BANCROFT LIBRARY 
 
Price 10 Cents. 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 OF THE 
 
 HON. W. H. SEWAKD, 
 
 THE ADMISSION OF 
 
 CALIFORNIA, 
 
 AND THE SUBJECT OF 
 
 SLAVEKT; 
 
 1 DELIVERED IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE, ON MONDAY, 
 
 MARCH 11, 1850. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 REDDING & COMPANY. 
 
 1850. 
 

SPEECH 
 
 OF THE 
 
 HON. W. H. SEWARD, 
 
 ON THE ADMISSION OP 
 
 CALIFORNIA, 
 
 AND THE SUBJECT OP 
 
 SLAVERY; 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE, ON MONDAY, 
 
 MARCH 11, isso. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 REDDING & COMPANY 
 1850. 
 
n 
 
 X 
 
 BOSTON PRINTERS' PROTECTIVE UNION. 
 
nin 
 
 . 
 
 
 SPEECH, 
 
 Mr. SEWARD having the floor, rose and said : 
 
 Mr. PRESIDENT : Four years ago, California, scarcely inhabited and quite 
 unexplored, was unknown even to our usually immoderate desires, except by 
 a harbor, capacious and tranquil, which only statesmen then foresaw would 
 be useful in the Oriental commerce of a far distant if not merely chimerical 
 future. 
 
 A year ago, California was a mere military dependency of our own, and we 
 were celebrating, with enthusiasm and unanimity, its acquisition, with its new 
 ly discovered but yet untold and untouched mineral wealth, as the most aus 
 picious of many and unparalleled achievements. 
 
 To-day, California is a State, more populous than the least, and richer than 
 several of the greatest of our thirty States. This same California, thus rich 
 and populous, is here asking admission into the Union, and finds us debating 
 the dissolution of the Union itself. No wonder if we are perplexed with ever 
 changing embarrassments ; no wonder if we are appalled by ever increasing 
 responsibilities ! No wonder if we are bewildered by the ever augmenting 
 magnitude and rapidity of national vicissitudes ! 
 
 SHALL CALIFORNIA BE 'RECEIVED ? 
 
 For myself, upon my individual judgment and conscience, I answer, Yes ! 
 For myself, as an instructed Representative of one of the States, of that one, 
 even, of the States which is t soonest and longest to be pressed into com 
 mercial and political rivalry by the new Commonwealth, I answer, Yes ! Let 
 California come in. Every new State, whether she comes from the east or 
 from the west, coming from whatever part of the continent she may, is always 
 welcome. But California, that comes from the clime where the West dies 
 away into ihe rising East California, which bounds at once the Empire and the 
 Continent, California, the youthful Queen of the Pacific, in her robes of 
 Freedom, gorgeously inlaid with gold, is doubly welcome. 
 
 And now, I inquire, FIRST, Why should California be rejected ? All the 
 objections are founded only in the circumstances of her coming, and in the 
 organic law which she presents for our confirmation. 
 
 First, California comes unceremoniously, without a preliminary consent of 
 Congress, and therefore by usurpation. This allegation, I think, is not quite 
 true at least not quite true in spirit. California is not here of her own pure 
 volition. We tore California violently from her place in the confederation of 
 Mexican States, and stipulated by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, that the 
 Territory should be admitted, by States, into the American Union as speedily 
 as possible. 
 
 But the letter of the objection still holds ; California did come without a pre 
 liminary consent by Congress to form a Constitution. But Michigan and other 
 States presented themselves in the same unauthorized way, and Congress 
 waived the irregularity, and sanctioned the usurpation. California pleads these 
 precedents. Is not the plea sufficient ? 
 
 But it has been said by the Hon. Senator from South Carolina, (Mr. Cal- 
 houn) that the ordinance of 1787 secured to Michigan the right to become a 
 State when she should have sixty thousand inhabitants. Owing to some neg- 
 
lect Congress delayed to take the census ; and this is said in palliation of the irre 
 gularity in the case of Michigan. But California, as has been seen, had a 
 treaty, and Congress, instead of giving her the customary territorial govern 
 ment, as they did to Michigan, failed to do either, and thus practically refused 
 both, and so abandoned the new community, under most unpropitious circum 
 stances, to anarchy. California then made a Constitution for herself; but not 
 unnecessarily and presumptuously, as did Michigan. She made a Constitution 
 for herself, and came here under the law the paramount law of self-preser 
 vation. I think she stands justified. 
 
 Indeed, California is more than justified. She was a Colony a military 
 Colony, All Colonies, especially military Colonies, are incongruous with our 
 political system, and they are equally open to corruption and exposed to op 
 pression. They are therefore not more unfortunate in their own proper con 
 dition than fruitful in dangers to the parent Democracy. California, then, 
 acted wisely and well in establishing self-government. She deserves not re 
 buke, but praise and approbation. 
 
 Nor does this objection come with a good grace from those who offer it. If 
 California were now content to receive only a Territorial Charter, we could 
 not agree to grant it without an inhibition of Slavery, which in that case, be 
 ing a federal act of federal authority, would render the attitude of California 
 as a Territory even more offensive to those who now repel her than she is as 
 a State with the same inhibition in the Constitution of her own voluntary 
 choice. 
 
 The second objection is, that California has assigned her own boundaries, 
 without the previous authority of Congress. But she was left to organize her 
 self, without any boundaries fixed by previous law, or by prescription. She 
 was obliged, therefore, to assume boundaries, since without boundaries she 
 must have remained unorganized. 
 
 A third objection is, that California is too large. I answer: first, there is no 
 common standard of the size of States. California, though greater than many, 
 is less than one of the States. Second, California, if too large, may be divided 
 with her own consent, and that is all the security we have for reducing the mag 
 nitude and averting the preponderance of Texas. Thirdly, the boundaries of 
 California seem not at all unnatural. The Territory circumscribed is alto 
 gether contiguous and compact. Fourth, the boundaries are convenient. They 
 embrace only inhabited portions of the country, commercially connected with 
 the port of San Francisco. No one has pretended to offer boundaries more 
 in harmony with the physical outlines of the region concerned, or more con 
 venient for civil administration. 
 
 But to draw closer to the question. What shall be the boundaries of a new 
 State, concerns, first, the State herself, (and California of course is content.) 
 Secondly, adjacent communities. Orgeon does not complain of encroachment, 
 and there is no other adjacent community to complain. Thirdly, the other 
 States of the Union. The larger the Pacific States, the smaller will be their rela 
 tive power in the Senate. All the States now here are Atlantic States and In 
 land States ; and surely they may well indulge California in the largest liberty 
 of boundaries. 
 
 The fourth objection to the admission of California is, that no previous cen 
 sus had been taken and no laws prescribing the qualification of Suffrage, and 
 the Apportionment of Representatives in Convention, existed. I answer, Cali 
 fornia was left to act abinitio. She must begin some time without a census and 
 without such laws. The Pilgrim Fathers began in the same way on board 
 the May-Flower : and since it is objected that some of the electors in Califor 
 nia may have been aliens, I add that all the Pilgrim Fathers were aliens and 
 strangers to the Commonwealth of Plymouth. 
 
 Again, the objection may well be received if the Constitution of California 
 is satisfactory first, to herself, and secondly, to the United States. As re 
 gards the first of these, not a murmur of discontent has followed California to 
 this place ; and as to ourselves, we confine our inquiries about the Constitution 
 with a view to four things : First, the boundaries assumed ; and I have con- 
 
sidered that point in this case already. Second, that the domain in this State is 
 secured to us ; and it is admitted that this has been done, properly done. Third, 
 that the Constitution shall be Republican, and not aristocratic or monarchical. 
 In this case the only objection is that the Constitution, inasmuch as it inhibits 
 Slavery, is altogether too Republican. Fourth, that the Representation 
 claimed shall be just and equal. No one denies that the population of Califor 
 nia is sufficient to demand two Representatives on the federal basis ; and 
 secondly, a new census is at hand, and the error, if there be one, will be im 
 mediately corrected. 
 
 The fifth objection is, that California comes under Executive influences 
 first, in her coming as a Free State, and second, in her coming at all. The 
 first charge rests on suspicion only is peremptorily denied, and the denial is 
 not controverted by proofs. I dismiss it altogether. The second is true to the 
 extent that the present President advised the People of California that, hav 
 ing been left without any civil government, under the military supervision of 
 the Executive, without any authority of law whatever, the adoption of a Con 
 stitution subject to the approval of Congress would be regarded favorably by 
 the President. 
 
 Only a year ago it was complained that the exercise of the military power 
 to maintain law and order in California was a fearful innovation ; but now the 
 wind has changed, and blows even stronger from the opposite quarter. May 
 this Republic never have a President commit a more serious or more danger- 
 pus usurpation of power than the act of the present eminent Chief Magistrate 
 in endeavoring to induce the legislative authorities to relieve him from the 
 exercise of military power, by establishing civil institutions regulated by law, 
 in distant provinces. Rome would have been standing this day if she had had 
 such Generals and such Magistrates. 
 
 But the objection, whether true in .part or even in the whole, is immaterial. 
 The question is not what moved California to impress any particular feature 
 in her Constitution, nor even what induced her to adopt a constitution at all ; 
 but it is whether, since she has adopted a Constitution, she shall be admitted 
 into the Union. 
 
 I have now reviewed all the objections raised against the admission of 
 California. It is seen that they have no foundation in the law of nature and 
 of nations. Nor are they founded in the Constitution, for the Constitution pre 
 scribes no form or manner of proceeding in the admission of. new States, but 
 leaves the whole to the discretion of Congress. A Cong^ss may admit new 
 States." The objections are all merely formal and technical. They rest on 
 precedents which have not always, nor even genen*rty> been observed. 
 
 But it is said that we ought now to establish P&& precedent for the future ; 
 I answer, it is too late to seize this occasion &* that purpose, the irregularity 
 complained of being unavoidable. The eation should have been exercised, 
 first, when Texas was annexed ; second when we wa^ed war against Mexico ; 
 or third, when we ratified the treaty **' Guadalupe Hidalgo. Again : we may 
 establish precedents at pleasure, ^ur successors will exercise their pleasure 
 about following them, just as e have done in such cases. Third: States, 
 Nations, and Empires are aj^ to be peculiarly capricious, not only as to the 
 time, but even as to the winner of their being born, and as to their subsequent 
 political chano-es. T^ey are not accustomed to conform to precedents. 
 California sprung om the head of the nation, not only complete in propor 
 tions and fully anned, but ripe for affiliation with its members. 
 
