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intervention was such a fatal heresy as to form a sufficient justification for disrupting the Democratic party, even at the hazard of a dissolution of the Union. Governor Winston, I believe, is well known in Alabama-an eminent citizen. He pledged Alabama for General Cass on this doctrine of non-intervention, carrying the Nicholson letter in his hand as the compass by which his political action was to be governed. Sydenham Moore is not a name unknown to fame-a most worthy man, eminent in ability, and standing well in Alabama, and now represents that State with ability and zeal in the House of Representatives. He did not regard this doctrine of non-intervention as a fatal blow -at southern rights, and he felt authorized to pledge Alabama to the support of General Cass. Mr. Avant, of Tennessee, and Mr. Magoffin, of Kentucky, spoke. in favor of the nominees, pledging the support of their respective States;" and the next day the platform was adopted, in

which the doctrine of non-intervention was affirmed in the seventh resolution, which is so familiar that, perhaps, it is unnecessary to read it. [Let us hear it."] Let it be read.

Mr. PUGH read, as follows:

"7. That Congress has no power under the Constitution to interfere with or control the domestic institutions of the several States, and that such States are the sole and proper judges of every thing appertaining to their own affairs, not prohibited by the Constitution; that all efforts of the Abolitionists or others, made to induce Congress to interfere with questions of slavery, or to take incipient steps in relation ethereto, are calculated to lead to the most alarming and dangerous consequences; and that all such efforts have an inevitable tendency to diminish the happiness of the people, and endanger the stability and permanency of the Union, and ought not to be countenanced by any friend of our political institutions."

said, or may say of him here, I mean no personal disrespect to Mr. Yancey. We are old personal friends. We met as members of Congress seventeen years ago. Our social relations have always been, uninterrupted. I have as much admiration as any man living for his brilliant, his surpassing ability, for his great social qualities, and for the boldness and the nerve with which he avows his principles and follows them to their logical consequences; although I shrink with horror from the consequences to which his principles would lead this Republic. I ask my friend from Ohio to read that entire report.

Mr. PUGH read, as follows:

"Mr. Yancey then rose and said that he approved most then begged to present the report of the minority of the cordially of the resolutions, with a single exception. He committee, which is as follows:

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"The undersigned, a minority of the committee on reso

lutions, ask leave respectfully to submit a minority report

to this convention,

"Believing that the success of the Democratic party will depend solely upon the truth or untruth of the principles avowed by this convention, and by the nominee thereof, the undersigned cannot give their assent to the report of the majority. The nominee of this convention is understood to entertain the opinion that Congress has no right to interfere with the question of slavery in the States or Territories, but that the people inhabiting a Territory have the exclusive right to exclude it therefrom. The majority of your committee have only adopted this principle so far as applicable to the States, and have thus refused, in the avowal of the cardinal principles of the Democracy, to express any opinion upon what is really the most exciting and important politi cal topic now before the country, leaving the people to find an exposition of the views of the great Democratic party of the Union, and of the probable course of its Representatives. office of President. in Congress, in the avowed opinions of their nominee for the

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"This course we conceive to be fundamentally wrong. It has ever been the pride of the Democracy, that it has dealt frankly and honestly with the people. It has scorned to conceal its political opinions. It has made it a point of opposition to the Whig party, that it frequently goes before the people with a mask'upon its brow, and has appealed to the masses to rebuke that party for a course so offensive to truth, and so unfair to them. Our country's institutions opinion. That public opinion cannot be intelligently formed must find their surest support in an intelligent public as to our views upon those institutions if we refuse to avow

them, and dare not advocate them.

"It is useless to deny that this question does not press home upon us for our decision. Ten of the sovereign nonslaveholding States have already expressed decided opinions H upon it. This has been met by counteracting opinions in the South, first distinctly avowed by the State of Virginia, and since followed up by nearly every State in that section of the Union.

