agreed that you might carry them into territory principle on which the legislation was based, as south of 36° 30'; I beg you to adhere to your demonstrated by the circumstances of the time, surrender north of 36° 30'." And as the most and the subsequent recognition in the annexation persuasive argument to induce us to do so, he of Texas. They have refused to carry out the says: "I feel bound, by my love of freedom and contract in its spirit and fair meaning. They seek regard for the Constitution, to refuse to let you to maintain whatever of it is beneficial to themcarry them into territory south of 36° 30'; that selves, and to disregard all the residue. being the equivalent upon which you made the Mr. President, believing, as I do, that the propother surrender." osition contained in the words of the amendment This is a strange mode of enforcing the observ- which has been incorporated into the bill is true, ance of compacts: and it shows with what facili- that the form of legislation is appropriate, what is ty we perceive the propriety of obliging others, there that calls upon me to vote against it, or and how easily we perceive it is not easy to ob- against a bill containing it? I have shown, I lige ourselves by the obligation of a compact, think, that there is no principle of plighted faith when the question returns, whether we shall give that in the least binds us. The legislation now the consideration for which the other party con- proposed is, in my judgment, right. It is what I tracted. I remember having seen somewhere, have always desired, if it could have been.freely that Dr. Porteus, who was at one time the Bish- obtained.

op of London, and a man of no small celebrity in My position, as you, Mr. President, are aware, his day, had written a poem on the horrors and has never been an extreme one upon this subject. miseries of war, in which he had given so vivid a I was always content with the Missouri compropicture of the dreadful consequences and accom- mise line-always anxious for it-always voted paniments of war, and its utter irreconcilability for it; but my own individual opinion upon the with the principles of Christianity, that every- subject always was, that the principles adopted in body who read the poem was deeply struck with 1850 are the true principles. What are they? the fervid eloquence and impassioned piety of the They are announced in the amendment which has right reverend author. It is said that some time been adopted.

afterwards, during the prosecution of a foreign We have among us a population of three milwar, he made a strong speech in the British Par-lions of slaves. Nothing is more idle than for liament in favor of the war, and in support of the gentlemen to trouble themselves with an investiMinistry who were carrying it on. As he was gation into the propriety of those slaves being leaving the House, some noble lord fell alongside here, into the rectitude and lawfulness of keeping of him, and said: "After reading your lordship's them in the condition of slavery, or into the misvery animated and stirring picture of the horrors fortune or calamity which may result from retainof war, I was a little surprised to hear your lord- ing them in slavery. We are dealing with a fact. ship's speech to day, comparing it to what you They are here. They are slaves. They cannot have said in your poem." Ob," said he, "my remain here except as slaves. Everybody knows lord, my poem was not written for this war." that. They cannot, by any operation of man's wit, [Laughter.] It seems to me that this is just ex- be put into any situation in our country which will actly, the same answer which the honorable Sen- not be vastly more injurious to them, physically ator from Ohio gives to us. He says: "Observe and morally, than the identical state and condition your plighted faith; hold yourselves bound by which they now occupy. They cannot be scnt the bargain; adhere to the Missouri compromise." away. Where are your means to come from to We ask him in reply, "Will you adhere to it?" make an exodus across the ocean of three millions Oh," he answers, "my position, my argument, of slaves-to buy them, and to remove them? my urgency, were not intended for this case, but And if you could buy them, and remove them, permit me to say that a more cruel act of tyranny Sir, I have now shown that, from the time I and oppression could not be perpetrated upon any have had a seat in Congress, in common with body of men. A very large proportion of them my southern friends generally, I have endeavored would reject with horror the idea of being transto obtain a recognition and perpetuation of the ported to those barbarous and foreign climes of principles which were involved in the compromise Africa, for which, though their fathers came from of 1820. We have signally failed. Whether we them, they cherish no feeling of attachment; for thought the rule laid down was just or unjust, this is their country, as well as ours. You canfavorable or unfavorable, however much, or how- not remove them; they are obliged to remain ever little, we thought it might have intrenched here, and they are obliged to be slaves. That is on what we might consider liberal or fair in our clear.

