The Evansville daily journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ia. [i.e. Ind.]) 1848-1862, 1861-04-16
Close OF Mr.. CIay's Speech on the
Compromise OF $50.

Compromise OF 1850.
Ne. CLAY. Mr.. President, l hope the
Senate will only have the goodness-if
| don't tire out their patience to permit me to
! go on. | would prefer concluding to-day.
! | begin to see land. | had much rather oc-
/ cupy half an hour now than leave what |
! have to say for to-morrow-to trespass up
/ on the patience of the Senate another day.
| Such is the Union, and such are its glori-
| Gus fruits. We are told now, and it is ruug
| throughout this entire country, that the I'm
ion is threatened with subversion and des-
truction. Well, the first question which
naturally arises is, supposing the Union to
be dissolved having all the causes of
| grievances which are complained Uf-how
far will a dissolution furnish remedy for
those grievances If the Union is to be
dissolved for any existing causes, it will be
dissolved because slavery is interdicted or
not allowed to be introduced into the ceded
territories because slavery is threatened
to be abolished in the District of Columbia,
and because fugitive slaves are not returned,
as in my opinion they ought to be, restored
to their masters. These l believe will be
the causes, if there be any causes, which
can lead to the direful event to which l
have referred.
" ~A4i hC"J ACb Ao ch pPOoO t4tbb tLC y ulOu
has been dissolved. What remedy does it
furnish for the grievances co implanted of in
its united condition? VIII you be able to
push slavery into the ceded territories p
How are you to do it, supposeign the North
all the States north of the Potomac, and
which are opposed to it-in possession of
the navy and army of the United States
Can you expect if there is dissolution of
the Union, that you can carry slavery into
California and New Mexico
You cannot dream of such a purpose. If
it were abolished in the District of Colum-
bis, and the Union were dissolved, would
the dissolution of the Union restore slavery
in the District of Columbia? Are you safer
in the recovery of your fugitive slaves in
state of dissolution or of severance of the
Union, than you are in the Union itself2
Why, what is the state of the fact an the
Union You lose some slaves. You re-
cover some others. Let me advert to a fact
which I ought to have introduced before,
because it is highly creditable to the courts
and juries of the free States. In every case,
so far as my information extends, where an
appeal has been made to the courts of justice
for the recovery of fugitives, or for the re-
covery of penalties inflicted upon persons
who have assisted in decoying slaves from
their masters and aiding them in escaping
from their masters-as far as l am informed,
the courts have asserted the rights of the
owner, and the juries have promptly return
ed adequate verdicts in favor of the owner
Well this is some remedy. What would
you have if the Union were discovered p
Why, sir, then the severed parts would be
independent of each other-foreign coun-
tries! Slaves taken from the one into the
other would be there like slaves now escap-
ing from the United States into Canada
There would be no right of extradition-
no right to demand your slaves-no right
10 appeal to the courts of justice to demand
your slaves which escape, or the penalties
for decoying them. Where one slave es-
capes now, by running away from his
| owner, hundreds and thousands would
escape if the Union were severed in parts
l care not where nor how you run the line
| ifindependent sovereignties were established.
Well, finally, will you, in a state of dis
| solution of the Union, be safer with your
slaves within the bosom of the States than
you are now? Mr.. President, that they
| will escape much more frequently from the
| border States, no one will doubt.
But | must take occasion to say that, in
my opinion, there is no right on the part of
| one or more of the States to secede from
| Uaion. War and the dissolution of the
! Union sre identical and inseparable. There
can be no dissolution of the Union, except
by consent or by war. No one can expect,
| in the existing state of things, that that
! consent would be given, and war is the on
/ ly alternate by which dissolution could be
| accomplished. And, Mr.. President, if con-
/ sent were given-if possibly we were to
/ separate by mutual agreement and by q
/ given line, in less than sixty days after such
! an agreement had been executed, war would
! break out between the free and slavehoIdino
! portions of this Union-between the twg
! independent portions into which it would
be erected in virtue of the act of separation. .
Yes, sir, sixty days-in less time than sixty
| days, | believe, our slaves from Kentucky
would be fleeing over in numbers to the
other side of the river, would be pursued by
their owners, and the excitable and ardent
spirits who would engage in the pursuit
would be restrained by no sense of the rights
which appertain to the independence of the
other side of the river, supposing it, then, to
be line of separation. They would pursue
their slaves; they would be repelled, and
war would break out. In less than sixty
days, war would be blazing forth in every
part of this now happy and peaceful land.