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SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 HON. JOHN CADWALADER, 
 
 OF PENNSYLVANIA, 
 
 ON THE 
 
 LEGISLATION OF THE UNITED STATES UPON THE SUBJECT 
 OF SLAVERY IN THE TERRITORIES. 
 
 DELIVERED 
 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, MARCH 5, 1856. 
 
 
 WASHINGTON : 
 
 PRINTED AT THE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE OFFICE. 
 
 1856. 
 

LEGISLATION OF CONGRESS UPON SLAVERY IN THE TERRITORIES. 
 
 The House being in the Committee of the Whole on the 
 Bt.ile of the Union, and having under consideration the 
 President's Annual Message, 
 
 Mr. CADWALADER said: 
 
 Mr. Chairman: 1 avail myself of this occasion 
 to reply to the remarks of the gentleman from 
 my own State [Mr. Grow] who last addressed 
 the House. His remarks deserve the particular 
 consideration of those who, like myself, differ 
 altogether from him in opinion. He is one of 
 the frw members of the present Congress from 
 the State of which I am a citizen, who do not on 
 this floor misrepresent their constituents. Other 
 members from the same State who here act 
 with him are the Representatives of districts 
 which, since they were elected, have, by over- 
 whelming votes, unequivocally condemned the 
 political views which they still profess to sustain. 
 On a former occasion, shortly after I took my seat 
 in this Congress, I stated and explained the causes 
 and modes of those deceptive artifices through 
 which opposing political elements had been com- 
 'bined in their respective districts for the temporary 
 defeat of the Democracy. I am therefore now re- 
 lieved from the necessity of recapitulating these 
 details. 
 
 I have the honor to represent a district in which, 
 through Democratic organization, these combina- 
 tions were happily defeated in the outset. Rep- 
 resenting such a constituency, I rejoice that, as 
 I rise to address the House in opposition to my 
 colleague's animadversions upon the President's 
 views on the subject of congressional legislation 
 upon slavery in the Territories, a communication 
 by telegraph is. received announcing that the 
 Pennsylvania Democratic Convention, now in 
 session at Harrisburg, have unanimously declared 
 
 their approval of the President's views of the 
 subject, and have in decisive terms indorsed and 
 approved the act of the last Congress by which 
 the territorial governments of Kansas and Ne- 
 braska were organized. It requires no prophetic 
 spirit to predict with confidence that, when the 
 vote of Pennsylvania in the approaching presi- 
 dential contest shall have been counted, the ma- 
 jority by tens of thousands in favor of the can- 
 didate of the Democracy will prove the sincerity 
 of her devotion to the constitutional rights of our 
 brethren of the slaveholding States. 
 
 For another and much more important reason, 
 the remarks of the same gentleman [Mr. Grow] 
 ought now to receive particular consideration. 
 
 This House is organized under an anti-Demo- 
 cratic majority, whose shortlived influence, if it 
 were not already extinct, could not long survive 
 certain recent suicidal measures of the combined 
 factions of which it is composed. Eut, notwith- 
 standing the present or future external annihilation 
 of these factions, the action of this House during 
 this Congress will necessarily receive its direction, 
 in a greater or less degree, from its internal organ- 
 ization, which has unhappily been dependent upon 
 this influence. Now, the gentleman [Mr. Grow] 
 occupies through this influence the responsible and 
 influential position of chairman of the Committee 
 on Territories. The future organization of terri- 
 torial governments on this continent is, in my 
 humble opinion, at this crisis, the most important 
 subject of congressional consideration. As the 
 chairman of this committee has assumed upon 
 himself the office of opening the debate on the 
 President's message, and has thought proper to 
 select as the subject of his remarks that portion 
 of the message which relates to the territorial 
 
governments established by the last Congress, we 
 have a just right to measure his views by such a 
 standard as may determine whether their exten- 
 sion is proportional to the magnitude and import- 
 ance of the functions of the committee of whose 
 views he has been constituted the exponent. 
 
 In defining the functions of this committee we 
 naturally regard, first, the extension of our whole 
 country, and next, that of the Territories. The 
 superficial area of the United States, according to 
 the latest geographical compilations, is more than 
 three and a third millions of square miles. There 
 are some errors in that computation; but the actual 
 area is probably not less than three and a quarter 
 millions of square miles. Of that area, less than 
 one half has been organized into States. Of the 
 thirty-one existing States, two, Texas and Cali- 
 fornia, cannot be regarded as permanently organ- 
 ized. Within the restricted boundaries of Texas, 
 as truncated on the north and on the west with 
 her own consent in 1S59, her present area is, per- 
 haps, not much less than 300,000 square miles. 
 By the legislation of 1850 her territory is divisible 
 into five States, as it was before her limits were 
 thus narrowed. By the same ratio California will 
 be divided hito at least three States. Thus, there 
 are only twenty-nine States whose organization 
 can be regarded as permanently completed. These 
 twenty-nine States include less than one third of 
 the extent of our whole country. Beyond their 
 limits, we have, including Texas and California, 
 a territorial extension of more than two millions 
 of square miles, out of which certainly more than 
 thirty, and perhaps as many as forty, or more, 
 States ought hereafter to be organized. 
 
 This brief statement may give some idea of 
 the magnitude and importance of the proper func- 
 tions of the Committee on Territories of this and 
 succeeding Congresses. When we look forward 
 to the future extension of our population, must 
 we not shudder at the probable effect of the agita- 
 tion which such arguments as those of the chair- 
 man of the present committee have a tendency to 
 provoke? Can we hope to organize Territorial or 
 State governments under a disturbed state of feel- 
 ing, such as his arguments would engender? It 
 would be impossible. We are soon to be divided 
 into sixty, or more probably seventy States, if 
 the normal conditions of our country's prog- 
 ress can be fulfilled. These conditions of our 
 progress, and of its attendant happiness and pros- 
 perity, cannot be fulfilled unless the legislation on 
 the subject of slavery in the Territories is to be reg- 
 ulated, under the Constitution, with a due regard 
 to the rights and interests of the slaveholding 
 
 States, which the Constitution purports to secure. 
 Of the sixty or seventy States of which our 
 Union ought, by the proper fulfillment of these 
 conditions, to be composed, the greater number 
 by far must, even under circumstances the most 
 favorable to the southern portion of our country, 
 become non-slaveholding States. Through the 
 operation in part of climate, in part of social af- 
 finities and in part of political causes whose effect 
 has already been determined, it appears inevitable 
 that the number of non-slaveholding States will — 
 in the proportion of nearly two to one — exceed that 
 of the slaveholding. With a view to this inevit- 
 able future, docs the chairman of the Committee 
 on Territories expect the peace and harmony of 
 our Union to be preserved, unless the future legis- 
 lation of the country can be conducted, on tho 
 principles recommended in the President's mes- 
 sage, with a just regard to the rights of such of 
 our sister States as are thus destined to find them- 
 selves permanently in a minority, and, for pur- 
 poses of self-protection, must naturally look with 
 jealous anxiety upon every exercise of doubtful 
 powers, and every unnecessary exercise of ac- 
 knowledged powers, by a dominant majority ? 
 
 As I am not disposed to look upon the dark 
 side of the picture, I have no serious fears of tho 
 future. But, deplorable indeed would be the con- 
 templation of the future, if our administrative 
 statesmen were to exercise the functions of gov- 
 ernment in that retrogressive order which wa 
 have witnessed in the discussion of to-day; con- 
 tenting themselves with dwelling upon the mem- 
 ory of small things of the past, instead of con- 
 sidering the great exigencies of the future. Wo 
 may hope that the Committee on Territories, nob- 
 withstanding their chairman's unpromising pref- 
 ace of their future works, will be duly sensible 
 of the paramount importance of providing for tho 
 general interest, in view of these great exigencies. 
 But, as their chairman has occupied the attention 
 of the committee in the contemplation of by -go no 
 events only, and as he has not, even in thus 
 dwelling upon the past, manifested an accurate 
 knowledge of the history of the former legislation 
 of the United States upon the subject of slavery 
 in the Territories, I propose to devote the residue 
 of the hour allotted to me by the rule of tho 
 House to reviewing briefly the history of this 
 legislation so far as may be necessary for the de- 
 velopment of the leading moral and political prin- 
 ciples which have constituted its foundation. 
 
