Buren was discarded, and Mr. Clay crippled in the affections of his friends on account of their mutual hostility to the project of annexation. Mr. Polk was nominated and elected on the issue. The measure was consummated in compliance with the people's mandate. War ensued, and the people turned out en masse to prosecute it to a successful termination. The first blood was shed between the Nueces and the Rio Grande; and the Democracy voted on their oaths that it was American blood shed on American soil. You defended the President through the whole of the war, always maintaining that the Texas we acquired, was Texas according to the constitution of 1836; Texas as she presented herself, and as she was accepted under the resolution of annexation. Now, where are you? Will you vote to-day as you voted in 1844? Will you vote to-day as you continued to vote through the whole of the Mexican war? And if not, why? I can understand a northern Whig who votes against the claim of Texas. He belongs to a party who was opposed to annexation; opposed to the war; opposed to the acquisition of additional territory; opposed to everything that you and I were for. But how you can oppose this claim, recognised as it has been in every form, supported as it has been by you and me through all its various forms and phases, I must confess myself at fault to understand.

There is one other matter to which I must advert. It is become quite too common of late, for certain political censors, in and out of Congress, to speak of southern men who demand justice for the South, as ultras; and if we persist in our demands, and can neither be bribed or brow-beaten into acquiescence with northern wrongs, the next step is, to whistle us down the winds as disunionists and traitors. It is not, sir, because I fear the effects of charges like these on the minds of my constituents that I now speak. They have known me for many long years; I have served them here and elsewhere; and if there is any earthly power to persuade them that I am a disunionist or a traitor to my country, I would scorn to receive office at their hands. I allude to charges like this, that I may hold them up to public scorn and reprobation. The miserable reptiles who sting the South while they nestle in her bosom, are the authors of these base calumnies. Sooner or later they will be spurned as the veriest spaniels who ever crouched at the footstool of power. I fancy, sir, that there is perfect harmony of sentiment between my constituents and myself on the subjects which now divide the North and the South. We are southerners and go for the Constitution, and the Union subordinate to the Constitution. Give us the Constitution as it was administered from the day of its formation to 1819, and we are satisfied. Up to that time Congress never assumed to interfere with the relation of master and servant. It extended over all, and gave to all equal protection; give it to us to-day in the same spirit, and we are satisfied. Less than this we will not accept. You ask us to love the Constitution, to revere the Union, and to honor the glorious banner of the stars and stripes. Excuse me, gentlemen; but I must say to you, in all candor, that the day has gone by when I and my people can cherish a superstitious reverence for mere names. Give us a Constitution strong enough to shield us all in the same degree, and we will love it. Give us a Union capacious enough to receive us all as equals, and we will revere it. Give us a banner that is broad enough to cover us as a nation of brothers, and we will honor it. But if you offer us a broken

constitution--one that can only shield northern people and northern property-we will spurn it. If you offer us a union so contracted that only half the states can stand up as equals, we will reject it; and if you offer us a banner that covers your people and your property, and leaves ours to the perils of piracy and plunder, we will trample it under our feet. We came into this Union as equals, and we will remain in it as equals. We demand equal laws and equal justice. We demand the protection of the Constitution for ourselves, our lives, and our property. Wherever we may be, we demand that the national flag, wherever it may wave, on the land or on the seas, shall give shelter and security to our property and ourselves. These are our demands: will you comply with them? You have the power to grant or refuse them. Grant them, and our feelings of harmony and brotherhood will be restored. These evidences of decay that we witness all around us will vanish, and a strong, healthy, vigorous national prosperity will spring up. I shall not predict the consequences of your refusal; they are so plain that “a wayfaring man though a fool" cannot mistake them. They exhibit themselves in a thousand different forms-in the divisions of our churches, in the estrangement of family ties, in jealousies between the North and the South, in the gradual but certain withdrawal of all confidence and fellowship between the people of the two great sections. Where is the patriot heart that has not throbbed with the deepest anxiety as from day to day the growth and progress of these things has become more apparent? I will not dwell upon a theme so full of melancholy; but allow me to add, in conclusion, I sincerely hope your conduct may not force us in the end to say, We once were brothers, but you have become our enemies and we are yours.

SLAVERY QUESTION.

SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, AUGUST 29, 1850.

