University of California Berkeley 
 
HORACE MANN'S LETTERS 
 
 ON 
 
 THE EXTENSION OF SLAVERY 
 
 INTO 
 
 CALIFORNIA AID FEW MEXICO; 
 
 AND ON 
 
 THE DUTY OF CONGRESS TO PROVIDE THE TRIAL BY JURY FOR ALLEGED 
 
 FUGITIVE SLAVES. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 WEST NEWTON, May 3, 1850. 
 
 To the Hon. James Richardson, I. Cleveland, and 
 
 John Gardner, of Dedham ; Hon. D. A. Simmons, 
 
 John J. Clarke, Francis Hilliard, and George R. 
 
 Russell, of Rozlury, fyc, 8,-c. 
 
 GENTLEMEN: Having been called home on ac 
 count of sickness in my family, I have just receiv 
 ed, at this place, your kind invitation to meet and 
 address my constituents of the 8th Congressional 
 District, and to give them my " views and opinions 
 upon the question of the immediate admission of Cali 
 fornia, and other questions now before Congress aris 
 ing out of the acquisition of territory by the treaty 
 with Mexico." 
 
 A request from so high a source has almost the 
 force of a command. Yet I dare not promise to 
 comply. I am liable at any moment to be recalled, 
 and, instead of speaking here, to vote there, upon 
 the question to which you refer. I might be 
 summoned to return on the day appointed for us 
 to meet. The only alternative, therefore, which 
 is left me. is to address you by letter. This I will 
 do, if I can -find time. I shall thus comply with 
 your request, in substance, if not in form. 
 
 On many accounts, I have the extremest reluc 
 tance to appear before the public on the present 
 occasion. "My views, on some vital questions, 
 differ most materially from those of gentlemen for 
 whom I have felt the profoundest respect; and 
 for some of whom I cherish the strongest personal 
 attachment. Bui I feel, on the other hand, that 
 my constituents, having intrusted to me some of 
 their most precious interests, are entitled to know 
 my '-views and opinions" respecting the hopes 
 and the dangers that encompass them. I shall 
 not, therefore, take the responsibility of declining. 
 
 I will premise farther, that my relations to 
 political parties, for many years past, have left me 
 as free from all partisan bias " as the lot of human 
 ity will admit." For twelve years I held an office 
 whose duties required me to abstain from all ac 
 tive cooperation in political conflicts ; and that 
 
 Bfuell & BLaiichard, Printers. 
 
 WITH JNOT.ES. 
 
 duty was so religiously fulfilled, that, to my 
 knowledge, I was never charged with its violation. 
 During the Presidential contest of 1848, those ob 
 ligations of neutrality still rested upon me. For 
 a year afterwards, I was not called upon to do any 
 official act displeasing to any party amongst us. 
 This interval I employed in forming the best 
 opinion I could of public men and measures, and 
 their influence upon the moral and industrial in 
 terests of the country. I had long entertained 
 most decided convictions in favor of protecting 
 American labor, in favor of cheap postage, and of 
 security to the lives and property of our fellow- 
 citizens engaged in commerce. But a new ques 
 tion had arisen, the great question of freedom or 
 slavery in our recently acquired territories, and 
 this question I deemed, for the time being, to be, 
 though not exclusive of others, yet paramount to 
 them. Or rather, I saw that nothing could be so 
 favorable to all the last-named interests, as the 
 proper adjustment of the first. He who would 
 provide for the welfare of mankind must first 
 provide for their liberty. 
 
 Sympathizing, then, on different points with dif 
 ferent parties, but exclusively bound to none, I 
 stood, in reference to the great question of terri 
 torial freedom or slavery, in the position of the 
 true mother in the' litigation before Solomon, pre 
 ferring that the object of my love should be spared 
 in the hands of any one, rather than perish in my 
 own. 
 
 Our present difficulties, which, as you well 
 know, have arrested the gaze of the nation, and 
 almost suspended the legislative functions of Con 
 gress, pertain to the destiny of freedom or of sla 
 very, to which our new territories are to be con 
 signed. After the acquisition of Louisiana, and 
 Florida, and Texas, for the aggrandizement and 
 security of the slave power ; after the aboriginal 
 occupants of the soil of the Southern States have 
 been slaughtered, or driven from their homes, at an 
 expense of not less than a hundred millions of dol 
 lars, and at the infinite expense of our national 
 reputation for justice and humanity; and after 
 the area of the slave States has been made 
 
almost double that of the free States, while the 
 population of the free is about double that of the 
 slave ; the reasons seem so strong that they can 
 hardly be made stronger, why the career of our 
 Government as a slavery-extending power, should 
 be arrested. On the other hand, the oligarchy 
 who rule the South, seeing that, notwithstanding 
 their rich and almost illimitable domain, they are 
 rapidly falling behind the North in all the dis 
 tinctive elements of civilization and well-being, 
 industry, temperance, education, wealth, not 
 only defend the Upas that blasts their soil, as 
 though it were the Tree of Life, but seek to 
 transplant it to other lands. With but about 
 three slaves to a square mile, three millions of 
 slaves to nearly a million of square miles, they 
 say they are too crowded, that they feel a sen.se of 
 suffocation, and must have more room, when all 
 their weakness and pain proceed, not from the 
 limited quantity, but from the malignant quality of 
 the atmosphere they breathe. Hence the war with 
 Mexico, commenced and prosecuted to add slave 
 territory and slave States to the Southern section. 
 Hence the refusal to accept propositions of peace, 
 unless territory south of latitude 36 deg. 30 min. 
 (the Missouri Compromise line, so called.) should 
 be ceded to us. Hence when the Mexican nego 
 tiators proposed to insert a prohibition of slavery 
 in the treaty of cession, and declared that the 
 Inquisition would not be more odious to the 
 American people than the reinstitution of slavery 
 to them, our minister, Mr. Trist, told them he 
 would not consent to such a prohibition, though 
 they would cover the soil a foot deep with gold. 
 And hence, also, the determination of a portion of 
 the Southern members of Congress, to stop the 
 whole machinery of the Government, to sacrifice 
 all the great interests of the country, and assail 
 even the Union itself, unless slavery shall be per 
 mitted to cross the Rio Grande, and enter the 
 vast regions of the West, as it heretofore crossed 
 the Mississippi and the Sabine. 
 
 Even in 1846, when the war against Mexico 
 was declared, all men of sagacity foresaw the pres 
 ent conflict. Could that question have been 
 decided on its merits ; or could the institutions to 
 be planted upon the territory we might acquire, 
 be determined by the unbiased suffrages of the 
 American people, no war would have been declar 
 ed, and no territory acquired. But the great 
 political leaders of the South expected to make 
 up both for their numerical weakness and for 
 the injustice of their cause, by connecting the 
 question of slavery-extension with that of future 
 Presidential elections, and with the strife of par 
 ties. They promised themselves that they could 
 draw over leading Northern men to their support, 
 by offering them the Tantalus cup of Presidential 
 honors ; and then by the force of party cohesion 
 and discipline insure the support of the whole 
 descending-scale of office expectants. Early in 
 the present session of Congress, it was distinctly 
 declared from a high Southern source, that the 
 South must do most for those Northern men who 
 would do most for them. A few words will make it 
 apparent how faithfully this plan has been adhered 
 to, and how successful it may become. 
 
 No Northern Democrat, opposed to slavery 
 
 extension, could expect the support of the 
 Southern Democracy. Hence, Gen. Cass stept 
 promptly forward, and declared in his Nicholson 
 letter, that Congress had no power to exclude 
 slavery from the territories. This has been 
 technically called his " bid," or his first bid." It 
 was deemed satisfactory by the South ; for, ac 
 cording to their philosophy, the relation of master 
 and slave is the natural or normal relation of man 
 kind ; and therefore, where no prohibition of it 
 exists, slavery flows into free territory, as water 
 runs down hill. This avowal of Gen. Cass was 
 rendered more signal and valuable to the South, 
 because, for the greater part of his political life, 
 he had taken oaths, held offices and administered 
 laws, in undeniable contradiction to the declara 
 tion then made. The Ordinance of 1787 was 
 expressly recognised by the First Congress, held 
 under the Constitution, [See ch. 8 ] It was mod 
 ified in part, and confirmed as to the rest ; and in 
 holding offices under this, Gen. Cass had laid the 
 foundation of his honors and his fortune. His 
 declaration, therefore, against all interdiction of 
 slavery, made under circumstances so extraor 
 dinary and in contradiction of the whole tenor of 
 his past life, was hailed with acclamation by the 
 South, and he was unanimously declared, at Bal 
 timore, to be the accepted candidate of the 
 Democracy, for the office of President. The com 
 mon notion is that a man shows his love for a 
 cause by the amount of sacrifice he will make for 
 it ; and as consistency, honor and truth, are the most 
 precious elements in character, who could sacri 
 fice more than he ! 
 
 To the honor of the Whig party be it said, 
 there was not a Northern man to be found, who, 
 to gain the support of the South, would espouse 
 its pro-slavery doctrines, or invent any new read 
 ing of the Constitution to give them a semblance 
 of law. Hence, at the Philadelphia Convention 
 no Northern Whig received even so much as a 
 complimentary vote. The judicial eminence o 
 Judge McLean, the military eminence of Gen 
 Scott, were passed contemptuously by ; and Mr 
 Webster, acknowledged to be the grea'est states 
 man of the age, received but fourteen votes, out o 
 almost three hundred : and twelve of these were 
 from Massachusetts. 'Mr. Webster had spoken 
 more eloquent words for Liberty than any other 
 living man, and this distinguished neglect was 
 doubtless intended to teach him the lesson 
 that the path to Presidential honors did not lie 
 through an advocacy of the rights of man. Gen, 
 Taylor was nominated and chosen. He was un 
 derstood to take neutral ground. Discountenanc 
 ing the veto power, yet, if the House of Repre 
 sentatives, who are chosen directly from and by 
 the people, and the Senate who are chosen by 
 the States, will pass a territorial bill, either with 
 or without a prohibition of slavery, he will ap 
 prove it. This is the common opinion, and I have 
 no doubt of its correctness. 
 
 Under these circumstances, a most desperate 
 effort was made at the close of the last Congress 
 to provide a Government for the territories, with 
 no prohibition of slavery. Had Gen. Cass beer 
 elected, no such effort would have beep necessary. 
 for he was pledged to veto a prohibition. Gen 
 
FT UPRAR 
 
 MP7 
 
 Taylor was supposed to be pledged to an opposite 
 course ; and hence the struggle. The facts must 
 be so fresh in the recollection of all that they 
 hardly need to be recounted. The House per 
 formed its duty to the country and to freedom, 
 by sending territorial bills to the Senate, contain 
 ing the prohibitory clause. The Senate, equalling 
 the Northern by its Southern votes, and far out 
 numbering the Whigs by its Democrats, left those 
 bills to sleep the sleep of death upon its table. 
 But during the closing hours of the session, it 
 foisted a provision for the Government of the ter 
 ritories, into the general appropriation bill; and 
 held out the menace that this bill should not 
 pass at all, unless the territorial clause should 
 pass with it. The flagitiousness of this proceed 
 ing, it is difficult to comprehend and impossible 
 to describe The appropriation bill is one on which 
 the working, and even the continuance of the 
 Government depend. Without it. the machinery 
 of the State must cease to move. Contracts by 
 the Government to pay money must be violated. 
 Officers cannot obtain their salaries. Families 
 must be left without subsistence. If long con 
 tinued, all judges would resign and courts be 
 broken up; and when justice should cease to be 
 administered, violence, robbery, and every form 
 of crime would run riot through the land. 
 
 Besides, an appropriation bill and a bill for the 
 government of Territories, have no congruity 
 with each other ; they are not relevant ; neither 
 is germane to the other. Every one knows it to 
 be a common parliamentary rule that when a 
 proposition is submitted which is susceptible of 
 division, any one member has a right to demand 
 it. All bills, too, for raising revenue, must, by 
 the Constitution, originate in the House ; and the 
 House has as much right to interfere to prevent 
 the Senate from ratifying a treaty, as the Senate 
 has to obstruct the passage of a revenue bill, by 
 adding to it extraneous provisions. It was this 
 effort on the part of the Senate to incorporate 
 into the appropriation bill a provision most un 
 righteous in itself and most odious to the free 
 sentiments of the North, which led to the pro 
 tracted session on the night of the 3d of March, 
 1849. The course of the pro-slavery leaders, on that 
 occasion, resembled that of a madman who should 
 seiz? a torch, and stand over the magazine of a 
 ship, and proclaim that he would send men and 
 vessel to destruction, unless they would steer for 
 his port. A portion of the House confederated 
 with the majority of the Senate in this unprin 
 cipled machination ; but the larger number stood 
 undaunted, and after perils such as so precious 
 an interest never before encountered, the pro- 
 slavery amendment was stricken out, and its 
 champions were foiled. Through that memorable 
 night, the friends of freedom wrestled like Jacob 
 with the angel of God, and though the session did 
 not close until the sun of a Sabbath morning 
 shone full into the windows of the Capitol, yet a 
 holier work never was done on that holy day. 
 
 It was with a joy such as no words can ever ex 
 press, that I saw the Territories rescued from the 
 clutch of slavery by the expiration of the Thir 
 tieth Congress. I felt confident that when the 
 Thirty-first Congress should assemble, it would 
 
 be under better auspices, and with a stronger 
 phalanx on the side of freedom. In regard to 
 California, those hopes have been fulfilled ; but I 
 proceed to state how they have been nearly ex 
 tinguished in regard to the residue of the territory. 
 
 Our first disaster was the election of a most 
 adroit, talented and zealous pro-slavery Speaker. 
 A better organ for the accomplishment of their 
 purposes the friends of Slavery could not have 
 found, nor the friends of Freedom a more formi 
 dable opponent. Whilst the pro-slavery cham 
 pions of the South, almost without distinction of 
 party, exulted over this triumph, it has been the 
 occasion of most lamentable criminations and re 
 criminations at the North. Southern men aban 
 don all distinctions of Whig or Democrat for the 
 cause of Slavery ; would to God we could do as 
 much for the cause of Freedom. 
 
 The choice of a pro-slavery Speaker was imme 
 diately followed by the appointment of most ultra 
 pro-slavery committees. Some Free Soil mem 
 bers, it is true, were placed upon these commit 
 tees ; but in this the Speaker only carried out 
 more fully his own purposes and those of his 
 party, by putting what they considered as insane 
 men into close custody, instead of letting thein 
 run at large. He showed, however, either a want 
 of courage in himself, or of confidence in his 
 chosen guards ; for, on the District of Columbia 
 Committie he detailed a file of five, on the Judi 
 ciary Committee a file of four, and on the Terri 
 torial Committee a file of six strong pro-slavery 
 men for the safe keeping of one Free-Soiler. 
 
 Within an hour after the House was organized, 
 Mr. Root of Ohio submitted a resolution, instruct 
 ing the Committee on Territories to report Ter 
 ritorial bills, prohibiting slavery. Many true 
 friends to freedom believed this movement to be 
 ill-timed and unfortunate ; and though the House 
 then refused, by a handsome vote, to lay the reso 
 lution on the table, yet when it came up for con 
 sideration again, the first decision was reversed 
 by about the same majority. There is abundant 
 proof that the latter vote did not express the true 
 sentiment of the House. Not a few voted against 
 the resolution avowedly because of its paternity, 
 thus spiting a noble son on account of its obnox 
 ious father. Others repented of their votes as 
 soon as they came to reflect that the record would 
 go where their explanation could not accompany 
 it. 
 
 But unfortunately, it was too late. There 
 stands the record, to survive through all time, and 
 to be read of all men. The champions of slavery 
 seized upon this vote as a propitious omen. They 
 derided and scouted the Proviso with a fierceness 
 unknown before. They shouted their threats of 
 disunion with a more defiant tone, should any at 
 tempt at what they called its resurrection, be 
 made. A speech was delivered, in which a mas 
 sacre of a majority of the House was distinctly 
 shadowed forth, so that not " a quorum should be 
 left to do business." The effect of that vote was 
 almost as bad as though it meant what it said. 
 
 At a later day, when a bill for the admission of 
 California was presented, the tactics of delay 
 were resorted to, and midnight found us calling the 
 yeas and nays, for more than the thirtieth time } 
 
on questions whose frivolousness and vexatious- 
 ness cannot be indicated by numbers. 
 
 The proceedings in the Senate, however, are 
 those which now threaten the most disastrous 
 consequences. Early in the session, in order to 
 bring his Northern friends up to the doctrine 
 that it is unconstitutional to legislate upon sla 
 very in the Territories, General Cass made a 
 speech, in which he denies that Congress has any 
 power, under any circumstances, to pass any law 
 respecting their inhabitants. According to that 
 speech, the United States stands in the relation 
 of a foreign Government to the people of its own 
 Territories ; and if they set up a king or estab 
 lish a religion, we cannot help it ; for we have no 
 more power or right to control them, than we have 
 the subjects of Great Britain, or the citizens of 
 France. It has been said that the doctrine of 
 General Cass and that of General Taylor, on this 
 subject, are identical ; but there is this all-impor 
 tant difference between them : General Taylor 
 maintains the right of Congress to legislate for 
 the Territories, and will doubtless approve any 
 bill for the prohibition of slavery in them ; but 
 General Cass, denying this right in Congress, 
 would, if President, veto such a bill. He, there 
 fore, would leave the Territories open to be in 
 vaded and possessed by slavery ; and in Southern 
 law and practice, possession is more than nine 
 points. 
 
 Next came Mr. Clay's Compromise resolutions, 
 so called. By these, California was to be admit 
 ted as a State ; the Territories organized without 
 any restriction upon slavery ; the Southwestern 
 boundary of Texas to be extended to the Rio 
 Grande ; a part of her twelve or fifteen million 
 debt to be paid by the United States, on condition 
 of her abandoning her claim to a part of New 
 Mexico lying east of the Rio Grande; the 
 abolition of the slave trade in the District of Co 
 lumbia, and the inviolability of slavery in the 
 District during the good pleasure of Maryland 
 and of the inhabitants of the District ; more ef 
 fectual provision for the restitution of fugitive 
 slaves, and free traffic in slaves forever between 
 the States, unless forbidden by themselves. 
 
 A compromise is a settlement of difficulties by 
 mutual concessions. Let us examine the mutual 
 ity of the concessions which Mr. Clay's resolu 
 tions propose. 
 
 In the first place, California is to be permitted 
 to remain free, if the Territories of New Mexico 
 and Utah may be opened to slavery. But Cali 
 fornia is free already ; free by her own act ; free 
 without any concession of theirs, and without 
 any grace but the grace of God. It is mainly oc 
 cupied by a Northern population, who do their 
 own work, with their own hands, or their own 
 brains. Fifty hardy gold diggers from the North 
 will never stand all day knee-deep in water, shovel 
 earth, rock washers, &c., under a broiling sun. 
 and see a man with his fifty slaves standing under 
 the shade of a tree, or having an umbrella held 
 over his head, with whip in hand, and without 
 wetting his dainty glove, or soiling his japanned 
 boot, pocket as much at night as the whole of 
 them together. Or rather, they will never suffer 
 institutions to exist which tolerate such unright 
 
 eousness. California, therefore, is free ; as free 
 as Massachusetts ; and Mr. Clay might as well 
 have said in terms, that whereas Massachusetts 
 is free, therefore New Mexico and Utah shall 
 be slave, or run the hazard of being so. 
 
 The next point of Mr. Clay's compromise is, that 
 Texas shall extend her southwestern boundary 
 from or near the Nueces to the Rio Grande, and 
 shall receive, probably, some six or eight millions 
 of dollars for withdrawing her claim to that part 
 of New Mexico which lies east of the last-named 
 river- Now, Texas has no rightful or plausible 
 claim to a foot of all this territory. But suppose 
 it to be a subject of doubt, and therefore of com 
 promise. The mutuality, then, consists in divid 
 ing the whole territory claimed by Texas, and 
 then giving her a valid title to one portion of it, 
 and paying her for all the rest. Texas, or, what 
 in this connection is the same thing, slavery, 
 surrenders absolutely nothing, gets a good title 
 to some seventy thousand sqnare miles of terri 
 tory, and pay for as much more ! 
 
 But what renders it almost incredible that any 
 man could soberly submit such a proposition and 
 dare to call it a compromise, is this : All that part 
 of New Mexico which Texas cl-dms, and which 
 lies between the parallels of 36 30' and 42, is, 
 by the Resolutions of Annexation, to be forever 
 free. I shall consider the constitutionality of 
 these resolutions by and by ; I now treat them as 
 valid. Now the compromise proposes to bay this 
 territory, so secured to freedom, and annex it to 
 New Mexico, which is to be left open to slavery. 
 We are to peril all the broad region between 
 36 30' and 42, and pay Texas some six or eight 
 millions of dollars for the privilege of doing so ! 
 Mr. Clay is not less eminent for his statesmanship 
 than for his waggery. Were he to succeed in 
 playing off this practical joke upon the North, 
 and were it not for the horrible consequences 
 which it would involve, a roar of laughter, like a 
 feu dejoie, would run down the course of the ages. 
 As it is, the laughter will be " Elsewhere." 
 
 The next point pertains to the abolition of 
 the slave trade, and the perpetuity of slavery in 
 the District of Columbia. This District has an 
 area of about fifty square miles; and Mr. Clay 
 proposes, in consideration of transferring its slave 
 marts to Alexandria, on the Virginia side, or to 
 some convenient place in Montgomery or Prince 
 George's county, on the Maryland side, to divest 
 Congress forever of its right of " exclusive legis 
 lation" over it. Should this plan prevail, the 
 perpetuity of slavery in the District will be de 
 fended by more unassailable and impregnable 
 barriers than any other institution in Christen 
 dom. The President has a veto upon Congress; 
 but two-thirds of both houees may still pass any 
 law, notwithstanding his dissent. Mr. Clay pro 
 poses to give, both to Maryland and to the citi 
 zens of the District, a veto on this subject ; an 
 absolute veto, not a qualified one, like that of the 
 President of the United States, but one that will 
 control, not majorities merely, but an absolute 
 unanimity in both branches of Congress. By his 
 plan, therefore, three separate, independent pow 
 ers are to have a veto upon the abolition of sla 
 very in the District of Columbia. And not only 
 
io, but while it will require their joint or concur- 
 ent action to abolish the institution, any one of 
 hem can preserve it. The laws of the Medes 
 ind Persians had no such guaranties for perpetu- 
 ty as this. 
 
 Mr. Clay's last point is really too facetious. So 
 solemn a subject does not permit suchlong-contin- 
 led levity, however it may be masked by sobriety 
 
 countenance. It is that Congress shall make 
 mere effectual provision for the capture and de 
 livery of fugitive slaves ; and, as an equivalent 
 for this, it shall bind itself never to interfere 
 with the inter-State traffic in slaves. We are 
 to catch their slaves, and, as though that were a 
 grateful privilege to us, we are to allow them free 
 ommerce in slaves, coastwise or inland. By this 
 means, slaves can be transported to the mouth of 
 the Rio Grande, and some hundreds of miles up 
 ihat river, towards New Mexico, instead of being 
 driven in coffles across the country. The com 
 promise is, that for every slave we catch, we are 
 to facilitate the passage of a hundred into New 
 Mexico. 
 
 Such is the mutuality of Mr. Clay's compro 
 mises. They are such compromises as the wolf 
 offers to the lamb, or the vulture to the dove. 
 They make the rightful admission of California 
 into the Union, with her free Constitution, con 
 tingent upon opening the new Territories to sla 
 very ; they ratify one part of the predatory 
 claim of Texas, and propose to give her millions 
 for the other part ; they give an unconditional 
 veto to the State of Maryland and to the citizens 
 of the District of Columbia, over a unanimous 
 vote of both Houses of Congress, even when ap 
 proved by the President ; in connection with 
 Mr. Butler's bill and Mr. Mason's amendments, 
 they expose our white citizens to grievous penal 
 ties and imprisonments for not doing what the 
 Supreme Court of the United States has decided 
 we are not bound to do, in relation to fugitive 
 slaves, and they offer our colored citizens to be 
 kidnapped and spirited away into bondage ; and 
 they foreclose, in favor of the South, the disputed 
 question of the inter-State commerce in slaves. 
 In one particular only do they appear to concede 
 anything to Northern rights, or Northern convic 
 tions, or Northern feelings. They propose to 
 transfer the District of Columbia slave trade 
 across an ideal line into Virginia or into Mary 
 land, so that the slave planter or slave trader, 
 when he comes to our American Congo to replen 
 ish his stock of human cattle, shall be obliged to 
 go a mile or two, to the slave marts, instead of 
 walking down Pennsylvania avenue. I deem this 
 to be no concession. If it is honorable to produce 
 corn and cotton, it is honorable to buy and 
 sell them, and if it is honorable to hold beings 
 created in God's image in slavery, it is honora 
 ble to stand between the producer and consumer, 
 and to make merchandise of the bodies and the 
 Isouls of men. Let this Light of the Age be set 
 upon a hill that all nations may behold it. 
 
 I will refer to Mr. Bell's resolutions no further 
 than to say that they propose the formation of 
 three slave States out of what is now claimed by 
 Texas, one of which is to be admitted into the 
 Union forthwith as an offset to California. 
 
 Mr. Buchanan has not regarded the movemenis 
 of his rival, General Case, with indifference. He 
 has spent a 9onsiderable portion of the winter in 
 Washington, and it is understood that he holds 
 out the Missouri Compromise line, from the 
 western boundary of Missouri to the Pacific 
 ocean, as his lure to the South, for their favora 
 ble regards in the ensuing Presidential contest. 
 