 The ultimate practical proposition which I desire 
 
to state as the result to winch my remarks will 
 tenu, is, uiat when, after the treats of 1848 with 
 Mexico, it became incumbent on the Congress of 
 the United States to legislate as to our possessions 
 acquired under that treat}'-, there was amoral and 
 political necessity to choose between two alterna- 
 tives. One alternative was to extend to the Pacific 
 ocean the line of the so-called Missouri restriction; 
 thus making the latitude of 36° 30' the division be- 
 tween the non-slaveholding and the slaveholding 
 territories on both sides of the Rocky mountains. 
 The other alternative was to regard the restriction 
 as wholly abrogated and annulled eastward as 
 well as westward of the Rocky mountains. To 
 state the proposition more briefly, in another form : 
 Justice required that the restriction should not be 
 maintained eastward of those mountains if it could 
 not be extended westward of them to the Pacific 
 
 A preliminary proposition of fact, established, 
 as I think, by the legislation of which I desire to 
 present a connected review, is, that the United 
 States, in exercising their duty to legislate for the 
 Territories as the common properly of the several 
 Stales held in trust for their common benefit, have 
 regarded the term " common benefit"as admitting 
 of a twofold application, or definition, so far as the 
 subject of slavery was involved. According to the 
 less complex and less questionable of these defini- 
 tions the trust might be fulfilled by abstaining 
 wholly from legislation on the subject of slavery 
 during the territorial condition of the country. 
 According to the other definition, if a partition of 
 the territory between the slaveholding and the non- 
 slaveholding population were required in order to 
 promote the common benefit, and such a partition 
 could be carried into effect in a manner mutually 
 beneficial, the power of making it might be 
 exercised by the United States. The territorial 
 settlers would, in either case, be at liberty, by 
 their constitutions when framed, to regulate the 
 subject of slavery definitively for themselves. 
 During their territorial condition, unless a mu- 
 tually beneficial partition of the Territory could 
 be effected, Congress has abstained from legisla- 
 tive interference with the subject. 
 
 Many statesmen of the highest eminence have 
 denied — many others have doubted — the consti- 
 tutional power to make an effectual partition of 
 this character. On the other side of the question, 
 some of our distinguished statesmen have always 
 contended that Congress has the constitutional 
 power to exclude slavery absolutely from all the 
 Territories. A large number of those who have 
 recognized the existence of this supposed legal 
 
 power of total *v,i..J on) havC; nowcver? ad mit- 
 
 ted that the power could not be rightfully exercised ; 
 conceding that a fraudulent abuse of such a power 
 would be committed in any exercise of it for the 
 benefit of the proprietary owners of one portion of 
 the Territory to the total exclusion of the propric- 
 tors of the other portion. The same reasoning 
 would recognize the immorality and injustice of 
 an unequal or disproportional partition. These 
 were abstract questions, upon which statesmen 
 have differed, and may continue to differ. Eut, 
 as a practical truth, it will be shown, before I have 
 concluded my remarks, that no act of legislation 
 has ever been passed upon the principle of total 
 exclusion of the people of the slaveholding States 
 from the enjoyment of their property in slaves 
 within the Territories. Until after the treaty with 
 Mexico in 1848, there had never been any legis- 
 lation for the partial exclusion of this property 
 upon any principle other than that of a partition 
 mutually beneficial. An apprehension in the 
 minds of the people of the slaveholding States', 
 that a departure from this practice had been 
 threatened by the legislation of 1850, was removed 
 by the salutary legislation of 1854, which happily 
 quieted their minds upon the subject. 
 
 In matters of statesmanship it is often unwise 
 to play the part of mere lawyers. We should, 
 of course, never violate the law. But the question 
 or right is often quite independent of that of legal 
 poicer. It is by no means true that every power 
 which can be lawfully exercised may be rightfully 
 exercised. There is nothing in the Constitution 
 to prevent the Government of the United States 
 from wrongfully exercising many most pernicious 
 powers. Their exercise, even against the spirit 
 of the Constitution, might be within the scope of 
 the powers which the Constitution itself confers. 
 Thus a standing army of a million of men can 
 be raised under an act of Congress in time of 
 peace; and if the soldiers be not quartered on the 
 inhabitants, the act would be lawful under the 
 Constitution. Yet it would be manifestly against 
 the spirit of the Constitution. No lawyer would 
 question its validity; but an honest statesman 
 would revolt at its iniquity, and might counsel 
 revolution itself as preferable to submission. So, 
 if we look merely to decisions of the Supreme Court 
 of the United States, a corporate body of specu- 
 lators, under the name of a bank, may be consti- 
 tuted by Congress the fiscal agents of our Govern- 
 ment. But no American statesman of the present 
 day — whatever may be his opinion on the legal 
 question — contends that the fiscal power of the 
 State can be rightfully placed, in this manner, for 
 a number of years, beyond the control of those 
 
6 
 
 organs of government whose authority is depend- 
 ent upon the exercise of the elective franchise in the 
 several States, and whose functions are determined 
 by the Constitution. These examples, which might 
 be multiplied, suffice to show theinconclusiveness 
 of the general reasoning of those who assume 
 that whatever is legal is, therefore, necessarily 
 rightful in a moral or a political point of view, 
 and of the reasoning in particular of those who, 
 conceiving the total exclusion of slaves from the 
 Territories to be lawful, assume that such exclu- 
 sion is, therefore, necessarily rightful. 
 
 Before concluding my remarks I hope to show 
 that such total exclusion would not only be im- 
 moral and unjust, but would likewise, in a legal 
 sense, be unconstitutional. I postpone for the 
 present this demonstration, because it may be 
 made incidentally during the historical review of 
 the past legislation which I propose to present. 
 
 Eefore entering upon these historical details, I 
 desire to state succinctly the reasoning upon which 
 many statesmen who think the constitutional 
 power of Congress over the Territories limited by 
 the trust under which they are held for the com- 
 mon benefit of the several States, arc, neverthe- 
 less, of opinion that legislation which, in effect, 
 divides the Territories between the people of the 
 non-slaveholding and those of the slaveholding 
 States, is consistent with, and authorized by, this 
 trust. 
 
 Their argument has been, that any territorial 
 possessions, owned in common by private or by 
 public proprietors, may be enjoyed for their com- 
 mon and mutual benefit in cither of two modes; 
 firstly, may be held in common and undivided, 
 with an equal participation by every owner in all 
 the parts; secondly, maybe justly and equitably 
 divided by a partition. Some, who, professedly, 
 were strict constructionists, stated the question 
 to be, primarily, whether, in parceling out our 
 Territories for the common benefit, they could be 
 enjoyed in common without a relative, if not an 
 absolute, necessity of making a partition. It was, 
 they said, a lamentable truth, but a truth which 
 no man could venture to deny, that the slave- 
 ingahd the non-slaveholdingpopulation could 
 not coexist conveniently, if at all, under one and 
 Ih ame local government. Upon this allegation 
 they based their argument, that without a partition 
 could be oo practical equal participation in 
 the benefits derivable from our ownership of these 
 territorial dependencies. 
 
 On the one hand, the incompatibility of any 
 prosperous coexistence of the two kinds of popu- 
 lation under the same local government, was fully 
 
 acknowledged before our Constitution was framed, 
 and at the time of its formation. It has been re- 
 cognized ever since, and, as we cannot but fear, 
 must continue to be acknowledged until after the 
 condition of the Territories, witli reference to this 
 question , shall have been permanently determined, 
 and placed beyond the range of any possible con- 
 gressional action. These considerations of rela- 
 tive necessity go very far to sustain the argu- 
 ment in favor of an inherent power in the General 
 Government to make a partition of the territorial 
 dependencies. 
 
 On the other hand, in support of the opposing 
 argument, it has been urged that, according to 
 sound political rules of construction of the Con- 
 stitution, a power not expressly given cannot, 
 from any relative or even absolute necessity, be 
 implied; and that this, as a power, arising from 
 implication alone, must, therefore, be excluded. 
 