 I proceed now to state my reasons for the opinion that California ought to 
 be admitted. The population of the United States consists of native Caucasian 
 origin, and exotics of the same derivation. The native mass rapidly assimi 
 lates to itself and absorbs the exotic, and these therefore constitute one 
 homogeneous people. The African race, bond and free, and the aborigines, 
 savage and civilized, being incapable of such assimilation and absorption, 
 remain distinct, and, owing to their peculiar condition, constitute inferior 
 masses, and may be regarded as accidental, if not disturbing political forces. 
 
 The ruling homogeneous family was planted at first on the Atlantic shore, 
 *1 
 
6 
 
 and, following an obvious law, is seen continually and rapidly spreading itself 
 westward year by year, subduing the wilderness and the prairie, and thus 
 extending this great political community, which, as fast as it advances, breaks 
 into distinct States for municipal purposes only> while the whole constitutes 
 one entire contiguous and compact nation. 
 
 Well-established rules of political arithmetic enable us to say that the ag 
 gregate population of the nation now is 22 millions; that 10 years hence it 
 will" be 30 millions, 20 years hence 38 millions, 30 years hence 50 millions, 40 
 years hence 64 millions, 50 years hence 80 millions, and 100 years hence 
 200 millions ! But the advance of population on the Pacific will far exceed 
 what occurred on the Atlantic coast, while emigration even here is outstrip 
 ping the calculation on which these estimates are based. There are silver and 
 gold in the mountains and ravines of California. The granite of New Eng 
 land is barren. 
 
 Allowing due consideration to the increasing density of our population, we 
 are safe in assuming that long before this mass shall have attained the maxi 
 mum of numbers indicated, the entire width of our possessions, from the At 
 lantic to the Pacific Ocean, will be covered by it and be brought into social 
 maturity and complete political organization. 
 
 The question now arises, Shall this one great People, having a common ori 
 gin, a common language, a common religion, common sentiments, interests, 
 sympathies, and hopes, remain one political State, one Nation, one Republic ? 
 or shall it be broken into two conflicting and probably hostile Nations or Re 
 publics ? There cannot ultimately be more than two ; for the habit of associa 
 tion is already formed, as the interests of mutual intercourse are forming, and 
 the central portions, if they cannot all command access to both oceans, will 
 not be obstructed in their approaches to that one which offers the greatest 
 facilities to their commerce. 
 
 Shall the American people, then, be divided ? Before deciding on this ques 
 tion, let us consider our position, our power, and capabilities. The world con 
 tains no seat of empire so magnificent as this, which, while it embraces all the 
 varying climates of the temperate zone, and is traversed by wide expanding 
 lakes and long branching rivers, offers supplies on the Atlantic shore to the 
 overcrowded nations of Europe, while on the Pacific coast it intercepts the 
 commerce of Vhe Indies. The nation thus situated, and enjoying forest, min 
 eral, and agricultural resources unequalled, if they are endowed also with 
 moral energies adequate to the achievement of great enterprise, and favored 
 with a government adapted to their character and condition, must command 
 the empire of _ the seas, wVJ c h alone is real empire. We think that we may 
 claim to have inherited physic*] and intellectual vigor, courage, invention, and 
 enterprise, and the systems of ^lucation prevailing among us open to all the 
 stores of human science and art. 
 
 The Old World and the Past were allotted by Providence to the pupilage 
 of mankind, under the hard discipline of arbitrary power quelling the violence 
 of human passion. The New World and ik e Future seem to have been ap 
 pointed for the maturity of mankind, with the Development of self-government, 
 operating in obedience to reason and judgment We have thoroughly tried 
 our moral system of Democratic Federal Government, with its complex yet 
 harmonious and effective combination of distinct local tJective agencies for the 
 conduct of domestic affairs, and its common central elective agencies for the 
 regulation of internal interests, and of intercourse with foK>5<rn nations, and 
 we know that it is a system equally cohesive in its parts an<F Capable of all 
 desirable expansion ; and that it is a system, moreover, perfectly adapted to 
 secure domestic tranquility, while it brings into action all the elements of na 
 tional aggrandizement. 
 
 The Atlantic States, through their commercial, social, and political affinities 
 and sympathies, are steadily renovating the governments and the social con 
 stitutions of Europe and of Africa. The Pacific States must necessarily per 
 form the same sublime and beneficent functions in Asia. If, then, the Ameri 
 can people shall remain one individual nation, the ripening civilization of the 
 
West, after a separation growing wider and wider for four thousand years, 
 will in its circuit of the world meet again and mingle with the declining civ 
 ilization of the East, on our own free soil, and a new and more perfect civil 
 ization will arise to bless the earth, under the sway of our own cherished and 
 beneficent democratic institutions. We may then reasonably hope for great 
 ness, felicity, and renown excelling any hitherto attained by any nation, if, 
 standing firmly on the Continent, we loose not our grasp on the shore of either 
 ocean. Whether a destiny so magnificent would be only partially defeated, or 
 whether it would be altogether lost, by a relaxation of that grasp, surpasses our 
 wisdom to determine, and happily is not important to be determined. It is 
 enough if we agree that expectations so grand, yet so reasonable and so just, 
 oughf not to be in any degree disappointed. 
 
 ^.nd now it seems to me that the perpetual unity of our empire hangs on 
 the decision of this day and of this hour. California is already a State a com 
 plete and fully appointed State ; she never again can be less than that. She 
 can never a^ain be a Province or a Colony. Nor can she be made to shrink 
 and shrivel into the proportions of a federal dependent territory. California, 
 then, henceforth and forever, must be what she is now a State. The ques 
 tion, whether she shall be one of the United States of America, has depended 
 on her and on us. Her election has been made. Our consent alone remains 
 suspended, and that consent must be pronounced now or never. I say now or 
 never ! Nothing prevents it now but want of agreement among ourselves. 
 Our harmony cannot increase while this question remains open. We shall 
 never agree to admit California unless we agree now. 
 
 Nor will California abide delay. I do not say that she contemplates inde 
 pendence ; but if she does not, it is because she does not anticipate rejection. 
 Do you say that she can have no motive ? Consider, then, her attitude if reject 
 ed. She needs a capital, a legislature, and magistrates ; she needs titles to that 
 golden domain of ours within her borders, good titles, too, and you must give 
 them on your own terms, or she must take them without your leave. She needs 
 a mint, a custom house, wharves, hospitals, and institutions of learning. 
 She needs fortifications, roads, and railroads. She needs the protection of an 
 army and a navy. Either your stars and stripes must wave over her ports and 
 her fleets, or she must raise aloft a standard for herself. She needs at least to 
 know whether you are friends or enemies. And, finally, she needs what no 
 American community can live without sovereignty and independence either 
 a just and equal share of yours, or sovereignty and independence of 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 enter 
 prise that inheres in us, and that ability implies command of all physical means. 
 She has advantages of position ; she is practically farther removed from you 
 than England. You cannot reach her by railroad or by unbroken steamboat 
 navigation. You can send no armies over the prairie, the mountain and the 
 desert; nor across the remote and narrow Isthmus, within a foreign jurisdic 
 tion ; nor around the Cape of Storms. You may send a navy there, but she 
 has only to open her mines, and she can reduce your marines and appropriate 
 your floating bulwarks to her own defence. Let her only seize your domain 
 within her borders, and your commerce in her port, and she will have at once 
 revenue and credit adequate to all her necessities. Beside, are we so moderate, 
 and has the world become BO 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 or the 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 in 
 terests ; until her affinities of intercourse are established, and habits of loyal 
 ty are fixed, and then she can never be disengaged. 
 
 California would not go alone ; Oregon, so intimately allied to her, and aa 
 
8 
 
 yet so loosely attached to us, will 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 on us, nor even on the mere forbearance of Califor 
 nia, 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 At 
 lantic. TERMINUS has passed away with all the deities of the ancient Pan 
 theon, but his sceptre remains. Commerce is the god of boundaries, and no 
 man now living can foretell its ultimate decree. 
 
 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 pro 
 posed. First : because while admitting the purity and the patriotism of all 
 from whom it is my misfortune to differ, I think all legislative compromises 
 essentially and radically wrong and indefensible. They involve the surrender 
 of the exercise of judgment and conscience on distinct and separate ques 
 tions at distinct and separate times, with the indispensable advantages it af 
 fords for ascertaining truth. They involve a relinquishment of the right to 
 reconsider in future the decisions of the present on questions prematurely 
 anticipated, and they are an usurpation, as to future questions of the province 
 of future legislators. 
 
 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 my ut 
 terance forever is arrested upon all the great questions, social, moral, and po 
 litical, 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. But what am I give up 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 sus 
 pected 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, hd most of tliem insist on all, of 
 these conditions. The equivalent then is, some portion of Liberty, some por 
 tion 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 sur 
 render 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. 
 
 Sir, 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 further from them, as far as from pole to pcle, be the whole tribe of spu 
 rious, 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 thous 
 and times more at war with real duty than any vice known by its name, and distin 
 guished by its proper character. 
 
 " Far, far from us be that false and affected candor thai is eternally in treaty with 
 crime that half virtue which, like the ambiguous animal that plays about in the twi 
 light of a compromise between day and night, is to a just man's eye an odious and 
 disgusting thing. There is no midd'le point, my Lords, in which the Commons of Great 
 Britain can meet tyranny and oppression." 
 
 But, Sir, could I 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 
 stands or falls in the District of Columbia, New Mexico and Eastern Cali 
 fornia, and even whether Slavery stands or falls in the Slave States. Cali 
 fornia ought to come in, and must come in, at all events. It is an indepen 
 dent question. What, then, are these questions arising out of Slavery, thus 
 
interposed, but collateral questions ? They are unnecessary and incongru 
 ous, and therefore false issues, not introduced designedly, indeed, to defend 
 that great policy, yet unavoidably tending to that end. 
 
 But consent on my part to the compromise would be disingenuous and 
 fraudulent. It is now avowed by the Hon. 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 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 
 substance, 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 a major 
 ity 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, controlled by a Constitutional ma 
 jority of voices, into a federal alliance, 'in which the minority shall have a 
 veto against the majority ! and thus to return to the original articles of Con 
 federation. 
 
