not have been estabCan the Compromise of 1850, by a mere ordinary lished-the Satesman of New England, and the act of legislation, be extended beyond the plain, Orator of America-who dare assert here, where known, fixed intent and understanding of the parties his memory is yet fresh, though his unfettered spirit at the time that contract was made, and yet be bind- may be wandering in spheres far hence, that he ining on the parties to it, not merely legally, bnt intended to abrogate, or dreamed that, by virtue of, or honor and conscience? Can you abrogate a compromise by passing any law of less dignity than a compromise? If so, of what value is any one or the whole of the Compromises? Thus you see that these bills violate both of the Compromises-not more that of 1820 than that of 1850.

in consequence of that transaction, the Missouri Compromise would or could ever be abrogated? The portion of the Missouri Compromise you propose to abrogate is the Ordinance of 1787 extended to Nebraska. Hear what Daniel Webster said of that Ordinance itself, in 1830, in this very place, in

"I spoke, sir, of the Ordinance of 1787, which prohibits Slavery, in all future time, northwest of the Ohio, as a measure of great wisdom and forethought, and one which has been attended with highly beneficial and permanent consequences."

And now hear what he said here, when advocating the Compromise of 1850:

"I now say, sir, as the proposition upon which I stand this day, and upon the truth and firmness of which I intend to act until it is overthrown, that there is not at this moment in the United States, or any Territory of the United States, one single foot of land, the character of which, in regard to its being free territory or slave territory, is not fixed by some law, and some IRREPEALABLE law beyond the power of the action of this Government."

Will you maintain in argument that it was under-reply to one who had undervalued it and its author: stood by the parties interested throughout the country, or by either of them, or by any representative of either, in either House of Congress, that the principle then established should extend beyond the limits of the territories acquired from Mexico, into the territories acquired nearly fifty years before, from France, and then reposing under the guaranty of the Compromise of 1820? I know not how Senators may vote, but I do know what they will say. I appeal to the honorable Senator from Michigan [Mr. CASS], than whom none performed a more distinguished part in establishing the Compromise of 1850, whether he so intended or understood. I appeal to the honorable and distinguished Senator, the senior representative from Tennessee [Mr. BELL], who performed a distinguished part also. Did he so understand the Compromise of 1850? He is silent. I appeal to the gallant Senator from Illinois [Mr. SHIELDS]. He, too, silent. I now throw my gauntlet, at the feet of every Senator now here, who was in the Senate in 1850, and challenge him to say that he then knew, or thought, or dreamed, that, by enacting the Compromise of 1850, he was directly or indirectly abrogating, or in any degree impairing, the Missouri Compromise?

No one

What irrepealable law, or what law of any kind, fixed the character of Nebraska as free or slave territory, except the Missouri Compromise act?

And now hear what Daniel Webster said when

vindicating the Compromise of 1850, at Buffalo, in 1851:

formation of the Union! Never! Never!

"The man can not show his face to me and say he can

Prove that I ever departed from that doctrine. He would sneak away, and slink away, or hire a mercenary press to cry out, What an apostate from Liberty Daniel Webster has become! But he knows himself to be a hypocrite and a falsifier."

My opinion remains unchanged, that it was not within the original scope or design of the Constitution to admit new States out of foreign territory; and for one, whatever may be said at the Syracuse Convention, or any other assemblage of insane persons, I never would consent, and never have consented, that there should be one foot of slave territory takes it up. I appeal to that very distinguished-beyond what the old thirteen States had at the time of the nay, sir, that expression falls short of his eminence -that illustrious man, the Senator from Missouri [Mr. BENTON]. who led the opposition here to the Compromise of 1850. Did he understand that that Compromise in any way overreached or impaired the Compromise of 1820 Sir, that distinguished person, while opposing the combination of the sev- That Compromise was forced upon the slaveeral laws on the subject of California and the Terri-holding States and upon the non-slaveholding States tories, and Slavery, together, in one bill, so as to as a mutual exchange of equivalents. The equivaconstitute a Compromise, nevertheless voted for lents were accurately defined, and carefully scrutineach one of those bills, severally; and in that way, ized and weighed by the respective parties, through and that way only, they were passed. Had he a period of eight months. The equivalents offered known or understood that any one of them over- to the non-slaveholding States were: 1st, the admisreached and impaired the Missouri Compromise, sion of California; 2d, the abolition of the public we all know he would have perished before he slave-trade in the District of Columbia. These, and would have given it his support. these only, were the boons offered to them, and the only sacrifices which the slaveholding States were required to make. The waiver of the Wilmot Proviso in the incorporation of New Mexico and Utah,

Sir, if it was not irreverent, I would dare to call up the author of both of the Compromises in question, from his honored, though yet scarcely grass

people of each State asking admission may desire. And in such State or States as shall be formed out of said territory north of said Missouri Compromise line, slavery or involuntary servitude (except for crime) shall be prohibited."

