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 NEBRASKA AND KANSAS 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 HON. BISHOP PERKINS, OF NEW YORK, 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, MAY 10, 1854 
 
 The House being in the Committee of the Whole 
 on the state* of the Union — 
 
 Mr. PERKINS, of New York, said: 
 
 Mr. Chairman: I rise to address the committee 
 upon the subject now under consideration; and, at 
 the outset, 1 will make a few remarks in relation 
 to the history of the bill as it came to us from the 
 Senate. There was first brought into the Senate 
 and House a bill for the organization of one 
 Territory, and the author of the bill declared that 
 he was not prepared to repeal the Missouri com- 
 promise. A week or two passed by, and, by some 
 appliances which had been used, in what way I 
 know not, the same committee came to the con- 
 clusion that it would be a desirable matter to re- 
 peal the Missouri compromise, and a section for 
 that purpose was introduced. I will not at this time 
 go into a lengthened argument to show that the 
 repeal of the Missouri compromise would reestab- 
 lish the slave laws of Louisiana as they were 
 when it was purchased. I have no doubt that 
 such would be the legal effect. I am satisfied that 
 the present bill, with the Badger amendment, 
 leaves the territory in question, in respect, to 
 slavery, what has been repeatedly called upon 
 this floor tabula rasa, that is, without law upon this 
 subject. 
 
 Why is a bill introduced here providing for the 
 organization of two Territories instead of one? I 
 will tell you what I believe. If you had kept all 
 this territory together, so that the northern people 
 who should move in there, and should have a 
 voice in the Territory, they would probably con- 
 trol it, and some of the judges would be from 
 .the northern States, and would hold office there, 
 who do not believe in the doctrine that slavery is 
 recognized by the universal and common law of 
 this country; and that the colored man would 
 not be entitled to his freedom. It seems to me 
 that the intention ih introducing a bill for the or- 
 ganization of two Territories is to provide for the 
 
 selection of southern judges for the southern Ter- 
 ritory, who might carry out such laws as the 
 gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Bayly] has just 
 proclaimed upon this floor, viz: that once a slave, 
 always and everywhere a slave, uritil he could 
 show his express charter to freedom. If judges 
 of that stamp were secured in Kansas, possibly 
 a judge might be selected for the more northern 
 Territory who might hold that human flesh, body 
 and mind, were not the most legitimate property 
 for either the yoke or for trade and traffic; in 
 short, that freedom was* the law, and slavery the 
 exception. 
 
 It is with the object of carrying slavery into th 
 southern territory that the bill has provided for 
 the organization of two Territories. I defy any 
 man to assign any other rational reason for 
 making two Territories in place of one, and putting 
 the bill in the shape in which it is now presented, 
 unless it be the hope and expectation of its author 
 that enough slaveholders will get into the southern 
 Territory, with southern officers to be appointed 
 in it, to make a slave Territory. 
 
 Sir, instead of having the people of the Terri- 
 tory make the laws for their own government, the 
 intention of this bill is to have the judges make 
 the law. The intention of it is, expressly not to 
 have the people make the law for themselves, but 
 have a slavery judge make it, and to put them in 
 a condition in which the judges shall make the 
 law. That is the principle on which these two 
 bills are founded, and the effect which they are 
 calculated and intended to have; and no man will 
 ever be nominated or confirmed either as Governor 
 or judge for the southern Territory who is not a 
 southern man — who will hold, as Mr. Bayly does, 
 and has proclaimed here, that no negro can be free 
 unless he can show a law granting it to him ex- 
 pressly. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, it is said that this bill confers 
 self-government. Why, sir, instead of self-gov- 
 

 ernrnent being maintained in this bill, almost 
 every ted in the Declar- 
 
 ation of Independence is contained in it. They 
 are to be taxed without their consent; the'ir judges 
 
 are sent there ov : n>:ed salaries; their 
 
 Governors ait- sent to them with powers of veto, 
 and all depen !■ .:; on the Government here for the 
 term. and salary of their officers. Call it self-gov- 
 ernment when the Governor, ju 
 and all executive, judicial, and ministerial officers 
 are appointed by jutive officer here, and 
 
 hold the offices during his pleasure? How can 
 the supporters of the bill come here and pretend 
 that this : ; Why, t i 
 
 the very hi lity, and the most pre- 
 
 posterous humbug that has ever been attempted to 
 be palmed off on the credulity of man. It seems 
 to me — and no one can look upon it without re- 
 garding it — as a mere matter of declamation, hum- 
 bug, and false pretense. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, my views in relation to slavery 
 in this country are somewhat different from those 
 of most of iii. : men who have 
 
 addressed this House on the subject of the Ne- 
 braska bill. 1 believe that the negro race are an 
 inferior race. From the eai ory that we 
 
 have of tl:, > ; have had all the same char- 
 
 acteristics that they have now — in color, in con- 
 formation, and in intelligence. They have never, 
 of themselves, except in this country, made a 
 single particle of advance towards civilization, 
 or toward 
 
 tion. I say, that though they are an inferior race, 
 they are also, 1 suppose, the descendants of 
 Noah. But, sir, I do say this, that if they are 
 descendants of Noah, when the language of men 
 was confounded, and the miracle was wrought to 
 disperse men throughout the earth, there was a 
 mark set up in this people destined to make a 
 eepars he white man and the black; 
 
 to be forever enduring, and to be the token that 
 the curse of God would follow the intermingling 
 of the two races in marriage. And the curse of 
 God has ever followed sue!: ling. Their 
 
 lives are short, and their constitutions feeble, and 
 barbarism th • result. 
 