 I will not stop to protest against the injustice and inexpediency of an inno 
 vation which, if it were practicable, would be so entirely subversive of the 
 principle of Democratic institutions. It is enough to say that it is totally im 
 practicable. The Free States, Northern and Western, have acquiesced in 
 the long and nearly unbroken ascendency of the Slave States under the Con 
 stitution, because the result happened under the Constitution. But they have 
 honor and interests to preserve ; and there is nothing in the nature or in the 
 character of the 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, if even this difficulty were 
 overcome. What is proposed is a political equilibrium. Every political equi 
 librium 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 equality or a proximate equality in the number of slaves and freemen, and 
 this must be perpetual. 
 
 But the census of 1840 gives a slave basis of only two millions and a half, 
 and a free basis of fourteen millions and a half. 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 pio 
 neers, and every day increase the difficulty of forcing or insinuating Slavery 
 into regions which freemen have preoccupied. 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 equili 
 brium. 
 
 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 pre 
 liminary arrangements were made to admit five new 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 more rapidly than it was be 
 fore. The progress of the free population is to be accelerated by emigration 
 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 dan- 
 
10 
 
 if increased too high ! Sir, the fugitive slave colonies in the Free 
 tates, in Canada and in Liberia, are the best guarantees 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 amendment of the law concerning fugitives from service or 
 labor. The Constitution contains only a compact which rests for its execu 
 tion 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 exclu 
 sive 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 law, and such 
 a one would be useless. The cause of the insufficiency 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 cer 
 tain 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 responsi 
 bilities 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 possible the escape of the bondman. 
 
 We deem its principle therefore unjust, unconstitutional, and immoral ; and 
 thus, while patriotism withholds its approbation, the consciences of our people 
 condemn it. You will say that these convictions of ours are disloyal. Grant 
 it, for argument's sake ; 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 revere 
 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 Law converts hospitality to the refugees 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 even fugi 
 tives from justice, is not admitted by the law of nature and of nations, but 
 rests on voluntary compact. 
 
 Only two compacts found in diplomatic history admitted extradition of 
 slaves. Here is one of them. It is found in a treaty made between Alex 
 ander Comnenus, the Greek Emperor at Constantinople, and Oleg II., King 
 of Russia, in the year 902, and is in these words : 
 
 " If a Russian slave take flight from his master, or if he shall be held under pretence 
 of having been bought, his master may pursue him and take him wheresoever he may 
 be found; and whosoever shall prevent his master from taking him, shall be guilty of 
 offending this treaty, and shall be punished accordingly." 
 
 This was in the year of grace 902, in what is called the Dark Ages, and the 
 contracting powers were Despotism. 
 And here is the other : 
 
 " No person held to service or labor in one State tinder the laws thereof, escaping into 
 another, shall, in consequence of any laws 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 nations, written 
 on the hearts and consciences of freemen, repudiates them. Armed power 
 
11 
 
 could not enforce them, because there is no public conscience to sustain them. 
 I know that there are laws of various sorts that regulate the conduct of men. 
 There are constitutions and statutes, laws mercantile and codes civil ; but 
 when we are legislating for States, especially when we are founding States, 
 all these laws must be brought to the standard of the laws of God, and must 
 be tried by that standard, and stand or fall by it. It is of this principle that 
 an eminent political philosopher of England, Burke, said, 
 
 " 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 precision, 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 ty 
 rants and robbers, pollutes the very fountains of justice, destroys the foundations of all 
 law, and therefore removes the only safeguard against evil men, whether governors 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 a young woman to death under the late sanguinary 
 code of his country, for her first petty theft, she fell dead at his feet. " I seem 
 to myself," said he, " to have been pronouncing sentence, not against the pris 
 oner, but against the law itself." 
 
 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 deny 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. Do we then in this conflict demand of you an unreason 
 able thing in asking that, since you will have property that can and will ex 
 ercise human power 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 ? 
 
 Another feature in most of the 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 com 
 mon 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 York from 
 whom, with great deference, I dissent seems willing to accept now the ex 
 tinction 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 obtained. Nor will the plea 
 with which you would furnish us be of any avail. If I could understand my 
 self, I should never be able to explain to the direct understanding of the peo 
 ple whom I represent how it was that an absolute and express power to legis 
 late in all cases over the District of Columbia, was embarrassed and defeated 
 by an implied condition not to legislate for the abolition of slavery in that 
 District. Sir, I shall vote for that measure, and am willing to appropriate any 
 means to carry it into execution. And if I shall be asked what I did to em 
 bellish the capital of my country, I will point to her freed men and say, 
 4 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 these measures 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 dispo 
 sition 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 
 
12 
 
 all candor and in plainness, that the spirit of the people in 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. You will say that this implies violence. 
 Not at all ; it implies only peaceful, lawful, constitutional, customary action. 
 I cannot too strongly express my surprise that those who insist that the people 
 of the Slave States cannot be held back from remedies outside of the Consti 
 tution, should so far misunderstand us of the Free States as to suppose we 
 would not exercise our constitutional rights to sustain the policy which we 
 dee.m just and beneficent. 
 
 I object in the next place to the compromise of the boundary between 
 Texas and New Mexico. That 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, 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 I do not intend to discuss the question which 
 has been raised by the honorable and distinguished Senator from Massachu 
 setts (Mr. Webster). But I am compelled to say that Thave not the good 
 fortune to concur with him in the opinions which he has expressed in regard 
 to the admission of new States to be formed out of the State of Texas. There 
 are various questions involved in that subject which I think this is not the 
 time to decide, and which I wish to reserve for future consideration. One is, 
 whether the article of Annexation does really deprive Congress of the right 
 to express its voice in regard to the subdivision of the State of Texas. I only 
 say that to me it seems by no means so plain a question as the Senator as 
 sumes, and therefore with me it must remain a question for future considera 
 tion, an open question, whether Congress is not a party whose future con 
 sent is necessary to any division of Texas. 
 
 Mr. WEBSTER Will the Senator allow me to ask him one question ? 
 
 Mr. SEWARD Certainly, sir. 
 
 Mr. WEBSTER Supposing Congress to have the authority to fix the num 
 ber of States and the time of election, the apportionment of representation, 
 &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 The article is in effect in these words : New States, not ex 
 ceeding four in number, may be framed out of the Territory of Texas, with the 
 consent of Texas, and shall be admitted into the Union, with or without Slav 
 ery if they shall cloose. 
 
 Mr. WEBSTER If they " choose," they may come in as Slave States. 
 
 Mr. SEWARD I beg pardon of the Hon. Senator, but it is with or without 
 Slavery. But I pass the question, as the volume is not at hand, and I fear I 
 shall trespass on the time of the Senate by waiting for it. I am moreover not 
 unconstitutional. I find no authority in the Constitution of the United States 
 for the annexation of foreign States by resolution. What I mean now espe 
 cially to insist upon is, that" I must have time to deliberate until the occasion 
 actually arrives, before I consent to any division of the State of Texas so as 
 to bring in any new State with a Constitution maintaining Slavery. I must 
 have the point settled that the article of Annexation is compulsory upon me, 
 and also that it is constitutional. 
 
 Mr. FOOTE Did I not rightly understand the Senator to say that he would 
 have voted to admit California as a Slave State if she had voluntarily inserted 
 such a provision in her Constitution ? 
 
 Mr. SEWARD Yes, Sir, under these extraordinary circumstances of con 
 quest, of a compact of abandoment, of impossibility to give a Territorial gov 
 ernment, of a Constitution adopted by the people, and of dismemberment of 
 the empire if she was rejected, under these circumstances, I would have re 
 ceived California, though she had come, to my profound regret, as a Slave State. 
 I am happy now, Mr. President, to understand that I agree with the Hon. 
 
13 
 
 member from Massachusetts, that it is not compulsory upon Congress hereafter 
 to admit four new Slave States in Texas that they have reserved the right 
 to decide whether any new State shall be formed there. I shall vote for ad 
 mitting no more Slave States, unless under circumstances absolutely control 
 ling and compulsory ; and such cannot now be foreseen. 
 
 Mr. WEBSTER The Senator does not understand me. My proposition was, 
 that States hereafter made out of Texas, with her consent, if they choose to 
 come in as Slave States, have a right to do so. 
 
 Mr. SEWARD My position is that they have not a right to come in if Con 
 gress shall refuse its consent. It is optional with both parties, Congress and 
 Texas. 
 
 Mr. WEBSTER Does the Senator hold that we may hereafter decide wheth 
 er they shall be Slave States or Free States ? 
 
 Mr. SEWARD No, sir ; but that Congress may decide that there shall be 
 no States at all formed out of Texas. 
 
 Another objection arises out of the principle on which the compromise 
 rests. That principle is a classification of the States as Northern and South 
 ern States, as is expressed by the Hon. 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 the classes of States respectively contribute in due proportion ; that the 
 new Territories are a common acquisition, and that the people of these several 
 States and classes of States have an equal right to participate in them respec 
 tively ; that the right of the people of the Slave States to emigrate to the Ter 
 ritories with their slaves as property, is such a participation on their part, in 
 asmuch as the people of the Free States emigrate into the same Territories 
 with their property. And the argument 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 open to 
 Slavery, and to be organized into Slave States. 
 
 Argument, ingenious and subtile, declamation, earnest and bold, and per 
 suasion, gentle and winning as the voice of the turtle-dove when it is heard 
 in the land, all alike and all together have failed to convince me of the sound 
 ness of this principle of the proposed Compromise, or of any one of the prop 
 ositions on which it is attempted to be established. How is the original equal 
 ity of the States proved ? It rests on a syllogism, as follows : 
 
 " All men are equal by the law of nature and of nations. But States are only lawful 
 aggregations of individual men, who individually 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 the other. But you answer that the Constitution recog 
 nizes property in slaves. It would be sufficient, then, to reply, that this Con 
 stitutional recognition must be void, because it is repugnant to the law of na 
 tions. But I deny that the Constitution recognizes property in man. I sub 
 mit, on the other hand, most respectfully, that the Constitution not merely does 
 not affirm that principle, but on the contrary altogether excludes it. The 
 Constitution does not expressly affirm anything on the subject. All that it 
 contains is two incidental allusions to slaves. These are, first, in the provision 
 establishing a ratio of representation and taxation ; second, in the provision re- 
 Jating to fugitives from labor. In both cases the Constitution designedly men 
 tions slaves not as slaves, much less as chattels, but as persons. That this 
 recognition of them as persons was designed is historically known, and I think 
 never denied. I give only two of the manifold proofs. 
 2 
 
14 
 
 John Jay, in the Federalist, says : 
 
 " 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 a 
 ixiJiabitants, but as debased below the equal level of free inhabitants, which regards the 
 slaves as divested of two-fifths of the man. 
 