This article saved the Compromise of 1820, in express terms, overcoming any implication of its abrogation, which might, by accident or otherwise, have crept into the Compromise of 1850; and any inferences to that effect, that might be drawn from any such circumstance as that of drawing the boundary line of Utah so as to trespass on the Territory of Nebraska, dwelt upon by the Senator from Illinois.

and a new fugitive slave law, were the only boons "New States, of convenient size, not exceeding four in proposed to the slaveholding States, and the only population, may hereafter, by the consent of said State, be number, in addition to said State of Texas, having sufficient sacrifices exacted of the non-slaveholding States. formed out of the territory thereof, which shall be entitled No other questions between them were agitated, ex- to admission under the provisions of the Federal Constitucept those which were involved in the gain or loss tion. And such States as may be formed out of that portion of said territory lying south of 36 deg. 30 min, north latitude, of more or less of free territory or of slave territory commonly know as the Missouri Compromise line, shall be in the determination of the boundary between Tex-admitted into the Union with or without Slavery, as the as and New Mexico, by a line that was at last arbitrarily made, expressly saying, even in those Territories, to the respective parties, their respective shares of free soil and slave soil, according to the articles of annexation of the Republic of Texas. Again: There were alleged to be five open, bleeding wounds in the Federal system, and no more, which needed surgery, and to which the Compromise of 1850 was to be a cataplasm. We all know what they were: California without a Constitution; New Mexico in the grasp of military power; Utah neglected; the District of Columbia dishonored; and the rendition of fugitives denied. Nebraska was not even thought of in this catalogue of national ills. And now, sir, did the Nashville Convention of secessionists understand that, besides the enumerated boons offered to the slaveholding States, they were to have also the obliteration of the Missouri Compromise line of 1820? If they did, why did they reject, and scorn, and scout at the Compromise of 1850? Did the Legislatures and public assemblies of the non-slaveholding States, who made your table groan with their remonstrances, understand that Nebraska was an additional wound to be healed by the Compromise of 1850? If they did, why did they omit to remonstrate against the healing of that, too, as well as of the other five, by the cataplasm, the application of which they resisted so long?

Again: Had it been then known that the Missouri Compromise was to be abolished, directly or indirectly, by the Compromise of 1850, what Representative from a non-slaveholding State would, at that day, have voted for it? Not one. What Senator from a slaveholding State would not have voted for it? Not one. So entirely was it then unthought of that the new Compromise was to repeal the Missouri Compromise line of 36 deg. 30 min., in the region acquired from France, that one half of that long debate was spent on propositions made by Representatives from slaveholding States, to extend the line further on through the new territory we had acquired so recently from Mexico, until it should disappear in the waves of the Pacific Ocean, so as to secure actual toleration of slavery in all of this new territory that should be south of that line; and these propositions were resisted strenuously and successfully to the last by the Representatives of the nonslaveholding States, in order, if it were possible, to save the whole of those regions for the theatre of free labor.

I admit that these are only negative proofs, although they are pregnant with conviction. But here is one which is not only affirmative, but positive, and not more positive than conclusive. In the fifth section of the Texas Boundary bill, one of the acts constituting the Compromise of 1850, are these words:

"Provided, That nothing herein contained shall be construed to impair or qualify anything contained in the third article of the second section of the joint resolution for an

nexing Texas to the United States, approved March 1, 1845,

either as regards the number of States that may hereafter be formed out of the State of Texas, or otherwise."

What was that third article of the second section of the joint resolution for annexing Texas? Here

The proposition to abrogate the Missouri Compromise, being thus stripped of the pretence that it is only a reiteration or a reaffirmation of a similar abrogation in the Compromise of 1850, or a necessary consequence of that measure, stands before us now upon its own merits, whatever they may be.

But here the Senator from Illinois challenges the assailants of these bills, on the ground that they were all opponents of the Compromise of 1850, and even of that of 1820. Sir, it is not my purpose to answer in person to this challenge. The necessity, reasonableness, justice, and wisdom of those Compromises, are not in question here now. My own opinions on them were, at a proper time, fully made. known. I abide the judgment of my country and mankind upon them. For the present, I meet the Committee who have brought this measure forward, on the field they themselves have chosen, and the controversy is reduced to two questions: 1st. Whether, by letter or spirit, the Compromise of 1820 abrogated or involved a future abrogation of the Compromise of 1820? 2d. Whether this abrogation can now be made consistently with honor, justice, and good faith? As to my right, or that of any other Senator, to enter these lists, the credentials filed in the Secretary's office settle that question. Mine bear a seal, as broad and as firmly fixed there as any other, by a people as wise, as free, and as great, as any one of all the thirty-one Republics represented here.

But I will take leave to say, that an argument merely ad personum, seldom amounts to anything, more than an argument ad captandum. A life of approval of compromises, and of devotion to them, only enhances the obligation faithfully to fulfil them. A life of disapprobation of the policy of compromises only renders one more earnest in exacting fulfilment of them, when good and cherished interests are secured by them.

Thus much for the report and the bills of the Committee, and for the positions of the parties in this debate. A measure so bold, so unlooked for, so startling, and yet so pregnant as this, should have some plea of necessity. Is there any such necessity? On the contrary, it is not necessary now, even if it be altogether wise, to establish Territorial Governments in Nebraska. Not less than eighteen tribes of Indians occupy that vast tract, fourteen of which, I am informed, have been removed there by our own act, and invested with a fee simple to enjoy a secure and perpetual home, safe from the intrusion and the annoyance, and even from the presence of the white man, and under the paternal care of the Government, and with the in