Mr. DOUGLAS. In 1848, the Democratic convention were of the opinion that, to countenance any interference with slavery by Congress, was dangerous to the peace and harmony of the country, and tended to a dissolution of the Union; that they would not permit this interference by Abolitionists or others. They did not regard the interventionist then any better than the Abolitionist. Southern interventionists and northern interventionists, by the fair intendment of that platform, were put on an equality. After that platf "m was adopted, Mr. Yancey, of Alabama, felt it to be his duty to record his solemn protest against the dangerous heresy of the Territorial Legislatures deciding on the slavery question. He came into the convention the next day, May 26, with an elaborate report against this dogma, this heresy promulgated by General Cass in his Nicholson letter, signed by William L. Yancey of Alabama, John C. McGehee of Florida, and J. M. Commander of South Carolina, accompanied with a resolution. I shall ask the Senate to listen patiently to the entire report of Mr. Yancey upon that occasion, for it embraces every thought, every idea, every princi-all classes in the Union, and which has given to us all the ple, every pretext assigned at Charleston for withdrawing from the recent convention. In order that I may do Mr. Yancey full justice, I shall ask the Senate to listen to the entire report, the resolution, and the vote thereon. It is only one column of Niles's Register. I may here be permitted to remark, that, by any thing I have

"It is idle to call the question an abstract one. If abstract in any sense, it is ouly so to the section in which have origin. ated the avowals of aggression upon the rights of a large portion of the Union, to wit: the non-slaveholding States; they own not a dollar of property to be affected by the ascendency of the principle at issue. They have not a single political right to be curtailed. With them, opposition to the South on this point is purely a question of moral and political ethics, Far different is it with the South. They own the property which success of this principle will prevent them from carrying with them to the Territories. They have a common right in the Territories, from which they are to be excluded unless they choose to go there without this property. They have heretofore been considered as political equals in the Union. with the same power of expansion and of progress which has heretofore distinguished distinctive appellation of the party of progress.' They own, in common with their brethren of the North, these Territories, which are to be held by the Federal Government as a trustee for common uses and common purposes. "If, therefore, you refuse to meet the issue made upon the slaveholding by part of the non-slaveholding States, und permit the heretofore expressed opinions of your nominee to stand impliedly as the opinions of this convention, you pronounce, in substance, against the political equality of the people; against the community of interest in the Territories,

which it is contended exists in the people; against the right |
of one-half of the people of the Union to extend those insti-
tutions which the fathers of the Constitution recognized as
fundamental in the faming of the articles of union, and
upon which rest the great and leading principles upon which
taxation and political power are based.
"In order to obviate such a construction,-in order to give
assurance to the public mind of our entire country that the
Democracy of the Union will preserve the compromises of
the Constitution, not only in the States, but in the Terri-
tories; that it recognizes entire political equality to exist
among the people, and their right to people, uuniolested in
their rights of property, the vast Territories which the
Union holds out as a trust, until sufficiently populated to be
erected into States,-the undersigned have agreed to present
to this body, for its adoption, the following resolution!-
"Resolved, That the doctrine of non-interference with the
rights of property of any portion of the people of this Con-
federation, be it in the State or in the Territories, by any
other than the parties interested in them, is the true repub-
lican doctrine recognized by this body.

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Neither Congress nor a Territorial Legislature must interfere with the rights of the slaveholder in the Territories to manage and control his slaves. That was the proposition Mr. Yancey presented. It was submitted to the convention, fairly and boldly met; and I will read the vote in the convention, by States, rejecting Mr. Yancey's report and resolution. Mr. Yancey enforced his report with a speech, which is here reported, but which is too long to quote, and then concluded:

"I now close by offering the resolution as an amendment to the report of the committee.

The question was taken on Mr. Yancey's resolution, and it was, by States, rejected-36 to 216; as follows:"YEAS--Maryland, 1; South Carolina, 9; Georgia, 9; Florida, 3; Alabama, 9; Arkansas, 3; Tennessee, 1; Ken tucky, 1-36.