 Yes, Sir! of two-fifths, but of only two-fifths, leaving still three-fifths, leaving 
 him still an inhabitant, a living, breathing, moving, reasoning, immortal man. 
 
 The other proof is from the debate in the Convention. It is brief, and I 
 think instructive. 
 
 " Aug. 28, 1787. Mr. BUTLER and Mr. PINCKNEY moved to require fugitive slaves and 
 servants to be delivered up like convicts. 
 
 Mr. WILSON. This would oblige the Executive of the State to do it at public expense. 
 
 Mr. SHERMAN saw no more propriety in the public seizing and surrendering a slave or 
 a servant than a horse. 
 
 Mr. BUTLER withdrew his proposition in order that some particular provision might be 
 made, apart from this article. 
 
 Aug. 29th. 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 regulations 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, Sept. 15, 
 
 " Article IV., Sec. 2, the 3d 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 the idea that Slavery was 
 i.oi j n a moral view." 
 
 I deem it established, then, that the Constitution does not recognize property 
 in men, but leaves that question, as between the States, to the law of nature 
 and of nations. That law, as expounded by Vattel, is founded in the rea 
 son of things. When God had created the earth with its wonderful adaptations, 
 he gave dominion over it to man, absolute human dominion. The title 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 that would resolve society into a state of perpetuaf '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 were not parties to the Constitution as States. It is the Con 
 stitution of the people of the United States. But even if the States continued 
 as States, they surrendered their equality as States, aud submitted themselves 
 to the sway of the numerical majority, with qualifications or checks ; first, of the 
 representation of three-fifths of slaves in the ratio of representation and taxa 
 tion ; and, secondly, of the equal representation of States in the Senate. 
 
 The proposition of an established classification of States as Slave States and 
 Free States, as asserted by some, and into northern and southern, as asserted 
 by others, seems to me purely imaginary, and of course the supposed equili 
 brium of those classes is a mere conceit. This must be so ; because, when the 
 Constitution was adopted, twelve of the thirteen States were Slave States, 
 and so there was no equilibrium. And so as to the classification of States, as 
 Northern States and Southern States. It is the maintenance of Slavery by 
 law in a State, not parallels of latitude, that makes it a Southern State, and 
 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 Con 
 stitution was made not only for Southern and Northern States, but for States 
 neither one nor the other, but Western States. Their coming in was fore 
 seen and provided for. 
 
 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, is 
 erroneous, with all the consequences fancifully deduced from it. The Unitec^ 
 States are a political 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 
 
15 
 
 spoils of conquest. On the ^contrary of a theory so debasing, the preamble 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 moi-e perfect Union, establish 
 justice insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the gen 
 eral welfare, and secure the blessings of Liberty, do ordain and establish this Constitu 
 tion." 
 
 Objects 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 this compromise which condemns it. 
 Simultaneously with the establishment of the Constitution, Virginia ceded her 
 domain, which then extended to the Mississippi, and was even claimed to ex 
 tend to the Pacific. Congress accepted it, and unanimously devoted the do 
 main to freedom, in the language from which the ordinance, now so severely 
 condemned, was borrowed. Five States have already been organized on this 
 domain, from all of which, in pursuance of that ordinance, Slavery is excluded. 
 How did it happen that this theory of the equality of the States, of the classi 
 fication of States, of the equilibrium of the States, of the title of the States to 
 common enjoyment of the domain, or to an equitable and just partition be 
 tween them, was never promulgated, nor even dreamed of by the Slave States, 
 who unanimously consented to this ordinance ? 
 
 There is another aspect of the principle of compromise which deserves con 
 sideration. It assumes that Slavery, if not the only institution, is, in a Slave 
 State at least, the ruling institution, and that this characteristic was recognized 
 by the Constitution. But Slavery is only one of many institutions there. 
 Freedom is equally an institution there. Slavery is only a temporary, acci 
 dental, partial, incongruous one. Freedom, on the contrary, is a perpetual, 
 organic, universal one, in harmony with the Constitution of the United States. 
 The slaveholder himself stands under the protection of the latter, in common 
 with all the free citizens of the State. 
 
 But the principle of this compromise gives complete ascendency in the 
 Slave States, and in the Constitution of the United States, to the subordinate, 
 accidental, and incongruous institution over its antagonist. To reduce this 
 claim for Slavery to an absurdity, it is only necessary to add, that there are 
 only two States in which the slaves are a majority, and not one in which the 
 slaveholders are not a very disproportionate minority, 
 
 But there is yet another aspect in which this principle must be examined. 
 It regards the domain only as a possession to be enjoyed either in common or 
 by partition by the citizens of the old States. It is true indeed that the na 
 tional domain is ours ; true that it was acquired by the prowess and wealth of 
 the whole country ; but we hold, nevertheless, no arbitrary power over it. 
 We hold no arbitrary authority over anything, whether acquired lawfully or 
 by usurpation. The Constitution regulates our stewardship. The Constitu 
 tion devotes the domain to union, to justice, to defence, to welfare and liber 
 ty. But there is a higher law than the Constitution, which regulates our au 
 thority over the domain, and devotes it to the same noble purposes. The terri 
 tory is a part no inconsiderable part of the common heritage of mankind, 
 bestowed upon them by the Creator of the Universe. We are his stewards, 
 and must so discharge our trust as to secure in the highest attainable degree 
 their happiness. How momentous that trust is, we may learn from the insti 
 tutions of the founder of modern philosophy. 
 
 " No man can, by care-taking," as the Scriptures saith, " add a whit to his stature in 
 this little model of man's body ; but in the great frame of kingdoms and common 
 wealths, it is in the power of princes or estates to add amplitude and greatness to their 
 kingdoms : for by introducing such ordinances, constitutions, and customs, as are wise, 
 they may sow greatness to their posterity and successors. But these things are com 
 monly not observed, but left to take their chance." 
 
 We are an estate, and ar>j deliberating for the Commonwealth just as our 
 fathers deliberated in establishing the institutions we enjoy. Whatever supe 
 riority there is in our condition and hopes over those of any other " kingdom" or 
 
16 
 
 " estate" is due to the fortunate circumstance that our ancestors did not leave 
 things to take their chance, but that they added amplitude and greatness to 
 our Commonwealth, by introducing such ordinances, constitutions, and cus 
 toms as were wise. 
 
 We, in our time, have succeeded to the same responsibilities, and we cannot 
 approach the duty before us wisely or justly, except we raise ourselves to the 
 great consideration of how we can most certainly sow greatness to our poster 
 ity and successors. And now the simple, bold, and awful question, which pre 
 sents isself to us, is this : Shall we, who are founding institutions, social and 
 political, for countless millions, shall we who know by experience the wise 
 and the just, and are free to choose them, and to reject the erroneous and the 
 unjust, shall we establish human bondage, or permit it by our sufferance to 
 be established ? Sir, our fathers would not have hesitated an hour. They 
 found slavery existing here, and they left it only because they could not re 
 move it. There is not only no free State which would now establish it, but 
 there is no slave State which, if it had but the free alternative, as we now 
 have, would have founded slavery. Indeed, our revolutionary predecessors 
 had precisely the same question before them, in establishing an organic law 
 under which the States of Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa have 
 since come into the Union ; and they solemnly repudiated and excluded Slav 
 ery from those States forever. I confess that the most alarming evidence of 
 our degeneracy which has yet been given, is found in the fact that we even de 
 bate such a question. 
 
 Sir, there is no Christian nation that, free to choose as we are, would 
 establish Slavery. I speak on due consideration, because Britain, France, and 
 Mexico have abolished Slavery, and all other European States are preparing 
 to abolish it as rapidly as they can. 
 
 We cannot establish Slavery, because there are certain elements of the 
 security, welfare, and greatness of nations, which we all admit, or ought to 
 admit and require, as essential ; and these are the security of natural rights, 
 the diffusion of knowledge, and the freedom of industry. Slavery is incom 
 patible with all of these ; and just in proportion to the extent that it prevails 
 and controls in any republican State, just to that extent it subverts the 
 principle of Democracy, and converts the State into an aristocracy or 
 despotism. I will not offend sensibilities by drawing my proof from the 
 Slave States existing among ourselves, but I will draw them from the greatest 
 of the European Slave States. The population of Russia, in Europe, in 1844, 
 was 54,251,000. Of these were serfs, 53,500,000 ; the residue, nobles, clergy, 
 merchants, &c., 751,000. The imperial government abandons the control 
 over the fifty-three and a half millions to their owners, and the residue, in 
 cluded in the 751,000, are thus a privileged clan or aristocracy. If ever the 
 government interferes at all with the serfs, who are the only laboring 
 population, it is by edicts, designed to abridge the opportunities of education, 
 and thus continue their debasement. What was the origin of this system ? 
 Conquest ; in which thu captivity of the conquered was made perpetual and 
 hereditary. 
 
 This, it seems to me, is identical with American Slavery, only at one and 
 the same time exaggerated by the greater disproportion between the privileged 
 classes and the slaves in their respective numbers, and yet relieved of the 
 unhappiest feature of American Slavery the distinction of castes. What 
 but this renders Russia at once the most arbitrary despotism, and the most 
 barbarous State in Europe ? And what is its effect but industry comparatively 
 profitless, and sedition not occasional and partial, but chronic and pervading 
 the empire ? With Massachusetts and Ohio among us, shall we pass by their 
 free and beneficent examples, and select our institutions from the dominions 
 of the Czar ? 
 
 I cannot stop to debate lo'ng with those who maintain that Slavery is in 
 itself practically economical and humane. I might be content with saying 
 that there are some axioms in political science that a statesman or a founder 
 
17 
 
 of States may adopt, especially in the Congress of the United States, and 
 that among these axioms are these : 
 
 That all men are created equal, and have inalienable rights of life, liberty, 
 and the choice of pursuits of happiness ; 
 
 That knowledge promotes virtue, and righteousness exaltcth a nation ; 
 
 That Freedom is preferable to Slavery, and that democratic governments, 
 when they can be maintained by acquiescence without force, are preferable 
 to institutions exercising arbitrary and irresponsible power. 
 
