The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1850-05-09


ed domestic authority, we hold it to be your duty
to remove them Foreign laws can only exist in
acquired territory by your will, express or i'm
piled Ii is fraud on our rights to permit
them TO remain to our prejudice This new doc
trine asserting the right of the squatters on the
public domain to assume sovereignty over it, in
its Territorial state, was concocted only for a
Presidential campaign. Ii failed of its purpose,
and is now brought into general contempt. 1t is
believed to be without defender except in its
putatiye father. Congress alone has the right to
legislate for the Territories until they shall be
prepared for admission into the Union. At that
period they have the right to form such Govern
ment as they may prefer, with the sole restriction
that il shall be republican When they shall be
admitted, and what shall be their boundaries and
who shall participate in the formation of their
Government are proper subjects for legislative
discretion. Congress has no power over the
character of their domestic institutions Acting
upon these principles, at the last session of Con-
gress gave my support to the bill for the admis-
sion of California into the Union, introduced by
a gentleman from Virginia, MIR. PRESTON who
now, with so much honor to himself and advan-
tage to the country, presides of the great
Departments of this Government. That bill
authorized the people Of California to form their
own institutions according TO their own wishes.
Northern gentlemen thrust in their Anti-Slavery
Proviso, and the bill was defeated. Now | find
the same gentlemen over-zealous for the admis-
sion Of California. 1t is from no just regard to
sound principles that they have changed their
action. The people of California have inserted
the Proviso for them; they have thus secured
their end, and therefore change their policy. My
objections to the California bill of the last session
were numerous and grave, but it had the great
advantage of settling the whole question without
any violation Of sound principles ! therefore
overcame my objections, and gave it my cordial
and earnest support. The bill Low before us for
the admission of California has not that merit.
II has all the objections that existed against the
former bill, with still graver ones superadded,
and is without the merit of closing the question.
1t settles nothing but the addition Of another
non-slaveholding State to the Union, thus giving
the predominatipg interest additional power to
settle more fully the Territorial questions which
it leaves unsdjusted. In this state of the ques-
ton, 1t cannot receive my support.
Those who claim the power in Congress to e1-
clude slavery from the Territories rely rather on
authority than principle to support it, They
affirm, with singular ignorance of, or want Of
fidelity to- the facts, that Congress has from the
beginning of the Government uniformly claimed
and repeatedly exercised the power to discourage
slavery and to exclude it from the Territories.
My investigation of the subject has satisfied my
own mind that neither position is sustained by q
single precedent. exclude of course, legislation
PTShitsN%e - .s1e:1z. sagS~ ..s..ie, a1d ho4s
the Ordinance of 1887 not to be within the prin-
ciple asserted. For the first thirty years of our
history this general duty to protect this great in
terest equally with every other, was universally
admitted and fairly performed by every depart
ment OF the Government The act of 1893 was
passed to secure the delivery up of fugitives from
labor escaping to the non slaveholding States;
your navigation laws authorized their transporta-
ton on the high seas. The Government de-
manded and repeatedly received compensation
for the owners of slaves for injuries sustained
in these lawful voyages by the interference of
foreign Governments. IL not only protected us
upon the high seas, but followed us to foreign
lands where he had been driven by the dangers
of the sea, and protected slave property when
thus cast even with the jurisdiction of hostile
municipal laws. The slave property Of our peo-
pie was protected against the incursions Of In
dams by your military power and public treaties
The citizens of Georgia have received hundreds
of thousand of dollars through your treaties for
Indian depredatious upon this species of property
That clause of the treaty of Client which pro-
vided compensation for property destroyed or
taken by the British Government placed slavery
precisely upon the same ground with other prop
erty, and New England man Mr.. Adams ably
holder under it at the Court Of st. James Then
the Government was administered according to
the Constitution, and not according to what is
now called 81 the spirit of the agen Those
legislators looked for political power and public
duties in the organic law which political commu-
mites had laid down for their guidance and gov
ernment. Humanity-mongers, atheistical social
ists, who would upturn the moral, social, and po-
ltical foundations Of society, who would substi-
N tho follv IF mo for tho wi ~ Esod
were then Justly considered as the enemies of the
human race, and as deserving the contempt, if
not the execration, Of all mankind.
Until the year 1929, your territorial legislation
was marked by the same general spirit of fairness
| and justice. Notwithstanding the constant asser-
tons to the contrary by gentlemen from the
North, up to that period no act was ever passed
by Congress maintaining or asserting the primary
constitutional power to prevent any citizen Of
the United States, owning slaves, from removing
with them to our Territories, and there receiving
| legal protection for this property. Until that
time, such persons did so remove into all the Ter
| ritores owned or acquired by the United States,
except the Northwest Territory, and were there
| adequately protected. The action of Congress,
| in reference to the Ordinance of 1887, does not
contravene this principle That Ordinance was
passed the 9Th of July, 1857, before the adop-
ton of our present Constitution. IL purported
on its face to be perpetual compact between the
State of Virginia, the people Of the Territory,
| and the then Government of the United States,
and unalterable except by the consent of all the
| parties, When Congress met for the first time
| under the new Government, on the 4th of March,
| 1899, it found the Government thus established
by virtue Of this Ordinance in actual operation
and on the 7th of August, 1889, it passed law
making the Offices of Governor and Secretary Of
rr;tn Nj ~
new Government 1t did nothing more Ii made
no reference to the six h and last section of the
Ordinance which inhibited slavery. The divis-
ion of that Territory was provided for in the Or
dinance; at each division, the whole of the
Ordinance was assigned by Congress to each Of
its parts. This is the whole sum and substance
of the Free Soil claim to legislative precedents
Congress did not assert the right to alter a SOL
emn compact entered into with the former Gov
ernment, but gave its consent by its legislation
to the Governments established and provided for
| in the compact. If the original compact was
void for want Of power in the old Government to
make it, as Mr.. Madison supposed, Congress may
not have been bound to accept tilt certainly had
| no power to alter it. From these facts and prn-
cples it is clear that the legislation Of the North
west Territory does not conflict with the prin-
| ciple which | assert and does not afford prece-
| dents for the hostile legislation of Congress
against slavery in the Territories That such
was neither the principle nor the policy upon
which the act of the 9TH of August, 1899, was
based, is further shown by the subsequent action
of the same Congress- On the ID of April, 1890,
Congress by formal act accepted the cession
made by North Carolina of her western lands,
NOW the State of Tennessee,) with this clause in
the deed of cession, "Thst no regulations made
or to be made by Congress shall tend to emanci-
| pate slavesD in the coded territory and on
the goth of May, 1890, passed Territorial bill
for the government of all the territory claimed
by the United States south of the Ohio river.
The description of this Territory includes all the
lands ceded by North Carolina, but it included q