H. OF R.] Michigan and Arkansas. foreigners, and in almost all a very striking proportion. Sir, if an apology be due to the committee for this encroachment upon their patience at this unusual hour, I trust it will be found in the novelty and importance of the question involved in this bill. Were the effects of this question to be confined to Michigan alone, I should have continued a listener, rather than a participator, in this debate; but, sir, when I reflect that every State in this Union has a deep and abiding interest in this matter, and, instead of its being a sectional question, or one limited to the narrow confines of partisan warfare, it is one involving a momentous national question, I cannot but yield my inclination to the more imperious commands of duty. When Mr. R. had concluded, the question was taken upon his motion, and lost. The bill was then laid aside, and the bill for the admission of Arkansas was taken up. Mr. PHILLIPS said it was now past midnight. Exhausted in body and mind, he could not feel that it was his duty to remain and consent to the precipitate action by which it was evidently intended to force through the committee two bills of the importance of those under consideration. He therefore moved that the commit tee rise. *What a cost! How miserable they must have been. [JUNE 9, 1836 The motion having been put, there were: Ayes 17, noes 92-not a quorum. motion. Mr. PHILLIPS said that if, with a knowledge of the they were without a quorum. Mr. REED moved an adjournment; on which question, might be noted on the journal. The SPEAKER said it was not in order. vote was: Ayes 24, noes 98. committee upon the bill for the admission of Arkansas. A motion was again made that the committee rise, and the vote was: Ayes 15, noes 95-not a quorum; and the members having been counted, 112 were reported present. Mr. SEVIER said he did not wish to press the bill at that late hour of the night. When the committee had risen, he said, he should be satisfied if the House would make the bill the special order for to-morrow at 10 o'clock. Loud cries of no, no. The committee rose, and reported that they were without a quorum. A motion was made to adjourn; which was lost. A call of the House was ordered at near half past one o'clock, and was proceeded in till, at about half past four, 112 members having answered, and several ahsentees having been sent for and brought up in custody of the Sergeant-at-arms, a motion to excuse all the absentees prevailed, and the doors were opened. The House again went into Committee of the Whole, and resumed the consideration of the Arkansas bill. Mr. ADAMS moved to amend the bill by introducing a clause "that nothing in this act shall be construed as an assent by Congress to the article in the constitution of the said State in relation to slavery and the emancipation of slaves." This motion was debated at some extent by Mr. ADAMS. Mr. CUSHING addressed the committee substantially as follows: Mr. Chairman, the House has now continued in session for the space of eighteen or nineteen hours, without any interval of refreshment or rest. to mistake the intentions of the ruling majority. I see It is impossible bate on these important bills for the admission of Michiclearly that the committee is resolved to sit out the dethe majority have the power as well as the right to do. gan and Arkansas into the Union. This, it is apparent, I shall not quarrel, however, with the avowed will of the Whether it be just and reasonable, is another question. House. It has done me the favor to hear me with patience on other occasions; and I cannot render it the unfit return of trespassing on its indulgence at this unseasonable hour, nor seek to defeat its purposes by speaking against time. But having been charged with sundry memorials from citizens of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, remonstrating against that clause in the constitution of Arkansas which relates to the subject of slavery, I should be recreant to the trust they have reposed in me, if I suffered the bill for the admission of Arkansas to pass without a word of protestation. The extraordinary circumstances under which I rise to address the committee impel me to brevity and succinctness; but they would afford me no justification for a passive acquiescence in the admission of Arkansas into the Union, with all the sins of its constitution upon its head. The constitution of Arkansas, as communicated to Congress in the memorial of the people of that Territory, praying to be admitted into the Union, contains the following clause: "The General Assembly shall have no power to pass laws for the emancipation of slaves without the consent of the owners. They shall have no power to prevent emigrants to this State from bringing with them such persons as are deemed slaves by the laws of any one of the United States." This provision of the constitution of Arkansas is condemned by those whom I represent on this occasion as anti-republican, as wrong on general principles of civil polity, and as unjust to the inhabitants of the non-slaveholding States. They object to it as being, in effect, a provision to render slavery perpetual in the new State of Arkansas. I concur in reprobating such a clause. The Legislature of Arkansas is forbidden to emancipate the slaves within its jurisdiction, even though it should be ready to indemnify fully their owners. It is forbidden to exclude slaves from being imported into the State. I cannot, by any vote of mine, ratify or sanction a constitution of government which undertakes in this way to foreclose in advance the progress of civilization and of liberty forever. In order to do justice to the unchangeable opinions of the North, without, in any respect, invading the