Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1849-11-22

part of its correspondence with the French
Minister. Let US now pass to other top
les
One of the most interesting questions
which has agltated the public MUD during
the preceding year arises out of the dis
memberment of Mexico and the annexation
of California and New Mexico to the Uni.
ted States That question is whether
slavery shall or shall not be permitted to
exist within the limits of those Territories.
All efforts to settle this question have hth-
erto proved abortive. The bill introduced
into the Senate during the session OF lS47-
'4S, by MIR. Clayton, passed the Senate of
the United States by majority of two
thirds of that distinguished body, but was
LAID on the table at the close of the session
by small majority. That measure, the eff
feet of which was to settle the constitutions
al question discussed in Congress, whether
slavery existed In that part of Mexico at
that time, and whether a citizen of the Uni
ted States had right to emigrate to that
territory with his slaves and hold them as
such, was the last effort made in Congress
with any prospect of success, to allay the
excitement and put an end to the geograph-
zeal DIVISIONS between the Northern and
Southern sections of the Union. But,
Judging from what has been published in
California, and written from that territory
to the public prints in the United States, it
has been the desire of President Taylor to
settle this distractng question BY another
mode; and that is by the admission of the
territories as States into the Union, leaving
to the people of each the power to regulate
the domestic question of slavery as to them
respectively shall seem fit. The moment
California is admitted as a State she has the
exclusive right TO decide all questions of
domestic policy as she pleases, and Con-
gress will then have no more power to reg
ulate the subject of slavery within her linn
It's than it now has to introduce it into Mas
sachusetts, or to abolish it in louisiana
Yet Massachusetts may become slave
State tomorrow if she chooses, and Louis
lana may at any moment abolish slavery
within her limits, aud there is no power in
Congress to restrain either of them in their
action Oh this subject. Suppose California
should present herself with written con-
stitutlon to Congress, if that constitution
should be republican, and she should have
the requisite federal population, she is enti-
tied to admission into the Union as a soy
crelgn State, and Congress has no right to
prescribe any terms whatever to her as q
State on the subject of slavery. To dem
onstrate this, 1t is only necessary to show
how futile or nugatory such an attempt on
the part of Congress would be. Her con-
stItution will contain clause prohibiting
slavery within her limits, or a clause estab
{ llSh Ell m
be entirely silent on the whole subject
Suppose it prohibit slavery, and that Con-
gress should refuse to admit the State on
account of that prohibition, California could
immediately strike that clause from her
constitution, be admitted into the Unioa,
and then call Convention to change her
own domestic policy on the subject as she
should think fit, either by prohibiting or
establishing slavery, in defiance of all the
laws Congress could make.
If California should present herself
with constitution silent on the subject,
Congress could not engraft the Wilmot
provlso on that Constitution, or clause
establishing slavery, because the UNI
questioned right of the State, when adj
mltted, to abolish any measure of do
mcsilc policy contrary TO her wishes,
would render any such attempt on the
part of Congress imperative and absurd.
The only period when the Wilmot pro-
viso could have been efficient was at the
moment when the treaty OF Guadalupe
iidalgo passed the Senate. 1t was
then moved as an amendment to the
treaty, and it received but thirteen votes
from the thirty Senators representing
the fifteen non-slaveholding States of
the Union. Yet if, at that moment, the
nonslavcholding Senators had all voted
for it, and adhered TO it, and carried it
as an amendment 10 the treaty, it would
have presented case precisely like that
of the ordinance of 1887. That was
compact between the United States and
the State of Virginia and it has been
held that in the States embraced within
that ordinance slavery could not be in
troduced by any domestic regulation,
because the ordinance was the para
mount law of the land. If that holding
be correct, the same result would have
followed in California and New Mexico,
had the Wimot proviso been inserted
in the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo;
for the treaty, like the ordinance, would
have been the fundamental law of the
land. But the friends of the proviso
suffered that occasion to pass away and
we hold that it is now clearly not within
the constitutional competency of Con-
gress to regulate this domestic insitu-
ton within the States of California and
New Mexico, however it may possess
that power when legisiating for them
merely as territories.
That the administration of Gen. Tay-
lor will encourage the admission of Cal
(ornia and New Mexico as States, when
ever they shall present themselves for
admission to Congress with republican
constitutions and the requisite popula-
ton, we have every reason TO know,
from the sources OF information to which
we have already referred and for the
adoption of measure of policy so man
ifeslly expedient, wise, patriotic, and
just, we think the President and his adj
mi mi n rn N ian will ko ant;,laI IN The thapko