for the other."

northern brethren, we asked for nothing but the Now, sir, can anything be more evident than bargain fairly carried out, and we were at all times that the true course for people situated in this ready to be content with it. Now, after it has way, is not to aggravate the incidental evils of been utterly repudiated, after a totally different such a condition by exasperating inquiries, charges, system of legislation has been adopted, in defiance and counter-charges? The people of every porof our votes and our remonstrances, I think it is tion of the United States should meet this quesa little unreasonable, and a little absurd, that gen- tion as involving a common interest, and so far as tlemen should call upon us to respect a compro there is calamity, a common calamity. mise which they themselves have destroyed- What then are you going to do? Is it not obdestroyed just as effectually, though not as di- vious that the true policy, as well as the true rectly, as if they had applied their opposition to Christian philanthropy involved in this matter, is the specific case to which the Missouri compro- to allow this population to diffuse itself in such mise line was applied. They have destroyed the portions of the Territories as from climate and

soil are adapted to slave cultivation! You can submission and reverence on the other-wants to have no injurious competition with your free break up from the place where he is obliged to labor. Slave labor will not be profitable, and stint himself or stint his people, and to remove largely employed anywhere, except upon the with his little family like a patriarch, and settle great staples of the South-tobacco, cotton, sugar, upon better land, where he can live in the fullest and rice. Will white men make these products enjoyment of the necessaries and comforts of life; for exportation? They will not. Will your and you say, no? Why, "no?" You do not northern people compete with southern slaves for want the land yourself; you do not want to grow the privilege of making rice, and sugar, and cotton, cotton; you do not want to grow tobacco or rice. and tobacco? No, Sir. Where that cultivation Why say that this southern planter shall not ceases, rely upon it, a slave population is not going grow them with his slaves? Is it from hatred of to spread itself. We shall have no conflict, no the master? Is it because the removal, while it embarrassment from the meeting of two tides benents the slave, will benefit the master also? I of laborers from the North and South; for the cannot believe that anybody can cherish a wish to kind of soil and climate which suits us and our do us injury for the sake of it; yet if it benefits slave cultivation does not suit yours. Who is in- the slave while it benefits the master, and injures jured by it? Not the slave. Nothing is more nobody else, in the name of common sense, and our beneficial for him than to allow the population of common Christianity, what motive can dictate which he forms a portion to spread itself, to give such a policy? It must be the result either of it room. You promote his comfort, you increase frenzy and fanaticism, or of an angry and embithis wealth, you diminish his hardships. If you tered feeling against a population who do not wish surround a population, situated like ours, with a to injure, and are not conscious of ever having inChinese wall or barrier, beyond which it cannot jured you. That we have slaves among us, if it be spread itself---if you compress it-what do you do? a fault, God knows it is not our fault. They were Why you expose the master to serious incon- brought here in the times of your fathers, and of venience and discomfort, and you destroy the our fathers. Your fathers brought them, and whole happiness of the slave. No man proposes ours became the purchasers-if you say in an evil to add to this population. There is not a man in hour, be it so; but what are we to do? Here is the New England States who would more thor- this burden; assume it to be as great as you oughly and absolutely resist any attempt to bring please; the greater it is, the more powerful is my a slave from Africa to this country than we of the argument-here is this burden upon us, not by South would. any fault of our own; we have inherited it ; it has