rights, real or supposed, of the South, my colleague, [Mr. ADAMS,] the vigilant eye of whose unsleeping mind there is nothing which escapes, has moved an amendment of the bill for the admission of Arkansas into the Union, so that, if the amendment be adopted, the bill would read as follows: "The State of Arkansas is admitted into the Union upon the express condition that the people of the said State shall never interfere with the primary disposal of the public lands within the said State, nor shall they levy a tax on any of the lands of the United States within the said State; and nothing in this act shall be construed as an assent by Congress [to the article in the constitution of the said State relating to slavery and to the emancipation of the slaves, or] to all or to any of the propositions contained in the ordinance of the said convention of the people of Arkansas, nor to deprive the said State of Arkansas of the same grants, subject to the same restrictions, which were made to the State of Missouri." This amendment is, according to my judgment, reasonable and proper in itself, and the very least that any member from the North can propose in vindication of the opinions and principles of himself and his constitu ents. It is opposed, however, by the gentleman from Virginia, [Mr. WISE,] with his accustomed vigor and abili ty. He alleges considerations adverse to the motion. He interrogates the friends of the proposed amendment in regard to its force, effect, and purposes, in terms which seem to challenge response; or which, at any rate, if not distinctly and promptly met, would leave the objections which those interrogatories impliedly convey, to be taken as confessed and admitted by our significant silence. What may be the opinions of Martin Van Buren as to this particular bill, what his conduct formerly in refer [H. OF R. ence to a similar case, is a point concerning which I can have no controversy with the gentleman from Virginia. I look only to the merits of the question before the committee. There is involved in it a principle which I regard as immeasurably more important than the opinion of any individual in this nation, however high his present situation or his possible destiny-the great principle of constitutional freedom. The gentleman from Virginia, who, I cheerfully admit, is always frank and honorable in his course upon this floor, has just declared that, as a Southern man, he had felt it to be his duty to come forward and take a stand in behalf of an institution of the South. That institution is slavery. In like manner, I feel it to be my duty, as a Northern man, to take a counter stand in conservation of one among the dearest of the institutions of the North. This institution is liberty. It is not to assail slavery, but to defend liberty, that I speak. It is demanded of us, Do you seek to impose restrictions on Arkansas, in violation of the compromise under which Missouri entered the Union? I might content myself with replying that the State of Massachusetts was not a party to that compromise. She never directly or indirectly assented to it. Most of her Representatives in Congress voted against it. Those of her Representatives who, regarding that compromise in the light of an act of conciliation important to the general interests of the Union, voted for it, were disavowed and denounced at home, and were stigmatized even here, by a Southern member, as over-compliant towards the exactingness of the South. Let me add in passing, as a kindred fact, which the train of association brings to mind, that it is this very exigeance of gentlemen from the South which compels those of the North to act and speak more decidedly than they might be disposed to do of their own mere volition. We come here, generally, imbued with much reluctance to debate the subject of slavery; but whenever it is touched, we hear language addressed to us which necessarily produces a revulsion of feeling, a reaction on our part: our position is changed from that of assailants to the assailed, silence wears the aspect of fear, and concession is converted into pusillanimity. No choice remains to us but to maintain temperately, yet firmly, the rights and the principles of the North. But, continues the gentleman from Virginia, you had no power to impose restrictions upon Missouri; you have no power to impose restrictions upon Arkansas; that was the doctrine of the South then, as the debates of that day abundantly show, and it is now the doctrine of the South. Sir, I also have looked into the debates and the legislation which preceded the admission of Missouri. Was it without restrictions? The act which authorized the people of the Territory of Missouri to form a constitution and State Government imposed various restrictions upon the powers of the future State, conditional to its admission into the Union, such as the demarcation of its limits, the regulation of public lands within it, and the free navigation of its rivers. The very clause of that statute in which the celebrated compromise consiststhe provision "that in all that territory ceded by France to the United States under the name of Louisiana, which lies north of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes north latitude, not included within the limits of the State contemplated by this act, slavery and involuntary servitude, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the parties shall have been duly convicted, shall be, and is hereby, forever prohibited"—this enactment is in itself an exercise of the right of restriction, both as it regards Missouri and Arkansas, or any other State which may be formed out of the colony of Louisiana. If Congress had a right to prescribe such a restriction for the region north of that parallel