Mexican bills at this session without the Wilmot proviso; and suppose the Southern people commence moving into the territories with their slaves, and it becomes apparent that they are to be slave territories and ultimately slave states; and suppose that the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Root], at the opening of the next Congress, offers the Wilmot proviso with a view to check our emigration and to exclude us from the territories with our slaves, will the gentleman, if a member of Congress, then vote for the proviso?

Mr. BROOKS replied in the negative, as far as he was heard.

Mr. BROWN. Then if we take our slave property into the territories, we are assured that we are not to be disturbed in its peaceable and quiet enjoyment by any act of this government.

Mr. BROOKS said, that if he should be here he certainly should not vote to repeal any territorial bill for which he had voted. He only spoke for himself.

Mr. BROWN was gratified to hear this statement; whilst he could not insist on the gentleman answering for the North, he must express his regret that he did not feel authorized to answer at least for his political friends. The gentleman had answered manfully, and, he did not doubt, sincerely; and if the whole North, or a majority even, would answer in the same way, it would go far towards restoring harmony. He asked honorable gentlemen whether they were ready to pipe to the tune set them by the gentleman from New York? If they were, the whole South would listen. It was a kind of music they liked to hear from the North. There was in it more of the gentle harp, and less of the war-bugle than they had been accustomed to from that quarter.

Mr. BROOKS said, it appeared after all that there was no essential difference between them.

Mr. BROWN. So far as this Congress is concerned, we ask nothing more than that we shall be treated as equals, and that no insulting discrimination should be made in the action of Congress against slave property. If the gentleman agrees to this, there can be no essential difference between us.

Now, Mr. Speaker, to the subject of the Texas boundary. Is there one man in this House, or throughout the nation, who does not know that but for the question of slavery, there would be no such question as that of the Texas boundary? Suppose, sir, that Texas and New Mexico were both as clearly slaveholding countries as North and South Carolina, how long, sir, do you think it would take this Congress to fix a boundary between them? Not one hour-certainly not one day. Of what consequence could it be to the North, whether Texas extended to the 32d or to the 42d degree, or to any intermediate point? Take out the question of slavery, and of what consequence is it where the boundary of Texas may be fixed? Does any man suppose that the money-loving men of the North would vote ten millions of dollars from a common treasury to buy a slip of soil from a slaveholding State, simply to give it to a slaveholding Territory? No, no. We all understand this matter. If the country is left in the possession and ownership of Texas, it must be slave territory, and if it is given up to New Mexico, you mean that it shall become free territory, and you do not intend to leave any stone unturned to accomplish this end. We know this, and we govern ourselves accordingly. Let northern gentlemen speak out on this subject.

The thin covering, that they want to do justice between Texas and New Mexico, furnishes a poor disguise to the real purpose. We all know that slavery restriction is the lever with which you are lifting the title of Texas off this country, and giving it up to New Mexico; and we all know that you are attempting to do this without right, or color of right, to perform such an act.

Mr. MCCLERNAND (Mr. Brown yielding) said, that Texas claimed the Rio Grande for its whole extent to be her western boundary. By the resolutions annexing Texas to the United States, slavery is interdicted north of 36° 30' within her professed limits. The amendment proposed by the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Boyd) provides that slavery may exist in any portion of the territory west of the boundary of Texas, as proposed by the Senate bill, between 32° and 38° north latitude, east of the Rio Grande. That is, the amendment provides that slavery may exist in any part of said territory, according as the people inhabiting it may determine for themselves when they apply for admission into the Union. So that to the extent of so much of said territory now claimed by Texas, lying between 36° 30′ and 38° north latitude, the South, according to the test of my able and worthy friend from Mississippi, stands upon a better footing under the amendment proposed than she does under the resolutions of Texas annexation.