 MrfChairman, I agree, too, with all those south- 
 ern gentlemen who have spoken, that it is im- 
 possible that the southern States should abolish 
 slavery whereever there is a majority of colored 
 over white people, or wherever there is a near 
 approximation to equality of numbers. It cat 
 be done, especially if there is a majority of slaves 
 over freemen. You cannot give them their per- 
 Bonal freedom without their having arms in their 
 hands. If free, they would demand political 
 rights; and if you i;ive them political rights, they 
 become the governing power, and no white man 
 will ever submit to be governed by a negro; no, 
 never. They have got to remain as and where 
 they now are. it is most unfortunate, so far as 
 human wisdom ran see, that they are in this coun- 
 try, but in the Providence of God they are here, 
 three millions ami a half of slaves, and multiplying 
 like the Israelites of old. God has chained the 
 cause that brought them here, and so astonish- 
 ingly multiplied them to their future destiny of 
 weal or woe, and we, the whites, may well con- 
 template that future with awe and trembli! -. 
 
 Again, sir, I will advance the sentiment which 
 I heard a distinguished Senator advance in the 
 
 [discussion of the Texas question in my village in 
 1844. After proclaiming and talking Abolitioi 
 
 as strong as I ever heard any man talking it 
 
 Several Members. What SenatorS 
 Mr. PERKINS. The distinguished Senator 
 \ from New York. 
 
 Voices. Mr. Seward? 
 Mr. PERKINS. Yes; Mr. Seward* He was 
 makii lition speech through and through, 
 
 id, in just so many woi * : would do 
 
 i the negro no good to give him bis freedom, unless 
 you gave him the ballot to protect his rights. 
 Now, sir, give the negro ',\,? ballot in South Car- 
 ! olina, M be peace 
 
 there; how long before one or the other race would 
 lacred or driven out of the State? 
 \ repeat, that so long as this race exists here in 
 numbers, so as to constitute an approxima- 
 tion towards an equality of numbers with the 
 whitf beabol I without drench- 
 
 ing the country in blood. But where they exist 
 in small numbers, as in Mi v, I do not 
 
 believe there would be any difficulty in abolishing 
 it. The lb; y, and all 
 
 I the surrounding difficulties which have accompa- 
 nied it, have increased with the increase of that 
 : population. In 1790 there were only little more 
 than six hundred thousand .-laves, but there were, 
 in 1850, thr< e million t I : laves 
 
 || in the United States. In 1790, at the close of the 
 Revolution, slavery might have been abolished, 
 for 1 say that, from actual observation and expe- 
 rience, it is ascertained that wherever they (the 
 blacks) have had their freedom, they become so 
 congregated together in cities, and their habits so 
 debased, that they do not increase their spe 
 [They do not increase in numbers, but remain sta- 
 tionary. If sla\ olished, the 
 race would have passed away from- before the 
 i whites as the Indians have done, and the country 
 would have been measurably free of them. 
 
 Now, I believe this is a notorious fact in the 
 
 i history of :! , that wherever there is any 
 
 | considerable nur es, ycu cannot 
 
 abolition feeling. The 
 
 i fact then is, as shown in Delaware and New Jer- 
 
 I sey, that where the colored population do not 
 
 exceed a fifth or sixth of the population^ there is 
 
 no insuperable obstacle to emancipation, save the 
 
 avarice of their masters; still, I admit here, that 
 
 ; dee colored men are substantially a nuisance, both 
 
 j in the free and slave States. 
 
 Some three months since, I asserted upon this 
 I floor, that free labor and slave labor would never, 
 j to any considerable extent, mingle themselves to- 
 I gelher. The proof of that fact I will show from 
 I the census papers directly. Free labor and black 
 labor cannot and will not mingle. You go into 
 ' the residences in this city, and in one house you 
 1 see almost all colored servants, and in another 
 all white servants. There is a natural repulsion 
 ! between the two races. They never can live to- 
 il r upon terms of equality. Wherever there 
 are two sets of men, divided in color or religion, 
 and refusing to intermarry with each other, the 
 rights of one or of the other of those two classes of 
 1 people must and will, so long as the laws of man 
 and distinction of race prevail, be cloven down. 
 The Jews are a striking example of that truth. 
 There were in the incorporated free States, in- 1 
 
- eluding California, in 1790 and 1850, population 
 and square miles of territory, %s follows: 
 
 California , 
 
 Connecticut ..•.. 
 