of latitude, it had the same right to prescribe it for the region south of that parallel; although, for reasons satisfactory to itself, it abstained from the exercise of the right in the latter case. Nay, the resolution of the 2d of March, 1821, for the admission of Missouri into the Union, which is now on the table before me, provides that she shall be admitted only upon the fundamental condition" that a particular clause of her constitution, relating to colored persons, should never take effect; and upon her solemn assent to that condition, and not before, Missouri entered into the Union. Did not the acts for the admission of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, impose conditions upon each of those States? Unquestionably. Does not the bill now before us for the admission of Michigan? Ay, and the most onerous one of the relinquishment of a territory which she claims and desires, and the acceptance of another in lieu of it, which she neither claims nor desires. But these examples, it may be said, are not precisely in point, since they are drawn from that sacro-sanct soil which was dedicated to freedom by Nathan Dane's ordinance. Arkansas stands upon a peculiar footing. It is neither a part of the territory northwest of the Ohio, nor of that southwest of the Ohio. It belongs to the territory ceded to us by France. May we exact conditions of the people of that territory, when they ask admission into the Union? That we did so in the case of Missouri, I have already shown. So did we, to a far greater extent, in that of Louisiana. Nay, does not the bill for the admission of Arkansas, as presented to us by its friends, impose restrictions This very amendment, now under debate, if adopted, will only be one of a series of restrictions. It will not be a solitary condition, standing alone, as if in exception to analogy and to rule. [JUNE 9, 1836. States, made a stipulation in behalf of the people transferred to us, to the following effect: "ART. 3. The inhabitants of the ceded territories shall be incorporated into the Union of the United States, and admitted, as soon as it shall be possible, according to the principles of the federal constitution, to the enjoyment of all the rights, advantages, and immunities, of the citizens of the United States; and in the mean time they shall be maintained and protected in the enjoyment of their liberties, property, and the religions which they profess." What might be the rights of the people of the colony of Louisiana, or any part of that colony, under the latter clause of this article, it is not very important in this connexion to inquire. Congress, it may be remarked, would have a general jurisdiction, extending even to the question of slavery, unless that be excluded by the language of the treaty. That it is not so excluded is plainly apparent, from the consideration that the liberties and property, described in the treaty, can be nothing more than the liberties and properties which the people of Louisiana held, under existing laws, as a French colony. Slave property was subject to regulation or annihilation in the colony of Louisiana, just as it was then, and is now, in the other dependencies of France. The word "liberties," in the second clause of the article, does not refer to the rights possessed by citizens of the United States, and which the people of Louisiana might thereafter acquire under the first clause. Rights of this kind were among the restrictions imposed on Louisiana on her admission into the Union. The act for the admission of the State of Louisiana provides not only that her constitution shall be "republican, and consistent with that of the United States," but also that it shall contain the fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty; that it shall secure to the citizens the trial by But the gentleman from Virginia would not be satis-jury in all criminal cases, and the privilege of the writ fied, nor should I, to deal with this important point as a mere question of precedent. It might suffice at the bar; it will not answer in this House. How stands the case, then, as one of general principle or constitutional right? This depends upon the terms either of the constitution of the United States, or those of the convention with France, by which we acquired Louisiana. The constitution says: "New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other State, nor any State be formed by the junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned, as well as of the Congress." Here are certain cases in which the constitution imposes restrictions on the power of Congress to admit new States into the Union. In all others we may or may not act at our discretion. So far as the terms of the constitution go, we are not bound to act. Suppose the people of Cuba should ask to be admitted into the Union? Must we consent? Clearly not. And if we do consent? Then we may stipulate for all such conditions in our own favor as we see fit. We may say-You shall pay a price in money or lands, you shall emancipate your slaves, you shall deport your free blacks. The constitution confers on us the discretion to admit new States at will; it limits, in certain respects, our power to act affirmatively, and in so doing it excludes that kind of limitation in all other respects; but it does not limit, in any respect, our discretion on the negative side of a refusal to admit new States. of habeas corpus." These are restrictions on the admission of a State of the right character, and precisely in point, being restrictions in favor of the extension of liberty. If Congress might impose on the people of the colony of Louisiana the trial by jury, the writ of habeas corpus, and the fundamental principles of civil liberty, generally, surely