NAYS-Maine, 9; New Hampshire, 6; Massachusetts, 12, Vermont, 6; Rhode Island, 4; Connecticut, 6; New Jersey, 7; New York, ; Pennsylvania, 26; Delaware, 3; Maryland, 6; Virginia, 17; North Carolina, 11; Mississippi, 6; Louisiana, ana, 12; Illinois, 9; Michigan, 5; Iowa, 4; Missouri, 7; Wis sonsin, 4-216,"

6 Texas, 4: Tennessee, 12; Kentucky, 11; Ohio, 23; Indi

Here we find Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alissouri, voting against the incorporation of the doctrine of intervention for the protection of slavery into the platform. They voted against the doctrine of Mr. Yancey's report and resolution. Those States then had the opportunity of affirming this doctrine, if they thought it ought to be any portion of the Democratic creed. Not only the States I have named

Mr. DOUGLAS. It will be observed that, in that report, Mr. Yancey embodied the whole argument in favor of intervention for protection, or for any other purpose, which we have heard repeated over and over again for so many years. I doubt whether any Senator can take his own speech and find any one idea or argument in favor of that doctrine which is not embodied in the report of Mr. Yancey. The first statement there is, that it is understood that General Cass, the nominee, holds that a Territorial Legislature may exclude slavery from the Territory. It was not denied that General Cass held that doctrine. the border States-voted that way, but you It was known that he did; and he was nominated will find voting against this doctrine Mississippi, because he did hold the doctrine that the people Louisiana, Texas, the very States that have of a Territory might either introduce or exclude, now seceded from the Charleston convention for protect or prohibit, slavery at pleasure. For the reason that this same doctrine was not incorthat reason, Mr. Yancey and his two colleagues porated into the platform. In 1848, they voted on the committee proceeded to put their protest against putting it into the platform; in 1860, on record. The argument of the equality of the their delegates bolt the convention because it was States, of which we have heard so much, was not put into the platform. The Senate and the urged. The other argument, that the Territories country will judge who has changed on this are the common property, and, therefore, should question. North Carolina, through Mr. Strange, be open to all the citizens, independent of local stated her reason for voting against this doctrine; authority, was used. The argument that it is which was, that the resolutions of the platform, not creditable to the Democratic party to go as it stood, covered the entire doctrine of nons before the country dodging the question of the intervention by Congress in States and Terrirights of the South in the Territories, was brought tories. That is what he wanted: that Congress forward. It says that the convention, in the plat- should not intervene, leaving it for the Territories' form, had refused to express an opinion on the to do as they pleased, so that they did not violate question whether, the Territorial Legislature the Constitution; and the judiciary to correct could prohibit slavery or not; that it was not their errors if they, did violate the Constitution. creditable to them to avoid expressing an opinion Mr. McAllister, of Georgia, explained that on the point; that it convicted the Democratic Georgia voted for the resolution because they party of double-dealing in the manner that they did not think it went so far as was claimed by had charged upon the Whigs, and that what ren- Mr. Yancey in his speech; in effect, disavowing dered it necessary to have an expression of opinion the doctrine of intervention, which Mr. Yancey on that point was, that the candidate held that a intended to affirm. Territorial Legislature could exclude slavery. Then he concludes with a resolution, which is very adroitly written, I know, but, taken in connection with the report, has a clear signification, in harmony with the report:

"That the doctrine of non-interference with the rights of

Now, Mr. President, I think I have shown conclusively that in 1848 the Democratic creed wash non-intervention by Congress with slavery in the Territories, either for or against it; that Congress should not interfere either to establish or abolish it, or protect or maintain it,-unqualified non-intervention. The Democratic party was committed to the doctrine. It is true there were individual exceptions, men who did not believe in this doctrine of non-intervention, and the That is, nobody but the owner of the slave Senator from Mississippi was one of them. Ho must interfere with his right to hold him.supported General Cass under protest, making

property of any portion of the people of this Confederation, be it in the States or in the Territories, by any other than the parties interested in them, is the true republican doctrine recognized by this body."

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speeches for him, and protesting against his Nicholson letter and the doctrines contained in it. The Senator from Mississippi has a clean record, but a record outside the Democratic party, a record at war with the Democratic platform,-rebelling against its principles and acquiescing in its nomination. The Senator then, as now, granted no quarter to squatter sovereignty, but he made speeches for the squatter Sovereignty chief.