 In a chronological order, I must now consider 
 some vitally important views, which have been 
 submitted by some members in the House, and by 
 Mr. Webster and others in the Senate. In men 
 tioning the name of this great statesman, and 
 in avowing that I am one among the many whom 
 his recently expressed opinions have failed to 
 convince, it is due to myself, however indifferent 
 it may be to him or to his friends, that I should 
 express my admiration of his powers, my grati 
 tude for his past services, and the diffidence with 
 which I dissented, at first, from his views. But I 
 have pondered upon them long, and the longer I 
 have pondered, the more questionable they appear. 
 I shall therefore venture upon the perilous task of 
 inquiring into their correctness ; and while I do 
 it with the deference and respect which belong to 
 his character, I shall do it also with that fidelity 
 to conscience and to judgment that belong to 
 mine. He is great, but truth is greater than us 
 all. 
 
 I shall confine myself mainly, and perhaps 
 wholly, to Mr. Webster's views, because he has 
 argued the cause of the South with vastly more 
 ability than it has been argued by any one among 
 themselves. If his conclusions, then, be not tena 
 ble, their case is lost* 
 
 Mr. Webster casts away the " Proviso " alto 
 gether. He says : " If a resolution or a law were 
 now before, us to provide a Territorial Government for 
 New Mexico, I would not vote to put any prohibition 
 into it whatever." Page 44. The reason given is, 
 that slavery is already excluded from " Califor 
 nia and New Mexico " " by the law of nature, of 
 physical geography, the law of the formation of 
 the earth." Page 42. " California and New 
 Mexico are Asiatic in their formation and scenery. 
 They are composed of vast ridges of mountains of 
 enormous height, with broken ridges and deep 
 valleys." Page 43. 
 
 Now, this is drawing moral conclusions from 
 physical premises. It is arguing from physics 
 to metaphysics. It is determining the law of the 
 spirit by geographical phenomena. It is under 
 taking to settle by mountains and rivers, and not 
 by the Ten Commandments, a great question of 
 human duty. It abandons the second command 
 ment of Christ and all Bills of Rights enacted in 
 conformity thereto, and leaves our obligations to 
 our "neighbor" to be determined by the accidents 
 of earth and water and air. To ascertain wheth 
 er a people will obey the Divine command, and 
 do to others as they would be done by, it looks at 
 the thermometer. What a problem would this 
 be? " Required the height above the level of the 
 
 * All my quotations from Mr Webster are taken from 
 the edition of his speech which he dedicated to the " PEO 
 PLE OF MASSACHUSETTS," March 18, 1850. Among the 
 numerous readings which ha^e appeared, 1 suppose this to 
 be the most authentic. 
 
6 
 
 sea at which the oppressor ' will undo the heavy 
 burdens and let the oppressed go free, and break 
 every yoke,' to be determined barometrically." 
 Alas ! this cannot be done. Slavery depends, not 
 upon Climate, but upon Conscience. Wherever 
 the wicked passions of the human heart can go, 
 there slavery can go. Slavery is an effect. Av 
 arice, sloth, pride, and the love of domination, are 
 its cause. In ascending mountain sides, at what 
 altitude do men leave these passions behind them ? 
 Different vegetable growths are to be found at 
 different heights, depending also upon the zone. 
 This I can understand. There is the altitude of 
 the palm, the altitude of the oak, the altitude of 
 the pine, and, far above them all, the line of per 
 petual snow. But, in regard to innocence and 
 guilt, where is the white line? How high up can 
 a slaveholder go and not lose his free agency ? 
 At what elevation will the whip fall from the 
 hand of the master, and the fetter from the limbs 
 of the slave ? There is no such point. Freedom 
 and slavery on the one hand, and climate and ge 
 ology on the other, are incommensurable quanti 
 ties. We might as well attempt to determine a 
 question in theology by the cube root, or a ques 
 tion in ethics by the Black Art. Slavery being a 
 crime founded upon human passions can go wher 
 ever those passions are unrestrained. It has ex 
 isted in Asia from the earliest ages, notwithstand 
 ing its " formation and scenery." It labors and 
 groans on the flanks of the Ural mountains now. 
 There are to-day forty-eight millions of slaves in 
 Russia, not one rood of which comes down so 
 low as the northern boundary of California and 
 New Mexico. 
 
 Had Mr. Webster's philosophy bee a correct, 
 then California was at superfluous pains when 
 she incorporated the Ordinance of 1787 into her 
 Constitution. Instead of saying that "slavery 
 and involuntary servitude, (except for crime.) 
 shall be forever prohibited," she should have said, 
 " Whereas by a law of nature, of physical geog 
 raphy, the law of the forma' ion of the earth," 
 " slavery cannot exist in California," therefore we 
 will not " re-affirm an ordinance of Nature, nor re- 
 enact the will of God." 
 
 Should it be said that slavery will not go into 
 the new Territories, because it is unprofitable, I 
 ask, where is it profitable ? Where is ignorance 
 ao profitable as knowledge ? Where is ungodli 
 ness gain, even for the things of this life ? How 
 little is the hand worth at one end of an arm, if 
 there is not a brain at the other ? Do not Mary 
 land, Virginia, North Carolina, and other States, 
 furnish witnesses by thousands and tens of thou 
 sands that slavery impoverishes ? Yet with what 
 enthusiasm they cherish it. Generally, igno 
 rance is a necessary concomitant of slavery. Of 
 white persons, over twenty years of age, unable 
 to read and write, there were, according to the 
 last census, 58,787 in Virginia, 56,609 in North 
 Carolina, 58 513 in Tennessee, and so forth. I 
 have a letter before me, received this morning, 
 dated in Indiana, in which the writer says he re 
 moved from North Carolina, in 1802 ; when he 
 was fourteen years old, and at that time he had 
 never seen a newspaper in his life. Can there be 
 genius, the inventive talent, or profitable labor, 
 
 where ignorance is so dense 1 Can the oppres 
 sion that tramples out voluntary industry, intel 
 ligence, enterprise, and the desire of independ 
 ence, conduce to riches? Yet this is done wher 
 ever slavery exists, and is part and parcel of its 
 working. Is any other form of robbery profitable ? 
 Yet individuals and communities have practiced 
 it and lived by it, and we may as well rely upon a 
 " law of physical geography " to arrest the one at 
 the other. It is not poetry, but literal truth, thaa 
 the breath of the slave blasts vegetation, his tears 
 poison the earth, and his groans strike it with 
 sterility. It would be easy to show why the mas 
 ter does not abandon slavery, even amid the deso 
 lation with which it has surrounded him. There 
 is a combination of poverty and pride, which sla 
 very produces, on the doctrine of natural appetence^ 
 and which, therefore, it exactly fits. The help 
 lessness of the master in regard to all personal 
 wants seems to necessitate the slavery that has 
 begotten it. All moral and religious principles 
 are lowered till they conform to the daily prac 
 tice. Custom blinds conscience, until, without 
 any attempt to emancipate or ameliorate their 
 victims, men can preach and pray and hold slaves, 
 as Hamlet's grave-digger jests and sings while he 
 turns up skulls. 
 
 But slavery cannot go into California or New 
 Mexico, because their staple productions are not 
 " tobacco, corn, cotton, or rice." Page 44. These 
 are agricultural products. But is slave labor 
 confined to agriculture? Suppose that predial 
 slavery will not become common in the new Ter 
 ritories. Cannot menial? If slaves cannot do 
 field-work, cannot they do house-work ? There 
 is an opening for a hundred thousand slaves to 
 day in the new Territories, for purposes of domes 
 tic labor. And beyond this, let me ask, who possess 
 es any such geologic vision that, at a distance of a 
 thousand miles, he can penetrate the valleys and 
 gorges of New Mexico, and say that gold will 
 not yet be found there as it is in California. not 
 in sand and gravel only, but in forty-eight pound 
 ers and in fifty-sixes ? This is the very kind of 
 labor on which slaves, in all time, have been so 
 extensively employed, the very labor on which a 
 million of slaves in Hispaniola lost their lives, 
 within a few years after its discovery by Colum 
 bus. Gold deposites are now worked within twenty- 
 five miles of Santa Fe. The last account which 
 I have seen, of a company of emigrants passing 
 from Santa Fe to California by the river Gila, 
 announces rich discoveries of gold upon that 
 river. A fellow-citizen of mine has just returned 
 home, who says he saw a slave sold at the mines 
 in California, in September last. As yet, the 
 distant regions of the Gila and the Colorado can 
 not be worked, because of the Apaches, the Utahs, 
 and other tribes of Indians. But admit slavery 
 there, and the power of the Government will be 
 invoked to exterminate these Indians, as it was t 
 before to exterminate the Cherokees and Semi- 1 
 noles, not to drive them beyond the Mississippi, 
 but beyond the Styx. A few days since a letter 
 was published in the papers, dated on board a 
 steamer descending the Mississippi, which stated 
 that a considerable number of slaves were on 
 board, bound for California, under an agreement 
 
with their masters that they should be free after 
 serving two years at the mines. We know, too, 
 that the reason assigned for incorporating a pro 
 vision in the Constitution of California, author 
 izing its Legislature to pass laws for the exclu 
 sion of free blacks from the State, was, that slaves 
 would be brought there under this very form of 
 agreement, and, by and by, the country would be 
 overspread by people of color who had bought 
 their freedom. The sagacious men who framed 
 the California Constitution came from all parts 
 of the territory, and, being collected on the spot, 
 having surveyed all its mountains, having breath 
 ed its air at all temperatures, and turned up its 
 golden soil, these men had never discovered any 
 "law of physical geography" which the fell 
 spirit of slavery could not transgress. Slaves 
 were carried into Oregon, ten degrees of latitude 
 higher up. Its colonists reenacted the Ordinance 
 of 1787 before Congress gave them a Territorial 
 Government. In the Territorial Government 
 that was given them, the prohibition was inserted ; 
 and President Polk signed the bill, with an ex 
 press protest, that he ratified this exclusion of 
 slavery only because the country lay north of the 
 Missouri Compromise line; but declared that, 
 had it embraced the very region in question, he 
 would have vetoed the bill. 
 
 General Cass never took the ground that sla 
 very could not exist in the new territories ; and no 
 inconsiderable part of the opposition made to 
 him in Massachusetts and in other free States, 
 was placed expressly upon the ground that he 
 would not prohibit it. Mr. Webster, in his 
 Marshfield speech, Sept. 1, 1848, opposed the 
 election of General Cass, because, through his 
 recreancy to Northern principles, slavery would 
 invade the territories. This was expressed with 
 his usual clearness and force, as follows : 
 
 "He, [General Cass.] will surely have the Sen 
 ate; and with the patronage of the Government, 
 with every interest that he, as a Northern man, 
 can briug to bear, cooperating with every inter 
 est that the South can bring to bear, we cry 
 safety before we are out of the woods, if ne feel 
 that there is no danger as to these new territories?''* 
 
 * On ths eleventh of June last, General Cass, in the Senate, 
 referred to this notice of himself. He affirmed that he had 
 taken the ground, in his "Nicholson" Letter, " that slavery 
 could not exist in the new Territo-ies ; " but with his usual 
 fatality of self-contradiction, he proceeded to read some pas 
 sages which confirmed the truth of my statement, and con- 
 yicted himself. Everybody knows that all the great parties 
 in the country entertained the same opinion respecting Gen. 
 Cass *s views that I did; for he was opposed at the North and 
 advocated at the South, on the express ground that he would 
 allow slavery to go into the new Territories. Nobody had 
 then heard of any insuperable barriers erected by God and 
 Nature against the encroachments of slavery in that direc 
 tion. That fable had not then been invented. 
 
 In General Cass's reference to me, in the above-mentioned 
 speech, there are many curious things. He arraigns me for 
 referring to him ; but he remembers to forget, that in a long 
 parvum in multo speech which he made last January, he first 
 assailed me. He puts on a sanctimonious face, and reads me 
 a lecture for citing the Scriptures; while, in the very speech 
 which contains the censure, he cites the Scriptures six times, 
 in the same way as I did once. Is there any canon of the 
 Church which forbids my referring to the Scripture, but al 
 lows it to a seeker for the Presidency 1 
 
 But his theological knowledge is the most extraordinary, 
 fn referring to the ninth Commandment, about bearing false 
 witness against one's neighbor, he came only within six of it; 
 
 Yet Mr. Webster now says that to support the 
 " Proviso," would " do disgrace to his own un 
 derstanding." Page 46. 
 
 During the same campaign, also, the Honorable 
 Rufus Choate, one of the most eloquent men in 
 
 for he called it the " third." I hope, for the credit of the 
 country, some friend will help him to correct this before it- 
 goes into our documentary history ; and, in the mean time, I 
 commend him to the Sunday School Society. 
 
 But the General nowhere explains his own sad political 
 condition. In his little-in-much speech delivered in January 
 Lest, he most solemnly maintained that Congress had no 
 power under the Constitution to legislate fur the inhabitants 
 of the Territories. Yet, during the great part of his political 
 life, he was the mere creature of such legislation. As such, 
 he filled offices, which, according to the doctrines of that 
 speech, were usurpations, received salaries, which were em 
 bezzlements, and took oaths to support the Constitution, 
 which were little better than perjuries But since the speech 
 of January was made, in which he dtnied all power in Con 
 gress to legislate for the inhabitants of the Territories, and 
 affirmed this right to be in the inhabitants themselves, he 
 has ascepted a place on the Compromise Committee, and 
 joined in the Compromise report, by which, according to his 
 own doctrine, he usurps this power of legislation, and robs 
 the Territorial inhabitants of what he hau so lately averied 
 to be their natural right. The bill, however, confers a lim 
 ited and quasi power of legislation on the inhabitants ; yet, 
 on the most important of all subjects, the subject of slavery, 
 it denies them all power, and fetters them immovably. 
 
 This, then, is General Cass's course on this subject. He 
 denied the power of Congress to legislate for the inhabitants 
 of the Territories, so that he might please the South by 
 voting against, or vetoing the Proviso, and thus allow the 
 extension of slavery. But when, in the course of events, it 
 was apprehended that the Territories would of themselves 
 exclude slavery, if allowed to do what he said they had a 
 natural, inherent right to do, then he denies his denial by 
 going for a Compromise Committee and for the Compromise 
 bill. But thirdly, lest the Territories, if invested with the 
 common power of legislating for themselves in their domes 
 tic concerns, should of themselees prohibit slavery, he denies 
 his denied denial, and takes this chiefest prerogative of free 
 men out of their hands. 
 
 In his last speech, General Cass deems it not unworthy his 
 Senatorial dignity to pun upon my name. A pun has been 
 called " the smallest kind of wit," and I think the General 
 has here produced the smallest specimens of the "smallest 
 kind." l>id it not occur to the General that his own name 
 offers the most grievous temptation for punning ? 
 
 As a general rule, I contemn punning As a malignant 
 attack upon any gentleman for the accident of his name, it is 
 wholly unpardonable It is but barely just'fiable as a retort. 
 To warn the General of the dangers he encounters by in 
 dulging his love of puuning I will venture to subjoin a speci 
 men or two, of what night be easily and indefinitely extend 
 ed : 
 
 1. PHILOLOGICALLY. 
 
 Small odds, 'twixt tweedle dum and tweedle-dee, 
 And CASS means much the same, without the C. 
 
 2. NUMERICALLY. 
 
 This Ass is very big. Then call him CAss ; 
 C's Roman for 100; a hundred times an ABS. 
 
 3. CHEMICALLY. 
 
 The prophet boldly saith, " All flesh is grass ; " 
 ' But thistle-eating donkey's flesh is Cass ; 
 
 Cass is a Carbonate whose base is Ass. 
 While General Cass held Territorial offices, he became re 
 nowned for the enormous quantities of rations he consumed. 
 I have forgotten whether the number was such as to be rep 
 resented by the Roman numeral L or C, the initial of his 
 first or of his last name. If the latter, it would suggest the 
 following : 
 
 4. GASTRONOMICALLY. 
 Greedier than he that starved 'twixt stacks of hay, 
 
 An honest ass ; 
 Our Jack devours C rations every day : 
 
 Hence y-clept CAss. 
 
 I might thus carry the General through all the arts and 
 scienc s; but if he is now disposed to say " quits," on tbe 
 score of punning, I am; and will draw no more upon the 
 asinine or Cassinine associations which his name suggests.. 
 
8 
 
 New England, and known to be the personal 
 friend of Mr. Webster, delivered a speech at Sa 
 lem, in which the following passage occurs : 
 
 "It is the passage of a law to say that Califor 
 nia and New Mexico shall remain forever free. 
 That is, fellow-citizens, undoubtedly an object of 
 great and transcendent importance ; for there is 
 none who will deny that we should go up to the 
 very limits of the Constitution itself, and with 
 the wisdom of the wisest, and zeal of the most 
 zealous, should unite to accomplish this great ob 
 ject, and to defeat the always detested, and for 
 ever to be detested object of the dark ambition of 
 that candidate of the Baltimore Convention, who 
 has ventured to pledge himself in advance that 
 he will veto the future law of freedom ; and may 
 God avert the madness of all those who hate sla 
 very and love freedom, that would unite in put 
 ting him in the place where his thrice accursed 
 pledge may be redeemed ! * * * * Is there 
 a Whig upon this floor who doubts that the 
 strength of the Whig party next March will in 
 sure freedom to California and New Mexico, if 
 by the Constitution they are entitled to freedom 
 at all? Is there a member of Congress that 
 would not vote for freedom? You know there 
 is not one. Did not every Whig member of 
 Congress from the free States vote at the last 
 session for freedom ? You know that every man 
 of them returned home covered with the thanks 
 of his constituents for that vote. Is there a sin 
 gle Whig constituency, in any free State in this 
 country, that would return any man that would 
 not vote for freedom ? Do you believe that Daniel 
 Webster himself could be returned if there was the 
 least doubt upon the question ? " 
 
 Mr. Choate then adds : " Upon this question 
 alone, we always differ from those Whigs of the 
 South ; and on that one, we propose simply to vote 
 them down." Mr. Webster now says he will not 
 join in voting them down. 
 
 Under such circumstances is it frivolous or 
 captious to ask for something more than a dog 
 matic assertion that slavery cannot impregnate 
 these new regions, and cause them to breed mon 
 sters forever ? On a subject of such infinite im 
 portance I cannot be satisfied with a dictum ; I 
 want a demonstration. I cannot accept the 
 prophecy without inquiring what spirit inspired 
 the prophet. As a revelation from heaven it 
 would be most delightful ; but, as it conflicts with 
 all human experience, it requires at least one un 
 doubted miracle to attest the divinity of its origin. 
 
 According to the last census, there were more 
 than eight thousand persons of African blood in 
 Massachusetts. Abolish the moral and religious 
 convictions of our people, let slavery appear to 
 be in their sight not only lawful and creditable, 
 but desirable as a badge of aristocratic distinction, 
 and as a "political, social, moral and religious 
 blessing," and what obstacle would prevent these 
 eight thousand persons from being turned into 
 slaves, oa any day, by the easy, cheap, and short 
 hand kidnapping of a legislative act ? Africans 
 can exist here, for the best of all reasons, they 
 do exist here. A state of slavery would not stop 
 their respiration, nor cause them to vanish " into 
 thin air." Think, for a moment, of the com 
 plaints we constantly hear in certain circles, of 
 
 the difficulty and vexatiousness of commanding 
 domestic service. If no moral or religious objec 
 tion existed against holding slaves, would not 
 many of those respectable and opulent gentlemen 
 who signed the letter of thanks to Mr. Webster, 
 and hundreds of others indeed, instead of apply 
 ing to intelligence offices, or visiting emigrant 
 ships for domestics, as we call them, go at once to 
 the auction-room and buy a man or a woman with 
 as little hesitancy or compunction as they now 
 send to Brighton for beeves, or go to Tattersall's 
 for a horse ? If the cold of the higher latitudes 
 checks the flow of African blood, or benumbs Af 
 rican limbs, the slaveholder knows very well that 
 a trifling extra expense for whips will make up 
 for the difference. 
 
 But suppose a doubt could be reasonably enter 
 tained about the invasion of the new territories 
 by slavery. Even suppose the ehances to prepon 
 derate against it. What then? Are we to sub 
 mit a question of human liberty over vast regions 
 and for an indefinite extent of time, to the deter 
 mination of chance? With all my faculties I 
 say No ! Let me ask any man, let me respect 
 fully ask Mr. Webster himself, if it were his own 
 father and mother, and brothers and sisters, and 
 sons and daughters, who were in peril of such a 
 fate, whether he would abandon them to chance, 
 even to a favorable chance. Would he suffer 
 their fate to be determined by dice or divination r 
 when positive prohibition was in his power ? 
 And by what rule of Christian morality, or even 
 of enlightened heathen morality, can we deal dif 
 ferently with the kindred of others from what we 
 would with our own? He is not a Christian 
 whose humanity is bounded by the legal degrees 
 of blood, or by general types of feature. 
 
 But Mr. Webster would not u taunt" the 
 South. Neither would I. I would not taunt any 
 honorable man, much less a criminal. Still, 
 when the most precious interests of humanity are 
 in peril, I would not be timid. I would not stop 
 too long to cull lover's phrases. Standing under 
 the eye of God, in the forum of the world and 
 before the august tribunal of posterity, when the 
 litigants are Freedom and Tyranny, and human 
 happiness and human misery the prize they con 
 test, it should happen to the sworn advocate of 
 Liberty, as Gluintilian says it did to Isocrates, 
 " not to speak and to plead, but to thunder and 
 to lighten." Mr. Webster would not taunt the 
 South ; and yet I say the South were never so 
 insulted before as he has insulted them. Com 
 mon scoffs, jeers, vilifications, are flattery and 
 sycophancy, compared with the indignities he 
 heaped upon them. Look at the facts. The 
 South waged war with Mexico from one and only 
 one motive ; for one and only one object, the ex 
 tension of slavery. They refused peace unless 
 it surrendered territory. That territory must 
 be south of the abhorred line of 36 30'. The 
 same President who abandoned the broad belt of 
 country on our Northern frontier, from 49 to 
 54 40', to which we had, in his own words, " an 
 unquestionable title," would allow no prohibition 
 of slavery to be imposed upon the territory which 
 Mexico ceded, though she would bury it a foot 
 deep in gold. The Proviso had been resisted in 
 all forms, from the beginning. Southern Whigs 
 
voted against the ratification of the treaty, fore 
 seeing the struggle that was to follow. Despe 
 rate efforts were made to smuggle in an unre 
 stricted territorial government, against all par 
 liamentary rule and all constitutional implication. 
 The whole South, as one man, claimed it as a 
 " describable, weighable, estimable, tangible " and 
 most valuable "right" to carry slaves there. 
 Calhoun, Berrien, Badger, Mason, Davis, the 
 whole Southern phalanx, Whig and Demo 
 crat, pleaded for it, argued for it, and most of 
 them declared themselves ready to fight for it ; 
 and yet Mr. Webster rises in his place, and tells 
 them they are all moon-struck, hallucinated, 
 fatuous ; because " an ordinance of Nature and 
 the will of God " had settled this question from 
 the beginning of the world. Mr. Calhoun said, 
 immediately after this speech, Give us free scope 
 and time enough, and we will take care of the 
 rest. 
 
 Mr. Mason said 
 
 " We have heard here from various quarters, 
 and from high quarters, and repeated on all 
 hands, repeated here again to-day by the hon 
 orable Senator from Illinois, [Mr. Shields,] that 
 there is a law of nature which excludes the 
 Southern people from every portion of the State 
 of California. I know of no such law of nature, 
 none whatever; but I do know thecmtrary, that 
 if California had been organized with a territo 
 rial form of government only, and for which, at 
 the last two sessions of Congress, she has obtained 
 the entire Southern vote, the people of the 
 Southern States would have gone there freely, 
 and have taken their slaves there in great numbers. 
 They would have done so because the value of 
 the labor of that class would have been aug 
 mented to them many hundred fold. Why, in 
 the debates which took place in the convention in 
 California which formed the Constitution, and 
 which any Senator can now read for himself, af 
 ter the provision excluding slavery was agreed 
 upon, it was proposed to prohibit the African 
 race altogether, free as well as bond. A debate 
 arose upon it ; and the ground was distinctly ta 
 ken, as shown in those debates, that if the entire 
 African race was not excluded, their labor would 
 be found so valuable that the owners of slaves 
 would bring them there, even though slavery 
 were prohibited, under a contract to manumit 
 them in two or three years. And it required 
 very little reasoning, on the part of those op 
 posed to this class of population, to show that the 
 productiveness of their labor would be such as 
 to ciuse that result. An estimate was gone into 
 with reference to the value of the labor of this 
 class of people, showing that it would be in 
 creased to such an extent in the mines of Cali 
 fornia, that they could not be kept out. It was 
 agreed that the labor of a slave in any one of the 
 States from which they would be taken, was not 
 worth more than one hundred or one hundred and 
 fifty dollars a year, and that in California it 
 would be worth from four to six thousand dollars. 
 They would work themselves free in one or two 
 years, and thus the country would be filled by a 
 class of free blacks, and their former owners 
 have an excellent bargain in taking them there." 
 