 It remains only to say, on this part of the subject, that Slavery, being in 
 congruous and repugnant, is dangerous to the safety of the State. The con 
 servative principle of the State is the security of the voluntary acquiescence 
 of the people. That acquiescence is obtained by universal suffrage, which 
 demands, of course, equality of knowledge and property, as far as that is 
 practically attainable without injustice or oppression. This argument is 
 sustained by our own experience. There is no danger menacing the Union, 
 there never has been any that would have menaced it, had Slavery had no 
 shelter beneath its protection. If Slavery, confined as it now is, threatens 
 the invasion of the Constitution, how can we enlarge its boundaries and in 
 crease its influence without increasing the danger already existing ? 
 
 Whether, then, I regard merely the welfare of the future inhabitants of the 
 new Territories, or the security and welfare of the whole people of the United 
 States, or the welfare of the whole family, of mankind, I cannot consent to 
 introduce Slavery into any part of this continent which is now exempt from 
 what seems to me to be so great an evil. 
 
 These are my reasons for declining to compromise the questions relating to 
 Slavery as a condition of the admission of California. 
 
 In acting upon an occasion so grave as this, a respectful consideration is 
 due to the arguments, founded on extraneous considerations, of Senators who 
 counsel a course different from that which I have preferred. 
 
 The first of these arguments is, that Congress has no power to legislate on 
 the subject of Slavery within the Territories. Sir, Congress has power to 
 admit new States ; and since Congress may admit, it follows that Congress may 
 reject new States. The discretion of Congress in admitting is absolute, ex 
 cept that, when admitted, the State must be a republican State, and must be a 
 State, that is, it shall have the Constitutional powers of a State. But the 
 greater includes the less ; we may impose conditions not inconsistent with 
 those fundamental powers. Boundaries are such ; the reservation of the pub 
 lic domain is such ; the right to divide is such ; the ordinance excluding 
 Slavery is such a condition. The organization of territory is auxiliary or pre 
 liminary. It is the inchoate, initiative act of admission, and is performed 
 under the clause granting the power necessary to execute the express powers 
 of the Constitution. This power comes from the treaty -making power also, 
 and I think it is well traced to the power to make needful rules and regula 
 tions concerning the public domain. But the power is here to be exercised, 
 however derived ; and the right to regulate property, to administer justice in 
 regard to property, is assumed in every territorial charter. If we have power 
 to legislate concerning property, we have concerning personal rights. Free 
 dom is a personal right. The Constitution does not sanction property in man, 
 and Congress, being the supreme legislature, has the same right in regard to 
 property and rights in Territories that the States would have if organized. 
 
 It is insisted further that the inhibition is unnecessary. 
 
 And here I have to regret the loss of able and distinguished Senators who 
 go with us for the admission of California. Especially do I regret the separa 
 tion from us of the able and distinguished Senator from Missouri (Mr. Benton). 
 When that Senator announced that he should not sustain the Proviso of Free 
 dom, I was induced to exclaim, 
 
 Cur in theatrum, Cato severe yenisti, 
 An ideo.tantum veneraS ut exires. 
 
 But that distinguished Senator is crowning a life of eminent public service by 
 *2 
 
18 
 
 bringing the first State of the Pacific into the Union, and, grateful to him for 
 that, I freely leave to him to determine for himself what weight he will give to 
 the cause of human freedom in his action on so grave an occasion. 
 
 The argument is that the Proviso is unnecessary. I answer, then there can 
 be no error in insisting upon it. But why is it unnecessary ? It is said, first, 
 by reason of the climate. If this be so, why do not the representatives of the 
 Slave States yield the Proviso ? They deny that climate prevents the intro 
 duction of Slavery. Now, I will leave nothing to contingency. But in truth, 
 I think the argument is against the proposition. Is there any climate where 
 Slavery has not existed ? It has prevailed all over Europe, from sunny Italy 
 to bleak England, and is existing now, stronger than in any other land, in ice 
 bound Russia. 
 
 But it will be replied that this is not African Slavery. I rejoin, that only 
 makes the case the stronger. If this vigorous Saxon race of ours was reduced 
 to Slavery while it retained the courage of semi-barbarism, in its own high 
 northern latitude, what security does climate afford against the transplantation 
 of the more gentle, more docile, and already enslaved and debased African, to 
 the genial clime of New Mexico and California ? Sir, there is no climate 
 uncongenial to Slavery. It is true it is less productive than free labor in many 
 northern countries ; but so it is less productive than free white labor in even 
 tropical climates. Labor is in quick demand in all new countries. Slave 
 labor is cheaper than free labor, and will go first into new regions ; and 
 wherever it goes it brings labor into dishonor, and therefore free white labor 
 avoids competition with it. Sir, I might rely on climate, if I had not been born 
 in a land where Slavery existed, and that land was all north of the 40th par 
 allel of latitude, and if I did not know the struggle that it has cost, and which 
 is yet going on, to get complete relief from the institution and its baleful con 
 sequences. 
 
 But, Sir, it is said that Slavery is prevented by the laws of God from enter 
 ing into the Territory from which we propose to inhibit it. I will look into 
 that matter a little more closely. I wish, then, with the utmost respect to ask 
 Senators whether the Ordinance of 1787 was necessary or not ? That Ordi 
 nance has been the subject of too many eulogiums to be now pronounced a 
 vague and idle thing. That Ordinance carried the prohibition of Slavery quite 
 up to the 49th deg. of north latitude, and yet AVC are now told that we can trust 
 the laws of God without any ordinance to exclude Slavery as far down as 36 
 deg. 30 min. Unfortunately, too, the Ordinance of 1787 began on the 37th 
 parallel of north latitude, so that there is no part of the Territory which it 
 covered, in which Slavery, according to the present theory, was not excluded 
 by the law of God. I know no better authority as to the laws of God on this 
 subject than one from whom I have already had occasion to quote with some 
 freedom. And it is the opinion of Montesquieu that it is only the indolence 
 of mankind, and not the climate, which causes the introduction of Slavery any 
 where. There is no climate where slavery is necessary ; there is none where 
 it cannot be established, if the customs and laws permit. 
 
 I shall dwell only very briefly on the argument derived from the Mexican 
 laws. The proposition that those laws must remain in force until altered by 
 laws of our own is satisfactory ; and so is the proposition that those Mexican 
 laws abolished and continue to prohibit slavery ; and still I deem an enact 
 ment by ourselves wise and even necessary. 
 
 Both of the propositions I have stated are denied with just as much confi 
 dence by Southern statesmen and jurists as they are affirmed by those of the 
 Free States. The population of the new Territories is rapidly becoming an 
 American one, to whom the Mexican code will seem a foreign one, entitled to 
 little deference or obedience. Slavery has never obtained anywhere by ex 
 press legislative authority, but always by trampling down laws higher than any 
 mere municipal laws the law of nature and of nations. There can be no 
 oppression in superadding the sanction of Congress to the authority which is 
 so weak and so vehemently questioned. And there is some possibility, if not 
 
19 
 
 a probability, that the institution might obtain a foothold surreptitiously, if It 
 should not be absolutely forbidden by our own authority. 
 
 What is insisted upon, therefore, is not a mere abstraction or a mere senti 
 ment, as is contended by those who concur with us as to admitting California, 
 but would waive the Proviso. And what is conclusive on the subject is, that 
 it is conceded on all hands that the effect of insisting on it prevents the exten 
 sion of Slavery into the region to which it is proposed to apply it. Again, it 
 is insisted that the diffusion of Slavery does not increase its evils. The argu 
 ment seems to me merely specious and quite unsound. . 
 
 And this brings me to the great and all-absorbing argument that the Union 
 is in danger of being dissolved, and that it can only be saved by compromise. 
 
 I do not overlook the fact that the entire delegation from the Slave States, 
 although they differ in the details of compromise proposed, and perhaps also 
 upon the exact circumstances of the crisis, seem to concur in the momentous 
 warning. Nor do I doubt at all the patriotic devotion to the Union which is 
 expressed by those from whom this warning proceeds. And yet, Sir, although 
 these warnings have been uttered with impassioned solemnity in my hearing, 
 every day for near three months, my confidence in the Union remains un 
 shaken. I think they are to be received with no inconsiderable distrust, 
 because they are uttered under the influence of a controlling interest to be 
 secured, a paramount object to be gained, and that is, an equilibrium of 
 power in the Republic. I think they are to be received with even more dis 
 trust, because, with the most profound respect, they are uttered under an 
 obviously high excitement ; nor is that excitement an unnatural one. It is a 
 law of our nature, that the passions disturb the reason and judgment just in 
 proportion to the importance of the occasion and the consequent necessity for 
 calmness and candor. I think they are to be distrusted, because there is a 
 diversity of opinion in regard to the nature and operation of this excitement. 
 The Senators from some States say that it has brought all parties in that 
 region into unanimity. The Senator from Kentucky says that the danger lies 
 in the violence of the party spirit, and refers us to the difficulties which at 
 tended the organization of the House of Representatives. 
 
 Sir, in my humble judgment, it is not the fierce conflict of parties that we 
 are seeing and hearing ; but, on the contrary, it is the agony of distracted 
 parties ; a convulsion resulting from the too narrow foundations of both and of 
 all parties, foundations laid in compromises of natural justice and of human 
 liberty. A question a moral question transcending the too narrow creeds 
 of parties has arisen. The public conscience expands with it, and the green 
 withes of party associations give way and break arid fall off from it. No, Sir, it 
 is not the State that is dying of the fever of party spirit. It is merely a para 
 lysis of parties, premonitory of their restoration with the new elements of 
 health and vigor imbibed from that spirit of the age which is so justly called 
 progress. 
 
 Nor is the evil that of unlicensed, irregular, and turbulent faction: We are 
 told that twenty legislatures are in session burning like furnaces, heating and 
 inflaming the popular passions. But those twenty legislatures are Constitutional 
 furnaces. They are performing their customary functions, imparting healthful 
 heat and vitality, while within their Constitutional jurisdiction. If they rage 
 beyond its limits, the popular passions of this country are not at all, I think, in 
 danger of being inflamed to excess. No, Sir, let none of those fires be extin 
 guished. Forever let them burn and blaze. They are neither ominous meteors 
 nor baleful comets ; but planets; and bright and intense as their heat may be, 
 it is their native temperature, and they must still obey the law which by attrac 
 tion toward the centre holds them in their spheres. 
 