 By the legislation of Congress in 1850 and 
 1S54, the question is rendered practically obso- 
 lete, except as its investigation may shed light, 
 historically, upon prior constitutional provisions 
 and legislative enactments. A recurrence to the 
 subject is however indispensable in every stage 
 of this historical investigation. 
 
 The difficulty which such a partition might bo 
 expected to remove occurred upon the adoption 
 of the Constitution of the United States. It was 
 remedied, as I will hereafter show, by means of 
 a partition made, we may say,cotcmporaneously 
 with the adoption of the Constitution. After the 
 lapse of nearly the third of a century, the diffi- 
 cultyrccurrcd as to the territory ceded by France. 
 After controversial agitation, an attempt was 
 made to remedy it by means of a partition of this 
 territory. This was a partition peculiar in its 
 character, to which I will have occasion likewisa 
 to refer again. After another interval of a quarter 
 of a century, in order to prevent a like difficulty 
 from occurring in the case of Texas, there was 
 an extension of the supposed principle of the 
 former partition. The principle of these acts was 
 clearly that each successive new acquisition of 
 territory should be shared with as close an ap- 
 proximation to equal or proportional benefit to 
 the different Sections Ofthe Union as might, under 
 tin- circumstances, be practicable. 
 
 The mode in which the partitions had been 
 successively made, was always, in form and in 
 effect, beneficial to tin; non-slaveholding States. 
 From one portion ofthe territory slavery was, in 
 each case, by the language of the law, exclude! 
 absolutely, while slavery was to exist in the 
 other portion, or to be excluded from it, as its 
 inhabitants might constitutionally determine. 
 
After the Mexican war, an attempt was unsuc- 
 cessfully made to apply again the principle of these 
 partitions to new territorial acquisitions. This 
 attempt failed, because, as I will presently have 
 occasion to show, local considerations rendered 
 the principle inapplicable. We were driven by 
 necessity. to adopt here the nominal principle of 
 common possession with common enjoyment. 
 But as the Mexican laws locally in force had 
 excluded slavery from these territories, the appli- 
 cation of this principle to them was illusory so 
 far as any possibility of participation in their 
 further settlement by slaveholders might be con- 
 cerned. Property in slaves was thus, in effect, ex- 
 cluded wholly from their limits. The principle of 
 the former partitions having become inapplicable, 
 and slaveholding settlers having been altogether 
 excluded from this territory, the slaveholding 
 States were, of right, entitled to an indemnification 
 for their loss if it could be afforded by giving to 
 them access, with their slaves, to other territory. 
 If such access could be given without any viola" 
 tion of existing rights of others in such territory, 
 there could be no just cause for its denial. This 
 was true, although their exclusion from the ter- 
 ritory acquired from Mexico might have been the 
 result of unavoidable causes, for which the United 
 States were not responsible. Equal participation 
 in the beneficial enjoyment of this territory having 
 become impossible, and the whole benefit of its 
 enjoyment having, from the first, enured to one 
 class of its common proprietors, the other class 
 ought to receive an indemnification from some 
 other portion of the common property. This 
 principle was the moral basis of that praise- 
 worthy legislation of 1851 which the chairman 
 of the Committee on Territories has most inju- 
 diciously denominated a "conspiracy against 
 freedom." 
 
 To the northward of the latitude of 40°, climate 
 and other considerations make slavery practically 
 out of the question. To the southward of 36° 30', 
 on this side of the Rocky mountains, except in 
 thnf portion of what was taken from Texas and 
 annexed to New Mexico in 1850, the institution 
 of slavery is now established. From all parts of 
 our country to the westward of the Rocky mount- 
 ains it is excluded. This exclusion is probably 
 permanent. The Territory of Kansas, lying west- 
 ward of the State of Missouri, between the paral- 
 lels of latitude of 37° and 40°, is, therefore, now 
 the only space in which the question of slavery 
 is to be regarded as of any practical importance. 
 The question is, whether the force of a numerical 
 majority from the northern States can be right- 
 
 fully exercised in order to deprive our southern 
 brethren of the privilege of free access, with their 
 slave property, to this Territory— a Territory, be 
 it remembered, within degrees of latitude which, 
 to the eastward of its limits, include already five 
 slaveholding States, and much more land of slave- 
 holders' than land from which slavery is excluded. 
 
 Let us now trace the history of these success- 
 ive partitions. 
 
 The first partition of territory was made by a 
 scries of acts, in the years 1787, 1789, and 1790, 
 followed by an act of 1802. The power of tho 
 Confederacy which preceded our present Constitu- 
 tion , if determinable solely by the terms of the Ar- 
 ticles of Confederation, was, perhaps, not greater 
 on the subject in question than that of the Con- 
 federacy subsequently organized under our present 
 Constitution. But there was this difference: Un- 
 der the old Confederacy^, members of Congress 
 were in constant communion with the Legisla- 
 tures and executive governments of the several 
 States which they respectively represented. They 
 constantly acted under direct legislative instruc- 
 tions. As representatives of the several States, 
 they might be, and often were, authorized by their 
 respective Legislatures, to perform acts of sover- 
 eignty — exercising a delegated authority not un- 
 like the treaty-making power, and binding the 
 States by compacts with the confederated Gov- 
 ernment. It is difficult to measure the legal extent 
 of their power, when exercised under the sanction 
 or acquiescence of the States. Their action, when 
 ratified by the States, especially when the States 
 were unanimous, might thus be the exercise of a 
 power taking effect independently of the Articles 
 of Confederation. 
 
 The boundaries of the United States, under the 
 treaty of 1783 with England, included not quite 
 eight hundred thousand square miles, of which 
 about one half was organized into States, and tho 
 other half was composed of Territories not thus 
 organized. 
 
 These Territories were, as we know, the sub- 
 jects of successive cessions by the different Statc3 
 to the United States. The language in which the 
 subjects of these cessions were defined, and tho 
 conditions on which they were received, have 
 been too often overlooked. They were expressly 
 cessions of both soil and jurisdiction. The two- 
 fold expression, "soil and jurisdiction," was 
 employed in every case. The cessions were not 
 made or received unconditionally. The Statea 
 which had exacted them had, in their published 
 
8 
 
 manifestoes on the subject, declared that these 
 Territories, wrested from England as the common 
 enemy by the blood and treasure of all the Stales, 
 should be considered a common property, and 
 should be parceled out by Congress into free and 
 independent States. By the resolution pf Con- 
 gress of 1780, it had been stipulated that the unap- 
 propriated lands that might be ceded or relinquish- 
 ed to the United States by any particular State, 
 should be disposed of for the common benefit of the 
 United States, and be settled and formed into dis- 
 tinctrepublican Sta tes, which should become mem- 
 bers of the Federal Union, and have the same rights 
 of sovereignty, freedom, and independence as the 
 other States. Under this engagement, the United 
 States thus received the grant of the jurisdiction 
 as well as the soil of these Territories. A solemn 
 pledge was thus given that the Territories should 
 be governed for the common benefit. In the de- 
 bates and proceedings of the Federal convention, 
 and of the Virginia convention, it is manifest that 
 this was understood to mean " the common ben- 
 efit" of the slaveholding as well as of the non- 
 slaveholding States. 
 
 Before the peace of 1783, some of the States had 
 begun the work of liberating their slaves. All 
 the States, at the time of the Declaration of In- 
 dependence, had been slaveholding, including 
 Massachusetts, though this has in her case been 
 denied. The original New England articles of 
 confederation of the previous century, to which 
 Massachusetts was a party, had contained a clause 
 for the rendition of fugitive slaves. The law of 
 Massachusetts, like that of the other States, rec- 
 ognized and protected property in slaves until the 
 adoption of her constitution, framed during the 
 war of the Revolution.* But at the time of the 
 adoption of the Federal Constitution, a majority 
 of the States — seven of the thirteen — were non- 
 elavcholding.f The jealous apprehension on the 
 
 * "The P>osto:i Gazette and Country Journal" was 
 "printed by Benjamin Eades in/Watertowh." No. 1105, 
 publish; d on the 2£dof July, L776, contains the Declaration 
 of Independence, and the following advertisement : 
 
 "To be Sold. — A stout, strong, healthy negro man, about 
 ' twenty-five years of age ; hashad the small-pox; can turn 
 ' his hand to almost anything ; lie likes fanning business the 
 'best; he is well clothed. The pay may be on interest, 
 ' giving security. Inquire of the printer." 
 