 Illinois 
 
 Indiana 
 
 Iowa , 
 
 Maine 
 
 Massachusetts .. 
 
 Michigan 
 
 New Hampshire 
 
 New York 
 
 New Jersey 
 
 Ohio .' 
 
 Pennsylvania. . . 
 Rhode Island. .. 
 
 Vermont 
 
 Wisconsin 
 
 Popula- 
 tion in 
 179U. 
 
 Popula- 
 tion in 
 
 1850. 
 
 238,141 
 
 none. 
 
 none. 
 
 none. 
 96,540 
 378 7J1 
 
 none. 
 141,899 
 340,120 
 181,133 
 
 none. 
 434,373 
 69,110 
 85,416 
 
 none. 
 
 92,635 
 
 370,792 
 851,470 
 988,416 
 192,214 
 583,169 
 994.514 
 397.654 
 317.97:; 
 3,097.394 
 489,555 
 
 2,311,786 
 
 '117.54.-. 
 314.120 
 305^391 
 
 1,968,455 13,434,960 643,326 
 
 Square 
 miles of 
 territory 
 
 188,982 
 
 4,750 
 
 55,409 
 
 33,809 
 
 50,914 
 
 35,00U 
 
 7.250 
 
 5f>;243 
 
 8,030 
 
 48,000 
 
 6.851 
 
 39^964 
 
 47,000 
 
 ],2o0 
 
 8,000 
 
 53,924 
 
 Average the whole territory, nearly twenty-one 
 souls to the square mile, and six and eight tenths 
 times as many souls now in the free States as there 
 were in 1790. 
 
 There were in the incorporated slave States, in- 
 cluding Texas, population in 1790 and 1850, ?tnd 
 square miles of territory, as follows: 
 
 Slave States. 
 
 Popula- 
 tion in 
 
 179!). 
 
 Alabama 
 
 Arkansas 
 
 North Carolina 
 
 South Carolina 
 
 District of Columbi 
 
 Delaware 
 
 Florida 
 
 Georgia 
 
 Kentucky 
 
 Louisiana 
 
 Maryland 
 
 Mississippi 
 
 Missouri 
 
 Tennessee 
 
 Texas 
 
 Virginia 
 
 393,751 
 249,073 
 
 59,096 
 none. 
 82,518 
 73,077 
 none. 
 319,726 
 n mi . 
 none. 
 
 35,791 
 none. 
 748,308 
 
 Popula- 
 tion in 
 1850 
 
 771 ,023 
 
 209,897 
 
 869,039 
 
 668.507 
 
 51,687 
 
 91,532 
 
 87,455 
 
 903,185 
 
 982.405 
 
 517,762 
 
 583,034 
 
 606,526 
 
 682,044 
 
 1.0112,717 
 212,592 
 
 1,421,661 
 
 ■ Square 
 miles of 
 territory 
 
 1,961,370 9.634,666 928,947 
 
 50,752 
 52,198 
 45.500 
 28,000 
 50 
 2,120 
 59,096 
 58,000 
 37,680 
 41.348 
 11,000 
 47,151 
 65.937 
 44,000 
 325,520 
 61,325 
 
 A little less than ten and a half souls to the 
 square mile of territory, and not quite fivetimesas 
 much population aa in 1790, about a third more 
 territory than the free States, including California, 
 and four millions less population, making twice 
 as much population to the square mile of territory 
 in the free as in the slave States. The population, 
 as the tables show, was about equal in 1790; now 
 the free States have about four millions more pop- 
 ulation than the slave States. 
 
 -Now, sir, all history, the very nature of the 
 case, will show that there is no state, no condi- 
 tion, in which man exists more favorable to the 
 multiplication of the race than that of slavery, 
 if the slaves are so valuable as to make it for the 
 interest of their masters to have them comfortably 
 fed and clothed with such articles as to make 
 them useful and strong for labor. They have 
 nothing to excite them, and they have all the ele- 
 ments in their condition to make them propagate 
 beyond men in any other condition. 
 
 To show how they increase and multiply, I 
 tell gentlemen that the slaves in the Union have 
 
 multiplied five times ever and above all those 
 which have been emancipated, which. ! suppose, 
 amount to some two hundred thousand in all. I 
 have no data upon which to base my calculation, 
 but the free negro population in Maryland, in 
 Delaware, and Virginia, hive increased very rap- 
 idly from some cause, and I suppose it must be 
 from emancipation. 
 
 There are now eighty- three thousand, more than 
 five times the slaves there were in 1790 in the 
 slave States, while the while population of the 
 slave States have increased less than five fold, by 
 about ninety-three thousand. Now, sir, this state- 
 ment discloses a fact which will be commented 
 upon hereafter, to show that slavery crushes out 
 the white population, and that, permitting sla- 
 very to be carried into these free Territories, will 
 have the effect to deprive the free States from all 
 benefit from those Territories — aye sir, and soon 
 to leave no place to which a southern white man, 
 who has become poor and is crushed out by negro 
 slavery from the home of his childhood can go, 
 without again being met by the slave, and lie and 
 his labor to compete with that of the slave. 
 