it might consider whether it would sanction the extension or legal perpetuation of personal servitude. Nor did the people of the colony of Louisiana acquire any privilege, under the first clause of the article, to exclude Congress from imposing upon them restrictions in favor of liberty, on their applying for admission into the Union. It exercised such a power in various important particulars in the case of the State of Louisiana. It exercised it in the case of Missouri. It exercised it, at the same time,in regard to all the rest of the colony,except Arkansas, "All the rights, advantages, and immunities, of citizens of the United States," refers to things of federal, not of municipal resort. So does the expression on "equal footing with the original States," applied in the statute book to the admission of new States. Otherwise, it would be sheer nonsense. There are no two States in the Union in which municipal "rights, advantages, and immunities," are precisely the same. It is, therefore, an impossibility to admit a new State to an equality, in this respect, with each and all of the original States. The citizens of each State are entitled, by the constitution, to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the United States. But it is the enjoyment of those privileges which is equalised, the privileges themselves remaining locally diverse. A citizen of New York, who removes to Pennsylvania, does not carry the laws of New York with him, but is admitted to the benefit of those of Pennsylvania, just as if he had originally resided in the latter State. And, if it were otherwise, it might be a subject of very grave question, whether "inhabitants of the ceded territories" meant only a certain class or color, and also which of the two, whether the exclusion of liberty or the exclusion of slavery be the more distinctive "enjoyment of all the rights, advantages, and immunities, of citizens of the United States." Whatever view, therefore, I take of the subject, I cannot yield my assent to the doctrines of the gentleman from Virginia. At the same time, the proposition of my colleague steers altogether clear of the compromise implied in the act for the admission of Missouri. [H. OF R. We are engaged in the creation of infant empires. What we shall now do is to act upon generations yet unborn, to the end of time. There is no appreciation of the consequences which lie enveloped, like the minute germe of the springing seed, in the work of this hour. And at such a time, shall we, with the accents of liberty perpetually on our lips; shall we, whose very institutions are established on the fundamental doctrine of human right; shall we, the representatives of the free people of the United States, be brutishly dumb, when it is sought, through us, to render slavery irredeemably perpetual in a new State soliciting admission into the Union? I claim it as the right of my constituents, it is my own right, to withhold assent from this exceptionable clause in the constitution of Arkansas. If the question had arisen at a more propitious hour, if the committee were not predetermined to abridge debate by such means as they have the power to exert, I should have argued af That compromise, so far as expressed in the act, is to this effect: Missouri shall be admitted into the Union without a prohibition of slavery, in consideration of which, slavery is prohibited in all that part of the colony of Louisiana north of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes of latitude, and not included in Missouri. This is the sub-firmatively the inexpediency and injustice of that clause, stance of the compromise. In spirit no more can be made of it than to say that Arkansas, lying south of the parallel of thirty-six degrees thirty-nine minutes, shall be admitted on the same conditions with Missouri. This amendment leaves untouched as well the letter as the spirit of the compromise. It does not propose to exclude Arkansas from the Union. It does not require of her to abolish slavery as the condition of her admission into the Union. upon general principles of reason. Wholly abstaining to enter this pertinent field of remark, I have endeavored to confine myself to a brief and simple defence of the amendment before us, in reply to the observations of the gentleman from Virginia. There is one thing more, to which I feel bound, in conclusion, to advert. On the first introduction of this subject to the notice of the House, the gentleman from Virginia made a declaration, which I particularly noticed at the time, for the purpose of having the tenor of the declaration distinctly understood by the House and by the country. The gentleman gave it to be known that, if members from the North held themselves not engaged by the terms of the compromise under which Missouri entered into the Union, neither would members from the South hold themselves engaged thereby; and that, if we sought to impose restrictions affecting slave property on the one hand, they might be impelled, on the other hand, to introduce slavery into the heart of the North. I heard the If the proposed amendment had gone this length, there would be doubt in my mind whether I could consistently give it my support. I voted, some short time since, in favor of the resolution adopted by this House, to the effect that Congress has no constitutional power to interfere with the institution of slavery within the States. This resolution was not very logically conceived, nor accurately worded. It is not true, literally, that Congress cannot "interfere, in any way," with slavery in the States. To abolish the foreign slave trade, and still more the domestic slave trade, is to act, indirectly, upon slavery; and there is one way in which Congress is