Here, then, is the great fact we have to deal been transmitted to us; it was created here by with. Why not let it adjust itself! Why not the joint action of your forefathers and ours, and pursue the wise policy indicated in the measures in the name of God will you step forward and put of 1850 Cease to quarrel and wrangle with each heavier weights on this very burden thus innoother. Live in your free States. Rejoice in the cently inherited by us? possession of the many advantages you have. I think, M. President, it is in the highest degree But if there is a strip of land belonging to the probable that with regard to these Territories of United States, upon which a southern planter can Nebraska and Kansas, there will never be any make cotton or sugar, why grudge it to him? He slaves in them. I have no more idea of seeing a reduces no man from freedom to slavery in order slave population in either of them than I have of to make it. He transfers his slaves from the seeing it in Massachusetts; not a whit. It is posbanks of the Mississippi, or the Cooper, or the sible some gentlemen may go there and take a few Cape Fear, or any of our southern rivers, to an- domestic servants with them; and I would say other place; and he certainly will not do it unless that if those domestic servants were faithful and the lands are better, the crops larger, and he and good ones, and the masters did not take them with his slaves can live more comfortably, and have a them, the masters would deserve the reprobamore abundant supply of the necessaries of life; tion of all good men. What would you have them and I will ask, in the name of Heaven, whom do Would you have me to take the servants does it hurt? You love freedom. We do not ask who wait upon me, and live with me, and to whom you to make freemen slaves. You profess to have I have as strong attachments as to any human a regard for the black man; can you resist the only beings on this earth out of my own immediate blood measure which can enable us to make a progressive relations, and because I want to move to Kansas, improvement of his condition as the amount of black population increases?

put them in the slave market and sell them? Sir, I would suffer my right arm to be cut off before I It is therefore, as it seems to me, wise and just would do it. Why, therefore, if some southern to pursue the principles indicated in, and out of gentleman wishes to take the nurse that takes which sprang the legislation of 1850. It is unjust charge of his little baby, or the old woman that to no section of the country. No mortal man can nursed him in childhood, and whom he called show that it will do an injury to any human being "mammy" until he returned from college, and perthat treads God's earth, whether he be free or haps afterwards, too, and whom he wishes to take slave. The poor slave will be benefited by it. with him in her old age when he is moving into The master, with a large number of slaves, cramp- one of these new Territories for the betterment of ed for land in a country, perhaps, where land is dear, the fortunes of his whole family, why, in the who desires to do a good part by these slaves, name of God, should anybody prevent it? Do who have been perhaps transmitted down to him you wish to force us to become hard-hearted slavefor three generations in the same family, and be- dealers? Do you wish to aggravate the evils, if tween whom and himself there are mutual feelings there are evils, existing in this relation? Do you of protection on the one hand, and of affectionate wish that we shall no longer have a mutual feudal