 Sir, the census of 1850 shows the fact that there 
 "are now or were then soiree six hundred and 
 seven thousand persons born in the slave States, 
 now residing in free States, while there are less 
 than two hundred thousand persons born in free 
 States residing in slave States. I speak now of 
 free white persons. 
 
 By the census tables, letter paging, page 36, it 
 appears that there were emigrants from the free 
 States residing in slave States as follows, in 1850: 
 
 From free to slave States. From shire tj free States. 
 
 Maine .' 3,316 Virginia .1/2.421 
 
 New Hampshire 2,115 Maryland 85,786 
 
 Vermont 2,701 
 
 Massachusetts ,. 9,.vi; 
 
 Ehode Island 1,728 
 
 Connecticut 5,745 
 
 New York 28,733 
 
 New Jersey 18,418 
 
 Pennsylvania 13.330 
 
 Ohio.'. 33^780 
 
 Michigan 659 
 
 Indiana 24,780 
 
 Illinois 11,203 
 
 Iowa 
 
 Wisconsin 
 California. 
 
 Delaware 25.140 
 
 Kentucky 148,380 
 
 North Carolina 57,684 
 
 South Carolina 13,155 
 
 Georgia 6,582 
 
 816 
 
 Alabama. 3.370 
 
 Mississippi 2,849 
 
 Louisiana 3,768 
 
 519 
 
 Arkansas 1,682 
 
 1,955 Tennessee 55,241 
 
 484 Missouri 2U,254 
 
 26 
 
 607,639 
 
 Now, it is true that free States have increased 
 four million more m sixty years than the slave 
 States, as shown by the above tables, caused, I 
 presume, by emigration from Europe and the 
 South; then we have the fact that from slave 
 States, with only half of our white population, 
 three times as many persons have emigrated from 
 slave States into free, as have emigrated from free 
 into slaVe States. 
 
 Then there is another point to which I would 
 ask the attention of the committee. According to 
 the census, there are in the slave Stales nine hun- 
 dred and twenty-eight thousand four hundred and 
 ninety-seven square miles of territory, while in 
 the free States there are only six hundred and 
 forty-three thousand three hundred and twenty- 
 six square miles. The slave States have one third 
 more territory, with one third less population, .in- 
 cluding the negroes. Sir, what have the free States 
 done for the slave? Has the South been abused 
 
by the free States? If they have, God grant it 
 maybe done no more! The free States, consti- 
 tuting a very large majority of the people of the 
 Union, together with the slave States, have pur- 
 chased Florida and Louisiana. They purchased 
 Texas, not by paying money, but we got into war 
 on her account with Mexico. By that war we 
 paid forTexas ten times more dearly than we have 
 for any other territory. 
 
 When, of late, this slave Territory difficulty 
 arose, there were five slave States created out of 
 territory bought and paid for by the Union, gen- 
 erally; and only one free one out of territory which 
 did not constitute a portion of the colonies. I have 
 shown, then, that we have purchased territory 
 from the joint fund, out of which five slave States 
 had grown before the Wilmot proviso was of- 
 fered in Congress. The territory of the slave 
 States, so ,te, soil, and everything ben- 
 
 eficial is cone rued, far excels that of the free States. 
 In Vermont there are eight thousand square miles 
 of territory; and in South Caroline;, twenty-eight 
 thousand; yet. though the latter is better in soil 
 and climate, the former far excels in white pop- 
 ulation. In 1790, the population of Virginia and 
 Kentucky was twice! that of Pennsyl- 
 
 vania and Ohio; now Pennsylvania and Ohio have 
 twice the ; i of Virginia and Kentucky. 
 
 This shows how slavery drives out and crushes 
 out the free white population. 
 
 Here let me say that there is a peculiar feature 
 in the speeches of southern gentlemen. When 
 they talk of population, negroes are called men; 
 when they want to trespass on the rights of the 
 North they jump Jim Crow, and call them prop- 
 erty. [Roars of laughter.] That is their univer- 
 sal change of language, it is property whenever 
 they want to carry a nuisance through the coun- 
 try, but when they want to get representation here, 
 or to claim territory, why, the negroes are per- j 
 sons. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, Vermont is more nearly ap- 
 proaching to an Abolition State than any other in 
 this Union; but 1 do not think there is very much i 
 real Abolitionism even there. Now, the gentle- 
 man wJio introduced this bill at the other end of the ' 
 Capitol has talked a great deal about Free-Soil ! 
 proclivities. 1 pn claim myself of Free-Soil pro- 
 clivities. By making the distinction between Free- 1 
 Soil and slave-soil proclivities, he avows himself 
 to have strong slave-soil proclivities. That is the i 
 difference between us. He is just as much in ! 
 favor of Abolitionism down South as I am. My [ 
 proclivities induce me to prefer Free-Soil, and to be ; 
 clear of negroes, bond or free; and the counterpart 
 of that is a sLvo-soi! proclivity, desiring this negro 
 nuisance intu every Territory of the Union. 
 