 Yet Mr. Webster stands up before all this array, 
 and says : " Gentlemen, you are beside yourselves. 
 You have eaten hellebore. You would look more 
 in character should you put on the ' cap and bells. 7 
 In sober sense, in seeing his object clearly and in 
 pursuing it directly, Don Gluixote was Doctor 
 Franklin, compared with you. The dog in the 
 fable, who dropped his meat to snap at its shadow, 
 is no allegory in your case. I see two classes 
 around me, wise m?n and fools ; you do not be 
 long to the former. The Chancellor who keeps 
 the king's idiots should have custody of you." 
 Such is a faithful abstract of what Mr. Webster 
 said to Southern Senators, and, through them, to 
 all the. South. 
 
 Here certainly was a reflection upon the under 
 standing and intelligence of the South, such as 
 never was cast upon them before. But the balm 
 went with the sting. They bore the affront to 
 their judgments, because it was so grateful to 
 their politics and pockets. I think it no injustice 
 to those Senators to say, that they would have 
 nearly torn Mr. Webster in pieces for such a 
 collective insult, if it had not promised to add 
 fifty per cent, to their individual property, and to 
 secure and perpetuate their political ascendency. 
 
 To help our conceptions in regard to Mr. Web 
 ster's course on this subject, let us imagine a par 
 allel case, or, rather, an approximate one, for 
 there can be no parallel. Suppose a contest be 
 tween the North and the South, on the subject of 
 the Tariff, to have been raging for years. The 
 sober blood of the North is heated to the fever 
 point. The newspapers treat of nothing else. 
 Public meetings and private conversations discuss 
 no other theme. Hundreds of delegates wait upon 
 Congress to add, if it be but a feather's weight, to 
 the scale which holds their interests. Petitions 
 flow in in thousands and tens of thousands. It is 
 announced that Mr. Calhoun will pour out his 
 great mind on the subject. Expectation is on 
 tiptoe. All eyes, from all sides of the country, 
 are turned towards Washington, as the Muezzin's 
 to Mecca. The Senate chamber is packed, and 
 the illustrious Senator rises. After an historic 
 sketch of existing difficulties, after reading from 
 the speeches which he made in 1832 and in 1846, 
 he proceeds to say that he withdraws all opposi 
 tion to a tariff, to any tariff ! He will not offend 
 the delicate nerves of Northern manufacturers by 
 further hostility. Were a bill then before him, 
 he would not oppose it. " Take the schedules," 
 says he, scornfully, to Northern Senators, " and 
 fill up the blanks from A to Z with what per 
 centages you please. For ad valorem rates, put 
 in minimums and maximums at your pleasure. 
 I will 'taunt' you no longer. I am for peace and 
 the glorious Union. I have discovered an irre- 
 pealable and irreversible law of nature, which 
 overrules all the devices of men. You cannot 
 make one yard of woollens or cottons in New Eng 
 land. There, water has no gravity, steam has no 
 force, and wheels will not revolve. In Vermont 
 and New York, wool will not grow on eheeps' 
 backs. I have penetrated the geology of Pennsyl 
 vania, and through all its stratifications, there is 
 not a thimble-full of coal, nor an ounce of iron 
 ore; and, if there were, combustion would not 
 
10 
 
 help to forge it ; for oxygen and carbon are di 
 vorced. As Massachusetts contributed one-third 
 of the men and one-third of the money, to carry 
 on the Revolutionary War, I am willing to com 
 pensate her for her lost blood and treasure, to the 
 amount of hundreds of millions of dollars, "with 
 which she may fertilize the barrenness of her 
 genius, and indulge her insane love for churches 
 and schools." Had the great Southern Senator 
 spoken thus, I think that even idolatrous, man- 
 worshipping South Carolina, a State which Mr. 
 Calhoun has ruled and moved for the last twenty- 
 five years, as a puppet-showman plays Punch and 
 Judy, would have sent forth, through all her 
 organs, a voice of unanimous dissent. 
 
 As much as Freedom is higher than Tariff, so 
 much stronger than their dissent should be 
 ours. 
 
 Mr. Webster's averment that he would not 
 "re-affirm an ordinance of Nature, nor reenact 
 the will of God," [p. 44,] has been commented on 
 more pungently than I am able or willing to do. 
 It has been said that all law and all volition must 
 be in harmony with the will of the Good Spirit 
 or with that of the Evil One; and if we will not 
 reenuct the will of the former, then, either all 
 legislation ceases, or we must register the decrees 
 of the latter. But one important and pertinent 
 consideration belongs to this subject, which I have 
 nowhere seen developed. It is this: Endless 
 doubts and contradictions exist among men, as to 
 what ia the will of God ; and on no subject is 
 there a wider diversity of opinion than on this 
 very subject of slavery. Whose law was reenacted 
 by the Ordinance of 1787? whose, when the Afri 
 can slave trade was prohibited ? whose, when it 
 was declared piracy ? True, it is useless to put 
 upon our statute-books an astronomical law, reg 
 ulating sunrise, or high tides ; .but that is physi 
 cal and beyond the jurisdiction of man, while sla 
 very belongs to morals, and is within the jurisdic 
 tion of man. Cease to transcribe upon the statute- 
 book what our wisest and best men believe to be 
 the will of God in regard to our wordly affairs, 
 and the passions which we think appropriate to 
 devils will soon take possession of society. In re 
 gard to slavery, piracy, and so forth, there are 
 multitudes of men, whose fear of the penal sanc 
 tions of another life is very much aided by a little 
 salutary fine and imprisonment in this. Look at 
 that noble array of principles which is contained 
 in the Declaration of Rights in the Constitution 
 of Massachusetts. Is it not a most grand and 
 beautiful exposition of i: the will of God," a 
 transcript, as it were, from the Book of Life? So 
 of the amendments to the Constitution of the 
 United States. Yet our fathers thought it no 
 tampering with holy things to enact them ; and, 
 in times of struggle and peril, they have been to 
 many a tempted man as an anchor to the soul, 
 sure and steadfast. 
 
 I approach Mr. Webster's treatment of the 
 Texas question with no ordinary anxiety. Hav 
 ing been accustomed from my very boyhood to 
 regard him as the almost infallible expounder of 
 constitutional law, it is impossible to describe the 
 struggle, the revulsion of mind, with which I have 
 passed from an instructed and joyous acquiescence 
 
 in his former opinions to unhesitating dissent 
 from his present ones. 
 
 I must premise that I cannot see any necessary 
 or beneficial connection between the subject of 
 new Texan States and the admission of California 
 and the government of the Territories. The for 
 mer refers to some indefinite future, when, from 
 its fruitful womb of slavery, Texas shall seek to 
 cast forth an untimely birth. In this excited state 
 of the country, at this critical juncture of our 
 affairs, when there is sober talk of massacring a 
 majority of the House of Representatives on their 
 own floor, and a Senator, instead of threatening 
 to hang a brother Senator on the highest tree, 
 provided he could catch him in his own State, 
 now draws a revolver of six barrels on another 
 brother Senator, on the floor of the Senate, in 
 mid-session ; at such a time, I eay, when, however 
 few Abels there may be at work in the political 
 field, there are Cains more than enough, would it 
 not have been well to have acted upon the precept, 
 " Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof?" 
 
 As the basis of his argument, Mr. Webster 
 quotes the following resolution: 
 
 ''New States of convenient size, not exceeding four in 
 number, in addition to said State of Texas, and having suf 
 ficient population, may hereafter, by the consent of the said 
 State, be formed out of the territory thereof, which shall be 
 entitled to admission under (he provisions of the Federal 
 Constitution. And such States as may be formed out of 
 that portion of said territory lying south of 36 deg. 30 min. 
 north latitude, commonly known as the Missouri Compro 
 mise line, shall be admitted into the Union with or without 
 slavery, as the people of each State asking admission may 
 desire ; and in such State or States as shall be formed out of 
 said territory north of said Missouri Compromise line, sla 
 very or involuntary servitude (except for crime) shall be 
 prohibited." 
 
 Note here, first, that only "four " States are to 
 be admitted in " addition to said State of Texas ;" 
 and second, that " such State or States " (in the 
 plural) as shall be formed from territory north of 
 36 30', shall be free. If tmo, or only one free 
 State is to exist on the north side of the line, then 
 how many will be left for the south side? I should 
 expose myself to ridicule were I to set it down 
 arithmetically, four minus one, equal to three. Yet 
 Mr. Webster says "the guaranty is, that new 
 States shall be made out of it, [the Texan territo 
 ry,] and that such States as are formed out of 
 that portion of Texas lying south of 36 30', may 
 coine in as slave States, to the nwnil/er O/FOUR, in 
 addition to the State then in existence, and ad 
 mitted at that time by these resolutions." Page 
 29. 
 
 Here Mr. Webster gives outright to the South 
 and to slavery, one more State than was contracted 
 for, assuming the contract to be valid. He makes 
 a donation, a gratuity, of an entire slave State, 
 larger than many a European principality. He 
 transfers a whole State, with all its beating hearts, 
 present and future, with all its infinite suscepti 
 bilities of weal and woe, from the side of freedom 
 to that of slavery, in the leger-book of humanity. 
 What a bridal gift for the harlot of bondage ! 
 
 Was not the bargain hard enough, according to 
 its terms? Must we fulfil it, and go beyond it? 
 Is a slave State, which dooms our brethren of the 
 human race, perhaps interminably, to the vassal's 
 fate, so insignificant a trifle, that it may be flung 
 in, as small change on the settlement of an ac- 
 
11 
 
 count? Has the South been so generous a co 
 partner, as to deserve this distinguished token of 
 our gratitude? 
 
 Why, by parity of reasoning, could he not have 
 claimed all the four States, " in addition to said 
 State of Texas,' 7 as free States ? The resolutions 
 divide the territory into two parts, one north and 
 one south of the line of 36 30'. 'Could not Mr. 
 Webster have claimed the four States for Freedom 
 with as sound logic, and with far better humanity 
 than he surrendered them to Slavery ? When 
 Texas and the South have got their slave States 
 "to the number of four" into the Union, whence are 
 we to obtain our one or more free States? The 
 contract will have been executed, and the consent 
 of Texas for another State will be withheld. 
 
 Notwithstanding all this, Mr. Webster affirms 
 the right of slavery to four more States, in the 
 following words : " I know no form of legislation 
 which can strengthen this. 1 know no mode of 
 recognition that can add a tittle of weight to it." 
 Catching the tone of his asseveration, I respond 
 that I know no form of statement, nor process of 
 reasoning, which can make it more clear, that this 
 is an absolute and wanton surrender of the rights 
 of the North and the rights of humanity. 
 
 But I hold the Texia resolutions to have been 
 utterly void ; and proceed to give the reasons for 
 my opinion. 
 
 I begin by quoting Mr. Webster against himself. 
 In an Address to the people of the United States, 
 from the Massachusetts Anti-Texas State Con 
 vention, January 29th, 1345, the subjoined pas 
 sage, which is understood, or rather, I may say, is 
 now well known, to have been dictated by Mr. 
 Webster himself, may be found : 
 
 "Bat we desire not to be misunderstood. Ac 
 cording to our convictions, there is no power in 
 any branch of the Government, or all its branch 
 es, to annex foreign territory to this Union. 
 We have made the foregoing remarks only to 
 show, that, if any fair construction could show 
 such a powsr to exist anywhere, or to be exer 
 cised in any form, yet the manner of its exercise 
 now proposed is destitute of all decent semblance of 
 constitutional propriety?' 1 
 
 Thus cancelling the authority of Mr. Webster 
 in 1850 by the authority of Mr. Webster in 1845, 
 I proceed with the argument. 
 
 Though the annexation of Texas was in pur 
 suance of a void stipulation, yet it is a clear prin 
 ciple of law that when a contract void between 
 the parties, has been executed by them, it cannot 
 then be annulled. If executed, it becomes valid, 
 not by virtue of the contract, but by vfrtue of 
 the execution. I bow to this legal principle, and 
 would fulfil it. But any independent stipulation 
 which remains unexecuted, remains invalid. Such 
 is that part of the annexation resolutions which 
 provides for the admission of a brood of Texan 
 States. The resolutions themselves say, in ex 
 press terms, that the new States are to be admit 
 ted "under the provisions of the Federal Consti 
 tution 5 " and the Constitution says, " New States 
 may be admitted by the Congress into this Union." 
 By what Congress ? Plainly, by the Congress in 
 session at the time when application for admission 
 is made ; and by no other. The fourth Texan 
 
 State may not be ready for admission for fifty 
 years to come; and could the Congress of 1845 
 bind the Congress of 1900? The Congress of 
 1900 and all future Congresess, will derive their 
 authority from the Constitution of the United 
 States, and not from any preceding Congress. 
 Put the case in a negative form. Could, the Con 
 gress of 1845 bind all future Congresses not to 
 admit new States, and thus, pro tanto, annul the 
 Constitution ? Positive or negative, the result is 
 the same. No previous Congress, on such a sub 
 ject, can enlarge or limit the power of a subse 
 quent one. Whenever, therefore, the question 
 of a new Texan State comes up for consideration, 
 the Congress then in being must decide it on its 
 own merits, untrammeled by anything their pre 
 decessors have done ; and, especially, free from a 
 law which, while similar in spirit, is a thousand 
 times more odious in principle than statutes of 
 mortmain. 
 
 Admitting that a future Congress, on such a 
 subject, might be boun* by a treaty, I answer that 
 there was no treaty ; while the fact that a treaty 
 clause was introduced into the resolutions, in the 
 Senate, for the sake of obtaining certain votes 
 that would never otherwise have been given in 
 their favor, and under an express pledge from the 
 Executive that the method by treaty should be 
 adopted, which pledge was forthwith iniquitously 
 broken, leaves no element of baseness and fraud 
 by which this proceeding was not contaminated. 
 In the name of the Constitution, then, and of 
 justice, let every honest man denounce those res 
 olutions as void alike in the forum of law and in 
 the forum of conscience ; and, admitting Texas 
 herself to be in the Union, yet, when application 
 is made for any new State from that territory, let 
 the question be decided upon the merits it may 
 then possess. 
 
 And was not Mr. Webster of the same opinion, 
 when, in Faneuil Hall, in November, 1845, after 
 the Resolutions of Annexation had passed, he 
 made the following emphatic, but unprophetic, 
 declaration : 
 
 " It is thought, it is an idea I do not say how 
 well founded, that there may yet be a hope for 
 resistance to the consummation of the act of annex 
 ation. I can only say for one that if it should fall 
 to my lot to have a vote on such a question^ AND I VOTE 
 FOR THE ADMISSION INTO THIS UNION OF ANY 
 STATE WITH A CONSTITUTION WHICH PROHIBITS 
 EVEN THE LEGISLATURE FROM EVER SETTING THE 
 BONDMEN FREE, I SHALL NEVER SHOW MY 
 HEAD AGAIN, DEPEND UPON IT, IN 
 FANEUIL HALL." 
 
 There is another objection to any future claim 
 of Texas to be divided into States, which grows 
 out of her own neglect to fulfil the terms and 
 spirit of the agreement. In the " territory north 
 of the Missouri Compromise line, slavery or in 
 voluntary servitude, (except for crime,) shall be 
 prohibited." So reads the bond. But if Texas 
 suffers slavery to be extended over that part of 
 her territory, then, when it becomes populous 
 enough for admission, and is overspread with sla 
 very, a new State may present a free Constitu 
 tion, be admitted by Congress, and before the 
 slaves have time to escape, or to carry the ques- 
 
12 
 
 tion of freedom before the judicial tribunals, 
 Presto! this free Constitution will be changed 
 into a slave Constitution, under the alleged right 
 of a State to decide upon its own domestic insti 
 tutions, and thus the word of promise which was 
 kept to the ear, will be broken to the hope. If Texas 
 meant to abide by the resolutions of annexation, 
 and to claim anything under them, it was her 
 clear and imperative duty forthwith to pass a law, 
 securing freedom to every inhabitant north of 
 the Compromise line. In this way only can the 
 resolutions be executed in their true spirit. That 
 territory is now in the condition of an egg. It is 
 undergoing incubation. From it a State is here 
 after to be hatched ; but before promising to ac 
 cept the chick, it would be agreeable to know 
 whether a viper had impregnated the egg. 
 
 But there is a still further objection, of whose 
 soundness I have no doubt ; but should I be in 
 error in regard to it, the mistake will not inval 
 idate any other argument. The parties to that 
 agreement stipulated on the ground of mutuality, 
 without which all contracts are void. Some States 
 were to be admitted to strengthen the hands of sla 
 very, and some of freedom. A line of demarcation 
 was drawn. Now, on investigation, I believe it 
 will most conclusively appear that there is not 
 an inch of Texan territory north of the stipulated 
 line. It all belongs to New Mexico, as much as 
 Nantucket or Berkshire belongs to Massachusetts. 
 It was a mistake on the part of the contracting 
 parties ; if, on the part of Texas, it was not some 
 thing worse than a mistake. The mutuality, 
 then, fails. The contract is nudum pactum. Texas 
 can give nothing for what she was to receive ; and 
 is, therefore, entitled to receive nothing but what 
 she has got. 
 
 In regard to " the business of seeing that fugi 
 tives are delivered up," Mr. Webster says : " My 
 friend at the head of the Judiciary Committee, 
 [Mr. Butler of South Carolina,] has a bill on the 
 subject now before the Senate, with some amend 
 ments to it, which I propose to support, with all 
 its provisions, to the fullest extent." 
 
 Here is Mr. Butler's bill, with Mr. Mason's 
 amendments : 
 
 A BILL 
 
 To provide for the more effectual execution of the 3d 
 clause of the 2d section of the 4th article of the Con 
 stitution of the United States. 
 
 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representat VfS 
 of the United State* of America in Congress assembled, 
 That when a person held to service or labor in any State or 
 Territory of the United States, under the laws of eueh Stfkte 
 or Territory, shall escape into any other of the said States 
 or Territories, the person to whom such service or labor may 
 be due, his or her agent or attorney, is hereby empowered to 
 seize or arrest such fugitive from service or labor and take 
 him or her before any judge cf the circuit or district courts 
 of the United States, or before any commissioner, or clerk 
 of such courts, or marshal thereof, or any postmaster of the 
 United States, or collector of the customs of the United 
 States, residing or being within such State wherein such 
 seizure or arrest shall be made, and upon proof to the satis 
 faction of such judge, commissioner, clerk, marshal, post 
 master, or collector, as the cae maybe, either by oral testi 
 mony or affidavit taken before and certified by any person 
 authorized to administer an oath under the laws of the 
 United States, or of any State, that the person so seized or 
 arrested, under the laws of the State or Territory from 
 which he or she fle^, owe service or labor to the person 
 claiming him or her, it shall be the duty of such judge, com- 
 mistioner, clerk, marshal, postmaster, or c Hector, to give a 
 
 certificate thereof to such claimant, his or her agent or at 
 torney, which certificate shall b a sufficient warrant for 
 taking and removing such fugitive from service or labor to 
 the State or Territory from which he rr she fled. 
 
 SEC. 2. And be it farther exacted, That when a person held 
 to service or labor, as mentioned in the first section of this 
 act, shall escape from such service or labor, as therein men 
 tioned, the person to whom such service or labor may be 
 due, his or her agent or attorney, may apply to any one of 
 the officers of the United States named in said section, other 
 than a marshal of the United States, for a warrant to seize 
 and arrest such fugitive, and upon affidavit being made be 
 fore such officer, (each of whom for the purposes of this act 
 is hereby authorized to administer an oath or affirmation,) 
 by such claimant : his or her agent, that such person does, 
 under the laws of the State or Territory from which he or 
 she fled, owe service or lal-or to such claimant, it shall be, 
 and is hereby made, the duty of such officer, to and before 
 whom such application and affidavit is made, to issue his 
 warrant to any marshal of any of the courts of the United 
 States to seize and arrest such alleged fugitive, and to bring 
 him or her forthwith, or on a day to be named in such war 
 rant, before the officer issuing such warrant, or either of the 
 officers mentioned in said first section, except the marshal to 
 Vhom the said warrant is directed, which said warrant or 
 authority the sail marshal is hereby authorized and direct 
 ed in all things to obey. 
 
 SEC. 3. And be it further enacted. That upon affidavit 
 made as aforesaid by the claimant of such fugitive his agent 
 or attorney, after such certificate has been issued, that he 
 has reason to apprehend that such fugitive will be rescued 
 by force from his or their possession, before he can be taken 
 beyond the limits of the State in which the arrest is made, 
 it shall be the duty of the officer making the arrest to retain 
 such fugitive in his custody, and to remove him to the State 
 whence he fled, and there to deliver him to said claimant, 
 his agent or attorney. And to this end. the officer aforesaid 
 is hereby authorized and required to employ so many per* 
 sons as he may deem necessary to overcome such force, and 
 to retain them in his service so long as circumstances may 
 require. The * aid officer and his assistants, while FO em 
 ployed, to receive the same compensation a^d to be allowed 
 the same expenses as are now allowed by law for transporta 
 tion of criminals, to be certified by the judge of the district 
 within which the arrest is made, and paid out of the treas 
 ury of the United States: Provided, That, before such 
 charges are incurred, the claimant, his agent or attorney, 
 shall secure to said officer payment of the same, and in ease 
 no actual force be opposed, then they shall be paid by such 
 claimant, his agent or at orney. 
 
 SBC. 4. And be it further enacted, When a warrant shall 
 have been issue! by any of the officers under the second sec 
 tion of this act, and there shall be no marshal or deputy 
 marshal within ten miles of the place where such warrant is 
 issued, it shall b, the duty of the officer issuing the same, 
 at the request of the claimant, his agent or attorney, to ap 
 point some fit and discreet person, who shall be willing to 
 act as marshal, for the purpose of executing: said warrant ; 
 and such person so appointed shall, to the extent of execu 
 ting said warrant, and detaining and transporting the fugi 
 tive named therein, have all the power and authority, and 
 be, with his assistants, entitled to the sa^e compersation 
 and expenses provided in this act in cases where the services 
 are performed by the marshals of the courts. 
 
 SEC. 5. And be it further enacted, That any pereon who 
 shall knowingly iind willingly obstruct or hinder such claim 
 ant, his agent or attorney, or any person or persons assisting 
 him, her, or them, in so serving or arresting such fugitive 
 from service or labor, or shall rescue such fugitive from 
 such claimant, his agent or attorney, when so arrested, pur 
 suant to the authority herein given or declared, or shall aid, 
 abet, or assist such person so owing service cr labor to es 
 cape from such claimant, bis agent or attorney, or s^all har 
 bor or conceal such person, after notice that he or she was a 
 fugitive from labor, as aforesaid, /hall ; for either of the said 
 offences, forfeit and pay the sum of one -thousand dollars, 
 which penalty may be recovered by and for the berefit of 
 such cla mant, by action of debt in any court proper to try 
 the same, saving, moreover, to the person claiming such la 
 bor or service, his right of action for, on account of, the said 
 injuries, or either of them. 
 
 SEC 6. And be it further enacted, That when said person 
 is seized or arrested, under and by virtue of the said war 
 rant, by such marshal, and is brought before ei'her of the 
 officers aforesaid, other than the said marshal, it shall be 
 duty of euch officer to proieed in the cas-'e or tuch person, in 
 the same way as he is directed and authorized to do when 
 such person is seized and arrested by the person claiming 
 
13 
 
 him, or by his or her agent or attorney, and is brought be 
 fore such officer under the provisions of the first section of 
 this act. 
 
 AMENDMENTS 
 
 intended to be proposed by Mr. Mason to the bill (S. 23) to 
 provide for the more effectual execution of the third clause 
 of the second section of the fourth article of the Constitu 
 tion of the United States 
 At the end of section 5, add : 
 
 And any person or persons offending against the provisions 
 of this section, to be moreover deemed guilty of a misde 
 meanor, or in obstructing the due execution of the laws of 
 the United States, and upon conviction thereof shall be fined 
 in the sum of one thousand dollars, one half whereof shall 
 be to the use of the informer; and shall also be imprisoned 
 for the term of twelve months. 
 At the end of section 6, add: 
 
 And in no trial or hearing under this act shall the testi 
 mony of such fugitive be admitted in evidence. 
 
 It will be observed that the first section of the 
 bill, after constituting the judges of the courts, 
 the seventeen thousand postmasters, the collect 
 ors, &c., as tribunals, without appeal, for the deliv 
 ery of anybody, who is sworn by anybody, any 
 where, to be a fugitive slave, refers to the before- 
 mentioned officers in the words " residing or be 
 ing within such State where such seizure or ar 
 rest is made." That is, the judge, postmaster, 
 collector, &c., need not be an inhabitant of the 
 State, or hold his office in the State, where the 
 seizure is made ; but it is sufficient if he is* such 
 officer anywhere within the United States. Mr. 
 Butler or Mr. Mason, therefore, may send the 
 postmaster of his own city or village, into Massa 
 chusetts, with an agent or attorney, who brings 
 his affidavit from South Carolina or Virginia, in 
 his pocket ; the agent or attorney may arrest 
 anybody, at any time, carry him before his ac 
 complice, go through with the judicial forms, and 
 hurry him to the South ; the officer, after his ju 
 dicial functions are discharged, turning bailiff, 
 protecting the prey and speeding the flight ! 
 
 Still further ; this bill derides the trial, by jury, 
 secured by the Constitution. A man may not lose 
 a horse without a right to this trial ; but he may 
 his freedom. Mr. Webster spoke for the South 
 and for slavery ; not for the North and for free 
 dom, when he abandoned this right. Such an 
 abandonment, it would be impossible to believe 
 of one who has earned such fame as Defender of 
 the Constitution ; it would be more reasonable to 
 suppose the existence of some strange misappre 
 hension, had not Mr. Webster, with that pre 
 cision and strength which are so peculiarly his 
 own, declared his determination to support this 
 hideous bill, ic with all Its provisions to the full 
 est extent," when, at the same moment, another 
 bill, of which he took no notice, was pending be 
 fore the Senate, introduced by Mr. Seward of 
 New York, securing the invaluable privilege of 
 a jury trial. 
 