They were in favor of allowing the Territorial Legislature to act on all rightful subjects of legislation consistent with the Constitution without excepting African slavery; but a majority of the committee overruled them. When this report came in, the Senator from Mississippi objected to the hill, and proposed an amendment to the very secuon to which I refer, which I will ask my friend to read, with the explanatory remarks of the Senator in offering it.

Mr. PUGH. When the bill came up for action on the 15th of May, Mr. DAVIS, of Mississippi, said:

"I offer the following amendment: to strike out in the sixth line of the tenth section the words 'in respect to Afri perty growing out of the institution of African slavery as it can slavery,' and insert the words with those rights of pro exists in any of the States of the Union. The object of the amendment is to prevent the Territorial Legislature from legislating against the rights of property growing out of the institution of slavery." * * ** "It will leave to the Territorial Legislatures those rights and powers which are essentially necessary, not only to the preservation of pro right to make such police regulations as are necessary to prevent disorders, and which will be absolutely necessary with such property as that to secure its beneficial use to its owner. With this brief explanation I submit the amend ment."

I pass now, sir, to 1850, in order to show clearly by the record, as was stated by the Senator from Mississippi, that the same doctrine of non-intervention was incorporated into the compromise measures of 1850 against his will, and on my motion. We differed then, as we differ now; he against those measures, I for them. I deem it my duty, even at the risk of being a little tedious, to show that this doctrine was then thoroughly discussed, and that, after a deliberate debate, which ran over two months, it was affirmed by a vote of nearly two to one in the Senate, and in-perty, but to the peace of the Territory. It will leave the corporated into the compromise measures of 1850. On the 25th of March, 1850, the chairman of the Committee on Territories of this body [Mr. DOUGLAS] reported two bills,-one for the admission of California as a State, the other to organize the Territories of Utah and New Mexico, and to adjust the disputed boundary with Texas. On the 19th of April the Senate appointed the celebrated committee of thirteen, with Mr. Clay at its head, to consider the whole question. On the 8th of May, Mr. Clay, as chairman of the committee of thirteen, reported the celebrated omnibus bill to the Senate, which, as your records will show, consisted of the two printed bills previously reported by myself from the Territorial Committee, with a wafer between them, and certain amendments interlined in writing. One of the amendments, which was made in the com

mittee of thirteen, I will point out, for it involves this distinct question now in dispute. The bill, as it was originally reported by myself, defined the powers of the Territorial Legislature in these words:

"And be it further enacted, That the legislative power of the Territories shall extend to all rightful subjects of legislation consistent with the Constitution of the United States and the provisions of this act; but no law shall be passed interfering with the primary disposition of the soil," &c.

As reported from the Territorial Committee, the bill was silent on the subject of slavery; the bill ignored the slavery question, and conferred on the Territorial Legislature power over all rightful subjects of legislation consistent with the Constitution, without excepting slavery. The committee of thirteen reported this amendment to it, after the clause, "but no law shall be passed interfering with the primary disposition of the soil," by adding, "nor in respect to African slavery;" so that the committee of thirteen reported against the Territorial Legislature passing any law in respect to African slavery. Mr. Clay stated that that limitation on the Territorial Legislature had been incorporated into the bill against his will and his judgment. General Cass, in debate, made the same statement, that it had been incorporated against his judgment.

Mr. DOUGLAS. Thus it will be seen that the Senator from Mississippi objected to the bill, because it did not contain a prohibition on the Legislature of the Territory against legislating in a manner hostile to slavery. He wished the Territorial Legislature to have the power to protect, but not the power to prohibit. That was his position. I give him the credit of having been consistent on that point. I wished to give the Territorial Legislature power over all rightful subjects of legislation, leaving slave property and horse property and every other species of property on an exact equal footing; leaving the people to make their own regulations as they pleased, so that they did not violate the Constitution. The Senator from Mississippi desired an exception as to slavery, to the effect that they might protect it, but should not adopt un friendly legislation to it, taking slavery out of the category of other property. Mr. Clay among other things said, in reply to the Senator from Mississippi, what will now be read.