Mr. BROWN resumed. If we are left in that condition in which we were by the annexation resolutions, we are satisfied. What we ask in regard to Utah, New Mexico, and California, is, that the North will not, by means direct or indirect, disturb us then in the quiet enjoyment of our property. What we ask in regard to Texas is, that you will abide by the resolutions of annexation. We are satisfied with the contract, and we are opposed to making any other. This contract gives us all south of 36° 30' as slave territory, and dedicates all north of that line to free soil. We stand by this. If gentlemen want to buy from Texas her territory north of 36° 30′, let them do it. They had his full consent to give her ten, twelve, or fifteen millions of dollars. He should interpose no objection. But when it came to selling out slaveholding Texas with a view of enabling the North to make New Mexico a non-slaveholding state the more readily, he felt it his duty to interpose by all the means in his power. He never meant to give his vote for any proposition or combination of propositions which looked to the deprivation of Texas of one inch of her rightful soil. He wanted to deal fairly by all parts of the country. He trusted he should be as ready to act fairly by the North as by the South, but he invoked the vengeance of Heaven if ever he gave his vote for any bill or proposition to buy the soil of a slave state to convert it into free soil.

THE EWING INVESTIGATION.

In the House of Representatives, Wednesday, September 11, 1850,-On the report of the Select Committee appointed April 22, 1850, to examine into certain official acts of Thomas Ewing, late Secretary of the Interior, and in reply to Mr. VINTON of Ohio, Mr. BROWN said:

MR. SPEAKER: It is with extreme reluctance that I venture, at this late period of a protracted session, to address the House. I feel called upon, however, by an imperative sense of duty, to make a brief response to the speech which the honorable gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Vinton] has just now concluded, and to that end I crave the indulgence of the House.

Before proceeding to the consideration of the subjects embraced in the report and resolutions, allow me to advert for a moment to the manner in which that report and the accompanying resolutions were received in this House.

Now almost five months since, a series of resolutions were passed by the House of Representatives directing an inquiry into the official conduct of the then Secretary of the Interior, Thomas Ewing. A select committee was appointed, and they were charged with the direction and prosecution of these inquiries. They entered upon the discharge of the duties assigned them. It was then spring, the summer has come and gone, and here in the beginning of autumn your committee have concluded their labors. They bring their report, and lay it upon your table, and through their chairman they ask for it that courteous and respectful consideration which has been uniformly awarded to all reports coming from committees of this House. They ask that the report may lie upon the table and be printed, and that a day may be fixed for its consideration. This has been denied. A judgment is evoked in advance of all consideration or reflection; without reading, without printing, before a single member has had an opportunity of examining the report, a judgment is asked. On its first introduction into the House, the gentleman from Ohio, himself a member of the committee, calls upon the House to pass its judgment. How well he has succeeded in this, the House and the country already know.

Why, sir, was the gentleman from Ohio so impatient to have this report acted upon, or rather slurred over? Was there any important public interest suffering, or likely to suffer by a little delay? No, sir; another and a very different interest was to be protected by smothering this report. The conduct of a distinguished friend, political and personal, of the gentleman, had been criticised and justly censured; important and startling facts had been brought to light. The existence of these facts was wholly inconsistent with the idea of a faithful and proper administration of the Department of the Interior, and it was necessary to give them the go by-to bury them, if possible, among the unpublished and useless papers which accumulate during a long session of Congress. The gentleman was familiar with all the facts. He had attended upon the committee for more than four months. He knew

what the report and the papers contained; and I take it upon myself to say, that in opposing the motion to print, and in insisting upon bringing the House to an immediate vote on the resolutions, he took a course which his experience assured him could result in nothing less than an acquittal, without a trial, of Mr. Ewing.

Mr. VINTON said he had insisted upon an immediate consideration of the report because to postpone it would have been equivalent to doing nothing, as it would never again have been reached.

Mr. BROWN. That excuse shall not avail the gentleman. If he had been anxious to have a fair hearing, why not have asked to make the subject the SPECIAL order for some subsequent day? Then it would have certainly come up for consideration. No, sir, the gentleman's knowledge of the facts assured him that it would not do to risk a fair investigation, and his tactics were employed to hurry on a decision before the House could be informed of these facts. The gentleman knew very well that if members could be forced to a vote without a knowledge of the facts, they would acquit the Secretary. They would do this on the well-known ground that all men are presumed to be innocent until their guilt is established. His legal acumen was not severely taxed to discover that if the facts could be withheld until a vote could be exacted, the presumption of innocence would be strongly in favor of the accused.