 I disdain to avail myself, in a sober argument, 
 of the popular sensitiveness on this subject ; and 
 I acknowledge my obligations to the Constitution 
 while it is suffered to last. But still I say, that 
 the man who can read this bill without having 
 his blood boil in his veins, has a power of refriger 
 ation that would cool the tropics. 
 
 I cannot doubt that Mr. Webster will yet see 
 the necessity of reconsidering his position, on 
 this whole question. 
 
 Mr. Webster says: "It is my firm opinion, 
 this day, that within the last twenty years as 
 much money has been collected and paid to the 
 abolition societies, abolition presses, and abolition 
 lecturers, as would purchase the freedom of every 
 slave, man, woman, and child, in the State of 
 Maryland, and send them all to Liberia." 
 
 The total number of slaves in Maryland, ac 
 cording to the last census, amounted to 89,405. 
 At $250 apiece, which is but about half the 
 value commonly assigned to Southern slaves by 
 Southern men, this would be $22 y 373,750. Al 
 lowing $30 each for transportation to Liberia, 
 without any provision for them after their arri 
 val there, the whole sum would be $25 ; 058 5 600 
 in round numbers twenty-five millions of dollars ! 
 more than a million and a quarter in each year, 
 and about, thirty-five hundred dollars per day. 
 I had not supposed the abolitionists had such re 
 sources at their command. 
 
 I have dwelt thus long upon Mr. Webster's 
 speech, because in connection with his two votes 
 in favor of Mr. Foote's committee of compromise, 
 which votes, had they been the other way, would 
 have utterly defeated the committee, it is consid 
 ered to have done more to jeopard the great cause 
 of freedom in the territories, than any other 
 event of this disastrous session. I have spoken 
 of Mr. Webster by name, and, I trust, in none 
 but respectful terms. I might have introduced 
 other names, or examined his positions without 
 mentioning him. I have taken what seemed to 
 me the more manly course ; and if these views 
 should ever by chance fall under his eye, I be 
 lieve he has magnanimity enough to respect me 
 more for the frankness I have used. If I am 
 wrong, I will not add to an error of judgment, 
 the meanness of a clandestine attack. If I am 
 right, no one can complain ; for we must all bow 
 before the majesty of Truth. 
 
 I have now noticed the principal events which 
 have taken place in Congress, and which have led 
 to what military men would call the " demorali 
 zation " of many of the rank and file of its mem 
 bers. Some recent movements have brought viv 
 idly to mind certain historical recollections in re 
 gard to the African slave trade, now execrated 
 by all civilized nations. When the immortal 
 Wilberforce exposed to public gaze the secrets of 
 that horrid traffic, his biographer says, "The 
 first burst of generous indignation promised 
 nothing less than the instant abolition of the 
 trade, but mercantile jealousy had taken the alarm, 
 and the defenders of the West India system 
 found themselves strengthened by the independ 
 ent alliance of commercial men." Life of Wilber- 
 force, vol. I, page 291. 
 
 Again ; opposition to Wilberforce's motion 
 ' : arose amongst the Guinea merchants" "rein 
 forced, however, before long by the great body of 
 West India planters."/^. 
 
 The Corporation of Liverpool spent, first and 
 last, upwards of 10,000 in defence of a traffic 
 which even the gravity and calmness of judicial 
 decisions have since pronounced " infernal." 
 
 " Besides printing works in defence of the slave 
 trade and remunerating their authors ; paying 
 the expenses of delegates to attend in London 
 
14 
 
 and watch Mr. Wilberforce's proceedings, they 
 pensioned the widows of Norris and Green, and 
 voted plate to Mr. Penny, for their exertions in 
 this cause." Ibid', page 345. 
 
 It is said that the Corporation of Liverpool, at 
 this time, " believed firmly that the very exist 
 ence of the city depended upon the continuance 
 of the traffic." Look at Liverpool now, and re 
 flect what greater rewards, even of a temporal 
 nature, God reserves for men that abjure dishon 
 esty and crime. 
 
 All collateral motives were brought to bear 
 upon the subject, just as they are at the present 
 time. The Guinea trade was defended " as a 
 nursery for seamen." Ibid.., page 293. 
 
 Even as late as 1816, the same class of men, in 
 the same country, opposed the abolition of " white 
 slavery " in Algiers, from the same base motives 
 of interest. It was thought that the danger of 
 navigating the Mediterranean, caused by the 
 Barbary corsairs, was advantageous to British 
 commerce ; because it might deter the merchant 
 ships of other nations from visiting it. After 
 Lord Exmouth had compelled the Algerines to 
 liberate their European slaves, he proceeded 
 against Tunis and Tripoli. In giving an account 
 of what he had done, he defends his conduct 
 " upon general principles," but adds, " as apply 
 ing to our own country. [Great Britain.] it may 
 not be borne out, the old mercantile interest being 
 against it. n Osier's Life of Exmouth, page 303. 
 
 So after Admiral Blake, in the time of Crom 
 well, had attacked Tunis, he says, in his despatch 
 to Secretary Thurloe, " And now seeing it hath 
 pleased God soe signally to justify us herein, I hope 
 his highness will not be offended at it, nor any who 
 regard duly the honor of the nation, although I 
 expect to have the clamors of INTERESTED MEN." 
 Thurloe>s State Papers, Vol II, page 390. 
 
 And is Commerce, the daughter of Freedom, 
 thus forever to lift her parricidal hand against 
 the parent that bore her ? Are rich men forever 
 to use their " thirty pieces of silver," or their 
 "ten thousand pounds sterling," or their hun 
 dreds of thousands of dollars, to reward the Ju- 
 dases for betraying their Savior ? Viewed by 
 the light of our increased knowledge, end by oar 
 more elevated standard of duty, the extension of 
 slavery into California or New Mexico, at the pres 
 ent time, or even the sufferance of it there, is a 
 vastly greater crime than was the African slave 
 trade itself, in the last century; and I would 
 rather meet the doom of posterity, or of heaven, 
 for being engaged in the traffic then, than for 
 being accessary to its propagation now. 
 
 Let those who aid, abe/, or connive at slavery 
 extension now, as they i*ead the damning sen 
 tence which history has awarded against the act 
 ors, abettors and connivers of the African trade, 
 but change the names, and they will be reading of 
 themselves. Should our new territories te here 
 after filled with groaniog bondmen, should they 
 become an American Egypt, tyrannized over by 
 ten thousand Pharaohs, it will be no defence 
 for those who permitted it, to say, " We hoped, 
 we supposed, we trusted, that slavery could not 
 go there :" Nemesis, as she plies her scorpion 
 lash, will reply, " You might have made it certain." 
 
 On this great question of freedom or slavery ? 
 I have observed with grief, nay, with anguish, 
 that we, at the North, break up into hostile par 
 ties, hurl criminations and recriminations to and 
 fro, and expend that strength for the ruin of each 
 other, which should be directed against the ene 
 mies of Liberty : while, at the South, whenever 
 slavery is in jeopardy, all party lines are oblite 
 rated, dissensions are healed, enemies become 
 friends, and all are found in a solid column, with 
 an unbroken front. Are the children of dark 
 ness to be forever so much wiser than the chil 
 dren of light ? In the recent choice of delegates 
 for the. Nashville Convention, I have not seen a 
 single instance where Whig and Democrat have 
 not been chosen as though they were Siamese 
 twins, and must go together. But here it often 
 happens, that as soon as one party is known to be 
 in favor of one man, this act alone is deemed a 
 sufficient reason why another party should op 
 pose him. Why can we not combine for the sa 
 cred cause of freedom, as they combine for sla 
 very? No thought or desire is farther from my 
 mind than that of interfering with any man'l 
 right of suffrage ; but if, (which is by no means 
 impossible, nor perhaps improbable.) the fate of 
 New Mexico should be decided by one vote, and 
 my -vote should have been the cause of a vacancy 
 in any Congressional district that might have sent 
 a friend to freedom, I should say, with Cain ? 
 ci My punishment is greater than I can bear." 
 
 On the subject of the present alienation and 
 discord between the North and the South, I wieh 
 to say that I have as strong a desire for reconcili 
 ation and amity as any one can have. There is 
 no pecuniary sacrifice within the limits of the. 
 Constitution, which I would not willingly make 
 for EO desirable an object. Public revenues I 
 would appropriate, private taxation I would en 
 dure, to relieve this otherwise thrice-glorious 
 Republic from the calamity and the wrong of 
 slavery. I would not only resist the devil, but if 
 he will flee from me, I will build a bridge of gold 
 to facilitate his escape. I mention this to prove 
 that it is not the value, in money. , of territorial 
 freedom, for which I contend, but its value in 
 character, in justice, in hitman happiness. While I 
 utterly deny the claim set up by the South, yet I 
 would gladly consent that my Southern fellow-citi 
 zens should go to the territories and carry there 
 every kind of property which I can carry ; I would 
 then give to the Southern States their full share 
 of alf the income ever to be derived from the 
 sales of the public lands, or the leasing of the 
 public mines j and whatever, after this deduction. 
 was left in the public treasury, should be appro 
 priated for the whole nation, as has been the 
 practice heretofore. That is, in consideration of 
 excluding slavery from the territories, I would 
 give the South a double share, or even a three 
 fold share, of all the income that may ever be de 
 rived from them. Pecuniary surrenders I would 
 gladly make for the sake of peace, but not for 
 peace itself would I surrender Liberty. 
 
 It would be to suppose our merchants and man 
 ufacturers void of common foresight, could they 
 believe that concession now will bring security 
 hereafter. By yielding the moral question, they 
 
15 
 
 jeopard their pecuniary interests. Should the 
 South succeed in their present attempt upon the 
 territories, they will impatiently await the retire 
 ment of Gen. Taylor from the Executive Chair, 
 to add the " State of Cuba," with its 500,000 slaves, 
 its ignorance and its demoralization, to their roll 
 of triumph. California will be a free trade State, 
 by the most certain of all biases. They will have 
 nothing to sell but gold ; they will have everything 
 to buy, cradles and coffins, and all between. 
 If New Mexico is slave, it will also be free trade; 
 and Cuba as certainly as either, though in that 
 island facilities for smuggling will reduce the 
 difference between tariff and free trade to noth 
 ing. A surrender therefore, by our Northern 
 business men, will be most disastrous to the very 
 business that tempts them to surrender. Will 
 they take no warning from the fact that their apa 
 thy in regard to Texas repealed the tariff of 
 1842 ? This is a low motive, I admit ; but it may 
 be set as a back-fire to the motive by which some 
 of them appear to be influenced. There was no 
 need, not a shadow of need, of perilling any prin 
 ciple, nor any interest. Had the North stood 
 firm, had they been true to the great principles 
 they have so often and so solemnly proclaimed, 
 the waves of Southern violence would have struck 
 harmless at their feet. He is not learned in the 
 weather who does not know that storms from the 
 South, though violent, are short. We are assailed 
 now because we have yielded before. The com 
 promise of 1820 begat the nullification of 1832 ; 
 the compromise of 1S32 inspired the mad exploit 
 of compassing Texas, which our greater madness 
 made sane. The moral paralysis which failed to 
 oppose the Mexican war. has given us the ter 
 ritories. If the territories are now surrendered, 
 we shall have Cuba, and an indefinite career of 
 conquest and of slavery will be opened on our 
 Southwestern border. Every new concession 
 transfers strength from our side to the side of our 
 opponents ; and if we cannot arrest our own course 
 when we are just entering the rapids, how can we 
 arrest it when we come near the verge of the cat 
 aract ? The South may rule the Union, but they 
 cannot divide it. Their whole Atlantic seaboard 
 is open to attack, and powerless for defence ; and 
 the Mississippi river may as easily be divided 
 physically as politically into independent portions. 
 With these advantages, let us never aggress upon 
 their rights, but let us maintain our own. 
 
 Fellow-citizens, I would gladly relieve the dark 
 ness of this picture by some gleams of light. 
 There are two hopes which, as yet, are not wholly 
 extinguished in my mind. Beyond all question a 
 compromise bill w ill be reported by the committee of 
 thirteen, in which free California will be made 
 to carry as great a burden of slavery as she 
 can bear. It is still possible that the House 
 will treat as it deserves this adulterous union. 
 A single vote may turn the scale, and Mas 
 sachusetts may give that vote. Not improb 
 ably, too, the fate of the bill may depend upon 
 the earnestness and decision with which North 
 ern constituencies make their sentiments known 
 to their representatives, whether by petitions, by 
 private letters, or by public resolutions. Let 
 every lover of freedom do his best and his most. 
 
 Should the North fail, I have still one hope 
 more, ft is that New Mexico will do for herself 
 what we shall have basely failed to do for her. If 
 both these hopes fail, our country is doomed to 
 run its unobstructed career of conquest, of des 
 potism, and of infamy. 
 
 I have now, my fellow-citizens, given you my 
 " Views and Opinions " on the present crisis in 
 our public affairs. Had I regarded my own feel 
 ings I should have spoken less art length ; but the 
 subject has commanded me. I trust I have spoken 
 respectfully towards those from whom I dissent, 
 while speaking my own sentiments justly and 
 truly. I have used no asperity, for all my emo 
 tions have been of grief and not of anger. My 
 words have been cool as the telegraphic wires, 
 while my feelings have been like the lightning 
 that runs through them. The idea that Massa 
 chusetts should contribute, or consent, to the ex 
 tension of Human Slavery ! is it not enough, not 
 merely to arouse the living from their torpor, but 
 the dead from their graves ! Were I to help this, 
 nay, did I not oppose it with all the powers and 
 faculties which God has given me, I should see 
 myriads of agonized faces glaring out upon me 
 from the future, more terrible than Duncan's at 
 Macbeth ; and I would rather feel an assassin's 
 poignard in my breast than forever hereafter to 
 see "the air-drawn dagger" of a guilty imagi 
 nation. In Massachusetts, the great drama of the 
 Revolution began. Some of its heroes yet survive 
 amongst us. At Lexington, at Concord, and on 
 Bunker Hill, the grass still grows greener where 
 the soil was fattened with the blood of our fa 
 thers. If, in the providence of God, we must be 
 vanquished in this contest, let it be by force of 
 the overmastering and inscrutable powers above 
 us, and not by our own base desertion. 
 
 I am. gentlemen, your much honored, obliged, 
 and obedient servant, HORACE MANN. 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 To the Editors of the Boston Adas ; 
 
 GENTLEMEN; Your semi-weekly of the 1st insL 
 contains a letter of the Hon. Daniel Webster, in 
 which he has been pleased to refer tome. I wish 
 to reply. To prevent all chance of mistake, I 
 quote the following passages : 
 
 "But, a*; the same time, nothing is more false than that 
 such jury trial is demanded in cases of this kind by the 
 Constitution, either in its letter or in its spirit. The Consti 
 tution declares that in all criminal prosecutions there shall 
 be a trial by jury. The claiming of a fugitive slave is not 
 a criminal prosecution. 
 
 l The Constitution also declares that in suits at common 
 law the trial by jury shall be preserved ; the reclaiming of a 
 fugitive slave is not a suit at the common law; and there is 
 no other clause or sentence in the Cons;itution having the 
 least bearing on the subject. 
 
 " I have seen a publication by Mr. Horace Mann, a mem 
 ber of Congress from Massachusetts, in which I find this 
 sentence. Speaking of the bill before the House, he says : 
 ' This bill derides the trial by jury secured by the Constitu 
 tion. A man may not lose his horse without a right to this 
 trial, but he may lose his freedom. Mr. Webster speaks for 
 the South and fjr slavery, not for the North and for freedom, 
 when he abandons this right.' This personal vituperation 
 does not annoy me, but I lament to see a public man of Mas 
 sachusetts so crude and confused in his legal apprehensions, 
 and so little acquainted with the Constituion of his country, 
 as these opinions evince Mr. Mann to be. His citation of 
 
16 
 
 a supposed case, as in point, if it have any analogy to the 
 matter, would prove that, if Mr. Mann's horse stray into his 
 neighbor's field, he cannot lead him back without a previous 
 trial by jury to ascertain the right. Truly, if what Mr. Mann 
 says of the provisions of the Constitution in this pub" icaf ion 
 bea test of his accuracy ic the understanding of that instru 
 ment, he would do weJ not to seek to protect his peculiar 
 notions under its sanction, but to appeal at once, as others 
 do, to that higher authority which sits enthroned above the 
 Constitution and above the law." 
 
 I must deny this charge of "personal vitupera 
 tion," and I regret that Mr. W ebster, while dis 
 claiming "annoyance" at what I said, should be 
 tray it. I believe every part of my "Letter" to 
 be within the bounds of courteous and respectful 
 discussion. There is nothing in it which might 
 not pass between gentlemen, without inter 
 rupting relations of civility and friendship. 
 Though full of regret at his novel position, and of 
 dissent from his unwonted doctrines, yet it abounds 
 in proofs of deference to himself. I must now, 
 however, be permitted to add that the highest 
 eminence becomes unenviable, when it breeds in 
 tolerance of dissent, or bars out the humblest 
 man from a free expression of opinion. 
 
 Mr. Webster "laments to see a public man of 
 Massachusetts so crude and confused in his legal 
 apprehensions, and so little acquainted with the 
 Constitution of his country, as these opinions 
 evince Mr. Mann to be." Yet he points out no 
 error of opinion. He specifies nothing as unsound. 
 He presents no information, indictment, bill of 
 particulars, or even the "common counts." Judg 
 ment and condemnation alone appear. He seems 
 to have taken it for granted that he had only to 
 siy I was guilty, and then proceed to punish. I 
 protest against and impugn this method of pro 
 ceeding, by any man, however high, against any 
 man, however humble. 
 
 When Mr. Webster penned his "lamentations" 
 over my crudeness, confusion, and ignorance, he 
 doubtless meant to deal me a mortal blow. The 
 blow was certainly heavy ; but the question still 
 remains, whether it hit. Polyphemus struck hard 
 blows, but his blindness left the objects of his pas 
 sions unharmed. 
 
 But wherein do those erroneous "opinions" 
 consist, which Mr. Webster does not deign to 
 specify, but assumes to condemn ? Fortunately, 
 in writing the sentence which he quotes for ani 
 madversion, I followed the precise meaning of 
 Judge Story, as laid down in his Commentaries; 
 and in regard to the only point which is open to 
 a question, I took the exact words of that great 
 jurist. He speaks of " the right of a trial by jury, 
 in civil cases," as an existing right before the 
 seventh article of amendment to the Constitu 
 tion, which preserves this right "in suits at common 
 law," had been adopted. 3 Comm., 62S. Instead 
 of transcribing Judge Story's words, "in civil 
 cases," which present no distinct image to common 
 minds, I supposed the every-day case of litigation 
 respecting a horse, which is a " civil case ; " and 
 this difference of form is the only difference be 
 tween my language and that of the learned Judge. 
 1 can wish Mr. Webster no more fitting retri 
 bution, after reposing from this ill tempered at 
 tack upon me, than to awake and find that it was 
 Judge Story whom he had been maligning. 
 
 Does not the authority of Judge Blackstone 
 also support my position? 
 
 "Recapture or reprisal,' 7 says he, "is another species of 
 remedy, by the nitre act of the party injured. * * * 
 But as the public peace is a superior consideration to any 
 one man's piivate property; and as, if individuals were 
 once allowed to use private force as a remedy for private in 
 juries, all social justice mugt cease, the strong would give 
 law to the weak, and every man would revert to a state of 
 nature ; for these reasons it is provided that this natural 
 right of recaption shall never be exerted, where such exer 
 tion must occasion strife and bodily contention, or endanger 
 the peace of society. If, for instance, my horse is taken 
 away, and i find him in a common, a fair, or a public inn, I 
 may lawlully seize him to my own use ; but I cannot justify 
 breaking open a private stable, or entering on the grounds 
 of a third per son, to take him, should he be feloniously 
 stolen; but must have recourse to an action at law." 3 
 Com., 4-5. 
 
 But the opinion expressed by me on this point 
 does not need the authority of any name to sup 
 port it ; and the illustration which I gave is not 
 only intelligible to every sensible man, but is also 
 apposite. I said " a man may not lose his horse 
 [his property in a horse] without a right to this 
 trial." Mr. Webster's comment is, that this 
 case, "if it have any analogy to the matter," 
 means, that if a man's horse "stray into his neigh 
 bor's field, he cannot lead him back without a previous 
 trial by jury to ascertain the right." Was ever the 
 plain meaning of a sentence more exactly changed 
 about, end for end? Mr. Webster may pitch 
 summersets with his own doctrines, but he has no 
 right to pitch them with mine. I said a man may 
 not lose his horse, or his property in a horse, 
 without a right to the trial by jury. He says I 
 said, a man cannot find or retake a lost horse, with 
 out a previous trial ! Dulce est desipere in loco. 
 Or, it is pleasant to see a grave Senator play upon 
 words ; though there must be some wit to redeem it 
 from puerility. 
 
 But the childishness of this criticism is not its 
 worst feature. What is the great truth which 
 Mr. Webster and his apologists attempt here to 
 ridicule ? Jt is that, while every man amongst 
 us. in regard to any piece of property worth more 
 than twenty dollars, of which violence or fraud 
 may attempt to despoil him, has a right to a trial 
 by J arv ; 7 et a man's freedom, and that of his pos 
 terity forever, may be wrested from him, as our 
 law now stands, without such a trial. Does not 
 this hold a man's freedom to be of less value than 
 twenty dollars? If two adverse claimants con 
 test title to an alleged slave, whose market value 
 is more than this sum, each is entitled to a jury 
 to try the fact of ownership. But if the alleged 
 slave declares here, in Massachusetts, that he 
 owns himself, he is debarred from this right. And 
 this truth, or a common illustration of it, Mr. 
 Webster and his apologists think a suitable topic 
 for sneers or pleasantry ! A foreign proverb says, 
 that for a man to kill his mother is not in good 
 taste. I trust the moral and religious people of 
 Massachusetts have too much good taste to relish 
 jokes on such a theme. 
 
 MR. BUTLER'S BILL, OR KIDNAPPING MADE 
 EASY. 
 
 I said that Mr. Butler's bill " derides " the trial 
 by jury. By that bill every commissioner and 
 clerk of a United States court, every marshal 
 and collector of the customs, and the seventeen 
 thousand postmasters of the United States, are 
 severally invested with jurisdiction and authority 
 
IT 
 
 in all parts of the United States, to deliver any 
 man, woman, or child in the United States, into 
 custody, as a slave, on the strength of an ex parte 
 affidavit, made anywhere in the United States. 
 This affidavit may have been made a thousand 
 miles off, by no one knows whom, and certified to 
 by a person who never saw or heard of the indi 
 vidual named in it. A forged affidavit, or a ficti 
 tious affidavit would often answer the purpose as 
 well , for how difficult, and in many cases, how 
 impossible, to prove its spiiriousness. Did oppres 
 sion ever before conceive such a tribunal, so 
 countless in numbers, so ample in jurisdiction, so 
 formidable in power ? Had a bill similar to this 
 been proposed in the British Parliament, from 
 1763 to 1776, what would our Fathers have said 
 of it ? Yet this bill, with some kindred amend 
 ments, heightening its features of atrocity, Mr. 
 Webster promised " to support, with all its pro 
 visions, to the fullest extent." 
 
 What aggravates the wrong, is. that the cruel 
 ties of the measure would fall upon the poor, the 
 helpless, the ignorant, the unfriended. The bill 
 would have been far less disgraceful, had its pro 
 visions borne upon the men who should pass it ; 
 because, in such case, there would have been a 
 touch of equality. Now, if this bill does not 
 " deride" all guaranties for the protection of human 
 liberty, it is only because my word of reprobation 
 is too weak. It is only because one needs " to 
 tear a leaf from the curse-book of Pandemonium " 
 in order to describe it by fitting epithets. 
 
 Another remarkable feature of Mr. Butler's 
 bill, is, that it provides no penalty whatever for 
 any one who shall abuse, or fraudulently use the 
 dangerous authority which it gives. It famishes 
 endless temptations and facilities for committing 
 wrong ; it imposes no restraints ; it warns by no 
 threats of retribution. 
 
 Mr. Webster calls me to account for some un 
 specified erroneous " opinion.''' expressed in rela 
 tion to this bill. Can any opinion be so false to 
 the Constitution, as this bill to humanity ? I 
 deprecate error of all sorts ; but hold it to be 
 more venial to err in judgment than in heart. 
 
 I said that in promising to support Mr. But 
 ler's bill, " with all its provisions to the fullest 
 extent," Mr. Webster "abandoned 77 the right to 
 a trial by jury. I spoke of him as a Senator, as 
 one who, with his co-legislators, has full right 
 and power under the Constitution, to secure this 
 form of trial to the alleged slave, or to a known 
 freeman seized as a slave. Mr. Seward's bill, 
 providing for the trial by jury, in such cases, was 
 before him. He took no notice of it. He passed 
 by "on the other side, 77 while he bestowed his 
 best encomium on Mr. Butler's bill, by promising 
 to support it. Was not this an " abandonment, 77 
 under all the synonymes given in the dictionary ? 
 
 HIGHER POWERS, AND LOWER. 
 