 What do these compromises that gentlemen 
 have been talking about amount to ? Why, con- j 
 currently with the formation of the Constitution 
 of this country, the wise men that framed it — | 
 and I believe it can hardly be denied they were i 
 about as wise, notwithstanding their old fogyism, j 
 as the present generati h weare making | 
 
 Utile giant progress in fillibusterism and other like 
 things of one soVt or another. Well, the framers ; 
 of the Constitution divided the Territory. They 
 knew that slave labor and free labor would never 
 harmoniously mingle together; that there was a j 
 body of men at the North who desired to abolish 
 slavery, and that if those who wanted to abolish I 
 
 slavery, and those who wanted to retain it, went 
 together into the same Territory, they would have 
 a perpetual Bedlam feud, and that the Bowie knife 
 would be likely to settle the controversy, quite as 
 likely as the pistol the controversy with a poor 
 schoolmaster. But so long as one half of the 
 country was honestly given up to free labor, and 
 the other half to slave labor, it was perfectly equal, 
 and harmony on that subject was universal among 
 the States for thirty years. The Missouri compro- 
 mise was founded on the principle of an equal 
 division of the territory. 1 concede that the North 
 got more acres of land than the South. But the 
 South got Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, and 
 there is territory sufficient west of Arkansas, and 
 now occupied by the Indians, to make an excellent 
 State. Thus they have got four States out of Lou- 
 isiana; and you cannot make more than four States 
 that eve fit for anything out of what the North got — 
 not fit for a negro to live in, or even a white man 
 — especially one who has a drove of negroes. 
 Why, sir, they would prefer the soil and climate 
 of Tophet to that of the Rocky Mountains north of 
 40° of latitude. You must have a fine country, 
 something extraordinary, for negroes to live in ; but 
 the bleak and sterile granite hills of New Hamp- 
 shire breed good, brave, strong white men, and 
 j Presidents, and Webster, and Cass, and Wood- 
 ! bury, and men of that class; butgpou must have 
 the fat valleys of the Missouri and Mississippi to 
 grow up negroes in. [Laughter.] We have given 
 .it to them, and they have got the very fat of the 
 land — twice as much of it per soul as we of the 
 North have. I make a single remark here in rela- 
 [ tion to the expansive power of slavery. Men with 
 negroes have gone ahead of all other population, 
 in first settling territory, law or no law, except in 
 California. Why has slavery such an expansive 
 power? Because the negro crushes out the white 
 man wherever slavery exists. White men detest 
 selling their labor to work by the side of the negro 
 slave, and the slaveholders monopolize the land in 
 the slave States, so that a man cannot work his 
 own little farm for himself. Three fifths of the 
 population of South Carolina in 1790 were whites, 
 but now almost three fifths of the population in 
 that State are slaves. The white population have 
 been driven out. It takes twenty-eight thousand 
 square miles of territory in South Carolina, with 
 her rich productions, to support a far less white 
 population than eight thousand square miles of 
 territory in Vermont, bleak and barren as many 
 of her mountains are. 
 
 But, without dwelling at greater length upon 
 this subject, let me allude briefly to that measure 
 of proposed legislation, commonly known as the 
 Wilmot proviso. I never advocated any measure 
 with more energy, or spent more time in its advo- 
 cacy than I did, first of the annexation of Texas, 
 and then the Wilmot proviso. The position that I 
 took then in supporting those measures was pre- 
 cisely the position I have taken here to-day in the 
 argument upon this question; and it was, that sla- 
 very could not be abolished, where it was strongly 
 established, without ending in bloodshed or the 
 removal of the white population, and giving it up 
 to the slaves. Robert J. Walker, in a pamphlet he 
 published, had taken great pains to make us of the 
 North believe that this would be true, and 1 be- 
 lieved it. He asserted if you annex Texas to 
 the southern States on account of its adaptation to 
 