Mr. PUGH read, as follows:

"Mr. CLAY." • * * * "The clause itself was intro duced into the bill by the committee for the purpose of tying up the hands of the Territorial Legislature in respect to legislating at all, one way or the other, upon the subject of the law of the respective Territories in the condition in which African slavery. It was intended to leave the legislation and the act will find them. I stated on a former occasion that I did not, in committee, vote for the amendment to insert the clause, though it was proposed to be introduced by a ma jority of the committee. I attached very little consequence to it at the time, and I attach very little to it at present. It is perhaps of no particular importance whatever. Now, sir, if I understand the measure proposed by the Senator from Mississippi, it aims at the same thing. I do not understand him as proposing that if any one shall carry slaves into the Territory, although by the laws of the Territory he cannot take them there, the legislative hands of the territorial government should be so tied as to prevent it saying he shall not enjoy the fruits of their labor. If the Senator from Mississippi means to say that

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"Mr. DAVIS. I do mean to say it. "Mr. CLAY. If the object of the Senator is to provide that, slaves may be introduced into the Territory contrary to the lex loci, and being introduced, nothing shall be done by the Legislature to impair the rights of owners to hold the slaves thus brought contrary to the local laws, I certainly cannot vote for it. In doing so, I shall repeat again the expression

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Mr. DOUGLAS. There it will be found that a distinct issue was made up between Mr. Clay and the Senator from Mississippi, The Senator from Mississippi insisted that the legislation of Congress should be so framed as to recognize the right of the slaveholder to go into the Territory and hold his property in defiance of the local law. Mr. Clay said that he would never agree to the recognition of the doctrine that you could carry slaves to a Territory and hold them against the lex loci, in defiance of the local law. On this distinct issue it was that the Senator from Mississippi and the illustrious Kentuckian differed. Mr. Clay was against the Wilmot proviso; but he was against repealing by Congress the Mexican laws that were adverse to slavery. He was against the recognition by Congress of the alleged right to carry slaves there, and hold them in violation of the local law. He was against any act that would prevent the people of the Territories from deciding for themselves whether they would have slavery or not. In other words, Mr. Clay supported and sustained every vote which the Senator from Mississippi brings in judgment against me, except one; and that one was given under instructions, as the Senator from Mississippi is well aware.

This debate shows clearly that the compromise measures of 1850 were intended to assert the principle of non-intervention by Congress with slavery in the Territories, leaving the people to do as they pleased, so that they did not violate the Constitution, and leaving the courts to ascertain whether they did not violate it or not.

Mr. GREEN. Will the Senator allow me? Mr. DOUGLAS. I cannot yield for interruption.

Mr. GREEN. Very well.

Mr. DOUGLAS. I ask my friend [Mr. PUGH] to continue the extracts from that debate, on both sides, a little further, in order to put them on the record.

Mr. PUGH read, as follows:

Mr. DAVIS." "We are giving, or proposing to give, a government to a Territory, which act rests upon the basis of our right to make such provision. We suppose we have a right to confer power. If so, we may mark out the limit to which they may legislate, and are bound not to confer power beyond that which exists in Congress. If we give them power to legislate beyond that, we commit a fraud or usurpation, as it may be done openly, covertly, or indirectly."

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To which Mr. Clay replied:"Now, sir, I only repeat what I had occasion to say before, that while I am willing to stand aside and make no legislative enactment one way or the other-to lay off the Territories without the Wilmot proviso on the one hand, with which I understand we are threatened, or without an attempt to introduce a clause for the introduction of slavery In the Territories-while I am for rejecting both the one and the other, I am content that the law as it exists shall prevail; and if there be any diversity of opinion as to what it means, I am willing that it shall be settled by the highest judicial authority of the country. While I am content thus to abide the result, I must say that I cannot vote for any express provision recognizing the right to carry slaves there."