express-suggestion with the feelings natural to one born and bred ly commanded to interfere with slavery in the States; namely, for its maintenance in the case of insurrection or invasion. I voted for the resolution in the sense which I believed it was intended to convey, as a declaration that Congress cannot exercise legislative jurisdiction, of any sort, over the institution of slavery within the States. I desire on this, as on every other occasion, to act up to the true intent and spirit of that declaration; but, in so acting, I do not consent to the surrender of any one of the rights of opinion, of the press, or of debate, which belong to me as a man, a citizen, or a member of Congress. I do not persuade myself that liberty is an evil, or slavery a blessing. When called upon to accord my official sanction to a frame of government, which not merely permits but expressly perpetuates slavery, I should be false to all the opinions and principles of my life if I did not promptly return a peremptory and emphatic no. This question, I repeat, is a totally different one from that presented and decided in the case of Missouri. There the question was, whether Congress would act prohibitively for the abolition of slavery in Missouri. Here the question is, whether Congress will act confirm atorily for the perpetuation of slavery in Arkansas. Is there a gentleman in this House, not connected personally with the institution of slavery, who can suffer himself to hesitate on such a point? If Arkansas had been silent on this subject, there might be some plausible pretext for asking us to be silent. But Arkansas having put this noxious matter in her constitution, and having brought it here for our approbation, it is the duty of the members of this House at least to say: we wash our hands of the unclean thing. in a land of equality and freedom. I took occasion to protest, in the surprised impulse of the moment, against the idea of putting restrictions on liberty in one quarter of the Union, in retaliation of the attempt to limit the spread of slavery in another quarter. I held up to view the inconsistency and inconsequence of uttering the warmest eulogiums on freedom one day, of pouring out aspirations that the spirit of liberty might pervade the universe, and at another time threatening the North with the establishment of slavery within its borders, if a Northern member should deprecate the legal perpetua. tion of slavery in a proposed new State of the West. It did not fall within the rules of pertinent debate to pursue the subject at that time; and I have but a single idea to present now, in addition to what I then observed. It is not possible for me to judge whether the gentleman from Virginia, and any of his friends or fellow-citizens at the South, deliberately and soberly cherish the extraordinary purpose which his language implied. I trust it was but a hasty thought, struck out in the ardor of debate. To introduce slavery into the heart of the North? Vain idea! Invasion, pestilence, civil war, may conspire to exterminate the eight millions of free spirits who now dwell there. This, in the long lapse of ages incalculable, is possible to happen. You may raze to the earth the thronged cities, the industrious villages, the peaceful hamlets of the North. You may lay waste its fertile valleys and verdant hill-sides. You may plant its very soil with salt, and consign it to everlasting desolation. You may transform its beautiful fields into a desert as bare as the blank face of the sands of Sahara. You may reach the realization of the infernal boast with which Attila the Hun marched his barbaric hosts into H. OF R.] Michigan and Arkansas. [JUNE 9, 1836. Italy, demolishing whatever there is of civilization or other States, without,an effort at least to restrict her to prosperity in the happy dwellings of the North, and re- a form of government that shall harmonize with the ducing their very substance to powder, so that a squad-principles of the constitution. I cannot consent to be ron of cavalry shall gallop over the site of populous driven to sustain a measure fraught with such infinite cities, unimpeded as the wild steeds on the savannas of peril to the cause of personal liberty, without one efthe West. All this you may do: it is within the bounds fort to resist it. I had reason to expect that the commitof physical possibility. But I solemnly assure every gen. tee would have exercised its courtesy in allowing us one tleman within the sound of my voice, I proclaim to the day for deliberation. But as it has just refused to rise, country and to the world, that, until all this be fully and has more than intimated its determination, by freaccomplished to the uttermost extremity of the letter, quent vociferations of question! question! to push the you cannot, you shall not, introduce slavery into the bill to a passage at this sitting, or at least to place it heart of the North. where they can stop debate by the previous question, I trust I shall be pardoned for detaining it a few moments with a statement of some of the reasons that shall dictate my vote on the bill. Mr. HARD rose to oppose the bill and advocate the amendment; but said, as the committee had been in session twenty hours, and every member must feel serious. ly the fatigue of this long session, and as the bill had been taken up for consideration since twelve o'clock at night, he hoped the committee would rise, to enable those who wished to give their views of the measure an opportunity to examine more carefully the bill and other papers and documents connected with it. The committee refusing to rise, by a large majority, Mr. HARD proceeded. I am unable to perceive any good reason why this important measure should be thus recklessly pushed