 The paper is in the possession of Colonel Peter Force. 
 
 t It would have been, with more accuracy, said of some 
 of these seven States, that they had passed laws for the 
 prospective gradual abolition of slavery within their limits ; 
 and of others, that the number of slaves within their limits 
 was very small, and that the views and policy of their in- 
 habitants were generally opposed to slavery. 
 
 Pennsylvania, and the six States to the northward and 
 eastward of her, were, for practical purposes, regarded as 
 non-slaveholding at the time of the adoption of the Consti- 
 tution. (See the next note.) 
 
 part of the slaveholding States of an infringement 
 of their equal privileges, which now exists, was 
 at that day manifested. Those who, in the Vir- 
 ginia convention, opposed the adoption of the 
 Constitution, inviting attention to the Territories, 
 accused the non-slaveholding States of withhold- 
 ing from what was then the West the navigation 
 of the Mississippi, throughjealousylestthe power 
 of the slaveholding States might, perchance, there- 
 after equal that of the non-slaveholding; and 
 prophesied that the non-slaveholding States, if 
 they retained their numerical majority, woulr? 
 unfairly prevent the admission into the Union of 
 new States in which slavery might be tolerated.* 
 The defenders of the Constitution in that conven- 
 tion denounced these charges against their north- 
 ern brethren as illiberal and unjust. 
 
 Through menacing perils of disunion, at that 
 crisis of our destinies, we happily passed unhurt. 
 Through similar perils, which followed, we like- 
 wise passed. In the future such perils will prob- 
 ably be diminished, rather than increased. But 
 this happy result cannot be promoted by such 
 discourses as that of the chairman of the Commit- 
 tee on the Territories. 
 
 I have -stated that, at the time of the establish- 
 ment of our present Constitution, the area of the 
 original States was about four hundred thousand 
 square miles, exclusive of the Territories. Three 
 fifths of this area was then slaveholding, and two 
 fifths only non-slaveholding. f The Territories 
 were together of an area nearly equal to that of 
 the States. The partition of these Territories 
 then made was carried into effect by successive 
 acts, partly of the old Congress of the Confeder- 
 
 * In the debate of the 23d of June, 1783, on the third sec- 
 tion of the fourth article of the Constitution. Mr. Grayson 
 said : " Mr. Chairman, it appears to me, sir, under this sec- 
 ' tion, there can never be a southern State admitted into 
 ' the Union. There are seven Slates, who are a majority, 
 ' and whose interest it is to prevent it. The balance being 
 ' actually in their possession, they will have the regulation 
 ' of commerce, and the Federal ten miles square wherever 
 < they please. It is not to be supposed, then, that they will 
 ' admit any southern State into the Union so as to lose that 
 ' majority." 
 
 fThe slaveholding 21.1,700 square miles, composed of the 
 present States of Virginia, North and South Carolina, 
 Georgia, Maryland, Delaware, and Kentucky ; the non- 
 slaveholding, comprising the present States of New Hamp- 
 shire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut, Rhode 
 Island, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, tog 
 164,000 square miles. The names of the new Stales formed 
 within the limits of the original thirteen are here printed in 
 italics. 
 
 The word " non-slaveholding,'' as used here and in the 
 text, applies to all the old Stat.-s whose known policy Wis 
 adverse to the indefinite continuance of slavery within their 
 limits, whether it had already been legally abolished within 
 them or not. (See the last two Notee.) 
 
9 
 
 ation, and partly of the Congress under the pres- 
 ent Constitution. This legislation gave to the 
 non-slaveholding population about five eighths 
 of the territorial domain. The slaveholding pop- 
 ulation retained only about three eighths. The 
 extensional area of the slaveholding and non- 
 slaveholding parts of the Union was thus nearly 
 equalized. There was then a cautious observ- 
 ance of those compacts securing the rights of the 
 slaveholding States which the chairman of the 
 Committee on the Territories would now tear to 
 tatters and scatter to the winds. 
 
 The ordinance excluding slavery from the 
 Northwestern Territory was passed by the Con- 
 gress of the Confederation in July, 1787. In 
 
 August, 1787, a cession of other territory was II the Supreme Court of the United States has said, 
 made by South Carolina, and accepted by the for the most complete recognition of the title of 
 Congress of the Confederation without any men- j the inhabitants of the slaveholding States to their 
 tion of slavery. In September, 1787, the Consti- i property in slaves. The Constitution treats slaves 
 tution was subscribed by the Federal convention, as persons and as property; regarding them as 
 The cession of 1789, by North Carolina, of the I inferior persons, who were subjects of private 
 territory. lyirtg westward of her limits, was ac- property. As persons, they were not to be com- 
 Heepted, in 1790, by the first Congress under the 
 Constitution. It contained the remarkable words: 
 
 "Provided always, That no regulations made, or to be 
 made, by Congress shall tend to emancipate slaves." 
 
 This territory lay wholly to the southward of 
 the line of 3G° 30' — the old Virginia boundary — ' 
 
 for the exclusion of slavery within this Territory. 
 These apparent diversities in congressional legis- 
 lation are all reconcilable with one another, if we 
 regard the successive acts as together constituting 
 a partition of the Territory with reference to this 
 question of slavery. They are otherwise alto- 
 gether inexplicable. 
 
 It is, here, material to bear in mind that the 
 Constitution intervened between the ordinance of 
 17S7 and the acceptance, in 1790, of the cession 
 made by North Carolina. This Constitution — 
 the charter of our title to the most important 
 political blessings, and to many of the most highly 
 valued social as well as domestic blessings which 
 we enjoy — gave to Congress no control of the 
 subject of slavery. It nevertheless provided, as 
 
 putcd in the enumeration of inhabitants etherwise 
 than in view of the political and individual rights 
 of their proprietors. In that computation it pro- 
 vides that five of them shall be counted as equal 
 to only three whites. "While it calls them " per- 
 sons, "it thus recognizes their inferiority as a race, 
 which, under the North Carolina charters of 16774 It treats them as subjects of property, providing 
 
 and 1729, had originally extended to the Pacific 
 ocean, and would still have extended to that ocean 
 if the treaties of 1763 and 1783 had not limited our 
 territory on the westward by the Mississippi. 
 
 These differing enactments of 1787 and 1790 
 were thus applicable to different portions of the 
 
 that the direct taxation shall, with reference to 
 them, be in the same ratio as the representation — 
 three to five. It provides for the recaption and 
 restoration of fugitive slaves, as property, to their 
 owners. It treated them as a subject of commerce 
 — a commerce which Congress might regulate, 
 except with reference to their importation from for- 
 territorial domain — the slaveholding southward eign parts into States of the Union desiring to in- 
 
 of latitude 36° 30', the non-slaveholding almost 
 w r holIy northward of 39°, and none of it extending 
 southward as far as 37°. These enactments, 
 together, effected the first statutory partition of 
 territory ever made with reference to the question 
 of slavery. The cession by North Carolina was 
 followed in 1802 by a cession of territory made by 
 Georgia, under a condition which secured the 
 continuance of slavery. When the ordinance of 
 1787 was passed at Philadelphia, the Congress 
 of the Confederation which enacted it, and the 
 convention which framed the Constitution, were 
 both in session there. The members of both 
 bodies were, of course, in frequent communica- 
 tion with one another. The ordinance for the 
 Northwestern Territory passed the Congress by 
 a unanimous vote of the States. In 1784, this 
 Congress had nevertheless rejected a proposal 
 
 crease their slave population. This importation 
 was left open to the people of these States, by an 
 express exclusion of the power to prohibit such 
 importation, for twenty years. 
 