The

feeling between our dependents and ourselves? believe me, sir, the day will come, as indicated by Do you want to make us mercenary and hard- my friend from Massachusetts, [Mr. EVERETT,] hearted? Or will you allow us, having, as I trust when the ways of Providence, in permitting this we have, some touch of humanity, and some of the large exodus of the natives of Africa to this beneficial and breathing spirit of Christianity, to country, will be vindicated to man. Why, sir, let these beings go forth as they are accustomed to the light is already dawning upon us in which we do, and to rejoice when we look out and see our can begin to see how ultimate and incalculable a slaves happy and cheerful around us, when we good is to be wrought out of the temporary abhear the song arising from their dwellings at night, sence of this population from their native land. or see them dressed in their neat clothes and going The successful commencement of the colonization to attend their churches on Sunday, and realizing, scheme shows us how the emancipated slaves as they look at us, that we are the best friends may carry back to the native Africa of their forethey have upon earth? fathers the civilization, the Christianity, and the Mr. President, perhaps I manifest too much freedom which they never had enjoyed, and so far feeling about this matter. It seems to me so clear as we can see, but for this instrumentality, never that no interest or advantage of humanity can pos- could enjoy, in their own country. Slaves! sibly be promoted by the spirit which dictates this veriest slaves on earth are the native Africans in incessant opposition to every measure which will their own country. The freest of them is not allow us to improve our own.condition and that of as free as the hardest bonded slave in southern our slaves together. It is so impossible to per- lands. They have ever been so the property ceive that any good can arise from it that I cannot of their princes; as an English traveller says, speak of it without excitement. I have no bitter- having nothing as their own, except their skins. ness about it. God knows I have none. I blame In the course of Providence, they were pernot those at a distance from us who take up false mitted to be brought here. They have been, and and mistaken impressions respecting us. I know their descendants are a great deal better off than that efforts, the most wicked and persevering, have they were in Africa; and if we can only be conbeen made to produce those impressions, and to tent to struggle on with the difficulties of our popresent us to the minds of our northern fellow-cit-sition, in faith and patience doing our own duty, izens as ministers of cruelty and oppression. I under the present circumstances in which we blame them not. They have been trained to en- stand, attempting no wild schemes by which fol tertain these sentiments and feelings. They are ly may be misled, and by which wrong and misunfortunate in having such false estimates placed ery may be produced, but pursuing that steady in their bosoms respecting their friends and fel- course in which God himself, in all his ministracitizens, descendents of a common revolutionary tions, brings about by gradual means and operaancestry. I would to God that I could obliterate tions, the great beneficial results of his creation, those feelings. I would to God that they would we may be assured that ultimately all this will be disposed to enfold me and mine, as I am the work out great and lasting good. whole of my nothern brethren if they would per- Mr. President, I desire to say, that though I mit it, in the arms of a fraternal and perpetual hold none of my southern friends on this floor reconcord. Sir, there can be no difficulty about this sponsible for the course of argument which I have matter if we suffer ourselves to be influenced by offered, or any of the intermediate views I have those considerations which spring necessarily and expressed, I think it right to say, and I think I naturally out of the facts of the case, and realize have their authority to say, that with regard to that, after all, no abolition movement ever yet ac- the results to which I have come upon this meascomplished good for a slave. The whole move- ure, we all agree as one man-every southern ments of the Abolitionists of the North, as all my Whig Senator. I wish that to be understood, southern friends around me know, so far as they that the position of gentlemen may not be mishave had any influence with us, have tended to taken because they have not yet had the opportu restrict, rather than to relax the bondage under nity of voting upon this bill. which these people live. They have, in a great I think, then, that the great mistake in the armeasure, stricken from the capacity to be useful gument of my honorable friend from Massachuin various directions towards them, those philan-setts, was in not discriminating between the printhropic and honorable people who should lead, and ciple and the enactment; between the doctrine otherwise would lead, our society upon these top-out of which the enactment sprung and the enics. They expose every one to suspicion. They actment which sprung from it; and that if he will have a tendency to close up the avenue to the oth- take that into view he will see, I think-I know erwise opening and expanding heart. They do he has never any other desire than to see whatno good to the slave. They do no good to the ever is true and right-that the amendment Abolitionist. They are but a fruitful source of which has been incorporated into the bill speaks evils among them and evils among us, without one the truth and is germane and proper in its operasingle compensating advantage on earth, present tive language to the matters recited; and that if or future. his mind is relieved in regard to the provisions for

Oh! Mr. President, if we could only agree to securing the national faith towards the Indians, take up this subject as a matter of fact, and he ought to have no difficulty in voting for the agree to deal with it in the best way we can, bill.

SPEECH OF THE HON. WILLIAM H. SEWARD,

IN THE SENATE, FEB. 17, 1854.

"FREEDOM AND PUBLIC FAITH."

MR. PRESIDENT: The United States, at the close [ been forced by British authority, for political and of the Revolution, rested southward on the St. Mary's, and westward on the Mississippi, and possessed a broad, unoccupied domain, circumscribed by those rivers, the Alleghany mountains, and the great Northern lakes. The Constitution anticipated the division of this domain into States, to be admitted as members of the Union, but it neither provided for nor anticipated any enlargement of the national boundaries. The People, engaged in reorganizing their Governments, improving their social systems, and establishing relations of commerce and friendship with other nations, remained many years content within their apparently-ample limits. But it was already foreseen that the free navigation of the Mississippi would soon become an urgent public

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