 I see nothing in that conflict between the Southern and the Northern States, 
 or between their representative bodies, which seems to be on all sides of me 
 assumed. Not a word of menace, not a word of anger, not an intemperate 
 word, has been uttered in any Northern legislature. They firmly but calmly 
 assert their convictions, but at the same time they assert their unqualified pur- 
 
20 
 
 pose to submit to the common arbiter, and for weal or woe abide the 
 fortunes of the Union. 
 
 What if there be less of moderation in the legislatures of the South. It only 
 indicates on which side the balance is inclining, and that the decision of the 
 government is near at hand. 1 argue with those who say that there can he no 
 peaceful dissolution no dissolution of the Union by the secession of States, but 
 that disunion, dissolution, happen when it may, will and must be revolution. 
 I discover no omens of revolution. The predictions of the political astrolo 
 gers do not argue as to time or manner in which it is to occur. According to 
 the authority of the Hon. Senator from Alabama, (Mr. Clemens,) the event has 
 already happened, and the Union is now in ruins. According to the horoscope 
 of the Hon. Senator from Mississippi, (Mr. Foote,) it was to take place on a 
 day already past. According to the Hon. and distinguished Senator from 
 South Carolina, (Mr. Calhoun,) it is not to be immediate, but to be developed 
 by time. 
 
 [Mr. FOOTE here interposed and disowned the construction which had been 
 put upon his remarks, and made further explanations.] 
 
 Mr. SEWAKD I am very happy to have given the Senator an opportunity 
 to correct the erroneous impression which the remark which I have referred to 
 had made. Now the Hon. Senator will do me the justice to allow that I am at 
 liberty to subtract one prediction form the political almanac, and so the pre 
 dictions lose so much of importance. 
 
 I see no omens of revolution. What are the omens to which our attention 
 is directed ? I see nothing but a broad difference of opinion here, and the 
 excitement consequent upon it. 
 
 I have observed that revolutions which begin in the palace seldom go be 
 yond the palace walls, and these affect only the dynasty which reigns there. 
 This revolution, if I understand it, began here in the Senate a year ago, when 
 the Representatives from Southern States assembled here and addressed their 
 constituents on what was called the aggressions of the Northern States. No 
 revolution was designed at that time, and all that has happened since is the 
 return to Congress of legislative resolutions, which seem to me to be conven 
 tional responses to the address which emanated from the capital. 
 
 Sir, in any condition of society there can be no revolution without a cause 
 an adequate cause. What cause exists here ? We are admitting a new 
 State, but there is nothing new in that we have already admitted seventeen 
 before. But it is said that the Slave States are in danger of losing political 
 power by the admission of the new State. Well, Sir, is there anything new 
 in that ? The SUve States have always been losing political power, and they 
 always will be while they have any to lose. At first twelve of the thirteen 
 States were Slave States. Now only fifteen of the thirty are Slave States. 
 Moreover, the change is constitutionally made, and the government was con 
 structed so as to permit changes of the balance of power, in obedience to 
 changes of the forces of the body politic. DANTON used to say, " It 's all 
 well while the people cry DANTON and ROBESPIERRE, but woe for me if 
 ever the people learn to say, ROBESPIERRE and DANTON ! " That is all of 
 it, Sir. The people have been accustomed to say, the South and North 
 they are beginning now to say, the North and the South. 
 
 Sir, those who would alarm us with the terrors of revolution have not well 
 considered the structure of this government and the organization of its 
 forces. It is a Democracy of property and persons, with a fair approximation 
 toward Universal Education, and operating by means of Universal Suffrage. 
 The constituent members of this Democracy are the only persons who could 
 subvert it ; and they are not the citizens of a metropolis, like Paris, or of a 
 region subjected to the influences of a metropolis, like France, but they are 
 husbandmen dispersed over this broad land, on the mountain, and on the 
 plain, and on the prairie, from the Ocean to the Rocky Mountains, and from 
 the Great Lakes to the Gulf. And this people are now, while we are discuss 
 ing their imaginary danger, at peace and in their happy homes, and as un- 
 
21 
 
 concerned and even as uninformed of their peril as they are of events occur 
 ring in the moon. Nor have the alarmists made due allowance in their 
 calculations for the influence of conservative reaction strong in any govern 
 ment, and irresistible in a rural Republic operating by universal suffrage. 
 That principle of reaction is due to the force of the habits of acquiescence 
 and loyalty among people. No man better understood this principle than 
 MACHIAVELLI, who has told us in regard to factions that " no safe reliance 
 can be placed in the force of Nature and the bravery of words except it be 
 corroborated by custom." Do the alarmists remember that this government 
 has stood sixty years already without exacting one drop of blood that this 
 government has stood sixty years, and treason is an obsolete crime? That 
 day I trust is far off when the fountains of popular contentment shall be 
 broken up but whenever it shall come it will bring forth a higher illustration 
 than has ever yet been given of the excellence of the Democratic system. 
 For then it will be seen how calmly, how firmly, how nobly a great people 
 can act in preserving their Constitution, when " Love of Country moveth, 
 Example teacheth, Company comfbrteth, Emulation quickencth, and Glory 
 exalteth." 
 
 When the founders of the new Republic of the South come to draw over 
 the face of this empire, along or between its parallels of latitude or longitude, 
 their ominous lines of dismemberment, soon to be broadly and deeply shaded 
 with fraternal blood, they may come to the discovery then, if not before, that 
 the national and even the political connections of the region embraced for 
 bids such a partition ; that its passable divisions are not northern and southern 
 at all, but eastern and western, Atlantic and Pacific, and that nature and 
 commerce have allied indissolubly for weal and woe the seceders, and those 
 from whom they are to be separated ; that while they would rush into a civil 
 war to restore an imaginary equilibrium between the Northern States and the 
 Southern States, that a new equilibrium had taken its place, in which all those 
 States are on the one side and the boundless West was on the other. 
 
 Sir, when the founders of the new Republic of the South come to trace those 
 fearful lines, they will indicate what portions of the continent are to be broken 
 off from their connection with the Atlantic through the St. Lawrence, the 
 Hudson, the Delaware, the Potomac, and the Mississippi ; what portion of this 
 people are to be denied the use of the lakes, the railroads, and the canals, 
 now constituting common and customary avenues of travel, trade, and social 
 intercourse ; what families and kindred are to be separated, and converted 
 into enemies, and what States are to be the scenes of perpetual border war 
 fare, aggravated by interminable horrors of interminable insurrection. When 
 those portentous lines shall be drawn, they will disclose what portion of this 
 people is to retain the army and the navy, and the flag of so many victories ; 
 and, on the other hand, what portion of this people is to be subjected to new 
 and ruinous imposts, direct taxes, and forced loans and conscriptions, to main 
 tain an opposing army and opposing navy, and the new and hateful banner of 
 sedition. Then the projectors of the new Republic of the South will meet the 
 question and they may well prepare now to answer it " What is all this 
 for ? what intolerable wrong, what unfraternal injustice, has rendered these 
 calamities unavoidable ? what gain will this unnatural revolution bring to 
 us ?" The answer will be " All this is done to secure the institution of 
 African Slavery." 
 
 And then, if not before, the question will be discussed, What is this insti 
 tution of slavery, that it should cause these unparalleled sacrifices, and these 
 disastrous afflictions? And this will be the answer. When the Spaniards, 
 few in number, discovered the western Indies and the adjacent continental 
 America, they needed labor to draw forth from its virgin stores some speedy 
 return to the cupidity of the court and bankers of Madrid ; they enslaved the 
 indolent, inoffensive, and confiding natives, who perished by thousands, and 
 even by millions, under that new and unnatural bondage. A humane eccle 
 siastic advised the substitution of Africans reduced to captivity in their native 
 wars, and a pious Princess adopted the suggestion, with a dispensation from 
 
22 
 
 the Head of the Church, granted on the ground of the prescriptive right of 
 the Christian to enslave the heathen to effect his conversion. The colonists 
 of North America, innocent in their unconsciousness of wrong, encouraged 
 the slave traffic, and thus the labor of subduing their territory devolved chiefly 
 upon the African race. A happy conjunction brought on an awakening of 
 the conscience of mankind to the injustice of slavery, simultaneously with the 
 independence of the colonies. Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, 
 New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania wel 
 comed and embraced the spirit of universal emancipation ; renouncing luxury, 
 they secured influence and empire. But the States of the South, misled by a 
 new and profitable cultivation, elected to maintain and perpetuate Slavery, 
 and thus, choosing luxury, they lost power and empire. 
 
 When this answer shall be given, it will appear that the question of dis 
 solving the Union is a complex question that it embraces the fearful issue 
 whether the Union shall stand, and Slavery, under the steady, peaceful action 
 of moral, social, and political causes, be removed by gradual voluntary effort 
 and compensation, or whether the Union shall be dissolved, and civil wars en 
 sue, bringing on violent but complete and immediate emancipation. We are 
 now arrived at that stage of our national progress when that crisis can be 
 foreseen, when we must foresee it. It is directly before us. Its shadow is 
 upon us. It darkens the legislative halls, the temples of worship, and the 
 home and the hearth. Every question, political, civil, or ecclesiastical, how 
 ever foreign to the subject, Slavery brings up, Slavery is an incident, and the 
 incident supplants the principal question. We hear of nothing but Slavery, 
 and we can talk of nothing but Slavery. And now it seems to me that all our 
 difficulties, embarrassments, and dangers arise not out of unlawful perversions 
 of the question of Slavery, as some suppose, but out of the want of moral cour 
 age to meet this question of emancipation as we ought. Consequently we 
 hear on one side, demands absurd, indeed, but yet unceasing for an imme 
 diate and unconditional abolition of Slavery, as if any power except the peo 
 ple of the Slave States could abolish it, and as if they could be moved to abol 
 ish it by merely sounding the trumpet violently and proclaiming emancipa 
 tion, while the institution was interwoven with all their social and political 
 interests, constitutions, and customs. 
 
 On the other hand, our statesmen say that Slavery has always existed, and 
 for aught they know, or can do, it always must exist, God permitting it, and 
 He only can indicate the way to remove it ; as if the Supreme Creator, af 
 ter giving us the instructions of his providence and revelation for the illumi 
 nation of our minds and consciences, did not leave us in all human transac 
 tions, with due invocations of his Holy Spirit, to seek out his will, and execute 
 it for ourselves. 
 