 The purpose of this clause of the Constitution 
 was, that no portion of the slaveholding part of 
 the country should be "left at liberty to determine, 
 arbitrarily, by a selfish standard, the future value 
 of slaves in the then unsettled territories of the 
 South, or to prevent their introduction into those 
 territories. The States of South Carolina and 
 Georgia would not have adopted the Constitution 
 if this provision had been omitted. .i;ljr;.j 
 
 The spirit of the provision which prohjbitedi 
 congressional interference; with blm foreign slaves 
 trade until 1808,was muuifesitediitt another clause) 
 of the Constitution ,:whi4h r whaigiii-givosit<»Gon^ 
 jrress and the States^Hrtdeir certain conditions,- th* 
 
10 
 
 power to amend the Constitution, excepts this 
 temporary right of importing slaves from Africa. 
 In order that their proportional number and value 
 in different parts of the slaveholding country 
 might be equalized, this clause was expressly 
 excepted from the operation of the clause author- 
 izing amendments. In a like spirit, the provision 
 that no capitation or direct tax should be laid 
 otherwise than in proportion to the census by 
 which five slaves were to be enumerated as three 
 persons, was permanently excepted from the op- 
 eration of the clause authorizing amendments. 
 This clause, moreover, while it allowed two thirds 
 of each House of Congress to suggest an amend- 
 ment to the Constitution, required a concurrent 
 vote of three fourths of the States in order to 
 pass it. This was cautiously provided, lest the 
 greater number of the non-slaveholding States 
 should ultimately overpower the slaveholding. 
 
 A clause in the Constitution conferring upon 
 Congress the power to dispose of, and make all 
 needful rules and regulations respecting, the ter- 
 ritory or other property belonging to the United 
 States, has been supposed by some persons to 
 confer upon Congress an unconditional sovereign 
 political, as well as proprietary, jurisdiction over 
 the Territories. Under this clause, it has, there- 
 fore, been assumed by some persons that Con- 
 gress has the power — whether it has or has not 
 the right — to exclude slavery wholly from the 
 Territories. If this clause conferred any other 
 than a proprietary jurisdiction, it would not have 
 exempted the United States from their obligation, 
 incurred under the resolution of 17S0 and their 
 acceptance of the cessions made under it, to ex- 
 ercise their jurisdiction over the Territories for 
 the common benefit of the slaveholding and non- 
 slaveholding States. Another clause of the Con- 
 stitution provided that all engagements entered 
 into before the adoption of the Constitution should 
 be as valid against the United States under the 
 Constitution as against the Confederation. In 
 accepting the cessions of both jurisdiction and soil 
 upon the conditions provided in the resolutions 
 of 1780, the United States had entered into an 
 engagement to abide by those conditions. 
 
 But, according to the most approved interpreta- 
 tion of the Constitution, the clause respecting the 
 Territories gave to Congress no other than a pro- 
 prietary jurisdiction. This appears by the'context 
 in the particular clause itself, and by contrasting 
 its provisions with those of the clause conferring 
 on Congress, in very different Language^ thepower 
 to exercise exclusive legislation over such district 
 )f limited dimensions as might, in a prescribed 
 
 mode, become the seat of Government, and to 
 exercise like authority over places purchased with 
 the consent of the States for certain prescribed 
 purposes. This contrast of language authorizes 
 us to distinguish the words applicable to propri- 
 etary, from those applicable to general political 
 jurisdiction. The contrast is further strengthened 
 by recurring to the terms of the cessions of the 
 territories to the United States. These cessions, it 
 will be remembered, had expressly transferred the 
 jurisdiction, as well as the soil. On one occasion, 
 almost thirty years ago, the Supreme Court of 
 the United States appear to have regarded as im- 
 material the inquiry whether the general political 
 jurisdiction of Congress over the Territories 
 was derived from the clause in which the pro- 
 prietary jurisdiction is defined, or was deducible 
 from other sources of power. Whatever may 
 have there been its immateriality in a legal point 
 of view, there can be no doubt of its importance 
 as a question of statesmanship involving politi- 
 cal considerations. As a purely legal question, 
 the preliminary distinction between the proprie- 
 tary disposal of the public domain and the exer- 
 cise of general political sovereignty, was fifteen 
 years later, more particularly considered by the 
 Supreme Court in the investigation of the title to 
 the New Jersey shore oyster fisheries. A dis- 
 tinction then established has been since repeat- 
 edly recognized. 
 
 At the present day, few constitutional lawyers 
 would venture to rest the political jurisdiction of 
 Congress over the Territories exclusively upon 
 this clause of the Constitution. Fewer consti- 
 tutional jurists would contend that cither under 
 this clause, or independently of it, Congress haa 
 the power by legislation to exclude slavery from 
 all the Territories. Of those few who might still 
 recognize the existence of the power on grounds 
 purely legal, a very small number probably would 
 contend that the exercise of such a power in its 
 utmost extent would be rightful. From the op-. 
 (ration of these remarks, if some of the members 
 of the present Congress are to be excepted, this 
 is attributable to peculiar causes already men- 
 tionedj which have brought together an unusual 
 numbt-r of members who misrepresent their con- 
 stituents, and entertain opinions to which proba- 
 bly f.-w nun in Congress will give utterance after 
 the 3d of March, 1857. 
 
 The partition of the Territories made by the 
 acts which immediately preceded and followed 
 the adoption of the Constitution, was therefore, 
 in part, an act of the sovereign States under the 
 old Confi :1( ration, and wholly their act so far as 
 any prohibition of slavery was involved. By 
 
11 
 
 this act of the old Congress the Northwestern 
 Territory was placed under different regulations 
 from the remaining Territories. Slavery was 
 excluded. But how was it excluded? Not under 
 the Constitution of the United States, which had 
 not then been engrossed by its framers, but by 
 the unanimous vote of the States in the Congress 
 of the Confederation. The result of the partition 
 of which this ordinance was»the first act, was, as 
 1 have already said, that the slaveholding States 
 and the Territories which remained open to the 
 introduction of slavery were, together, nearly as 
 extensive as the non-slavcholding States and the 
 Northwestern Territory. The difference, less 
 than eighteen thousand square miles, did not ex- 
 ceed twenty-three one-thousandths of the whole 
 area of our country at that day. 
 
 The Constitution conferred upon the Congress 
 the power to make all laws necessary and proper 
 for carrying into execution the powers vested by 
 the Constitution in the Government of the United 
 Slates, or in any of its Departments; and con- 
 tained a provision for the admission of new States 
 into the Union by the Congress. This provision 
 for the admission of new States could not be 
 carried properly into execution without an organ- 
 ization of territorial governments, to subsist until 
 proper times for the formation of new States. 
 The original authority for the organization of ter- 
 ritorial governments, under the Constitution, is 
 not safely deducible from any other than these 
 two clauses. 
 
 Soon after the commencement of the present 
 century, we made, under the treaty with France, 
 our first acquisition of new territory. The parti- 
 tion of this territory made or attempted by Con- 
 gress in 1820, is the next subject which requires 
 consideration. 
 
 This territory included originally nearly, if 
 not quite, a million and a half of square miles, 
 bounded by the Rocky Mountains, the Rio 
 Grande, Gulf of Mexico, and Mississippi river, 
 and a line extending northwardly, as author- 
 ized by the treaty of 1783, to the Lake of the 
 Woods. By the treaties of 1818 with England, 
 and 1819 with Spain, its area was reduced to 
 perhaps less than one million one hundred thou- 
 sand; say about one million seventy thousand 
 square miles. Of this territory there were, to 
 die northward of the latitude of 40°, perhaps 
 about seven hundred and twenty thousand square 
 miles; between 40° and 36° 30', about two hun- 
 dred thousand; and southward of 36° 30', about 
 oiic hundred and fifty thousand. If, to the last 
 
 amount of one hundred and fifty thousand, we 
 add Florida! acquired from Spain in exchange- 
 for Texas, under the treaty of 1819, the area 
 of territory to the southward of 36° 30' was in- 
 creased to about two hundred and ten thousand, 
 making the whole area of our acquisitions from 
 France and Spain, in this direction, perhaps, 
 about one million one hundred and thirty thou- 
 sand square miles. If these estimates are correct, 
 the intended operation of the attempted partition 
 of 1820, called the Missouri compromise, was to 
 exclude slavery from about eight hundred and 
 fifty-five thousand square miles, or about three 
 fourths of this territory, and to permit its exist- 
 ence within the remaining fourth, containing 
 about two hundred and seventy-five thousand 
 square miles, including Florida and the State of 
 Missouri. 
 