To which Mr. Davis rejoined that

"It is said our Revolution grew out of a preamble; and I hope we have something of the same character of the hardy men of the Revolution who first commenced the war with

the mother country; something of the spirit of that bold Yankee who said he had a right to go to Concord, and that go he would, and who, in the maintenance of that right, met his death at the hands of a British sentinel. Now, sir, if our right to carry slaves in these Territories be a consti tutional right, it is our first duty to maintain it."

Mr. DOUGLAS. These extracts confirm the statement that the issue was precisely as I have stated it, and that the Senator from Mississippi then took the ground that he now maintains; but that Mr, Clay, the champion of the compromise measures of 1850, took the opposite ground. Mr. Clay, in that very speech, answered the objection about there being two constructions of this doctrine of non-intervention. He was for non-intervention by Congress; no restriction upon the Territorial Legislature; and then leaving it to the courts to decide whether the territorial enactments were constitutional or not. That was the position of Mr. Clay; that was the position of the champion of those mea

sures.

The Senator from Mississippi asserted his right to go with his property, in violation of the local law, and said he was going to act upon the doctrine of the sergeant at Lexington, who said that he had a right to go to Concord, and was going. The Senator from Mississippi modi fied his amendment so as to make the language more palatable; but not to change the principle, to wit: that the Territorial Legislature might legislate to protect slavery, but not legislate in hostility to it. In that shape, his amendment was rejected. Then Mr. Chase, of Ohio, offered the counterpart, to restrict the power, so that the Territorial Legislature might prohibit slavery, but not protect or tolerate it. That was rejected by precisely the same number of votes as the proposition of the Senator from Mississippi. By these votes the Senate showed that the object of the bill was to leave the Territorial Legislature to do as it pleased, subject to the Constitution, with the courts to ascertain when it violated it; but not to put any restriction on the Territorial Legislature except that which the Constitution imposed.

Now, sir, I am compelled, in this connection, to do what I dislike to do-quote from my own speeches, to show that I then took the position I do now in vindication of the ground taken by Mr. Clay, and in opposition to that assumed by the Senator from Mississippi. I will ask the Senator from Ohio to read that extract.

Mr. PUGH. Upon these amendments-the one affirming the pro-slavery and the other the antislavery position, in opposition to the right of the people of the Territories to decide the slavery question for themselves-Mr. DOUGLAS said:

"The position that I have ever taken has been that this and all other questions relating to the domestic affairs and domestic policy of the Territories, ought to be left to the decision of the people themselves; and that we ought to be content with whatever way they may decide the question, because they have a much deeper interest in these matters than we have, and know much better what institutions suit

them than we, who have never been there, can decide for them. I would therefore have much preferred that that portion of the bill should have remained as it was reported from the Committee on Territories, with no provision on the subject of slavery, the one way or the other. And I do hope yet, that that clause will be stricken out. I am satisfied, sir, that it gives no strength to the bill. I am satisfied, even if it did give strength to it, that it ought not to

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be there, because it is a violation of principle-a violation of that principle upon which we have all rested our defence of the course we have taken on this question. I do not see how those of us who have taken the position we have taken -that of non-intervention-and have argued in favor of the right of the people to legislate for themselves on this question, can support such a provision without abandoning all the arguments which we used in the presidential campaign in the year 1848, and the principles set forth by the honor able Senator from Michigan (Mr. Cass) in that letter which is known as the Nicholson letter. We are required to abandon that platform; we are required to abandon those principles, and to stultify ourselves, and, to adopt the opposite doctrine--and for what? In order to say that the people of the Territories shall not have such institutions as they shall deem adapted to their conditions and their wants. I do not see, sir, how such a provision can be acceptable either to the people of the North or the South."

Mr. DOUGLAS. Mr. President, it is unnecessary for me to add one word to the extract from my own speech, to show that I took precisely the position then that I take now. I will next ask my friend to read a brief extract from the speech of General Cass in opposition to the amendment of the Senator from Mississippi, and also to the amendment of Mr. Chase, of Ohio, and in favor of the same doctrine that I am now advocating.