 Here, then, is the point of my separation from both of these parties. I feel 
 assured that Slavery will give way, and must give way, to the salutary instruc 
 tions of economy, and to the ripening influences of humanity, that emanci 
 pation is inevitable, and is near, that it may be hastened or hindered, and that 
 whether it be peaceful or violent depends upon the government, whether it 
 be hastened or hindered, that all measures which justify Slavery or extend it, 
 tend to the consummation of violence, all that check its extension and abate 
 its strength, tend to its peaceful extirpation. But I will adopt now none but 
 lawful, Constitutional, and peaceful means to secure even that end ; and none 
 such can I or will I forego. 
 
 Nor do I know any important or responsible body that proposes to do more 
 than this. No Free State claims to extend its legislation into a Free State. 
 None claims that Congress shall usurp power to abolish slavery in the slave 
 States. None claims that any violent, unconstitutional, or unlawful measures 
 shall be resorted to. And on the other hand, if we offer no scheme or plan 
 for the adoption of the Slave States, with the assent or co-operation of Con 
 gress, it is only because the Slave States are unwilling as yet to receive such 
 suggestions, or even' to entertain the question of emancipation in any State. 
 
 But, Sir, I will take this occasion to say, that while I cannot agree with the 
 
23 
 
 Hon. Senator from Massachusetts in proposing to devote $80,000,000 to re 
 move the free colored population from the Slave States, and thus, as it appears 
 to me, fortify Slavery, there is no reasonable limit to which I am not willing to 
 go in applying the national treasures to effect the peaceful voluntary removal 
 of Slavery itself. 
 
 I have thus endeavored to show that there is not now, and is not likely to 
 occur, any adequate cause for revolution in regard to Slavery. But you reply 
 that, nevertheless, you must have guaranties. And the first one 'is for the 
 surrender of fugitives from labor. That guaranty you cannot have, as I 
 have already shown, because you cannot roll back the tide of social progress. 
 'You must be content with what you have. If you wage war against us, yon 
 can, at most, only conquer us, and then all you can get will be a treaty, and 
 that you have already. But you insist on a guaranty against the abolition of 
 Slavery in the District of Columbia, or war. Well, when you shall have de 
 clared war against us, what shall hinder us from immediately decreeing that 
 Slavery shall cease within the national capital ? 
 
 You say that you will not submit to the exclusion of slaves from the new 
 Territories. What will you gain by resistance ? Liberty follows the sword, 
 although her sway is one of peace and beneficence. Can you propagate Slavery, 
 then, by the sword ? 
 
 You insist that you cannot submit to the freedom with which Slavery is dis 
 cussed in the Free States. Will war a war for Slavery crush or even mod 
 erate that discussion ? No, Sir, that discussion will not cease. 
 
 War would only inflame it to a greater height. It is a part of the eternal 
 conflict between truth and error, between mind and physical force, tlie con 
 flict of man against the obstacles which oppose his way to an ultimate and glo 
 rious destiny. It will go on until you shall terminate it in the only way in 
 which any State or nation has terminated it, by yielding to it yielding in 
 your own time and in your own manner, indeed, but nevertheless yielding to 
 the progress of emancipation. 
 
 You will do this sooner or later, whatever may be your opinions now ; be 
 cause nations which were prudent and humane, and wise as you are, have 
 done so already. 
 
 Sir, the Slave States have no reason to fear that this inevitable change will 
 go too far or too fast for their safety or welfare. It cannot well go too fast or 
 too far, if the only alternative of it is a war of races. 
 
 But it cannot go too fast. Slavery has a reliable and accommodating ally 
 in a party in the Free States which, though it claims to be and doubtless is, in 
 many respects, a party of progress, finds its sole security for its political power 
 in the support and aid of Slavery in the Slave States. Of course I do not in 
 clude in that party those who are now co-operating in maintaining the cause 
 of Freedom against Slavery. I am not of this party of progress in the North 
 which lends its support to Slavery. But it is only just and candid that I should 
 be a witness to their fidelity to the interests of Slavery. Slavery has, moreover, 
 a more natural alliance with the aristocracy of the North and with the aristo 
 cracy of Europe. 
 
 So long as slavery shall possess the cotton fields, the sugar fields, and the 
 rice fields of the world, so long will commerce and capital yield its toleration 
 and sympathy. Emancipation is a democratic revolution. It is capital that 
 arrests all democratic revolutions. It was capital that in a single year rolled 
 back the tide of revolution on the base of the Carpathian Mountains, across the 
 Danube and the Rhine, into the streets of Paris. It is capital that is rapidly 
 rolling back the throne of Napoleon into the chambers of the Tuilleries. 
 
 Slavery has a guaranty still stronger than these in the prejudices of caste 
 and color, which induce even large majorities in all the Free States to regard 
 sympathy with the slave as an act of unmanly humiliation and self-abasement. 
 
 Although philosophy meekly expresses her distrust of the asserted natural 
 superiority of the white race, and confidently denies that such a superiority, 
 if justly claimed, could give a title to oppression, there remains one more 
 
24 
 
 guaranty one that has seldom failed you, and will seldom fail you hereafter. 
 New States cling in closer reliance than the older ones to the federal power. 
 The concentration of the slave power enables you for long periods to control 
 the federal government, with the aid of the new States. I do not know the 
 sentiments of the Representatives of California ; but my word for it, if they 
 should be admitted on this floor to-day against your most obstinate opposition, 
 they would, on all questions really affecting your interests, be found at your 
 side. With these allies and aids to break the force of emancipation, there 
 will be no disunion and no secession. I do not say that there may not be dis 
 turbance, though I do not apprehend even that. Absolute regularity and or 
 der in administration have not yet been established in any government, and 
 unbroken popular tranquillity has not yet been attained in even the most ad 
 vanced condition of human society. The machinery of our system is necessarily 
 complex. A pivot may fall out here a lever may be displaced there but the 
 machinery will soon recover its regularity, and move on just as before, with 
 even better adaptation and adjustment to overcome new obstructions. 
 
 There are many well-disposed persons who are' alarmed at the occurrence 
 of any such disturbance. 
 
 The failure of a legislative body to organize is, to their apprehension, a fear 
 ful omen, and an extra Constitutional assemblage to consult upon public af 
 fairs is with them cause for desperation. Even Senators speak of the Union 
 as if it existed only by consent, and, as it seems to be implied, by the assent 
 of the Legislatures of the States. On the contrary, the Union was not found 
 ed in voluntary choice, nor does it exist by voluntary consent. 
 
 A Union was proposed to the Colonies by FRANKLIN and others, in 1 754 : 
 but such was their aversion to an abridgment of their own importance re 
 spectively, that it was rejected even under the pressure of a disastrous invasion 
 by France. 
 
 A Union of choice was proposed to the Colonies in 1775 ; but so strong was 
 their opposition that they went through the War of Independence without 
 having established more than a mere Council of Confederation. 
 
 But with Independence came enlarged interests of agriculture, absolutely 
 new interests of manufactures, interests of commerce, of fisheries, of naviga 
 tion, of a common domain, common debts, of common revenues and taxation, 
 of the administration of justice, of public defence, of public honor, in short, in 
 terests of common nationality and sovereignty ; interests which at last com 
 pelled the adoption of a more perfect Union a national government. 
 
 The genius, talent, and learning of HAMILTON, of JAY, of MADISON, sur 
 passing, perhaps, the intellectual power ever excited before for the establish 
 ment of a government, combined with the serene but mighty influence of 
 WASHINGTON, were only sufficient to secure the- reluctant adoption of the 
 Constitution that is now the object of all our affections and of the hopes of 
 mankind. No wonder that the conflicts in which that Constitution was born, 
 and the almost desponding solemnity of WASHINGTON in his Farewell Ad 
 dress, impressed his countrymen and mankind with a profound distrust of its 
 perpetuity ! No wonder that while the murmurs of that day are yet ringing 
 in our ears, we have cherished that distrust with pious reverence as a nation 
 al and patriotic sentiment. 
 
 But it is time to prevent abuses of that sentiment. It is time to shake off 
 that fear, for fear is always weakness. It is time to remember that govern 
 ment, even when it arises by chance or accident, and is administered capricious 
 ly and oppressively, is ever the strongest of all human institutions, surviving 
 many social and ecclesiastical changes and convulsions, and that this govern 
 ment of ours has all the inherent strength common to governments, and ad 
 ded to them is the solidity and firmness derived from broader and deeper 
 foundations in natural justice, and from a better civil adaptation to promote 
 the welfare and happiness of mankind. 
 
 The Union, the creation of necessities physical, moral, so?,ml, and political, 
 endures by virtue of the same necessities, and thssa necessities are stronger 
 
25 
 
 than when it was produced, and by the greater amplitude of territory now 
 covered by it ; stronger by the six-fold increase of the society living under 
 its beneficent protection ; stronger by the augmentation ten thousand times 
 of the fields, the workshops, the mines, and the ships of that society, of its pro 
 ductions of the sea, of the plough, of the loom, and of the anvil, in their con 
 stant circle of internal and international exchanges ; stronger in the long 
 rivers penetrating regions before unknown; stronger in all the artificial roads, 
 canals, and other channels and avenues essential not only to trade but to 
 defence; stronger in steam navigation, in steam locomotion on the land, 
 and in telegraph communications, unknown when the Constitution was adopt 
 ed ; stronger in the freedom and in the growing empire of the seas ; stronger 
 in the element of national honor in all lands, and stronger than all in the now 
 settled habits of veneration and affection for institutions so stupendous and 
 useful. 
 
 The Union, then, IS, not merely because that men choose that it shall be, 
 but because some government must exist here, and no other government than 
 this can. If it should be dashed to atoms by the whirlwind, the lightning, or 
 the earthquake to-day, it would rise again in all its just and magnificent pro 
 portions to-morrow. 
 
 I have heard somewhat here, and almost for the first time in my life, of 
 divided allegiance of allegiance to the South and to the Union of allegiance 
 to States severally, and to the Union. Sir, if sympathies with State emulation 
 and pride of achievement could be allowed to raise up another sovereign to 
 divide the allegiance of a citizen of the United States, I might recognize the 
 claims of the State to which by birth and gratitude I belong to the State of 
 Hamilton and Jay, of Schuyler, of the Clintons and of Fulton the State which, 
 with less than 200 miles of natural navigation connected with the ocean, has, 
 by her own enterprise, secured to herself the commerce of the continent, and 
 is steadily advancing to the command of the commerce of the world. But for 
 all this, I know only one country and one sovereign the United States of 
 America and the American People. 
 
 And such as my allegiance is, is the loyalty of every other citizen of the 
 United States. 
 