 The whole area of the United States was then 
 about one million nine hundred and twenty thou- 
 sand square miles. If this partition had been 
 carried into effect, slavery would have been 
 finally excluded from about two thirds of this 
 whole quantity, say from about one million two 
 hundred and sixty thousand square miles, and 
 would have continued to exist in the remaining 
 third part, or six hundred and sixty thousand 
 square miles. 
 
 This partition would have been less unequal in 
 value than in quantity. The slaveholding coun- 
 try embraced all the territory capable of produ- 
 cing the great staple on which our national wealth 
 is mainly dependent, all our coast on the Gulf of 
 Mexico, and a large proportion of the Atlantic 
 coast. The slaveholding States were content, with 
 the arrangement, if it could have been carried into 
 effect according to its spirit as well as according 
 to its literal import. 
 
 Texas was restored to us in 1845. In 1846 our 
 title to Oregon, including the present Territory 
 I of Washington, was defined and ascertained in 
 ! such a manner as to render it an available posses- 
 sion. This Oregon Territory, with Texas, em- 
 I braced an area which may be variously estimated , 
 as the western boundary of Texas may be vari- 
 j ously defined. Assuming that Texas and Oregon 
 ! included seven hundred and fifty thousand square 
 j miles, about four hundred thousand were to the 
 northward and about three hundred and fifty 
 thousand to the southward of the old Carolina 
 and Virginia line of 36° 30'. On the assumed 
 principle of the Missouri compromise, this lino 
 had been carried out through Texas by the act 
 of annexation of 1845. 
 
12 
 
 On the ratification of the treaty with England 
 in 1846, the first year of our war with Mexico, 
 our whole country thus embraced nearly, if not II 
 
 quite, two million seven hundred thousand square 
 miles. Slavery was then permitted in scarcely | 
 more than a million of square miles. The slave- 
 holding States were, however, content to abide 
 by the principle of the Missouri compromise. 
 
 This acquiescence of the southern States was 
 generally regarded as having obviated certain 
 legal difficulties which would probably have pre- 
 vented a compulsory enforcement of this prin- 
 ciple. The act of 1820, in which the so-called 
 compromise originated, left the territory south of 
 latitude 36° 30' unrestricted, so that it might be 
 organized into States with or without slavery, as 
 the inhabitants might afterwards constitutionally 
 determine the question for themselves. North- 
 ward of that line of latitude, slavery was, by the 
 act of 1820, in express terms, "forever prohib- 
 ited." The signification of this word " forever," 
 if it could have been doubtful, was determined in 
 its broadest sense by the Texas annexation act 
 of 1845, which, after enacting that such States as 
 might be formed out of the portion of Texaslying 
 south of 3G°30' north latitude, commonly known 
 as the Missouri compromise line, should be ad- 
 mitted into the Union with or without slavery, 
 asthepeople of each State asking admission might 
 desire, contained these additional words: 
 
 " And in such Stale or States as shall be formed out 
 of said Territory north, of said Missouri compromise line, 
 slavery or involuntary servitude shall be prohibited." 
 
 Whether such an enactment would have been 
 constitutionally valid within a Territory before its 
 organization as a State, is a doubtful proposition, 
 as I have endeavored to show under a former 
 head of my remarks; but that it was altogether 
 unconstilutiur.al in its application to a State, or to 
 a Territory cotpmporaneously with its organiza- ! 
 tion or recognition as a State, is a proposition j 
 which has, at least three times, been recognized by 
 the Supreme Court of the United States, and has, 
 in principle, been once, if not twice, directly ad- 
 judicated. 
 
 The controversy which resulted in the act called 
 the Missouri compromise, m \ rthi less, originated 
 
 in an endeavor of representatives in Congress 
 from the northern States to exclude slavery from 
 Missouri at the time of her admission as a sov- 
 ereign and independent State into the Union. 
 
 I am not one of those who find any difficulty 
 in recognizing the origin of the power of Congress 
 over newltj-acquired territory, or in defining the 
 
 limitations to the exercise of that power. If it 
 were necessary to refer to the successive treaties 
 
 . vvM lerruorv of this description has 
 
 been acquired, they contain all that would be 
 requisite for the grant of 'the power, and for its 
 definition and limitation. In the French cession, 
 in the Spanish and in the Mexican, we find a 
 provision, substantially, though not literally, the 
 same in each, to the effect that the inhabitants 
 of the newly-acquired territory shall, as soon 
 as may be consistent with the principles of our 
 Government, be incorporated into the Union, 
 and admitted to the enjoyment of all the rights 
 and privileges of citizens of the United States, 
 under the Constitution; and that, in the mean 
 time, their rights of property, and certain other 
 specified rights, shallbe maintained and protected. 
 Independently of these provisions of the treaties, 
 and independently of the treaty-making power 
 under the Constitution, the authority to establish 
 a government within their limits would result from 
 the mere fact, that, for all external purposes, the 
 United States are a single nation, and, like every 
 other nation, liable to the loss, and capable of the 
 acquisition, of territory. If we have the power 
 to acquire territory, the incidents of its acqui- 
 sition under the laws of nations, must, of course, 
 attach themselves to its acquisition. We may 
 therefore govern them under the Federal Consti- 
 tution by congressional legislation. 
 
 But when we come to perform the office of legis- 
 lators in Congress, we are bound, not merely by 
 the treaties to which I have referred, but likewise 
 by the provisions of the Constitution of which 
 the language of those treaties is declaratory, to 
 exercise this legislative power for the commen 
 benefit. Otherwise we cannot rightfully exercise 
 it at all. The principles by which congressional 
 legislation as to newly-acquired territories ought 
 to be regulated are, therefore, the same as thoso 
 which were applicable to the old Territories, 
 acquired as common property under the acts of 
 cession. The fundamental reason, that they were 
 acquired by an expenditure of the common blood 
 or common treasure of all the States, is assuredly 
 applicable to the subjects of every one of the 
 successive cessions 
 
 These questions had slumbered peacefully from 
 the adoption of the Constitution of the United 
 until the organization of Missouri as a 
 State was in contemplation, when, in an evil hour, 
 they were unwisely agitated, and unfortunately 
 became sectional questions. 
 
 Citizens of non-slavcholding States, to whom 
 
 ' 
 
13 
 
 the question of slavery was a mere abstraction, 
 who had studied it from a distance, and to whom 
 it was of little more importance than that of the 
 burning of Hindoo widows in India, influenced 
 by speculative notions of humanity, agitated the 
 questions in town-meetings and other informally- 
 convened assemblages, without even attempting, 
 in the outset of their proceedings, to discuss close- 
 ly the provisions of the Constitution of the United 
 States. Representatives in Congress, under in- 
 structions derived mainly from such local assemb- 
 lies, rushed headlong, without adequate prepara- 
 tion for the contest, into the unfortunate Missouri 
 controversy. They were met in Congress in 1819 
 and 1820, by southern statesmen, to whom the 
 controversy involved a domestic question which, 
 to them, was one of every day's experience. It 
 was the more familiar to them, as it was vitally 
 important to their political, and social, and pro- 
 prietary interests. They treated the subject as 
 men conversant with all that was involved in it. 
 What was the result? Northern statesmen, 
 though fully able to cope on other questions with 
 those with whom they found themselves com- 
 petitors, were, by the force of reason, compelled 
 to yield. The Constitution was too strong to be 
 overborne. • 
 
 The more judicious of the northern members, 
 to relieve themselves from the embarrassment 
 in which disobedience of, or continued obedi- 
 ence to, the requirements of their constituents 
 would have involved them, appealed to the gen- 
 erosity of their southern brethren on this floor. 
 The late Henry Baldwin, a man of gigantic in- 
 tellect and unsurpassed industry of investigation, 
 who was equaled by few in practical sagacity — 
 whose name has not of late been mentioned with 
 *.he praise due to him for his useful mediation 
 in this business — took a leading part in these 
 efforts to adjust this first sectional controversy. 
 For its adjustment, northern men invited their 
 brethren of the slaveholding States to agree to a 
 partition by means of which this question should 
 be settled. It had been found that the attempt to 
 impose the restriction on Missouri as a State was 
 not only morally wrong, but legally unconstitu- 
 tional. The compromise thus proposed from the 
 North was carried by southern votes, with the 
 aid of no more northern votes than were neces- 
 sary in order to pass it. That is the truth of 
 history. Those old enough to recollect those 
 days will concur in attesting this truth. 
 