slave labor, that slave labor would be attracted i 
 there from the older and northern slave States, ! 
 Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, &c, ; 
 and that slaves North would be so sold out; that i 
 those States would become in time free States, 
 and relieved of the crushing curse of the negro 
 race, bond or free. I advocated that same prin- ' 
 ciple before the Democracy of St. Lawrence, and : 
 that county, which, up to that time, had never 
 given but about eight hundred Democratic ma- 
 jority, increased that majority to fifteen hundred 
 in favor of James K. Polk, as I supposed they 
 would. We have acquired Texas; but, instead 
 of a diminution of slavery North, as I predicted 
 as taking place when that event should come to 
 pass, the South are now pushing and driving us 
 of the North into the narrowest possible bounds, 
 and crying, North and South, like the daughters 
 of the horse-leech, "Give! give!" [Laughter.] 
 You will find, by an examination of the census 
 tables, one million nine hundred and sixty-eight 
 thousand persons in the free States have increased j 
 to thirteen millions of freemen in the free States 
 within the last sixty years, having increased in 
 numbers six and eight tenths times. If you mul- 
 tiply by six and eight tenths the population of 1850 
 in the frfie States, you will have, in sixty years, a 
 population of more than eighty millions of people 
 in the free States. Do you believe that this immense 
 population will give up this country to the negro 
 race? I tell gentlemen of the South, as sureas there 
 is a God of justice in Heaven, that if the time shall 
 come when free labor is restricted within narrow 
 bounds, they will not respect your land monopoly. 
 The North will crush out and drive out your land 
 monopoly and slaves. The ballot will be sufficient 
 for that purpose. Your claim of land monopoly, 
 and of property in the sweat of man, will not, in 
 that day, be any more respected than the anti- ■ 
 renters respected the land monopoly of patroons ' 
 in my State. White men will not see individuals 
 holding five or ten thousand acres of land, with 
 one "hundred cr two hundred slaves, and go hun- j 
 gry themselves for want of bread with the ballot 
 in their hands. 
 
 I have no doubt, if this bill passes, that sla-i 
 very will go into this Territory of Kansas to aj 
 certain extent. I have no doubt, that by the time 
 you have got one hundred thousand inhabitants in 
 Kansas, you will have eight or ten thousand negro 
 slaves there. I have no doubt, too, that the views 
 entertained by southern men, and particularly by 
 the gentleman from Virginia, [Mr. Bayly,] will 
 be realized, and that every individual of color will 
 he held by the southern judges, to be appointed \ 
 for Kansas, to be a slave, unless he should happen i 
 to have proof of his title to freedom, or a letter of, 
 acquittal from slavery. That is the meaning of j 
 these two territorial bills. They were got up here ; 
 for this express design. Now, suppose that to be j 
 the state of the case, and that of these one hun- ; 
 dred thousand inhabitants seventy thousand are ! 
 northern men, believing in the principle that the ! 
 negro is bringing in barbarism and all sorts of vices, ! 
 which make the mulatto race. Do you believe 
 that these northern men will stand idle there with- 
 out attempting to abolish slavery? No, sir, it; 
 cannot be so. They never will submit to it. : 
 When you get northern men there, you vuill have 
 a contest between them and the people wno hold j 
 slaves there. And I tell you, gentlemen, that when | 
 
 it comes to that, when it comes to Abolitionism in 
 the State, you will have an excitement throughout, 
 this country of which all past excitement will 
 have fallen into absolute insignificance. When 
 you get these northern people to preaching Abo- 
 litionism, the slaveholders will do as they did with 
 Cassius M. Clay, when his printing press was 
 destroyed in Kentucky. 
 
 Mr. BRECKINRIDGE. Will the gentleman 
 from New York permit me to say a word here : 
 
 Mr. PERKINS. Certainly. 
 
 Mr. BRECKINRIDGE. Mr. Chairman, by 
 the leave of the gentleman from New York — as 
 the occurrence to which he alludes took place in 
 the city which 1 represent — I desire to say that 
 Mr. Clay's press was not destroyed. It was 
 taken down by an illegal assembly of people — 
 very carefully packed up, however — and sent to 
 merchants in the city of Cincinnati, who, I believe, 
 got it in safety. 
 
 Mr. PERKINS. There is another feature in 
 this matter. If my memory serves me aright, I 
 will submit it; for I have not taken special pains 
 to note circumstances, but have retained them on 
 my mind from time to time for forty years, and 
 portions of the speech which I am now making I 
 made oft times on the discussion for the acquisi- 
 tion of Texas. I would say to you, then, that if 
 you come in conflict with Abolitionism with your 
 slaves in these newTerritbries, you will inevitably 
 get up a quarrel which will shake this country to 
 its center. If I had consented to any act or law 
 which would allow slavery to go into Kansas or 
 Nebraska, and if I became a citizen there after 
 encouraging men to come there with this so called 
 property, I should feel very great hesitation in- 
 deed in supporting Abolitionism and confiscating 
 in effect what my neighbor would call property, 
 and which he had brought to my door in faith of 
 a law to which I had given my consent. I do not 
 believe, Mr. Chairman, I should be able to screw 
 myself up to abolishing it under such circum- 
 stances. The slaveholder where he is can sell 
 his property to go south, to a climate, soil, and pro- 
 duction fitted by the God of nature to the consti- 
 tution of the negro. If there is that attachment 
 between the master and the slave which some gen- 
 tlemen pretend, the master need not sell; the slave 
 will remain with him, and be equally useful, 
 bond or free. But if there is not, then they are 
 just as valuable in the market, and he can sell 
 them, as masters are daily doing, between the 
 northern slave States and the more southern ones, 
 and take his money, which is far better and safer 
 in Kansas than a drove of negroes. 
 