through amidst darkness, fatigue, and confusion, or why gentlemen should be summoned from their beds at this unseasonable hour, and compelled to give their votes upon the bill without time or opportunity for examination or reflection. Is it matter of no moment to us or the American people that we are about to add one more State to this Union? Does it afford no rebuke to inconsiderate haste that this bill adds one star more to the constellation of our confederated republic? Do not the safety of the constitution, the defence of civil liberty, and the cause of humanity itself, require reflection and consideration, before we pass this bill? I have had no opportunity until since the bill was taken up in committee of examining this case. But by the little acquaintance I have obtained with the various matters connected with it, and the few hours' reflection I have bestowed upon the constitution of Arkansas, I am solemnly impressed with the momentous character of the bill, asa measure vitally connected with the peace of the Union and the harmony and political in'erests of the nation. Sir, the decision we make upon this bill will carry with it the interesting result of conferring liberty or perpetuating slavery to millions of human beings yet unborn. Yes, sir, the decision we make this morning, with sleepless eyes and debilitated bodies, will proclaim through your journals to the world and posterity whether the representatives of the people of this far-famed republic, the collected guardians of civil liberty and the rights of man, have the virtue and patriotism to defend and carry out the sound maxims that form the true basis of this excellent form of government; or whether, for the sake of advancing the interest of a miserable partisan policy, they will sacrifice both the honor and liberty of their country, by entailing upon the freemen of a sovereign State the interminable institution of slavery. Sir, we are about to adopt a legislative ordinance which, when sanctioned by the proper authorities, will pass from under our jurisdiction. We can never reclaim it; the faith of the nation will stand pledged to abide by it; and however odious and dangerous it may prove to the harmony of the Union, we can never amend or repeal it. So far as the faith and integrity, if not the power, of Congress are concerned, it will be, like the laws of the Medes and Persians, irrevocably confirmed and established. Is there any circumstance connected with the business of the House to justify for a moment such rashness in legislation? For one, I am not prepared to admit the State of Arkansas on an equal footing with In touching the subject of slavery, or the right claimed by any State to sustain it, I feel all the delicacy and embarrassment any one can feel, who labors, as I do, under a solemn conviction that they are subjects connected with the highest interest, and I may add domestic safety, of the citizens of the South and Southwestern States of this Union. And I feel the more painful embarrassment from the fresh recollection of the fearful excitement that pervaded all sections of the country, and the consternation it spread among the slaveholding commuuily, at a period immediately preceding this present session of Congress. I would rather have remained silent than provoked anew those discordant feelings, which, at the early period of our deliberations, had marred the har mony of legislation, and which, though half smothered, still smoulders within these walls. I would have refrained from adding one word, but from the impulse of a strong sense of paramount duty which I owe to my station, my constituents, and the cause of humanity. Happy would it have been for the country if these subjects could have been deferred until the recent excitement was fully allayed; an excitement which not only threatened a revolution and a separation of the Union, but was fearfully portentous of a servile war, that must have deluged the fairest portion of this country in the blood of our brethren and kindred-a war that would have proved more relentless and implacable to the cries of defenceless innocence than the most terrific wars of the tomahawk and scalping-knife. In submitting my brief remarks, I beg to assure gentlemen of the slaveholding States, that while I am opposed to this bill, I hold as sacred and inviolable as any one in this House the rights secured to all those States who were parties to the original compact. I would as readily engage in a crusade against the Union itself, as touch one word or obliterate one letter of that dearbought compromise which gave them their rights over their slave property. The views which I entertain of the propriety and constitutional authority of perpetuating human slavery in the new States and Territories belonging to this Government have not the slightest application to the original States of the confederacy. The thirteen United States formed so many parties to the compact, each of which were left free to adopt or reject it, ad libitum. While the compact was in progress of formation, each had an undoubted right to propose arti cles of stipulation, which, when adopted, formed part and parcel of the whole. The instrument, when legalized, was obligatory in all its parts, or in none of them. It bound all the parties, or none; and whatever may be the disadvantages arising to either or any of the parties, there is no remedy save through the mode prescribed in the instrument itself. However deeply we may deplore the existence of slavery at the South, as the compact has left them free to sustain it or not, we are bound to acquiesce in it. Congress has no power to interfere with it without the consent of the States interested. But, sir, the reasons which impel us to acquiesce in the right to |