MR. BROWN said he designed to make a few remarks only in reply to the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. McClernand], and the gentleman from New York [Mr. Brooks], who had just taken his seat. Both these gentlemen had taken a position which had been assumed since the beginning of the session by many gentlemen from the Northern States, and had put forth views which they seemed to regard as likely to obtain the favor of the South. If these gentlemen (said Mr. B.) were right in supposing that we of the South are mere shadows, occupied only in the pursuit of shadows, then they might succeed in the object at which they aim. But if we are real, substantial men, things of life and not shadows, then they will find themselves mistaken in their views. What was it the South had demanded? She had asked to be permitted to go into these newly-acquired territories, and to carry her property with her, as the North does; and he desired to tell his friends from Illinois and from New York, that she would be satisfied with nothing less than this. It was in vain to tell the people of the South that you will not press the

proviso excluding slavery, because circumstances are such as to exclude slavery without the operation of this provision, and therefore it is not necessary to adopt it. He would tell gentlemen who use this argument, that the southern people care not about the means by which slavery is to be excluded. They will not inquire whether nature is unpropitious to the existence of slavery there, while they know that the whole course and desire of the North has been with a view to its exclusion from the shores of the Pacific. It was only necessary to look at the history of the last few years to satisfy ourselves that it has been the purpose of the North to produce this exclusion.

The honorable gentleman from Illinois had administered a welldeserved rebuke to the factious spirit of free soil, as manifested in the proposition of the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Root]; for that he (Mr. B.) felt as profoundly grateful as any other man. It was a spirit which ought to be rebuked everywhere. It deserved the universal execration of all good men. But it was his duty to say to his honorable friend, that so much of his remarks as were directed against the proviso, on the ground that it was not necessary to our exclusion, failed to excite his (Mr. B.'s) gratitude, as they would fail to elicit the gratitude of the southern people. The gentleman from Illinois would not be informed that he had Mr. B.'s highest respect as a gentleman, and his sincere personal regard-but, as a southern man, he felt bound to say at all times, and on all occasions, to all persons, friends and foes, that he and his section demanded as a right an equal participation in all these territories, and they could not feel grateful to any man who placed his opposition to the proviso on no higher grounds than that they were excluded by other means. If his honorable friend had placed his opposi tion to the proviso on the grounds that the South had rights, and that those rights ought to be respected, then Mr. B. and the whole South would have felt a thrill of gratitude which none of them would be slow to express. If the proviso was wrong, it ought to be opposed on the high ground of principle, and not on the feeble assumption that it was unnecessary. To oppose it on the ground that it was not necessary, was to say in effect that it would be sustained if it was necessary.

The gentleman from New York had just informed the House that he was elected as a Wilmot proviso man, and now he rises and makes it his boast that he is backing out from the position he then assumed.

Mr. BROOKS (Mr. Brown yielding) said, that although this proviso was made a test, he had told the people who elected him that he would not pledge himself to vote for it; that he was willing to remain at home, but that, if he was elected, he must go as an independent man.

Mr. BROWN resumed. The gentleman from New York had certainly taken high ground. But, if he was not mistaken, that gentleman was the editor of a daily paper in New York (the Express), and in that journal, unless he was again mistaken, the Wilmot proviso had been supported. The gentleman, therefore, had not left much room for doubt as to his real sentiments. There was very little occasion for him now to come forward and to say whether he was for or against the proviso. But he desired to ask that gentleman, whether he was for or against this proviso when its adoption was deemed necessary for the exclusion of slaves from the new territories? If he was then in favor of the proviso, the fact that he is now opposed to it, because he is satisfied that the

South cannot carry her slaves thither on account of the hostility of the climate and soil, and other more potential causes, his position was one not calculated to excite the gratitude of the friends of the South.

Mr. BROOKS (Mr. Brown yielding) said, he had not changed one principle, but he had been converted to the gentleman's doctrine of nonintervention, or non-action. It had always been his opinion that the power of the general government ought never to be exercised, whether in favor of or against slavery. If the South should suffer from her inability to carry her slave property into these territories, the North would suffer still more if she was permitted to do so, because her citizens would not consent to go to these territories if slavery existed there.

Mr. HOLMES. I congratulate the whole country that the gentleman. from New York has given up his adhesion to the Wilmot proviso.