 Mr. Webster advises me, in a certain contin 
 gency, " to appeal to that higher authority which 
 sits enthroned above the Constitution and above 
 the law. 77 I take no exception to this counsel, 
 because of its officiousness, but would thank him 
 for it. My ideas of duty require me to seek anx 
 iously for the true interpretation of the Consti 
 tution, and then to abide by it, unswayed by 
 2 
 
 hopes or fears. If the Constitution requires me 
 to do anything which my sense of duty forbids, I 
 shall save my conscience by resigning my office. 
 I am free, however, to say, that if, in the discharge 
 of my political duties, I should transfer my alle 
 giance to any other power, I should adopt Mr. 
 Webster's advice, and go to the power " which sits 
 enthroned above, 77 rather than to descend to that 
 opposite realm, whence the bill he so cordially 
 promised to support, must have emerged. 
 
 1 wish, however, to remark, that though I ac 
 knowledge the Constitution to be my guide while 
 under oath to support it, yet I do not relish any 
 fling either at the powers above us, or at thos'e 
 who reverence them. I hold it be not only pro 
 per, but proof of sound moral and religious feel 
 ing, to leok to the perfect law of God for light to 
 enable us more justly to interpret the imperfect 
 laws of man. Especially, when we are pro-posing 
 to make or amend a law, ought we to take our 
 gauge of purpose and of action from the highest 
 standard. 
 
 Noy, that Solomon of the law, thought it not 
 improper to say : "The inferior law must give 
 place to the superior ; man's laws to God's 
 laws. 77 Maxims, pp. 6 7. 
 
 " The law of Nature," eays Blackston, " being coeval 
 with mankind, and dictated by God himself, is, of course, 
 superior in obligation to any other. It is binding all over 
 the globe ; in all countries, at all times. No human laws 
 have any validity, if contrary to this ; and such of them as 
 are valid, derive all their force and all their authority, me 
 diately or immediately from this original.' 1 1 Com., 41. 
 
 Fortescue, the Chancellor of Henry VI, in his de 
 Laudibus Legum Anglice, cap. 42, has the following 
 passage, the consideration of which, in requital 
 for Mr. Webster's advice to me, I respectfully 
 commend to him : 
 
 " That must necessarily be adjudged a cruel law, which 
 augments slavery, and diminishes Liberty. For Human 
 Nature imp'ores without ceasing for Liberty. Slavery is 
 introduced by man, and through his vice. But Liberty is the 
 gift of God to man. Wherefore, when torn from a man, it 
 ever yearns to return; and it is the same with everything 
 when deprived of its natural Liberty. On this account, 
 that man is to be adjudged cruel, who does not favor Liber 
 ty. By these considerations the Laws of England, in every 
 case, give favor to Liberty." Cap, 42. 
 
 CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS FOR TRIAL BY 
 JURY, WITH HISTORICAL REFERENCES. 
 
 I. Where Congress has power to provide for such 
 trial. 
 
 II. Where it is the duty of Congress to do so. 
 Having defended my own propositions, I shall 
 
 now take the liberty to examine some of Mr. 
 Webster 7 s. 
 
 He says "the Constitution declares that in all 
 criminal prosecutions, there shall be a trial by 
 jury; 77 and that, "in suits at common law the 
 trial by jury shall be preserved. 77 He then adds, 
 " there is no other clause or sentence in the Con 
 stitution having the least bearing upon the sub 
 ject. 77 Mark his words: "There is no other 
 clause or sentence in the Constitution, having the 
 least bearing on the subject? This I deny. 
 
 Here Mr. Webster virtually declares that, but 
 for the above-named two provisions, the right of 
 the trial by jury would not have been secured 
 to us by the Constitution in any case. Of course, 
 Congress would have been under no obligation, 
 nor would it have had any power, to provide by 
 law for such trials. 
 
18 
 
 Were I to say that this assertion borders on 
 the incredible, one might well ask, which side of 
 the line does it lie ? 
 
 The pro-vision for a trial by jury, in criminal 
 prosecutions, is in the third clause of the second 
 section of the third article, and is repeated, and 
 somewhat enlarged, in the fifth and sixth articles 
 of amendment. 
 
 But the provision for trial by jury, in suits at 
 common law, is in the seventh article of amend 
 ment ; and neither this provision, nor any sem 
 blance of it, is to be found, in express words, in 
 any part of the Constitution as it came from the 
 hands of its framers, and was adopted by the 
 States. 
 
 According to Mr. Webster, then, Congress were 
 under no obligation, and had no power, to make 
 a law providing for trial by jury, except in criminal 
 prosecutions, until after the seventh article of 
 amendment had been ratified ; for if they had 
 any such power, or were under any such obliga 
 tion, it must be by virtue of some clause or sen 
 tence in the Constitution, having a "bearing upon 
 the subject" 
 
 Now, the first session of Congress commenced 
 March 4th, 1789, but this seventh article of 
 amendment was not ratified, and did not become 
 a part of the Constitution, according to Hickey, 
 (Rickey's Con., p. 36 ; ) until December 15, 1791. 
 
 Until this time, therefore, according to Mr. 
 Webster, the Constitution had secured no right 
 to a trial by jury, except in the case of criminal 
 prosecutions ; because, until this time, there was 
 no clause or sentence in it, " having the least 
 bearing on the subject" of jury trials in civil 
 
 Yet, on the 24th of September, 1789, and more 
 than two years previous to the adoption of the seventh 
 amendment, (by which alone, according to Mr. 
 Webster, they had any power to act in the prem 
 ises,) Congress did pass the judiciary act ; by the 
 ninth, twelfth, and thirteenth sections of which 
 it is provided, that the trial of issues in fact, in 
 the District Courts, in the Circuit Courts, and 
 in the Supreme Court, shall, with certain excep 
 tions, be by jury. 
 
 The act also empowers the Courts to grant new 
 trials "for reasons for which new trials have 
 usually been granted in the courts of law." 
 In what courts of law? Did it not mean the 
 Courts in Westminster Hall, and those in this 
 country formed after that ancestral model ? And 
 does this show beyond question or cavil, that the 
 principle of the jury trial, in civil cases, was incor 
 porated into the Constitution of the United 
 States, originally ; and that it was universally 
 understood to be so by its framers, and by their 
 contemporaries, the members of the first Con 
 gress ? 
 
 From the Constitution alone, then, and not 
 from any power above it, or outside of it, did 
 Congress derive its power, on the 24th of Sep 
 tember, 1789, and more than two years before 
 the seventh amendment was adopted, to pass the 
 Judiciary Act, and to fill it full of the fact and 
 the doctrine of jury trials in civil cases. And if 
 Congress, at that time, had legislated on the sub 
 ject of fugitive slaves, would it not have had the 
 same power to provide the trial by jury, to deter 
 
 mine the question, slave or free, as it had to pro 
 vide for this mode of trial in other cases ? 
 
 All the State Conventions for adopting the 
 Constitution, whose debates are preserved, and 
 all the leading men who figured in them, held, con 
 trary to Mr. Webster, that the third article in the 
 Constitution, providing for courts, carried jury 
 trials in civil cases with it. Mr. Marshall, after 
 wards Chief Justice Marshall, said in the Vir 
 ginia Convention : " Does the word Court only 
 mean the Judges ? Does not the determination 
 of a Jury necessarily lead to the judgment of the 
 Court? Is there anything which gives the judges 
 exclusive jurisdiction of matters of fact ? What 
 is the object of a jury trial ? To inform the Court 
 of the facts. When a Court has cognizance of 
 facts, does it not follow that they can make inquiry 
 by a jury ? It is impossible to be otherwise." 3 
 Elliott's Debates, 506. 
 
 The third article in the Virginia Bill of Rights 
 was as follows : 
 
 "In controversies respecting property, and in suits be 
 tween man and man, the ancient trial by jury is preferable 
 to any other, and ought to be held sacred." 
 
 This article being read in the Convention, 
 Judge Marshall said the trial by jury nas as well 
 secured by the United States Constitution, as by the 
 Virginia bill of rights. Ib., 524. He said this in 
 reference to civil cases. 
 
 In the Massachusetts Convention, it was said, 
 without a doubt being expressed from any quar 
 ter, that " the word court does not, either by pop 
 ular or technical construction, exclude the use of 
 a jury to try facts. When people in common lan 
 guage talk of a trial at the Court of Common 
 Pleas, or the Supreme Judicial Court, do they 
 not include all the branches and members of such 
 courts, the jurors as well as the judges ? They 
 certainly do, whether they mention the jurors ex 
 pressly or not. Our State legislators have con 
 strued the word court in the same way." 2 Elli 
 ott's Debates, 127. 
 
 Sach was the doctrine maintained by the lead 
 ing minds in the State Conventions; by Christo 
 pher Gore, in Massachusetts ; by Judge Wilson, 
 and Chief Justice McKean, in Pennsylvania; by 
 Chief Justice Marshall, Judge Pendleton, and 
 Mr. Madison, in Virginia ; by Judge Iredell, in 
 North Carolina, and many other distinguished 
 names. 
 
 In the Virginia Convention, objection was 
 made to the Constitution, because it did not ex 
 pressly secure to the accused the privilege of chal 
 lenging or excepting to jurors in criminal cases. 
 But Mr. Pendleton, the President of the Conven 
 tion, and for so many years, the highest judicial 
 officer in the State, replied : " When the Consti- 
 stitution says that the trial shall be by jury, does 
 it not say that every incident will go along with 
 it?" 3 Elliott's Debates, 497. 
 
 So when the Constitution provided for " courts," 
 and defined their jurisdiction, it clearly contem 
 plated the trial by jury, in regard to all such 
 rights of the citizen as had been usually, thereto 
 fore, tried by a jury. Congress, indeed, might 
 fail to perform its duty ; but in such case, no 
 provisions of the Constitution, however express 
 and peremptory, would secure the rights of the 
 people. 
 
19 
 
 It is perfectly well known to every student of 
 the Constitution, that the only reason why that 
 instrument did not make express provision for 
 the trial by jury, in civil cases, was the difficulty 
 of running the dividing line between the many 
 cases that should be so tried, and the few that 
 should not. All were agreed that ninety-nine 
 per cent, of all civil cases should be tried by jury ; 
 but they could not agree upon the classes of cases 
 from which the remaining one per cent, should 
 be taken. 
 
 In this connection, it is worth while to notice 
 the heading or preamble of the Joint Resolutions 
 for submitting certain proposed amendments of 
 the Constitution to the States, among which was 
 the seventh. It is as follows : 
 
 " The Conventions of a number of the States having at 
 the time of their adopting the Constitution expressed a de 
 sire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its 
 powers, ibat further declaratory or restrictive clauses 
 should be added ; an<i as the extending the ground of public 
 confidence in the Government will best insure thebeneficent 
 ends o- its institution, RESOLVED," &c. 
 
 From this it appears that the first Congress 
 only proposed to submit certain ''further declara 
 tory and restrictive clauses]"* " to prevent miscon- 
 struc.tion or abuse of its powers/' This heading 
 or title, of course, does not enlarge or limit the 
 meaning of the amendments , but it shows the 
 view of their scope and intendment which their 
 authors held. But what is the seventh amend 
 ment but a " declaratory and restrictive clause," 
 securing the trial by jury, in cases at common 
 law, " where the value in controversy shall ex 
 ceed twenty dollars," and abandoning it where 
 the value is less? 
 
 The phraseology of the amendment is full of 
 significance : " The right of trial by jury shall be 
 preserved." Not created, but preserved. Not 
 instituted de novo, but continued. How can a 
 right be preserved, which does not already exist 9 
 
 In speaking of the trial by jury, in criminal 
 cases, Judge Story uses the same word. He says 
 it was " preserved." In neither class of cases, 
 civil or criminal, was it ever abandoned or lost, 
 through the fault of the Constitution. If not al 
 ways enjoyed by the citizen, it has been through 
 the dereliction of Congress in not passing the 
 requisite laws. 
 
 The great men who submitted this seventh 
 amendment to the States, treated the trial by 
 jury, in civil cases, as a then subsisting constitu 
 tional right. They pissed a law, to put the prac 
 tical enjoyment of this right into the hands of the 
 people, well knowing that there is scarcely a 
 right which we hold under the Constitution 
 which we can beneficially possess or use, with 
 out the intervention of some law, as its chan 
 nel or medium. 
 
 Suppose this seventh amendment had never 
 been adopted, on what ground would the trial 
 by jut y. in civil cases, have rested up to the pres 
 ent day ? 
 
 In asserting, therefore, that, besides the refer 
 ences he has made, there is not another " clause 
 or sentence in the Constitution, hiving the least 
 tearing on the subject" of jury trials, Mr. Webster 
 is contradicted by the members of the General 
 Convention, by the State Conventions, by the 
 Senators and Representatives, who passed the 
 
 Judiciary act, by President Washington who 
 signed it, and by all the judges who administered 
 that act until the seventh amendment was adopted. 
 
 II. Where it is the duty of Congress to provide for 
 trial by jury. 
 
 But another of Mr. Webster's assertions is 
 still more extraordinary. He says "nothing is 
 more false than that such jury trial [a trial by 
 jury for an alleged slave, or for a freeman claimed 
 as a slave,] is demanded by the Constitution, 
 either in its letter or in its spirit.'' 
 
 I make a preliminary remark upon the amaz 
 ing untruth embodied in the form of this propo 
 sition. 
 
 " Nothing is more false ;" that is, if I, or any 
 one, had affirmed that our Constitution forbids 
 trial by jury, in all cases, under penalty of death ; 
 or that it creates a hereditary despotism ; or that 
 it establishes the Catholic religion with the ac 
 companiment of an inquisition for each State ; or 
 that it does all these things together ; it would 
 not be more " false " to the " spirit " of the Con 
 stitution, than to say that it demands the trial by 
 jury, when a man who is seized as a slave, but 
 who asserts that he is free, invokes its protection. 
 
 But this pertains to iheform only of his asser 
 tion. I proceed to inquire whether its substance 
 be not as indefensible as its form. 
 
 In another part of Mr. Webster's letter, he 
 says, that he sees " no objection to the provisions 
 of the law" of 1793. Of course, he sees no objec 
 tion to Mr. Butler's bill, and its amendments; but 
 he prefers them to Mr. Seward's. And he now 
 says, there is nothing in the letter or in the 
 "spirit" of the Constitution, which demands the 
 jury trial for an alleged slave, or for a freeman 
 captured and about to be carried away as a slave. 
 
 Feeble and humble as I am, great and formida 
 ble as he is, I join issue with him, on this momen 
 tous question, and put myself upon the country. 
 
 Our Constitution, as the present generation 
 has always been taught, yearns towards liberty 
 and the rights of man. The trial by jury, in the 
 important cases of timb, life, or liberty, is essen 
 tial to these rights. The two, therefore, have 
 such close affinity for each other, as to render it 
 highly probable, if not morally certain, that the 
 framers of the former would make provision for 
 the latter ; that they would lay hold of it, as by a 
 law of instinct, to carry out their beneficent pur 
 poses. The trial by jury was necessary to the 
 vitality of the Constitution ; and it would hardly 
 be too strong an expression to say that the Con 
 stitution, as it came from the hands of itsfounders, 
 necessitated the trial by 'jury. 
 
 The object for which the Constitution was 
 framed, as set forth in its preamble, namely, to 
 "establish justice," "promote the general wel 
 fare," and " secure the blessings of liberty," to 
 the people. could never be accomplished without 
 the trial by jury. The preamble is not appealed 
 to as a source of power ; but it touches, as by the 
 finger, the objects which it contemplated ; it sug 
 gests the means by which its beneficent purposes 
 were to be fulfilled, and it indicates the rules of 
 interpretation by which all its provisions are to 
 be expounded. 
 
 And not only the objects for which the Consti 
 tution professes to exist, but historical facts from 
 
20 
 
 the time of Magpa Charta, and before that time ; 
 the practice of the English and of our Colonial 
 and Provincial Courts before the Revolution and 
 during the Confederacy ; in fine, all analogies 
 and tendencies of constitutional law, and what 
 ever belongs to ideas of freedom, conspire to 
 force the expectation upon us, that, in a matter 
 of such vast concernment as the life-long liberty 
 or bondage of a man and his offspring, it has not 
 left us without the right of trial by jury. 
 
 TJbe very first law "forthe general good of 
 the Colony of New Plymouth, (1623,)" was, "that 
 all criminal acts, and also all matters of trespasses 
 and DEBTS, between man and man, should be tried 
 by the verdict of twelve honest men." 
 
 In that fearful array of crimes which the Dec 
 laration of Independence charges home upon the 
 King of Great Britain, that sublime instrument 
 enumerates the following as among the most flagi 
 tious : " For depriving us, in many cases, of the 
 benefits of trial by jury," and " for protecting his 
 troops, ly a mock trial, from punishment for any 
 murders which they should commit on the in 
 habitants of these States." 
 
 According to Blackstone, the right to a trial 
 by jury had been held, " time out of mind," to 
 be the birthright of Englishmen. The 29th 
 chapter of the Great Charter guarantied this 
 right, not only in cases of liberty, life, and limb, 
 but in cases of property, real and personal. 
 
 In England, it has become a traditional saying, 
 and drops from the common tongue, that the great 
 object of King, Lords, and Commons, is to get 
 twelve men into a jury box. 
 
 Judge Story says, "When our more imme 
 diate ancestors removed to America, they brought 
 this great privilege with them, as their birthright 
 and inheritance, as a part of that admirable com 
 mon law which had fenced round, and interposed 
 barriers on every side, against the approaches of 
 arbitrary power. It is now incorporated into all 
 our State Constitutions, as a fundamental right ; 
 and the Constitution of the United States would 
 have been justly obnoxious to* the most conclu 
 sive objection, if it had not recognised and con 
 firmed it in the most solemn terms." 3 Com., 
 652-3. 
 
 Is it conceivable, then, that the heroes and 
 sages of the Revolution, who rose in resistance to 
 the most formidable Power on earth ; so many of 
 whom rose against their own kindred in the 
 mother country, because they loved liberty better 
 than father or mother, or brother or sister, and 
 who endured the privations and horrors of a 
 seven years' war, is it conceivable, I say, that, 
 when they had achieved their independence, and 
 there was no longer any earthly power to control 
 them, they should have framed a fundamental 
 law, and should not have imbued that law with 
 the "spirit" of the trial by jury, as its breath of 
 life? As British subjects, they were entitled to 
 this trial. As Americans, did they renounce it ? 
 Did they wage war for seven years in order to 
 place themselves in a worse condition than they 
 had been placed in by their "tyrant?" Mr. 
 Webster says they did. He charges this infi 
 nite folly and blindness upon them singly and 
 collectively, one and all. 
 
 DECISIONS OF THE SUPREME COURT. 
 But, to examine more particularly the phrase 
 ology of the seventh amendment. What is the 
 true meaning of those descriptive words, " suits 
 at common law ? ;; Has not Mr. Webster, relying 
 on his high reputation, disposed of this matter 
 a little too summarily ? He says, " the Consti 
 tution declares that in suits at common law, the 
 trial by jury shall be preserved;" but he adds, 
 " the reclaiming of a fugitive slave is not a suit 
 at common law." 
 
 But the Supreme Court of the United States 
 has furnished us with an authoritative interpre 
 tation of the words of the Constitution bearing 
 on this subject. In the case of Cohens vs. Vir 
 ginia, 6 Wheaton R., 407, they define what is 
 meant by a " suit." These are their words : 
 
 " What is a suit ? We understand it to be the prosecu 
 tion, or pursuit, of some claim, demand, or request. In law 
 language, it is the prosecution of some demand in a court 
 of justice. 'The remedy for every species of wrong, is/ 
 says Judge Blackstoue, ' the being put in possession of that 
 ri'ht wheieof the party injured is deprived.' The instru 
 ments whereby this remedy is obtained, are a diversity of 
 suits and actions, which are defined by the Mirror to be 
 'the lawful demand of one's right;' or, as Bracton and 
 Fleta express it, in the words of Justinian, '-jus prosequen- 
 di injudicio quod alicui d<be'ur. J (the form of pro-ecuting 
 in trial, or judgment, what is due to any one ) Blackstjne 
 then proceeds to describe every specie of remedy by suit; 
 and they are all cases where the party suing claims to 
 obtain something to which he has a right. 
 
 To commence a suit, is to demand something by the in- 
 ftitu':ion of process in a court of justice; and to prosecute 
 the suit, is, according to the common acceptation of lan 
 guage, to continue that demand." 
 
 According to the Supreme Court, then, a suit is 
 the prosecution of some claim, demand, or request. 
 But the proceedings for a fugitive slave, according 
 to the very letter of the Constitution, are insti 
 tuted to prosecute a claim. The person held to 
 service or labor is to be delivered up, " on claim 
 of the party to whom such service or labor may 
 be due." 
 
 Still farther, in a decision bearing directly on 
 the right to a trial by jury, the Supreme Court 
 have defined the term " common law" in special 
 reference to its meaning in the amendment to the 
 Constitution, which secures this right " in suits 
 at common law." These are their words : 
 
 " It is well known, that in civil causes, in courts of equity 
 and admiralty, juries do not intervene; and that courts of 
 equity use the trial by jury only in extraordinary cases, 
 to inform the con 1 cience of the court. When, therefore, we 
 find that the [7th] amendment requires, thit the right of 
 trial by jury shall be preserved in suits at common law, 
 the natural conclusion is, that this distinction was present 
 to the minds of the framers of the amendment. By cwin- 
 mon law they meant, what the Constitution denominated 
 in the thiri article 'law;' not merely suits, which the com 
 mon law recognised among its old and settled proceedings ; 
 but suits, in which legal rights were to b3 ascertained and 
 determiner], in contradistinction to those in which equitable 
 rights alone were recognised, and equitable remedies were 
 administered, or in which, as in the admiralty, a mixture of 
 public law, and of maritime law and equity, was often 
 found in the same snit. Probably there were few, if any, 
 States in the Unio~, in which some new legal remedies, 
 differing from the old common law forms, were not in use ; 
 but in which, h .wever, the trial by jury intervened, and 
 the generd regulations in other respect *, were according to 
 the course of the common law. Proceedings in cases of 
 partition, and of foreign and domestic attachment, might 
 be cited, as examples variously adopted and modified. In a 
 just sense, the amendment, then, may well be construed to 
 embrace all suits, which are not of equity or admiralty ju- 
 risiiction, WHATEVER MAYBE THE PECULIAR FORM WHICH 
 
 THEY MAY ASSUME TO SETTLE LEGAL RIGHTS "ParSOnS 
 
 vs. Bedford, 3 Peters 1 s Rep., 456-7. 
 
21 
 
 The last sentence I have underscored. In this 
 sentence, the Supreme Court plainly eay, that, if 
 the subject-matter of the litigation, or the object 
 of the proceeding, be to determine a " legal right" 
 which was formerly determined by a "suit at 
 common law," then such proceeding is embraced 
 in the seventh amendment, and either party in 
 interest has a right to the trial by jury. Now, 
 is it not clear that any proceeding which deter 
 mines whether a man owns himself, or is owned 
 by another man, and which delivers one man into 
 the custody of another, as his slave, or refuses so 
 to deliver him, is, "whatever peculiar form it 
 may assume," a proceeding " to settle a legal 
 right," the highest legal right? It is not a 
 right in equity, in admiralty, or under the mari 
 time law; but strictly and exclusively a legal 
 right, and nothing else. According to the doc 
 trine of the Supreme Court, then, in the above 
 cited case, the parties to such a proceeding have 
 a right, under the seventh amendment, to a trial 
 by jury. At least, is not such the " spirit" of the 
 amendment? 
 
 But there is another well-known fact, which 
 gives pertinence and stringency to the above 
 view. At common law, the writ de homine reple- 
 giando, the writ of personal replevin, or for re- 
 plevying a man, was an original writ ; a writ 
 which the party could sue out, of right ; one to 
 be granted on motion, without showing cause, and 
 which the Court of Chancery could not super 
 sede. It was, according to the very language of 
 our Supreme Court, recognised by the common 
 law "among its old and settled proceedings." 
 The form of it is found in that great arsenal of 
 common law writs, the Registrum Brevium. A 
 man, says Comyn, may have a homine replegiando 
 for a negro; or for an Indian brought by him 
 into England and detained from him ; or it may 
 be brought by an infant against his testamentary 
 guardian ; or by a villein against his lord. (Dig., 
 Title Imprisonment, L. 4 ) 
 
 If it could be brought by a villein against his 
 lord, then it was the very writ for an alleged slave 
 against an alleging owner. It was the mode pro 
 vided by the common law for the determination 
 of the legal right asserted in a human being. I 
 have always understood that, before the Revolu 
 tion, and before the framing of our Constitution, 
 Comyn's Digest was a work of the highest author 
 ity. It must have been well known to all the 
 lawyers in the Convention. Did they expect, 
 then, that when an alleged slave, or a known free 
 man, should be seized, that he should be hurried 
 into bondage without any right to this ancient 
 muniment of the subject's liberties ? 
 