Mr. VINTON said, he had consented to the printing of the report. Mr. BROWN. I know that; I know the gentleman made a virtue of necessity, and consented to have the report printed after his course had been assailed by the chairman of the committee [Mr. Richardson]. But what was the gentleman's first movement? To oppose any postponement of the subject, even to allow the report to be printed. He succeeded in defeating the postponement, and we have been actually forced into the consideration of the whole subject, and are now considering it, when not a member, save those on the committee, has ever seen the report or knows anything of the real state of the facts. The gentleman now makes a merit of consenting to have the report printed. In the course of some days it will have been published. In the mean time the House will be called on to vote. We shall have the verdict first, and the evidence submitted to the jury afterwards. This, to say the least of it, will be rather an irregular proceeding.

The gentleman, with the adroitness of a politician of twenty or more winters, laid his whole scheme so as to give it the best possible assurance of success. It is far from my purpose to charge the gentleman with dishonorable conduct. But really, sir, there is something about this transaction which excites my curiosity, and seems to invite the most rigid scrutiny. The gentleman from Ohio will correct me, if I err in my relation of the facts. He went to the chairman of the committee and obtained the report of the majority before its delivery to the House, as he said (and no doubt truly), to prepare a minority report. It became important to have the report copied, and though the capitol was full of clerks, and though the streets were crowded with persons seeking employment, the gentleman could find no one to copy this report but young Mr. Ewing, the son of the ex-Secretary, whose conduct had given rise to and had been criticised in the report. The first we hear of the report, it is in the hands of Mr. Ewing; next Senator Mason, of Virginia, has it; and then a copy is handed round among the Virginia

members on this floor. All this was before the report had been made to the House, and without the knowledge of the chairman or any member of the majority of that committee. Now, sir, I want to show the effect of this proceeding.

Mr. VINTON. I have already stated that I had nothing to do with furnishing the Virginia members with copies of that report.

Mr. BROWN. I recollect the gentleman's disclaimer, and do not mean to impugn his veracity. He placed the report in the hands of young Mr. Ewing; he, of course, showed it to his father, and he to the Virginia senators and representatives. The gentleman gave it a particular direction, and he was shrewd enough to know where it would land. But why, you are ready to ask, was it shown to the Virginia members? I'll tell you, Mr. Speaker; a particular object was to be accomplished. The report was to be smothered. The gentleman was all-powerful with his Whig friends. He could bring them up to the work with a pretty united front. There might be some bolters, however, and if there was not, the party was a little too weak to carry out the scheme. Besides, it would give the whole thing a partisan look, if the Whigs went in a body for smothering, and the Democrats against it. It became necessary to have some Democratic allies. The report contained a severe criticism on certain important Virginia interests. The gentleman, with a skill and diplomacy, worthy of Talleyrand, went to work to secure these allies in the persons of the Virginia members. The report was very quietly, if not secretly circulated among them. They saw the assault on the Virginia interests-the scheme took. The vote was taken; the great body of the Whig party voted with the gentleman, and all the Virginia Democrats went over to his standard. He carried his point, and here we are precipitated into a discussion, before anybody save the favored few, have seen the report or know anything of its contents.

(Here Messrs. Seddon, Millson, Bayly, and McMullen, all of Virginia, severally interposed, and said that they had not been influenced in the votes given by anything said in the report against the Virginia interests.)

Mr. BROWN resumed. I certainly never meant to say that honorable gentlemen would knowingly and wilfully give an improper vote merely for the sake of sustaining an unjust local claim. But we all know that the representative is not the most impartial judge of the rights of his own constituent. Indeed, sir, the interest of the constituent is almost inseparable from the prejudices and predilections of his representative. The gentleman from Ohio well understood this, and he rightly conjectured that if it came to the knowledge of the Virginia delegation that certain important Virginia claims had been condemned in this report, the allegiance of that delegation might be relied on.

I am far from assailing the motives of the members from Virginia; but I cannot help remarking that it is a little singular that they were found separated from their political friends on this question. It is doubtless all right and fair, but it never happened so before. If one, or two, or three had gone over, my astonishment would not have been excited. But when they went in a body, I could not help inquiring into the cause of so important and significant a movement. I acquit the delegation of all improper motives, but I still think these Virginia claims had something to do with their votes against postponing the con