 What was the principle of the attempted ad- 
 justment? To establish, a second time, by con- 
 vention, a line by which property that could not 
 
 be conveniently enjoyed in common, might be 
 made the subject of a partition. After the north- 
 ern majority of this House had been driven from 
 the ground of excluding slavery wholly from the 
 limits of the French cession, originally assumed 
 by them, there was a warmly-agitated controversy 
 where the line of the proposed division should 
 be drawn. Another deceased patriot — a distin- 
 | guished soldier and statesman — afterwards Pres- 
 ident of the United States — for whom those who, 
 like myself, differed from him in politics will 
 never cease to entertain the highest respect and 
 veneration — proposed a line coincident with the 
 present northern line of Missouri to the northward 
 of that of Kansas, as the limit between the slave - 
 holding and the non-slaveholding territory. An- 
 other statesman, from the North, had, in an earlier 
 stage of the controversy proposed the old line of 
 3G° 30'. When the adoption of this line had been 
 thus proposed by him, it had been intended as a 
 of excluding slavery from Missouri as well 
 as from the Territories westward of her borders. 
 Finally, so far as the State of Missouri was con- 
 cerned, law and reason prevailed. Her constitu- 
 tional right to regulate her own domestic institu- 
 tions was reluctantly acknowledged. The partition 
 was made by a bare majority. The line of 36° 
 30', to the westward of the State of Missouri, was 
 made the division in terms which I have already 
 quoted; That it was, in its greatest attempted 
 extension, an illegal enactment is now universally 
 admitted. It was, however, acquiesced in by 
 the people of the southern States, who were the 
 only parties who could reasonably have objected. 
 Whether it was founded in law or not, they abided 
 by it contentedly. 
 
 Thus the question of slavery in the Territories, 
 with occasional agitation from the North, but 
 never from the South, rested until after we had 
 acquired new territory from Mexico. 
 
 On this occasion the Representatives of the 
 slaveholding States in Congress, acting with per- 
 fect good faith, agreed unanimously in a proposal 
 to extend the old division-line of 36° 30' to the 
 Pacific ocean. There was, however, a valid ob- 
 jection to this proposed extension of that line 
 westward of the Rocky mountains. Govern- 
 ments had been previously organized to the west- 
 ward of those mountains. Former local institu- 
 tions under these governments were entitled to 
 protection. By these institutions slavery had 
 been excluded from these territories. To have 
 changed their condition, in this respect, would 
 
14 
 
 have been wrong. For this reason the proposal 
 of the southern Representatives, though other- 
 wise perfectly just and reasonable, was rejected 
 by the Congress of 1850. 
 
 California became a member of the Union, as a 
 non-slaveholding State, through the legislation of 
 that year. This completed the exclusion, of sla- 
 very from our portion of the Pacific coast extend- 
 ing through seventeen degrees of latitude, of wjuch 
 about a fourth was to the southward of 36° 30'. 
 
 Through the same legislation, the territorial 
 governments of Utah, lying to the northward, and 
 of New Mexico to the southward of 36° 30', were 
 organized on the nominal principle of permitting 
 the inhabitants to determine their domestic insti- 
 tutions for themselves. Those institutions already 
 excluded slavery. 
 
 This, therefore, completed its exclusion from 
 the whole country acquired from Mexico. This 
 country included California, Utah, and New 
 Mexico. Its whole area westward of the Rocky 
 mountains was about half a million square miles. 
 To the Territory of New Mexico, the Mcsilla 
 purchase, nearly eighty thousand square miles, 
 was afterwards annexed. By the act of 1850, 
 about this quantity of territory eastward of the 
 Rocky mountains, had, with the consent of Texas, 
 also been annexed to New Mexico. The areas of 
 the present State of California, and Territories of 
 Utah and New Mexico, with these two additions, 
 are, together, about six hundred and sixty thou- 
 sand square miles. 
 
 This territory, from which slavery has appar- 
 ently been forever excluded by this legislation, 
 is about equal in area to the sum of the areas of 
 the present Territories of Kansas and Nebraska. 
 
 This brings us to the legislation of 1854. 
 
 These Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, 
 then without any organize'.] government, wore a 
 part pf the French cession lying northward of lati- 
 tude 36° 30'. For this line 37° has been substituted 
 as the southern boundary of Kansas for local rea- 
 sons connected with Indian settlements on the 
 bonl r. According to the letter of the Missouri 
 compromi rery was to be excluded from 
 
 their limits. But we haves ien that, in 1850, it had 
 been found impossible to extend this line west- 
 ward across the Rocky mountains. The old line, 
 where it had formerly been established, eastward 
 of' these mountains, had therefore been wholly 
 disregarded in the legislation of 1S50. Thus we 
 
 have seen that a portion of Texas lying south- 
 ward of 36° 30', equal, or nearly equal «in area, to 
 the seven States of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, 
 Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, 
 and Maryland, was annexed to the non-slave- 
 holding Territory of New Mexico. Slavery had 
 thus, in 1850, been excluded from this territory 
 which, under the Missouri compromise, had been 
 left open to slavery. 
 
 \ 
 1 started with the proposition, that the refusal 
 in 1849 and 1850 to extend the division-line of 
 3G° 30' westward of the Rocky mountains, car- 
 ried with it an incidental obligation to abrogate 
 the restriction of the Missouri compromise in 
 Kansas and Nebraska. To take from the slave- 
 holding States all the territories westward of the 
 R.ocky mountains, and still retain for the non- 
 slaveholding States almost the whole of the ter- 
 ritories eastward of these mountains, would have 
 been unjust. An arrangement mutually beneficial 
 westward of the Rocky mountains was impossible. 
 But Kansas and Nebraska, north of 37°, were 
 still unsettled and unorganized. Their superficial 
 area was, as I have said, coextensive with that 
 of the territory from which slavery had been ex- 
 cluded in 1850. True, Nebraska, comprising the 
 greater portion — not less than four fifths — of this 
 unorganized territory, is to the northward of 
 40°, and therefore probably not open to settle- 
 ' ment by slaveholders. But, in Kansas, occupying 
 ! the space between 40° and 37°, there was at least 
 | the possibility of a partial ccprivalent for the loss 
 by the slaveholding States of a participation in 
 the beneficial enjoyment of the territory on the 
 Pacific. 
 
 All that was effected, or attempted, in 1S54, by 
 the act organizing the territorial governments of 
 Kansas and Nebraska, was to permit the set tiers 
 in these Territories to regulate for themselves th« ir 
 own domestic institutions, including the subject of 
 slavery. The concurrence in opinion of statesmen 
 who united in this restoration to the people of the 
 slaveholding States, in one quarter, of what they 
 had been deprived of in another quarter, is denom- 
 inated by the chairman of the Committee on Ter- 
 ritories a consj iracy against freedom ! 
 
 The Missouri restriction, "a precedent that hail 
 run in a storm," was no longer morally, if it 
 had ever been legally, in force. It had been 
 wholly disregarded in the legislation of 1850. 
 But it was upon the statute-book still unrepealed. 
 
 To remove all doubtuponthe question whether 
 this restriction was to be legally in force, in these 
 
15 
 
 Territories, the act of 1854, after giving to the 
 Constitution and all laws of the United States not 
 locally inapplicable, the same effect within their ' 
 limits, as elsewhere within the United States, ex- ! 
 cepted the Missouri restriction act; declaring it i 
 inoperative and void, as inconsistent with the l 
 principle recognized by the legislation in 1850 of 
 non-intervention by Congress with slavery in the 
 States and Territories. It was further declared to 
 be the true intent and meaning of the act not to 
 legislate slavery into, or exclude it from, any 
 Territory or State, but to leave the people of the 
 States and Territories perfectly free to form and 
 regulate their domestic institutions in their own 
 way, subject only to the Constitution of the 
 United States. 
 