 But " the reclaiming of a fugitive slave," says 
 Mr. Webster, " is not a suit at the common law." 
 The proceedings provided for by the statute of 
 1793, to which he " sees no objection," have no 
 analogy to the'writ de, homine replegiando. But can 
 you destroy the right to a jury trial by changing 
 the process ? A sand-hiller from Georgia or 
 North Carolina, cannot come to Massachusetts 
 and eject Mr. Webster from his Marshfield 
 farm, without being compelled to submit the 
 question of title to a jury. But suppose Congress 
 should say, in effect, that any one of the seven 
 teen thousand postmasters in the United States 
 
 might be brought into Massachusetts, (and, among 
 so numerous a body, it is no libel to say there are 
 some reckless men.) and that the said sand-hiller 
 might go before the said imported postmaster, and 
 after proof " to his satisfaction," " either by oral 
 testimony or by affidavit," an affidavit, be it re 
 membered, taken anywhere in the United States, 
 then the claimant shall be put into immediate 
 possession of the said farm, with a right to recover 
 costs; and suppose Mr. Webster should spurn 
 the authority of this illegitimate Court, and de 
 mand an observance of the ancient forms of law, 
 and a trial by jury under the seventh amendment ; 
 then the claimant has only to borrow Mr. Web 
 ster's own words, and say, "this is not a suit at 
 the common law :" suppose all this, I say, and I 
 would then ask if such a proceeding would be sat 
 isfactory to the last named gentleman ? The 
 common sense of mankind is authority good 
 enough to answer such a question, but we have 
 high legal authority in addition. 
 
 In Baker vs. Riddle, Mr. Justice Baldwin, one 
 of the judges of the Supreme Court of the 
 United States, held that it was not in the power 
 of Congress to take away the right of trial by- 
 jury, secured by the seventh amendment, nei 
 ther, " 1. By an organization of the courts in 
 such a manner as not to secure it to suitors;" 
 nor, " 2. By authorizing the courts to exercise, 
 or their assumption of, equity or admiralty juris 
 diction over cases at law." " This amendment," 
 says he, "preserves the right of jury trial against 
 any infringement by any department of the Gov 
 ernment." Baldwin's Rep., 404. 
 
 Now, what was Mr. Butler's bill, but " a new 
 organization of the courts,'' or, rather, a new 
 creation of some twenty thousand courts," in such 
 a manner as not to secure [the right of trial by 
 jury] to suitors?" It was, indeed, a violation of 
 both of the principles laid down by Judge Bald 
 win. It was the creation of tribunals unknown 
 to the common law, and authorizing those tribu 
 nals to decide upon rights not belonging to either 
 " equity or admiralty jurisdiction." 
 
 In this connection, I will refer to the case of 
 Lee vs. Lee, 8 Peters's Rtp., 44. 
 
 By act of Congress, of April 2, 1816, it was de 
 clared that no cause should be removed from the 
 Circuit Court of the District of Columbia to the 
 Supreme Court, by appeal or writ of error, "un 
 less the matter in dispute shall be of the value of 
 one thousand dollars or upwards." The plaintiffs 
 in error were claimed as slaves. Their petition 
 for freedom in the court below had been decided 
 against them; and from this decision they appealed. 
 The defendant in error took the objection that 
 they, their bodies and souls, were not worth one 
 thousand dollars, and therefore that they had no 
 right to appeal. But the court said : 
 
 " The matter in dispute, in this case, is the freedom of the 
 petitioners. The judgment of the court below is against 
 their claims to freedom ; the matter in dispute is, therefore, 
 to the plaintiffs in error, the value of their freedom, and this 
 is not susceptible of a pecuniary valuation. Had the judg 
 ment been in favor of the petitioners, and the writ of error 
 brought by the party cUiming to be the owner, the value of 
 the s'aves as property would have been the matter in dispute, 
 and affidavits might be admitted to ascertain Buch value. 
 But affidavits estimating the value of freedom are entirely 
 inadmissible; and no doubt is entertained of the jurisdastion 
 of the court.' J 
 
22 
 
 Now, if the Supreme Court of the United States, 
 in construing a law. felt constrained by their oaths 
 to hold the freedom of a man, of any man, though 
 he might be a drivelling idiot, or stretched upon his 
 deathbed, with only another hour to breathe, to 
 be worth more than a thousand dollars, how can a 
 Senator of the United States say, that in passing 
 a law, under which human liberty may be retained 
 or lost, he is not bound at least by the " spirit " of 
 the Constitution, if not by its letter, to hold that 
 human liberty to be of greater value than twenty 
 dollars, and therefore to provide the trial by jury 
 for its protection ? What can prove more striking 
 ly that Mr. Webster violates the whole " spirit " 
 of the Constitution, when the framers and ratifiers 
 of this amendment covenanted for and decreed the 
 trial by jury, for such a paltry sum of money ; and 
 when the judges of the Supreme Court held hu 
 man liberty to be worth more than any uameable 
 sum of money, while he regards it as a thing to be 
 disposed of by any corrupt postmaster which any 
 corrupt Administration may corruptly appoint. 
 Yet he says : " Nothing can be more false than 
 that a jury trial is demanded in cases of this kind 
 by the Constitution, either in its letter, or in its 
 spirit." 
 
 DOGMATIZING. 
 
 I wish I could find, or felt at liberty to coin some 
 milder word ; but for want of a better, I must say 
 that Mr. Webster seems to me, throughout this 
 whole matter, to dogmatize. He makes strong as 
 sertions without offering even weak reasons. Of 
 this character was his annunciation of the discov 
 ery of a new law, " the law of physical geogra 
 phy," which was to suspend moral agency, and 
 take from man his power to commit crime against 
 his brother ; as though in ascending hill-sides, 
 freedom and slavery lie in different atmospherical 
 strata, and are bounded by each other impassably ; 
 as though there were any mountain so " exceeding 
 high," to whose top even Jesus Christ could go, 
 that Satan could not go there to tempt him. This 
 does not strike the common mind like a true dis 
 covery ; like the law of gravitation, for instance, 
 discovered by Newton, or the existence of the 
 planet Neptune, by Leverrier. It is rather like 
 that earliest pretended discovery on record, which 
 was designed to seduce, and did seduce, the first 
 parents of us all. Ye may eat of the forbidden tree, 
 for ye shall NOT surely die. So Mr. Webster says, 
 Let slaves be driven in coffles, or carried in ships' 
 holds to the new Territories; they cannot live 
 there. Will not the results of the two experiments 
 bear a lively analogy to each other, and be likely 
 to reflect similar credit upon their authors ? 
 
 So, too, when he tore some of the brightest pages 
 from the New Testament, by proclaiming that 
 "there is to be found no injunction against that 
 relation [of slavery] between man and man, in the 
 teachings of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, or of any 
 of his Apostles " ! Upon how many Christian hearts 
 did this sentiment fall like an anathema against all 
 truth. He does not say any express injunction, but 
 " no injunction ; " none of any kind. No positive 
 injunction against slavery in the New Testament ! 
 a book designed to regulate our life and condition 
 for two worlds; yet, altogether, not so large as 
 many a Congressional report; less voluminous 
 than the ordinances of many of our city govern 
 
 ments ; a book, therefore, which, from the neces 
 sity of the case, must deal with great and immortal 
 principles, and could not descend into specification 
 and detail ; and because such a book as this con 
 tains no express injunction against slavery, there 
 fore slavery is not forbidden by it, but has the 
 implied approval of its silence! Never was there 
 a more sinister, unsound, unchristian argument 
 uttered by infidel or pagan. Is there any express 
 injunction " in the teachings of the Gospel of Jesus 
 Christ, or of any of his Apostles," commanding us 
 to declare the African slave trade piracy ? Is 
 there any express injunction "in the teachings of 
 the Gospel of Jesus Christ, or of any of his Apos 
 tles," against cannibalism ? Do they anywhere 
 say, " Ye shall not eat one another ? " Yet what 
 enormity and flagitiousness would it be to infer, 
 that, therefore, men and women may turn Ogres 
 and Ogresses, and eat human flesh as they do 
 mutton and beef. The inference in the latter case 
 is every whit aa warrantable, as sound, as in the 
 former. Yet I consider that this theological argu 
 ment does not violate the "spirit " of the Gospel, 
 anymore than his constitutional argument violates 
 the "spirit" of the Constitution. John Wesley, 
 who had lived amid slavery, denominates it the 
 "sum of all villanies," and if Christ came into 
 this world and left it, without permeating and 
 saturating all his teachings with injunctions 
 against the injustice, cruelty, pride, avarice, lust, 
 love of domination, and love of adulation, which 
 are the inseparable accompaniments of slavery, 
 then I think the Christian world will cry out, 
 that, so far as this life is concerned, his mission 
 was substantially fruitless. 
 
 " Oh, star-eyed Sc'ence ! hast thou wandered there, 
 To bring us back these tidings of despair? " 
 
 So if the Constitution of the United States con 
 tains not even any implied security for the liberty 
 of all the colored population in the free States and 
 Territories, and for the trial by jury as the only 
 adequate means of securing that liberty, then 
 would it not be more creditable to its framers 
 never to have put their signatures to it ? 
 
 LIBERTY OF THE CITIZENS MORE VALUABLE 
 THAN THEIR LIFE OR PROPERTY. 
 
 The fifth article of amendment declares that 
 "no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or 
 property, without due process of law." The com 
 mentators say that these words, "due process of 
 law," are the equivalent of the phrase "the law of 
 the land," in the 29th chapter of Magna Charta ; 
 and henca that " this clause in effect affirms the 
 right of trial according to the process and pro 
 ceedings of the common law;" that is, by jury. 
 See Story's Comm., 661 ; 2 Inst., 50, 51 ; 2 Kent's 
 Comm., 10; 1 Tuckers Black. App, 304. 
 
 Now, consider that the general right of trial by 
 jury, in cases of life, was expressly secured by the 
 Constitution as originally adopted; that, somewhat 
 more than three years afterwards, the same right 
 was expressly secured for property, in suits at com 
 mon law, whenever the value in controversy should 
 exceed twenty dollars; and then say whether there 
 is not the strongest implication in favor of the 
 same right, in cases of human liberty, which is so 
 much more precious than life and property com 
 bined. I do not here say it is an implication that 
 binds the courts in administering a law : that is 
 
not the point under discussion. But is it not an 
 implication that binds the legislator, so that when 
 legislating on the subject, he cannot conscientious 
 ly and wilfully abandon it without infidelity to his 
 oath ? I do not believe that many men from the 
 free States will ever be found in Congress who 
 will not take this view of the subject. Indeed, not 
 a few of the best lawyers and jurists have held that 
 the implication binds the courts ; and therefore, 
 that the statue of 1793 is unconstitutional* 
 
 Mr. Webster treats the two cases, of fugitives 
 from justice and fugitives from service, alike; al 
 though one can almost adopt his own language, 
 and say that " nothing is more false " than that 
 they are alike. In regard to the first class, the 
 Constitution says, a person "charged" with treason, 
 &c. ; but in regard to the second class, it says no 
 person, " held," &c. 
 
 According to the obvious intent of this language, 
 the alleged fugitive must b 3 proved to be held, bound, 
 obligated. It is not enough that he be charged to 
 be "held" to service, though it is enough that a 
 man be "charged" with crime. To bring the first 
 case within the legal category of the second, its 
 terms should be " a person guilty of treason," &c., 
 shall be delivered up. Were such the phraseology, 
 would any one doubt that proof of guilt should 
 precede delivery, and that there could be no other 
 foundation for it ? 
 
 Mr. Webster says, "perhaps the only insupera 
 ble difficulty " to a trial by jury, " has been created 
 by the States themselves." Suppose this to be so, 
 I would ask whose duty is it to act first, that of 
 Congress to provide the trial, or that of the States 
 to remove the impediment? Shall the States re 
 peal their laws first, and leave the liberty of the 
 citizens in jeopardy ; or shall not Congress legis 
 late first, and secure that liberty ? Which is of 
 the greater importance, that the owner should re 
 cover his slave, or that the citizen should retain 
 his freedom ? I answer according to the language 
 which the criminal law uses respecting guilt and 
 innocence, that it is better that nine hundred and 
 ninety -nine, that is, an indefinite number, of slaves 
 should escape, than that one free man should be 
 delivered into bondage. 
 
 Besides, I think no State legislated on the sub 
 ject for the protection of its own citizens, until 
 1842. This was after Congress had neglected 
 for more than fifty years to do its duty. Why, 
 then, should Mr. Webster cast the blame upon 
 the States which forbore for more than fifty years 
 to act protectively for themselves, when Congress, 
 of which he had been a leading member for nearly 
 forty years, had endangered, instead of securing, 
 the liberty of their citizens? When he said that 
 " every member of every Northern Legislature is 
 bound by oath to support the Constitution of the 
 United States," why did not the retort suddenly 
 rise to his mind that he was bound by oath not 
 less than they ; and that his oath embraced the 
 men that owned freedom, not less than the men 
 that owned slaves? Besides, he charges only 
 a part of the free States with being guilty of un 
 just legislation. Shall the innocent States suffer 
 because of the others' offence ? Rather shall not 
 
 * See an elaborate opinion of Chance" lor Wai worth, 14 
 Wend., 507, Jack YS Martin. 
 
 23 
 
 Congress first supply the means of protection to 
 the citizens of all ? 
 
 It seems to me, too, that the fourth amendment 
 has an important " bearing upon the subject," be 
 cause it shows that the master-thought of our 
 fathers, in forming the Constitution, was to se 
 cure the liberties of the citizen. It provides 
 against "unreasonable seizures" of "persons." 
 I suppose the main idea of this amendment was 
 to secure the citizen against "unreasonable seiz 
 ure," even in cases where he should afterwards, 
 and at som* time, be brought to trial according to 
 the forms of the common law. But wh,at " seiz 
 ure" can be more "unreasonable," than one 
 whose object is, not an ultimate trial, but bondage 
 forever, without trial ? Can mortal imagination 
 conceive of any seizure less entitled than this to 
 be called " reasonable?" With what indignation 
 did our fathers frown because they were trans 
 ported beyond seas to be tried; yet, by our pres 
 ent law, and by the law which Mr. Webster 
 promises to support, a free man may be trans 
 ported, if not beyond seas, at least beyond lands, 
 and beyond States, not to be tried, but to be held 
 in slavery forever without trial. If a free citizen 
 of Massachusetts should be seized and plunged 
 into a Massachusetts prison, to be kept there for 
 life; and his children, as a consequence of his fate, 
 were put into the same, or into other prisons, as 
 fast as they were born, to be also kept for Ijfe; 
 and such was the original object and avowed pur 
 pose of the seizure, would not this conflict a little 
 with the "spirit" of the fourth amendment? 
 And does this proceeding conflict with this 
 " spirit " any the less, because, the prison is a 
 Southern rice swamp, or cotton field, where the 
 nearest door or outlet of escape is more than a 
 hundred miles from the spot of confinement? In 
 common law actions, trover, detinue, replevin, &c., 
 &c., the trial is to be in the vicinage, except there 
 is some overpowering reason for changing the 
 venue, or place of trial. But here is a transfer 
 of the party, not for a trial, but for evading a trial. 
 I submit, then, to the public, that here are 
 three provisions of the Constitution, each one of 
 which does have "a bearing on the subject." 
 Each strengthens the other. They form a triple 
 implication, if not a trinoda necessitas, which no 
 man, however powerful he may be, can break. 
 
 The argument which the lawyers call ab incon- 
 venienti, the argument from inconvenience, has 
 been pressed into the service of the slaveholder to 
 endanger the liberties of the citizen. I answer, 
 there are two sides to this argument ; nor was it 
 wise in the slaveholder, or his Northern friends, 
 to name it. It seems to me quite as inconvenient 
 for a free man to lose his liberty, as for a slave 
 holder to lose his slave. If a Southern man sues 
 a Northern one for the value of a bale of cotton 
 or a barrel of rice, must not the plaintiff await 
 the next term of the court before he can enter his 
 action, abide by the rules of the court respecting 
 continuances, and submit to the order of business 
 in taking his turn before a jury ? To obviate 
 this inconvenience, has any legislature or any 
 court ever proposed to set aside or annul, at once, 
 all the securities by which we hold property and 
 life? And how stands the question respecting 
 evidence or proof? If difficult for a slave- 
 
24 
 
 claimant, from Texas, to prove title to his slave 
 in Massachusetts, how infinitely more difficult for 
 a citizen of Massachusetts to prove title to him 
 self in Texas. But Mr. Webster says there are 
 independent courts at the South, "always open 
 and recidy to receive and decide upon petitions or 
 applications for freedom." Suppose this to be 
 true ; how is a man or a woman, whose master 
 knows that he or she is free, to get to the courts? 
 Mr. Webster seems to think that as soon as a 
 kidnapping slave-dealer shall transport his human 
 prey to the South, he will at once take him to, or 
 allow him to go before a court of justice, or will 
 sell him to some brother Samaritan who will do 
 so. Does not everybody know that any man, 
 who is capable of the enormous guilt of seizing or 
 buying a freeman, will chain, and scourge, and 
 starve and mutilate that freeman, if he but so 
 much as open his lips in audible prayer to God 
 for the restoration of his birthright ? 
 
 Mr. Webster says, persuasively, that the alleged 
 slave " is only remitted, for inquiry into his rights, 
 to the State from which he fled." But suppose he 
 had never "fled ;" but was demeaning himself as 
 a peaceable citizen, under the solemnly pledged 
 protection of the Government, on the soil where 
 he was born ! This is the false idea that underlies 
 the whole of Mr. Webster's seductive letter, that 
 under such a bill as Mr. Butler's, nobody but a 
 slave would ever be arrested. 
 
 I have no doubt that what Mr. Webster says 
 about Southern courts being " fair and upright," 
 is very generally and extensively true ; but I have 
 had a little personal knowledge of Southern courts, 
 and I have no hesitation in saying that there has 
 been one, at least, before which, if a slave were 
 suing for his freedom, and any popular clamor 
 against him should exist, he would have no more 
 hope of obtaining his liberty through the "fair 
 ness " of the court, than, if thrown overboard in 
 the middle of the Atlantic ocean, he would have 
 of saving his life by swimming ashore. 
 MASSACHUSETTS PRINCIPLES, THOUGH RIDI 
 
 CULED, YET RIGHTEOUS. 
 Mr. Webster holds Massachusetts up to the 
 ridicule of the world, because she " grows fervid 
 on Pennsylvania wrongs ;" and he has deemed it 
 his duty to inquire how many seizures of fugitive 
 slaves have occurred in New England within our 
 time. Is this the Christian standard by which to 
 estimate the evil of encroachments upon the most 
 sacred rights of men 1 If I repose in contentment 
 and indifference, because my own section, or State, 
 or county, is as yet but a partial sufferer, why 
 should I not continue contented and indifferent 
 while I myself am safe? In providing for the 
 liberties of the citizen, under a common Govern 
 ment, I think Massachusetts worthy of all honor, 
 and not of ridicule, because she does " grow fervid 
 on Pennsylvania wrongs," and on the wrongs of 
 an entire race, whether in Pennsylvania or Cali 
 fornia, or anywhere within the boundaries of our 
 own country. I see no reason why my sympathies 
 as a man, or the obligations of my oath as an offi 
 cer, in regard to the nearer or the remoter States, 
 should be inversely as the squares of the distan 
 ces. Even with regard to foreign countries, did 
 Mr. Webster think so, in those better days, when 
 
 his eloquent appeal for oppressed and bleeding 
 Greece roused the nation, like the voice of a 
 clarion? Did Mr. Webster deem it necessary to 
 make inquisitions through all the New England 
 States, to learn how many Hungarian patriots 
 they had seen shot at the tap of drum, or how many 
 noble Hungarian women had been stripped and 
 whipped in their market-places, before he thrilled 
 the heart of the nation, at the wrongs of Kossuth 
 and his compatriots, and invoked the execrations 
 of the world upon the Austrian and Russian des 
 pots? I see no difference between these cases, 
 which is not in favor of our home interests, of our 
 own domestic rights, except the diiference of their 
 bearings upon partisan politics and Presidential 
 rivalries. Mr. Webster quotes and commends 
 Mr. Bissell, who said that those Southern States 
 which had suffered the least from loss of slaves 
 made the greatest clamor. That statement of a 
 fact was well put by Mr. Bissell ; but was it well 
 applied by Mr. Webster? In the statement, it 
 was a question as to the loss of property. In 
 the application, it is a question as to the loss of 
 liberty. The latter is not, therefore, the " coun 
 terpart" of the former. Blindness to the distinc 
 tion between the value and the principle of prop- 
 perty, and the value and the principle of liberty, 
 could alone have permitted the comparison. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 But I have extended this communication greatly 
 beyond my original purpose. Several other topics 
 contained in Mr. Webster's speech, or growing 
 out of what has since happened in relation to it, 
 and hardly less important than those already con 
 sidered, must await another opportunity for dis 
 cussion ; unless, indeed, some disposal of the ques 
 tion shall render further discussion unnecessary. 
 I am not unmindful of the position in which I 
 stand. 1 am not unaware that circumstances have 
 placed me in an antagonist relation to a man whose 
 vast powers of intellect the world has long so 
 tividly enjoyed and so profoundly admired. I 
 well know that & personal contest between us seems 
 unequal, far more than did the threatened contest 
 between the Hebrew stripling and the champion 
 of the Philistines, who had a helmet of brass upon 
 his head, and greaves of brass upon his legs, and 
 the staff of whose spear was like a weaver's beam. 
 But the contest is not between us. It is between 
 truth and error; and just so certain as the spirit 
 of Good will prevail over the spirit of Evil, just 
 so certain will Truth ultimately triumph. In 
 such a case as this, there is one point of view in 
 which Mr. Webster is a desirable antagonist ; for 
 the thick and far-beaming points of light, which 
 he has left all along his former course of life, can 
 not fail to expose, to other eyes than his own, the 
 devious path into which he has now wandered. 
 HORACE MANN. 
 WASHINGTON, June 6, 1850. 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 Another edition of the preceding communication? 
 having been called for, I avail myself of the opportu 
 nity it presents, to add a fen notes. 
 
 I had hoped not to be required to say more on 
 this subject ; but, during the past week, Mr. 
 
25 
 
 ebater has issued, in a pamphlet form, a 
 eech made by him, in the Senate, on the 17th 
 t., accompanied by his letter to some gentlemen 
 n the Kennebec river, dated on the same day. In 
 is letter, Mr. Webster has referred to me again ; 
 nd he seems to have given himself full license to 
 epart from all the rules of courtesy belonging 
 a gentleman, and to disobey the obligations of 
 uth, belonging to a man. The angry and re- 
 oachful language, in which he has now indulged 
 mself, releases me from all further obligation 
 treat him with personal respect. Yet I intend 
 it to avail myself of the release. I confess that 
 y habit of looking up to him with political def 
 ence and regard, had become so inveterate, that 
 will require at least another volley of his in- 
 Its to break it. Under present relations, how- 
 r er, I feel at liberty to use considerable plain- 
 CBS of speech. 
 
 For perspicuity, I shall arrange what I have to 
 y, under distinct heads. 
 
 MR. WEBSTER'S TIUPLE FALSIFICATION OF A 
 PLAIN MATTER OF FACT. 
 
 At the first onset, Mr. Webster charges me 
 ith an act which, if true, wounds my character 
 seply, as an honorable man ; but, if untrue, de- 
 roys his. It is untrue. To give plausibility to 
 s charge, he resorts to the following threefold 
 Isification of a plain matter of fact. In profess- 
 g to quote from his 7th of March speech, he 
 is suppressed what he did say ; he has intro- 
 iced what he did not say ; and he has then ap- 
 ied my criticism, not to his original sentiment 
 i which it was made, but to the counterfeit one 
 hich he has surreptitiously put in its place. 
 In his 7th of March speech, Mr. Webster said, 
 [ would not take pains to re-affirm an ordinance 
 Nature, nor to re-enact the will of God." This 
 as the sentiment I criticised. It appears in 
 ese words, in the National Intelligencer, in the 
 men, in the Republic, in the Globe, and in the 
 ,mphlet edition which he dedicated to the people 
 Massachusetts. But in his Kennebec letter, in 
 der to take away the ground of my criticism, he 
 as interpolated a word into the above sentence, 
 biich changes its whole meaning. Pretending 
 quote himself, he says, " I would not take pains 
 ELESSLY to re-affirm an ordinance of Nature, or 
 ree'Dact the will of God." By foisting in the 
 ord which I have underscored, he changes the 
 itire character of the sentiment advanced. As 
 >w stated, nobody can dissent from it ; for who 
 ould announce, in a distinct proposition, that he 
 ould uselessly do anything ? As originally stat- 
 , nobody can assent to it. This perversion is 
 >t only false towards me, but it contains a latent 
 nfession that he knew he was wrong. Else 
 hy did he make the alteration ? Why did he 
 .ink the surreptitious changing of his doctrine 
 be a less evil than the acknowledgment of it 
 originally avowed ? Had he quoted his origi- 
 il false sentiment truly, the world would have 
 en that 1 was right ; but in his dilemma, he in- 
 rpolated a true sentiment falsely, in order to 
 ove that my criticism, on such a sentiment, was 
 rong. He expunges the original sentiment on 
 hich my criticism was made ; he forges an oppo- 
 te sentiment, to which no one would ever ob- 
 ct ; and then he applies my criticism made on the 
 
 expunged sentiment, to his counterfeited substi 
 tute. 
 