 As I speak he will speak when his time arrives ; he knows no other country 
 and no other sovereign ; he has life, liberty, property, and precious affections, 
 and hopes for himself and for his posterity, treasured up in the ark of the Union ; 
 he knows as well and feels as strongly as I do, that this government is his own 
 government ; that he is a part of it ; that it was established for him, and that 
 it is maintained by him ; that it is the only truly wise, just, free, and equal 
 government that has ever existed ; that no other government could be so wise, 
 just, free, and equal ; that it is safer and more beneficent than any which time 
 or change could bring into its place. 
 
 You may tell me, Sir, that although all this may be true, yet, that the 
 trial of faction has not yet been made. Sir, if the trial of faction has not 
 been made, it has not been because that faction has not always existed, and 
 has not always menaced a trial, but because faction could find no fulcrum on 
 which to place the lever to subvert the Union, as it can find no fulcrum now, 
 and in this is my confidence. I would not rashly provoke this trial, but I will 
 not suffer a fear which I have not to make me compromise one sentiment, 
 one principle of truth or justice, to avert a danger that all experience teaches 
 me is purely chimerical. Let those, then, who distrust the Union make com 
 promises to save it. I shall not impeach their wisdom, as I certainly cannot 
 their patriotism ; but indulging no such apprehensions myself, I shall vote for 
 the admission of California, directly, without conditions, without qualification, 
 and without compromise. For the vindication of that vote I look: not to the 
 verdict of the passing hour, disturbed as the public mind now is by conflicting 
 interests and passions, but to that period, happily not far distant, when the 
 vast regions over which we are now legislating shall have received their des 
 tined inhabitants. 
 
26 
 
 While looking forward to that day, its countless generations seem to me to 
 be rising up and passing in dim and shadowy review before us. And the 
 voice comes forth from their reviewed ranks, saying, " Waste your treasures, 
 and your armies, if you \vill, raze your fortifications to the ground, sink your 
 navies into the sea, transmit to us even a dishonored name, if you must ; but 
 the soil that you hold in trust for us, give it to us free ; you found it free, and 
 conquered it to extend a better and surer freedom over it. Whatever choice 
 you have made for yourselves, let us have no partial freedom, let us all be 
 free, let the reversion of our broad domain descend to us uniucumbered and 
 free from the calamities and the sorrows of human bondage." 
 
POPULAB, WORKS OF FICTION 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 REDDING & CO., 8 State Street, Boston. 
 
 7HB OAXTONS i A FAMILY PICTURE. By Sir 
 
 E. BULWER LYTTON 37$ 
 
 IOLAND OASHEL. By CHARLES LEVER. 
 
 With Illustrations 60 
 
 'ELHAM; OR, TUB ADVENTURES OF A GENTLE 
 MAN. By Sir E. BULWER LYTTON . . 25 
 RAPHAEL i on, PAGES FROM THE BOOK OF LIFE 
 
 AT TWENTY. By A. DE LAMART1NE . 
 'HE DISOWNED. By E. BULWER LYTTON 25 
 'HE MIDNIGHT SUN: A PILGRIMAGE. By 
 
 Mii BREMER. Translated by MARY HOWITT 
 HREE SISTERS AND THREE FOR- 
 
 TUNES i OR, ROSB, BLANCHE, AND VIOLET. 
 
 By G. H. LEWES, Esq 85 
 
 IEVEREUX. By Sir E. BUL^VER LYTTON . 25 
 'HE DISCIPLINE OF LIF.k> j OH, ISABEL DEN- 
 
 ISON, A COUKTBY NEIGHBORHOOD, AND TUB 
 
 MOAT 25 
 
 'HE BANKER'S WIFE. By Mrs. GORE . 12J 
 HIRTY YEARS SINCE 5 OH, THE RUINED 
 
 FAMILY. By G. P. R. JAMES, Esq. . . .25 
 AUL CLIFFORD. By E. BULWER LYTTON 25 
 IARY BARTON: A TALK OF MANCHESTER 
 
 LIFE 25 
 
 'HE LITTLE SAVAGE. By Capt. MARRY AT 
 'HE HISTORY OF PENDENNIS, HIS FOR 
 TUNES AND MISFORTUNES, HIS FRIENDS AND HIS 
 
 URKATEST ENEMY. By W. M. THACKERAY. 
 
 With Illustrations 
 
 'HE PRESIDENT'S DAUGHTERS. LIFE IN 
 
 SWEUBN. By Miss BREMER. Translated by 
 
 MARY HOWITT 12 
 
 IUGENE ARAM. By Sir E. BULWER LYTTON 25 
 HE GREAT HOGGARTY DIAMOND. By 
 
 W. M. THACKERAY 25 
 
 UNA. LIFE IN SWEDEN. By Miss BREMER. 
 
 Translated by MARY HOWITT . . . . KJ 
 'HE IMAGE OF HIS FATHER : A TALE OF 
 
 A YOUNG MONKEY. By the Brothers MAYHEW 50 
 'HE FORGERY: A TALE. By G. P. R. JAMES 25 
 'HE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. By Sir E. 
 
 BULWER LYTTON 25 
 
 T. PATRICK'S EVE. By CHARLES LEVER 06$ 
 'HE NEIGHBORS: A TALE OF EVERY-DAY 
 
 LIKK. By Miss BREMER 12 
 
 1DWARD VERNON MY COUSIN'S STORY. By 
 
 E. V. CHILttE 50 
 
 'HE CZARINA A HISTORICAL ROMANCE OF 
 
 THB COURT OF RUSSIA. By Mrs. HOFLAND 25 
 'HE FALSE HEIR. By G. P. R. JAMES, Esq. 12* 
 ,'HE BACHELOR OF THE ALBANY. By 
 
 the Author of the " Falcon Family" . . . 37 
 L WHIM, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. By G. P. R. 
 
 JAMES, Esq 25 
 
 IIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES. By Sir E. 
 
 BULWER LYTTON 25 
 
 COWRIE ; OR, THE KINO'S PLOT. By G. P. R. 
 
 JAMES, Esq 25 
 
 lELF-DEVOTION j OR, THE HISTORY OF KATH- 
 
 KKINE RANDOLPH. By Miss CAMPBELL . . 25 
 ,IFE AND ADVENTURES OF JACK OF 
 
 THE MILL, COMMONLY CALLKD LORD OTH- 
 
 MILL J CREATED, FOR HIS EMINENT SERVICES, * ' 
 ''* BARON WALDKCK, AND KNIGHT OF KITCOTTIB: 
 
 FIRESIDE STORY. By W HOWITT . . 1*} 
 
 HAROLD, THE LAST OF THE SAXON KINGS. By 
 Sir E. BULWER LYTTON .... 60 
 
 BROTHERS AND SISTERS : A TALB OF Do- 
 MESTIC LIFE. By Miss BREMER. Translated 
 from the Original Unpublished Manuscript, by 
 MARY HOWITT 2f 
 
 THE NABOB AT HOME; OR, THB RETURN 
 FROM INDIA 35 
 
 THE LOST SHIP; OR, THE ATLANTIC STEAM 
 ER. By Captain NEALE 25 
 
 THE HAUNTED MAN AND THB GHOST'S 
 BARGAIN : A FANCY FOB CHRISTMAS- TIMS. By 
 CHARLES DICKENS 06$ 
 
 HOME INFLUENCE : A TALB FOR MOTHERS 
 AND DAUGHTERS. By GRACE AGUILAR . T 
 
 ERNEST MALTRAVERS. By Sir K BUL 
 WER LYTTON 95 
 
 ALICE ; OR, THE MYSTERIES : A SEQUEL TO " ERN 
 EST MALTRAVERS." ByE. BULWER LYTTON 25 
 
 SELF-CONTROL. By MARY BRUNTON . . 25 
 
 THE HOME ; OR, FAMILY CARES AND FAMILY 
 JOYS. By Miss BREMER 131 
 
 SIR THEODORE BROUGHTON, OB.LAUBBL 
 WATER. By G. P. R. JAMES, Esq. . . .86 
 
 VANITY FAIR: A NOYEL WITHOUT A HBRO; 
 
 BEING PEN AND PENCIL SKETCHES OF ENGLISH 
 
 SOCIETY. By W. M. THACKERAY . . 91 00 
 
 THE LAST OF THE FAIRIES: A CHRIST 
 MAS TALE. By G. P. R. JAMES, Esq. . . 124 
 
 THE PEASANT AND HIS LANDLORD. By 
 the Baroness KNORRING. Translated by MARY 
 HOWITT 50 
 
 THE LAST OF THE BARONS. By Sir E. 
 BULWER LYTTON 25 
 
 JANE EYRE, AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. Edited by 
 CURRER BELL .... . 25 
 
 MIDSUMMER EVE: A FAIRY TALE OF. LOVE. 
 By Mrs. S. C. HALL 25 
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. By Sir 
 
 E. BULWER LYTTON 124 
 
 THE TENANT OF WILDFELL HALL. By 
 
 ACTON BELL 50 
 
 FOREST DAYS : A ROMANCE OF OLD TIMES. By 
 
 G. P. R. JAMES, Esq 124 
 
 WUTHERING HEIGHTS. By ELLIS BELL . 50 
 ADAM BROWN, THE MERCHANT. By HORACE 
 
 SMITH 124 
 
 ANGELA. By Mrs. MARSH 75 
 
 THE CHILDREN OF THE NEW FOREST. 
 
 By Captain MAKRYAT ... . 37J 
 
 MARY GROVER; OR, THE TRUSTING WIFE A 
 
 DOMESTIC TEMPERANCE TALE. By CHARLES 
 
 BURDETT . . 30 
 
 THE BIRTHRIGHT. By Mrs. GORE . . 12* 
 NEW SKETCHES OF EVERY-DAY LIFE : 
 
 A DIARY ; also, STRIFE AND PEACE. By MJM 
 
 BREMER. Translated by MARY HOWITT . 12$ 
 ARABELLA STUART : A ROMANCE OF ENGLISH 
 
 HISTORY. By G. P. R. JAMES, Esq. . . .12$ 
 THE UNLOVED ONE : A DSMESTIC STORY. By 
 
 Mrs. HOFLAND 1*J 
 
 ARTHUR. By EUGENE SUE. Translated by P 
 
 F. CHRISTIN, Esq ** 
 
 NOW AND THEN. By SAMUEI WAJWEN fO 
 MARGARET GRAHAM. By ft I >