Mr. BROWN (resuming). The conversion of the gentleman from New York to the doctrine of non-intervention had come about as much too late as his abandonment of the Wilmot proviso. They were both too late to do any good. If the gentleman had kept his hands off slavery before the last presidential election, then, indeed, the southern people might have had some reason for gratitude. But, instead of doing that, the gentleman adheres to the proviso until it is too late for non-intervention to do any good, and then he forsakes the former and becomes a convert to the latter.

The gentleman from New York appeared to be greatly horrified at what he was pleased to call political associations on this floor-at the strange phenomenon of the two great extremes of the North and the South voting together. He would explain this apparent inconsistency. The South regarded the whole of the territory to latitude 42° and east of the Rio Grande as the property of Texas, and was not disposed to permit any portion of that territory to be surrendered for the purpose of being made free soil. This was the position occupied by the southern extreme. The northern extreme considers the title of the United States to all this territory as clear beyond dispute, and therefore are opposed to purchasing it. This is the reason why the two extremes are acting together on principles apparently antagonistical, for the purpose of defeating this bill. Is it remarkable that he (Mr. B.) and his southern associates, believing conscientiously that the title to the country, in the language of the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Marshall], is in Texas, and that the United States has neither title nor color of title, should refuse to give it up? Is it strange that other gentlemen, believing, as they say they do, that the title of the United States is clear and indisputable, should refuse to pay Texas ten millions to withdraw an unfounded claim? Gentlemen may pretend to marvel at this singular. political conjunction, but they all know perfectly well the motives which have produced it.

He, however, deemed that it would be found quite as remarkable a political phenomenon that the gentleman from New York, and many of his political friends from the South, should be found cheek-by-jowl with these same detested Free-Soilers on another question. We vote with them from exactly opposite motives, as the gentleman and the whole country very well know. But from what motive does the gentleman. and his southern friends vote with them for the admission of California? Is there any opposite motive there? None, sir, none. There is one

motive common to them all, and that is, the admission of a free state into the Union. The gentleman expresses special wonder that we are found voting with the Free-Soilers. Can he give any other reason than the one just assigned why he and his southern friends vote with them on another question?

Until the gentleman could assign some satisfactory reason why he and his party, North and South, were found in political fellowship with every Free-Soiler and Abolitionist in the land for the admission of California, it would be modest to suppress his wonder at the accidental association of Free-Soilers and southern gentlemen on the boundary of Texas.

The difference between us (said Mr. B.) is this: we act with them from extremely opposite motives; you from concurrent opinions and sentiments; and we will leave to posterity and the country to decide which stands most justified in the eyes of all honest and impartial men.

But his main object in rising to address the House was to say what were the demands of the South. She asks for an equal participation in the enjoyment of all the common property; and if this be denied, she demands a fair division. Give it to her, give it by non-intervention, by non-action, or by any other means, and she will be satisfied. This is her right, and she demands it. But if, instead of doing this, the North insists on taking away the territory and abridging the rights of the South, she will not submit to the wrong in peace, nor meanly kiss the hand that smites her. He uttered no threat, but it was his duty to say that the South could neither forget nor forgive a wrong like this. She cannot forget that these new territories were purchased in part by her blood and treasure, and she will not forgive the power that snatches them from her. He had never undertaken to say what course the South would feel it her duty to pursue on the consummation of her unjust exclusion from these territories, but he would say, that the act of her exclusion would sink like a poisonous arrow into the hearts of her people, and it would rankle there, and in the hearts of their children, as long as the union of these states continued. The consummation of northern policy may not produce an immediate disunion of these states; but it will produce a disunion of northern and southern hearts; and he left it to others to say whether a political union under such circumstances could be long maintained, or whether it was worth maintaining.

It can excite no feeling of gratitude that the gentleman from New York [Mr. Brooks] says he is now opposed to the Wilmot proviso. He is for the spirit of the proviso. He would be for its letter, if it was necessary for our exclusion. He consents to abandon it simply because it is useless. There was a day when it was potential. Then the gentleman was for it. Now, when he supposes our exclusion almost perfect, and the means at hand for its entire consummation, he magnanimously abandons the proviso. Wonderful liberality! Amazing generosity to the South! If the gentleman is not canonized as the most generous man of his age, surely gratitude will have failed to perform her office.

We of the South well understand the means employed for our exclusion. This proviso, once so much in favor with the gentleman from New York, now so graciously abandoned, performed its office. It was held in terrorem over California: southern property, termed as property always is, was kept out of the country. The column of southern emigra