 I shall not venture to define or describe a pro 
 ceeding like this, in words of my own. I trust, 
 as yet, that I obey the apostolic injunction, and 
 possess my soul in patience ; and it will take at 
 least another discharge from his battery of wrath 
 to provoke a fitting retort. I may be permitted, 
 however, to use a sentiment uttered by himself, 
 to show how he has condemned himself. In the 
 same connection, Mr. Webster advanced the fol 
 lowing idea: " I know no passion more appropri 
 ate to devils than the passion for gross misrepre 
 sentation and libel." Can any mortal specify a 
 grosser instance of " gross misrepresentation and 
 libel" than when one of the parties to a public dis 
 cussion has uttered an obnoxious sentiment, and 
 when this sentiment has met with very general 
 reprobation, and when, in the progress of the dis 
 cussion, the guilty party professes to restate the 
 case, that he should then expunge the false sen 
 timent he originally advanced, foist a trite and 
 common-place one in its stead, and then apply 
 a criticism made on the suppressed sentiment to 
 the forged one ? Is it not as palpable a case of 
 alteration, as to change the date of a note of hand 
 in order to take it out of the statute of limita 
 tions, or to obliterate the description of the prem 
 ises in a deed, and put a more valuable estate in 
 its place ? This proceeding is worse, if possible, 
 than the former "misrepresentation and libel" 
 of my argument and myself, contained in the 
 Newburyport letter. But the subject is painful, 
 and I leave it. 
 
 2- .MR. WEBSTER'S RIDICULOUS CLASSICAL 
 BLUNDER. 
 
 It affords me great relief to turn from this to 
 the next topic in Mr. Webster's Kennebec epistle. 
 The severity of moral judgment which must be 
 passed upon his fabricated quotation and the use 
 he made of it, is here turned into mirth by one of 
 the most ridiculous classical blunders, that has 
 been made since Lord Kenyon called Julian 
 " the Apostle." 
 
 Mr. Webster says: "In classical times, there 
 was a set of small but rapacious critics, denomi 
 nated captatores verborum, who snatched and 
 caught at particular expressions ; expended their 
 strength oa the disjecta membra of language ; birds 
 of rapine which preyed on words and syllables," 
 &c., &c. 
 
 May I most respectfully ask Mr. Webster on 
 what authority he says there was, "in classical 
 times," any such " set " of " small but rapacious 
 critics ?J as he here speaks of, or exemplifies ? 
 In my ignorance, I have always supposed the 
 " coptator " of classical times, to be a kind of 
 "genius "the very opposite of what Mr. Web 
 ster describes. Horace, Juvenal, and Livy, rep 
 resent him as a selfish, sycophantic gift-seeker, 
 or fortune-hunter ; not a twister, torturer, or in 
 terpolator even, of words and phrases. He was 
 rather a man who mamiged to get his living out 
 of other folks. His acts and tricks served the 
 purpose of a prehensile organ, such as the finger- 
 like appendage of an elephant's proboscis, by 
 which to pick other men's pockets. The accom 
 panying words, descriptive of his filchings, were 
 
26 
 
 not torve, ringi, and so forth ; but callide, blande, or 
 llandicule. If captator meant a cavilling, cynical 
 critic, then captatrix should mean a scold, a vixen, 
 or virago ; but its true meaning was " a fawning 
 gossip," or " mean flatterer." In our days, the 
 equivalent or fac simile of the classical captator, 
 would be the man who coaxes other people to 
 accept his bills, or endorse his notes, or lend him 
 minute-money, and then never pays ; or the man 
 who gets life-settlements for supporting class in 
 terests, and so brings odium on their unquestion 
 able merits. No mistake could be greater than 
 that the old captatores " expended their strength 
 on the disjecta membra of language," or " gorged 
 themselves with the garbage of phrases, chopped, 
 dislocated, and torn asunder, by themselves." On 
 the contrary, they were " gentle as a sucking 
 dove." Their u disjecta membra" rather resem 
 bled outlawed promissory notes, protested drafts, 
 overdrawn bank accounts, unpaid scores to 
 shopmen, &c. There was nothing like the harpy 
 about them, as Mr. Webster seems to suppose, in 
 this remarkable description of his, which is as 
 rhetorically unsavory as it is classically untrue. 
 What malignant sprite could have been at Mr. 
 Webster's elbow when he penned this wrathful 
 paragraph, and suggested to him a word preg 
 nant with such unutterable associations ! 
 
 So far from there being any " set " of critics, 
 in classic times, denominated and known as capta- 
 tores verborum, 1 doubt whether even the abstract 
 noun " captatio " occurs half a dozen times, in all 
 the classics, in connection with the genitive of his 
 pretended appellation. He could hardly have 
 made a greater or more ludicrous mistake. It is 
 exceedingly to be regretted, after the numerous 
 instances we have lately had of Mr. Webster's 
 bad logic, and bad humanity, and bad discoveries 
 of natural law, that he should now offend the 
 classical taste of the country, and bring discredit 
 upon the New England colleges, by his bad Latin. 
 This whole anti-classical paragraph about " dis 
 jecta membra," and "chopping," and "gorging," 
 and ' c uncleanness," is an unclean conception of his 
 own ; not a pure but an impure invention ; not in 
 tellectual but epigastric in its origin. 
 3. MR. WEBSTER'S ERRONEOUS GEOGRAPHY, 
 AND HIS FALSE CITATION OF AUTHORITIES. 
 Mr. Webster's geographical statements on this 
 subject are worthy to be placed side by side with 
 his classical. He says, the extent of New Mex 
 ico, north and south, on the line of the Rio 
 Grande, " can hardly be less than a thousand 
 miles." This makes a little more than fourteen 
 degrees of latitude. Now, as its northern bound 
 ary is in 42, its southern must be as low as 28. 
 This is four degrees below El Paso del Norte. 
 Yet Mr. Webster, on the 13th of June last, de 
 clared himself in favor of fixing the northern 
 boundary of Texas at or near El Paso, and more 
 than four degrees of latitude north of what he 
 here says is the southern boundary of New Mex 
 ico. He also supported that part of the Compro 
 mise bill which proposes to give Texas, not only 
 these four degrees of latitude, but money also, 
 for taking what, as he now says, belongs to New 
 Mexico and the United States. How can these 
 Tiews stand together ? 
 
 In his 7th of March speech, Mr. Webster de 
 clared it to be a natural impossibility that Africar 
 slavery could ever exist " in California or Nev 
 Mexico." P. 42. He now defines the southern 
 boundary of New Mexico. It can hardly be less 
 says he, than " a thousand miles" from the forty 
 second degree of north latitude. This places i 
 four degrees south of El Paso. He is in favor o; 
 that part of the bill which gives these four de 
 grees to Texas. According to him, therefore 
 should Texas get possession of these four degreei 
 of what is now New Mexican territory, slaverj 
 will exist, as far up as the old southern boundar 
 line of New Mexico, by virtue of the laws o" 
 Texas ; but beyond this line, although withil 
 the bounds of Texas, it will not exist, becaus* 
 forbidden by the " will of God." Hence the ex 
 traordinary spectacle will be exhibited, of th 
 existence of slavery coming plump up to th 
 south side of an imaginary line, by the laws o 
 Texas, while on the north side of the said 
 nary line, its existence will be cut square off b;[ 
 the " will of God," although both sides are with] 
 in the same political jurisdiction. This will bj 
 a miracle, compared with which the supposed mil 
 raculous preservation of the Jewish feature anf 
 complexion, for two thousand years, will be urf 
 worthy to be mentioned. It remains to be seeij 
 however, whether this miracle will be vouchsafe! 
 to Mr. Webster, as a proof of the Divine favor. 
 
 On the 5th of June, Mr. Webster voted againfl : 
 incorporating the "Proviso" into the Govern 
 ments for New Mexico and Utah, because slaverj 
 was already prohibited thereby " Asiatic seem 
 ry" and the law of " physical geography." O| 
 the next day, too, he voted against the followinj 
 amendment offered by Mr. Walker : " And ths. 
 peon servitude is forever abolished and prohil| 
 ited." Whether he so voted because this specin 
 of slavery, (which is an existing institution at tl| 
 present time.) was prohibited by " scenery" ai 
 " geography," does not appear. 
 
 But on the 17th of June, Mr. Webster, in til 
 Senate, suggested a qualification of his doctriij 
 as laid down on the 7th of March, viz: tl 
 "every foot of territory of the United Stat 
 has a fixed character for slavery." An unc 
 tainty as to the boundary line between Nel 
 Mexico and Texas, gave rise to this qualificitio 
 'JLet me say to gentlemen," said Mr. Webste 
 " that if any portion which they or I do not bj 
 lieve to be Texas, should be considered to beconj 
 Texas, then, so far, that qualification of my r 
 mark is applicable." (Cons:. Glob?,, 31st Cong., 1 
 sess, p. 1239) That is, if the Compromise b: 
 should so establish the boundary line betweil:' 
 New Mexico and Texas, as that "any portiijr| 
 [of New Mexico] which they or I [other gentl| 
 men or Mr. Webster,] do not believe to be Texf 
 should be considered to become Texas," then, 
 Texan territory, it might lose its " fixed chara 
 ter," and become slave territory, notwithstandii|^ 
 the "ordinance of Nature" and the "will 
 God." But, strange to say, on this same 17th 
 June, the Kennebec letter was written, whi 
 carries the southern boundary of Mexico, on 
 east side of the Rio Grande, four degrees bel< 
 El Paso, and, of course, includes all that re " 
 within New Mexico, and therefore within t 
 
2T 
 
 ordinance of Nature" and the "will of God!" 
 
 that, after all, he acknowledges that the " or- 
 nance of Nature" and the " will of God" may 
 e overridden by the laws of Texas. 
 
 But his citation of authorities is among the 
 ost surprising of all his aberrations from fact. 
 te first quotes Major Gaines, who, as he says, 
 traversed a part of this country during the 
 :ican war." By " this country/ 7 I suppose 
 e means New Mexico. If he does not mean 
 
 ew Mexico, then the citation has no relation to 
 
 e subject. If he does mean New Mexico, then 
 e asserts what is not true. Major Gaines did 
 ot go within four or five hundred miles of 
 "ew Mexico, during the war ; and if the quota- 
 on from him was designed to create the belief 
 lat, in what Major Gaines said, he was speaking 
 ? New Mexico, it was as gross an imposition as 
 uld well be made. 
 
 The next citation is from Colonel Hardin. Two 
 ntences are taken. I transcribe the first with 
 tr. Webster's italics. 
 
 " The whole country is miserably watered; large districts 
 tve no water at all The streams are smalt, and at great 
 stances apart. One day we marched on the road from 
 onciova to Parras, thirty-fivemiles, without water,- a pretty 
 vere day's march for infantry/'' 
 
 And what country does this describe? 
 
 " From Monclova to Parras, thirty-five miles!" 
 ys Colonel Hardin. And where is Monclova? 
 way down south in Coahuila. hundreds of miles 
 p om any part of New Mexico. 
 
 I submit the following notes, one from the 
 olonel of the regiment in which Mr. Gaines 
 as a major; and the other from a major in the 
 egiment of which Mr. Hardin was Colonel. 
 
 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, June 27, 1850. 
 SIR : In reply to your note of this date. I state tht Major 
 aines d d not, during the Mexican war, travel through any 
 irt of New Mexico. Major Gaines entered Mexico at Ca- 
 argo, on the Rio Grande ; was engaged near Saltillo, until 
 
 1 was captured and taken to the city of Mexico; and thence 
 i returnel to the United States, by the way of Vera Cruz. 
 
 i am, sir, very icspectfully, &c. ? 
 
 HUMPHREY MARSHALL. 
 
 P. S. In reply to your verbal inquiry, whe f her Colonel 
 ardin was in New Mexico, I state, thit Colonel Hardin 
 as attached to General Wool's command, and passed from 
 in Antonio de Bexar, by the Presidio de Rio Grande, Mon- 
 ova, and Parras, to Saltillo: so that he did not enter New 
 ^exiro. H. M. 
 
 Hon. H. Mann. 
 
 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Jwne 28, 1850. 
 SIR : In reply to your note of this date, I have the honor to 
 iy, that I was an officer of the First Regiment Illinois 
 olunteers, commanded by Colonel J. J. Hardin during the 
 lexican war, and that during the time Colonel Hardin was 
 i command of the regiment, he was not in New Mexico, 
 is nearest point to New Mexico was Monclova or Parras, 
 hich was several hundred miles distant- In my opinion, 
 olone 1 Hardin was never in New Mexico; he certainly was 
 t in that country during the Mexican war. 
 
 Respectfully, W. A. RICHARDSON. 
 
 Now what possible excuse can be offered for 
 
 icse misleading citations? What information 
 
 prould be given of the soil of the Genesee valley 
 
 f New York, by proving the condition of the 
 
 ands of Cape Cod ? 
 
 Mr. Webster next quotes, for the second time, 
 ae letter of Hugh N. Smith, Esq. This letter, 
 f taken by itself, would render it improbable, in 
 AT. Smith's opinion, that slavery would go into 
 Mexico ; but it by no means proves the 
 
 physical impossibility of its existence there. But 
 what different language has Mr. Smith since held 
 in his Address to his constituents? I will quote 
 a few passages from this Address to show its gen 
 eral drift and intent : 
 
 " Your State [New Mexico] is threatened with dismember 
 ment, and, what is ytt more fatal, the introduction of sla 
 very into its bosom. 1 ' Page i. 
 
 " The most formidable part of this combination against you 
 is that which originates in the slave interest. It not only 
 rallies against you the whole slaveholding South, bat all the 
 influence of selfish, venal and ambitious men in the North, 
 looking to speculations in discredited bonds and land job 
 bing, or to the political honors which the combined vote of 
 the South may promise." Page 2. 
 
 "The doctrine of the slaveholding States, in regard to 
 their domestic institutions, is non intervention ; but with 
 regard to yours, it is instant intervention, to set at nought 
 the prohibition of slavery, which ytu brought with you into 
 the Union," &c. Ib. 
 
 " I am myself a native of the section [Mr. Smith is a Ken- 
 tuckian] whose fate I deplore, and if my duty did not 
 require, I would be the last to advert to the malady that 
 preys upon its life. * * * * The schemes of those who 
 would bind you to the destiny of the slave States, render it 
 necessary that your Representative should i e excluded from 
 the Halle of Congress." Page 3. 
 
 " You are left prostrate, that Texas may dismember and 
 divide New Mexico, and subject her to Southern influence ; 
 that negro slavery may be introduced into the remnant of 
 territory that may not be appropriated to Texas; ana, 
 finally, thit the region thus securtd to Southern policy may 
 become the stock on which to graft new conquests from Mex 
 ico." Page 4. [These are Mr. Smith's italics.] 
 
 " The first step in this process is to supplant the funda 
 mental municipal institutions brought bv New Mexico with 
 her into the Union, by a Territorial Government which, by 
 omitting the inhibition against slavery in the Congressional 
 act, failing to reserve that contained in the Mexican code, 
 and preventing the people of the Territory f>om legislating 
 upon the subject of slavery, and from re-enact ing the pro 
 hibitory clause, will unquestionably abolish all protections 
 against that institution; and, indeed, more effectual legisla 
 tion for the extension of slavery into New Mexico could not 
 be enacted. 7 ' Page 5. 
 
 " The whole body of Southern influence; now that mining 
 is a mania, would combine to pour an immense colony of 
 slaves into New Mexico. The consequence of this would be 
 to level the whole population of Ntw Mexico with the new 
 caste brought into competition ; and yon, tny Mexican fellow- 
 citizens, who till your own soil with yonr own hands, would 
 be compelled to fly your country, or be degraded from your 
 equality of freemen, forfeiting your hopes of rising to the 
 new elevation promised by your alliance with the great North 
 American Republic, and living only to witness the ruin of 
 all that renders life desirable." Page 6. 
 
 This is what Mr. Smith says, when he writes 
 home to his own people, who know all about their 
 own country, and its danger of being invaded by 
 slavery. 
 
 Now, let the reader suppose himself to have 
 read from Mr. Smith's Address, as much more, of 
 the same kind as the above, and then say how far 
 his evidence goes to sustain Mr. Webster's dis 
 covery, that slavery can never go into New Mex 
 ico. Mr. Smith's Address has been published for 
 two months ; it has been on the tables of mem 
 bers, published, and quoted from in the newspa 
 pers, and yet Mr. Webster continues to cite Mr. 
 Smith, as a witness in his favor. What influ 
 ences were used to induce Mr. Smith to withhold, 
 in the letter to Mr. Webster, the facts and views 
 which he has so clearly brought out in the letter 
 to bis constituents? 
 
 The next and last citation is from an officer at 
 Santa Fe. No name is given. We are informed 
 neither of the character of the author nor of his 
 means of information ; and if this authority is as 
 fallacious and deceptive as the preceding, it is a 
 great deal worse than nothing. It would be like 
 
28 
 
 the testimony sometimes offered in court, which 
 ruins the cause and dishonors the counsel. 
 
 4 MR. WEBSTER'S "DILIGKNT READING." 
 
 Mr. Webster says, in this letter, ' ; I have 
 studied the geography of New Mexico diligently, 
 having read all that I could find in print." Ac 
 cording to this statement, he must have read the 
 letters of Mr. James S. Calhoun, Indian agent at 
 Santa Fe, communicated to Congress by the Presi 
 dent, on the 231 of January last. Speaking of 
 the Navajoes, a tribe of 7.000 Indians, within the 
 limits of what it is proposed to include in New 
 Mexico, Mr. Calhoun says, that it is " not a rare 
 instance for one individual to possess 5,000 to 
 10,000 sheep, and 400 to 500 head of other stock." 
 (P. 184 ) That their country " is rich in its val 
 leys, rich in its fields of grain, and rich in its 
 vegetables and peach orchards." (P. 199.) " We 
 encamped," says he, " near extensive corn fields, 
 belonging to the Navajoes." (P. 197.) Their soil 
 is easy of cultivation, and capable of sustaining 
 nearly as many millions of inhabitants as they 
 have thousands." (P. 202 ) A country owned by 
 one tribe capable of sustaining nearly 7.000,000 
 inhabitants, and yet, as Mr. Webster avers, inac 
 cessible to slavery, on account of its barrenness ! 
 
 Speaking of the Indians, (Pueblos ) on the Rio 
 Grande, Mr. Calhoun says : " These people can 
 raise immense quantities of corn and wheat, and 
 have large herds of sheep and goats. The grazing 
 for cattle generally is superior." (P. 206.) Of the 
 more western Pueblos, he says, they have "an 
 extent of country nearly four hundred miles 
 square;" more than twenty times as large as 
 Massachusetts ; " they have rich valleys to cul 
 tivate, grow quantities of corn and wheat, and 
 raise vast herds of horses, mules, sheep and 
 goats, all of which may be immensely increased 
 by properly stimulating their industry, and in 
 structing them in the agricultural arts." (P. 215 ) 
 
 I might cite much more from the same author 
 ity, to the same effect ; but I do not refer to Mr. 
 Calhoun so much for the purpose of showing the 
 agricultural capabilities of New Mexico, as of 
 asking why Mr. Webster did not quote from this 
 recent official work, which has been lying on the 
 tables of members for mouths, instead of quoting 
 descriptions from military officers respecting a 
 country which he well knew they had never seen ? 
 
 There is good reason to believe that there are 
 wide tracts of fertile land lying between the 
 Sierra de los Mimbres and the Sierra Nevada on 
 the east and west, and the 32d and 35uh degrees 
 of latitude. The waters at the mouth of a river 
 give no doubtful indication respecting the coun 
 try from which they flow. If the volume be 
 large, we know it must drain an extensive region ; 
 for the waters of a great river cannot be supplied 
 from a narrow surface. So if the water be muddy, 
 as is said to be the case with that of the Colo 
 rado, it is proof that it courses through a dilu 
 vial country. But however this may be. all ac 
 counts concur in representing New Mexico to be 
 rich in mines; and mines are the favorite sphere 
 for slavery, as the ocean is for commerce. 
 
 In his late speech in the Senate, Mr. Davis of 
 Massachusetts said that however it might be with 
 regard to employing slaves in New Mexico for 
 
 raising crops of corn or cotton, there was still oo< 
 purpose to which they might be applied, th 
 most odious of all purposes, to raising crops froi 
 themselves. From this "Southern Hive," th< 
 markets of Texas and Louisiana might be suj 
 plied with " vigintial " crops of human beings!) 
 It will be incumbent on Mr. Webster to invenl 
 some new "physical" law to meet this astuta 
 suggestion of his colleague. " Asiatic scenery 
 will hardly answer his purpose here. 
 
 Within the limits of the proposed Territory of. 
 New Mexico, it is supposed that that powerful 
 and comparatively civilized people, the Azt 
 once resided. Can any person for a moment 
 lieve, that the Aztecs ever grew to opulence oi 
 power, in any such sterile and desolate region, a* 
 Mr. Webster's "diligent reading" portrays? 
 
 But what must satisfy every man whose blind- 
 ness is not of the soul rather than of the senses^ 
 is the fact, that the people of New Mexico, iii 
 the Constitution which they have just framed] 
 have embodied a prohibition of slavery ir* 
 their fundamental law. Had slavery been for-} 
 bidden there by any " Asiatic scenery" or by anyj 
 "law of physical geography," who should know it 
 better than they? They have had slaverjjj 
 amongst them heretofore, and therefore they* 
 know it can invade them again, and therefore 
 they forbid it ; and in the choice of Senators to 
 Congress under the new organization, should anyj 
 candidate put forward the vagary, the phantasm,! 
 the fatuity, that slavery cannot exist among them.! 
 they would doubtless deem him a less fit subject! 
 for "the Senate of the United States, than for san-i 
 itary treatment. 
 
 How stands the evidence, then, on the question,' 
 whether "California and New Mexico," fronn 
 their geology, their geography, or their Asiatic- 
 scenery, are inaccessible or not, to the invasion! 
 of slavery ? It is well known that the war with) 
 Mexico was provoked, and violently precipitated 
 upon the country, in order to extend the domaint 
 and the power of slavery. In negotiating for the- 
 cession of California and New Mexico, the Mex 
 ican Commissioners strove to introduce a prohibi 
 tion against slavery into the treaty. This demon-i 
 strates that they thought slavery could exist 
 there. Oar Minister declared that he would as 
 sent to no such stipulation, though they would 1 
 cover all the land a foot thick with gold. This 
 shows the tenacity with which Mr. Folk's AdJ 
 ministration, and all its Southern friends, adhered 
 to their original purpose of obtaining new terri 
 tory for slavery. In view of this, the House 01 
 Representatives again and again voted to applj- 
 the Proviso to whatever territory should be ob-> 
 tained. When the treaty was ratified, many ol 
 the leading Senators voted against the clause foi 
 acquisition, foreseeing the present controversy 
 and hoping to avert it. Even after the treaty waf | 
 ratified, leading Southern Whigs in the House*) 
 voted against paying the first instalment under it i 
 still clinging to the hope that the territory might i 
 be restored to Mexico, and this ciuse of dissen-i 
 sion withdrawn. During all this period, fourteeaj 
 of the Northern Legislatures, many of thenci 
 again and again, voted that the Proviso should bJ 
 applied. The present six months' contest, in th< 
 Senate and House, between the North and tb 
 
29 
 
 ^South, is conducted solely on the conviction that 
 slavery may exist in the Territories ; and that it 
 will or will not exist there, according as the la-w 
 allows or forbids it. Otherwise, it would be the 
 most nonsensical and nugatory discussion ever 
 engaged in out of a lunatic asylum. Once make it 
 as clear as any law of physical nature, that sla 
 very can never transgress the bounds of the new 
 territories ; and there is not a man so demented 
 that he would any longer contend either for the 
 Proviso, or against it. Mr. Webster was always 
 of the same opinion, and has declared it a hun 
 dred times. In his Marshfield speech, September 
 1, 1843, he said, u He [General Cass] will surely 
 have the Senate, and with the patronage of the 
 Government, with every interest that he as a 
 Northern man, can bring to bear, cooperating 
 with every interest that the South can bring to 
 bear, we cry safety before we are out of the 
 woods, if we fed that there is no danger [of slavery] 
 as to these new Territories," Up to the 7 fch March, 
 1850, then, when he abandoned all the doctrines 
 and sentiments he had ever before advocated on 
 this subject, and when he incurred the public, 
 hearty approval and encomiums of Mr. Calhoun, 
 by his moral agility, in springing, at one leap, 
 from Massachusetts to South Carolina; until 
 this time, Mr. Webster had always held, that sla 
 very would invade the new Territories ; if not 
 barred out of them by positive law. And what 
 would be still more remarkable, if the doctrines 
 of the 7^h of March speech had the least shadow 
 I of soundness in them, is, that they have now been 
 I before the public for more than four months, and, 
 I so far as I know, not a single Southern man has 
 I been converted by them. Are not Mr. Benton, 
 I Mr. Mason, Col. Davis, and thousands of others, 
 I individually, as good judges, or as good witnesses, 
 I as he is ? Since the speech, the people of New 
 I Mexico have prohibited slavery in their Consti- 
 
 tution. because they knew it to be possible among 
 I them. Before the speech, California did the same, 
 land for the same reason. The Nashville Con- 
 Ivention has just resolved " That California is pe- 
 Iculiarly adapted for slave labor, and that if the 
 i tenure of slave property was by recognition of 
 
 this kind secured in that part of the country 
 | south of 36 30', it would in a short time form 
 lone or more slaveholding States, to swell the 
 I number and power of those already in exist- 
 ' fence." Even those who seek to apologize for 
 |Mr. Webster, avow at the same time, their 
 H disbelief in his doctrine. Such is the evi- 
 jjlence, on the one side and on the other, as to 
 
 .Jthe possibility or impossibility of slavery in the 
 
 .fj Territories. Mr. Webster is against the whole 
 
 Hfforld and the whole world is against him, and this, 
 
 l:oo, oa a question already settled by history and 
 
 ,' Ijxperience. He is just as much to be believed, 
 
 ; 43 a man who looks up into the clear midnight 
 
 \. ] sky, and denies the existence of the heavenly 
 
 :4iost, while all the stars of the firmament are 
 
 jjhining down into his eyes. 
 