 A few moments more, and I shall have done. 
 In a speech made in reply to the honorable gentle- 
 man from Missouri the other day, it was charged 
 that the Missouri compromise had been the cause 
 of abolition agitation. Now, sir, if my memory 
 serves me right, (and I do not claim that it is 
 very good,) to the best of my recollection, the 
 :ry was perfectly quiet in relation to slavery 
 for about ten years after the passage of that Mis- 
 souri law. I do not believe that, until after the 
 year 1830, there was an anti-slavery society in 
 the United States. How did these societies arise ? 
 I will tell you how I believe they had their origin. 
 Men first came around soliciting donations from 
 the people, and getting up meetings in favor of the 
 Colonization Society. I remember distinctly that 
 
in the year 1632, or lb33, there came into the 
 district which 1 represent a preacher, or a priest, 
 appealing to the sympathies of the people for the 
 purpose of raising a land to send negroes to Af- | 
 rica. He ascended and preached from the pulpit. 
 He was sent, there by southern colpnizationists, I 
 suppose, chiefly — at any rate the Abolitionists say 
 that the col 1 1 tsoi iety for the 
 
 purpose of getting money to get rid of their free 
 ies — for they Bay they never send any of their 
 d what the Abolitionists say in 
 this respect 1 believe to be* more than half tine. 
 Well, to resume: That, man came among us with | 
 chains in his hands, soliciting donations — yes, sir, 
 soliciting donations for the Colonization Society. 
 He shook those chains in the face of the people, 
 in the pulpit, and told them that such were the 
 chains in which negroes were accustomed to be 
 driven off from the North to the South. Soon 
 after that period — in 1834, I believe — up springs 
 the Abolition Society. 
 
 A Voice. In I 
 
 Mr. PERKINS. I speak from recollection 
 solely, not having consulted any memorandum or 
 book upon the subject, and I shall therefore not 
 be taken as misstating facts because the dates are 
 not exactly correct. I say, soon after these colo- 
 nizationists came around with those chains, others 
 too came around, such as Garrison and his friends, 
 and that class of people, and delivered abolition 
 lectures. A next? There was more done 
 
 by the northern " lickspittles " of the slave power 
 to foster and foment this abolitionism which grew 
 up than has ever been done by all the Abolition- 
 ists put together. 
 
 " The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church." 
 
 And yet, sir, the very moment these people un- 
 dertook to exercise the right of fvee speech guar- 
 antied to them by the Constitution, they were 
 mobbed. Garrison, I believe, was drawn through 
 the streets .of Boston with a rope around his neck; 
 and then there was a man in New York, ['forget 
 his name 
 
 A Member. Tappan. 
 
 Mr. PERKINS. Yes, Tappan; that is it. 
 Tappan's house was completely riddled. I re- 
 member, too, some of the particulars of a story 
 about a mob in Illinois. I am not sure whether 
 any life was taken or not. 
 
 A Member. No life taken. 
 
 Mr. PERKINS. I do not know that there • 
 but they took the printing press of a man and 
 destroyed it, and in oilier ways maltreated 
 Now, sir, when our people saw the effect of the 
 slave influence manifested in this way, simply for 
 the purpose of carrying on a little traffic with the 
 South; when we see men in reputable standing 
 cutting up such fantastic tricks as that, can one' 
 wonder that the people of the North cried out, if 
 such things be done in the green tree of freedom, 
 what must be done in the dry tree of slaver] # 
 wonder that anti-slavery societies were fori; 
 every portion of the North, and sprung up like ' 
 dragons' teeth. 
 
 Sir, it was not the Missouri compromise that 
 fomented Abolition in the North. No, sir; the 
 North submitted to that, and there was nothing to 
 disturb the peace and quiet of the country upon ] 
 this subject until those men at the North who I 
 assume to be extra southern, and southern men' 
 
 themselves, commenced to agitate. Why, sir, the 
 right which had never been denied to present peti- 
 tions in this House for the abolition of slavery in 
 the District of Columbia, or elsewhere, was denied. 
 They refused to receive them. 1 do not pretend 
 to say that such petitions would do any good. 
 There was no use in pn '.em. But then 
 
 the right to present them had been admitted ever ' 
 since the organization of the Government, and the 
 only effect oftienyinir that right was again to com- 
 mence agitation in the North, \ I not 
 hive been commenced but for this movement upon 
 the part of pro-slavery men. John Quincy Adams 
 was not the nmn I nstituents' peti- 
 insultingly kicked out of Congress. Heand 
 his compeers agitated 'until they g'>l the Atherton 
 rule abolished. As soon as petitions were re- 
 ceived, the Abolitionists nearly quit the trade of 
 getting them up. 
 
 Next an excitement d about the an- 
 
 nexation of Texas. The North claimed that the 
 territory acquired from that annexation should be 
 divided, and a part of it made i'ree territory. We 
 acquired in all three hundred thousand or four 
 hundred thousand square miles of territory from 
 the annexation of Tex ng that fur which 
 
 you paid $10,000,000, and about an eqiral num- 
 ber of square miles of territory west of the Del 
 Norte. The Ten i worth four 
 
 times as m- il purposes as all the 
 
 Territory of New ornia; 
 
 would have been of four times the value of 
 all our acquisitions from Mexico, but fortheafter- 
 discovery of the gold mines. But, I say, that for 
 agricultural purposes, Texas was worth more than 
 four times as much as all your territory acquired 
 i the Rio Grande. 
 