 In the controversial discussion of the bill in 
 the last Congress, a question arose whether this 
 part of it was not equivalent, under the terms of 
 the cession by France, to a positive restoration, 
 in these Territories, of the institution of slavery 
 as it had existed in the French colony, of which 
 they had been a portion. If this effect had 
 resulted from the act, the settlement of Nebraska 
 would have been injuriously retarded. This 
 might not have been the case to the same extent 
 in Kansas. The difficulty was removed by the 
 proposal of a Senator from a slaveholding State, 
 adopted liy the votes of southern as well as 
 northern Senators and Representatives, to intro- 
 duce into the bill a provision that nothing con- 
 tained in it should be construed to revive or put 
 in force, in either Territory, any law or regula- 
 tiofi that may have existed before the date of the 
 Missouri restriction — protecting, establishing, 
 prohibiting, or abolishing slavery. With this 
 proviso the act was passed. 
 
 Some critical objectors liave suggested that this 
 act was founded on the principle of what they call 
 squatter sovereignty. This term, when applied to 
 the administration of the organized government 
 of a Territory, has no proper practical meaning. 
 Those who thus misapply the term, treat the 
 Territories as underlings of the British Board of 
 Trade, and some of the superiors of the Board, 
 were, before the Declaration of Independence, in 
 the habit of treating the governments of the Amer- 
 ican Colonies. Adventurers, who assume to ex- 
 ercise political orpronrietary rights independently 
 of any recognized organization of government, 
 may be denominated squatters. . But the denom- 
 ination is not applicable to settlers under the ju- 
 risdiction of an organized government, merely 
 because it is a govci-^Jiacnt of a delegated or 
 
 subordinate character, or because the settlers are 
 originally few in number. 
 
 The organization of these governments had 
 already been too long delayed. The paths of 
 great avenues leading westward in the direction 
 of the Pacific ocean were to be laid out within 
 and across their borders. Other circumstances 
 indicated the necessity of expediting their organ- 
 ization. There were, it is true, but few settlers 
 already within their limits. The reason was, 
 that pioneers who desire to make permanent and 
 useful settlements in the wilderness, are not, at 
 the present day, willing to cross the frontier until 
 they are assured of the protection and security 
 of a regularly organized government. They com- 
 pose a class of men altogether different from those 
 of a former generation, who were, less improp- 
 erly perhaps, denominated squatters. There are 
 now very few squatters upon any part of this 
 continent. A majority of the men of the last 
 Congress were practically conversant with the 
 subject of the settlement of the Territories. 
 They knew that thousands, ready to become set- 
 tlers, had long been waiting to cross the line of 
 these Territories, until their governments were 
 organized. They knew that these men were not 
 of a class to become squatters, but that they 
 would never enter the Territories until they would 
 be at liberty, when there, to enjoy the blessings 
 of self-government, to such reasonable extent, at 
 least, as might enable them to regulate their own 
 domestic institutions, without congressional con- 
 trol or interference. 
 
 The whole of what is now comprised under the 
 names of Kansas and Nebraska had, until 1854, 
 been regarded as a single Territory, and had 
 borne the name of Nebraska. The present chair- 
 man of the Committee on Territories complains 
 because, in that year, Kansas was carved out of 
 this Territory and separately organized. His com- 
 plaint is two-fold: first, that the whole of this 
 vast country was not organized under a single 
 territorial government; next, that if two such 
 governments were organized, the line between 
 them was not the Platte river instead of the par- 
 allel of latitude of 40°. 
 
 To this two-fold complaint there is a ready 
 answer. The portion of the Territory lying 
 southward of 40° was the only portion in which 
 slaveholding emigrants could find suitable sites 
 for settlement. Between 49° and the latitude of 
 the southern boundary of Kansas, slavery al- 
 ready existed in Missouri, Virginia, Kentucky, 
 Maryland, and Delaware. North of 40° no slave- 
 holder could have been expected to establish 
 
16 
 
 himself. We have already seen that if the whole 
 had formed a single Territory, the area of the 
 portion to the northward of 4(P would have 
 been about four times that of the portion to the 
 southward. Such an organization would have 
 been a fraud upon the slaveholding States. Em- 
 igrants from their country would inevitably have 
 been outnumbered by a majority from the non- 
 slaveholding country. 
 
 Should Kansas become a slaveholding Terri- 
 tory, and ultimately be divided into two or three 
 slaveholding States, Nebraska and Minnesota 
 must nevertheless be divided into ten or eleven 
 non-slaveholding States. It should be our hope and 
 prayer, that these future States may be organized 
 in such a manner that their inhabitants may retain 
 the good-will and fellowship of the people of the 
 slaveholding States, and maintain the stability of 
 the Union. What is our security for the pres- 
 ervation of the Union in peace and harmony, when 
 the chairman of the Committee on Territories 
 designates legislation by which the principles of 
 the Constitution are honestly carried intoefFect,a 
 conspiracy against freedom ? What would be our 
 security, if amajority of both Houses of Congress 
 were to sympathize with his slanderous insinua- 
 tions against an honored President of the United 
 States, for carrying out and sustaining the consti- 
 tutional-rights of the slaveholding portion of our 
 Union ? Are we to see the policy upon which our 
 progress has hitherto depended abandoned, under 
 a suggestion that all which tends to secure a com. 
 nion right of enjoyment of property to all sections 
 of the Union alike is a conspiracy against freedom ? 
 
 Those impracticable casuists and those trans- 
 cendental optimists, who, in a mad crusade 
 against slavery, would violate the guarantees 
 of the Constitution, and wholly disregard obliga- 
 tions of comity between. the confederated sover- 
 eignties of our Union, are happily few in number 
 and feeble in influence. This was at the last 
 presidential election attested by the votes of 
 twenty-seven of the thirty-one States cast in 
 condemnation of their pernicious dogmas, as it 
 will again in like manner be attested before the 
 close of the present year. Their force, composed 
 in part of intriguing demagogues who take ad- 
 vantage of every passing opportunity to inflame 
 
 the passions of the hour for the promotion of 
 their selfish political designs, is also composed in 
 part of innocently-disposed citizens who are im- 
 perfectly instructed in the principles of our con- 
 stitutional frame of Government. The latter class, 
 acting under mistaken ideas of benevolence, may 
 be the more easily excused because the frame- 
 work of this Government is, of necessity, very 
 complicated, from the inherent difficulties of a 
 system under which several sovereignties arc, for 
 specified purposes only, united into one, and are, 
 for all other purposes, as distinct and independent 
 as if no such union had been formed. Circum- 
 stances, however, from time to time compel every 
 citizen to picture to his mind the state of things 
 which would exist if there were no constitutional 
 union of the States. Let these casuists and tran- 
 scendentalists then suppose, under such a state 
 of things, the case of a proposal to form a confed- 
 eration of the States for certain limited purposes, 
 recognized by all as mutually beneficial, but upon 
 a condition that the subject of slavery be placed 
 beyond the control of the proposed united gov- 
 ernment. They will then less imperfectly under- 
 stand the position which was occupied by the 
 framers of our present Constitution, and will be 
 less unable to comprehend the principle of non- 
 intervention with slavery, which they now incon- 
 siderately condemn. They will then understand 
 that if there w r ere no Constitution, they would be 
 incapable, as they now are, of intervening to alter 
 the condition of slaves within a State; incapable, 
 as they now are, of preventing the slaveholder 
 from emigrating with his slaves to unoccupied 
 wilds beyond the borders of the States; incapable 
 of preventing him from making and maintaining 
 settlements there, and from participating in the ' 
 establishment of permanent local institutions on 
 all domestic subjects. Those who cannot under- 
 stand that the settler from a slaveholding State 
 must then be able to participate with his fellow- 
 settlers from non-slaveholding States in the local 
 establishment or the local exclusion of domestic 
 servitude as one of these institutions, must have 
 been entranced and led captive, not by the force 
 of reason, but by such eloquence as that of the 
 chairman of the Committee on Territories, and 
 his associates in the crusade against constitutional 
 rights, which would overwhelm these most sa- 
 cred rights, if a remedy could not be found in the 
 exercise of the elective franchise. 
 
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