 To increase the overwhelming proof against 
 ; ; I Mr. Webster, I add the following : 
 j;~l HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, June 1, 1850. 
 
 :' \Jon. S. R. Thurston, Delegate from Oregon. 
 ': - \ DBAR SIR: In a speech delivered by 700, in the House of 
 /; >hepresentatives in March last, I underst>od you to say that 
 
 sl 
 
 you had been in the valley of tfee Great Salt Lake, and that 
 you were acquainted, from personal o> serration, with a large 
 part of the territory of California. Will yr> u be so good as 
 to give me your opinion, and the reasons for tntertaining it, 
 of the probability or improbability of the introduction of 
 slave labor into any part of the territory recently acquired 
 by the United States from Mexico; provided such introduc 
 tion be not prohibited by law ? 
 
 I wish to obtain your opinion in regard to other hinds of 
 labor, as well as agricultural ; because, as it seems to me, a 
 most unwarrantable, if not a most disingenuous attempt has 
 been made, to lead the public to believe that no form of slave 
 lbor will ever be introduced there, because, possibly, or 
 probably, it may not be introduced for agricultural pur- 
 
 A reply at your earliest convenience, will much oblige, 
 Yours, very truly, 
 
 HORACE MANN. 
 
 "WASHINGTON, June 10, 1850. 
 Hon Horace Mann : 
 
 I received a note f rom you some days ago, making certain 
 inquiries, but which, up to this time, I have been unable to 
 answer. I desire to take no part in the question now dividing 
 the country ; but as you have asked my judgment upon a 
 matter which appears to be a disputed point, 1 cannot, con 
 sistently with the law of courtesy, refuse you an answer. 
 That answer will be in conformity *ith what I have fre 
 quently said, heretofore, in private conversation with gentle 
 men on this subject 
 
 The point of inquiry seems to be, whether slave labor 
 could bs profitably employed in Oregon, Califoinia, Utah, 
 and New Mex'co. If the nature of the climate and resources 
 of these countries are such, as to furnish a profitable market 
 for slave labor, it appears to be conceded, on a' 1 sides, that it 
 would be introduced, if left free to seek profitable invest 
 ment, like othsr capital. The whole po'nt at issue, then, is 
 dependent as it is conceived, ujon the determination of the 
 first point of inquiry. Hence, to that point, only, it is neces 
 sary for me to confiue my answer. 
 
 I need not remind } ou of the law regulating: the investment 
 of capital. It will always go where, under all circumstances, 
 it will yield the g r eatest-return to the owner. Upon this 
 principle I am very clear, that slave labor, if unrestricted, 
 could be employed in Oregon, with at least double the profit 
 to the owner of the slave that it now yields in any State of 
 the Union. I am uninformed as to the usual price of slave 
 labor in the States, but the price paid to Indians in Oregon 
 during the past year, for labor, has ranged from two to three 
 dollars per day. Domestic negro servants, whether male or 
 female, who understand the business of housework, would 
 command, readily, five or six hundred dollars a year. 1 rec 
 ollect well, that there was a mulatto man on bard the vessel 
 in which I took passage from Oregon to San Francis '0, who 
 was paid one hundred and e : ghty dollars per month for his 
 services as cook I will not stop to particularize further, in 
 regard f> the inducements Oregon would offer to unrestricted 
 slave labor, but will simply add, that a very large number 
 of slaves might now be employed in Oregon at annual wages 
 sufficiently large to pnrchase their freedom. 1 think, there 
 fore, that the point is settled so far as Oregon is cone* rned ; 
 and that slave la^or, if it had been left free to seek profitable 
 employment, would readily find its way to that Territory. 
 
 As to California, I am equally clear. California will always 
 be a mining country, and wages will range hipb. At present, 
 slave labor in California would be more profitable than in 
 Oregon. And I have always beeo of the opinion, that wher 
 ever there is a mining country, if not in a climate unco^gen- 
 ial to slave labor, that species of labor would be profitable. 
 That it would be in the California mines is evident A good 
 able-bodied slave wonld have commanded, in California, dur 
 ing the past year, from fight to ten hundred dollars per an 
 num. When it is recollected that one hundred dollars per 
 annum, upon an average, is considered a good compensation 
 for their labor in the houthern States, it is idle, in my j udg- 
 ment, to contend that slaves would not be carried to the Cal 
 ifornia market, if protected by law. 
 
 The greatest impediment which white labor has to encoun 
 ter in the mines, is the intensity of the heat, and the preva 
 lence of bilious disease. The one is almost insufferable, 
 while the other is pestilential. Against both of these the 
 negro is almost proof. Now, while white labor is so high, it 
 is evident that no one can hire a white laborer, except at a 
 rate that would consume his profit. Not so with negro libor. 
 That species of labor might be obta'ned for half the amount 
 wlmh you would have to pay for white labor The result 
 would be a profit alike to the hirer and seller of slave labor. 
 There ia no doubt, in my judgment, that almost any number 
 
30 
 
 of slaves might be hired out in California, were the whites 
 willing to allow it, at from eight to ten hundred dollars a 
 
 ppecies of service be protected in California, it would rueh 
 to the Pacific in almost any quantity 
 
 Let us next turn our attention to Utah and New Mexico. 
 I have no doubt, from what knowledge I have of those coun 
 tries, that they will turn out to be fi'.led with the richest 
 mines. I clip the followirg from a iccent paper, containing 
 the news from Texas and Chihuahua. 
 
 " Mr. James was informed, by Major Neighbours and Mr. 
 Lee Vining, that they had been shown by Major Stein, some 
 gold washed out by his troops, on the Gila river, in a short 
 excursion to that stream. 
 
 ' It is reported that, at the copper mines above El Paso 
 
 former views without self-impeachment and self- 
 conviction. Let passages from the two speeches 
 be placed side by side, to show, not their identity 7 
 but their utter irreconcilability. 
 
 MARCH 7, 1850. 
 " I wish it to be distinctly 
 understood, to-day, that, ac 
 cording to my view of the 
 matter, this Government is 
 solemnly pledged by law and 
 contract to create new States 
 out of Texas," &c. P. 42. 
 
 The first quotation only asserts a " power " in 
 to create new States : the last affirms an 
 ' 
 
 MARCH 23, 1848. 
 [A passage quoted by him 
 self.] 
 
 " It shall be in the power 
 of Congress hereafter to 
 make four other new States 
 out of Texan territory." 
 
 there are about one hundred tons of "pure copper lying upon ~""* 4 ' " r"T 1" - " 7" 7" ' ~, t . ~j n " ^ow 
 the ground. This had been got out by Mexicans, and abn- obligation, by law and contract to do SO. HOW 
 
 doned when attacked by Indians 
 
 could Mr. Webster have expected that this broad 
 
 " There are are at El Paso, in the hands of different per- distinction between power and duty, between op- 
 
 &t^tUSS M imr^tt%& ,wn and , H;f m<,, could escape the atteation of 
 
 lands, and protection from Indians, only a short time would 
 elapse before all these mines would be well worked, and we 
 would have large quantities of metal seeking a market 
 through this place." 
 
 And if you consult Fremont's map, printed by order of the 
 Senate in 1848, you will find, near the source of one of the 
 branches of the Gila river, " copper and gold mines" laid 
 down. And if I am not greatly mistaken, it will turn out 
 that the Mormons are in possession of the richest kind of 
 mines, east of the Sierra Nevada. It is known, too, that sil 
 ver and copper mines have, for many years, been worked in 
 New Mexico; and I am informed by Hugh N. Smith, Esq., 
 that there are in that Territory, gold, silver,, copper, l^ad, 
 and zinc mines of the richest quality, and that the reason 
 why they have not latterly been worked more extensively is 
 that it is prevented by the ircursions of the Indians. He is 
 of the opinion, ami he is borne out by what history we can 
 
 his readers 1 
 
 Bat there is another discrepancy or contradic 
 tion still more remarkable : 
 
 MARCH 23, 1848. 
 " It shall be in the power 
 of Congress hereafter to 
 make/owr other new States 
 out of Texan territory." 
 
 MARCH 7, 1850. 
 
 " the guaranty is, 
 
 that new States shall be 
 made out of it, and that such 
 States as are tormed out of 
 that portion of Texas lying 
 south of 36 deg. 30 min. may 
 come in as slave States to 
 tie number of four, in addi 
 tion to the Stute then in ex 
 istence." P. 29. 
 
 The first speech speaks of the power of Con- 
 get on the subject, that when these mines shall come to be g regs but the last of the obligation of Congress, 
 
 explored, their wealth will turn out to be enormous When * ' jL:*. na t*r Qfatoa nnt- nf TVvin tprritnrv thp 
 
 to admit new btates out ot ritory , II 
 
 but the 
 
 ] a8 t of the " guaranty " to admit " slave States 
 t tfa ^3^^ O f four." Yet the first speech is 
 
 possession of mineral wealth so vast, that ages will not be . , , , .. 
 
 able to measure its extent. And when these mines shall be- cited, to men who can read and write, as identical 
 
 "in legal construction and effect" with the last. 
 The motto under which Danton attempted to 
 
 you have once cast your eye over that countrj lying west of W uuu -" ;- 
 
 the Rocky Mountains, and east of the Sierra Nevada, and first speaks of " four Other new btates ;" 
 are informed of the peculiarity of the gold-bearing region, ] a8 t of the " guaranty " to admit " slai 
 
 you at once become convinced that the United States is in 
 
 gin to be developed, and their unqu stinnable richness 
 known, population will set that way, attended with the usual 
 consequences, high prices, and a demand for labor. If slave 
 
 carry himself through his bloody career, was : 
 " Eaudace, Vaudace^toujoursPaudace.'' " Audacity, 
 audacity, always audacity." 
 
 But what else did Mr. Webster say, in his 
 speech of the 23d of March, 1848 ? Referring to 
 the debate which took place in December, 1845, 
 on the final act for admitting Texas, Mr. Web 
 ster said : " And I added, that while I held, with 
 as much faithfulness as any citizen of the coun 
 try, to all the original arrangements and compro 
 mises of the Constitution under which we 
 live, I never could, and 1 never should, bring 
 myself to be in favor of the admission of any 
 States into the Union as slaveholding States."* 
 This is what Mr. Webster reports himself to 
 have said when the final vote on the admission of 
 Texas was immediately to be taken, and when he 
 commenced his speech by saying. "I am quite 
 . -, aware, Mr. President, that the resolution will 
 construction and effect of the resolutions " for ad- pa8! , l_ mean i ng the resolution for the admission 
 
 labor is like other capital, if it will go where it is best pa ? d, 
 then we have a right to say it will seek these mines, and be 
 come a part of the producing capital of the country where 
 those mines are located. That these whole regions ape filled 
 with rich mines, is little less than certain, and that they can 
 be profitably worked by slave labor is sure. Hence, were I a 
 Southern man and my property invested in slaves, I should 
 consider the markets of New Mexico, Utah, and California, 
 for slave labor, worthy of an honorable contest to secure. 
 I am, sir, with due consideration, yours, truly, 
 
 SABVJEL R. THURSTON. 
 
 5. CONTRADICTION IN MR. WEBSTER'S 
 
 SPEECHES. 
 
 The Kennebec letter has another most extra 
 ordinary and discreditable passage. It is near 
 the close. Mr. Webster quotes from a speech 
 delivered by him in the Senate, March 23, 1848, 
 says it was published in newspapers and circu 
 lated in pamphlet form, and that that speech con 
 tained the same doctrines in regard to the " legal 
 
 mitting Texas, as are contained in the speech of 
 the 7th of March. He says nobody complain 
 ed then, and he wonders that anybody should 
 complain now. 
 
 It is very remarkable that such a man as Mr. 
 Webster should furnish, in the very quotation 
 which he offers^ the means of utterly confuting 
 the assertion which he makes. I suppose this can 
 be accounted for only on the ground, that he now 
 occupies a position so antagonistic to that which 
 he has abandoned that he cm hardly refer to his 
 
 of Texas. Mr. Webster's -never could and 
 never should " covered the exact case of the then 
 contemplated future slaveholding States to be 
 formed out of Texas. While in the broadness of 
 its terms it embraced all slaveholding States, 
 whensoever, or whencesoever they might come, it 
 had special and pointed application to any slave 
 State to be thereafter formed out of Texan ter 
 ritory. 
 
 * Coug. Globe, 1st session 30th Congress p. 533. 
 
31 
 
 la the same speech of December 22, 1845, Mr. 
 Webster spoke as follows : 
 
 "It may be said that according to the provisions of the 
 Constitution, new States are to be admitted on the same 
 footing as the old States. It may be eo ; but it does not fol 
 low at all from that provision that every territory or por 
 tion of country may at pleasure establish slavery, and then 
 pay we will become a portion of the Union; and will bring 
 with us the principles which we may have thus adopted, and 
 must be received on the same footing as the old States. It- 
 will always be a question whether the old States have not a 
 right, (and I think they have the clearest right,) to require 
 that the State coming into the Union should come in upon 
 an equality ; and. if the existence of slavery be an impedi 
 ment to coming in on an equality, then the State proposing 
 to come in should be required to remove that inequality 
 by abolishing slavery, or take the alternative of being ex 
 cluded." 
 
 He also said, in the same speech, " I agree with 
 the unanimous opinion of the Legislature of 
 Massachusetts." 
 
 And what was this " unanimous opinion of the 
 Legislature of Massachusetts"? Among many 
 other things equally decisive, the Massachusetts 
 Legislature, on the - 26th of March, 1845, and, of 
 course, long after the annexation resolutions had 
 been passed, declared as follows : 
 
 " And whereas the consent of the Executive and Legisla 
 tive departments of the Government of the United States 
 has been given, by a resolution passed on the 27th of Feb 
 ruary last, to the adoption of preliminary measures to ac 
 complish this nefarious project, [the admis-ion of Texas, 
 with the stipulation to admit four more States out of its 
 territory ;] thet efore, be it 
 
 " Resolved, That Massachusetts hereby refuses to ac 
 knowledge the act of the Government of the United States, 
 authorizing the admission of Texas, as a legal act, in any 
 way binding her from using her utmost exertions in co 
 operation with other States, by every lawful and constitu 
 tional measure, to annu 1 . its conditions, and defeat its ac 
 complishment. 
 
 " Resolved, That no Territory hereafter applying to be 
 admitted to the Union, as a State, should be admitted with 
 out a condition that dometic slavery should be utterly ex 
 tinguished within its borders, and Massachusetts denies 
 the validity of any compromise whatsoev* r, that may have 
 been, or that may hereafter be, entered into by persons in 
 the Government of the Union, intended to preclude tAeu- 
 ture application of such a condition by the people, acfcng 
 through their representatives in the Congress ot the United 
 States." 
 
 Such were the opinions which Mr. Webster 
 then expressed, and such the resolutions of the 
 Legislature of Massachusetts, with which he 
 agreed. Yet he now professes to wonder that 
 anybody can see any difference between the doc- 
 tines of those speeches and resolutions, and those 
 of his speech delivered on the 7th of March.* 
 
 Prof. Stuart, in a pamphlet entitled " Conscience and 
 the Constitution," pp. 78-9, fteps in to defend Mr Web 
 ster's position that we are bourd, by contract with Texas, 
 to admit from her territory, " slave States to the number of 
 four;" and he incidentally refers to and combats my views 
 on this subject. 
 
 I respectfully submit to the reverend ard learned Profes 
 sor a single consideration, which I trust will convince him 
 that I am not in error. 
 
 For argument's sake, admit the contract with Texas to 
 ba unimpeachable; although, if it be so, I see not why any 
 one Congress may not absorb and exhaust all the power to 
 admit new States, which the Constitu ion cor tain?, by mak 
 ing contracts, for centuries to come, for all the new States 
 that shall be admitted; and for all the applications for 
 admission that shall be rejected. But, admitting the va- 
 lidi'y of the Texan contract, what does it purport? That 
 " new States," " not exceeding four," " may lie formed out 
 of the territory thereof." Those south of 3<> (leg. 20 min. 
 may be slave; that, or those, north of 36 dtg. 30 min. shall 
 be free ; the whole, ' notexceeding four." Here, then, is an 
 executory and mutual contract. It is executory; because 
 it is not to be executed at the time of making, but infnturo. 
 
 6. MISSTATEMENT OF FACT, IN REGARD TO 
 FUGITIVE SLAVES. 
 
 Mr. Webster says that, previous to writing his 
 Newburyport letter, he made "diligent inquiry,'' 
 of members of Congress from New England, t 
 ascertain how many arrests of fugitive slaves had 
 been made in their time ; and he adds, " the result 
 of all I can learn is this: No seizure of an al 
 leged slave has ever been made in Maine." 
 
 Now, two such cases have happened in the 
 State of Maine. One took place in the eastern 
 part of the State, about 1835 or >3G. The other 
 happened at cr near Thomaston, a little later. 
 In this latter case, the fugitive came to Maine in 
 a Thomaston vessel, whose master was afterwards 
 demanded as a fugitive from justice. This de 
 mand gave rise to a prolonged correspondence, I 
 think, with no less than three Governors of 
 Maine. This correspondence was extensively 
 circulated through the newspapers, or referred 
 to by them, and^ it would seem hardly possible 
 that Mr. Webster should not have seen it. Since 
 the Newburyport letter was published, this mis- 
 statement of fact has been noticed in the Maine 
 newspapers, yet no retraction is made. The mis- 
 statement is allowed to be spread over the whole 
 country, uncorrecttd by its author. Mr. Web 
 ster then adds, " No seizure of an alleged fugitive 
 slave has ever been made in Vermont." Tradition, 
 and, as I believe, authentic history, contradict 
 Mr. Webster here. It is said by " members of 
 Congress" from Vermont that an alleged fugitive 
 was carried before Judge Harrington of Vermont 
 in 1807, and on his being asked what evidence 
 would satisfy him that the person was a slave, he 
 replied, ' : A bill of sale from Almighty God." 
 
 But even, if these statements of Mr. Webster, 
 with regard to the New England States, were all 
 true, it would avail him nothing ; for, in the eye 
 of patriotism, it matters not where such seizures 
 are made. I refer to this, only to show that Mr. 
 Webster is not to be relied upon in these matters, 
 either for the accuracy of his original positions,, 
 or for a retraction of them, when their error is 
 pointed out by the public press. I wish not to be 
 understood, on this particular point, as imputing to 
 Mr. Webster an intentional misstatement; be 
 cause he accompanied his original statement with 
 a salvo. He confessed, and he is entitled to the 
 full benefit of the confession, that his information 
 
 It is mutual ; because, for Texas, and for the one or more 
 slave Statefi, south of 36 deg. 30 min., there are to be one or 
 more free States, north of it. 
 
 Wow, the principle is FO clear that 1 think no ore will fora 
 moment dispute it, that when an executory and mutual con 
 tract is to I e executed say at four different times, each pre 
 ceding act of execution must be such as ro allow of the ul 
 timate execution of the whole. Neither the first, second, 
 nor third act of execution, must be so executed as to render 
 the fourth impossible. Neither the first, second, nor third 
 act must be so executed in favor of either of the parties, as 
 to render the execution of the fourth, in favor of the other 
 party, impossible. But if Texas can have " slave States to 
 the number of four," formed in succession out of her terri 
 tory, then, as the whole number to be formed is not to ex 
 ceed " four," there can be no free State formed, under 
 the alleged contract. 
 
 It is not within my know 1 edge that such an interpretation 
 of this supposed contract was ever suggested by any Texan 
 citizen, or by any Southern man. I suppose it to have beer* 
 advarcedj^trsf by a Northern Senator; and seconded first, 
 by a Northern Divine. 
 
32 
 
 might not be ;i entirely accurate, 7 '' though he sup 
 posed it not to be " materially erroneous.'' It is 
 " materially erroneous ;" and though one error 
 has been exposed in the Maine papers, he does 
 not rectify it. Possibly, he does not know it. 
 7. FURTHER MISSTATEMENT OF FACT. 
 
 While holding Massachusetts up to reproach 
 for " growing fervid on Pennsylvania wrongs," 
 Mr. Webster draws succor and encouragement 
 from the Society of Friends, and especially from 
 the Friends of Pennsylvania. He says that they 
 remain " of sound and disposing minds and memo 
 ries;" and he contrasts their wisdom and compo 
 sure with the " vehement and empty declarations, 
 the wild and fantastic conduct of both men and 
 women which have so long disturbed and so 
 much disgraced the Commonwealth" of Massa 
 chusetts. He then adds, "I am misled by au 
 thority which ought not to mislead, if it be not 
 true, that that great body approves the sentiments 
 to which I gave utterance on the f^.oor of the Sen 
 ate." i will now shuw that this aHeged approval by 
 the Friends, though worthy of any price but truth, 
 was too dearly bought. 
 
 It is well known that the Friends are divided 
 into two great denominations. Each has its Pe 
 riodical, one now in its eighth, the other in its 
 fourth year. In the numbers published since the 
 appearance of the Newburyport letter, both these 
 periodicals do not "approve," bat repudiate and 
 denounce the sentiments to which Mr. Webster 
 gave utterance "on the floor of the Senate." 
 
 The Friend's Intelligencer deals at length with 
 Mr. Webster's "sentiments," on the ' : Fugitive 
 Slave Bill ;" on the legislation of the North for the 
 protection of its own citizens ; on his pseudo-discov 
 eries in " physical geography ;" and on the " legal 
 construction and effect" of the Texas resolu 
 tions ; and it condemns them all. 
 
 The Friend's Review dissents not less positively 
 from Mr. Webster's positions ; and both call him 
 severely to account for the defamation of them 
 selves, which his letter implies. 
 
 On his "sentiments" respecting fugitive slaves, 
 the " Review" observes that they have yet to learn 
 " that that part of his speech was approved by 
 any member or professor of the society." 
 
 I wish I had space to quote from these able ar 
 ticles, but must forbear. 
 
 John G. Whittier, E-?q . speaking for the Qua 
 kers of New England, gives "a peremptory 
 denial" to Mr. Webster's statement. I quote the 
 following paragraph from him : 
 
 " Now. we undertake to say that there is not a rcijinber of 
 the Society of Friends, in free or slave States, who, whether 
 acting as a magistrate or a citizen, could carry out the pro 
 visions of this moet atrocious bill, without rendering himself 
 liable to immediate expulsion from a society whose character 
 would be disgraced, and whoee discipline would be violated, 
 by such action It has been, in times past, the misfortune 
 of the Society of Friends to be vilified, caricatured, and mis 
 represented ; but we i emember nothing, even in the old days 
 of persecution, so hard to bear as the compliments of the 
 
 Massachusetts Senator. Whatever his ' aithority' may hive 
 been, we do not hesitate to pronounce it unqualifiedly false to 
 the lasc degree." 
 
 Now what shall be thought of a cause that 
 requires such a defence, or of the man that can 
 make it! 
 
 There are many other points presented by Mr. 
 Webster's speech of the 7th of March, or by what 
 he has since said and written to defend it, which 
 seem to me as unwarrantable in fact, and as rep 
 rehensible in principle, as any above enumerated. 
 I shall close these notes, however, with one com 
 ment more ; reserving others, though sincerely 
 hoping never to have occasion to use them. 
 
 Among the excoriations with which Mr. Web 
 ster amused himself and his Southern new-barn 
 pro-slavery admirers, on the 7th of March last, 
 he flayed nobody half so deeply or so compla 
 cently, as he did his old fellow-senators, Messrs. 
 Dix of New York and Niles of Connecticut. He 
 scored them to the living flesh, and then soothed 
 their smarting wounds by vitriol and caustic, as 
 though he loved them. The:;- n.gency in the 
 Texas jwindle, he made odiously conspicuous. He 
 taunted them with heart-piercing inuendo for 
 their compulsory retirement from public life. 
 And then he portrayed them as occupying their 
 enforced vacation in attempting to rouse the peo 
 ple to save those regions from the curse of slavery, 
 which, but for their sins, never would have been 
 exposed to it. He worked up the scene so graphi 
 cally, that every one mocked at their contempti 
 ble plight, and at the ridiculous contrast between 
 the swiftness of their offence, and the lameness of 
 their expiation. The effect was dramatic. The 
 pro-slavery part of the gallery and the floor re 
 sponded with a shout of laughter. Yet devoted 
 and long-tried friends of Mr. Webster were there, 
 whom no darkness of blindness could prevent fronj 
 se^? &2t hfc bjtter sarcasm against the ex- 
 St^xors, though calculated to make the "unskil 
 ful laugh," must make the "judicious grieve." 
 They could not fail to see that he, Mr. Webster 
 himself, at that very moment was occupying pre 
 cisely the same pro-slavery ground, which Messrs. 
 Dix and Niles had occupied, when they brought 
 in Texas and " re-annexed" California and New 
 Mexico. He was exerting all his great talents to 
 do an act of the same character which Messrs. Dix 
 and Niles had done ; that is, to open new ter 
 ritory to slavery. And doubtless the first thought 
 which arose in many a mind was the same which 
 spontaneously arose in my own, that, should he suc 
 ceed in arguing down, or laughing down the "Wil- 
 mot," as he twice scornfully called the Proviso ; 
 and should he then betake himself to penitence 
 and prayer, and by years of effort, strive to 
 stay back from slavery the regions he had 
 doomed to it, he would only have elevated himself 
 to the very " platform" on which Messrs. Dix and 
 Niles stood when he laughed at thfm, 
 
 July 8, 1850. 
 
 ;