 Now, Mr. Chairman, the Wilmot proviso 
 a fair and honest proposition, if it had been 
 accorded.it would have been but acceding to a 
 demand from the North which was perfectly just 
 and right. Why, sir, theSouth had already two 
 square miles of territory in proportion to popula- 
 tion to where the North had one. The gentleman 
 from Ohio, [Mr. Disney,] the other day, told us 
 that slavery had been established in Utah. I did 
 not know it before; but, with that Territory given 
 to the South, they have still more territory, in pro- 
 portion to population, twice over, than the free 
 States. But of ; have more to sayby- 
 
 and-by. I will only say, that they have af. least 
 one third more square miles than the North. Now, 
 sir, ! had supposed that portion would be suffi- 
 cient to satisfy the intense slave- vities, 
 even of the illustrious author of th 
 • The introduction of this a the most 
 extraordinary political move of v. I i ever 
 heard during the whole course of my life. The 
 country was ir. a condition of perfect quiet. The 
 author was not prepared to recommend a repeal 
 of the Missouri compromise until worked upon 
 by some sort of machinery, I do not exactly 
 know what; but a kind of machinery that he 
 thinks grinds out Presidents, when skillfully run. 
 [Roars of laughter.] It screwed up the author 
 of the bill to the repeal of the Missouri act, and 
 so we have this bill brought forward. What is' 
 more extraordinary than anything else, is this 
 monstrosity of legislation, c friends a 
 tabula nBo, which means blank for the judge to be 
 appointed by the Senate to write on it just what 
 
he pleases on the subject of slavery. So far as 
 statesmanship is concerned, it must have strained 
 the intellect of the tallest kind of a little giant to 
 enact a tabula rasa — a blank. [Laughter.] The 
 next thing, as I understand it, is fillibusteiism to 
 annex Cuba; and oat of Cuba we are to have three 
 or more slave States, notwithstanding this Ne- 
 braska outrage. If the Devil himself had under- 
 taken to devise a scheme to create division in the 
 :h on the Cuba question, he could not have 
 obtained one better calculated for his purpose 
 than this one. I do not know but I may as well 
 stop here. 
 
 [Cries all over the Hall, " Go on ! we want to 
 hear you out!"] 
 
 Mr. PERKINS. Very well. I am quite con- 
 tented, for one, with the territory of which v/e 
 are possessed. If the South wan 
 us into a war with Great Britain, I think that it 
 will turn out like the war of 1813; though the 
 North were opposed to it, they ran away with al! 
 the profits a ils. If you get into that war, 
 
 we are more likely to get New Brunswick and 
 Canada than the-South are Cuba. 
 
 Now, Mr. Chairman, I have but a single remark 
 to make further. The views of Robert J. Walker, 
 and the natural laws of God, and the laws of the 
 construction of the negro race, are as plainly writ- 
 ten as anything can be. At the earliest nzs, by 
 Divine Providence, the negroes were placed in the 
 center of the earth, and in a very hot elin 
 where white men could not work and live. That 
 was the decree of the Almighty. They were 
 brought here for some purpose, but I do not know 
 what it is. If you ever get rid of slavery, if yon 
 
 ever thin it; if you ever make yourselves secure, 
 it will be by sending the negroes, bond or free, 
 south. If you can get it into Yucatan and Cen- 
 tral America, very well. Take it there, for aught 
 I care. By the present bill, which repeals that 
 compromise of thirty years standing, you.cause an 
 amount of irritation, and produce consequences, 
 of which no man can foresee the event. This cause- 
 less fire-brand, the repeal of the Missouri compro- 
 mise, tin-own in our midst, 1 fear may be one of 
 the links in the chain of events which bind together 
 the par:!., the present, and the future; ay, to that 
 future which humanity can only look at with awe 
 and trembling. 
 
 You cannot abolish slavery. You may possibly 
 remove it. You may send it South, and maintain 
 it South. You may also, possibly, long maintain 
 it where it now exists. Every day and every 
 year adds accumulated and aggravated difficulties 
 to the emancipation of the slaves. In sixty years 
 more you will have fifteen or twenty million 
 slaves, and what can you do with them ? You 
 have perhaps territory enough already within your 
 grasp to answer the purpose of sixty millions of 
 people. But when you get anything like that, you 
 will have twice more negroes than white men in 
 the slave States; and they will, as they have dene, 
 crush out the laboring white men. The census 
 shows that the slaves have .increased vastly faster 
 than the white men; and you cannot get rid of 
 niggerdom in the slave States. The negroes will 
 be so much more numerous than the white men 
 that every white man will be under the necessity 
 of being armed to the teeth to secure his personal 
 safety. 
 
 Printed at the Coiijrcssional G.'ofoe Office. 
 
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