Mr. PUGH. Mr. Cass said, (referring to the amendment offered by Mr. DAVIS and Mr. Chase:)

Now, sir, I am free to say to that Senator, that he and I did differ in that contest. I advocated non-intervention then, as I do now. He fought it then gallantly, as he always fights: but he was defeated by a vote of nearly two to one; and I was sustained; and my proposition, and not his, became the basis of those measures. Congress adjourned immediately after the passage of those measures, in the midst of a terrific excitement, North and South. Northern agitators had inflamed the passions and prejudices of the northern people, by representing those compromise measures as being measures for the extension of slavery. The southern op ponents of the measures had inflamed the passions of the southern people into the belief that the compromise measures were a sacrifice of southern rights and southern honor. Appeals were made to the people, North and South, by northern interventionists and southern interventionists, against those measures that had been passed by the majority the one representing them as sacrificing northern rights and northern honor; the other representing them as sacrificing southern rights and southern honor. That was the issue.

I went to my own State to make my appeal to my own people in vindication of my course. "Now, with respect to the amendments, I shall vote against them both; and then I shall vote in favor of strik- The country knows history has recorded-the ing out the restriction in the bill upon the power of the ter mode in which I was received when I landed in ritorial governments. I shall do so upon this ground: I Chicago. The City Council, filled with Aboliwas opposed, as the honorable Senator from Kentucky has declared he was, to the insertion of this prohibition by the tionists, had passed resolutions annulling the committee; I consider it inexpedient and unconstitutional. fugitive slave law, instructing the police to I have already stated my belief that the rightful power of withhold any assistance in the execution of the internal legislation in the Territories belongs to the people." law, proclaiming it to be a violation of the law Mr. DOUGLAS. As I have already said, the of God and of the Constitution. The standard vote was taken on these two amendments--the of rebellion was raised. The public passions one offered by the Senator from Mississippi; the were inflamed. A fugitive slave was about to other by the former Senator from Ohio-and be arrested, and civil war was anticipated by each of them was rejected by a vote of yeas every man. It was not a pleasant task to me to 25, nays 30; there being precisely the same go into a public meeting thus inflamed and exmajority against each. Having thus rejected cited and infuriated, and tell those people that the two propositions, the 'one affirming the right they had been deceived about the character of and power of the Territories to protect slavery, those measures; that the fugitive slave law was hut not to prohibit it, and the other affirming right; that it was an act required by the Constithe power and duty to prohibit, but not to pro-tution of the country, which we were bound to teet, the record shows that Mr. DOUGLAS moved support; that the compromise measures were, te strike out all in the bill concerning slavery, all of them, founded on correct and sound prinso that the people of the Territories might do ciples. History records the fact that I met that as they pleased, without any other restriction infuriated populace, composed of honest and than the Constitution. That motion was voted intelligent, but misguided, men, and that I dedown when made by myself; but subsequently, fended each and every one of those measures after the debate had gone at great length, Mr. before that people, and procured from them a Clay, from his seat at the corner of the Cham-resolution that the fugitive slave law should be ber, passed to mine, and said: "If you will renew your motion to strike out that limitation. it will now be carried, and we shall save this bill." I stated to him that my friend, the Senator from New Hampshire, (Mr. Norris,) now no more, would not vote for the bill, unless those words were out; and I thought, out of courtesy, I would let him make the motion, as I had once made it, and I would see him. At the request of Mr. Clay, I went to Mr. Norris. He made the motion to strike it out. It was carried by at vote of 32 in the affirmative to 19 in the negative; thus rejecting trine of the Senator from Mississi ing the position advocated by

executed, and the compromise measures of 1850 sustained. I must trouble my friend to read a passage from my own speech before that meeting at Chicago, in vindication of those measures

-a speech made under such circumstances that my best friends warned me that my life would pay the forfeit-and then you will see on what principle I defended them:

Mr. PUGH read as follows:→→

"These measures are predicated on the great fundamental principle that every people ought to possess the rht of forming and regulating their own internal concerns and domestic institutions in their own way. It was supposed that those of our fellow-citizens who emigrated to the shores of the Pacific and to our other Territories were as capable of selfgovernment as their neighbors and kindred whom they left

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